126 CHAPTER 4 9. In what way(s) can the clash between the 17. Why did Descartes reach the conclusion that Ptolemaic and Copernican systems be likened some ideas are innate? Give examples of ideas to a Kuhnian scientific revolution? that he thought were innate. 10. Discuss the implications for psychology of 18. Summarize Descartes’s view of the mind-body Galileo’s distinction between primary and sec- relationship. ondary qualities. 19. Describe the importance of intuition and de- 11. What is deism? duction in Descartes’s philosophy. 12. What was Newton’s conception of science? 20. Why is it appropriate to refer to Descartes as a 13. Summarize Bacon’s view of science. phenomenologist? 14. Describe the idols of the cave, marketplace, 21. How did Descartes reach the conclusion that theater, and tribe. the mind is nonmaterial and has an existence independent of the body? 15. Distinguish between Bacon’s experiments of light and experiments of fruit and describe how 22. What were Descartes’s contributions to the two are related. psychology? 16. What was it that Descartes thought he could be 23. In general, what attitude toward religion did certain of? Once this certainty was arrived at, individuals covered in this chapter have? how did Descartes use it in further developing his philosophy? SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER READING Augustijn, C. (1991). Erasmus: His life, works, and influence Kuhn, T. S. (1957). The Copernican revolution: Planetary (J. C. Grayson, Trans.). Toronto: University of astronomy in the development of Western thought. Toronto Press. New York: MJF Books. Bacon, F. (1994). Novum organum (P. Urbach & Lafleur, L. J. (Ed. and Trans.) (1956). Rene Descartes: J. Gibson, Eds. and Trans.). La Salle, IL: Open Discourse on method.Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill. Court. (Original work published 1620) (Original work published 1637) Bacon, F. (2001). The advancement of learning. New York: Losee, J. (2001). A historical introduction to the philosophy of Modern Library. (Original work published 1605) science (4th ed.). New York: Oxford University Press. Bowen, C. D. (1993). Francis Bacon: The temper of a man. Marty, M. (2004). Martin Luther. New York: Viking New York: Fordham University Press. Penguin. Cottingham, J. (Ed.). (1992). The Cambridge companion to Rodis-Lewis, G. (1999). Descartes: His life and thought Descartes. New York: Cambridge University Press. (J. M. Todd, Trans.). Ithaca, NY: Cornell Crew, H., & De Salvio, A. (Trans.). (1991). Galileo University Press. Galilei: Dialogues concerning two new sciences. Buffalo, Rummel, E. (Ed.). (1996). Erasmus on women. Toronto: NY: Prometheus Books. (Original work published University of Toronto Press. 1638) Sorell, T. (2000). Descartes: A very short introduction. Drake, S. (1994). Galileo: Pioneer scientist. Toronto: New York: Oxford University Press. University of Toronto Press. Taub, L. B. (1993). Ptolemy’s universe: The natural philo- Hall, M. B. (1994). The scientific renaissance: 1450–1630. sophical and ethical foundations of Ptolemy’s astronomy. New York: Dover. La Salle, IL: Open Court.
TH E BEGINN INGS OF MODERN SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY 127 Tibbetts, P. (1975). An historical note on Descartes’s Wilson, J. (Trans.). (1994). Desiderius Erasmus: The praise psychophysical dualism. Journal of the History of the of folly. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books. (Original Behavioral Sciences, 9, 162–165. work published 1512) Urbach, P. (1987). Francis Bacon’s philosophy of science: An Winter, E. F. (Ed. & Trans.). (2005). Erasmus & Luther: account and a reappraisal. La Salle, IL: Open Court. Discourse on free will. New York: Continuum. Yates, F. A. (1964). Giordano Bruno and the hermetic tradi- tion. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. GLOSSAR Y Animal spirits The substance Descartes (and others) Descartes began comparative-physiological psychology, thought was located in the cavities of the brain. When stimulus-response psychology, phenomenology, and a this substance moved via the nerves from the brain to the debate over whether innate ideas exist. Descartes also muscles, the muscles swelled and behavior was instigated. focused attention on the nature of the relationship be- Aristarchus of Samos (ca. 310–230 B.C.) Sometimes tween the mind and the body. called the Copernicus of antiquity, speculated that the Dualist One who believes that a person consists of two planets, including the earth, rotate around the sun and separate entities: a mind, which accounts for one’s mental that the earth rotates on its own axis, and he did so al- experiences and rationality, and a body, which functions most 1,700 years before Copernicus. according to the same biological and mechanical princi- Bacon, Francis (1561–1626) Urged an inductive, ples as do the bodies of nonhuman animals. practical science that was free from the misconceptions of Erasmus, Desiderius (1466–1536) A Renaissance the past and from any theoretical influences. humanist who opposed fanaticism, religious ritual, and Bruno, Giordano (1548–1600) Accepted the mystical superstition. He argued in favor of human free will. non-Christian philosophy of Hermetism and Ficino, Marsilio (1433–1499) Founded a Platonic Copernicus’s heliocentric theory because he mistakenly academy in 1462 and sought to do for Plato’s philosophy believed that it supported Hermetism. He was burned at what the Scholastics had done for Aristotle’s. the stake for his beliefs. Galileo (1564–1642) Showed several of Aristotle’s Copernicus, Nicolaus (1473–1543) Argued that the “truths” to be false and, by using a telescope, extended earth rotated around the sun and therefore the earth was the known number of bodies in the solar system to 11. not the center of the solar system and the universe as the Galileo argued that science could deal only with objec- church had maintained. tive reality and that because human perceptions were Deduction The method of reasoning by which con- subjective, they were outside the realm of science. clusions must follow from certain assumptions, principles, Geocentric theory The theory, proposed by Ptolemy, or concepts. If there are five people in a room, for ex- that the sun and planets rotate around the earth. ample, one can deduce that there are also four; or if it is assumed that everything in nature exists for a purpose, Heliocentric theory The theory, proposed by then one can conclude that humans, too, exist for a Copernicus, that the planets, including the earth, rotate purpose. Deductive reasoning proceeds from the general around the sun. to the particular. Humanism A viewpoint that existed during the Deism The belief that God’s creation of the universe Renaissance. It emphasized four themes: individualism, a exhausted his involvement with it. personal relationship with God, interest in classical wis- dom, and a negative attitude toward Aristotle’s Descartes, René (1596–1650) Believed that much philosophy. human behavior can be explained in mechanical terms, that the mind and the body are separate but interacting Idols of the cave Bacon’s term for personal biases that entities, and that the mind contains innate ideas. With result from one’s personal characteristics or experiences.
128 CHAPTER 4 Idols of the marketplace Bacon’s term for error that universe could be explained by his law of gravitation. results when one accepts the traditional meanings of the Although Newton believed in God, he believed that words used to describe things. God’s will could not be evoked as an explanation of any Idols of the theater Bacon’s term for the inhibition of physical phenomenon. Newton viewed the universe as a objective inquiry that results when one accepts dogma, complex machine that God had created, set in motion, tradition, or authority. and then abandoned. Idols of the tribe Bacon’s term for biases that result Petrarch, Francesco (1304–1374) A Renaissance hu- from humans’ natural tendency to view the world manist referred to by many historians as the father of the selectively. Renaissance. He attacked Scholasticism as stifling the human spirit and urged that the classics be studied not for Induction The method of reasoning that moves from their religious implications but because they were the the particular to the general. After a large number of works of unique human beings. He insisted that God had individual instances are observed, a theme or principle given humans their vast potential so that it could be common to all of them might be inferred. Deductive utilized. Petrarch’s views about human potential helped reasoning starts with some assumption, whereas inductive stimulate the many artistic and literary achievements that reasoning does not. Inductive reasoning proceeds from characterized the Renaissance. the particular to the general. Innate ideas Ideas, like perfection and the axioms of Phenomenologist One who introspectively studies the geometry, that Descartes believed could not be derived nature of intact conscious experience. Descartes was a from one’s own experience. Such ideas, according to phenomenologist. Descartes, were placed in the mind by God. Pico, Giovanni (1463–1494) Maintained that humans, Interactionism The version of dualism that accepts the unlike angels and animals, are capable of changing separate existence of a mind and a body and claims that themselves and the world. He believed that all philo- they interact. sophical positions should be respected and the common elements among them sought. Intuition In Descartes’s philosophy, the introspective process by which clear and distinct ideas are discovered. Positivism The belief that only those objects or events Kepler, Johannes (1571–1630) By observation and that can be experienced directly should be the object of mathematical deduction, determined the elliptical paths scientific inquiry. The positivist actively avoids meta- of the planets around the sun. Kepler also did pioneer physical speculation. work in optics. Primary qualities Attributes of physical objects: for Luther, Martin (1483–1546) Was especially disturbed example, size, shape, number, position, and movement by corruption within the church and by the church’s or rest. emphasis on ritual. He believed that a major reason for Protestantism The religious movement that denied the church’s downfall was its embracing of Aristotle’s the authority of the pope and of Aristotle. It argued philosophy, and he urged a return to the personal reli- against church hierarchy and ritual and instead wanted a gion that Augustine had described. He accepted simple, deeply personal, and introspective religion like Augustine’s concept of predestination but denied human that described by St. Paul and St. Augustine. free will. His attack of the established church contributed Ptolemaic system A conception of the solar system to the Reformation, which divided Europe into warring that has the earth as its center. During the Middle Ages, camps. the Ptolemaic system was widely accepted because it (1) Montaigne, Michel de (1533–1592) Like the earlier agreed with everyday experience; (2) was able to predict Greek and Roman Skeptics, believed there was no ob- and account for all astronomical phenomena known at jective way of distinguishing among various claims of the time; (3) gave humans a central place in the universe; truth. His doubts concerning human knowledge stimu- and thus agreed with the biblical account of creation. lated a number of subsequent thinkers such as Bacon and Ptolemy (fl. second century A.D.) The Greco- Descartes. Egyptian astronomer whose synthesis of earlier and Newton, Isaac (1642–1727) Extended the work of contemporary astronomical works came to be called the Galileo by showing that the motion of all objects in the Ptolemaic system. (See also Ptolemaic system.)
TH E BEGINN INGS OF MODERN SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY 129 Reformation The attempt of Luther and others to re- inquiry that had characterized the early Greek form the Christian church by making it more philosophers. Augustinian in character. This effort resulted in the di- Secondary qualities Those apparent attributes of vision of western European Christianity into physical objects that in fact exist only in the mind of the Protestantism and Roman Catholicism. perceiver—for example, the experiences of color, sound, Renaissance The period from about 1450 to about odor, temperature, and taste. Without a perceiver, these 1600 when there was a rebirth of the open, objective phenomena would not exist.
5 ✵ Empiricism, Sensationalism, and Positivism escartes was so influential that most of the philosophies that developed after D him were reactions to some aspect of his philosophy. The major reactions were concentrated in several regions of Europe. The British and the French phi- losophers denied Descartes’s contention that some ideas are innate, saying instead that all ideas are derived from experience. These philosophers attempted to ex- plain the functioning of the mind as Newton had explained the functioning of the universe. That is, they sought a few principles, or laws, that could account for all human cognitive experience. The German philosophers made an active mind central to their conception of human nature. In general, they postulated a mind that could discover and un- derstand the abstract principles that constitute ultimate reality. Instead of envi- sioning a mind that simply recorded and stored sensory experiences, they saw the mind as actively transforming sensory information, thereby giving that infor- mation meaning it otherwise would not have. For these German rationalists, knowing the operations of this active mind was vital in determining how hu- mans confront and understand their world. Scattered throughout Europe, the romantic philosophers rebelled against the views of the empiricists and rationalists. According to the romantics, both of these philosophies concentrated on one aspect of humans and neglected others. The romantics urged a focus on the total human, a focus that included two as- pects the other philosophies either minimized or neglected: human feelings and the uniqueness of each individual. The romantics also advocated living a simple, natural life and thus had much in common with the Cynics (see Chapter 3) and with some of the Renaissance humanists, such as Erasmus (see Chapter 4). 130
EM PIRICISM, SENSATIONALISM, AND POSITIVISM 131 After Descartes, and to a large extent because of mentalism; this is a mistake, however, because most him, the ancient philosophies of empiricism, ratio- modern empiricists were also mentalistic. In fact, their main research tool was introspection, and nalism, and romanticism were presented more their main goal was to explain mental phenomena clearly and in greater detail than they had ever (ideas). What then is an empiricist? In this text, we been before. It was from the modern manifestations will use the following definition of empiricism: of these philosophies that psychology as we know it today emerged. In this chapter, we focus on British empiricism and French sensationalism. We will re- view German rationalism in Chapter 6 and roman- Text not available due to copyright restrictions ticism in Chapter 7. B R ITISH EMPIRICISM It is important to highlight a number of terms An empiricist is anyone who believes that knowl- in Robinson’s definition. First, this definition asserts edge is derived from experience. The importance of that sensory experience constitutes the primary data experience is usually stressed instead of innate ideas, of all knowledge; it does not say that such experi- which are supposed to emerge independently of ence alone constitutes knowledge. Second, it asserts experience. Empiricism, then, is a philosophy that knowledge cannot exist until sensory evidence that stresses the importance of experience in the has first been gathered; so for the empiricist, attain- attainment of knowledge. The term experience, in ing knowledge begins with sensory experience. the definition of empiricism, complicates matters Third, all subsequent intellectual processes must focus because there are many types of experience. only on sensory experience in formulating proposi- There are “inner” experiences such as dreams, ima- tions about the world. Thus, it is not the rec- ginings, fantasies, and a variety of emotions. Also, ognition of mental processes that distinguishes when one thinks logically, such as during mathe- the empiricist from the rationalist; rather, it is what matical deduction, one is having vivid mental (in- those thought processes are focused on. Again, most ner) experiences. It has become general practice, epistemological approaches use sensory experience as however, to exclude inner experience from a defi- part of their explanation of the origins of knowledge; nition of empiricism and to refer exclusively to sen- for the empiricist, however, sensory experience is of sory experience. Yet, even after focusing on sensory supreme importance. experience, there is still a problem in the definition of empiricism because it is implied that any phi- Thomas Hobbes losopher who claims sensory experience to be im- portant in attaining knowledge can be labeled an Although he followed in the tradition of William of empiricist. If this were true, even Descartes could Occam and Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes be called an empiricist because, for him, many (1588–1679) is often referred to as the founder of ideas came from sensory experience. Thus, ac- British empiricism. Hobbes was educated at Oxford knowledging the importance of sensory experi- and was friends with both Galileo and Descartes. ence alone does not qualify one as an empiricist. He also served as Bacon’s secretary for a short Before discussing what does qualify one as an time. Hobbes was born on April 5 in empiricist, an additional source of confusion sur- Malmesbury, Wiltshire, England. He often joked rounding the term empiricism must be mentioned. that he and fear were born twins because his mother In psychology, empiricism is often contrasted with attributed his premature birth to her learning of the
132 CHAPTER 5 be drawn. The question was what premises to begin with, and the answer came from Galileo. After vis- iting Galileo in 1635, Hobbes became convinced that the universe consisted only of matter and mo- tion and that both could be understood in terms of mechanistic principles. Why, asked Hobbes, could 2005689220 not humans too be viewed as machines consisting of nothing but matter and motion? Galileo was able Congress, to explain the motion of physical objects in terms of the external forces acting on them—that is, without of appealing to inner states or essences. Are not hu- Library mans part of nature, wondered Hobbes, and if so, the cannot their behavior also be explained as matter in of motion? This became the self-evident truth that Courtesy Hobbes needed to apply the deductive method of geometry: Humans were machines. Humans were Thomas Hobbes viewed as machines functioning within a larger ma- chine (the universe): “For seeing life is but motion approach of the Spanish Armada. Hobbes’s father, of limbs… . For what is the heart but a spring; and an Anglican vicar, got into a fight in the doorway of the nerves but so many strings; and the joints but so his church and thereafter disappeared. The care of many wheels, giving motion to the whole body” his children was left to a prosperous brother who (Hobbes, 1651/1962, p. 19). eventually provided Hobbes with an Oxford edu- It is interesting to note that although Hobbes cation, but Hobbes claimed that he learned little of was a close friend of Bacon and had himself a con- value from that education. Hobbes noted that siderable reputation, Hobbes was never asked to Oxford had a strong Puritan tradition but also had join the prestigious British Royal Society (founded an abundance of “drunkenness, wantonness, gam- in 1660). The reason was that the society was dom- ing, and other such vices” (Peters, 1962, p. 7). inated by Baconians, and Hobbes had nothing but Hobbes lived a long, productive, and influential contempt for Bacon’s inductive method. He ac- life. He played tennis until the age of 70, and at cused the Baconians of spending too much time 84 he wrote his autobiography. At 86 he published on gadgets and experiments and of preferring their a translation of The Iliad and The Odyssey just for eyes, ears, and fingertips to their brains. Instead, something to do. Prior to his death, he amused Hobbes chose the deductive method of Galileo himself by having his friends prepare epitaphs for and Descartes. With Hobbes, we have the first seri- him. Hobbes achieved great fame in his lifetime: ous attempt to apply the ideas and techniques of “Indeed, like Bernard Shaw, by the time of his Galileo to the study of humans. death he had become almost an English institution” (Peters, 1962, p. 16). Government Protects Humans from Their Own Destructive Instincts. Hobbes’s primary Humans as Machines. Hobbes did not become interest was politics. He was thoroughly convinced serious about psychology and philosophy until the that the best form of government was an absolute age of 40, when he came across a copy of Euclid’s monarchy. He believed that humans were innately Elements. This book convinced him that humans aggressive, selfish, and greedy; therefore, democracy could be understood using the techniques of geom- was dangerous because it gives too much latitude to etry. That is, starting with a few undeniable pre- these negative natural tendencies. Only when peo- mises, a number of undeniable conclusions could ple and the church are subservient to a monarch, he
