The Developing Viewpoints

Transcription

1 Chapter 2 The Developing Viewpoints

2 The Developing Viewpoints In the second chapter of the book From Skinner to Rogers; Contrasting Approaches to Education by Frank Milhollan and Bill E. Forisha, the authors discuss the progression of two schools of thought i.e. behaviorism and phenomenology in their historical context. The main concepts of the chapter are: Man has always been curious about himself. He questioned: What am I? How did I come to be what I am? He saw moving things and gradually attributed spirit or soul to them, i.e. fire, water, clouds, plants animism. Causality is first step to understand things and humans for children may come to believe trees make the wind blow. The inner agents or spirit accounted for living animals and humans for mobility; for they thought when spirit or soul left the body, they became immoveable or dead. Psyche in Greek mean soul, therefore term came psychology. Later on, they tried to understand the relationship of inner man (mind) to body psychology thus studied mind-body problem or study of mind. Philosophers put questions while inquiring into the universe; how can we know? How do we know? They concluded knowledge came through two processes; Knowledge achieved through senses (objectivity) Knowledge achieved through reason (rationality) They became familiar with objectivity and subjectivity. Some pondered over the ultimate or absolute reality through reason. Socrates considered the effort of knowing ultimate reality futile and thus turned to obtainable knowledge i.e. knowledge of the self which led to virtuous life. Plato specified the areas of mind and matter (body): ideas could be revealed by reason and things by mind, and he concluded ideas as permanent, perfect, changeless, and absolute, while, matter (things) he saw perishable, imperfect and changeable.

3 Aristotle found no sharp distinction between mind and matter. Over the centuries, philosophers debated; Does man have the freedom of choice or not? (Phenomenology vs behaviorism) Descartes ( ) tried to resolve the conflict between science and religion (though never fulfilled) and he developed views about the nature of man that were to have far-reaching effects: Principles of physics could be applied to understand the nature of body. (activities of muscles, process of respiration and even sensation etc) Man is composed of two substances; soul and body itself. He related that both interacted; body affects mind and vice versa. He distinguished man from animals for having freedom of thought and actions, whereas animals thought and actions were determined (heredity) i.e. Freedom vs Determinism started. It is still a philosophical issue. He believed in the existence of innate ideas in human. Ideas were not driven from experience i.e. concept of god, self, space, time, motion, etc were all subjective and innate ideas. His concept of freedom vs determinism aroused long standing debate of nature vs nurture, or heredity vs environment, or Nativism vs Empiricism. Nature or heredity or Nativism is called instinct psychology; it holds that behavior depends on instincts, with minimum role of environment. Whereas, nurture or environment or empiricism implied that behavior depends upon experience or interaction with environment. Thomas Hobbes: Human conduct is dominated by reason (rational). Man s behavior was seen as planned and foreseen through intellectual considerations rather than by chance or by non-rational feelings, emotions, and accidents. He gave basic principle of associationism i.e. one idea follows another not by chance but by law. Hobbes psychology was entirely mechanistic, materialistic, and deterministic. John Locke ( )

4 How do we know? answered through senses. He was founder of British-Empiricism (experience but not experiments is the source of knowledge self consciousness). He opposed Descartes innate ideas and suggested that all knowledge comes to us through our senses. Ideas were not inborn but came from experience. He described man s intellect (mind) as tabula rasa a blank tablet where sensory experience made its marks. He was influenced by the work of Newton. Also spoke of connections or associationism (history of associationism dates back to Aristotle; one thing reminds you of another. A reminds B, then relation is similarity, however other relations might be contrast, and contiguity (nearness) etc. Forming or compounding of complex ideas out of simple ones is mind s operation. Gottfried Leibnitz He opposed Locke s views and propounded concept of monad. Monads are dynamic, continuously active and developing according to their own laws. They are not influenced by external (environmental) effect and are independent therefore no causes. A monad is like a perfect watch. Two such watches agree but have no cause-effect relationship. Cause is illusory. Harmony in nature because harmony in the laws of monads. Mind and body are example of monads. The monads are inner determinant of behavior. Man is generator of ideas. Locke and Leibnitz clearly and distinctly, and oppositely spoke of or supported concepts of behaviorism and phenomenology. Locke attacked on rational psychology (knowledge comes through intuition and deductions based on the premise that soul is the source of perfect knowledge and ultimate reality) Contrary to Locke s view, positive movement or positivism emerged (subjectivity). It led to a psychology that was empirical but not rational as they believe that behavior depends upon experience and interaction with environment. The environmental influences could be controlled and measured therefore it was empirical in nature. However, according to British Empiricism, behavior could not be empirical and

