1. Philosophical Roots
Psychology 4006

2. Introduction
People have been thinking about thinking (probably) ever since there were people thinking about things.
Remember, psychology grew out of philosophy, indeed, all sciences did.
Now, we have to get a few terms out of the way first, just so we can talk about this stuff.

3. Epistemology How do we know the truth? Authority Empiricism
Rationalism
Aestheticism
Pragmatism
Skepticism

4. Models of Science Karl Popper Thomas Kuhn Paul Feyeraben
Stuff has to be testable
Thomas Kuhn
A community of scientists shares a paradigm describing the accepted beliefs, values, and methods of a science
Anomalies lead to revolution
Paul Feyeraben
Does it work? Then it’s fine…

5. Looks like a fun bunch of guys

6. Causality Aristotle’s four causes Teleology Efficient Material Formal
Final
Teleology
Intrinsic teleology, the purpose imminent in nature
Extrinsic teleology, purpose comes from a designer

7. Free Will and Determinism
Free will is necessary to adequately explain human experince
Choosing to believe in determinism is inherently illogical
Determinism makes a mess of morality
What about all that quantum stuff?

8. On the other hand….
Deterministic accounts have become more effective throughout history
Who cares about morality?
Determinism allows us to make causal explanations

9. The Mind Body Problem
What is the relationship between the physical body and the mind?
Monism vs dualism
Neuroscience and all of that is great, but, can it explain psychological phenomena?

10. The Golden Age of Greece
Socrates, Plato, Aristotle
Socrates didn’t like relativism, the idea that humans are the standard and everything else in nature should be judged accordingly
Instead, he was into reason. So, through reason we could come to the truth
Knowledge is virtue
Ignorance makes evil

11. Plato Student of Socrates, eventually sets up his own shop
Argued that senses provide only illusion and that reason provides true knowledge (you can see the influence of his academic dad there)
Theory of forms
We get meaning from forms that are timeless. Changes in objects make us perceive time.

12. Still with the Plato
Tripartite mind, appetitive, affective and rational souls
Pain vs pleasure
Sensory function and perception
Mental illness might be associated with irrational drives, discord among the bits of the soul, or, ignorance
Different kinds of love, in a hierarchy, going from erotic to love of knowledge

13. Aristotle Plato’s student Wasn’t much on the whole form thing
How could it be independent of experience and matter?
Soul does nutritive stuff, sensation, movement and reason
Memory vs recollection
Associationist account of learning
Imagination vs reality

14. More from Ari The importance of pleasure and pain
’Golden Mean’
Four factors affect human ability to achieve good
Individual differences
Habit
Social support
Freedom of choice

15. Who cares?
Well, I think if we look at this stuff it gives us an idea about how many of the ideas we have today have a history of their own
It also gives us some perspective, many of these ideas are still talked about today