EM PIRICISM, SENSATIONALISM, AND POSITIVISM 133 felt, could there be law and order. Without such The [origin of all thoughts] is that which regulation, human life would be “solitary, poor, we can sense, for there is no conception in nasty, brutish, and short” (Hobbes, 1651/1962, p. a man’s mind, which hath not at first, to- 100). Hobbes’s infamous conclusion, Homo homini tally, or by parts, been begotten upon the lupus (Man is a wolf to man), was later quoted sym- organs of sense. The rest are derived from pathetically by Schopenhauer (see Chapter 7) and that original. (Hobbes, 1651/1962, p. 21) by Freud (see Chapter 16). It is, according to Hobbes, fear of death that motivates humans to Although Hobbes accepted Descartes’s deduc- create social order. In other words, civilization is tive method, he rejected his concept of innate ideas. created as a matter of self-defense; each of us must For Hobbes, all ideas came from experience or, be discouraged from committing crimes against the more specifically, from sensory experience. other. Unless interfered with, humans would self- ishly seek power over others so as to guarantee the Hobbes’s Materialism. Following in the tradi- satisfaction of their own personal needs: “I put for a tion of Democritus, Hobbes was a materialist. general inclination of all mankind, a perpetual and Because all that exists is matter and motion, Hobbes restless desire of power after power, that ceaseth thought it absurd to postulate a nonmaterial mind, as only in death” (1651/1962, p. 80). The monarch Descartes had done. All so-called mental phenom- was seen by Hobbes as the final arbitrator in all ena could be explained by the sense experiences matters of law, morals, and religion, and the free- that result when the motion of external bodies dom of a person consisted only in those activities stimulates the sense receptors, thereby causing in- not forbidden by law. The laws are determined and ternal motion. What others refer to as “mind,” for enforced by the monarch. Hobbes offended all Hobbes, was nothing more than the sum total of a types of Christians by saying that the church should person’s thinking activities—that is, a series of mo- be subservient to the state and that all human ac- tions within the individual. Concerning the mind- tions could be explained mechanically, and there- body problem, Hobbes was a physical monist; he fore free will was an illusion. Hobbes’s most famous denied the existence of a nonmaterial mind. work, Leviathan (1651), was mainly a political trea- tise, an attempt to explain and justify rule by an Explanation of Psychological Phenome- absolute monarch. Hobbes began Leviathan with na. Attention was explained by the fact that as his views on psychology because it was his belief long as sense organs retain the motion caused by that to govern effectively, a monarch needed to certain external objects, they cannot respond to have an understanding of human nature. others. Imagination was explained by the fact that Leviathan became viewed as the work of an sense impressions decay over time. Hobbes said, atheist, and in 1666 a motion was made in parlia- “Imagination therefore is nothing but decaying ment to burn Hobbes as a heretic. The plague of sense; and is found in men, and many other living 1665 and the great fire of London the following creatures, as well sleeping as waking” (1651/1962, year were believed by many to be God’s revenge p. 23). When a sense impression has decayed for a on England for harboring Hobbes. King Charles II considerable amount of time, it is called memory; came to his rescue, however, and, as mentioned be- “So … imagination and memory are but one thing fore, Hobbes went on to live a long, productive life. which for divers considerations hath divers names” He died on December 4, 1679, at the age of 91. (1651/1962, p. 24). Dreams too have a sensory origin: “The imaginations of them that sleep are those we Hobbes’s Empiricism. Although Hobbes re- call dreams. And these also, as all other imaginations, jected Bacon’s inductive method in favor of the have been before, either totally or by parcels, in the deductive method, he did agree with Bacon on sense” (Hobbes, 1651/1962, p. 25). The reason that the importance of sensory experience: dreams are typically so vivid is because during sleep
134 CHAPTER 5 there are no new sensory impressions to compete aversions we experience while interacting with the with the imagination. environment. Once a prevalent behavioral ten- dency emerges, “freedom” is simply “the condition Explanation of Motivation. Hobbes argued that of having no hindrance to the securing of what one external objects not only produce sense impressions wants” (Tuck, 2002, p. 57). but also influence the vital functions of the body. Those incoming impressions that facilitate vital Complex Thought Processes. So far, we have functions are experienced as pleasurable, and the discussed sense impressions, the images and memo- person seeks to preserve them or to seek them ries derived from them, and the general, hedonistic out. Conversely, sense impressions incompatible tendency to seek pleasure and avoid pain. Now we with the vital functions are experienced as painful, consider how Hobbes explained more complex and the person seeks to terminate or avoid them. “thought processes” within his materialistic, mecha- Human behavior, then, is motivated by appetite (the nistic philosophy. For example, Hobbes attempted to seeking or maintaining of pleasurable experiences) explain “trains of thought,” by which he meant the and aversion (the avoidance or termination of painful tendency of one thought to follow another in some experiences). In other words, Hobbes accepted a coherent manner. The question was how such a phe- hedonistic theory of motivation. According to nomenon occurs, and Hobbes’s answer reintroduced Hobbes, we use terms such as love and good to de- the law of contiguity first proposed by Aristotle. That scribe things that please us and terms such as hate is, events that are experienced together are remem- and evil to describe things toward which we have an bered together and are subsequently thought of to- aversion. By equating good with pleasure and evil gether. All the British empiricists who followed (bad) with pain, Hobbes was taking a clear stand on Hobbes accepted the concept of association as their moral issues: “Having insinuated this identity, explanation as to why mental events are experienced Hobbes had both stated and explained moral rela- or remembered in a particular order. tivism: there were no objective moral properties, To summarize Hobbes’s position, we can say but what seemed good was what pleased any indi- that he was a materialist because he believed that vidual or was good for him” (Tuck, 2002, p. 65). all that existed was physical; he was a mechanist be- cause he believed that the universe and everything Denial of Free Will. In Hobbes’s deterministic in it (including humans) were machines; he was a view of human behavior, there was no place for determinist because he believed that all activity (in- free will. People may believe they are “choosing” be- cluding human behavior) is caused by forces acting cause at any given moment one may be confronted on physical objects; he was an empiricist because he with a number of appetites and aversions and there- believed that all knowledge was derived from sen- fore there may be conflicting tendencies to act. sory experience; and he was a hedonist because he Hobbes referred to the recognition of such conflict- believed that human behavior (as well as the behav- ing tendencies as “deliberation” and to the behav- ior of nonhuman animals) was motivated by the ioral tendency that survives that deliberation as will: seeking of pleasure and the avoidance of pain. “In deliberation, the last appetite, or aversion, imme- Although, as we will see, not all the empiricists diately adhering to the action, or to the omission that followed Hobbes were as materialistic or thereof, is that we call the will. … [A]nd beasts that mechanistic as he was, they all joined him in deny- have deliberation must necessarily also have will” ing the existence of innate ideas. (1651/1962, p. 54). In other words, will was de- fined as the action tendency that prevails when a John Locke number of such tendencies exist simultaneously. What appears to be choice is nothing more than a John Locke (1632–1704) was born on August 29 at verbal label we use to describe the attractions and Wrington in Somerset, England, six years after the
EM PIRICISM, SENSATIONALISM, AND POSITIVISM 135 empirical studies that Locke met Robert Boyle (1627–1691), who was to have a major influence on him. Boyle was one of the founders of the Royal Society and of modern chemistry. Locke be- came Boyle’s friend, student, and research assistant. From Boyle, Locke learned that physical objects were composed of “minute corpuscles” that have just a few intrinsic qualities. These corpuscles can Medicine be experienced in many numbers and arrange- of ments. Some arrangements result in the experience Library of primary qualities and some in the experience of secondary qualities. We will see shortly that Boyle’s National “corpuscular hypothesis” strongly influenced the Locke’s philosophy. Locke became a member of of the Royal Society, and as a member performed Courtesy some studies and demonstrations in chemistry and meteorology. Newton was only 10 years old when Locke arrived at Oxford, but in 1689 the two men John Locke met and Locke referred to him as the “incompara- ble Mr. Newton.” Locke corresponded with death of Francis Bacon. His father was a Puritan, a Newton for the rest of his life, primarily on theo- small landowner, and an attorney. Locke was a 17- logical matters (both were deeply religious men). year-old student at Westminster School when, on Among Locke’s lesser known works were his January 30, 1649, King Charles I was executed as a editing of Boyle’s General History of the Air, an edi- traitor to his country. The execution, which Locke tion of Aesop’s Fables designed to help children may have witnessed, took place in the courtyard of learn Latin, and a book on money and interest rates Whitehall Palace, which was close to Locke’s school. (Gregory, 1987). His most famous work, however, Locke was born 10 years before the outbreak of civil and the one most important to psychology was An war, and he lived through this great rebellion that was Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690). so important to English history. It was at least partially Locke worked on the Essay for 17 years, and it due to the Zeitgeist, then, that Locke, as well as sev- was finally published when Locke was almost 60 eral of his fellow students, was to develop a lifelong years old. After its original publication, Locke re- interest in politics. Indeed, Locke was to become one vised the Essay several times, and it eventually went of the most influential political philosophers in post- into five editions. The fifth edition appeared post- Renaissance Europe. humously in 1706, and it is on this final edition In 1652 Locke, at age 20, obtained a scholar- that most of what follows is based. Locke had pub- ship from Oxford University, where he earned his lished very little before the Essay, but afterward he bachelor’s degree in 1656 and his master’s degree in published prolifically on such topics as education, 1658. His first publication was a poem that he government, economics, and Christianity. Voltaire wrote, when he was an undergraduate, as a tribute (1694–1778) greatly admired Locke and compared to Oliver Cromwell. Locke remained at Oxford for him favorably to Newton. Voltaire did much to 30 years, having academic appointments in Greek, create a positive impression of Locke on the conti- rhetoric, and moral philosophy. He also studied nent, especially in France. medicine and empirical philosophy, and on his Although Hobbes was clearly an empiricist, it third attempt, he finally attained his doctorate in was Locke who influenced most of the subsequent medicine in 1674. It was through his medical and British empiricists. For example, most of the British
136 CHAPTER 5 empiricists followed Locke in accepting a mind- materials of thinking. These two are the body dualism; that is, they rejected Hobbes’s physi- fountains of knowledge, from whence all cal monism (materialism). Whereas Hobbes equated the ideas we have, or can naturally have, mental images with the motions in the brain that do spring. (pp. 89–90) were caused by external motions acting on the sense receptors, Locke was content to say that some- Sensation and Reflection. For Locke, an idea how sensory stimulation caused ideas. Early in the was simply a mental image that could be employed Essay, Locke washed his hands of the question as to while thinking: “Whatsoever the mind perceives in how something physical could cause something itself, or is the immediate object of perception, mental—it just did. thought, or understanding, that I call idea” (1706/1974, pp. 111–112). For Locke, all ideas Opposition to Innate Ideas. Locke’s Essay was, come from either sensation or reflection. That in part, a protest against Descartes’s philosophy. It is, ideas result either by direct sensory stimulation was not Descartes’s dualism that Locke attacked but or by reflection on the remnants of prior sensory his notion of innate ideas. Despite Hobbes’s efforts, stimulation. Reflection, the second fountain of the notion of innate ideas was still very popular in knowledge referred to in the preceding quotation, Locke’s time. Especially influential was the belief is the mind’s ability to reflect on itself. that God had instilled in humans innate ideas of Thus, the source of all ideas is sensation, but morality. Because it was mainly clergymen who the ideas obtained by sensation can be acted on accepted the innateness of morality, by attacking and rearranged by the operations of the mind, the existence of innate ideas, Locke was attacking thereby giving rise to new ideas. The operations the church. Locke observed that if the mind con- the mind can bring to bear on the ideas furnished tained innate ideas, then all humans should have by sensation include “perception, thinking, doubt- those ideas, and clearly they do not. Humans, he ing, believing, reasoning, knowing, and willing” said, are not born with any innate ideas, whether (Locke, 1706/1974, p. 90). Locke is often said to they be moral, theological, logical, or mathematical. have postulated a passive mind that simply received Where, then, do all the ideas that humans have and stored ideas caused by sensory stimulation. This come from? Locke’s (1706/1974) famous answer was true, however, only of sensations. Once the was as follows: ideas furnished by sensation are in the mind, they Let us then suppose the mind to be, as we can be actively transformed into an almost endless say, white paper, void of all characters, variety of other ideas by the mental operations in- without any ideas; how comes it to be volved in reflection. furnished? Whence comes it by that vast It is important to note that it is Locke’s insis- store which the busy and boundless fancy tence that all knowledge is ultimately derived from of man has painted on it with an almost sensory experience that allows him to be properly endless variety? Whence has it all the labeled an empiricist. However, although the con- materials of reason and knowledge? To this tent of the mind is derived from sensory stimulation, I answer, in one word, from experience. In the operations of the mind are not. The operations that all our knowledge is founded, and of the mind are part of human nature; they are from that it ultimately derives itself. Our innate. Thus, Locke’s philosophy, although labeled observation employed either about exter- empirical, is partially nativistic. Locke opposed the nal sensible objects, or about the internal notion of specific innate ideas but not innate opera- operations of our minds perceived and re- tions (faculties) of the mind. Simple ideas concern- flected on by ourselves, is that which sup- ing the physical world come from sensation (such as plies our understandings with all the whiteness, bitterness, motion), and simple ideas
EM PIRICISM, SENSATIONALISM, AND POSITIVISM 137 concerning our minds come from reflection (such (emotions)—like love, desire, joy, hatred, sorrow, as perceiving, willing, reasoning, remembering). anger, fear, despair, envy, shame, and hope—were all derived from the two basic feelings of pleasure Simple and Complex Ideas. Simple ideas, and pain. Things that cause pleasure are good, and whether from sensation or reflection, constitute the things that cause pain are evil (note similarity to atoms (corpuscles) of experience because they can- Hobbes). For Locke, the “greatest good” was the not be divided or analyzed further into other ideas. freedom to think pleasurable thoughts. Like Complex ideas, however, are composites of simple Hobbes, his theory of human motivation was he- ideas and therefore can be analyzed into their com- donistic because it maintained that humans are mo- ponent parts (simple ideas). When the operations of tivated by the search for pleasure and the avoidance the mind are applied to simple ideas through reflec- of pain. For Locke then, the information that the tion, complex ideas are formed. That is, through senses provided was the stuff the mind thought such operations as comparing, remembering, dis- about and had emotional reactions toward. criminating, combining and enlarging, abstracting, and reasoning, simple ideas are combined into com- Primary and Secondary Qualities. The distinc- plex ones. As Locke (1706/1974) explained, tion between primary and secondary qualities is the distinction that several early Greeks, and later Simple ideas, the materials of all our Galileo, made between what is physically pres- knowledge, are suggested and furnished to ent and what is experienced psychologically. the mind only by … sensation and reflec- However, it was Locke’s friend and teacher tion. When the understanding is once Robert Boyle who introduced the terms primary stored with these simple ideas, it has the qualities and secondary qualities, and Locke bor- power to repeat, compare, and unite them, rowed the terms from him (Locke, 1706/1974). even to an almost infinite variety, and so can Unfortunately, primary and secondary qualities make at pleasure new complex ideas. But it have been defined in two distinctively different is not in the power of the most exalted wit ways through the centuries. One way has been or enlarged understanding, by any quickness to define primary qualities as attributes of physical or variety of thought, to invent or frame one reality and secondary qualities as attributes of sub- new simple idea in the mind, not taken in by jective or psychological reality. That is, primary the ways before mentioned: nor can any qualities refer to actual attributes of physical objects force of the understanding destroy those that or events, but secondary qualities refer to psycho- are there. I would have anyone try to fancy logical experiences that have no counterparts in the any taste which had never affected his pal- physical world. We followed this approach in our ate, or frame the idea of a scent he had never discussion of Galileo in Chapter 4 Boyle and Locke smelt: and when he can do this, I will also took a different approach. For them, both primary conclude that a blind man hath ideas of and secondary qualities referred to characteristics of colours, and a deaf man true distinct notions the physical world; what distinguished them was of sounds. (pp. 99–100) the type of psychological experience they caused. Following Boyle, Locke referred to any aspect of a The mind, then, can neither create nor destroy physical object that had the power to produce an ideas, but it can arrange existing ideas in an almost idea as a quality. Primary qualities have the power infinite number of configurations. to create in us ideas that correspond to actual phys- ical attributes of physical objects—for example, the Emotions. Locke maintained that the feelings of ideas of solidity, extension, shape, motion or rest, pleasure or pain accompany both simple and com- and quantity. With primary qualities, there is a plex ideas. He believed that the other passions match between what is physically present and
138 CHAPTER 5 what is experienced psychologically. The secondary For Locke, the important point was that some qualities of objects also have the power to produce of our psychological experiences reflected the phys- ideas, but the ideas they produce do not correspond ical world as it actually was (those experiences to anything in the physical world. The ideas pro- caused by primary qualities) and some did not duced by secondary qualities include those of color, (those experiences caused by secondary qualities). sound, temperature, and taste. He did not say, as Galileo had, that subjective real- Both primary and secondary qualities produce ity was inferior to physical reality. For Locke, sub- ideas. With primary qualities, the physical stimula- jective reality could be studied as objectively as tion is substantial enough to cause an idea that physical reality, and he set out to do just that. matches the physical attribute that caused it. With secondary qualities, however, it is only fractions Association of Ideas. Associationism is “a psy- (minute particles) of physical bodies that stimulate chological theory which takes association to be the us. This fractional stimulation emanates from the fundamental principle of mental life, in terms of physical body stimulating us, but our sensory appara- which even the higher thought processes are to be tus is not refined enough to note the physical nature explained” (Drever, 1968, p. 11). According to this of such stimulation. Instead, we experience some- definition, it is possible to reject associationism and thing psychologically that is not present (as such) still accept the fact that associative learning does physically. The difference between the ideas caused occur. Such was the case with Locke. In fact, by primary and secondary qualities thus comes down Locke’s discussion of association came as an after- to a matter of the acuteness of the senses. thought, and a short chapter titled “Association of Locke’s paradox of the basins dramatically Ideas” did not appear until the fourth edition of demonstrated the nature of ideas caused by second- Essay. Even then, association was used primarily ary qualities. Suppose we ask, Is temperature a char- to explain errors in reasoning. acteristic of the physical world? In other words, Is it As we have seen, Locke believed that most not safe to assume that objects in the physical world knowledge is attained by actively reflecting on the are hot or cold or somewhere in between? Looked ideas in the mind. By comparing, combining, relat- at in this way, temperature would be a primary ing, and otherwise thinking about ideas, we attain quality. Locke beckoned his readers to take three our understanding of the world, morality, and our- water basins: one containing cold water (basin A), selves. Where, then, does association enter into one containing hot water (basin B), and the other Locke’s deliberations? Locke used association to ex- containing warm water (basin C). If a person places plain the faulty beliefs that can result from accidents one hand in basin A and the other in basin B, one of time or circumstance. Locke called the beliefs hand will feel hot and the other cold, supporting that resulted from associative learning “a degree of the contention that hot and cold are properties of madness” (1706/1974, p. 250) because they were in the water (that is, that temperature is a primary opposition to reason. In addition to ideas that are quality). Next, Locke instructed the reader to place clustered in the mind because of some logical con- both hands in basin C, which contains the warm nection among them, some ideas are naturally asso- water. To the hand that was previously in basin A ciated, such as when the odor of baking bread (cold water), the water in basin C will feel hot; to causes one to have the idea of bread. These are the hand that was previously in basin B (hot water), safe and sure types of associations because they are the water will feel cold, even though the tempera- determined by natural relationships. The types of ture of the water in basin C is physically the same associations that constitute a degree of madness are for both hands. Thus, Locke demonstrated that learned by chance, custom, or mistake. These asso- the experience of hot and cold depended on the ciations lead to errors in understanding, whereas experiencing person, and temperature therefore re- natural associations cannot. flected secondary qualities.
