Madness, Folly and Early Psychologies

Margery Kempe (ca.1373-1438)

Cotton Mather (1663-1728)

HANGING OF BRIDGET BISHOP Ann Hutchinson, on trial for witchcraft

PUCK magazine, warning against the mental dangers of religious revivals, August, 1880 “From ‘Revivals’ to Lunatic Asylums is But a Step”

Religious Melancholy, Hugh Diamond, 1853

Rene Descartes (1596-1650) DISCOURSE ON METHOD (1637) RATIONALIST: DEDUCE FROM FIRST PRINCIPLES DISCOURSE ON METHOD (1637)

“But I soon noticed that while I thus wished to think everything false, it was necessarily true that I who thought so was something. Since this truth, I think therefore I am or exist (cogito ergo sum), was so firm and assured that all the most extravagant suppositions of the sceptics were unable to shake, I judged that I could safely accept it as the first principle of the philosophy I was seeking.” (Discourse on Method, Fourth Part, p. 24)

Descartes’ Dualism res cogitans —Mind Substance immaterial Rational Soul res extensa —Bodily Matter material extended in space

Descartes’ depiction of the mechanics of the response to fire ….. Descartes’ depiction of the mechanics of the response to fire (Treatise of Man, Figure 7)

Brain and Pineal Gland (H) Descartes, Treatise of Man [1662] (Prometheus Books, 2003), p.76

Pineal Gland (H)

David Hume (1711-1776) EMPIRICIST: KNOWLEDGE COMES THROUGH THE SENSES Treatise of Human Nature, Being an Attempt to Introduce the Experimental Method of Reasoning into Moral Subjects 1739-40

Hume’s Doubts “The intense view of these manifold contradictions and imperfections in human reason has so wrought upon me, and heated my brain, that I am ready to reject all belief and reasoning, and can look upon no opinion even as more probable or likely than another. Where am I, or what? From what causes do I derive my existence, and to what condition shall I return? Whose favour shall I court, and whose anger must I dread?” (Hume, Treatise of Human Nature, p. 316-317).

Impressions: sensations of the world It is evident that all the sciences have a relation, greater or less, to human nature…To explain the principles of human nature, we in effect propose a complete system of the sciences, built on a foundation almost entirely new, and the only one upon which they can stand with any security…and the only solid foundation we can give to this science itself must be laid on experience and observation.” (Hume, Treatise p. 123). Impressions: sensations of the world Ideas: less vivid copies of sensations

Principles of Association Resemblance—items are associated that share qualities: picture of a man to man himself Contiguity—items that are near one another in space: the Saint of a village Causation--items that are seen to effect change: ball hitting another ball