5 experimental as it occurs as a consequence of the combination of environmental influences and person s unique perceptions or meanings attached to it. This led to another contrasting school of thought believing that a person s experience or perception or personal meaning attached to an experience is the only source of knowledge and reality (phenomenology, observation and experience are tools and sources of knowledge and data collection). George Berkeley ( ) claimed that all knowledge is derived from sensation and no other source i.e. solidity and all other qualities can only be known through sensation. An apple is nothing but all sensation (no matter). David Hume ( ) worked on existence of thinking self and causality but could not found them and discarded. However, he found in a man, there is nothing but love or hate, pleasure or pain, light or shade etc. Causality is illusory and product of mind. He supported subjectivity and claimed there was no objectivity. British Associationism (Locke and his successors; Hobbes, Berkeley, Hume, and Daniel Hartley supported): It asserts that learning and the development of higher mental processes consist mainly in the combinations of supposedly irreducible mental elements (perceptions). Hertley formulated the basic doctrine: there are two orders of events the mental and the physical. They are not identical but run parallel; a change in one results a change in the other. Sensations (things) and ideas (perceptions) are directly connected. If A is associated with B, C, & D in sensory experience (things A, B, C, D.), taken alone A will tend to rouse the idea of B, C, & D. It was possible to account for all mental functions through associationism. No matter how complex they were (for example learning through classical and operant conditioning in human life) Faculty Psychology Christian Wolff ( )

6 Mind has distinct faculties. Basic ones are: knowing, feeling, and willing. Knowing includes or divided into perception, imagination, memory, and pure reason. Faculties are present at birth and education can develop their functioning. Immanuel Kant Wrote book: Critique of Pure Reason World we know is the world of order which is not influenced by experience, but it (order) must come from mind itself. The mind instead of reflecting the order in our external world imposes its own laws upon nature. Experience is product of things and of the mind. Experience begins when things act upon the senses, but then (mind s) elaboratory machinery works which makes it impossible for us to know things as they are. We know them (things) as influenced by our thoughts therefore: Nature can never be discovered. Reality as exist outside our experience is forever beyond our reach. It is impossible to know the soul, as it is (external) the world. Therefore, rational psychology claiming to have direct knowledge of the soul is impossible. Effect of Kant reaffirmed subjectivism and importance of mental phenomenon, therefore, in Germany, it was natural to experimental psychology to become science of consciousness (phenomenology), whereas, in England, Russia, America, it remained objective (behaviorism). Between 1800 to1860 physiologists and physicists contributed to psychology therefore studying nervous system and sensation. Wilhelm Wundt He was pioneer of experimental physiological psychology and established first psychology-laboratory in Leipzig, Germany, in (Psychology became as science), however Gustav Fechner s book Elements of Psychophysics was the beginning of experimental psychology, in Wundt s psychology is known as Structuralism :

7 It was an attempt to study the structure of the mind, and to search for mental elements into which all mental contents could be analyzed. Such an element could be sensation which could bring the experience of green, sour, cold etc. To search for other elements and their rules of combination, they used introspection-method : Subjects were exposed to a physical stimulus and they analyzed their state of awareness. Subjects reported the results. For this purpose they were trained to possibly state their awareness/ consciousness objectively. It was anticipated that mental experience would be reconstructed from elementary sensations. Wundt s psychology could not get momentum in Europe and America, for Europeans were not interested in applied psychology, whereas, Americans were interested in the practical uses of psychology, also others objected to subjective aspect of structuralism. Consequently two new movements emerged, one of these known as behaviorism that followed Locke s tradition of environmentalism and sensory stimuli of knowledge through senses. While, another contrasting one as Leibnitzian tradition, and is referred to as Gestalt psychology or Phenomenology focusing on one s internal and subjective perceptions, and understanding.