EM PIRICISM, SENSATIONALISM, AND POSITIVISM 139 Locke believed that ideas that succeeded each also increase tolerance for the inevitable hardships other because of natural or rational reasons repre- of life. Crying should be discouraged with physical sented true knowledge but that ideas that became punishment, if necessary. Parents should provide associated fortuitously, because of their contiguity, their children with sufficient sleep, food, fresh air, could result in unreasonable beliefs. As examples of and exercise because good health and effective unreasonable beliefs, Locke (1706/1974, pp. 252– learning are inseparable. 254) included the following: A person who eats too Concerning classroom practices, mild physical much honey becomes sick and thereafter avoids punishment of students was advocated but severe even the thought of honey (today we call the sub- physical punishment was not. Teachers, Locke be- sequent avoidance of substances that cause illness lieved, should always make the learning experience the Garcia Effect); a child whose maid associates as pleasant as possible so that learning beyond darkness with evil spirits and goblins will grow up school will be sought. If learning occurs under aver- with a fear of darkness; a person undergoing painful sive conditions, it will be avoided both in school surgery will develop an aversion to the surgeon; and and beyond. A step-by-step approach to teaching children who are taught reading by harsh corrective complex topics was recommended to avoid over- methods will develop a lifelong aversion to reading. whelming and thus frustrating students. For the Following Drever’s (1968) definition of associ- same reason, excessive and overly rigorous assign- ationism as an attempt to reduce all mental activity ments should be avoided. The primary job of the to associative principles, Locke’s philosophy cer- teacher should be to recognize and praise student tainly did not exemplify associationism. Although accomplishments. his short chapter on the association of ideas did How does one deal with a child’s irrational mention the learning of natural associations, he fo- fears? Locke used a child with a fear of frogs to cuses on the learning of those that are unnatural. As exemplify his technique: we shall see, for the British empiricists and French Your child shrieks, and runs away at the sensationalists who followed Locke, the laws of as- sight of a Frog; Let another catch it, and lay sociation took on a greater significance. In their it down at a good distance from him: At first efforts to become “Newtons of the mind,” they accustom him to look upon it; When he can argued that ideas corresponded to Boyle’s corpus- do that, then come nearer to it, and see it cles and that the laws of association provided the leap without Emotion; then to touch it gravity that held ideas together. lightly when it is held fast in another’s hand; and so on, till he can come to handle it as Education. Locke’s book Some Thoughts confidently as a Butter-fly, or a Sparrow. By Concerning Education (1693/2000) had a profound the same way any other vain Terrors may be and long-lasting influence on education throughout remov’d; if Care be taken, that you go not the Western world. By insisting that nurture (expe- too fast, and push not the Child on to a new rience) was much more important than nature (in- degree of assurance, till he be thoroughly nate ability) for character development, his views confirm’d in the former. (Locke, 1693/ on education were in accordance with his empirical 2000, pp. 177–178) philosophy. For Locke, important education took place The advice given by Locke for dealing with both at home and at school. He encouraged parents irrational fears was remarkably similar to the kind to increase stress tolerance in their children (a pro- of behavioral therapy employed many years later by cess he called hardening) by having them sleep on Mary Cover Jones (see Chapter 12). hard rather than soft beds. Exposing children to With the exception of teaching stress tolerance, moderate amounts of coldness and wetness would Locke’s ideas concerning education now appear
140 CHAPTER 5 rather routine. They were, however, anything but ever, and Berkeley returned to London. routine when he first proposed them. Berkeley’s home in Whitehall (near Newport) still stands as a museum containing artifacts of his visit to Government by the People and for the colonial America. For the last 18 years of his life, People. Locke attacked not only the notion of Berkeley was an Anglican bishop of Cloyne in innate ideas but also the notion of innate moral County Cork, Ireland. He died suddenly on principles. He believed that much dogma was built January 14, 1753, at Oxford, where he had been on the assumption of one innate moral truth or helping his son enroll as an undergraduate. Just over another and that people should seek the truth for a hundred years later, the site of the first University themselves rather than having it imposed on them. of California campus was named for Bishop For this and other reasons, empiricism was consid- Berkeley. ered to be a radical movement that sought to re- place religion based on revelation with natural law. Opposition to Materialism. Berkeley observed Very influential politically, Locke challenged the that the downfall of Scholasticism, caused by attacks divine right of kings and proposed a government on Aristotle’s philosophy, had resulted in wide- by and for the people. His political philosophy spread religious skepticism, if not actual atheism. was accepted enthusiastically by the 19th-century He also noted that the new philosophy of material- utilitarians, and it was influential in the drafting of ism was further deteriorating the foundations of re- the U.S. Declaration of Independence. ligious belief. While at Trinity College, Berkeley studied the works of such individuals as Descartes, Hobbes, Locke, and Newton, and he held these George Berkeley individuals responsible for the dissemination of ma- George Berkeley (1685–1753) was born on terialistic philosophy. The worldview created by March 12 in Kilkenny, Ireland. He first attended the materialistic philosophy, Berkeley felt, was Kilkenny College; then in 1700 at the age of 15, that all matter is atomic or corpuscular in nature he entered Trinity College (University of Dublin), and that all physical events could be explained in where he earned his bachelor’s degree in 1704 at terms of mechanical laws. The world becomes the age of 19 and his master’s degree in 1707 at the nothing but matter in motion, and the motion of age of 22. He received ordination as a deacon of the moving objects is explained by natural laws, which Anglican church at the age of 24. Also when he was are expressible in mathematical terms. Berkeley 24, he published An Essay Towards a New Theory of correctly perceived that materialistic philosophy Vision (1709), and a year later he published what was pushing God farther and farther out of the pic- was perhaps his most important work, A Treatise ture, and thus it was dangerous, if not potentially Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge fatal, to both religion and morality. Berkeley there- (1710). His third major work, Three Dialogues fore decided to attack materialism at its very foun- Between Hylas and Philonous, was published during dation—its assumption that matter exists. his first trip to England in 1713. Berkeley’s fame was firmly established by these three books before “To be is to be perceived.” Berkeley’s solution he was 30 years old. He continued on at Trinity to the problem was bold and sweeping; he attempted College and lectured in divinity and Greek philos- to demonstrate that matter does not exist and that all ophy until 1724, when he became involved in the claims made by materialistic philosophy must there- founding of a new college in Bermuda intended for fore be false. In Berkeley’s denial of matter, he both both native and white colonial Americans. In 1728 agreed and disagreed with Locke. He agreed with he sailed to Newport, Rhode Island, where he Locke that human knowledge is based only on ideas. waited for funding for his project. The hoped-for However, Berkeley strongly disagreed with Locke’s government grants were not forthcoming, how- contention that all ideas are derived from interactions
EM PIRICISM, SENSATIONALISM, AND POSITIVISM 141 was that external reality consisted of inert matter, as the materialists maintained: I do not argue against the existence of any one thing that we can apprehend, either by sense or reflection. That the things I see with my eyes and touch with my hands do exist, really exist, I make not the least question. The only thing whose existence we deny is that which philosophers call Matter or cor- poreal substance. (Armstrong, 1965, p. 74) ©Bettman/CORBIS tion. It is the fact that external reality is God’s per- What creates external reality is God’s percep- ception that makes it stable over time and the same for everyone. The so-called laws of nature are ideas George Berkeley in God’s mind. On rare occasions, God may change his mind and thus vary the “laws of nature,” creat- with the empirical world. Even if there were such a ing “miracles,” but most of the time his perceptions world, Berkeley said, we could never know it di- remain the same. rectly. All things come into existence when they What we experience through our senses, then, are perceived, and therefore reality consists of our are the ideas in God’s mind; with experience, the perceptions and nothing more. ideas in our minds come to resemble those in God’s mind, in which case it is said that we are accurately perceiving external reality. “To be is to be per- Only Secondary Qualities Exist. In his discus- ceived,” and God perceives the physical world, sion of primary and secondary qualities, Berkeley thus giving it existence; we perceive God’s percep- referred to the former as the supposed attributes tions, thus giving those perceptions life in our of physical things and to the latter as ideas or per- minds as ideas. If secondary qualities are understood ceptions. Having made this distinction, he then re- as ideas whose existence depends on a perceiver, jected the existence of primary qualities. For him, then all reality consists of secondary qualities. only secondary qualities (perceptions) exist. This, of course, follows from his contention that “to be is to Principle of Association. According to Berke- be perceived.” Berkeley argued that materialism ley, each sense modality furnishes a different and sep- could be rejected because there was no physical arate type of information (idea) about an object. It is world. only through experience that we learn that certain ideas are always associated with a specific object: Berkeley Did Not Deny the Existence of External Reality. Of course, Berkeley’s conten- By sight I have the ideas of light and col- tion that everything that exists is a perception raises ours, with their several degrees and varia- several questions. For example, if reality is only a tions. By touch I perceive hard and soft, matter of perception, does reality cease to exist heat and cold, motion and resistance; and when one is not perceiving it? And, on what basis of all these more and less either as to can it be assumed that the reality one person per- quantity or degree. Smelling furnishes me ceives is the same reality that others perceive? First, with odours; the palate with tastes; and we must realize that Berkeley did not deny the hearing conveys sounds to the mind in all existence of external reality. What he did deny their variety of tone and composition.
142 CHAPTER 5 And as several of these are observed to Sitting in my study I hear a coach drive accompany each other, they come to be along the street; I look through the case- marked by one name, and so to be reputed ment and see it; I walk out and enter into as one thing. Thus, for example, a certain it. Thus, common speech would incline colour, taste, smell, figure and consistence one to think I heard, saw, and touched the having been observed to go together, are same thing, to wit, the coach. It is never- accounted one distinct thing, signified by theless certain the ideas intromitted by the name apple; other collections of ideas each sense are widely different, and distinct constitute a stone, a tree, a book, and the from each other; but, having been ob- like sensible things; which as they are served constantly to go together, they are pleasing or disagreeable excite the passions spoken of as one and the same thing. By of love, hatred, joy, grief, and so forth. the variation of the noise, I perceive the (Armstrong, 1965, p. 61) different distances of the coach, and that it approaches before I look out. Thus, by the Thus, the objects we name are aggregates of ear I perceive distance just after the same sensations that typically accompany each other. manner as I do by the eye. (Armstrong, Like Locke, Berkeley accepted the law of contigu- 1965, pp. 302–303) ity as his associative principle. Unlike Locke, how- ever, he did not focus on fortuitous or arbitrary With his empirical theory of distance percep- associations. For Berkeley, all sensations that are tion, Berkeley was refuting the theory held by consistently experienced together become associ- Descartes and others that distance perception was ated. In fact, for Berkeley, objects were aggregates based on the geometry of optics. According to the of sensations and nothing more. latter theory, a triangle is formed with the distance between the two eyes as its base and the object Berkeley’s Theory of Distance Percep- fixated on as its apex. A distant object forms a tion. Berkeley agreed with Locke that if a person long, narrow triangle, and a nearby object forms a who was born blind was later able to see, he or she short, broad triangle. Also, the apex angle of the would not be able to distinguish a cube from a triangle will vary directly with the distance of triangle. Such discrimination requires the associa- the object attended to; the greater the distance, tion of visual and tactile experiences. Berkeley the greater the apex angle and vice versa. The con- went further by saying that such a person would vergence and divergence of the eyes are important also be incapable of perceiving distance. The reason to this theory, but only because it is such move- is the same. For the distance of an object to be ment of the eyes that creates the geometry of dis- judged properly, many sensations must be associ- tance perception. ated. For example, when viewing an object, the According to Berkeley, the problem with the person receives tactile stimulation while walking theory of distance perception based on “natural to it. After several such experiences from the same geometry” is that people simply do not perceive and from different distances, the visual characteris- distance in that way. The convergence and diver- tics of an object alone suggest its distance. That is, gence of the eyes were extremely important in when the object is small, it suggests great distance, Berkeley’s analysis but not because of the visual and when large, it suggests a short distance. Thus, angles that such movement created. Rather, they the cues for distance are learned through the process were important because the sensations caused by of association. Also, stimulation from other sense the convergence and divergence of the eyes be- modalities becomes a cue for distance for the same came associated with other sensations that became reason. Berkeley gave the following example: cues for distance:
EM PIRICISM, SENSATIONALISM, AND POSITIVISM 143 And, first, it is certain by experience, that University of Edinburgh, where he studied law when we look at a near object with both and commerce but left without a degree. Given eyes, according as it approaches or recedes relative freedom by an inheritance, Hume moved from us, we alter the disposition of our to La Flèche in France, where Descartes had studied eyes, by lessening or widening the interval as a young man. It was at La Flèche that Hume, between the pupils. This disposition or before the age of 28, wrote his most famous turn of the eyes is attended with a sensa- work, Treatise of Human Nature, Being an Attempt tion, which seems to me to be that which to Introduce the Experimental Method of Reasoning in this case brings the idea of greater or into Moral Subjects, the first volume of which was lesser distance into the mind. (Armstrong, published in 1739 and the second volume in 1965, p. 288) 1740. About his Treatise, Hume said, “It fell dead- born from the press, without reaching such distinc- The analysis of the perception of magnitude tion as even to excite a murmur among the zealots” (size) is the same as for distance perception. In (Flew, 1962, p. 305). In 1742 Hume published his fact, the meaning that any word has is determined Philosophical Essays, which was well received. Hume by the sensations that typically accompany that was always convinced that his Treatise was poorly word. We have already seen this in the case of apple. received because of its manner of presentation Berkeley gave other examples as well: rather than its content, and in 1748 he published As we see distance so we see magnitude. an abbreviated version of the Treatise titled An And we see both in the same way that we Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. Much of see shame or anger, in the looks of a man. what follows is based on the posthumous 1777 edi- Those passions are themselves invisible; tion of the Enquiry. they are nevertheless let in by the eye Unlike many of the other philosophers of his along with colours and alterations of time, Hume was never a university professor. He countenance which are the immediate was nominated for an academic position twice, but object of vision, and which signify them the opposition of the Scottish clergy denied him the for no other reason than barely because posts. Hume was skeptical of most religious beliefs, they have been observed to accompany and friction with the church was a constant theme in them. Without which experience we his life. About religion Hume said, “The whole is a should no more have taken blushing for a riddle, an enigma, an inexplicable mystery. Doubt, sign of shame than of gladness. uncertainty, suspense of judgment appear the only (Armstrong, 1965, p. 309) result of our most accurate scrutiny, concerning the subject” (Yandell, 1990, p. xiv). However, Hume Berkeley’s empirical account of perception and did not suspend his judgment concerning religion. meaning was a milestone in psychology’s history He argued that religion was both irrational and because it showed how all complex perceptions impractical: could be understood as compounds of elementary sensations such as sight, hearing, and touch. In the first place, fear of God and the ex- Atherton (1990) provides a more detailed account pectations of an afterlife have less day- of Berkeley’s theory of perception and a justifica- to-day effect upon our conduct than is tion for referring to it as revolutionary. generally supposed. In the second place, religions do positive harm. They invent mortal sins like suicide, which have no David Hume natural depravity, and they create “frivo- Born on April 26 in Edinburgh, Scotland, David lous merits” which partake in no natural Hume (1711–1776) was educated at the good, like abstaining from certain foods or
144 CHAPTER 5 attending ceremonies. Moreover, … reli- following the very method of inquiry that gions result in cruel persecutions, bigotry, Newton had followed. He aspired to be strife between sects or between sects and the Newton of the moral sciences. His civil power, and the hunting down of achievement would in fact surpass unorthodox opinions. (Gaskin, 1998, Newton’s. The science of man is not only p. xvii) the indispensable foundation of natural philosophy, but is also of “greater impor- Rather than becoming involved in the some- tance” and “much superior in utility.” times furious quarrels over religious beliefs, Hume (E. F. Miller, 1971, p. 156) sought refuge in “the calm, though obscure, regions of philosophy” (Yandell, 1990, p. xiv). In Hume’s day, moral philosophy referred Toward the end of his life, Hume left the man- roughly to what we now call the social sciences, uscript for his Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion and natural philosophy referred to what we now with his friend, the famous economist Adam Smith, call the physical sciences. with the understanding that Smith would arrange Besides being an empirical science, the science for its publication. However, when Hume died in of man would also be an “experimental” science. 1776, Smith, perhaps fearing reprisal against him- Because experiments were so useful in the physical self, advised against the publication of the book. It sciences, they would also be used in the science of did not appear until 1779, and then without the man. However, Hume did not employ experiments publisher’s name (Steinberg, 1977). in his science of man the same way that they were employed by physical scientists. For the physical scientists, an experiment involved purposely manip- Hume’s Goal. According to Hume, “It is evident, ulating some environmental variable and noting the that all the sciences have a relation, greater or less, to effect of that manipulation on another variable. human nature; and that, however wide any of them Both variables were observable and measurable. As may seem to run from it, they still return back by one we will see, the major determinants of behavior in passage or another” (Flew, 1962, p. 172). Under the Hume’s system were cognitive and not directly ob- heading of science, Hume included such topics as servable. For Hume, the term experience meant cog- mathematics, natural philosophy (physical science), nitive experience. What, then, could the term exper- religion, logic, morals, criticism, and politics. In other iment mean to Hume? By experiment, Hume meant words, all important matters reflect human nature, careful observation of how experiences are related and understanding that nature is therefore essential. to one another and how experience is related to In developing his science of man, Hume followed in behavior. Hume noted that his experimental science the empirical tradition of Occam, Bacon, Hobbes, of human nature would be different from the physi- Locke, and Berkeley: “As the science of man is the cal sciences, but different did not mean “inferior.” In only solid foundation for the other sciences, so, the fact, his science might even be superior to the other only solid foundation we can give to this science itself sciences (Flew, 1962, p. 175). must be laid on experience and observation” (Flew, Hume’s goal, then, was to combine the empir- 1962, p. 173). ical philosophy of his predecessors with the princi- Hume, however, was very impressed by the ples of Newtonian science and, in the process, cre- achievements of Newtonian science, and he wanted ate a science of human nature. It is ironic that with to do for “moral philosophy” what Newton had done for “natural philosophy.” all of Hume’s admiration for Newton, Hume tended to use the Baconian inductive method Hume believed that he could bring about a more so than the Newtonian deductive method. reform in moral philosophy comparable to The major thrust of Hume’s approach was to the Newtonian revolution in physics by make careful observations and then carefully gener-
EM PIRICISM, SENSATIONALISM, AND POSITIVISM 145 directly. Although the ultimate nature of physical reality must necessarily remain obscure, its exis- tence, according to Hume, must be assumed in all rational deliberations: “Tis in vain to ask, Whether there be body or not? That is a point, which we must take for granted in all our reasonings” (Mossner, 1969, p. 238). Hume distinguished between impressions, which were strong, vivid perceptions, and ideas, which were relatively weak perceptions: ©Bettman/CORBIS All the perceptions of the human mind resolve themselves into two distinct kinds, which I shall call impressions and ideas. The difference betwixt these consists in the David Hume degrees of force and liveliness, with which they strike upon the mind, and make their alize from those observations. Hume occasionally way into our thought or consciousness. did formulate a hypothesis and test it against expe- Those perceptions which enter with most rience, but his emphasis was clearly on induction force and violence, we may name impres- rather than deduction. sions; and, under this name, I comprehend all our sensations, passions, and emotions, Impressions and Ideas. Like the empiricists that as they make their first appearance in the preceded him, Hume believed that the contents of soul. By ideas, I mean the faint images of the mind came only from experience. Also, like his these in thinking and reasoning. (Flew, predecessors, he believed that experience (percep- 1962, p. 176) tion) could be stimulated by either internal or ex- ternal events. Hume agreed with Berkeley that we Simple and Complex Ideas and the Imagi- never experience the physical directly and can have nation. Hume made the same distinction that only perceptions of it: Locke had made between simple ideas and complex ideas. Although, according to Hume, all simple It is a question of fact, whether the per- ideas were once impressions, not all complex ideas ceptions of the senses be produced by ex- necessarily correspond to complex impressions. ternal objects, resembling them: How shall Once ideas exist in the mind, they can be rear- this question be determined? By experi- ranged in an almost infinite number of ways by ence surely; as all other questions of a like the imagination: nature. But here experience is, and must be entirely silent. The mind has never any Nothing is more free than the imagination thing present to it but the perceptions, and of man; and though it cannot exceed that cannot possibly reach any experience of original stock of ideas, furnished by the their connexion with objects. The suppo- internal and external senses, it has unlim- sition of such a connexion is, therefore, ited power of mixing, compounding, sep- without any foundation in reasoning. arating, and dividing these ideas, in all the (Steinberg, 1977, p. 105) varieties of fiction and vision. It can feign a train of events, with all the appearance of Hume did not deny the existence of physical reality, ascribe to them a particular time reality; he denied only the possibility of knowing it and place, conceive them as existent, and
146 CHAPTER 5 paint them out to itself with every cir- general proposition: “That all our simple ideas in cumstance, that belongs to any historical their first appearance, are derived from simple im- fact, which it believes with the greatest pressions, which are correspondent to them, and certainty. Wherein, therefore, consists the which they exactly represent” (Flew, 1962, p. 178). difference between such a fiction and be- lief? It lies not merely in any peculiar idea, The Association of Ideas. If ideas were com- which is annexed to such a conception as bined only by the imagination, they would be commands our assent, and which is want- “loose and unconnected,” and chance alone would ing to every known fiction. For as the join them together. Also, the associations among mind has authority over all its ideas, it ideas would be different for each person because could voluntarily annex this particular idea there would be no reason for them to be similar. to any fiction, and consequently be able to Hume, however, observed that this was not the believe whatever it pleases; contrary to case. Rather, a great deal of similarity exists among what we find by daily experience. We can, the associations of all humans, and this similarity in our conception, join the head of a man must be explained. to the body of a horse; but it is not in our Hume considered his account of the association power to believe, that such an animal has of ideas as one of his greatest achievements: “If ever really existed. (Steinberg, 1977, p. 31) anything can entitle the author to so glorious a name as that of an ‘inventor,’ it is the use he makes It is interesting to note that, for Hume, the of the principle of the association of ideas, which only difference between fact and fiction is the dif- enters into most of his philosophy” (Flew, 1962, p. ferent feelings an experience produces. Ideas that 302). Hume seems to have overlooked the fact that have been consistently experienced together create the laws of association go back at least as far as the belief that one will follow the other. Such be- Aristotle and were employed by Hobbes, to a lesser liefs, for us, constitute reality. Ideas simply explored extent by Locke, and extensively by Berkeley. It is by the imagination do not have a history of con- true, however, that Hume depended on the prin- cordance, and therefore they do not elicit a strong ciples of association to the point where his philoso- belief that one belongs to the other (like a blue phy can be said to exemplify associationism. For banana). What distinguishes fact from fantasy, Hume, the laws of association do not cement ideas then, is the degree of belief that one idea belongs together so that their association becomes immuta- with another, and such belief is determined only by ble. As we have already seen, the imagination can experience. reform the ideas in the mind into almost any con- Again, the contents of the mind come only figuration. Rather, Hume saw the laws of associa- from experience, but once in the mind, ideas can tion as a “gentle force,” which creates certain asso- be rearranged at will. Therefore, we can ponder ciations as opposed to others. thoughts that do not necessarily correspond to real- Hume discussed three laws of association that ity. Hume gave the idea of God as an example: influence our thoughts. The law of resemblance “The idea of God, as meaning an infinitely intelli- states that our thoughts run easily from one idea to gent, wise, and good Being, arises from reflecting other similar ideas, such as when thinking of one on the operations of our own mind, and augment- friend stimulates the recollection of other friends. ing, without limit, those qualities of goodness and The law of contiguity states that when one thinks wisdom” (Steinberg, 1977, p. 11). of an object, there is a tendency to recall other To understand Hume, it is important to remem- objects that were experienced at the same time ber that all human knowledge is based on simple and place as the object being pondered, such as impressions. Hume stated this fact in the form of a when remembering a gift stimulates thoughts of
EM PIRICISM, SENSATIONALISM, AND POSITIVISM 147 the giver. The law of cause and effect states that 4. The same cause always produces the same when we think of an outcome (effect), we tend to effect, and the same effect never arises but also think of the events that typically precede that from the same cause. (Flew, 1962, p. 216) outcome, such as when we see lightning and con- sequently think of thunder. According to Hume, Thus, it is on the basis of consistent observa- “There is no relation which produces a stronger tions that causal inferences are drawn. Predictions connexion in the fancy, and makes one idea more based on such observations assume that what hap- readily recall another, than the relation of cause and pened in the past will continue to happen in the effect betwixt their objects” (Mossner, 1969, pp. future, but there is no guarantee of that being the case. 58–59). Because Hume considered cause and effect What we operate with is the belief that relationships to be the most important law of association, we will observed in the past will continue to exist in the examine it in more detail. future, and such a belief is accepted on faith alone. Also, even if all conditions listed above are met, we Analysis of Causation. From the time of could still be incorrect in drawing a causal infer- Aristotle through Scholasticism and to the science ence, such as when we conclude that the sunset of Hume’s day, it was believed that certain causes causes the sunrise because one always precedes the by their very nature produced certain effects. To other and one never occurs without the other first make the statement “A causes B” was to state some- occurring. According to Hume then, it is not ratio- thing of the essences of A and B; that is, there was nality that allows us to live effective lives, it is cu- assumed to be a natural relation between the two mulative experience, or what Hume called custom: events so that knowing A would allow for the pre- diction of B. This prediction could be made from Custom, then, is the great guide of human knowing the essences of A and B without having life. It is that principle alone, which ren- observed the two events together. Hume ders our experience useful to us, and makes completely disagreed with this analysis of causation. us expect, for the future, a similar train of For him, we can never know that two events occur events with those which have appeared in together unless we have experienced them occur- the past. Without the influence of custom, ring together. In fact, for Hume, a causal relation- we should be entirely ignorant of every ship is a consistently observed relationship and matter of fact, beyond what is immediately nothing more. Causation, then, is not a logical ne- present to the memory and senses. We cessity; it is a psychological experience. should never know how to adjust means to It was not Hume’s intention to deny the exis- ends, or to employ our natural powers in tence of causal relationships and thereby undermine the production of any effect. There would science, which searches for them. Rather, Hume be an end at once of all action, as well as of attempted to specify what is meant by a causal rela- the chief part of speculation. (Steinberg, tionship and how beliefs in such relationships de- 1977, p. 29) velop. Hume described the observations that need to be made in order to conclude that two events are Analysis of the Mind and the Self. As men- causally related: tioned in Chapter 1, a persistent problem through- out psychology’s history has been to account for the 1. The cause and effect must be contig- unity of experience. Although we are confronted uous in space and time. with a myriad of changing situations, our experi- 2. The cause must be prior to the effect. ence maintains a continuity over time and across 3. There must be a constant union betwixt conditions. The entities that most often have been the cause and effect. It is chiefly this quality postulated to explain the unity of experience are a that constitutes the relation. mind or a self. It was a significant event in
148 CHAPTER 5 psychology’s history, then, when Hume claimed principles and operations. The same mo- that there is neither a mind nor a self. tives always produce the same actions: The All beliefs, according to Hume, result from re- same events follow from the same causes. curring experiences and are explained by the laws of Ambition, avarice, self-love, vanity, association. All metaphysical entities, such as God, friendship, generosity, public spirit; these soul, and matter, are products of the imagination as passions, mixed in various degrees, and are the so-called laws of nature. Hume extended his distributed through society, have been, skepticism to include the concept of mind that was so from the beginning of the world, and still important to many philosophers, including are, the source of all the actions and en- Descartes, Locke, and Berkeley. According to terprises, which have ever been observed Hume, the “mind” is no more than the perceptions among mankind. (Steinberg, 1977, p. 55) we are having at any given moment: “We may ob- serve, that what we call a mind, is nothing but a heap Hume noted that even though all humans pos- or collection of different perceptions, united to- sess the same passions, they do not do so in the same gether by certain relations, and suppos’d, tho’ falsely, degree and, because different individuals possess dif- to be endow’d with a perfect simplicity and identity” ferent patterns of passions, they will respond differ- (Mossner, 1969, p. 257). ently to situations. The pattern of passions that a Just as there is no mind independent of percep- person possesses determines his or her character, tions, there is also no self independent of and it is character that determines behavior. It is a perceptions: person’s character that allows for his or her consis- tent interactions with people. It is through individ- For my part, when I enter most intimately ual experience that certain impressions and ideas into what I call myself, I always stumble on become associated with certain emotions. It is the some particular perception or other, of passions elicited by these impressions and ideas, heat or cold, light or shade, love or hatred, however, that will determine one’s behavior. This pain or pleasure. I never can catch myself at is another application of the laws of association, any time without a perception, and never only in this case the associations are between vari- can observe anything but the perception. ous experiences and the passions (emotions) and When my perceptions are removed for any between passions and behavior. In general, we can time, as by sound sleep, so long am I in- say that individuals will seek experiences associated sensible of myself, and may truly be said not with pleasure and avoid experiences associated with to exist. And were all my perceptions re- pain. moved by death, and could I neither think, The fact that human behavior is at times incon- nor feel, nor see, nor love, nor hate, after sistent does not mean that it is free any more than the dissolution of my body, I should be the weather being sometimes unpredictable means entirely annihilated. (Flew, 1962, p. 259) that the weather is free: The Passions (Emotions) as the Ultimate The internal principles and motives may Determinants of Behavior. Hume pointed out operate in a uniform manner, notwith- that throughout human history, humans have had standing these seeming irregularities; in the the same passions and that these passions have mo- same manner as the winds, rain, clouds, tivated similar behaviors: and other variations of the weather are supposed to be governed by steady prin- It is universally acknowledged, that there is ciples; though not easily discoverable by a great uniformity among the actions of human sagacity and enquiry. (Steinberg, men, in all nations and ages, and that hu- 1977, p. 58) man nature remains still the same, in its
EM PIRICISM, SENSATIONALISM, AND POSITIVISM 149 Humans learn how to act in different circum- pectations that events that have been correlated in stances the same way that nonhuman animals do— the past will remain correlated in the future. Such through the experience of reward and punishment. beliefs are not rationally determined, nor can they In both cases, reasoning ability has nothing to do be rationally defended. They result from experi- with it: ence, and we can have faith only that what we learned from experience will be applicable to the This is … evident from the effects of disci- future. According to Hume then, humans can be cer- pline and education on animals, who, by the tain of nothing. It is for this reason that Hume is proper application of rewards and punish- sometimes referred to as the supreme Skeptic. ments, may be taught any course of action, Hume accepted only two types of knowledge: the most contrary to their natural instincts demonstrative and empirical. Demonstrative knowl- and propensities. Is it not experience, which edge relates ideas to ideas such as in mathematics. renders a dog apprehensive of pain, when Such knowledge is true only by accepted defini- you menace him, or lift up the whip to beat tions and does not necessarily say anything about him? Is it not even experience, which makes facts or objects outside the mind. Demonstrative him answer to his name, and infer, from knowledge is entirely abstract and entirely the such an arbitrary sound, that you mean him product of the imagination. This is not to say that rather than any of his fellows, and intend to demonstrative knowledge is useless, because the re- call him, when you pronounce it in a cer- lations gleaned in arithmetic, algebra, and geometry tain manner, and with a certain tone and are of this type and represent clear and precise accent? … Animals, therefore, are not thinking. Such knowledge, however, is based en- guided in these inferences by reasoning: tirely on deduction from one idea to another; Neither are children: Neither are the gen- therefore, it does not necessarily say anything about erality of mankind, in their ordinary actions empirical events. Conversely, empirical knowledge is and conclusions: Neither are philosophers based on experience, and it alone can furnish themselves, who, in all the active parts of knowledge that can effectively guide our conduct life, are, in the main, the same with the in the world. According to Hume, for knowledge vulgar, and are governed by the same max- to be useful, it must be either demonstrative or ims. (Steinberg, 1977, pp. 70–71) empirical; if it is neither, it is not real knowledge It is not ideas or impressions that cause behav- and therefore is useless: ior but the passions associated with those ideas or When we run over libraries, persuaded of impressions. It is for this reason that Hume said, these principles, what havoc must we “We speak not strictly and philosophically when make? If we take in our hand any volume; we talk of the combat of passion and of reason. of divinity or school metaphysics, for in- Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the stance; let us ask, Does it contain any abstract passions, and can never pretend to any other office reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. than to serve and obey them” (Mossner, 1969, p. Does it contain any experimental reasoning 462). concerning matter of fact and existence? No. Commit it then to the flames: For it can Hume’sInfluence. Hume vastly increased the contain nothing but sophistry and illusion. importance of what we now call psychology. In (Steinberg, 1977, p. 114) fact, he reduced philosophy, religion, and science to psychology. Everything that humans know is Hume’s insistence that all propositions must be learned from experience. All beliefs are simply ex- either demonstrably or empirically true places him
150 CHAPTER 5 clearly in the positivistic tradition of Bacon. We major influences were Locke and Newton. Hartley will have more to say about positivism later in this accepted Newton’s contention that nerves are solid chapter. (not hollow, as Descartes had believed) and that sensory experience caused vibrations in the nerves. These vibrations were called impressions. The im- David Hartley pressions reach the brain and cause vibrations in David Hartley (1705–1757), the son of a clergy- the “infinitesimal, medullary particles,” which cause man, had completed his training as a minister at the sensations. Newton had also observed that vibrations University of Cambridge before an interest in biol- in the brain show a certain inertia; that is, they ogy caused him to seek a career as a physician. continue vibrating after the impressions causing Hartley remained deeply religious all his life, be- them cease. This, according to Newton, was why lieving that understanding natural phenomena in- we see a whirling piece of coal as a circle of light. creased one’s faith in God. It took several years For Hartley, it was the lingering vibrations in the for Hartley to write his long and difficult brain following a sensation that constituted ideas. Observations on Man, His Frame, His Duty, and His Ideas, then, were faint replications of sensations. Expectations (1749). This ponderous book is divided Hartley’s goal was to synthesize Newton’s concep- into two parts; the first part (concerning the human tion of nerve transmission by vibration with previ- frame) contains his contributions to psychology, ous versions of empiricism, especially Locke’s. and the second (concerning the duty and expecta- tions of humans) is almost totally theological. Hartley’s Explanation of Association. As we have seen, Hartley believed that sense impressions Hartley’sGoal. Although Hartley’s Observations produced vibrations in the nerves, which traveled appeared several years after Hume’s Treatise on to the brain and caused similar vibrations in the Human Nature (1739–1740), Hartley had been “medullary substance” of the brain. The brain vi- working on his book for many years and appears brations caused by sense impressions give rise to not to have been influenced by Hume. His two sensations. After sense impressions cease, there re- main in the brain diminutive vibrations that Hartley called vibratiuncles. It is the vibratiuncles that cor- respond to ideas. Ideas, then, are weaker copies of sensations. Vibratiuncles are like the brain vibrations associated with sensations in every way except they (the vibratiuncles) are weaker. So much for how sense impressions cause ideas; now the question is, How do ideas become associated? Any Sensations A, B, C, [etc.] by being Medicine associated with one another a sufficient Number of Times, get such a Power over of the corresponding Ideas a, b, c, [etc.] that Library any one of the Sensations A, when im- National pressed alone, shall be able to excite in the the Mind, b, c, [etc.] the Ideas of the rest. of (Hartley, 1749/1834, p. 41) Courtesy Hartley’s notion that experiences consistently occurring together are recorded in the brain as an David Hartley
EM PIRICISM, SENSATIONALISM, AND POSITIVISM 151 interrelated package and that experiencing one ele- voluntary behavior itself can become so habitual ment in the package will make one conscious of the that it too becomes automatic, not unlike invol- entire package is remarkably modern. We will see untary behavior. The basic assumption in in Chapter 19 that Donald Hebb reached essentially Hartley’s explanation is that all behavior is at first the same conclusion about 200 years later. involuntary and gradually becomes voluntary Although Hartley distinguished between simul- through the process of association. In the follow- taneous and successive associations, both are exam- ing example, we can see that Hartley’s ples of the law of contiguity. Successive experiences (1749/1834) explanation of the development of follow each other closely in time, and simultaneous voluntary behavior comes very close to what was events occur at the same time; both exemplify a type later called a conditioned reflex: of contiguity. As with most accounts of association The fingers of young children bend upon then, the law of contiguity was at the heart of almost every impression which is made Hartley’s. What made Hartley’s account of associa- upon the palm of the hand, thus performing tion significantly different from previous accounts the action of grasping, in the original auto- was his attempt to correlate all mental activity with matic manner. After a sufficient repetition neurophysiological activity. of the motory vibrations which concur in Simple and Complex Ideas. Unlike Locke, who this action, their vibratiuncles are generated, believed that complex ideas are formed from simple and associated strongly with other vibrations ideas via reflection, Hartley believed that all com- or vibratiuncles, the most common of plex ideas are formed automatically by the process which, I suppose, are those excited by the of association. For Hartley, there were no active sight of a favourite plaything which the mind processes involved at all. Simple ideas that child uses to grasp, and hold in his hand. He are associated by contiguity form complex ideas. ought, therefore, according to the doctrine Similarly, complex ideas that are associated by con- of association, to perform and repeat the tiguity become associated into “decomplex” ideas. action of grasping, upon having such a As simple ideas combine into complex ideas and plaything presented to his sight. But it is a complex ideas combine to form decomplex ideas, known fact, that children do this. By pur- it may be difficult to remember the individual sen- suing the same method of reasoning, we sations that make up such ideas. However, for may see how, after a sufficient repetition of Hartley, all ideas, no matter how complex, are the proper associations, the sound of the made up of sensations. Furthermore, association is words grasp, take hold, [etc.] the sight of the the only process responsible for converting simple nurse’s hand in a state of contraction, the ideas into complex ones. idea of a hand, and particularly of the child’s own hand, in that state, and innumerable The Laws of Association Applied to Be- other associated circumstances, i.e. sensa- havior. Hartley attempted to show that so- tions, ideas, and motions, will put the child called voluntary behavior developed from invol- upon grasping, till, at last, that idea, or state untary, or reflexive, behavior. He used the law of of mind which we may call the will to grasp, association to explain how involuntary behavior is generated, and sufficiently associated with gradually becomes voluntary and then becomes the action to produce it instantaneously. It is almost involuntary (automatic) again. Involuntary therefore perfectly voluntary in this case; behavior occurs automatically (reflexively) in re- and, by the innumerable repetitions of it in sponse to sensory stimulation. Voluntary behavior this perfectly voluntary state, it comes, at occurs in response to one’s ideas or to stimuli last, to obtain a sufficient connection with so not originally associated with the behavior, and many diminutive sensations, ideas, and
152 CHAPTER 5 motions, as to follow them in the same experience grief when they are present. It was manner as originally automatic actions do Hartley’s disciple Joseph Priestley (1733–1804), the corresponding sensations, and conse- the famous chemist and codiscoverer of oxygen, quently to be automatic secondarily. And, who explored the implications of Hartley’s analysis in the same manner, may all the actions of emotions for education. Priestley also wrote performed with the hands be explained, all Hartley’s Theory of the Human Mind: On the those that are very familiar in life passing Principle of the Association of Ideas (1775), which did from the original automatic state through much to promote the popularity of Hartley’s ideas. the several degrees of voluntariness till they become perfectly voluntary, and then re- Hartley’sInfluence. Hartley took the specula- passing through the same degrees in an in- tions concerning neurophysiology of his time and verted order, till they become secondarily used them in his analysis of association. His effort automatic on many occasions, though still was the first major attempt to explain the neuro- perfectly voluntary on some, viz. whenso- physiology of thought and behavior since Descartes. ever an express act of the will is exerted. The neurophysiological mechanisms that Hartley (pp. 66–67) postulated were largely fictitious, but as more be- came known about neural transmission and brain Thus, behavior is first involuntary, and then it mechanisms, the more accurate information re- becomes increasingly voluntary as, through the pro- placed the older fictions. Thus, Hartley started the cess of association, more and more stimuli become search for the biological correlates of mental events capable of eliciting the behavior. Finally, when per- that has continued to the present. forming the voluntary action becomes habitual, it is Earlier in this chapter, associationism was de- said to be “secondarily automatic.” It should be fined as any psychological theory that has associa- clear that Hartley did not employ the term voluntary tion as its fundamental principle (Drever, 1968). to mean “freely chosen.” For him, voluntary be- Under this definition, neither Hobbes’s nor havior is determined by the law of contiguity and, Locke’s philosophies qualify. Hume probably qua- therefore, no free choice is involved. lifies, but “Hartley … was the first man to whom Hartley’s effort to explain the relationship be- the term associationist can be applied without qual- tween ideas and behavior was rare among philoso- ification” (Drever, 1968, p. 14). Hartley’s brand of phers of his time and practically unheard of before associationism became highly influential and was his time. We see in Hartley’s explanation much that the authoritative account for about 80 years, or un- would later become part of modern learning til the time of James Mill. theory. James Mill The Importance of Emotion. In general, Hartley believed that excessive vibrations caused James Mill (1773–1836), a Scotsman born on the experience of pain and that mild or moderate April 6, was educated for the ministry at the vibrations caused the experience of pleasure. Again, University of Edinburgh. In 1802 he moved to association plays a prominent role in Hartley’s anal- London to start a literary career, becoming editor ysis. Through experience, certain objects, events, of the Literary Journal and writing for various peri- and people become associated with pain and others odicals. With the publication of perhaps his greatest with pleasure. We learn to love and desire those literary achievement, The History of British India, things that give us pleasure, hope for them when which he began writing in 1806 and finished in they are absent, and experience joy when they are 1817, Mill entered a successful career with the present. Similarly, we learn to hate and avoid those East India Company. Mill’s most significant contri- things that give us pain, fear their eventuality, and bution to psychology was Analysis of the Phenomena
EM PIRICISM, SENSATIONALISM, AND POSITIVISM 153 of the Human Mind, which originally appeared in In psychology, Bentham’s “pleasure principle” 1829 and was revised under the editorship of his showed up later not only in Freudian theory but also son John Stuart Mill in 1869. We use the 1869 in a number of learning theories—for example, in the edition of Analysis as the primary source in this reinforcement theories of Thorndike (see Chapter 11) summary of Mill’s ideas. Mill’s Analysis is regarded and Skinner (see Chapter 13). as the most complete summary of associationism James Mill was one of Bentham’s most enthu- ever offered. As we will see, Mill’s analysis of asso- siastic disciples, and we will see shortly how utili- ciation was influenced by Hume and especially by tarianism entered Mill’s version of associationism. Hartley. Mill is best known, however, for his Newtonian, mechanistic, and elementistic view of the mind. Utilitarianism and Associationism. In 1808, James Mill met Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832), James Mill’s Analysis of Association. Following and the two became close, lifelong friends. Hartley, Mill attempted to show that the mind con- Bentham was the major spokesman for the British sisted of only sensations and ideas held together by political and ethical movement called utilitarian- contiguity. Also following Hartley, Mill said that ism. Bentham rejected all metaphysical and theo- complex ideas are composed of simple ideas. logical arguments for government, morality, and However, when ideas are continuously experienced social institutions and instead took the ancient con- together, the association among them becomes so cept of hedonism (from the Greek word hedone, strong that they appear in consciousness as one idea: meaning “pleasure”) and made it the cornerstone The word gold, for example, or the word of his political and ethical theory: iron, appears to express as simple an idea, as Nature has placed mankind under the the word colour, or the word sound. Yet it governance of two sovereign masters, pain is immediately seen, that the idea of each and pleasure. It is for them alone to point of those metals is made up of the separate out what we ought to do, as well as to ideas of several sensations; colour, hardness, determine what we shall do. On the one extension, weight. Those ideas, however, hand the standard of right and wrong, on present themselves in such intimate union, the other the chain of causes and effects, that they are constantly spoken of as one, are fastened to their throne. They govern not many. We say, our idea of iron, our us in all we do, in all we say, in all we idea of gold; and it is only with an effort think: every effort we can make to throw that reflecting men perform the decom- off their subjection will serve but to dem- position… . It is to this great law of asso- onstrate and confirm it. (Bentham, ciation, that we trace the formation of our 1781/1988, p. 1) ideas of what we call external objects; that is, the ideas of a certain number of sensa- Thus, Bentham defined human happiness en- tions, received together so frequently that tirely in terms of the ability to obtain pleasure and they coalesce as it were, and are spoken of avoid pain. Similarly, the best government was de- under the idea of unity. Hence, what we fined as one that brought the greatest amount of hap- call the idea of a tree, the idea of a stone, piness to the greatest number of people. Although the idea of a horse, the idea of a man. (J. S. utilitarianism was implicit in the philosophies of a Mill, 1869/1967, pp. 91–93) number of the earlier British empiricists, it was Bentham who applied hedonism to society as a whole. In fact, all things we refer to as external objects Bentham’s efforts were highly influential and resulted are clusters of sensations that have been consistently in a number of reforms in legal and social institutions. experienced together. In other words, they are
154 CHAPTER 5 complex ideas and, as such, are reducible to simple the mind consisted of mental elements held together ideas. by the laws of association; therefore, mental experi- Mill explicitly pointed out what was more im- ence was as predictable as physical events. plicit in the philosophies of other “Newtonians of James Mill added nothing new to association- the mind,” like Locke, Berkeley, Hume, and ism. His professed goal was to provide evidence Hartley. That is, no matter how complex an idea for associationism that was lacking in Hartley’s ac- becomes, it can always be reduced to the simple count. This he did, and in so doing, he carried ideas of which it is constructed. Simple ideas can associationism to its logical conclusion; many be- be added to other simple ideas, making a complex lieve, however, that Mill’s detailed elaboration of idea; complex ideas can be added to complex ideas, associationism exposed it as an absurdity. In any making a still more complex idea; and so forth. Still, case, the mind as viewed by Mill (and by Hartley) at the base of all mental experience are sensations was completely passive; that is, it had no creative and the ideas they initiate. abilities. Association was the only process that orga- nized ideas, and it did so automatically. This con- The Determinants of the Strength of Asso- ception of the mind, sometimes referred to as ciations. Mill believed that two factors caused “mental physics” or “mental mechanics,” essentially variation in strengths of associations: vividness and ended with James Mill. In fact, as we see next, frequency. That is, the more vivid sensations or ideas James Mill’s son John Stuart Mill was among the form stronger associations than less vivid ones do; first to revise the purely mechanistic, elementistic and more frequently paired sensations and ideas view of his father. form stronger associations than do those paired less frequently. Mill referred to frequency or repe- John Stuart Mill tition as “the most remarkable and important cause of the strength of our associations” (J. S. Mill, James Mill’s interest in psychology was only second- 1869/1967, p. 87). ary. He was a social reformer and, like Hobbes, he As far as vividness is concerned, Mill said that believed social, political, and educational change is (1) sensations are more vivid than ideas, and there- facilitated by an understanding of human nature. He fore the associations between sensations are stronger believed that Benthamism, coupled with associa- than those between ideas; (2) sensations and ideas tionism, justified a radical, libertarian political phi- associated with pleasure or pain are more vivid and losophy. James Mill and his followers were quite therefore form stronger associations than sensations successful in bringing about substantial social and ideas not related to pleasure or pain; and (3) change. He also tried his theory of human nature recent ideas are more vivid and therefore form on a smaller, more personal scale by using it as a stronger associations than more remote ideas. guide in rearing his son John Stuart Mill (1806– 1873), born on May 20. James Mill’s attempt at James Mill’sInfluence. Mill’s Analysis is regarded using associative principles in raising his son must as the most complete summary of associationism ever have been at least partially successful because John offered. As we have seen, he attempted to show that Stuart had learned Greek by the time he was 3 years the mind consisted of only sensations and ideas held old, Latin and algebra by age 8, and logic by age 12. together by contiguity. He insisted that any mental Perhaps as a result of his father’s intense educational experience could be reduced to the simple ideas that practices, J. S. Mill suffered several bouts of depres- made it up. Thus, he gave us a conception of the sion in his lifetime. Perhaps it was also because, as he mind based on Newtonian physics. For Newton, noted in his autobiography (1873/1969, pp. 32, 33), the universe could be understood as consisting of his parents lacked tenderness toward each other and material elements held together by physical forces their children. However, J. S. Mill himself was able and behaving in a predictable manner. For Mill, to have at least one loving relationship. He met
EM PIRICISM, SENSATIONALISM, AND POSITIVISM 155 Harriet Taylor when he was 25 and she was 23. At simultaneously or successively, they become associ- the time, Harriet was married with two children, ated (law of contiguity); (4) more vivid sensations and for more than 20 years J. S. Mill’s relationship or ideas form stronger associations than do less vivid with Harriet was close but platonic. In 1851, two ones; and (5) strength of association varies with fre- years after Harriet was widowed, she and J. S. Mill quency of occurrence. With only the minor excep- were married. Harriet died just seven years later at tion of the law of similarity, this list summarizes the age of 50. James Mill’s notion of “mental physics” or “mental J. S. Mill’s most famous work was A System of mechanics,” a view that J. S. Mill accepted to a Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductive: Being a Connected large extent. View of the Principles of Evidence, and the Methods of John Stuart took issue with his father on one Scientific Investigation (1843). This book was an im- important issue, however. Instead of agreeing that mediate success, went through eight editions in complex ideas are always aggregates of simple ideas, Mill’s lifetime, and remained a best seller through- he proposed a type of mental chemistry. He was out the 19th century. Mill’s book was considered impressed by the fact that chemicals often combine must reading for any late–19th-century scientist. and produce something entirely different from the (The following summary of Mill’s work uses the elements that made them up, such as when hydro- eighth edition of his System of Logic, which appeared gen and oxygen combine to produce water. Also, in 1874.) In An Examination of Sir William Newton had shown that when all the colors of the Hamilton’s Philosophy (1865), J. S. Mill responded spectrum were combined, white light was pro- to criticisms of his philosophy and elaborated and duced. J. S. Mill believed that the same kind of defended the views of human nature he had pre- thing sometimes happened in the mind. That is, it sented in his System of Logic. In 1869 he published a was possible for elementary ideas to fuse and to new edition of his father’s Analysis, adding numer- produce an idea that was different from the ele- ous footnotes of his own that extended and clarified ments that made it up. his father’s views on associationistic psychology and J. S. Mill’s contention that an entirely new idea, sometimes criticized his father’s ideas. one not reducible to simple ideas or sensations, J. S. Mill did as much as anyone at the time to could emerge from contiguous experiences, eman- facilitate the development of psychology as a sci- cipated associationistic psychology from the rigid ence. This he did by describing the methodology confines of mental mechanics. However, if one is that should be used by all sciences and by showing seeking an active, autonomous mind, one must in great detail how that methodology could be used look elsewhere. When a new idea does emerge in a science of human nature. In fact, he believed from the synthesis of contiguous ideas or sensations, that the lawfulness of human thought, feeling, and it does so automatically. Just as the proper combina- action was entirely conducive to scientific inquiry. tion of hydrogen and oxygen cannot help but be- come water, a person experiencing the rapid, suc- Mental Chemistry versus Mental Physics. In cessive presentation of the primary colors cannot most important respects, J. S. Mill accepted his help but experience white. Certainly, the observa- father’s brand of associationism. J. S. Mill believed tion that sometimes a phenomenon akin to mental that (1) every sensation leaves in the mind an idea chemistry occurred did nothing to dampen Mill’s that resembles the sensation but is weaker in inten- enthusiasm over the development of a science of sity (J. S. Mill called ideas secondary mental states, human nature (psychology). sensations being primary); (2) similar ideas tend to excite one another (James Mill had reduced the law Toward a Science of Human Nature. Others of similarity to the law of frequency, but J. S. Mill before him (such as Locke, Hume, and Hartley) accepted it as a separate law); (3) when sensations had as their goal the creation of a mental science or ideas are frequently experienced together, either on par with the natural sciences. It was J. S. Mill,
156 CHAPTER 5 measurement of particular manifestations of those laws is difficult. Sciences, then, can range from those whose laws are known and the manifestations of those laws easily and precisely measured to those whose laws are only partially understood and the manifestations of those laws measured only with great difficulty. In the latter category, Mill placed sciences whose primary laws are known and, if no other causes intervene, whose phenomena can be ob- served, measured, and predicted precisely. However, secondary laws often interact with pri- mary laws, making precise understanding and pre- diction impossible. Because the primary laws are ©Bettman/CORBIS be observable, but the secondary laws create varia- still operating, the overall, principal effects will still tions and modifications that cause predictions to be probabilistic rather than certain. Mill (1843/1874) gave the example of tidology: John Stuart Mill It is thus, for example, with the theory of the tides. No one doubts that Tidology … however, speaking from the vantage point of per- is really a science. As much of the phe- haps the most respected philosopher of science of nomena as depends on the attraction of the his day, who contributed most to the development sun and moon is completely understood, of psychology as a science. and may, in any, even unknown, part of J. S. Mill began his analysis by attacking the the earth’s surface, be foretold with cer- common belief that human thoughts, feelings, and tainty; and the far greater part of the phe- actions are not subject to scientific investigation in nomena depends on those causes. But cir- the same way that physical nature is. He stressed the cumstances of a local or causal nature, such point that any system governed by laws is subject to as the configuration of the bottom of the scientific scrutiny, and this is true even if those laws ocean, the degree of confinement from are not presently understood. Mill gave the exam- shores, the direction of the wind, etc., in- ple of meteorology. He indicated that no one fluence, in many or in all places, the height would disagree that meteorological phenomena and time of the tide; and a portion of these are governed by natural laws, and yet such phe- circumstances being either not accurately nomena cannot be predicted with certainty, only knowable, not precisely measurable, or not probabilistically. Even though a number of the basic capable of being certainly foreseen, the laws governing weather are known (such as those tide in known places commonly varies governing heat, electricity, vaporization, and elastic from the calculated result of general prin- fluids), a number are still unknown. Also, observ- ciples by some difference that we can not ing how all causes of weather interact to cause a explain, and in unknown ones may vary meteorological phenomenon at any given time is from it by a difference that we are not able extremely difficult, if not impossible. Thus, meteo- to foresee or conjecture. Nevertheless, not rology is a science because its phenomena are gov- only is it certain that these variations de- erned by natural laws, but it is an inexact science pend on causes, and follow their causes by because knowledge of those laws is incomplete and laws of unerring uniformity; not only,
EM PIRICISM, SENSATIONALISM, AND POSITIVISM 157 therefore, is tidology a science, like mete- lieved that it would just be a matter of time before orology, but it is, what hitherto at least “corollaries” would be deduced from the primary meteorology is not, a science largely (universal) laws of human nature, which would al- available in practice. General laws may be low for more refined understanding and prediction laid down respecting the tides, predictions of human thought, feeling, and action. What are may be founded on those laws, and the these primary (universal) laws of human nature on result will in the main, though often not which a more exact science of human nature will with complete accuracy, correspond to the be deduced? They are the laws of the mind by predictions. (p. 587) which sensations cause ideas and by which ideas become associated. In other words, they are the Thus, meteorology and tidology are sciences, laws established by the British empiricists, in gen- but they are not exact sciences. An inexact science, eral, but more specifically by Hume, Hartley, and however, might become an exact science. For ex- James Mill. What J. S. Mill added was the notion of ample, astronomy became an exact science when mental chemistry. the laws governing the motions of astronomical bodies became sufficiently understood to allow pre- diction of not only the general courses of such bod- J. S. Mill’s Proposed Science of Ethology. In ies but also apparent aberrations. It is the inability of Chapter 5, Book VI, of his System of Logic, Mill a science to deal with secondary causation that argued for the development of a “science of the makes it inexact. formation of character,” and he called this science Mill viewed the science of human nature (psy- ethology. It should be noted that Mill’s proposed chology) as roughly in the same position as tidology science of ethology bore little resemblance to mod- or astronomy before secondary causation was un- ern ethology, which studies animal behavior in the derstood. The thoughts, feelings, and actions of in- animal’s natural habitat and then attempts to explain dividuals cannot be predicted with great accuracy that behavior in evolutionary terms. As Mill saw it, because we cannot foresee the circumstances in ethology would be derived from a more basic sci- which individuals will be placed. This in no way ence of human nature. That is, first the science of means that human thoughts, feelings, and actions human nature (psychology) would discover the are not caused; it means that the primary causes of universal laws according to which all human minds thoughts, feelings, and actions interact with a large operate, and then ethology would explain how in- number of secondary causes, making accurate pre- dividual minds or characters form under specific diction extremely difficult. However, the difficulty circumstances. The science of human nature would is understanding and predicting the details of human furnish the primary mental laws, and ethology behavior and thought, not predicting its more would furnish the secondary laws. Putting the mat- global features. Just as with the tides, human behav- ter another way, we can say that the science of ior is governed by a few primary laws, and that fact human nature provides information concerning allows for the understanding and prediction of gen- what all humans have in common (human nature), eral human behavior, feeling, and thought. What and ethology explains individual personalities (indi- the science of human nature has then is a set of vidual differences). primary laws that apply to all humans and that can What Mill was seeking, then, was the informa- be used to predict general tendencies in human tion necessary to convert psychology from an inex- thought, feeling, and action. What the science of act science, like tidology or early astronomy, into human behavior does not have is a knowledge of an exact science. In other words, he wanted to ex- how its primary laws interact with secondary laws plain more than general tendencies; he also wanted (individual characters and circumstances) to result in to explain the subtleties of individual behavior in specific thoughts, feelings, and actions. Mill be- specific circumstances.
158 CHAPTER 5 It is interesting that Mill did little more than in itself, and now one of the chief hin- outline his ideas for ethology. He never personally drances to human improvement; and that attempted to develop such a science himself, and it ought to be replaced by a principle of although most other sections of his System of Logic perfect equality, admitting no power or were substantially revised during its many editions, privilege on the one side, nor disability on the section on ethology was never developed fur- the other. (p. 7) ther or substantially modified. According to Leary (1982), Mill’s attempt to develop a science of ethol- J. S. Mill went on to note that male chauvinism ogy failed because the science of human nature was often defended on the basis of natural law (fe- from which it was to be deduced was itself inade- males are biologically inferior to males) or on the quate. Mill’s theory of human nature was exces- basis of some religious belief or another. Mill con- sively intellectual. That is, it stressed how ideas be- sidered both defenses invalid and believed that a come associated. It is difficult to imagine how sound science of human nature (psychology) would something like character (personality), which to a provide the basis for social equality. Sexism, he said, large extent is emotional, could be deduced from a would fall “before a sound psychology, laying bare philosophy stressing the association of ideas. Mill’s the real root of much that is bowed down to as the science of ethology was to sink or swim on the basis intention of nature and the ordinance of God” of the adequacy of his theory of human nature, and (1861/1986, p. 10). As might be expected, Mill’s sink it did. It did not sink completely, however. book was met with considerable male hostility. Ethology reemerged in France as the study of indi- Like his father, J. S. Mill embraced Bentham’s vidual character. The French approach placed utilitarianism: One should always act in a way that greater emphasis on emotional factors than Mill brings the greatest amount of pleasure (happiness) and his followers had, and their approach was to the greatest number of people. This principle somewhat more successful. Leary (1982) tracks the should consider both short- and long-term pleasure French efforts to study character and the influence and treat the happiness of others as equal in value of those efforts on later psychology. to our own. Societies can be judged by the extent to which they allow the utilitarian principle to Social Reform. Like his father, J. S. Mill was a operate. dedicated social reformer. His causes included free- Although J. S. Mill accepted Bentham’s general dom of speech, representative government, and the principle of utilitarianism, his version of it differed emancipation of women. He began his book The significantly from Bentham’s. In Bentham’s calcula- Subjection of Women (1861/1986) with the following tion of happiness, all forms of pleasure counted statement: equally. For example, sublime intellectual pleasures counted no more than eating a good meal. J. S. Mill The object of this Essay is to explain, as disagreed, saying that, for most humans, intellectual clearly as I am able, the grounds of an pleasures were far more important than the biolog- opinion which I have held from the very ical pleasures we share with nonhuman animals. earliest period when I had formed any J. S. Mill said, “It is better to be a human dissatisfied opinions at all on social or political matters, than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied and which, instead of being weakened or than a fool satisfied” (1861/1979, p. 10). modified, has been constantly growing stronger by the progress of reflection and Alexander Bain the experience of life: That the principle which regulates the existing social relations Born in Aberdeen, Scotland, Alexander Bain between the two sexes—the legal subor- (1818–1903) was a precocious child whose father dination of one sex to the other—is wrong was a weaver; from an early age, Bain himself had
EM PIRICISM, SENSATIONALISM, AND POSITIVISM 159 to work at the loom to earn money for his educa- and Body, 1873); and in 1876 he founded Mind, tion. He was fortunate to be living in perhaps the which is generally considered the first journal de- only country (Scotland) where, at the time, any voted exclusively to psychological issues. student showing intellectual promise was provided a university education. He attended Marischal Bain’s Goal. Bain’s primary goal was to describe College, which in 1858 became the University of the physiological correlates of mental and behav- Aberdeen. Following graduation, Bain moved to ioral phenomena. In preparation for writing London, where he worked as a freelance journalist. The Senses, Bain made it a point to digest the While in London, Bain joined a lively intellectual most current information on neurology, anatomy, circle, which included John Stuart Mill, and the and physiology. He then attempted to show how two became close, lifelong friends. The year before these biological processes were related to psycho- J. S. Mill published his famous System of Logic logical processes. His text was modern in the sense (1843), Bain assisted him with the revision of the that it started with a chapter on neurology, a prac- manuscript. Bain also helped J. S. Mill with the tice many introductory psychology textbooks have annotation of the 1869 edition of James Mill’s followed ever since. Analysis. In addition, Bain wrote biographies of After Bain, exploring the relationships between both James and J. S. Mill. physiological and psychological processes became While in London, Bain tried repeatedly to ob- an integral part of psychology. Bain was the first tain a university appointment but without success. to attempt to relate real physiological processes to He finally distinguished himself, however, with the psychological phenomena. Hartley had earlier at- publication of his two classic texts in psychology: tempted to do this, but his physiological principles The Senses and the Intellect (1855) and Emotions and were largely imaginary. the Will (1859). These were to be a two-volume work published together, but the publisher delayed Laws of Association. For Bain, the mind had publishing the second volume (Emotions) for four three components: feeling, volition, and intellect. years because the first volume sold so poorly. In The intellect was explained by the laws of associa- any case, in 1860 at the age of 42, with his reputa- tion. Like the other British empiricists, Bain stressed tion established, he finally obtained an academic the law of contiguity as the basic associative princi- post at the University of Aberdeen. He returned to ple. According to Bain (1855/1977a), the law of his alma mater as a professor of logic and rhetoric; contiguity applied to sensations, ideas, actions, and he remained there, in this and a variety of honorary feelings: positions, for the remainder of his long, productive Actions, sensations, and states of feeling, life. occurring together or in close succession, Bain is often referred to as the first full-fledged tend to grow together, or cohere, in such a psychologist. His books The Senses and Emotions are way that, when any one of them is after- considered the first systematic textbooks on psy- wards presented to the mind, the others are chology. These books underwent three revisions apt to be brought up in idea. (p. 318) each and were standard texts in psychology on both sides of the Atlantic for nearly 50 years. As was common among the British empiricists, Until William James’s Principles of Psychology Bain supplemented the law of contiguity with the (1890), Bain’s two volumes provided many with law of frequency. What was unusual about Bain’s their first experience with psychology. Besides writ- presentations of the laws of contiguity and frequency ing the first textbooks in psychology, Bain was also was his suggestion that both laws had their effects the first to write a book exclusively dedicated to the because of neurological changes, or what we would relationship between the mind and the body (Mind now call changes in the synapses between neurons:
160 CHAPTER 5 “For every act of memory, every exercise of bodily number of combinations. Bain thought that the law aptitude, every habit, recollection, train of ideas, of constructive association accounted for the crea- there is a specific grouping, or co-ordination, of sen- tivity shown by poets, artists, inventors, and the sation and movements, by virtue of specific growth like. in the cell junctions” (Bain, 1873/1875, p. 91). Like John Stuart Mill, Bain also accepted the Voluntary Behavior. In his analysis of voluntary law of similarity as one of his associative principles. behavior, Bain made an important distinction be- Whereas the law of contiguity associates events that tween reflexive behavior, which was so important to are experienced at the same time or in close succes- the physiology of his time, and spontaneous activ- sion, the law of similarity explains why events sep- ity. Reflexive behavior occurred automatically in arated in time can come to be associated. That is, response to some external stimulus because of the the experience of an event elicits memories of sim- structure of an organism’s nervous system. ilar events even if those similar events were experi- Conversely, organisms sometimes simply act sponta- enced under widely different times and neously. In the terminology of modern Skinnerians, circumstances. Bain was saying that some behavior is emitted rather To the traditional laws of association, Bain than elicited. added two of his own: the law of compound associ- Spontaneous activity is one ingredient of vol- ation and the law of constructive association. The untary behavior; the other ingredient is hedonism. law of compound association states that associa- We have seen that James Mill was strongly influ- tions are seldom links between one idea and an- enced by Jeremy Bentham, as was the former’s other. Rather, an idea is usually associated with sev- son John Stuart Mill. Bain too accepted the funda- eral other ideas either through contiguity or mental importance of pleasure and pain in his psy- similarity. When this is true, we have a compound chology and especially in his analysis of voluntary association. With such associations, sometimes behavior. Apparently, the thought of combining experiencing one element, or perhaps even a few spontaneous behavior and the emotions of pleasure elements, in the compound will not be enough to and pain in his analysis first occurred to Bain when, elicit the associated idea. However, if the idea is while accompanying a shepherd, he observed the associated with many elements and several of those first few hours of the life of a lamb. He noted elements are present, the associated idea will be re- that the lamb’s initial movements appeared to be called. Bain thought that this law suggested a way to completely random relative to its mother’s teat, improve memory and recall: “Past actions, sensa- but as chance contact occurred with the mother’s tions, thoughts, or emotions, are recalled more eas- skin and eventually with her teat, the lamb’s behav- ily, when associated either through contiguity or ior became increasingly “purposive.” through similarity, with more than one present object or impression” (1855/1977a, p. 545). Six or seven hours after birth the animal With his law of constructive association, had made notable progress…. The sensa- Bain inserted a creative element into associationism tions of sight began to have a meaning. In in much the way Hume had done. Both Bain and less than twenty-four hours, the animal Hume insisted that the mind had imaginary powers. could at the sight of the mother ahead, In discussing his law of constructive association, move in the forward direction at once to Bain said, “By means of association the mind has come up to her, showing that a particular the power to form new combinations or aggregates image had now been associated with a different from any that have been presented to it in definite movement; the absence of any the course of experience” (Bain, 1855/1977a, p. such association being most manifest in the 571). In other words, the mind can rearrange mem- early movements of life. It could proceed ories of various experiences into an almost infinite at once to the teat and suck, guided only
EM PIRICISM, SENSATIONALISM, AND POSITIVISM 161 With voluntary behavior, we still have the laws of association at work. Some spontaneous actions become associated with pleasure and therefore re- peated; others are associated with pain and therefore reduced in frequency of occurrence. Also, in accor- dance with the law of frequency, the tendencies to repeat pleasurable responses or to avoid painful ones increase with the frequency of pleasurable or pain- Medicine ful consequences. As was the case earlier with Hartley, it is important to note that for Bain, volun- of tary did not mean “free.” So-called voluntary be- Library havior was as deterministically controlled as reflex- National ive behavior; it was just controlled differently. Bain the said, “The actions of the will, or volition … I con- of sider to be nothing else than action stimulated, and Courtesy guided, by feeling” (D. N. Robinson, 1977, p. 72). To summarize, Bain explained the development of voluntary behavior as follows: Alexander Bain 1. When some need such as hunger or the need to be released from confinement occurs, there by its desire and the sight of the object. is random or spontaneous activity. (Bain, 1855/1977a, p. 406) 2. Some of these random movements will pro- Bain (1859/1977b) used hedonism to explain duce or approximate conditions necessary for how spontaneous activity is converted into volun- satisfying the need, and others will not. tary behavior: 3. The activities that bring need satisfaction are I cannot descend deeper into the obscuri- remembered. ties of the cerebral organization than to 4. The next time the organism is in a similar sit- state as a fact, that when pain co-exists uation, it will perform the activities that pre- with an accidental alleviating movement, viously brought about need satisfaction. or when pleasure co-exists with a pleasure- sustaining movement, such movements Actions that are performed because of their become subject to the control of the re- previous effectiveness in a given situation are vol- spective feelings which they occur in untary rather than reflexive. company with. Throughout all the grades Bain essentially described trial-and-error learn- of sentient existence, wherever any ves- ing, which was to become so important to tiges of action for a purpose are to be Thorndike several years later. He also described discerned, this link must be presumed to Skinner’s operant conditioning. According to exist. Turn it over as we may on every Skinner, operant behavior is simply emitted by an side, some such ultimate connexion be- organism; that is, it is spontaneous. Once emitted, tween the two great primary manifesta- however, operant behavior is under the control of tions of our nature—pleasure and pain, its consequences. Responses resulting in pleasurable with active instrumentality—must be as- consequences (reinforcement) tend to be repeated sumed as the basis of our ability to work under similar circumstances, and responses resulting out our ends. (p. 349) in painful consequences (punishment) tend not to
162 CHAPTER 5 be. For a more detailed account of Bain’s explana- The question asked by both the British empiri- tion of voluntary behavior, see Greenway, 1973. cists and the French sensationalists was, If every- With his effort to synthesize what was known thing else in the universe can be explained in terms about physiology with associationism and his treat- of mechanical laws, why should not humans, too, ment of voluntary behavior, Bain brought psychol- obey those laws? Although the metaphor of human ogy to the very brink of becoming an experimental beings as machines was suggested by the work of science. Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, and Newton, it was further stimulated by Descartes. Descartes’s dualistic conception of humans meant that our bodies act according to mechanical principles (our bodies are FRENCH SENSATIONALISM machines) but our minds do not. Without the au- tonomous mind that Descartes had postulated, French philosophers also aspired to be Newtonians however, humans were equated with nonhuman of the mind, and they had much in common with animals, and both could be understood as machines. their British counterparts. The French Newtonians It was this metaphor of humans as machines that of the mind have been referred to as naturalists, especially appealed to the French sensationalists. In mechanists, empiricists, materialists, and sensational- fact, many believed that Descartes himself saw the ists. Any, or all, of these labels capture the spirit of possibility of viewing humans as machines but that the French philosophers to be considered here and he avoided revealing this belief because of what would be equally applicable to the majority of the happened to Galileo and a number of other natural British philosophers whose work we just reviewed. philosophers (scientists) of his time. There was still The goal for both the French and British philoso- reason to fear the church in France in the mid-18th phers was to explain the mind as Newton had ex- century, but the French sensationalists pursued their plained the physical world—that is, in a way that metaphor of man as a machine with courage and stressed the mind’s mechanical nature, that reduced boldness despite intense opposition from the all mental activity to its basic elements, that used church. only a few basic principles, and that minimized or eliminated metaphysical speculation. All the French Pierre Gassendi and British philosophers considered in this chapter had these goals in common. We refer to the French Pierre Gassendi (1592–1655), a contemporary of philosophers as sensationalists because some of them both Descartes and Hobbes, lived the quiet life of a intentionally stressed the importance of sensations studious priest and was respected as a mathematician in explaining all conscious experience and because and philosopher. Both Locke and Newton ac- the label provides a convenient way of distinguish- knowledged a debt to Gassendi, whose major goal ing between the British and the French philoso- was to denounce Descartes’s purely deductive (axi- phers. In general, however, the French and the omatic) and dualistic philosophy and replace it with British philosophers were more similar than they an observational (inductive) science based on phys- were different. Besides both being influenced by ical monism. Gassendi offered several criticisms of Newton (or Galileo in Hobbes’s case), they Descartes’s proposed mind-body dualism, the most both strongly opposed the rationalism of telling of which was the observation that the mind, Descartes, especially his beliefs in innate ideas and if unextended (immaterial), could have no knowl- in an autonomous mind. All ideas, said both the edge of extended (material) things. Only physical British empiricists and the French sensationalists, things, he said, can influence and be influenced by came from experience, and most, if not all, mental physical things. He also could not understand activity could be explained by the laws of associa- why Descartes spent so much time proving that tion acting on those ideas. he existed when it was obvious, to Gassendi, that
EM PIRICISM, SENSATIONALISM, AND POSITIVISM 163 anything that moves exists. Descartes could have a military campaign, La Mettrie contracted a violent said, “I move, therefore I am.” In fact, according fever; while convalescing, he began to ponder the to Gassendi, such a conclusion would have been a relationship between the mind and the body. vast improvement over “I think, therefore I am.” Upon recovery from his illness, La Mettrie Continuing his attack on Descartes, Gassendi asked, wrote The Natural History of the Soul (1745), which why could “lower” animals move themselves quite stressed that the mind is much more intimately re- well without the aid of a mind, and yet humans lated to the body than Descartes had assumed. If the needed one? Why not, Gassendi asked, ascribe the mind is completely separate from the body and in- operations attributed to the mind to the functions fluences the body only when it chooses to do so, of the brain (which is physical)? In other words, how can the effects of such things as wine, coffee, Gassendi saw no reason for postulating an unex- opium, or even a good meal on one’s thoughts be tended (immaterial) mind to explain any human explained? In fact, La Mettrie was among the first activity. modern philosophers to suggest that “you are what Gassendi concluded that humans are nothing you eat.” but matter and therefore could be studied and un- derstood just as anything else in the universe could. Raw meat makes animals fierce, and it Gassendi suggested a physical monism not unlike would have the same effect on man. This is the one that the early Greek atomists, such as so true that the English who eat meat red Democritus and later the Epicureans, had suggested. and bloody, and not as well done as ours, In fact, Gassendi was especially fond of Epicurus seem to share more or less in the savagery and the later Epicurean philosophers, and he was due to this kind of food, and to other responsible for reviving interest in them. For exam- causes which can be rendered ineffective ple, he accepted the Epicurean principle of long- by education only. This savagery creates in term hedonism as the only reasonable guide for the soul, pride, hatred, scorn of other na- human conduct. For these reasons, Gassendi is often tions, indocility and other sentiments considered the founder of modern materialism, but which degrade the character, just as heavy that honor could as easily be given to Gassendi’s food makes a dull and heavy mind whose contemporary Hobbes. usual traits are laziness and indolence. (La Gassendi had a number of prominent followers, Mettrie, 1748/1912, p. 94) three of whom are reviewed next. To La Mettrie, it was clear that whatever influ- ences the body influences the so-called thought Julien de La Mettrie processes, but La Mettrie went further. He believed Julien de La Mettrie (1709–1751) was born on that there is nothing in the universe but matter and December 25. His father intended him to become a motion. Sensations and thoughts are also nothing priest until a local doctor pointed out that a medi- but movements of particles in the brain. Thus, La ocre physician would be better paid than a good Mettrie, like Hobbes and Gassendi, was a priest. Upon receiving his medical degree, La thorough-going materialist. Mettrie soon distinguished himself in the medical La Mettrie’s book The Natural History of the Soul community by writing articles on such topics as (1745) was harshly criticized by the French clergy. venereal disease, vertigo, and smallpox. He was The feelings against him were so intense that he was widely resented because of professional jealousy, forced into exile in Holland. While in Holland, he his tendency to satirize the medical profession, wrote his most famous book, L’Homme Machine and his quick temper. In 1742 he obtained a com- (Man a Machine, 1748). This book so upset the mission as physician to the regiment of guards serv- Dutch clergy that La Mettrie was also forced to ing in the war between France and Austria. During leave Holland. Fortunately, Frederick the Great
164 CHAPTER 5 offered La Mettrie a pension and refuge in Berlin. to increase in size in proportion to the There, La Mettrie continued writing on medical gentleness of the animal; 3rd, that nature topics until his death on November 11, 1751, at seems here eternally to impose a singular the age of 41. condition, that the more one gains in in- telligence the more one loses in instinct. Man a Machine. La Mettrie was one who be- (pp. 98–99) lieved that Descartes was a mechanist, even as far as humans were concerned, and that his published If humans can be considered superior to non- thoughts on God and the soul were designed to human animals, it is because of education and the hide his true feelings from the clergy and to save development of language. Because the primate himself from persecution (La Mettrie, 1748/1912, brain is almost as large and as complex as ours, it p. 143). In any case, La Mettrie believed that if follows that if primates could be taught language, Descartes had followed his own method, he they would resemble humans in almost all respects. (Descartes) would have reached the conclusion The question is, Can primates learn a language? that humans, like nonhuman animals, were autom- Among animals, some learn to speak and ata (machines). La Mettrie, then, set out to either sing; they remember tunes, and strike the correct Descartes’s misunderstanding of humans or notes as exactly as a musician. Others, for to do what Descartes wanted to do but refrained instance the ape, show more intelligence, from doing because of fear of persecution. and yet can not learn music. What is the La Mettrie concluded Man a Machine with the reason for this, except some defect in the statement, “Let us then conclude boldly that man is organs of speech? In a word, would it a machine, and that in the whole universe there is be absolutely impossible to teach the ape a but a single substance differently modified” language? I do not think so. (La Mettrie, (1748/1912, p. 148). The single substance, of 1748/1912, p. 100) course, was matter, and this belief that every exist- ing thing, including humans, consists of matter and With proper training, humans and apes could nothing else makes La Mettrie a physical monist. be made remarkably similar. For La Mettrie, to believe in the existence of an Such is the likeness of the structure and immaterial soul (mind) was just plain silly. functions of the ape to ours that I have According to La Mettrie, only a philosopher who very little doubt that if this animal were was not at the same time a physician could postulate properly trained he might at last be taught the existence of an immaterial soul that is indepen- to pronounce, and consequently to know, dent from the body. The overwhelming evidence a language. Then he would no longer be a for the dependence of so-called mental events on wild man, nor a defective man, but he bodily states available to physicians would (or would be a perfect man, a little gentleman, should) preclude them from embracing dualism. with as much matter or muscle as we have, Human and Nonhuman Animals Differ Only in for thinking and profiting by his education. Degree. La Mettrie (1748/1912) equated intelli- (La Mettrie, 1748/1912, p. 103) gence and some personality characteristics with the According to La Mettrie, intelligence was size and quality of the brain: influenced by three factors: brain size, brain com- I shall draw the conclusions which follow plexity, and education. Humans are typically super- clearly from … incontestable observations: ior in intelligence to other animals because we have 1st, that the fiercer animals are, the less bigger, more complex brains and because we are brain they have; 2nd, that this organ seems better educated. However, by education,La
EM PIRICISM, SENSATIONALISM, AND POSITIVISM 165 Mettrie did not mean only explicit instruction but accepting their continuity with the animal world. also the effects of everyday experience—for exam- That is, we should accept the fact that, like other ple, our interactions with other people. animals, humans are machines—complex machines, To say that humans are morally superior to but machines nonetheless. La Mettrie (1748/1912) nonhuman animals is to overlook the seamier hu- described how life would be for the person accepting man activities like cannibalism, infanticide, and wars the materialistic-mechanistic philosophy: in which “our compatriots fight, Swiss against He who so thinks will be wise, just, tran- Swiss, brother against brother, recognize each quil about his fate, and therefore happy. other, and yet capture and kill each other without He will await death without either fear or remorse, because a prince pays for the murder” (La desire, and will cherish life (hardly under- Mettrie, 1748/1912, p. 117). Religion, grounded standing how disgust can corrupt a heart in in the belief in a supreme being, certainly has not this place of many delights); he will be improved the human condition. It is possible, ac- filled with reverence, gratitude, affection, cording to La Mettrie, that atheism could encour- and tenderness for nature, in proportion to age humans to be more humane. his feeling of the benefits he has received In any case, humans differ from nonhuman an- from nature; he will be happy, in short, in imals only in degree, not in type: “Man is not feeling nature, and in being present at the molded from a costlier clay; nature has used but enchanting spectacle of the universe, and one dough, and has merely varied the leaven” (La he will surely never destroy nature either Mettrie, 1748/1912, p. 117). And this observation in himself or in others. More than that! was made over 100 years before Darwin published Full of humanity, this man will love hu- The Origin of Species (1859). man character even in his enemies. Judge how he will treat others. He will pity the Acceptance of Materialism Will Make for a wicked without hating them; in his eyes, Better World. According to La Mettrie, belief in they will be but mis-made men. But in the uniqueness of humans (dualism) and in God are pardoning the faults of the structure of not only incorrect but also responsible for widespread mind and body, he will none the less ad- misery. Humans would be much better served by mire the beauties and the virtues of both…. In short, the materialist, con- vinced, in spite of the protests of his vanity, that he is but a machine or an animal, will not maltreat his kind, for he will know too well the nature of those actions, whose humanity is always in proportion to the degree of the analogy proved above [be- Medicine tween human beings and animals]; and of following the natural law given to all ani- Library mals, he will not wish to do to others what National he would not wish them to do to him. (pp. 147–148) the of La Mettrie dared to discuss openly those ideas Courtesy that were held privately by many philosophers of the time. In so doing, he offended many powerful individuals. Although it is clear that he influenced Julien de La Mettrie
166 CHAPTER 5 many subsequent thinkers, his works were rarely would have nothing with which to compare the cited or his name even mentioned. The fact that experience. If, however, a pleasant sensation ended, he died of indigestion following overindulgence remembering it, the statue could desire it to return. of a meal of pheasant and truffles was seen by Likewise, if an unpleasant experience ended, re- many as a fitting death for a misled, atheistic membering it, the statue could desire that it not philosopher. return. For Condillac then, all desire is based on the experiences of pleasure and pain. The statue loves pleasant experiences and hates unpleasant Étienne Bonnot de Condillac ones. The statue, given the ability to remember, Étienne Bonnot de Condillac (1714–1780) was can not only experience current odors but also re- born on September 30 into an aristocratic family at member ones previously experienced. Typically, Grenoble. He was the contemporary of Hume and the former provide a more vivid sensation than the Rousseau, who were about his age, and with latter. Voltaire, who was about 20 years older. He was edu- When the statue smells a rose at one time and a cated at a Jesuit seminary in Paris, but shortly after his carnation at another, it has the basis for comparison. ordination as a Roman Catholic priest, he began fre- The comparison can be made by currently smelling quenting the literary and philosophical salons of Paris one and remembering the other or by remember- and gradually lost interest in his religious career. In ing both odors. With the ability to compare comes fact, he became an outspoken critic of religious the ability to be surprised. Surprise is experienced dogma. Condillac translated Locke’s Essay into whenever an experience the statue has departs radi- French, and the title of his first book indicates a cally from those it is used to: “It cannot fail to deep appreciation for Locke’s empirical philosophy: notice the change when it passes suddenly from a Essay on the Origin of Human Knowledge: A Supplement state to which it is accustomed to a quite different to Mr. Locke’s Essay on the Human Understanding state, of which it has as yet no idea” (Condillac, (1746). Eight years later, in his Treatise on the 1754/1930, p. 10). Also with the ability to compare Sensations (1754), Condillac suggested that Locke comes the ability to judge. As with remembering in had unnecessarily attributed too many innate powers general, the more comparisons and judgments the to the mind. Condillac was convinced that all powers statue makes, the easier making them becomes. Locke attributed to the mind could be derived simply Sensations are remembered in the order in which from the abilities to sense, to remember, and to ex- they occur; memories then form a chain. This fact perience pleasure and pain. allows the statue to recall distant memories by pass- ing from one idea to another until the most distant The Sentient Statue. To make his point, idea is recalled. According to Condillac, without Condillac (1754/1930) asked his readers to imagine first recalling intermediary ideas, distant memories a marble statue that can sense, remember, and feel would be lost. If the statue remembers sensations in but has only the sense of smell. The mental life of the order they occurred, the process is called re- the statue consists only of odors; it cannot have any trieval. If they are recalled in a different order, it is conception of things external to itself, nor can it called imagination. Dreaming is a form of imagina- have sensations of color, sound, or taste. The statue tion. Retrieving or imagining that which is hated does have the capacity for attention because it will causes fear. Retrieving or imagining what is loved attend to whatever odor it experiences. With atten- causes hope. The statue, having had several sensa- tion comes feeling because attending to a pleasant tions, can now notice that they can be grouped in odor causes enjoyment and attending to an unpleas- various ways, such as intense, weak, pleasant, and ant odor causes an unpleasant feeling. If the statue unpleasant. When sensations or memories are had just one continuous pleasant or unpleasant ex- grouped in terms of what they have in common, perience, it could not experience desire because it the statue has formed abstract ideas, for example,
EM PIRICISM, SENSATIONALISM, AND POSITIVISM 167 pleasantness. Also by noting that some sensations or Inhis analysis of language, Condillac(1746/2001) memories last longer than others, the statue devel- argued that the meaning of words is determined ex- ops the idea of duration. clusively by how they are habitually used: When our statue has accumulated a vast num- To understand how mankind came to ber of memories, it will tend to dwell more on the agreement among themselves about the pleasant ones than on the unpleasant. In fact, ac- signification of words they wished to put cording to Condillac, it is toward the seeking of into use, it is sufficient to observe that they pleasure or the avoidance of pain that the statue’s pronounced them in circumstances in mental abilities are ultimately aimed: “Thus it is that which everyone was obliged to refer to the pleasure and pain will always determine the actions same perceptions. By that means they fixed of [the statue’s] faculties” (Condillac, 1754/1930, the meaning with greater exactness in p. 14). proportion as the circumstances, by fre- The statue’s self, ego, or personality consists of quent repetition, habituated the mind to its sensations, its memories, and its other mental connect particular ideas to particular signs. abilities. With its memories, it is capable of desiring The language of action removed the am- sensations other than the one it is now having; or biguities and double meanings which in by remembering other sensations, it can wish its the beginning would occur very often. (p. present sensation to continue or terminate. 156) Experiences (in this case, odors) never experienced cannot become part of the statue’s mental life, Aarsleff (2001, pp. xxxiv–xxxviii) notes the which consists only of its sensations and its memo- considerable similarity between Condillac’s analysis ries of sensations. of language and Wittgenstein’s later analysis, which Clearly, Condillac was not writing about sta- we discuss in Chapter 21. tues but was discussing how human mental abilities could be derived from sensations, memories, and a few basic feelings. Humans, of course, have more Claude-Adrien Helvétius than one sense modality; that fact makes humans Claude-Adrien Helvétius (1715–1771) was born much more complicated than the statue, but the in Paris and educated by Jesuits. He became principle is the same. There was no need therefore wealthy as a tax collector, married an attractive for Locke and others to postulate a number of in- countess, and retired to the countryside where he nate powers of the mind. According to Condillac wrote and socialized with some of Europe’s finest (1754/1930), the powers of the mind develop as a minds. In 1758 he wrote Essays on the Mind, which natural consequence of sensation: was condemned by the Sorbonne and burned. His If we bear in mind that recollecting, posthumous A Treatise on Man: His Intellectual comparing, judging, discerning, imagining, Faculties and His Education (1772) moved Jeremy wondering, having abstract ideas, and ideas Bentham to claim that what Francis Bacon had of number and duration, knowing general done for our understanding of the physical world, and particular truths, are only different Helvétius had done for our understanding of the modes of attention; that having passions, moral world. Also, James Mill claimed to have loving, hating, hoping, fearing, wishing, used Helvétius’s philosophy as a guide in the edu- are only different modes of desire; and fi- cation of his son, John Stuart. nally that attention and desire have their Helvétius did not contradict any of the major origin in feeling alone; we shall conclude tenets of British empiricism or French sensational- that sensation contains within it all the ism, nor did he add any new ones. Rather, he ex- faculties of the soul. (p. 45) plored in depth the implication of the contention
168 CHAPTER 5 that the contents of the mind come only from ex- acteristics of a religion. One such individual was perience. In other words, control experiences and Auguste Comte. you control the contents of the mind. The implica- tions of this belief for education and even the struc- Auguste Comte ture of society were clear, and in the hands of Auguste Comte (1798–1857), born in the French Helvétius, empiricism became radical environmental- city of Montpellier on January 19, grew up in the ism. All manner of social skills, moral behavior, and period of great political turmoil that followed the even genius could be taught through the control of French Revolution of 1789–1799. In school, experiences (education). Russell (1945) said of Comte was an excellent student and a trouble- Helvétius, “His doctrine is optimistic, since only a maker. In August 1817, Comte met the social phi- perfect education is needed to make men perfect. losopher Henri de Saint-Simon (1760–1825), who There is a suggestion that it would be easy to find a converted Comte from an ardent advocate of lib- perfect education if the priests were got out of the erty and equality to a supporter of a more elitist way” (p. 722). view of society. The two men collaborated on a Because Helvétius too was a hedonist, educa- number of essays, but after a bitter argument, they tion in general terms could be viewed as the ma- parted company in 1824. In April 1826, Comte nipulation of pleasurable and painful experiences. began giving lectures in his home on his positivist Today we might state this as reinforcing desirable philosophy—that is, the attempt to use the methods thoughts and behavior and either ignoring or pun- of the physical sciences to create a science of history ishing undesirable thoughts and behavior. In this and human social behavior. His lectures were at- sense, Helvétius’s position has much in common tended by a number of illustrious individuals, but with that of the modern behaviorists. after only three lectures, Comte suffered a serious mental collapse. Despite being treated in a hospital for a while, he fell into deep depression and even POSITIVISM attempted suicide. He was unable to resume his lectures until 1829. Financial problems, lack of pro- The British empiricists and the French sensational- fessional recognition, and marital difficulties com- ists had in common the belief that all knowledge bined to drive Comte back into isolation. comes from experience; that is, that there are no Between 1830 and 1842, his time was spent mainly innate ideas. They also shared a distaste for meta- on writing his six-volume work, Cours de Philosophe physical speculation. All knowledge, they said, even Positive (The Course of Positive Philosophy, 1830– moral knowledge, was derived from experience. If 1842). Comte’s Cours was translated into English the denial of innate moral principles did not place by the philosopher-feminist Harriet Martineau the empiricists and the sensationalists in direct op- (1802–1876) in 1853. As a result of the Cours, position to religion, it certainly placed them in di- Comte began to attract a few admirers, among rect opposition to religious dogma. them John Stuart Mill. However, soon after the As the successes of the physical and mental publication of the Cours, Comte’s wife left him. sciences spread throughout Europe, and as religious In 1844 he met and fell in love with Clotilde de doctrine became increasingly suspect, a new belief Vaux, and although she died of tuberculosis soon emerged—the belief that science can solve all hu- after they met, he vowed to dedicate the rest of his man problems. Such a belief is called scientism. life to her memory. Soon afterward he began writ- To those embracing scientism, scientific knowledge ing Système de Politique Positive (System of Positive is the only valid knowledge; therefore, it provides Politics), in which Comte introduced his religion the only information one can believe. For these of humanity (discussed later). The Système cost individuals, science itself takes on some of the char- Comte most of his influential followers, including
EM PIRICISM, SENSATIONALISM, AND POSITIVISM 169 known, they can be used to predict and control events and thus improve life. One of Comte’s fa- vorite slogans was “Know in order to predict” (Esper, 1964, p. 213). Comte’s approach to science was very much like the one suggested earlier by Francis Bacon. According to both Comte and Bacon, science should be practical and nonspecula- Medicine tive. Comte told his readers that there are two types of of statements: “One refers to the objects of sense, and it is a scientific statement. The other is non- Library sense” (D. N. Robinson, 1986, p. 333). National It should be pointed out that positivistic think- the ing had been around in one form or another since of at least the time of the early Greeks: Courtesy The history of positivism might be said to extend from ancient times to the present. Claude Helvétius In ancient Greece it was represented by such thinkers as Epicurus, who sought to John Stuart Mill. Undaunted, Comte continued to free men from theology by offering them concentrate on his new religion, of which he in- an explanation of the universe in terms of stalled himself as high priest. Comte spent his later natural law, and the Sophists, who wished years attempting to gain converts to his religion. He to bring positive knowledge to bear on even tried to recruit some of the most powerful human affairs. The cumulative successes of individuals in Europe, including Czar Nicholas I the scientific method in the seventeenth and the head of the Jesuits. and eighteenth centuries increasingly fa- Comte’s Positivism. According to Comte, the vored the acceptance of the positivistic at- only thing we can be sure of is that which is pub- titude among intellectuals. In England, the licly observable—that is, sense experiences that can empirical philosophy, beginning with be shared with other individuals. The data of sci- Francis Bacon and culminating in Hume ence are publicly observable and therefore can be and John Stuart Mill, became an essential trusted. For example, scientific laws are statements part of the positivist tradition. (Esper, about how empirical events vary together, and once 1964, pp. 212–213) determined, they can be experienced by any inter- In fact, because all the British empiricists and ested party. Comte’s insistence on equating knowl- French sensationalists stressed the importance of edge with empirical observations was called sensory experience and avoided metaphysical and positivism. theological speculation, they all could be said to Comte was a social reformer and was interested have had at least positivistic leanings. in science only as a means of improving society. Knowledge, whether scientific or not, was not im- portant unless it had some practical value. Comte The Law of Three Stages. According to Comte, wrote, “I have a supreme aversion to scientific la- societies pass through stages that are defined in bors whose utility, direct or remote, I do not see” terms of the way its members explain natural (Esper, 1964, p. 213). According to Comte, science events. The first stage, and the most primitive, is should seek to discover the lawful relationships theological, and explanations are based on supersti- among physical phenomena. Once such laws are tion and mysticism. In the second stage, which is
170 CHAPTER 5 The progress of the individual mind is not only an illustration, but an indirect evi- dence of that of the general mind. The point of departure of the individual and of the race being the same, the phases of the mind of a man correspond to the epochs of the mind of the race. Now, each of us is aware, if he looks back upon his own his- tory, that he was a theologian in his childhood, a metaphysician in his youth, and a natural philosopher in his manhood. ©Bettman/CORBIS this for themselves. (Martineau, All men who are up to their age can verify 1853/1893, p. 3) Religion of Humanity. By the late 1840s, Auguste Comte Comte was discussing positivism as if it were reli- gion. To him, science was all that one needed to metaphysical, explanations are based on unseen es- believe in and all that one should believe in. He sences, principles, causes, or laws. During the third described a utopian society based on scientific prin- and highest stage of development, the scientific de- ciples and beliefs and whose organization was re- scription is emphasized over explanation, and the markably similar to the Roman Catholic Church. prediction and control of natural phenomena be- However, humanity replaced God, and scientists comes all important. In other words, during the and philosophers replaced priests. Disciples of the scientific stage, positivism is accepted. Comte used new religion would be drawn from the working the term sociology to describe the study of how classes and especially from among women: different societies compared in terms of the three stages of development. The triumph of positivism awaited the Comte described the events that characterize the unification of three classes: The philoso- transition from one stage to another in much the phers, the proletariat, and women. The first same way that Kuhn (1996) described paradigmatic would establish the necessary intellectual shifts in science. According to Comte, the beliefs and scientific principles and methods of in- characteristic of a particular stage become a way of quiry; the second would guarantee that es- life for the people within a society. It is only a few of sential connection between reality and the society’s wisest individuals who glimpse the next utility; the third would impact to the entire stage and begin to pave the way for it. There follows a program the abiding selflessness and moral critical period during which a society is in transition resolution so natural to the female consti- between one stage and another. The beliefs charac- tution. (D. N. Robinson, 1982, pp. 41–42) terizing the new stage then become a way of life until the process is repeated. As with a paradigmatic shift in Comte’s religion of humanity was one of the science, there are always remnants of earlier stages in reasons that John Stuart Mill became disenchanted the newly established one. with him. Comte’s utopia emphasized the happi- As evidence for his law of three stages, Comte ness of the group and minimized individual happi- observed that individuals also pass through the same ness. In Mill’s version of utilitarianism, the exact stages: opposite is true.
EM PIRICISM, SENSATIONALISM, AND POSITIVISM 171 The Hierarchy of the Sciences. Comte ar- especially social behavior. The study of human so- ranged the sciences in a hierarchy from the first cial behavior is a second sense in which Comte used developed and most basic to the last developed the term sociology. So, the first objective way of and most comprehensive as follows: mathematics, studying humans reduced psychology to physiol- astronomy, physics, chemistry, physiology and biol- ogy, and the second reduced it to sociology. In ogy, and sociology. It is of special interest to note the latter case, there was no studying “me,” only that psychology did not appear on Comte’s list of “us.” We now see two more reasons that J. S. Mill sciences. If what is meant by psychology is “the in- distanced himself from Comte. First, Mill’s analysis trospective analysis of the mind,” then Comte be- of the mind was highly dependent on introspection; lieved that psychology was metaphysical nonsense. second, Mill rejected phrenology (and history indi- Science, for Comte, dealt with what could be pub- cates that he was correct in having done so). licly observed, and that excluded introspective data. He had harsh words to say about introspection, A Second Type of Positivism and in saying them, he differentiated himself from essentially all the British empiricists and French sen- Comte insisted that we accept only that of which sationalists who relied almost exclusively on intro- we can be certain, and for him, that was publicly spection in their analysis of the mind: observable data. For Comte, introspection was out because it examined only private experiences. In order to observe, your intellect must Another brand of positivism emerged later, how- pause from activity; yet it is this very ac- ever, under the leadership of the physicist Ernst tivity you want to observe. If you cannot Mach (1838–1916). Mach, like Comte, insisted effect the pause you cannot observe; if you that science concentrate only on what could be do effect it, there is nothing to observe. known with certainty. Neither Comte nor Mach The results of such a method are in pro- allowed metaphysical speculation in their views of portion to its absurdity. After two thou- science. The two men differed radically, however, sand years of psychological pursuit, no one in what they thought scientists could be certain proposition is established to the satisfaction about. For Comte, it was physical events that could of its followers. They are divided, to this be experienced by any interested observer. Mach, day, into a multitude of schools, still dis- however, agreed with the contention of Berkeley puting about the very elements of their and Hume—that we can never experience the doctrine. This internal observation gives physical world directly. We experience only sensa- birth to almost as many theories as there tions or mental phenomena. For Mach, the job of are observers. We ask in vain for any one the scientist was to note which sensations typically discovery, great or small, which has been cluster together and to describe in precise mathe- made under this method. (Martineau, matical terms the relationships among them. 1853/1893, p. 10) According to Mach, “There can be no a priori For Comte, two methods, however, were knowledge of the world, only experiences that, available by which the individual could be studied when systematically organized, can lay claim to objectively. One way was to embrace phrenology, the status of scientific knowledge” (D. N. which was an effort to relate mental events to brain Robinson, 2000, p. 1020). In agreement with anatomy and processes (we will discuss phrenology Hume, Mach concluded that so-called cause- in Chapter 8). Phrenological analysis essentially re- and-effect relationships are nothing more than duced psychology to physiology. The second functional relationships among mental phenomena. way was to study the mind by its products—that Although for Mach the ultimate subject matter of is, to study the mind by studying overt behavior, any science was necessarily cognitive, this fact need
172 CHAPTER 5 not prevent scientists from doing their work objec- tively and without engaging in metaphysical specu- lation. In his influential book The Science of Mechanics (1883/1960), Mach insisted that scientific concepts be defined in terms of the procedures used to measure them rather than in terms of their “ulti- mate reality” or “essence.” In doing so, Mach an- Medicine ticipated Bridgman’s concept of the operational definition (see Chapter 13). Einstein often referred of to Mach as an important influence on his life and Library work. Thus, both Comte and Mach were positivis- National tic, but what they were positive about differed. Positivism was revised through the years and the of was eventually transformed into logical positivism. It Courtesy was through logical positivism that positivistic phi- losophy had its greatest impact on psychology. We will discuss logical positivism and its impact on psy- Ernst Mach chology in Chapter 13. SUMMARY A group of British philosophers opposed Descartes’s that was well stocked with mental abilities such as notion of innate ideas, saying that all ideas were believing, imagining, reasoning, and willing. Like derived from experience. Those who claimed that most of the other empiricists, Locke believed that experience was the basis of all knowledge were all human emotions are derived from the two basic called empiricists. Hobbes insisted that all human emotions of pleasure and pain. Locke used the laws activity was ultimately reducible to physical and of association primarily to explain the development mechanistic principles; thus, he was a materialist of “unnatural” associations. Locke’s views on edu- and a mechanist as well as an empiricist. He be- cation were compatible with his empirical philoso- lieved that the function of a society was to satisfy phy and were highly influential. the needs of individuals and to prevent individuals Berkeley denied the existence of a material from fighting among themselves. He also believed world, saying instead that all that exists are percep- that all human behavior was ultimately motivated tions. Although an external world exists because by the seeking of pleasure and the avoidance of God perceives it, we can know only our own per- pain. ceptions of that world. We can assume that our Locke was an empiricist who distinguished be- perceptions of the world accurately reflect external tween the primary qualities of objects, which reality, however, because God would not allow our caused ideas that actually resembled attributes of senses to deceive us. Berkeley also proposed an em- those objects, and secondary qualities, which caused pirical theory of distance perception. psychological experiences that had no counterpart Hume agreed with Berkeley that the only in the physical world. Locke believed that all ideas thing we experience directly is our own subjective are derived from sensory experience but that exist- experience but disagreed with Berkeley’s faith that ing ideas could be rearranged by the mind into nu- our perceptions accurately reflect the physical merous configurations. Locke postulated a mind world. For Hume, we can never know anything
EM PIRICISM, SENSATIONALISM, AND POSITIVISM 173 about the physical world because all we ever expe- could be quite different from the simpler ideas rience is thought and habits of thought. Like Locke, that make it up. J. S. Mill’s idea of fusion was called Hume postulated an active imagination that could mental chemistry. J. S. Mill believed that a mental arrange ideas in countless ways. Unlike Locke, science could develop that would eventually be on however, Hume made the laws of association the par with the physical sciences. According to J. S. cornerstone of his philosophy. He postulated three Mill, the primary laws governing behavior are al- such laws: the law of contiguity, which states that ready known; what is needed to make mental sci- events experienced together are remembered to- ence an exact science is an understanding of the gether; the law of resemblance, which states that secondary laws that determine how individuals act remembering one event tends to elicit memories under specific circumstances. J. S. Mill proposed a of similar events; and the law of cause and effect, science of ethology to study the secondary laws which states that we tend to believe that the cir- governing behavior. J. S. Mill was dedicated to sev- cumstances that consistently precede an event cause eral social causes, including the emancipation of that event. Hume reduced both mind and self to women. He accepted Bentham’s utilitarianism but, perceptual experience. According to Hume, it is the unlike Bentham, emphasized the quality rather than passions (emotions) that govern behavior, and be- the quantity of pleasurable experiences. cause people differ in their patterns of emotions, Alexander Bain was the first to write psychol- individual behavior differs. A person’s pattern of ogy textbooks, to write an entire book on the rela- emotions determines his or her character. tionship between the mind and the body, to use Hartley attempted to couple empiricism and known neurophysiological facts in explaining psy- associationism with a rudimentary conception of chological phenomena, and to found a psychology physiology. Hartley was among the first to show journal. He explained voluntary behavior in terms how the laws of association might be used to ex- of spontaneous behavior and hedonism, and he plain learned behavior. According to his analysis, added the laws of compound association and con- involuntary (reflexive) behavior gradually becomes structive association to the list of traditional laws of associated with environmental stimuli, such as association. when a child’s grasping becomes associated with a Like the British empiricists, the French sensa- favorite toy. When this association is made, the tionalists believed that all ideas are derived from ex- child can voluntarily grasp when he or she sees perience and denied the existence of the type of au- the toy. Through repeated experience, voluntary tonomous mind proposed by Descartes. The behavior can become almost as automatic as invol- sensationalists were either materialists (like Hobbes) untary behavior. In accordance with the tradition of denying the existence of mental events, or they were empiricism, Hartley believed pleasure and pain mechanists believing that all mental events could be govern behavior, and it was his disciple Priestley explained in terms of simple sensations and the laws who saw the implications of Hartley’s hedonism of association. Gassendi believed that Descartes’s di- for educational practices. vision of a person into a material body and a nonma- James Mill pushed empiricism and association- terial mind was silly. All so-called mental events, he ism to their logical conclusion by saying that all said, result from the brain, not the mind. Like ideas could be explained in terms of experience Hobbes, Gassendi concluded that all that exists is and associative principles. He said that even the matter, and this includes all aspects of humans. In most complex ideas could be reduced to simpler his book Man a Machine, La Mettrie proposed that ones. John Stuart Mill disagreed with his father’s humans and nonhuman animals differ only in degree contention that simple ideas remained intact as of complexity and that both could be understood as they combined into more complex ones. He main- machines. If we viewed ourselves as part of nature, tained that at least some simple ideas underwent a said La Mettrie, we would be less inclined to abuse fusion and that the complex idea they produce the environment, nonhuman animals, and our fellow
174 CHAPTER 5 humans. Condillac, using the example of a sentient proper object of study. Comte suggested that cultures statue with only the sense of smell, the ability to re- progressed through three stages in their attempt to member, and the ability to feel pleasure and pain, explain phenomena: the theological, the metaphysi- proposed to show that all human cognitive and emo- cal, and the scientific. Comte did not believe psychol- tional experience could be explained; thus, there was ogy could become a science because studying the no need to postulate an autonomous mind. Helvétius mind required using the unreliable method of intro- applied empiricism and sensationalism to the realm of spection. People, he said, could be objectively studied education, saying that by controlling experience, you by observing their overt behavior or through phreno- control the content of the mind. logical analysis. Years following Comte, Mach pro- With the widespread success of science, some posed another type of positivism based on the people believed that science could solve all problems phenomenological experiences of scientists. For and answer all questions. Such a belief was called sci- Mach, the job of the scientist was to precisely describe entism, and it was very much like a religious belief. the relationships among cognitive events. Mach’s Accepting scientism, Comte created a position called brand of positivism allowed (even depended on) in- positivism, according to which only scientific infor- trospective analysis; Comte’s did not. Like Comte, mation could be considered valid. Anything not pub- Mach wanted to rid science of metaphysical licly observable was suspect and was rejected as a speculation. DISCUSSION QUESTIONS 1. Define empiricism. What was it in other phi- 10. Discuss the function of the faculty of imagina- losophies that the empiricists opposed most? tion in Hume’s philosophy. 2. Discuss why Hobbes can accurately be referred 11. Discuss the associative principles of contiguity, to as an empiricist, a mechanist, and a materialist. resemblance, and cause and effect as Hume 3. What functions did Hobbes see government as used them. having? 12. Summarize Hume’s analysis of causation. 4. What was Hobbes’s explanation of human 13. How did Hume define mind? Self? motivation? 14. What, for Hume, were the ultimate determi- 5. Explain why it is incorrect to say that Locke nants of behavior? Explain. postulated a passive mind. List a few powers of 15. Did Hume believe in a physical world beyond the mind that Locke postulated. subjective reality? If so, what did he say we 6. According to Locke, what was the difference could know about that world? between primary and secondary qualities? How 16. What was Hartley’s philosophical goal? did the paradox of the basins demonstrate this difference? 17. Summarize Hartley’s explanation of association. 7. How did Locke use the laws of association in 18. How, according to Hartley, was involuntary his philosophy? behavior transformed into voluntary behavior? 8. Explain Berkeley’s statement “To be is to be 19. What part did the emotions play in Hartley’s perceived.” Did Berkeley deny the existence of philosophy? external reality? Explain. 20. Summarize James Mill’s version of association- 9. Summarize Berkeley’s explanation of distance ism. Why is it believed that Mill’s treatment of perception. associationism exposed its absurdity?
EM PIRICISM, SENSATIONALISM, AND POSITIVISM 175 21. Compare the “mental physics” of James Mill 29. What did La Mettrie believe humans and with the “mental chemistry” of his son John nonhuman animals have in common? Stuart Mill. 30. Why did La Mettrie believe accepting a mate- 22. Why did J. S. Mill believe a science of human rialistic philosophy would result in a better, nature was possible? What would characterize more humane world? such a science in its early stages of develop- 31. How did Condillac use the analogy of a sen- ment? In its later stages? Include in your answer tient statue to explain the origin of human a discussion of primary and secondary laws. mental processes? Give the examples of how 23. Discuss J. S. Mill’s proposed science of ethology. attention, feeling, comparison, and surprise Why did efforts to develop such a science fail? develop. 24. What was Bain’s philosophical goal? 32. How did Helvétius apply empiricism and sen- 25. Summarize Bain’s contributions to psychology. sationalism to education? Include in your answer the new laws of asso- 33. What did Comte mean by positivism? ciation that he added and his explanation of 34. Describe the stages that Comte believed cul- how spontaneous activity is transformed into tures (and individuals) went through in the way voluntary behavior. they attempted to explain phenomena. 26. What were the major features of French 35. Did Comte believe psychology could be a sensationalism? science? Why or why not? 27. In what ways was Gassendi’s philosophy similar 36. What, according to Comte, are two valid ways to Hobbes’s? of studying humans? 28. Why did La Mettrie believe that it was inap- 37. Compare Mach’s version of positivism with propriate to separate the mind and body? Comte’s. SU GGE STIONS FOR FURTHER READING Armstrong, D. M. (Ed.). (1965). Berkeley’s philosophical Grayling, A. C. (1986). Berkeley: The central arguments. writings. New York: Macmillan. LaSalle, IL: Open Court. Berman, J. (1999). Berkeley. New York: Routledge. Greenway, A. P. (1973). The incorporation of action Bricke, J. (1974). Hume’s associationist psychology. into associationism: The psychology of Alexander Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences,10, 397– Bain. Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences,9, 409. 42–52. Condillac, E. B. de (2001). Essay on the origin of human Herbert, G. B. (1989). Thomas Hobbes: The unity of sci- knowledge (H. Aarsleff, Ed. & Trans.). New York: entific and moral wisdom. Vancouver: University of Cambridge University Press. (Original work pub- British Columbia Press. lished 1746) Hobbes, T. (1962). Leviathan. New York: Macmillan. Dancy, J. (1987). Berkeley: An introduction. New York: (Original work published 1651) Basil Blackwell. La Mettrie, J. O. de. (1912). L’Homme machine (Man a Flew, A. (Ed.). (1962). David Hume: On human nature and Machine). (M. W. Calkins, Trans.). La Salle, IL: the understanding. New York: Macmillan. Open Court. (Original work published 1748) Gaskin, J. C. A. (1998). David Hume: Principal writings on Locke, J. (1974). An essay concerning human understanding. religion. New York: Oxford University Press. A. D. Woozley (Ed.). New York: New American Library. (Original work published 1706)
Search
Read the Text Version
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10
- 11
- 12
- 13
- 14
- 15
- 16
- 17
- 18
- 19
- 20
- 21
- 22
- 23
- 24
- 25
- 26
- 27
- 28
- 29
- 30
- 31
- 32
- 33
- 34
- 35
- 36
- 37
- 38
- 39
- 40
- 41
- 42
- 43
- 44
- 45
- 46
- 47
- 48
- 49
- 50
- 51
- 52
- 53
- 54
- 55
- 56
- 57
- 58
- 59
- 60
- 61
- 62
- 63
- 64
- 65
- 66
- 67
- 68
- 69
- 70
- 71
- 72
- 73
- 74
- 75
- 76
- 77
- 78
- 79
- 80
- 81
- 82
- 83
- 84
- 85
- 86
- 87
- 88
- 89
- 90
- 91
- 92
- 93
- 94
- 95
- 96
- 97
- 98
- 99
- 100
- 101
- 102
- 103
- 104
- 105
- 106
- 107
- 108
- 109
- 110
- 111
- 112
- 113
- 114
- 115
- 116
- 117
- 118
- 119
- 120
- 121
- 122
- 123
- 124
- 125
- 126
- 127
- 128
- 129
- 130
- 131
- 132
- 133
- 134
- 135
- 136
- 137
- 138
- 139
- 140
- 141
- 142
- 143
- 144
- 145
- 146
- 147
- 148
- 149
- 150
- 151
- 152
- 153
- 154
- 155
- 156
- 157
- 158
- 159
- 160
- 161
- 162
- 163
- 164
- 165
- 166
- 167
- 168
- 169
- 170
- 171
- 172
- 173
- 174
- 175
- 176
- 177
- 178
- 179
- 180
- 181
- 182
- 183
- 184
- 185
- 186
- 187
- 188
- 189
- 190
- 191
- 192
- 193
- 194
- 195
- 196
- 197
- 198
- 199
- 200
- 201
- 202
- 203
- 204
- 205
- 206
- 207
- 208
- 209
- 210
- 211
- 212
- 213
- 214
- 215
- 216
- 217
- 218
- 219
- 220
- 221
- 222
- 223
- 224
- 225
- 226
- 227
- 228
- 229
- 230
- 231
- 232
- 233
- 234
- 235
- 236
- 237
- 238
- 239
- 240
- 241
- 242
- 243
- 244
- 245
- 246
- 247
- 248
- 249
- 250
- 251
- 252
- 253
- 254
- 255
- 256
- 257
- 258
- 259
- 260
- 261
- 262
- 263
- 264
- 265
- 266
- 267
- 268
- 269
- 270
- 271
- 272
- 273
- 274
- 275
- 276
- 277
- 278
- 279
- 280
- 281
- 282
- 283
- 284
- 285
- 286
- 287
- 288
- 289
- 290
- 291
- 292
- 293
- 294
- 295
- 296
- 297
- 298
- 299
- 300
- 301
- 302
- 303
- 304
- 305
- 306
- 307
- 308
- 309
- 310
- 311
- 312
- 313
- 314
- 315
- 316
- 317
- 318
- 319
- 320
- 321
- 322
- 323
- 324
- 325
- 326
- 327
- 328
- 329
- 330
- 331
- 332
- 333
- 334
- 335
- 336
- 337
- 338
- 339
- 340
- 341
- 342
- 343
- 344
- 345
- 346
- 347
- 348
- 349
- 350
- 351
- 352
- 353
- 354
- 355
- 356
- 357
- 358
- 359
- 360
- 361
- 362
- 363
- 364
- 365
- 366
- 367
- 368
- 369
- 370
- 371
- 372
- 373
- 374
- 375
- 376
- 377
- 378
- 379
- 380
- 381
- 382
- 383
- 384
- 385
- 386
- 387
- 388
- 389
- 390
- 391
- 392
- 393
- 394
- 395
- 396
- 397
- 398
- 399
- 400
- 401
- 402
- 403
- 404
- 405
- 406
- 407
- 408
- 409
- 410
- 411
- 412
- 413
- 414
- 415
- 416
- 417
- 418
- 419
- 420
- 421
- 422
- 423
- 424
- 425
- 426
- 427
- 428
- 429
- 430
- 431
- 432
- 433
- 434
- 435
- 436
- 437
- 438
- 439
- 440
- 441
- 442
- 443
- 444
- 445
- 446
- 447
- 448
- 449
- 450
- 451
- 452
- 453
- 454
- 455
- 456
- 457
- 458
- 459
- 460
- 461
- 462
- 463
- 464
- 465
- 466
- 467
- 468
- 469
- 470
- 471
- 472
- 473
- 474
- 475
- 476
- 477
- 478
- 479
- 480
- 481
- 482
- 483
- 484
- 485
- 486
- 487
- 488
- 489
- 490
- 491
- 492
- 493
- 494
- 495
- 496
- 497
- 498
- 499
- 500
- 501
- 502
- 503
- 504
- 505
- 506
- 507
- 508
- 509
- 510
- 511
- 512
- 513
- 514
- 515
- 516
- 517
- 518
- 519
- 520
- 521
- 522
- 523
- 524
- 525
- 526
- 527
- 528
- 529
- 530
- 531
- 532
- 533
- 534
- 535
- 536
- 537
- 538
- 539
- 540
- 541
- 542
- 543
- 544
- 545
- 546
- 547
- 548
- 549
- 550
- 551
- 552
- 553
- 554
- 555
- 556
- 557
- 558
- 559
- 560
- 561
- 562
- 563
- 564
- 565
- 566
- 567
- 568
- 569
- 570
- 571
- 572
- 573
- 574
- 575
- 576
- 577
- 578
- 579
- 580
- 581
- 582
- 583
- 584
- 585
- 586
- 587
- 588
- 589
- 590
- 591
- 592
- 593
- 594
- 595
- 596
- 597
- 598
- 599
- 600
- 601
- 602
- 603
- 604
- 605
- 606
- 607
- 608
- 609
- 610
- 611
- 612
- 613
- 614
- 615
- 616
- 617
- 618
- 619
- 620
- 621
- 622
- 623
- 624
- 625
- 626
- 627
- 628
- 629
- 630
- 631
- 632
- 633
- 634
- 635
- 636
- 637
- 638
- 639
- 640
- 641
- 642
- 643
- 644
- 645
- 646
- 647
- 648
- 649
- 650
- 651
- 652
- 653
- 654
- 655
- 656
- 657
- 658
- 659
- 660
- 661
- 662
- 663
- 664
- 665
- 666
- 667
- 668
- 669
- 670
- 671
- 672
- 673
- 674
- 675
- 676
- 677
- 678
- 679
- 680
- 681
- 682
- 683
- 684
- 685
- 686
- 687
- 688
- 689
- 690
- 691
- 692
- 693
- 694
- 695
- 696
- 697
- 698
- 699
- 700
- 701
- 702
- 703
- 704
- 705
- 706
- 707
- 708
- 709
- 710
- 711
- 712
- 713
- 714
- 715
- 716
- 717
- 718
- 719
- 720
- 721
- 722
- 723
- 724
- 725
- 726
- 727
- 728
- 729
- 730
- 731
- 732
- 733
- 734
- 735
- 736
- 737
- 738
- 739
- 740
- 741
- 742
- 743
- 744
- 745
- 746
- 747
- 748
- 749
- 750
- 751
- 752
- 753
- 1 - 50
- 51 - 100
- 101 - 150
- 151 - 200
- 201 - 250
- 251 - 300
- 301 - 350
- 351 - 400
- 401 - 450
- 451 - 500
- 501 - 550
- 551 - 600
- 601 - 650
- 651 - 700
- 701 - 750
- 751 - 753
Pages:
