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Fundamentals of Psychology - Lecture Notes

- The document summarizes a lecture on the history of psychology from prehistory to classical antiquity. It discusses key developments like the origins of language and representation, and the rise of philosophy in ancient Greece. - It contrasts the rationalist and empiricist positions of Plato and Aristotle. Plato believed knowledge comes from reason and innate ideas, while Aristotle was the founding father of empiricism, believing knowledge comes from observation and experience. - The lecture discusses how these differing views of epistemology, or how we gain knowledge, have been a recurring theme in the history of philosophy and psychology.

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100% found this document useful (1 vote)
2K views53 pages

Fundamentals of Psychology - Lecture Notes

- The document summarizes a lecture on the history of psychology from prehistory to classical antiquity. It discusses key developments like the origins of language and representation, and the rise of philosophy in ancient Greece. - It contrasts the rationalist and empiricist positions of Plato and Aristotle. Plato believed knowledge comes from reason and innate ideas, while Aristotle was the founding father of empiricism, believing knowledge comes from observation and experience. - The lecture discusses how these differing views of epistemology, or how we gain knowledge, have been a recurring theme in the history of philosophy and psychology.

Uploaded by

Eva Beunk
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Fundamentals of Psychology - lectures

Lecture 1: Riet van Bork


The first questions: prehistory and the classical antiquity (chapter 1)
 What is this course about?
Big questions!
History of psychology: how did we get where we are now?
Philosophy of mind: how does the mental world relate to the physical world? (mind-brain)
Philosophy of science: What is scientific?
Psychology and society: how does science relate to the world around us?
The aim of this course is to make you aware of the roots of our thinking.
You need people to move forward, to improve things. But you also need people to look back: why are
we doing what we’re doing? Suske & Wiske time machine; used to go forward or back.
Book: Brysbaert & Rastle, Historical and Conceptual issues in psychology.
Articles on Canvas. Two partial exams. Essay. Exercises.
Learning goals:
- Explain the views of the most important thinkers in the history and philosophy of psychology
- Point out the main question in the most important foundational problems and describe
possible answers to this question
- Independently form an opinion about fundamental issues
Book lends itself well for individual reading. All exam material, except for chapter 12. You have to
study both for the exam.
Where to start? This course tells the story of how humanity discovers science, and eventually turns it
on itself. So, this story starts with the beginning of humanity. Homo sapiens: man who knows.

 Prehistory
No deciphered written sources from this era. Ancient Egypt was for a long time part of prehistory.
Now we know, so now it’s gone from prehistory to history.
The beginning of language: important for science. Started in eastern Africa. 50.000 years ago. 40.000
years ago: cultural explosion, then also images. Image. Started to use words. Then  writing.
Independently of each other in China, Europe, America. Stone of Rosetta brought Ancient Egypt into
history. Contained three translations/languages: Egyption, hierogliefen and another one.
Then  numbers. Now thoughts and relations not only in images and words, but also in relation
between numbers.
What do all these inventions share with each other? They all use science to depict meaning.
Man discovers representation, in which things are denoted with symbols and relations between
things are represented with relations between symbols.
In this period of time, with language a representation can be brought from one head to another.
With writing, representations can be brought into someone’s head without the other being
physically present.
It becomes possible to have shared representations: ideas can easily spread and can also be
sustained over generations.
Religion becomes possible! You can believe the same thing. And money: shared belief of the value
of the coins. And also: complex social structures.
Forward in time: still very important in philosophy. When you have representations, it suddenly
stands out that some of these are “correct” and others are not. We thus get the concept of “truth”.
The question of what it is that makes some representations true and others false is a central issue in
philosophy. This part of philosophy concerns “theories of truth”.
The meaning of representations is a guiding theme in the philosophy from Plato to Wittgenstein. The
fact that your thoughts “relate to something” (they are focused on the world, they are “about
something”) later became known by Brentano as intentionally. A puzzling phenomenon that is not
well-understood. This part of philosophy concerns “theories of meaning”.
 Social developments
Through the discovery of agriculture, man can stay in one place and thus establish settlements. And
produce more food than is needed to feed everyone, so not everyone has to constantly arrange food.
There is a possibility of creating a community in which different people fulfil different roles. A
hierarchy typically emerges, in which higher ranked individuals have time (to come together and talk
about it)
 Greek antiquity

 Classical antiquity
The birth of systematic research in Greece. Now we go into Europe, we don’t leave Europe a lot in
this course. This is because we can’t cover everything, so this choice was made.
Man encounters key questions in philosophy: what’s the world like? (ontology), how do we know
what’s true? (epistemology), what makes some things beautiful and others ugly? (aesthetics) & what
makes some deeds good and some bad? (ethics)
focus on ontology & epistemology, but others are also important questions in science.
Before and after Socrates: thinkers can be distinguished by this.
From the presocrats, we only have smaller pieces of text.
Heraclitus.
Socrates, Plato, Aristotle. Socrates didn’t write anything down, but he is often mentioned in the
works of others. That’s how we know his work.
Philosophy after Aristotle: the stoics, the Epicureans, the skeptics.
Plato = founder of rationalism
Aristotle = founder of empiricism
Socrates’ father was a sculpture. He asked people questions. Just got into philosophy. For him, it
wasn’t so much of having a certain philosophy, but for people to find their ignorance. Find the point
when people couldn’t answer his questions anymore. Downside to this?
Heraclitus (535-475 B.C.)
Heraclitus (“the Obscure”) doubts whether something ever stays the same. “No man ever steps in
the same river twice.” The only constant is change itself. This principle is known as Panta Rhei
(“everything flows”).
This idea had a big influence. Panta Rhei. We will see this back later. William James (psychologist)
saw the mind as something that flows.
Now much of science relies on invariance-principles: e.g. all electrons are interchangeable. But how
about psychology? Can you think the same thing twice? Are there psychological invariances? Are
people interchangeable like electrons? Thought = physical state of brain, then you probably cannot
have the same thought twice. But you can learn the same thought again (for instance when you have
brain damage).

Part II: rationalism and empiricism

 Plato and Aristotle (both after Socrates)


Right: Plato, left: Aristotle. Aristotle was a student of Plato. Age gives it away (image). Plato points up
to the world of ideal forms, transcendental, spiritual “world of forms”. Aristotle points down, to the
earth, the physical world or “world of substance”. Very significant for their philosophies.
 Rationalism and empiricism
Two important positions:
- Rationalism: knowledge comes from reason, ratio
- Empiricism: knowledge comes from sensory experience
These two positions are a recurring theme in the history of psychology and philosophy.

The ultimate rationalist: Plato


Central thesis: knowledge comes (at least in a part) from the ratio (intelligence).
Knowledge is only partly based on observation.
Plato claims that real knowledge (about the good, the true and the beautiful) does not come from
observation.
Knowledge form reason is superior to knowledge from experience. Some knowledge can come from
experience, but this is less important.
Associated claim: there is innate knowledge (nativism)

Plato’s rationalism: what do we see here? A circle. Round. No end. Symmetrical. No corners/infinite
amount. Same distance from middle everywhere. Where did we get this knowledge? Did we see al
kinds of circles, and did we make sure this is a fact? But all objects that are circularly shaped don’t
actually have these properties.
Real knowledge cannot come from observation: after all, we only see imperfect form. Yet we can
“see” perfect forms in our mind. If that idea of a circle doesn’t come from perception, where does it
come from? “idea” and “idee” come from eidos which means form or image.
Plato’s answer: we “remember” these ideas from our divine origin. Knowledge is recognized and
therefore we know it must be true. Our mind is born out of the world of forms, which is a
transcendent world where the perfect forms are. Plato believed in reincarnation, used this to explain
our knowledge of perfect forms… for real knowledge should not turn to empiricism: you should
remember what you already know.
Plato’s cave. Metaphor for how a philosopher can get access to true forms. People are prisoners in a
cave. We can only see the wall in front of us. Behind us: fire. People walk with objects there. Fire
throws a shadow on the wall in front of us. All we see in our lives are shades. Make up words to
describe them. Words for the shadows. Prisoner sent free  blinded by light. Then you start to
recognize the things you’ve seen. In the true world. Then come back to cave. Rough. That’s what
philosophers do.
Nativism is still relevant today. Psychological research suggests that very young children can reason
causally and that babies are surprised when natural laws are violated. Moreover, according to many,
language ability is innate. Contemporary nativism is not rooted in reincarnation but in the evolution
of the brain.

Empiricism
Central thesis: knowledge lies in observation
This is now the common sense view: if you want to know what’s going on, you have to observe.
Associated thesis: if all knowledge comes from experience, there is no need for innate knowledge.
Aristotle
Aristotle is seen as the founding father of empiricism. He was the first to think systematically about
how to gain knowledge from observations.
Rationalist: self-evident axioms cannot be rejected by observations.
But, these axioms are acquired through experience, they are not innate or shown to us before birth.
Aristotle rejects Plato’s two-worlds theory: there is only one world and that one we can observe.
Everything around us consists of form and matter. Matter only has potentiality, no actuality.
The forms are not just something in our heads but are the essence of being.
Peripatetic principle
Aristotle walked around while teaching his lyceum: peripateo in Greek. That’s why Thomas Aquinas
called the empirical principle the peripatetic principle. “Nothing is in the intellect that was not first in
the senses”. Later also known as the tabula rasa theory: the mind is an unwritten tablet (blank slate)
at birth.
We will see the Tabula rasa more often in this course. John Locke became famous with it. John
Watson based his behaviourism on this idea. But also today, the nature-nurture debate still plays a
role in e.g. individual differences in intelligence. So Aristotle’s idea is definitely not dated yet!

Aristotle and truth


Aristotle gives the first definition of truth: “to say of what is that is not, or of what is not that it is, is
false, while to say of what is that it is and of what is not that it is not, is true”
Correspondence theory of truth: true statements “correspond” with states of affairs (situations) in
reality. In psychology this is not trivial: what is the states of affairs that at statement about mental
states corresponds to?

Aristotle’s view on knowledge


What is knowledge based on?
- Sensory experiences: e.g. we observe swans
- Induction: we induce that swans have specific properties
- Logic (combining laws in a way that is truthful): from self-evident laws (the axioms)( we can
deduce theoretical statements using logic.
Logic does not tell us what to think, but how we get from premises to action.

Empiricism, rationalism or both?


Aristotle sees the ability to know (observation and reasoning) as natural qualities of the soul
Knowledge, however, does not spring from the soul but from perception. But knowledge deduced
from self-evident laws is stronger than the observations that contradict this knowledge.
Plato was also willing to admit that some knowledge comes from observation. But he important
knowledge (about the true, the good and the beautiful) comes from the ratio.
Pure empiricism and pure rationalism are mostly two ends of a continuum that are useful to compare
two views that will pass by later in this course.

Hellenistic period
Popular schools get a strong psychological-practical component:
- Stoicism: is it best to minimize your feelings
- Epicureanism: happiness is the ultimate pursuit, which you achieve by living your life as
balanced as possible
- Skepticism: refrain from judgement

These are questions on how do we live; ethical questions.


Rationalism & empiricism is more epistemological questions.
Heraclitus (when are things the same) is an ontological question.

Pyrrho (360-270 B.C.)


Articulates skepticism: maintains that one can never known anything for sure. Springs from a new
quest for justifying knowledge claims. Was the primary motivation for René Descartes (1596-1650): “I
think therefore I am” / cogito ergo sum. Inspiration for David Hume (1711-1777). The freedom to
question anything is a new core value of science

The Romans
Slowly taking over. Ethical views spread easily. Took over culture.
Romans made the inventions of Greeks bigger. They won territory in land, Greeks won territory in
philosophy; their views spread.

Summary
Some of the greatest inventions stem from prehistoric times (language, numbers, representations)
The development of agriculture has made it possible for elites to be exempted from working the land
The Greeks start wondering where knowledge comes from
Rationalism and empiricism are first elementary answers to this question
But it will be many hundreds of years before humans invent the Great Knowledge Machine; The
Scientific Method

Lecture 2: Riet van Bork


The scientific method
The scientific revolution (chapter 2).
 Middle Ages
Dark time in Europe. Plague took 1/3rd of the European population. People trying to survive.
How the medieval worldview differs from ours:
- Church is authority on knowledge: the erath is 6000 years old, man is not an animal, the sun
revolves around the earth, heaven and hell are real (memento mori), thinking does not take
place in the brain and the immaterial mind
- The ancient Greeks knew everything; with Aristotle and the Bible you have nearly all
knowledge
- Scholars therefore have the task to preserve this knowledge rather than to generate
knowledge
- The end of times is nearby (Newton: 2060)
View of Europe, outside it’s very different!
Light in dark times
The Algerian Augustine of Hippo does important philosophical work and gives a first learning theory.
“When grown-ups named some object and at the same time turned towards it, I perceived this, and I
grasped that the thing was signified by the sound they uttered, since they meant to point it out”.
Augustine is also the first to discover the unconscious. “what if memory itself loses anything… where
is the end do we search, but in memory itself? What we have completely forgotten, we cannot even
look for… it is therefore the case that our mind encompasses more than it knows of itself at any
moment”. Augustine also identifies the problem of other minds: how do we know if other people also
have consciousness?
Fast forward in time
His book “on the Trinity” is the first modern philosophy of mind, and he is also the first to introduce
the argument from analogy: as a solution to this problem: The argument from analogy: from analogy,
we can therefore deduce that they have consciousness, just like us. This argument keeps turning up
until the 20th century as an argument in the philosophy of mind. Also plays an important role in the
question of whether computers can have consciousness (lecture 8). Problem isn’t solved yet!
We cannot observe mental states, how can we reason about these states that we don’t observe?
In Europe it’s quiet, but in the Middle East, science flourishes. Scholars like Ibn Al-Haytham do
important work in mathematics and physics. Until the 13 th century, Aristotle was not really part of
philosophy in Europe. Through the Middle East, Christianity began to study Aristotle.
Was reintroduced in Europe, back in Italy; close relationship between the Church and Aristotlian
thinking.
Focus on preserving all the work; treasure the highlights of knowledge. Not a place to learn new
knowledge.
Ptolemaic system: model of how the universe works. All celestial bodies orbit around the earth. Was
1000 years old in the Middle Ages, was widely accepted. But geocentric model (earth in center).
Couldn’t explain observations really well. Because you would accept planets to go up and down
again, instead of Mars looking like it goes forward and then back and then forward again. This model
needs epicycles in order to explain retrograde motion: this results in a complex mathematical model.
Didn’t work.

 Copernicus, Kepler, and Galileo


Nikolaus Copernicus (1473-1543) was the first one to doubt this Ptolemaic system. He was a monk
from Prussia (now Poland), and developed an alternative model for the solar system. This is the
heliocentric model (which was by the way not first conceived by Copernicus but by Aristarchus of
Samos 300 B.C.). he describes this model in 1514, but publishes it only in 1543 (De revolutionibus
orbium celestium). On his deathbed. Now the Sun in the center. Why did he wait for so long? Why
did it take 30 years? Afraid of the Church? Maybe, but at that time the Church didn’t have such a
strong position in this. Scared to be laughed at? Uncertain about the truth of his model? Possibly, he
might have had his own doubts about this model.
Objections:
- The model does not describe the data very well and is as complex as Plotemaic: so what do
we gain?
- Why aren’t we thrown into space if the earth is indeed orbiting the sun?
- If the earth rotates, why does a stone you throw from a tower fall right down?
- Why isn’t the moon also orbiting the sun?
So epicycles also had to be added in this model. Orbiting the sun; must be really fast. Why don’t we
experience this? Why are we the only place that have a moon? (only moon that was known by then.

Galileo Galileï (1564-1642) took Copernicus’ work seriously. He writes a book in Italian in which he
defends the theory. Takes down all objections. Most books were written in Latin, special that this was
written in a “popular” language. Told the story in three characters. With thought experiments and
story. Not very tactical: the foolish figure in the book, Simplicio, represents the view of the church…
In the end, quotes of the pope into the Simplicio figure. Simplicio also refers to simple mind in Italian.
Quite offensive for Church. But still, church didn’t break with him.
Why don’t we feel it? Galileo’s ship. Relativity of motion. In a boat, you don’t notice any effects of
boat moving or standing still, so long as the motion is uniform/constant speed. You don’t experience
movement because it’s relative to something. In the boat, it’s not relative to something. Drop
something from mast on boat, seems like it goes straight down. Actually, you’re giving it motion.
Galileo disproves counter-arguments to Copernican theory. Inspiration for relativity theory of
Einstein. He did experiments and described movement of falling objects. the mathematical
description as a parabola was inspiration for Newton.
Very proud of this, but gets overconfident maybe. “I have been twice as good a philosopher as those
others because they,…”  also says that others have been lying about their experiments.
Back in time
Compare Galileo to Aristotle, who rejected the experiment. Recognizing the value of experiment is a
big step forward. Galileo is credited with the insight that artificial conditions provide insight in the
natural world. An important theme in psychology: see e.g. discussions on ecological validity.
Galileo learns that Christiaan Huygens has built a telescope. He manages to get a building and build
one within a week! Galileo will be the first man to point a telescope at the sky.
Galileo observes that Venus has phases and thus must orbit the sun!
Jupiter has moons! Was also found, so Earth isn’t the only planet that has moons.
And also: there are mountains on the moon. Aristotle tries to show that other celestrial bodies are
different from earth… Wrong! Moon isn’t just a flat, smooth disc. Darker spots were explained by the
fact that not all places on the moon shine as bright of a light. This showed that Aristotle also made
mistakes: maybe not everything had been learned!
The shadow of Aristotle
In the Middle Ages, after his rediscovery, Aristotle was almost sacred: it was believed that he had
everything right. According to Brysbaert & Rastle, Galileo’s observation that there are mountains on
the moon was extremely important, mostly because it showed that Aristotle was fallible. Galileo
shows that there’s still a lot of news to discover, a tremendous shock for the medievalist!
Better visibility!
The idea that you see something better with an instrument than with your eyes is revolutionary and
viewed with suspicion. Cesare Cremonini, professor in Aristotelian philosophy at the University of
Padua, didn’t want to look through the telescope: “I do not wish to approve of claims about which I
do not have any knowledge, and about things I have not seen… And then to observe through those
glasses gives me a headache. Enough! I do not want to hear anything more about this”
Galileo’s response
He thought people were just stupid: “My dear Kepler, I wish that we might laugh at the remarkable
stupidity of the common herd. What do you have to say about the principle philosophers of this
academy who are filled with the stubbornness of an ass and do not want to look at either the
planets, the moon or the telescope, even though I have freely and deliberately offered them the
opportunity a thousand times? Truly, just as the ass stops its ears, so do these philosophers shut
their eyes to the light of truth!”

Kepler (1571-1630) has access to enormous amounts of measurements on the orbits of planets. He
discovers that planets describe ellipses instead of circles. This suddenly makes the heliocentric model
much simpler than the Ptolemaic model. the first great triumph of the new science: the earth
revolves around the sun!
Conflict with the pope
Pope Urbanus hears about Galileo’s heresy. He puts Galileo under house arrest. This is where the
break occurs between science and church. Galileo dies in 1642 as a prisoner. Exactly 350 years later,
in 1992, Johannes Paulus II admits that Galileo was right…

Galileo did two fundamentally different things: he described things in mathematic formulas
(parabolas) and he started doing experiments. What he didn’t do: articulate what the scientific
method is, what are the rules on how to do science? That has been attributed to Francis Bacon
 Francis Bacon and the scientific method
Francis Bacon (1561-1626). What’s a science’s secret recipe? Francis Bacon articulates for the first
time the scientific method as a combination of observation and reasoning. This starts with a
psychological insight: Bacon sees that human psychology interferes with finding the truth. We
ourselves are in the way of gaining knowledge.
Categorizing fallacies, errors we make in perception and our understanding of the world. Use a
scientific method rather than our own perception.
- Idols of the tribe: fallacies that all humans commit, and that are inherent to human nature.
We all tend to make typical human mistakes (visual illusion). These are idols that all humans
suffer from. Seeing order and regularity where it is not. Seeking confirmation and ignoring
refutations of what you believe; e.g. sailors who value the power of their prayers highly.
Fast forward in time
In the 20th century, Bacon’s biases are partly rediscovered and studied by psychologists: illusory
correlations & confirmation bias. So actually, Bacon brings psychology into scientific thinking.
- Idols of the cave: fallacies we commit because we belong to a certain culture, have certain
interests and habits (and are not the same for all people). Things you don’t actually believe
because you have a lot of evidence for it but rather because many people around you believe
it. E.g. “men are smarter than women”, or prejudices in education.
- Idols of the marketplace: fallacies we commit because we can talk about things. The ill and
unfit choice of words wonderfully obstructs the understanding. For example, some words
don’t refer to anything, such as “witch”. But, language treats such nouns as if they do refer to
existing things. This can sometimes lead us to mistakenly think that these things are existing.
Important for psychology: children’s stories. Jip & Janneke and the calender. Rip off all January pages.
Mom says: but now it’s February, dad’s birthday is in January, now it can’t be dad’s birthday
anymore.  Reification.
Fast Forward in time
Reification is an important problem in thinking about psychological concepts. Res = thinking, facere =
to make sure. We tend to assume that nouns (‘intelligence’, ‘depression’) refer to something that
really exists. As a result, we easily assign all kinds of properties: if something exists, it must exist
somewhere, so psychological properties are in the head. This can be very problematic. Searching for
disorders in the brain
- Idols of the Theatre: fallacies we commit because we believe what authorities say. Bacon
gives the example of old philosophical schools like those of Aristotle and Plato. Bacon
criticizes the Ancient Greeks without holding back.
Aristotle a true empiricist? Francis Bacon was very critical of him. “For he didn’t consult experience,
as he should have done, on the way to his decisions and first principles; rather, he first decided what
his position would be, and then brought in experience, twisting it to his views and making it captive.”
Bacon accuses Aristotle of selecting those observations that support his theories. Many of Aristotle’s
theory do not seem to be based on observations. Aristotle doesn’t use observations to test theories.
Fast forward in time
Bacon’s ideas remain highly relevant. Again and again, sensible people give in to the “idols”. Science
relies on admitting the human deficit, not denying it. Science has basically institutionalized Bacon’s
distrust.
Examples of institutionalized distrust: experiment, statistical tests, peer review, replication studies.
Show me! That was a coincidence! An expert would easily prove you wrong! That wouldn’t work a
second time!
Much of the methods that we learn, deal with these fallacies.
Bacon’s new method: Novum Organum
Bacon argues that we should overcome prejudices (“idols”) by following a methodology. This
methodology is normative: the researcher must adhere to certain rules of the game. Essentially, the
Novum Organum is the first real methodology book.

Empiricism and rationalism


Theory and empiricism go hand in hand for Bacon. Because we cannot trust ourselves, we must
always test theories against observations. Bacon stresses the value of experiment: the nature of
things betrays itself more readily under the vexations of art than its natural freedom: twist the lion’s
tail! (the scientific method is provocative rather than passive, that’s why they say twist the lion’s tail)
Empiricism and rationalism become integrated. He also suggests procedures that read like a
handbook on experimental design. Good science uses rational inference when constructing theories
and derives empirical predictions from them.
Experiment  draw conclusions  theory  deduce predictions  experiment.
Empirical cycle, inspiration for A.D. De Groot (1914-2006)

 Newton as an anchor
Isaac Newton (1643-1727) brings the scientific approach to physics to perfection. He integrates the
insights of Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler and others into one great theory. This theory is “exact”: it is
written almost entirely in the language of mathematics: this is new and makes a big impression.
The Principia Mathematica marks the second big triumph in science. With simple principles (“laws”),
Newton explains an enormously rich spectrum of phenomena. The planets turn out to follow the
same laws as tennis balls. Never before has such a powerful theory of nature been put forward.
Fast forward in time
Newton set the ultimate example for many researchers. Much of what comes after is response to his
work. Immanuel Kant, whom we will encounter in ch3, is investigating the possibility of Newtonian
psychology. Still some psychologists measure up to the Principia. This sometimes leads to so-called
physics envy.

 Summary
The scientific revolution has completely transformed our view of nature. Our present society is built
on its fruits. Francis Bacon sees that our psychological constitution stand sin the way of gaining
knowledge and he is the first to articulate the scientific method. Newton’s Principia is the crowning
glory of the work and is an anchor point for “what science is”: can psychology do the same?

Lecture 3: Riet van Bork


Predecessors of psychology
Rationalism and Empiricism: a second round
Predecessors pf psychology: 17th and 18th century developments (ch. 3)
Last lecture, before we look at psychology as a separate discipline.

 René Descartes’ method: Cartesian doubt


René Descartes (1596-1650). “In my college days I discovered that nothing can be imagined which is
too strange or incredible to have been said by some philosopher”. “Nothing solid could have been
built upon such shaky foundations”.
What do you really know for sure?
Descartes’ method of doubt. Refute everything, except for what you know to be definitely true.
A malicious genius might be fooling you (you’re sort of in The Matrix). But “I doubt” is also true when
you’re in The Matrix. “I doubt” is therefore true with absolute certainty! First principle of philosophy.
He continues: I doubt, so there’s something that is doubting. I call that something “the mind”. I
cannot doubt the existence of this mind. The mind is not material. After all, you can doubt anything
that is material. The mind thus exists separately from the body: dualism.
A lot of reasoning, thought-provocative.
He goes even further: I doubt, I am not perfect. So where do I get the idea of perfection? I could have
made up less perfect things, but not more perfect things. That idea of perfection must have been
placed in me by something more perfect than me. Whoever placed that idea of perfection in me
must have himself/herself all the perfection that I have ideas of. That is to say, in a single word,
which was God. He “proves” that God exists here.
Since God is not perceived, the idea of God must be innate. With this, Descartes follows Plato and
opposites Aristotle. Because God is perfect, God will not fool us: the world we perceive outside of us,
exists!

 The introduction of the mind-body problem


Descartes’ dualism
The mind-body problem: what is the relationship between mind and body? Descartes believes he has
proven that the mind is a separate substance. The body, however, he sees as a machine. The mind
controls the body; thus body and mind must interact. But how does the mind receive information
from perception, and how does the mind influence the body?
In this way, Descartes creates the problem of interaction: how does an immaterial substance (the
mind) interact with a material one (the brain)? Does the mind wrap itself around a neuron to make it
fire? Does the mind change the entropy of the brain? How does the mind receive signals if it has no
material structure?
According to later developed physics, Descartes’ dualism cannot be right. A mind that controls the
brain must set something in motion but the mind itself is immaterial and does not fall under the laws
of physics. That would mean that the (Cartesian) mind violates the Law of Conservation of Energy.
Moreover, it is now clear that all kinds of traditional “mental” properties can be influenced by e.g.
neurosurgery.
Descartes is actually in all aspects a materialistic and mechanistic thinker, except for “the soul”. This
tends to inconsistency. A complete implementation of mechanistic thinking odes not sit well with the
idea that the body interacts with an immaterial substance. But, beware of hindsight bias: Descartes
couldn’t foresee how physics and neuroscience would proceed…

Fast Forward in Time


The mind-body problem is still an open problem. It is one of the main themes of 20 th century
philosophy. Descartes’ substance-dualism (in which the mind is an immaterial yet causally effective
substance) has been widely rejected. However, there is no agreement on the alternative.
Note that rejecting dualism easily leads to materialism, but does not need to imply reductionism.
Reductionism is the view that theories of mental properties can be reduced to neuroscientific
theories. Most philosophers are not dualists at the moment, but also not reductionists - more about
that later.

Rationalism?
Descartes, like Plato, views reason rather than experience as the primary source of secure
knowledge. Descartes is therefore a rationalist. This will be soil for the return of empiricism.
After Descartes: the pendulum swings back again…
 The British Empiricists: the return of the Tabula Rasa
The British Empiricists:
- John Locke (1632-1704)
- George Berkeley (1685-1753)
- David Hume (1711-1776)
They believe that knowledge enters us through the senses, so through perception.

John Locke (1632-1704): he finds rationalism, with its theories of innate ideas, unacceptable. He tries
to refute rationalism with psychological observations. Rationalists often rely on universal moral
principles. Again, Locke tries to refute this theory with psychological observations: we don’t find
these ‘universal’ principles in children and fools. In different cultures you see different moral
principles. Locke thinks that all knowledge is obtained through experience. This was before research
of e.g. Frans de Waal.
He says: Tabula Rasa (blank slate). “Let us then supposte the mind to be, as we say, white paper…”

Fast Forward in Time


The tabula rasa has a direct political implications. If all people start out as tabula rasa, they’re
essentially the same. This gives rise to Locke’s idea of “natural rights”: what we now call human
rights. Many people experience the idea that there are differences as a threat to this political idea.
The tabula rasa theory was very influential until well into the 20 th century: everything (depression,
autism, etc.) is nurture. Only at the end of the 20 th century there was a turning point, partly due to
genetics: all kinds of psychological properties were found to be influenced by genes. This idea still has
a strong political dimension in the 20th century.
Back in Time
Locke’s ideas are for a part very similar to Aristotle’s. He responds to Descartes’ ideas, which are
itself similar to Plato’s. Epistemology constantly shifts between rationalism and empiricism. This
discussion is still alive today.

George Berkeley (1685-1753)


Berkeley takes Locke’s idea very seriously. Assumes that all knowledge enters through the senses.
Concludes that if that is so, we can only be certain of our perceptions, not of a material external
world. But then what is it that causes our perception of this external world? Material substance?
Berkeley turns it around: “though we give the Materialists their external Bodies, they by their own
confession are never the nearer knowing how our Ideas are produced: Since they own themselves
unable to comprehend in what manner of Body can act upon Spirit, or how it is possible it should
imprint any Idea in the Mind”. How can a material table cause an immaterial perception? Rejects
idea of material external world.
But, if material objects cannot cause ideas, then what does? What causes our ideas? The ideas
themselves?
“it must therefore be a Substance; but it has been shown that there is no corporeal or material
Substance: It remains therefore that the Cause of Ideas is an incorporeal active Substance or Spirit”
What causes our ideas? Not the ideas themselves: the ideas are passive. Our own mind?
No, we cannot choose our perceptions.
So it’s not material substance: it’s unclear how physical objects could cause immaterial ideas. It’s also
not the ideas themselves, they are passive. And it’s also not ourselves: we cannot choose our
perceptions. So therefore, it must be some other spirit, whose will we experience!
This superior spirit is God.
So: there is no material substance, there are only spirits/minds that perceive. The most superior
spirit is God. The objects that are perceived are not material; they are ideas. These ideas are caused
by God.
Descartes and Berkeley both proof for God, but both in a very different manner. Descartes: mind is
certain. Berkeley: perceptions are certain.
All properties of reality depend on the mind: esse est percipii (to be is to be perceived)
This is called idealism. The part of the world that we experience as “objective” is a projection of
God’s mind. The world is not material, but it is real, the sun also exists when we close our eyes.
Can Berkeley still be considered a British Empiricist? Yes, because also for Berkeley, all knowledge
enters us through perception. The ideas of God are incomprehensible so we cannot deduce them
through reasoning: we only have perception to fall back on.

Berkeley and Descartes


They both reason about the foundation of knowledge. Both formulate proof of God. Descartes
concludes that there is a physical external world: Berkeley that God causes the ideas directly within
us. Descartes’ reasoning results in dualism, Berkeley’s in idealism. Descartes concludes that reason
must be the source of knowledge, Berkeley that perception is the source.
Both have become side-paths in philosophy.

 Hume and the problem of induction


David Hume (1711-1776)
For thinking about science, Hume is the most important British empiricist. According to some, the
most important philosopher in history. Hume puts the problem of induction on the map.
Empirical knowledge is generated through the ‘copy principle’: experiences result in impressions in
the mind (similar to a stamp ring that leaves a print in wax). When two states of affairs (scenes) occur
repeatedly together, their impressions in the mind will be associated. This is a psychological theory!
Such an association can be seen as a correlation. However, our reasoning goes beyond correlations.
For example, we use the idea of causation: “the spark caused the explosion”, “the lack of dopamine
caused Parkinson”, “prozac resulted in an improvement”
First giving definition for causality, then question whether we ever have access to these conditions of
causality.
Hume’s analysis of causality:
1. Proximity of cause and effect
2. Cause precedes effect
3. Necessary connection between cause and effect: always when the cause happens, the effect
happens. Always = in all cases, it is not possible that it does not happen.
The third principle/condition is not possible: no matter how often we see something happen, we
cannot say that it always happens. You cannot know this.
This is epistemological, because the problem is whether we can get it from experience/observation.

The problem of induction:


“we remember to have had frequent instances of the existence of one species of objects; and also
remember, that the individuals of another species of objects have always attended them, ….”
“it is only from experience and the observation of their constant union, that we are able to form this
inference; and even after all, the inference is nothing but the effects of custom [habit] on the
imagination. We must affirm that the necessary connection is not discovered by a conclusion of the
understanding, but is merely a perception of the mind”
Induction is the generalization of observed cases to all cases. For example: so far I have only seen
white swans, so all swans are white. Inferring causality also relies on induction. You observe a flame
and in past cases that has coincided with feeling heat, therefore you think that a flame always
coincides with heat: a necessary connection, Fire Causes Heat! However, induction is a logically
invalid form of reasoning: the conclusion does not follow from the premises.
Hume, just like Locke and Berkeley, believes that all knowledge comes from experience. Causal
relations, according to his own criterion, cannot come from experience alone. And so Hume
concludes that causal relations should not play a role in our description of empirical reality.
Metaphysical speculation should be committed to the flames: all theories that go beyond perception
should be committed to the flames: for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion.

Hume’s induction problem is a threat for all kinds of knowledge. After all, almost all science and
philosophy is based on generalization. Laws are nothing more than habits in which we came to see
necessity. If general laws and causal relationships cannot be proven, then nothing is certain
anymore…

Fast Forward in Time


The problem of induction is one of the major engines behind philosophy and methodology.
Bayesianism is a response to the induction problem. All philosophers who came after Hume had to
relate to this problem. Much of the methodology you’ve had is a practical response to Hume’s
objections.
After Hume: the pendulum swings back yet again…

 Kant’s attempt to save Newton from the problem of induction


Immanuel Kant (1724-1804)
“I freely admit that it was the remembrance of David Hume which, many years ago, first interrupted
my dogmatic slumber and gave my investigations in the field of speculative philosophy a completely
different direction”
Kant wants to save Newton from Hume. Kant agrees with Hume that necessity cannot come from
experience. But there are examples of necessary and universal knowledge: e.g. math! Where does
such knowledge come from?
Solution: man himself brings concepts such as space, time, and causality with him as a priori
categories with which he structures perception. Experience is thus rationally “loaded”; causal
relations arise form a kind of mixture of ratio and empiricism.
Kant views the categories as universal principles of thinking. These make a priori knowledge possible,
such as the laws of Newton and mathematical knowledge.
Perception of reality combined with a priori knowledge together result in experience (which gets its
content from the external world but its understanding form the mind). These two cannot be
separated. “Thoughts without content are empty, intuitions (perceptions) without concepts are
blind”  empiricism and rationalism merge.

Fast Forward in Time


The idea of a priori categories (causality, time, order, unity) is part of (neo-)Kantian approaches. The
question of whether such categories really exist is studied with baby and animal research. Here the
idea is that if babies or chicks are susceptible to causal relationships, the category ”causal” must be
inborn.
Towards Psychology
At the beginning of the 18th century, it became increasingly clear that philosophical issues are partly
rooted in the structure of our psyche itself (see Hume, Kant)
For a thinker like Francis Bacon, science rests fundamentally on a certain attitude towards our own
psychological constitution.
The question of how exactly our thinking works therefore becomes very important.
Attention moves towards the question ow whether this “thinking” itself can be studied scientifically…

Lecture 4: Riet van Bork


The birth of Psychology (chapter 3-4)
 Kant’s challenge
Principia of Newton. Took some time for people to understand the importance of Newton’s book. As
soon as people realized: promising new methods. Triumph, but also showed how much more there
was to learn.
The big question: does man fall within or outside the scope of science?
The mind: if we put this in a scientific method, do we lose free will?
Kant’s challenge (1724-1804): Kant is very impressed with Newton, and is one of the first to consider
the possibility of a science psychology. Classifies disciplines in two categories:
- Natural science: lawful, quantitative description in the language of mathematics
- Historical doctrine of nature: describing cases in normal language (not math), categorization,
merely empirical, Kant also calls this “systemic art”
Kant thinks that psychology can at most describe, but will have no explanatory laws, such as in
physics.
Conclusion: chemistry is not a proper science, and psychology certainly not! Only natural science,
that can be described in mathematical laws, is “proper science”.

 View on man up to 1800


Psychology as a science: Christian Wolff (1679-1754)
Published the first books with “psychology” in the title in 1732 and 1734: Psychologia Rationalis &
Psychologia Empirica.
The first presentation of psychology as its own field of science. Launces the idea of introspection as a
scientific method. Wants to describe the results of introspection mathematically: Psychomeetriae.
Psychometrics is still a thing.
Introspection: the study of the mind by the mind. To learn about the mind, we have to “look inside”.
This way we can study the properties of our mental states. So, this is a researcher investigating his or
her own mental states. Introspection immediately became controversial.
Arguments against introspection: Auguste Comte (1798-1857): introspection is not a reliable
observation because there is no distinction between the investigator and the investigated. Moreover,
objectivity is impossible with introspection, because you cannot look inside my mind to check my
introspection. Evidence from introspection is therefore not public and this does not sit well with
scientific principles.
Also according to Kant, introspection is problematic because:
o Mental states have no quantative properties like objects have weight or length
o Introspection can therefore not provide a mathematical description
o Consciousness ‘never stands still’, is always in flux, and cannot be kept constant to
look at it closely, and thoughts cannot be separated
o Observing the mind automatically changes the mind
Psychology is stuck: the idea that psychology should rely on introspection from a researcher on
him/herself is based on a certain idea about the nature of our mental life. This idea also stems from a
limited idea of what methods are actually available. So, for a scientific psychology to develop, this
view on the mind and on what methods are applicable to the mind, have to tip over.

 Tilting view on man


1800: where are we, what are views in this time?
Human’s place in the order of things
Copernicus, Descartes, and Newton had a completely different view of man than we do. Man is put
on earth by god with a purpose and is not really part of nature: man does not fall under the scope of
natural phenomena and can therefore not be described mathematically. Man is qualitatively
different from animal, so biology has nothing to do with psychology. The human body is governed by
an immaterial Cartesian spirit which only makes itself known through subjective experience.
Science is beautiful, but it is not at all obvious that man himself can be an object of scientific study!

The mind is immaterial, no mathematical description, humans are not animals: ideas that have to
change, otherwise no scientific psychology. These things have to change; they all do in the next
century.
Cognitive psychology: it turns out man can be described mathematically!
Franciscus Donders (NL) decides to determine the duration of mental processes. Deducted the time
needed for a task with only repetition from a task with repetition and discrimination. The result is an
estimate how long the mental process of discrimination takes. Mental chronometry thus provides a
mathematical description of mental processes! But why didn’t anyone come up with that before?
Because they didn’t have the equipment: clocks weren’t good enough. The first stopwatch was
invented in 1816.
Fast Forward in time
Donders’ idea is the basis for the study of mental processes through reaction time tasks. See, for
example, studies of decision making, but also attitudes (implicit association tests). Much of the
mathematical modelling of these processes has been developed at the UvA and in Leuven!
Hooke (1674) used this figure to determine the limits of human visual acuity. Not only time, but also
other things quantified: perception. And also: Gustav Fechner (1801-1887): Fechner’s Law: stimulus
intensity against sensation units. Discriminate between two weights, when they are close to each
other in weight this is more difficult. The heavier the weights, the larger the difference before it’s
noticed: notable difference. Because of Fechner’s Law.
Statistics: humans are stochastic
The Belgian astronomer and sociologist, Adophe Quetelet (1796-1874) has the idea of applying
statistics to people. He introduces the science of “l’homme Moyenne”: the average human. Even
when individuals cannot be lawfully described, the average can! This also results in quantitative
sociology.
Francis Galton (1822-1911): nephew of Darwin, predict study success from father’s intelligence, for
instance. Was interested in the heritability of traits.
Humans as realizations of stochastic processes: humans are noisy. Introducing correlation and
regression analyses to ideal with that noise. Regression enables behavioural genetics. Does your
brother’s intelligence predict your intelligence better than your cousin’s does? A new, systematic
and quantitative approach to psychology.
Kant’s challenge: applying statistics to psychology appeared to be a great success. Kant had
underestimated the potential of describing humans mathematically.
Evolution theory: Man as Animal
Charles Darwin (1809-1882) dethrones man as king of the animal kingdom. Suggests an explanation
for the origin of species based on evolution with two simple principles: accidental mutation &
natural selection. consequence: evolution is a completely blind and fully automatic system, driven by
a statistical principle. The consequences of this idea are enormous: man loses its special status
compared to animals, human and animal behaviour are related, a very important part of the
question “who are we?” suddenly turns out to fall within the scope of science. Darwin obviously
encountered resistance, but the rapid acceptance of his ideas is actually more surprising.
The idea that man is some kind of animal leads to a new way of looking at man. If there is
evolutionary pressure, then good behaviour provides evolutionary advantage. This means that the
explanation of human and animal behaviour can rest on the same explanatory principle.
Evolutionary psychology is currently a separate field of research. Research along the lines of
functional psychological modules that re adaptive (e.g. the “cheater detection” module). We can do
Wason’s card task when it gives us an advantage. Leda Cosmides (1957-) is a leading evolutionary
psychologist.
Last one: the mind is immaterial.

The enchantment of the mind


Medicine rests on Galenus until the 17 th century (130-200 B.C.). In short, one doesn’t understand
much of the body and certainly not the brain. For example, one thinks that the mind is in the
ventricles of the brain.
In the 18th and 19th centuries it quickly became clear that mental functions are linked to the brain.
Localization gains strength (Wernicke, Broca). The discovery and study of the reflex introduces the
idea of mechanisms behind behaviour. Why wouldn’t the brain also just be a machine?
Mechanisms: more and more mechanisms around them; gave people the idea that the mind could
also be studied as something mechanical.
More about this in the guest lecture.

 The birth of psychology, and the first psychologists


The time is ripe… Psychology as an independent discipline in science. Year 1879: first laboratory of
psychology (of Wilhelm Wundt). Spearman, Titchener, all came here and brought psychology to the
US. Europe in 1900.
Wilhelm Wundt (1832-1920) // the German Empire // the founder
Wundt founds the first psychological laboratory. Many important early psychologists came to visit
him. Important methods: experimental observation, introspection, historical method.
A beautiful result of introspection: Wundt’s characterization of affect in terms of valence and arousal.
The center of the circumflex is empty! “afraid” = negative affect, with high arousal. “depressed” =
negative affect, low arousal. “satisfied” & “excited”…. All emotions = circle!
Structuralism: mental states are thus “built” from basic properties. This is an example of
structuralism. Structuralists think we should study the structure of mental experiences. Complex
psychological states are systematic constellations of thoughts and feelings: guilt = a negative feeling
linked to the thought that you’ve done something wrong.

William James (1842-1910) // The United States // the writer


Writes the influential book: Principles of Psychology. “Structuralism has plenty of school, but no
thought; could not have been arisen in a country whose inhabitants could be bored”. Doubts
whether there really are these “building blocks” that are at the basis of structuralism. He says the
mind is always different, so there are no building blocks. Different question: what are the functions of
sensations? What are the functions of mental sates? Strongly influenced by Darwin. Emphasizes the
function of psychological phenomena. He is therefore one of the founding fathers of functionalism in
psychology.
Like Wundt, he developed theories about emotions. Emotion equals physiological change. And these
physiological changes have a function: disgust coincides with sticking the tongue out, which has the
function of spitting out food. Fear coincides with an increased heart rate, which has the function of
being ready to flee. Facial feedback hypothesis.
Functionalists always ask themselves: what is the purpose of this psychological sate? E.g.
evolutionary: fear serves to avoid danger, love serves to generate offspring. But also culturally:
religious faith serves to coordinate behaviour in society. James emphasizes the usefulness of
everything: consciousness is not an “entity” but a function. Functionalism focuses on how mental
activities help to adjust to your surroundings.
Fast Forward in Time
Recent research sees attitudes as networks of cognitions and feelings. The stronger the connections
in the network, the more consistent and unambiguous the attitude. An unambivalent attitude can
regulate behaviour well, as opposed to an ambivalent attitude. Thinking about an attitude object
strengthens the connections in the network. Does thinking have the function of aligning attitude
elements so that behaviour can be effectively controlled?

Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) // The Austro-Hungarian Empire // the therapist


Freud puts forward the first comprehensive psychological theory. Explains how the mind works, but
also how to treat mental disorders. Psychoanalysis revolves around the tension between the
conscious and the unconscious. The unconscious is a set of uncoordinated instinctual desires like sex
and aggression, too threatening to allow in the consciousness. The ego censors the id (primal
instincts; unconscious) by order of the superego (angel; conscious, morals of society).
Ego is half conscious, half unconscious. Id is unconscious. Superego is both conscious and
unconscious. Freud: solution is to take things out of the unconscious and make it conscious.
Changing view on disorders: before the 16th century, lived at home or on the street, ‘possessed’ by
the devil or ghosts. From the 16th century onwards: responsibility shift to authorities: the first
institutions look like prisons, then more like hospitals. Treatments such as cold showers or quickly
turning around. In the 19th century: focus shifts from “teaching morality” to biological components:
neurologists focus on nervous disorders, use of hypnosis. Psychological therapy instead of medical or
educational treatment: therapist-client conversations. That time; hysteria, disorder that women had.
Uterus would be hungry for sperm and look for food in the body???
The start of psychotherapy. Psychological problems arise from problems in the unconscious
(complexes, repressed memories, etc.) In order to solve the problems a client faces, the latent cause
must be traced and addressed. The psychoanalyst, like a detective, has to use all sorts of clues to
trace down the problem.
Fortunately, the unconscious sometimes shows itself, when the censoring ego isn’t paying attention:
slip of the tongue, dreams, free associations. For Freud it’s never a coincidence: “A Freudian slip is
when you say one thing, but mean your mother”. Dreams are a language through which the
unconscious ‘speaks’. From the interpretation of dreams, slips of the tongue, and associations Freud
infers the problem and solves it by making it conscious.
Fast Forward in Time
What is undoubtedly a continuing important contribution of Freud is the idea that you can solve
psychological problems by talking about them. Also the idea of a more or less autonomous
unconscious is a recurring theory, but is controversial. The idea of defense mechanisms is still
important in clinical psychology, although the idea that you always have to dismantle them is
abandoned (we have them for a reason). Psychoanalysis is still being used, and in some parts of the
world it is the dominant form of therapy (France, Argentina).
On the other side: the dream language has been uniformly rejected, hardly any evidence has been
found for repressed memories; however, there is a lot of evidence that you can easily create false
memories in people. Posthumously, Freud’s scientific reputation has become poor (there is strong
evidence of scientific fraud). In scientific clinical psychology, Freud is not popular (to put it mildly)
and is sometimes even dismissed as a quack.
“if anything characterized psychoanalysis, it was fiasco, deceit, fraud, and fiction, not science…”
Freud a quack? Maybe, but one that is cited a lot

Alfred Binet (1857-1911) // France // the tester


Binet first tries to establish intelligence like Galton did: reaction times, basal perceptual tests, skull
size, etc. that doesn’t work, and Binet comes up with the idea of letting kids solve simple tasks. Binet
just counted how many problems a kid solved: he calculated a sum score. This appears to be a much
stronger predictor of e.g. academic success than all previously (and later) constructed variables.
Fast Forward in Time
Test scores are seen as more fair than the teacher’s judgement (there is a lot of evidence for that). In
the 20th century testing institutes are set up to classify students into education levels. In NL: CITO by
A.D. de Groot. Testing children at primary schools doesn’t have a good reputation anymore, but
don’t forget that it was introduced as a solution for teacher’s prejudices.
The psychological test rapidly caught on in psychology. The psychometric core of Binet’s invention is
the sum score: the number of questions that a person answers correctly or agreeably. Nothing in
society has escaped Binet’s invention and its many variants (personality tests, educational tests, etc.)

Summary
Psychology comes into existence in a turbulent time in which the image of man is tilting in all kinds of
ways.
Psychology becomes an independent discipline (no longer part of philosophy) and becomes an
empirical science, initially based on introspection.
Psychology is given shape: Freud, Binet, James, and Wundt all still have a detectable influence on
psychology
There are some schools, but no dominant paradigm. Yet. This is being developed in the US, where
Thorndike, because he couldn’t use children as test subject, started studying chickens…

Lecture 5: Riet van Bork


The rise and fall of behaviourism
In this time, psychology is very small. Only 40 people. But then behaviourism is going to dominate the
field!
 The scientificity of Psychology
Psychology in 1900. Psychology as a science has arrived. Certainly in the U.S., the dominant
methodology is introspection. William James and Wundt’s student Edward Titchener have a rather
“soft” conception of what psychology should be… however, progress is stagnating and it is slowly
becoming a problem that psychology would not qualify as “hard science”. Three things that lead to
behaviourism as a solution to this problem.
I. Hard versus vague: vague science. The early 20th century is dominated by mesmerism, phrenology,
spiritualism. Again and again it turns out that claims based on these approaches do not hold up.
Some psychologists start to explicitly oppose pseudoscience.
Positivism and operationalism. The scientificity of Psychology becomes a theme. Positivism is
popular at the beginning of the 20 th century. The thesis: science is ultimately the way to truth.
Objectivity of knowledge must be guaranteed. This relates poorly to the fact that introspection is still
the dominant methodology. August Comte.
II. A time of revolutions. The theory of relativity turns physics upside down. The basis lies in
Einstein’s persistent question: how do we establish through measurements that two events are
simultaneous? The Newtonian intuition of absolute time appears to be wrong! The physicist
Bridgman wants to save physics from another revolution like this by clearly attaching all concepts of
measurement procedures. (seen this before in the work of Galileo, where he showed that motion is
relative). Important revolution: for a long time, we have been wrong. Then  don’t use
measurement operations to define concepts. Things are abstract, we have to formulate them
concretely: operationalism.
The operationalism of Bridgman. Concepts are reduced to measurements. “we mean by any concept
nothing more than a set of operations: the concept is synonymous with the corresponding set of
[measurement] operations”.
What did Bridgman actually want? In philosophy, Bridgman isn’t very influential. Straightforward
objections: length can be measured with multiple different procedures, so no unique definition of
length. Operations cannot be “synonymous” to concepts. But in psychology, operationalism becomes
immensely popular. Psychology starts to use measurements for anything.
Meettheorie: theory - measurement - operationalization. Mass = number of grams registered by the
scale. Hunger = time past since last meal.
Fast Forward in Time
Bridgman’s idea became famous in psychology through Boring. He said: “intelligence is what the
intelligence test measures”. How strong is operationalism still in psychology?
III. Humans are animals… suddenly, things from animal experiments can be used to explain human
behaviour.

 Pavlov’s dog and Thorndike’s cat


Pavlov’s dog. Ivan Pavlov (1849-1936) invents first learning model. Classical conditioning. Neutral
stimulus (NS) is linked to unconditioned stimulus (US), provoking an unconditioned response (UR).
After a while, the NS becomes a conditioned stimulus (CS) and is followed by a conditioned response
(CR).
Thorndike’s cat. Thorndike is a student of William James. Starts studying animals because he cannot
find children to serve as subjects. Mostly cats in Puzzle boxes. Formulates the law of effect:
behaviours followed by a reward are more likely to be repeated. This results in operant conditioning.
Human’s behaviour = animal’s behaviour? Nobody ever asks a dog what he thinks of anything.
Apparently behavioural science in biology doesn’t need introspection.. .so why should that be
necessary with people? Can’t we just let psychology revolve around behaviour?
Positivism + operationalism + learning theory = behaviourism

 Watson puts behaviourism on the map


In the time of articles in journals now.
Watson suggests psychology should be all about behaviour.. no more introspection; only behavioural
analyses in terms of reinforcement and punishment. A psychology without consciousness. All of
Wundt’s , James’ and Freud’s work: throw it out! Revolution: let’s start over.
The behaviourist studies relationships between stimuli and behaviour. Usually in rats, sometimes in
pigeons or cats. The result: learning theory. Which endorsement works best, can you better punish or
reward, etc.
Political counterpart: The Tabula Rasa
“Give me a dozen healthy infants, and I will train him to become any type of specialist I might select”.
Brings back the tabula rasa, make person different person. Person = system created in environment.
Back in Time
Watson essentially repeats many of the ideas of the British Empiricists. The tabula rasa thesis is in
fact a direct copy of John Locke. The learning theory of the behaviourists is very close to that of David
Hume.
Fast Forward in Time
Behaviourism is designed as an absolutist system. Much of the content, however, has withstood the
test of time as well. In psychotherapy, behaviourist concepts (conditioning, extinction, exposure) for
example, are still widely used. Also a lot of learning theory is rooted in behaviourism.

 The radicalization of B.F. Skinner


B.F. Skinner (1904-1990). Radical Behaviourism: total ban on the use of terms that refer to mental
states; all human behaviour can be understood as S-R relationships. What is not directly measurable
has to be left out. So: a psychology without dreams, expectations, thoughts, etc. Note that Skinner
didn’t deny that these things exist: he just insisted they didn’t belong in science.
Man is not an “actor” but a “lens”: a point where influence come together. Behaviour is the
outcome: free will is an illusion. “I” does not refer to a mind or to the brain, but to the person as a
whole: an input-output mechanism. So there’s no body-mind problem, no homunculus, not even in
the brain!
There is no essential difference between human and animal. Skinner even finds the explanations for
superstition in the analogy with a pigeon. Even very complicated behaviour can be explained by
reinforcement. So where does it end? Can all behaviour be explained with behaviourism?

 Chomsky’s attack on Skinner


The debate between Skinner and Chomsky: the behaviourists are ambitious and think they can
explain all behaviour. Turns out to be overconfident.
Chomsky: linguist, also important for a lot of other things. Politically active as well. Big thinker. Still
alive!
Problems of behaviourism…
Behaviourism only has associations to offer (S-R connections). Things get heated when Skinner writes
a book about language. In Verbal Behaviour he tries to develop a S-R theory of language. In Skinner’s
theory, a child learns with imitation. Through reinforcement and punishment the child learns to
make increasingly complex sentences. The end result is a very complex S-R based language of
“language behaviours”. So a child who masters a language is actually a sort of well-conditioned
pigeon.
The linguist Chomsky destroys Skinner. In his review of Skinner’s book, he shows that Skinner’s
theory is much more vague than Skinner pretends, is unable to explain the complexity of language
and does not do justice to the learning process as we see it in children.
Three biggest arguments. Vague, complexity, learning process.

- Skinner’s theory is just as vague as traditional theories


Skinner’s theory is supposed to be more objective because the terms he uses (stimulus, response,
endorsement) refer to observable things and behaviour. Chomsky: nonsense! If we take these terms
literally, then they hardly apply. If we take them metaphorically, they become just as vague!
Examples: stimulus, what is a stimulus? In the experiments with animals this is very clear. But
language? Single stimulus can have different responses: chair, red, sit, etc. Multiple responses, then
stimulus-response relation isn’t lawful anymore. Skinner explains this by saying: redness of chair is
stimulus. Chomsky says; this isn’t possible, because then the stimulus is in the head of the observer
again. No longer objective. Then you can only find out what the stimulus is, after the response has
been made. Term ‘stimulus’ becomes very vague then.
Skinner wants the relationship between stimulus and response to be lawful. If the physical chair is
the stimulus, there is no lawfulness. If the redness of the chair is the stimulus, then it is no longer
objective because we only know what the stimulus is after you say “red”.
“response strength”. Taken literally a strong response would be “WOW WOW WOW WOW!” if we
want a silence followed by a soft “wow…” also count as a strong response, then the concept of
response strength is vague again! Concrete = never applies, if it does apply = vague again.
“reinforcement”. Reinforcement should explain why someone gives a certain response. To explain all
response, the concept reinforcement should be so vague that there is always some reinforcement. ‘X
is reinforced by Y’ is another way of saying ‘X wants Y’, ‘X likes Y’, etc. Applied too broadly, loses its
meaning.
All these examples show that if Skinner’s terms are taken literally they do not apply and taken
metaphorically these terms are just as vague as the original terms!

- Cannot explain the complexity of language


Skinner is limited to behaviour, but language requires intentions. For example, Skinner uses the
listener’s behaviour to explain whether something is a question or a request or an order. But such
behaviour falls short…
A command doesn’t cease to be a command if the listener doesn’t follow the command. We need
intentions and internal states!

- Learning process of children


Parents are not precise enough in reinforcing and punishing to explain language acquisition. Children
don’t do mimicry. Children can construct and understand an infinite number of sentences. Children
can learn language spontaneously. The type of mistakes children make does not seem to suggest that
children learn by trial and error. Country where parents don’t speak the language, children still learn
the second language well. Isn’t explained by Skinner.
Chomsky studied the type of mistakes children make. Children: from sentence to question, no
mistakes with that. Children already have a good knowledge of grammar.

Noam Chomsky (1928-). Language capability requires mastery of a grammar. Grammar cannot be
learned purely inductively with S-R associations. Grammar is generative (you can produce an infinite
number of sentences and recognize them as correct, even if you’ve never seen them before). So,
grammar is actually a theory that cannot be derived from the data available to the child. This later
became known as the Poverty of the Stimulus argument. Knowledge of grammar must therefore be
innate.
Argues that behaviourism falls short:
- It is very unclear what the “stimuli” and “responses” are: this is a metaphor rather than a
theory
- Skinner is limited to behaviour, but language requires intentions: whether something is a
question or command cannot be derived from behaviours or responses of the environment
alone
- There is no scheme based on reinforcement and punishment that is put together with
“meticulous care”: children learn language spontaneously
Back in Time
Chomsky says: the ability to acquire language is innate. Posits the Language Acquisition Device (LAD).
So Chomsky is a modern nativist. Like Plato and Descartes, he doesn’t believe that everything is
learned through experience. Chomsky explains the innate system by an evolutionary change in
humans. Although the system seems very complex, it’s probably something simple. But we can’t omit
this system from the explanation of language just because it seems so complex.
Linguistics should let go of the assumption that the meaning of language can be found in the
observable outside world. Instead, the meaning of a word is a mental concept: it’s in our head.
Example: continuity, rationalism. I have an idea of this willow, and that’s what the word refers to.
Not the actual willow outside. Grow an identical one; do we see it as the same? No, we know it’s
different. Children story: something turns into something else, and then turns back. Children easily
understand that there is continuity in the character. So we have the concept.
Fast Forward in Time
The LAD is quite controversial: there is no “language organ” in the brain so how does that work? And
how ‘poor’ are the stimuli that children get? They hear thousands of language expressions a day.
Recent research with neural networks suggests that certain aspects of grammar can be learned
inductively.

 The Turing Machine


Alternative: in WO-II, in the field of mathematics. Nazi’s used Enigma machine, encrypted messages.
British could intercept but not read them.
English mathematician who cracks the Enigma code of the Nazis. Turing shows how to make a
machine do calculations. Proves that such a machine can handle all calculable functions. This also
includes all standard logic: the Turing machine can thus “think” a little bit.
Boolean algebra
Mathematical implementation of logic. True sentences = “1”, false = “0”. In l ogic, truth of p and q is a
function of the truth “p” and “q”. in Boolean algebra, the truth value of compositions is calculated by
mathematical operation son the elementary parts. “p and q” is thus only true “1” if p and q are both
true, both 1. In all other cases you get 0.
Reason through logic = formulate it in machine = make it calculate things. Development of the
computer.
Back in Time
Aristotle discovered that certain forms of reasoning always give true conclusions from true premises:
logic. Modus ponens: if p then q, p, so q. This is always valid, regardless of the meaning of p and q.
Because the meaning of p and q doesn’t matter, a machine can do it as well. Turing applies this
insight from Aristotle.
So: analogy. Sentences, put them in numbers, done by computer. Sentences = thoughts, operations
on them. This is done on the brain. Analogy = thinking is not the same thing as computer or brain, but
something that is implemented in the brain. Alan Turing offers a new way of understanding mental
processes like thinking and the body (brain).
The computer analogy
The Turing machine shows how a psychological process (reasoning) can be performed by a mahine.
This results in the computer analogy: mind:brain = software:hardware
Back in Time
The question of how the mind relates to the brain goes all the way back to Plato. Descartes’ dualism
dominates until the 20th century: the mind interacts with the brain. Turing gives a new possibility: the
mind is implemented in the brain, like a program is implemented in a computer.
Fast Forward in Time
If thinking is indeed nothing more than implementing logic, then a computer can also think. Could a
computer also develop consciousness? This question will continue to occupy philosophical minds to
this day.

 The Cognitive Revolution


Chomsky convincingly shows the flaws of behaviourism
The computer analogy offers a new possibility for psychology: humans as information processing
systems.
This will be the basis of cognitive psychology.

Summary
Behaviourism briefly satisfied the need for an objective, hard science.
However, falls short in the analysis of complex behaviour; specifically language
What is important is that the downfall of behaviourism is primarily scientific in nature: there are good
arguments against it.
Also important; behaviourism is in many ways also a winner.
Can the analogy of the mind as a computer program really keep the brain at distance ?

Lecture 6: Max van der Linde


Psychology and the rise of neuroscience//Psychology and the brain
A short history of psychology and neuroscience
Doing history: the blind spots of Brysbaert and Rastle: both professors in Cognitive Psychology, so
very much focused on cognition in (healthy) adults. Less focused on development (phylogenetic and
ontogenetic), emotion, neuropharmacology, sex, sleep, food, aggression, altruism, etc.
So today, focus on phylogenetic development and emotion.

 From cooling to reflex (0-19th century)


Aristotle: heart as thinking organ.
Cooling: where in our bodies do we think? Plato: in the head. Aristotle, however, gambled on the
heart: ‘sensory perception has its origin in.. the region around the heart.’ The brain cooled the heart.
The heart is perceptibly affected by emotion. It is located at a central point, according to the role of
thinking. All living creatures with blood have a heart, but not all have an observable brain
(invertebrates).
The brain as a ‘hub’. Galen, surgeon. He discovered in the 2nd century A.D. a function of the nerve
pathways: cutting the nerves in a pig’s throat prevents the pig from making any noise. So the ‘voice’
comes from the brain, not the heart. The role of the brain as a hub was established.
Through ventricles, animal spirits and nerves, the soul had contact with the body.
The ventricles of Vesalius: functional division. Vesalius confirmed the three ventricles in the brain in
the 16th century. The ventricles were then given various functions: 1 st ventricle = common sense,
fantasy. 2nd ventricle = thoughts, 3rd ventricle = memory.
Descartes: body and soul. Rene Descartes introduced mechanical areas about body and behaviour.
Clock as metaphor. Bird migration as an example of clock-driven mechanical behaviour. The reflex of
Descartes: mechanical theory of the reflex. A sensory sensation travels through the nerves. It’s
‘bounced back’ through the same nerves as a mirror in the brain. That leads to (involuntary)
behaviour. The soul remained spiritual in nature: Neoplatonian substance dualism. Own
neuroanatomical research. Body and soul meet in pineal gland.
Thomas Willis: functional organization brain matter. From ventricles to gray matter. Like Descartes,
Willis saw something in functional organization, but not just the pineal gland. Higher brain structures
for more advanced organisms, more complex functions. Lower structures for more elementary
functions. Quite modern statements about how the brain functions. Comparative neuroanatomy.

 The disenchantment of the brain (19th century)


Brains in the 19th century. Enlightenment thinking conquered ‘brain science’. Albrecht von Haller
(1708-1777), famous physiologist. Studied brain, sensory and motor nerve paths, with the brain as a
central hub. Body as a mechanism. Empirical research increases. Reflex arc (sensory and motor
nerves). The conscious mind/soul and the cortex remained an unconquerable bastion. Still dualism,
but a bit more localized.
Galls organology & Cranioscopy. Franz Joseph Gall (1758-1828). Organology: differences in
predisposition can be seen in cortical development: well-developed function, larger cortical area.
Cranioscopy: differences in cortical development can be seen in nodules of the skull (e.g. language
module/’talenknobbel’). Pupil Johann Spurzheim (1776-1832): phrenology. Very influential theory
about cortical organization.
Flourens’ (anti)localization experiments. The shadow of Descartes. Jean Pierre Flourens (1794-
1867): huge fan of Descartes. Very good neuroscientific experimentalist. Able to keep his animals
alive for days or even weeks. Before that, animals would only stay alive for 5 or 10 minutes, because
their skulls would be removed and their brains ablated. Scientists would have to try to make sense of
that: was a mess. Flourens was the first one to do something with animals and see something that
was more than just dying, and repeat experiments and see the same kind of behavioural changes in
animals. Really influential. Localization of function in brainstem, but not in cortex. Cortex was still a
functional whole. Equipotentiality theory: psychological functions are indivisible properties of the
cortex as a whole. Soul resides in the cortex as a whole. Brainstem = different functions. Flexible
system. Very different from localization.
Momentum for cortical localization. Disenchantment of the brain. Enchantment = Descartes’ idea of
the soul, etc. Scientists go higher and higher up; cortex is also not that special. Inhibition as a
neuronal reflex: early 19th century: reflex and many other functions in the spinal cord are regulated
(cerebrospinal axis). The Russian Ivan Sechenov (1829-1905) extrapolated the idea to thinking itself
in the book ‘Reflexes of the Brain’. Inhibition (and other ‘higher’ mental functions) as a neuronal
reflex instead of God-given ability. Important topic. Inhibition = reflex. Higher mental functions of
human beings: inhibit morally wrong behaviour. Moral social behaviour. Neuroscientists loved this.
Momentum for cortical localization. The localization hypothesis triumphs of Broca (1861) &
Wernicke (1874). People with damage to Broca’s area say sensible things in bad sentences: grammar.
People with damage to Wernicke’s area say nonsensical things in good sentences: semantics.
Broca’s & Wernicke’s aphasia. One of the highlights/triumphs of localization theory.
John Hughlings Jackson (1835-1911): epilepsy and ‘Jacksonian march’. He studied epilepsy. He
suspected around 1860 a specific relationship between certain brain areas and muscles in specific
parts of the body. Certain order throughout the brain that caused different movements to happen.
Now we know this is true (motor cortex homunculus). Epilepsy = localized disorder, that spreads
through the brain. Help people by removing source. Mortality of operation = 100% in this time.
Stimulation of the brain during neurosurgery.
Gustav Fritz & Eduard Hitzig (1870). Challenge Flourens. Cortex can be stimulated and there are
several (motor) areas! Stimulated places in cortex in dogs at home. Confirmed Hughlings Jackson
experimentally. Refuted Flourens’ idea that the cortex was functioning as a whole. Human and
animal evidence. Important technique later: stimulating the brain.
Robert Bartholow (1874): human confirmation of experiments Fritsch & Hitzig. Electrical room. 30-
year-old Mary Rafferty first human who was electrically stimulated in the brain. Part of her skull was
open, so ‘easy entrance’. She got an epileptic seizure. She died a day later, during the experiments. A
lot of people were very angry. His conclusion: she didn’t die because of electrical stimulation, but it
still took quite some time before they tried stimulating humans again. Doctors ask you now if you
have only a few months left to live: do you want to take part in an experiment?
Darwin’s evolution theory. The origins of species: by means of natural selection (1859).
The disenchantment of the brain. Herbet Spencer (1820-1903), very enthusiastic about the
evolutionary theory. Coined ‘Survival of the fittest’. Applied ideas not only on brains/organisms, but
even on societies. He believed that all structures - from societies to brain structures - evolve from
undifferentiated and homogenous to differentiated and heterogenous (more complexity).
John Hughlings Jackson: combined all those ideas in some general idea of brain functioning. Central
nervous system has different levels of sensori-motor units. The evolutionary newest (more complex,
more differentiated and more flexible) areas are at the top of the hierarchy. Higher areas integrate
input from lower areas. Higher mental processes (‘Will, Memory, Reason, and Emotion’) found their
origin in ‘sensori-motor nervous arrangements’. Complete disenchantment of the brain. Higher areas
control the lower areas. Clinical basic assumption: if area fails due to damage, the function also fails.
But: sometimes damage resulted in new behaviour. Weird. He thought: ‘release from control’:
cortical areas could no longer control, lower areas were given free play. Dissolution: opposite of
evolution. Neurological & psychiatric disorders, drunkenness.
19th century: towards modern neuroscience
Lab and clinic: evidence for cortical localization
Evolutionary layered organ: cortex (ratio, control) & subcortex: drives, emotions, pathology
Dualism has given way to materialistic sensorimotor reflex thinking.
The neuron doctrine. Italian neuroanatomist Camillo Golgi (1843-1926). The quality of microscopes
increased rapidly in the 19th century and it was seen that the brain consists of small parts (‘globules’).
Golgi discovered that you can make these globules visible with silver nitrate. Supporter of
reticularism: the brain is a continuous network. Globules = nerve cells. He had the idea that all cells
were one big network.
The Spanish neuroanatomist Ramón y Cajal said no. with Golgi staining technique: globules are
separate cells. Waldeyer (1891): ‘neuron’. In 1906, Golgi and Ramón y Cajal were awarded the Nobel
Prize. New question: how do neurons store information? Book: war of the soups and the sparks.
Chemical vs. electrical signals (actually both).

 Emotions in the brain (20th century)


What is an emotion?
William James (1884): Interesting idea: body first. When you encounter a bear, you will run away,
then this information goes to brain, and then you will feel fear. James-Lange theory. Conscious
emotion happens only when information from the body is processed in the brain.
Walter Cannon (1871-1945): thalamus as the emotion area. Thalamus, where all information comes
together. Emotion area.
Philip Bard (1898-1977): hypothalamus as the emotion area.
Hypothalamus versus cortex (1930-1950). Hypothalamus = emotions, drives, irrationality,
unconsciousness. Cortex = ratio, control, consciousness. First elaborate emotion theory in the brain.
Used this for animal research while doing lobectomy etc., all placed in this context.
Paul MacLean (1913-2007): wanted to combine all these ideas. Created the Visceral brain (1949).
Related this to psychosomatic disease. Viscera = all organs in your body, lots of connections to brain.
All subcortical, but a lot of connections to frontal lobe & cingulate cortex. Also combined it with
psychoanalysis. Visceral brain: oral and sexual behaviour, aggression, not linguistic  id. Cortex:
‘word brain’, consciously apply what we think. Neurotics: were stuck in the genital phase, but were
still able to express their problems in words  reduction of traffic of the autonomic circuits.
Psychosomatics: couldn’t put it into words properly, so they only expressed themselves with organ
language: ‘chronic unexpressed rage’ then led to hypertension.
Later on, 3 years later, visceral brain name was changed into limbic system. Paul McLean also
developed another idea: the simplicity of the triune brain (1990). Be aware of simple models and
explanations that can explain a lot. A new hypothalamus: the amygdala (1990-2010). The emotion
center. Now: relevance. Often emotion. Again, we don’t know what amygdala does. But saying it is
emotion is too simple.

 The brain as a dynamic network (20th century)


The first fictitious neural network. A logical calculus of the ideas immanent in nervous activity (1943).
Warren McCullogh & Walter Pitts. First neural network.
Hebb: ‘cells that fire together, wire together’. Psychologist Donald Hebb (1949). As the connection
between neuron A and neuron B is used more often, it becomes stronger. So the network is not
static, but evolves as a function of input form other parts of the brain and the environment.
Long-term potentiation: Hebb’s postulate has been purely theoretical for twenty years. In the 1960s,
long term potentiation was empirically confirmed. Hebb’s idea turned out to be biologically real!
Know more  in search of memory / Eric R. Kandel. Life and LTP. Austrian student going to America.
Neural networks. Computer models of neurons. The combination of insights from Hebb, McCulloch
and Pitts led to ‘neural networks’. With fairly simple principles, neural networks appear to be able to
learn elementary tasks well. This is done by ‘rewarding’ good responses by strengthening the
connections used. Problem: each additional layer quickly made model much more complicated. With
today’s super powerful computers, more and more layers can be added. Simulations are becoming
more realistic & performance better.
Open question: where are the limits of an artificial neural network?
Still quite limited compared to what we as human beings can do.
Hierarchical networks. The laws of Alexandr Luria (1902-1977). Neuropsychological examination in
soldiers during and after WWII. Romantic science: comprehensive case studies. Focused more on
person than psychological tests. The mind of a Mnemonist (remembered everything).
Oliver Sacks (1933-2015): inspired by Alexandr. Good storyteller. Alexandr Luria developed three
laws:
- Law of hierarchical structure: cortical areas have a dominant role in relation to secondary,
lower-lying areas
- Law of diminishing specificity: the further information is processed in the brain, the less
specific, global and abstract it will be
- Law of progressive lateralization: in the (cortical) hemispheres more functional lateralization
can be found than in lower lying areas
The brain anno 2020. Dynamic and hierarchical.
To a certain extent functional specialization: most mental processes depend on multiple functional
areas, most areas contribute to different functions.
Hierarchy in terms of integration and abstraction, not in terms of importance.
Dynamic (both at neuronal and functional level.
 A new phrenology? (20th century)
From EEG to fMRI
German psychiatrist Hans Berger (1873-1941) founded EEG: registration of neural electrical activity
(1929).
Images of the living brain. In the 1990s, the MRI machine made it possible to observe in a
noninvasive way brain activity. Functional: fMRI. No pictures of the brain: what will get a color
depends on experimental set up and statistical analysis. Always the case in science. With fMRI: hard
to not look at the brain in a phrenological way. Not only the case for fMRI, also neurotransmitters:
Brain Myopia.
Premature acceptance of biological explanations is risky. Antidepressants: efficacy turns out to be
much more limited than thought, risks are greater, and quitting gives serious symptoms. For the
hypothesis that depression is caused by serotonin deficiency there is hardly any evidence. “Prozac,
wash your blues away!” A lot of anti-depressants are used nowadays. Pharmaceutical companies
weren’t nice. 20-30 years later; not as efficient as we thought, risks are greater than hoped for, and
addictive. (Blaming the brain - Elliot Valenstein). How simple ideas came about and how they’re
misused by companies. Critical historical analysis of serotonin deficiency of depression: too little
serotonin causes depression. Dopamine theory of schizophrenia: too much dopamine causes
schizophrenia.
Premature acceptance of biological explanations is risky:
- fMRI and localization
- Psychopathology and neurochemistry
- Correlation does not imply causality
- Simplification emotion-ratio

Summary
Brain science went through stormy technological developments in the 19 th and 20th centuries.
19th century: microscope, ablation & stimulation
20th century: breakthroughs in visualization methods, electrophysiology and neurochemistry.
Important insights into cellular functioning and functional localization. Formal modeling.

Take home message


The extent to which neuroscience actually advances psychology is not yet clear at all levels
- On elementary process levels (perception & motor skills): absolutely
- So far very limited at higher abstract levels (e.g. clinical psychology)
- The relationship between brain and psychology is very complicated. It is important to think in
a nuanced way about this.
- It is the task of psychologists to keep a close eye on this and to weight the evidence seriously.
They’re in a very good position to do that!
Neuroscience hasn’t delivered us what we hoped for. Now: bigger focus again on social factors.
Critique social reductionism as well! Combine them, give a nuanced and complete picture. Complex!

Important names and concepts:


Aristotle (heart), Galen (hub), Vesalius (ventricles), Descartes (dualism & reflex), Ramón y Cajal
(neuron doctrine), phrenology, Broca & Wernicke, localization vs. equipotentiality, evolution &
hierarchical organization in the brain, emotion (visceral brain, limbic system), dynamic brain (LTP,
functional), neural networks, cells that fire together…, visualization brain activity (EEG, fMRI), brain
myopia (localization, simplification, correlation, causality).
INTERIM EXAM 2
Lecture 7: Denny Borsboom
The problem of consciousness
The mind-body problem

 The mind-body problem


The dualist René Descartes (1596-1650).
The materialist: Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679).
-isms…
 Monism (“there is only one kind of things”)
 Materialism (‘ultimately everything is material’)
 Idealism (‘ultimately everything is mental’)
 Dualism (“there are two kinds of things”)
 Substance-dualism (‘mind and body are kinds of distinct entities’)
What is the thing that leads to monism & dualism?

 Dualism
René Descartes (1596-1650)
Descartes views the body, but not the mind, as a machine. Mind and body must therefore be
different entities. Descartes’ reasoning produces the mind-body problem. However, the idea that the
mind is a causal director of the body gets ever more problematic.
Descartes believed that sensory information was transferred to the mind through the pineal gland.
Mental misery…
Causal effects of the mind are obscure. Interaction problem: how can a non-material entity cause
physical events? Causal closure problem: if every physical event has a physical cause, where does the
mind enter? How about the law of conservation of energy? Brain damage problem: why would a
nonmaterial entity react to brain damage?
Nowadays, no theory can afford to be inconsistent with established scientific theory without
answering for it.
The teleportation test: do we even understand the idea of an immaterial mind? Where is it when
you’re asleep? Or suppose you’re teleported to the moon - does your mind travel with you or not?
And what if your Earthly body accidentally fails to be destroyed - are there then two you’s?
Thinking about mind and body as separate entities looks easy. However, as soon as we ask the
question ‘how would that work?’ it turns out we don’t really have a decent answer. The inability to
provide a reasonable theory of mind-body interaction has led to demise of dualism in scientific
articles.

 Materialism
The materialist maintains that, in the end, there is only matter. The concept of ‘matter’ is however
quite flexible (so fields, states, processes, functions, etc. all count as ‘material’). Most important is
that the mind, whatever it may be, is a part of nature and observes the laws of nature. This still
leaves many possibilities for exactly what the mind is.
The problem of consciousness
The materialist doesn’t have an easy life either. Without a mind, it’s hard to explain how and why we
have conscious mental states. Three problem areas:
o Mental states (or not)
o Reductionism (or not)
o Subjective experience (or not)
Mental states:
In daily life, mental states (‘to want ice cream’, ‘knowing where they sell ice cream’) explain
behaviour (‘buying ice cream’). This is called belief-desire psychology and is part of folk psychology -
but also of scientific psychology. This kind of explanation surfaces throughout psychology (social,
clinical, development…). The theory of planned behaviour from Ajzen.
How can mental states receive a respectable place in scientific explanation of human behaviour? If
the mind does not exist as a distinct substance, then how can mental states exist at all? Or is it all just
spooky stuff, and is the only good mental state an eliminated mental state?
o Eliminative materialism
One option is to deny the existence of mental states: eliminative materialism. Mental states aren’t
real and will not appear in the ‘ultimate description of the universe’. Folk psychology is just like naïve
physics: in the end it will disappear. The philosophical couple Paul & Patricia Churchland are
eliminative materialists. It just takes some getting used to.
Eliminative materialism is a bridge too far for most scientists. Mental states appear too important for
the explanation of behaviour to dismiss them. It is also unclear what should take the place of
ordinary ‘belief-desire’ explanations of behaviour - neuroscience that can do this is currently science
fiction. Elimination seems premature; throwing out an explanation before you have a new one.
Because right now, we don’t have a right measure to be able to explain mental states etc. through
imaging techniques.
How do psychological states relate to brain states then? Two most important routes; non-reductive
& reductive materialism.
o Reductive materialism
Materialism with mental states. Non-eliminative materialism. One can deny that the mind exists as a
substance, but still make room for mental states. To do this, one must produce an account of how
mental states are rooted in brain states. Identity theory and functionalism are related attempts to do
this.
Identity theory
Maintains that mental states are brain states. To want an ice cream = brain state X. Identity theory
was developed to keep a causal role for mental states (not to deny it). ‘John bought an ice cream
because he wanted one’ is true, but really means ‘John bought an ice cream because he had brain
state X’. Mental state is the brain state, it isn’t produced by the brain state. They are the same. Very
strong position. Very nice, very strong, very clear. Sharp. But also difficult. Two different types of
identity.
- Type-type identity. But… what is identical to what? Strong answer: types of mental states are
identical to types of brain states across individuals and time points. This implies a one-to-one
mapping of mental states to brain states. If this holds true, then a full reduction of
psychology to neuroscience is a realistic possibility. A reductionist isn’t necessarily the same
as a materialist. Not all materialists are reductionists.
Reductionism
Step 1: start with a scientific law in the higher order science (the science to be reduced, e.g.
psychology).
Step 2: establish bridge laws: one-to-one correspondence relations between terms in the higher
order science and terms in the lower order science (the reducing science, e.g. neuroscience).
Step 3: show that the higher order law follows from laws of the reducing science given the bridge
laws.
The most famous reduction in the history of science is the reduction of the ideal gas laws to statistical
mechanics through the bridge law ‘temperature = mean kinetic energy’. Very powerful, but very rare.
Most researchers think type-identity theory is too strong: neural plasticity implies that the same
mental functions can be performed in different ways. Individual differences in physical makeup
suggest that brains may be quite heterogeneous, especially at the fine grained level of patterns of
neural connections. Mental states are often defined by their contents, and that content is very likely
to be encoded in many different ways.
The teleportation test: suppose your mental states are your brain states. Can you have the same
thought twice? And what about teleportation: your replica has a different brain, so are its brain
states different? That would mean you can’t really be teleported at all… the destruction of your body
on earth is murder!

o Non-reductive materialism
Also with mental states, but non-reductionist. Functionalism and the computer metaphor. The mind
can run on different brains. If that’s the case, different computers can run the same software with
different hardware. Define things through their role: function.

 Functionalism and multiple realizability


Functionalism and the computer metaphor. The computer metaphor extends the Turing machine
into the domain of the human mind: mind:body = software:hardware. The mind is a program that
‘runs on’ the brain. Just like the variables in a computer program, mental states are characterized by
their function, not their realization.
The Turing machine can implement all computable functions. This includes logic; hence the Turing
machine can ‘think’ in a basic way. A Turing machine can be made of many different kinds of
materials: it is multiple realizable. What if mental states are just like software states, in which
function is enough to characterize them, while their physical realization is unimportant?

Functionalism
Functionalism defines mental states in terms of their role. For instance: realizing input-output
relations. Fear of spiders = whatever state causes people to avoid spiders, to say they are afraid of
spiders, etc. In this view, fear of spiders is not caused by the brain, but realized in the brain.
Multiple realizability: computational level = John gives Jane 10 euros. Implementation level = 10 coins
of 1 euro, 1 bank note of 10 euros, wire transfer, credit-card,… Same goes for the brain: scared of
mice because they carry diseases / because you believe they’ll rule the world. Different brain activity.
Idea of things being defined to their function isn’t that strange at all, because we see it with money
as well. Maybe not so strange that it goes for the brain as well.
Realization versus causation.
Money is one of the best examples of multiple realization. A ten euro bill is a ten euro bill because
you can buy certain things with it, not because of what it’s made of. So it plays a certain role in our
social, psychological and economic system. However, whether it’s made of paper or of iron doesn’t
matter. Important: the ten euro bill is not caused by the paper, because it does not exist
independently of that paper. Instead, the paper realizes the ten euro bill. Functionalists think that
mental states exist in precisely this way. Just like money, they are defined in terms of their role, and
realized in the brain. If you want to learn how Windows works, you don’t have to understand the
chips etc. in your computer.
Identity theory, version II: token-token identify
Type-type identity is killed by multiple realizability. No longer a 1-to-1 mapping of brain states to
mental states. But a many-to-1 mapping of brain states to mental states. But… what if ‘to want an
ice cream’ = ‘brain state x for John’, brain state y for Jane, brain state z for Jerry, etc… Then we do
have identity of brain states with mental states. This is called token identity theory.
Jerry Fodor (1935-2017) introduced the concept of multiple realizability.
Token-token identity blocks reductionism. This is because we cannot construct bridge laws. Just like
the concept of the ten euro bill does not map to a particular physical kind of thing… Hence the laws
of psychology cannot be reduced to the laws of biology or physics.
There are no laws in psychology. But relations or something.

Functionalism
For functionalists, psychological explanations are genuine and that’s where the buck stops.
Reductionism is structurally impossible. Identity theory is tenable in its token-token form. This type
of materialism is called non-reductive: mental states ultimately are brain states, but the
correspondence between mental and brain sates is not of the right kind (one-to-one) to support
reductionism.
The teleportation test: functionalism is consistent with the “naïve” concept of teleportation. When
your body is rebuilt at its destination, all relevant input-output connections are restored. So the
rebuilt person really is you, including all of your mental states. If you fail to destroy the one on earth:
there is two you’s, fully functioning, conscious Danny’s. they would become different as they have
different experiences. Goes well with our intuition, which a lot of people see as evidence for token-
token identity theory.
Dualism, revamped: or, should we become dualists again?
Non-reductive materialism doesn’t really have scientific teeth. “ultimately, mental states are brain
states” is an untestable claim without a mapping between the two. Perhaps we can think of other
creative ways of constructing mind and brain. In complex systems, higher order properties emerge
out of lower order processes. Emergence does not plausibly connect to substance dualism. However,
one could say it connects to ‘property dualism’. This is the thesis that even though there may not be
an autonomous mental substance, there are autonomous mental properties. Perhaps they could
even exert causal power back into the brain.
The fluidity of water is an emergent property.
 Property dualism: (‘mental and physical terms identify different properties’)

…Or something different altogether?


Gillbert Ryle: university is just the way in which all that he has already seen is organized. Different
view: mental states reference the way we are organized in the world. They are not brain states, but
abstract ascriptions that we apply to the human being as a whole rather than in the head. New
world. Labyrinth continues to grow. Maybe we will find an answer, but maybe we will walk around
the maze for eternity.

The status quo. The current majority opinion is that:


- The mind as a distinct substance is not a particularly good idea
- Mental states are, at least in part, tightly connected to brain states (but ‘identical brain
states’ may be too strong).
- At the same time, even if neuroscience has an important role to play in psychology,
reductionism is not a viable option.
- In the end, we really don’t understand very well how the mental is connected to the physical
- so there are opportunities for progress.
Lecture 8: Riet van Bork
Thinking computers and free will

 Materialism, functionalism, multiple realizability, and reduction


Where Danny ended was with the status quo: many scientists are non-reductive materialists.
Example of reduction. Higher-level theory (ideal gas law): a gas that is heated in a barrel will exert
more pressure on the walls of the vessel. Lower-order theory (statistical mechanics): particles that
move faster collide more often and with more power against the walls of the vessel.
‘bridge laws’ = statements linking concepts of the reduced theory to concepts of the reducing theory.
Required for reduction! Temperature = average kinetic energy (velocity) of the particles. Pressure =
force that particles exert on the wall by bumping into it.
Bridge laws are needed for ‘clean’ reduction. This is not eliminative, we still think these are useful.
We just now explain why the law is the way it is. For some parts it’s not possible. For instance;
meteorology (weather). Higher level: mountain on island  climate zones on islands. Mountain can
be granite, volcano or sandstone. One side wet, one side dry or one side clouded and one side sunny.
The concept ‘mountain’ can be realized in different ways (multiple realizability) and it doesn’t matter
in what way. No reduction possible.
Other example: psychology, fear of death. Is alto multiple realizable. Increased heart rate, seaty
hands, both. And neuro-pattern in cortex left/right PFC or amygdala.
Has to do with type-type & token-token identity.
Identity: each mental state is identical to some brain state. Specific state at specific time for specific
person  token-token identity. Not very strong. Says that every mental state is in some way
relatable to some brain state.
For reduction, this is not enough. Then you need similar mental states to result in similar brain states.
Thoughts about deaths = activation in left hemisphere, for instance. Then reduction is possible.
That’s why type-type identity is stronger than token-token identity.
No matching types at the lower-level. Reduction is blocked by token-token identity.
Reduction
Multiple realizability blocks ‘clean’ reduction. For reduction, token-token identity is not enough: you
need type-type identity. This is because the lower-order collection of realizations from the lower
order perspective is heterogenous and arbitrary, can only be grouped from higher order perspective.
That’s why people who believe in multiple realizability find reduction unlikely. ‘Jerry Fodor states that
multiple realizability makes reduction impossible.
But note that reduction is an incredibly great achievement that is also rare in exact sciences. Without
it, brain science is just as interesting! Specific mechanisms at the lower level can be informative for
the higher level, without reducing that higher level. Also note that there is a big difference between
reductionists (who want to explain relationships between psychological concepts) and eliminativists
(who don’t want to use those psychological concepts at all). John Bickle: reduction is possible, but
changes meaning of theoretical concepts.

 Functionalism and the thinking computer


Implications of functionalism
The Turing machine is multiple realizable. The Turing Machine can implement a basic thought
process. If these thought processes are essentially computer programs, then this should also be
possible to be implemented in a computer. The brain is thus not essential. As long as a robot can
realize the right programs, then this robot also thinks!
Is consciousness limited to us? Can we develop a Turing machine with a consciousness?
First person who thought about this: Alan Turing again. Think about what is required for a machine to
have consciousness. When is it ethical to deny a machine consciousness?
Because he’s gay, was forced chemical castration and killed himself, more focused on when and not
how.
The Turing Test
If a Turing machine can think a little bit, then a very good Turing machine might as well think as we
do. What would we say if we had a computer that behaves indistinguishable from a human being?
Alan Turing: in that case you have to conclude that the computer has consciousness. This is called the
Turing test.

The silicon brain


Unlikely? What if you would replace neurons one by one with silicon chips? You would still have
mental states and consciousness…. Right? This is the fading qualia thought experiment. Intuition =
small stops, no point where you would say: this is where you loose your consciousness. First sight,
then hearing, etc.
A thinking computer! In the 70’s and 80’s, people really can see it happen (and now again!) the
thinking computer is coming! Moreover, multiple realizability seems to imply: we can transfer
consciousness form one medium to another, so we can also become immortal.

 Searle’s Chinese Room


John Searle wipes the floor with the strong AI thesis. In this thought experiment, you are literally a
Turing machine. You are in a room and receive notes. You have a book that tells you what to
respond. You are in a room and you don’t speak Chinese. You get instructions. Whenever there’s a
note in box three, you get not a translation, but you get what to respond. Chinese people outside
don’t know what is in the room.
What you don’t know is that the symbols are Chinese phrases. So, you’re having a conversation in
Chinese without knowing it. Searle’s conclusion: no one here understands Chinese and no one has
consciousness.
Hence: passing the Turing test may be necessary but is not sufficient ground for consciousness. And:
the computer can never develop meaning. Realizing a computer program is therefore not enough for
having real thoughts. So: the strong AI thesis fails. Searle: consciousness is an essential biological
phenomenon.
Responses
Searle’s article appears together with dozens of comments in Behavioural and Brain Sciences.
Functionalists are furious. This is a great moment in intellectual history (read the article!).
Maybe you don’t speak Chinese, but the whole room knows Chinese.
One of the responses is that the Turing machine might be too simple. What if we make a whole
network of computers, like a neural network?
Answer: a network of Chinese rooms doesn’t understand anything either. Searle: simulating is not
the same as realizing.
Fast Forward in Time
The Chinese Room itself has become the subject of an entire literature. Opinions on the correctness
and scope of the argument differ widely. It all used to be very hypothetical that the Turing Test
would be passed, but now we are very close. All the more relevant is the question Searle raises: is
that enough? Is Siri conscious?
If Siri gets so good that she can fool us, should we ascribe consciousness to her? Can you do
philosophy with Siri? In order to ‘say’ something, do you need to want to convey something? Have an
intention? Will AI ever be able to have intentions?
 The problem of subjective experiences
Qualia
Thought experiments about seeing colours. Story about Fred. Fred has better colour vision than
anyone ever. He sees two colours, where we see one. Red1, and red2. The rest of the world is red1-
red2 colour blind. To him, the two colours are as different from each other as yellow and blue to us.
What kind of experience does Fred have when he sees red1 and red2? Extra cone? Physical
explanations will never tell us what we really want to know about his experience. Physicalism leaves
something out.
Even though experience of colour and we know how everything works, still, the subjective
experience itself is not captured in this information.
Another famous example: Mary the color scientists. Frank Jackson studies the implications of
materialism. Wonders whether physical knowledge can result in complete knowledge about the
world… or is something missing?
Does Mary learn something new when she comes out of the world? Yes, then physical knowledge
doesn’t include everything. Knowledge about physical processes is therefore not the same as
knowledge about subjective experience. Note: this doesn’t imply that the subjective and the physical
are two different substances. So this is not an argument for dualism.
What is it like to be a bat?
Thomas Nagel wonders whether it’s possible to learn from ‘objective’ descriptions what it is like to
be a bat. He concludes that this is impossible. That would mean that subjective experience escapes
the grasp of science. There is no way for us, even though we study the sonar system that bats use to
see, to actually know what it’s like to be. We could start to experience what we would do if we were
blind or something. You can guess what it would be for you to be in a certain situation, but you don’t
know what someone else is experiencing.

The hard problem


Many people think: the brain somehow produces experiences. For example: if a certain grain process
occurs, then there is subjective experience, and otherwise there is not. But it is not at all clear how
the existence of subjective experiences can or should follow from theories about the physical reality.
David Chalmers points to this so-called hard problem: how is subjective experience possible at all?
How and why do physical properties lead to subjective experiences? He argues that standard
research only focuses on the ‘easy problem’. One only investigates which brain processes are at the
basis of which experiences. But the real mystery, the problem of consciousness - why do we have
qualia at all - is not addressed.

Cognitive closure
Philosopher Colin McGinn suggests the cognitive closure hypothesis. A dog can’t learn the
Pythagorean theorem either. Maybe the problem of consciousness is just too difficult for us?

 Is there space for free will?


The problem with free will
Starting point: we see that organisms, such as humans, operate autonomously. In other words, our
behaviour seems to come ‘from ourselves’. We are used to holding people responsible for their
behaviour. This requires freedom in some form.
We normally speak of ‘free will’ when : the intention of behaviour precedes the behaviour, the
behaviour wasn’t necessary (you could have done something else) and the intention of behaviour
was the cause for behaviour.
Bit vague, but works okay-ish.
This definition works well in case-law. “under duress” to perform an act versus “voluntarily”
performing that act. See also the idea of imputability (being held accountable). But what does it
mean scientifically? William James believed in free will, B.F. Skinner didn’t.
Many people have the following intuition: the physical state of the world at t fully determines the
physical state at t+1. This is determinism. Seems to imply that there is no ‘space’ left for free will.
How do we get that space back?
Rejecting determinism. Problem: doesn’t seem to gain us much.
Is the absence of determinism enough?
A strategy to regain freedom is to deny determinism. But is ‘probability of behaviour’ enough?
Moreover: exercising your will also presupposes, to a certain extent, determinism! If my intention
only determines my behaviour with some probability, I don’t experience that as free will! Does
determinism contradict free will?
Can free will be a cause?
Intuition 1: the physical state of the world at t fully determines the physical state at t+1.
Intuition 2: the physical state of the world at t fully determines the mental states in that world.
Conclusion: mental states are not independent causes. The ‘real cause’ of your behaviour is a
physical state of your brain, which is stuck in a causal chain.
You want the intention of behaviour to be before behaviour.

Does the intention actually precede the behaviour?


Libet and others investigated the timing of decisions versus behaviour. Empirical studies seem to
show that behaviour is already being started in the brain before the decision is made. This has been
replicated in fMRI as well.
Criticize this research: very small behaviour. Pressing button isn’t comparable to buying a house. Not
the right level.
Can we save free will?
- Criticize Libet’s experiments
- Maintain that physics does not fully describe the world
- Become a compatibilist (both free will and determinism)
- Conceptualize free will differently (not as a cause)
Free will as a phenomenon
Free will is often considered an explanatory entity. But you can also see free will as a phenomenon to
be explained. Fact: we clearly differ in autonomy from cars and stones. Call this phenomenon free
will. Question; where does that difference come about?

Conclusion
- Still no one really understands how the mind relates to the body
- Subjective experience is a complete mystery
- The demand for free will puts these things on edge
- Lots of questions, few answers, but very interesting!
- And who knows, we might witness a breakthrough!

Lecture 9:
Logical positivism and theory-ladenness
 Analyzing science: philosophy of science
What is the foundation of knowledge? What is science?
Vienna, start of 20th century… a lot of art, etc. Where the story starts. People are not aware yet of
what will happen (first and second World War). Ludwig Wittgenstein, in class together with Hitler.
Also played a big role in his life. Three of his grandparents were Jewish. Twelve exceptions for
arrestations. He was one of them. Maybe because he was in class with Hitler? More probably
because he was one of the richest families of the world.

 Wittgenstein and the Tractatus


Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951): we distinghuish Wittgenstein I & II. Wittgenstein I: Tractatus
Logico-Philosophicus. Wittgenstein II: Philosophical investigations. Together these ‘two’
Wittgensteins form the most influential philosopher of the 20 th century. He was interested in logic
and became a philosopher in this way. Wittgenstein I = 1921 and Wittgenstein II = 1953. First work
leads to revolution, then he’s away. Then another book, contradict everything from first book, again
leads to a revolution. He caused two revolutions!
Wittgenstein visits Gottlob Frege and through him gets in contact with Betrand Russell. Russell wants
to ground mathematics in logic. Naïve set theory results in contradiction. Russell’s paradox.
Wittgenstein concludes that the paradox stems from a lack of clarity in what is that makes something
‘meaningful’. Wittgenstein was really mentally unstable, Russell took care of him, they became really
close. Big problem in set theory, because it is true and false at the same time. Wittgenstein came up
with a definition of meaning that made the paradox disappear.
The work of Wittgenstein I is dominated by a seemingly simple question: What is a meaningful
sentence? The Tractatus, which deals with this question, originates in the trenches in WO-I. He wrote
it during the war. Russell smuggled the book from the prison where Wittgenstein was held captive in
WO-I and published it.
The Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus.
1. The world is everything that is the case.
2. What is the case, the fact, is the existence of states of affairs.
3. The logical picture of the facts is the thoughts.
4. The thought is a meaningful propositions.
5. A proposition is a truth-function of elementary propositions.
6. The general form of a truth-function is: p,e,N(e). this is the general form of a proposition.
7. Whereof one cannot speak, therof one must be silent.
The world is the totality of facts (a fact is an existing state of affairs). Elementary facts are indivisible
and independent of each other (logical atomism). Complex facts are a combination of elementary
facts (constituents). All facts together constitute the world: “all that is the case”. A thought of
statement expresses a possible state of affairs in this world. That state of affairs is the meaning of the
thought. If the state of affairs “depicted” by the thought does occur, then the thought is true (picture
theory of truth). If that state of affairs does not occur, then the thought is not true (but it is
meaningful).
The “sayable”: everything that is meaningful, states of things that occur and don’t occur. All facts
(the world) and meaningful propositions. Meaningful and true, meaningful but false.
Abstract terms are fine, but not if they refer to nothing. Norms are also not meaningful. Doesn’t
mean that it’s not important.
The true, the beautiful, and the good. Meaningful statements depict possible states of affairs. The
other way around, statements that don’t depict a possible state of affairs are meaningless. As a
result, language cannot express anything ‘higher’: ethics and aesthetics, for example, withdraw itself
from the sayable. This is one of the most influential thoughts of the 20 th century.
He ends the book with: we feel that even when all possible scientific questions have been answered,
the problems in life remain completely untouched. There are, indeed, things that cannot be put into
words. They show themselves. They are what is mystical. Whereof one cannot speak, thereof must
be silent”. Example: love. I love you = not meaningful. Courage = shows itself, not meaningful.
Fast Forward in Time
The Tractatus is one of the most famous book sin philosophy and Wittgenstein is often considered
number one in the list of most influential philosophers of the last century. Most of the 20 th century
philosophy is a response to his work.
Wittgenstein quits philosophy after this. He believed he had found the final solution to all problems.
The time he goes into the mountains of Austra. Works at monastery, becomes school teacher.
Sometimes he can get a bit aggressive (he knocked out a kid; end of teaching).

 Logical positivism
In the 1920s, a discussion group was set up in Vienna to base philosophy on science and logic. This
Wiener Kreis (Vienna Circle) consists of scientists, mathematicians and philosophers. Wittgenstein’s
tractatus has enormous impact on this reading group. With Wittgenstein in their hands, they are
plotting an attack on the traditional “vague” philosophy (metaphysics).
The victims: mathematicians. Does this remind you of something? This was exactly what Vienna
Circle people hated. Fed up with people making your field look bad. Reminds you of behaviourism.
The attackers: logical positivists.
The weapon: meaning.

The Linguistic Turn


The mind has been drawn into the domain of natural science; what is still the domain of philosophy?
Philosophy is given a new purpose, the clarification of language, and the assessment of which
sentences are meaningful. This is a revolution in philosophy. “philosophical questions are questions
of language”

The mind was the last thing to ‘leave’ philosophy. Now philosophy: language should be clarified
according to natural sciences. Clear problems given to natural science. Logical positivists also see this
as their role. “I shall mean by ‘linguistic philosophy’ the view that philosophical problems that may be
solved (or dissolved) either by reforming language, or by understanding more about the language we
presently use” - Richard Rorty.
That which remains after the languages has been clarified and stripped of meaningless claims,
becomes the subject of natural science.

 Meaning and the verifiability criterion


1929: The manifesto of logical positivism
“The scientific world-conception of the Vienna Circle”. This manifesto starts philosophy of science as
a separate philosophical discipline. It deeply marks thinking about science - especially in psychology.
One of the most influential pieces in history.
Moritz Schlick is a logical positivist, just like Carl Hempel.
Starting points:
1. Meaningful claims are either empirical or logical in nature
2. Logical claims are verifiable by looking at their form (e.g. modus ponens)
3. Empirical claims can be verified by observation
4. Claims that are not verifiable are meaningless
Two different tasks: philosophers focus on the first part; refer to something and make sure logic is
okay. And then researchers have to make sure that it’s verifiable/observable.
The verifiability criterion
As a criterion for meaning, they thus use an adjustment on Wittgenstein I. Wittgenstein I said:
meaningful statements express a possible state of affairs. Vienna Circle changes this to: only
sentences that are verifiable are meaningful.
If you cannot find out the truth of a (factual) sentence by looking at reality, then the sentence is
meaningless. Some meaningless sentences: Donald has an Oedipus complex, the soul is immortal.
Meaningful: there are now 356 people in this room, the scale indicates 34 gram.
Back in Time
The logical positivists are close to the ideas of the British empiricist David Hume. His rejection of the
notion of causality was based on similar considerations. Focus on certainty and precision. Crusade
against nonsense.
Logical positivist don’t disagree that something exists, they just believe it shouldn’t be part of
science.
Wittgenstein wasn’t aware that his book became so popular in the time he was in confinement. Then
asked to visit reading group Vienna Circle. Wittgenstein didn’t want to hear any criticism, otherwise
he would come. Then he finally visited. Everyone looking forward to it. Big hero.
…but what did Wittgenstein think about this?
Wittgenstein sometimes visits the Vienna Circle: they were trying to make everything clear.
Wittgenstein was weird, would stand with his back to audience, say something, then be quiet again.
Weird that a strange man like this was the one who said it should be scientific and clear.
The verifiability criterion: Moritz Schlick. Some say Schlick got the idea of verifiability from
Wittgenstein. “in order to find the meaning of a proposition, we must transform it by successive
definitions until finally only such words occur in it as can no longer be defined, but whose meanings
can only be pointed out”.
The verifiability criterion and ‘sense data’
Logical positivists: experiences are gained through sensory perception. Assumption: these
experiences are neutral, so that they can serve as a foundation for science.
This is called sense data. Verification is the comparison of descriptions of observations (observation
sentences) with these sense data. Theoretical statements are verified through observation
sentences.
Sense data are factual descriptions of perception, like seeing a stick sink in the water.

 The structure of a scientific theory


The structure of science
Sense data: the scale indicates 980 Newton. The mass of this person in 100 kg. the measured
acceleration is 9,8 m/s2. Force, mass and acceleration. Regularity: law = force is mass times
acceleration.
Law = compression of relations that are happening on the observational level, because that’s the
world we can verify. Bijv. Jpeg image; pixels, not pixel-pixel white-white, but okay this ‘part’ is white.
Ability to recognize faces of the same race/different race: regularity: people are better at recognition
of people of the same race (cross-race effect).
Verify through observation = good. Pull up theoretical level.
Soon, people started seeing problems with this.

 Problems for logical positivism


Problems soon started to arise with this. It was an influential theory on how science would get a firm
foundation.
1. Separation of theory and observation: very important that sense data don’t have theory in them.
Observation sentences should be theory-free, and these observations should be linked to each other
and to the theory through logic. That is why logic plays an important role among the logical
positivists. Besides observation sentences, you have theoretical sentences. These two are attach to
each other with correspondence rules. Through these correspondence rules, the content of
theoretical sentences is reduced to observation. At least, that’s the idea.
Problem: theoretical terms such as ‘force’ and ‘mass’ , are a serious problem. The meaning of these
terms does not seem to be reducible to observations. Especially in psychology, many open concepts
(e.g. intelligent, vain), which cannot be defined exhaustively. These definitions change over time.
Theoretical statements are thus essentially ‘richer’ than observational statements.
Arthur Pap was the first to realize that open concepts cannot be reduced to observations. New
realizations of the concept. Theoretical statement = richer than observational statements, so bottom-
up approach not possible.
Theory-ladenness. The logical positivists assume that observations are neutral. However, there is a
big difference between observing X and observing that X has property Y. the latter type of
observation is important, but relies on a theory that defines property Y. moreover, scientific
observations are often based on instrument s0- and their accuracy is itself based on theory. We need
more than a picture to be verifiable claim. Karl Popper: “observe”. There is not something like
observation without theory, we already know what we’re going to look at.
Underdetermination of theories. Theory 1 = this is a duck. Theory 2 = this is a rabbit. So how do you
determine which theory is correct according to the empiricists? Theories are sometimes equivalent in
their empirical consequences. This is called the underdetermination of theories by empirical data. To
choose between theories, scientists then use other criteria (e.g. sparsity, elegance). But those criteria
are themselves theoretical!
Some network models and latent variable models are equivalent, yet representing very different
theories. Again bringing in theory, not what the logical positivist want.
Fast Forward in Time
The underdetermination of theory by data is an important theme in statistics. There are always
alternative models that can also explain the data. This is a structural problem when dealing with
correlational data. Some say you’ll never get past this. If you would allow any model, you would have
infinite models that fit with the data. We accept now that theory is important.
II: induction.
Induction problem: general statements are not verifiable. Specifically, statements about infinite sets.
For example: continua in science. So statements like F = m*a are not verifiable, because you can
never examine all masses and all accelerations. So we’re back to Hume! The logical positivists want to
reduce causal relationships to observations, just like Hume. But you can’t. So with the verification
criterion, causal relationships can’t be part of science. It’s an important part of science, not possible.
III: Unobservable entities
In the 20th century, science fill sup with unobservable entities. Elementary particles, photons, etc. but
also working memory, general intelligence, the LAD, etc. statements about unobservable entities are
neither verifiable nor reducible to observations. In addition, new techniques make some entities
observables. But were statements about microbes meaningless until the invention of the
microscope?

Wittgenstein returns
After years of self-chosen isolation, Wittgenstein returns to Cambridge. He starts a complete new
theory of meaning. Meaning arises in language games. The way we use language creates meaning.
Completely opposing the ‘received view’ of the logical positivists.
Logical positivism is crumbling down: it is too strict, criterion so strict that it couldn’t survive. Still
had a big influence (just like behaviourism). But as a normative criterion for what does and doesn’t
count as science, logical positivism is gone.
And so:
There are no sense data. Everything is subject to interpretation. There are always multiple possible
interpretations. There is no certainty in the observation. End of logical positivism.

Summary
With Wittgenstein in hand, the logical positivists open up a new area of philosophy: the philosophy of
science.
They try to demarcate meaningful statements based on the verification criterion: statements that
cannot be verified are meaningless. Science should only consider verifiable statements.
Verification criterion does not work because:
- Theory and observation cannot be strictly separated
- Statements about infinite sets, causality, and unobservable entities are not verifiable but
clearly meaningful.
The verification criterion thus describes half of science as meaningless chitchat.
Are the rationalists better in providing a good analysis of science?

Lecture 10: Riet van Bork


Functionalism & philosophy of science
Philosophy of Science, part 2: the revenge of the rationalists
 End of logical positivism
Short recap of logical positivism: firm foundation for science. Had to be observation. Important to
have sense data: observations without theory. Lower level of observational sentences. They are
scientific because they’re verifiable. On the level of the observation and operationalization. You could
see patterns: multiply mass and acceleration = force. Again and again; compress these observations
into a law, a theory. Pull a theory from the observations. A few problems.
In logical positivism the theories rest on neutral observations: empiricism. Logical positivism fails
because:
- Observations are not neutral: theory-ladenness
- Theoretical concepts cannot be reduced to observations
- The induction problem blocks verification of scientific statements (David Hume); you can
never observe anything
Rationalists versus Empiricists (another round)
Popper, also born in Vienna, had a large impact on society.
Prelude
Popper worked in a daycare center with Alfred Adler. Popper presented Adler with a case that he felt
didn’t fit into Adler’s theory. Adler explained the case by modifying his theory, showing great
certainty. “Slightly shocked, I asked him how he could be so sure. ‘Because of my thousandfold
experience’, he replied; whereupon I could not help saying: ‘And with this new case, I suppose, your
experience has become thousand-and-one fold.’ “ (Popper, 1978). He realized that it isn’t a strength,
but a weakness. He is going to argue that also psychoanalysis has this ‘being able to explain
everything’ and he will argue why that isn’t scientific. The world was full of verifications of the
theory.
According to Popper, there is something wrong with the theories of Adler, Freud, and Marx. These
theories can explain all facts. This might sound as something wonderful... Popper, however, realizes:
this is not a strength, it’s a weakness!
In the same period, Einstein posits the theory of relativity. This theory predicts that light deflects
along a planet. The solar eclipse of 1919 enables Arthur Eddington to test the prediction. If the
prediction didn’t come true, this would thus proof Einstein’s theory wrong.
You also specify that that there is a way to prove the theory wrong.
So Einstein’s theory excludes certain events. This is a strong theory exactly because it cannot explain
everything. Karl Popper recognizes that this marks the essence of science. After all, if you’re wrong,
you can find out! With a theory that can explain everything, this is impossible. Such a theory is
uninformative.

 Karl Popper and the falsification criterion


Theories are bold conjectures whose predictions can be tested against observations. Popper: theory-
free observation is impossible, but it is also not needed. Induction is impossible: you cannot induce
theories from observations. But that is okay, because instead we can do deduction: theories can be
used to derive predictions about observations!
Black swan in the symbol of Popper’s theory:
- Logical positivists: all swans are white (induction)
- Popper: keep looking for a black swan
Thus, theories are not constructed from observations (like the logical positivists claimed). They
emerge from the mind, in a creative act. Then predictions are derived from it. These are tested on
the basis of observation. Because it doesn’t matter how the theory arises, Popper thinks he solved
the induction problem. The only scientific act is refutation. And deduction is logically valid!

 The hypothetico-deductive model


Start with theory  deduce predictions from theory  test these predictions  if these predictions
don’t come true: falsify the theory  if they do come true: corroboration (is not verification; does
make your theory stronger but it doesn’t confirm it).
The empirical cycle (Adriaan de Groot). Link between him and Popper is explicit. They walked
together, Popper’s theory was used as inspiration for the empirical cycle.
In Popper’s philosophy, the theory developing phase is completely free. Strict separation:
- context of discovery (there is no logic for theory development)
- context of justification (strict rules for the logic of testing: modus tollens).
The logical positivists build on the tradition of empiricism. In contrast, Popper builds on the tradition
of rationalism. After all, Popper’s theories spring form the imagination. This means that part of the
content of our theories does not come from observation, but from the ratio.
Falsificationism is rationalism (back & forward in time)
Popper, unlike Plato or Descartes, however, considers the ratio fallible. That’s why his version of
rationalism is called critical rationalism. This is still a fairly popular movement in the scientific
community.
Demarcation
A demarcation criterion distinguishes science from pseudo-science. Popper proposes the falsification
criterion as a demarcation criterion.
The falsification criterion
The falsification criterion says that statements or theories are scientific when they are in conflict with
possible observations. A theory is only scientific if the theory is falsifiable. No problems with
induction, infinite sets, or unobservable entities!
Falsification
Popper differentiates degrees of falsifiability. A more precise theory and a more general theory
exclude more. Exclude more = more falsifiable = greater “informative content”.
More falsifiable, more informative content = more general. Applies to more observations/cases.
“all women wear a red t-shirt” vs. “all women with blue jeans and brown hair wear a red t-shirt”.
More conditional = less general = harder to falsify. Intuition; conjunction fallacy.
More general = more falsifiable. More precise = more falsifiable.
More precise = more falsifiable. “all women wear a red t-shirt and blue jeans and have brown hair”.
Because a lot easier to falsify. Both about all women, so no difference in generality.

 Problems with falsification


Popper cannot make a clear distinction between better supported and less supported theories. At
best, theories are “not yet refuted”. Very soon it is noted that hard falsification is difficult.
There is no way to tell which of two theories that have both not been refuted, is better.
The Quine-Duhem thesis.
If a prediction doesn’t come true, it could be because of the theory. But it could also be because
something else is wrong. Wrong measurements, wrong tests, etc.. A theory is never tested in
isolation.
If a theory cannot be tested in isolation, it will also not be rejected in isolation. Hard falsification is
therefore impossible. After all, you never know for sure whether your theory is false or something
else is wrong. The Quine-Duhem thesis is a structural problem for Popper. Similar to how induction is
a structural problem for the logical positivists.
How good a psychologist is Popper?
Popper’s theory is often read prescriptive. As a scientist, you have to do your best to falsify your own
theory. This is similar to having bankers responsible for reducing their own bonuses.
Can you really hold researchers responsible to falsify their own theories? “we should ring the bells in
victory every time a theory is refuted” - Popper
Does it really work that way? Popper says he has a normative theory. But of course that theory
comes from observations, not science. Question: is falsification historically accurate?

 Normative vs. descriptive philosophy of science


Popper didn’t look at this, his theory is meant to be normative. He didn’t look if it actually matched
with the history of science.
Historian Thomas Kuhn claims that science is not as the logical positivists (or Popper) claim. Against
positivism: theories often break with their predecessors. Paradigm shifts. For example: from Newton
to Einstein. In this transition, the meaning of a term like ‘time’ changes.
Stages of Science
Instead of cumulative progress, Kuhn proposes that scientific progress happens in stages.
- Pre-science
- Normal science I
- Anomalies and crisis
- Revolution
- Normal science II, etc. etc. Again and again.
It is not entirely clear whether Kuhn believes in progress over paradigms. At least it is not guaranteed
by the scientific method.
 Kuhn’s revolutions
Paradigm shift: revolution. Newtonian ideas refuted, for instance. A lot of physical theories.
“the structure of scientific revolutions” by Thomas Kuhn. Must-read for philosophers of science. Is
there progress when jumping from one paradigm to the next? That is not sure. If we take the
reference point, it’s really not clear anymore.
Progress?
Associated with Kuhn, relativism emerges. There’s actually no scientific progress. Because terms
change meaning in theories, those theories are not even about the same thing. In another paradigm,
you see another world. Incommensurability.
Pendulum made by Galileo. He would see forces acting on each other. He saw something differently.
You see another world.
What stage is psychology in?
Note: Kuhn writes the history of natural science. By “paradigm” he means all-encompassing schemes
like Newtonian mechanics. Psychology actually only has local paradigms. And: paradigms in
psychology are mostly methodological rather than substantive.

Epistemological anarchism
Feyerabend writes the book Against Method. He denies the existence of methodological guidelines
ensuring progress in science. It is essential for scientific progress that anything is permitted:
“anything goes”. Sudden discoveries can justify something that was already assumed. Example:
tower argument.
Essential to science to not be limited to rules! Galileo; did he follow rules? No; so we shouldn’t.
Tower argument: argument against Copernicus; if the world is moving fast, and you drop something
from a tower, you would expect it to land next to the tower but it doesn’t! So Copernicus’ theory is
falsified. But only because Galileo was stubborn and keep trying to show Copernicus was right. Then
eventually found why tower argument was false. We don’t need these rules. Otherwise Copernicus
would have been falsified.

 Lakatos’ nuanced falsificationism


Lakatos is a student of Popper who tries to save the rationality of science from both Kuhn’s relativism
and Feyerabend’s anarchism. Lakatos combines normative elements of Popper’s philosophy and
descriptive elements of Kuhn’s philosophy. Lakatos changes the notion of falsification to nuanced
falsificationism. Correspondence with Feyerabned: Far and Against Method.
He wants to prevent “anything goes”. Combines normative and descriptive elements. To play the
game of science, it has to be falsifiable.
Lakatos recognizes that it isn’t realistic that we try to falsify. But it is a good norm that theories
should be at least falsifiable to be scientific.
Direct falsification is rare.
Lakatos’ research programmes
Body of beliefs that help the theories: within this body, there is the core. Negative heuristic (you
cannot revise the core) and positive heuristic: some adjustments to protect the hard core are okay.
You cannot change the core of the assumption, but you might change the body a bit.
For example: core of theory “the general factor of intelligence exists”. Negative heuristic “the
correlation matrix between cognitive tasks in IQ tests is not unidimensional, but we do not reject g”.
positive heuristic “we change the model a bit and make it hierarchical so that g is not the direct cause
of IQ scores, but there are lower-order factors that mediate these effects”
Progressive research programmes: growth, new techniques, more facts
Degenerative research programmes: shrinkage, no new techniques, no increase in facts
Normative component: a rational scientist should stick with a progressive programme but abandon a
degenerative programme.
Example:
Mutualism. The positive manifold arises from reciprocal effects between cognitive processes.
Extreme positions, now many positions that take a lot of pieces form different positions.

Summary
Popper formulates the falsification criterion
Avoids the induction problem and solves the demarcation problem better than logical positivists
Problems for falsification lie in the Quine-Duhem thesis and that falsification provides a poor
description of scientific practice
Kuhn argues that scientific revolutions imply shifts in meaning: successive theories are concerned
with something different
Feyerabend argues that strict norms are in the way of scientific progress, it is essential for scientific
progress that “anything goes”
Lakatos formulates the nuanced falsificationism to save the rationality in science and brings back a
normative component in his descriptive analysis.

Lecture 11: Denny Borsboom


Psychology in everyday life
Psychology and Society (chapters 8 & 13)
Fundamental  Applied science. Nederland/Waterland. Theories that are applied after they have
been fully worked out.
… and reciprocal interaction between psychological science and society. They continuously interact
with each other.
 Naturalization and demystification: Clinical Psychology
“psychology doesn’t have big implications, we don’t know anything”: if you say this, look at how we
looked at mental disorders a few hundred years ago. This has drastically changed!
Witches and madmen
For most of history, aberrant cognition, affect and behaviour is explained by retrospectively bizarre
theories. Depressed individuals suffer from an excess of black bile, people who hear voices are
possessed, women become hysteric because their womb starts travelling through their bodies.
Treatments are abhorrent, bizarre, and ineffective. Treatment was for example to lure the womb
back. In the middle ages, doctors opened the skulls of psychotic patients in order to let the bad spirits
out.
The birth of psychiatry
Charcot, Freud and others begin to see psychiatric symptoms as expressions of diseases. Neurosis:
unconscious conflicts express themselves in symptomatology. In WW-I: shell-shock becomes
important: soldiers develop PTSD-like symptomatology partly as a result of trauma. For the first time,
psychological factors are being positied as causes of symptomatology.
Psychiatry and psychology
Psychiatry develops as a branch of medicine. People discover that certain drugs can be effective
treatments (e.g. lithium for psychosis). Antonio Mogaz receives the 1949 Nobel prize for inventing
the lobotomy. This fits with a strongly medical view of mental disorders.
The idea that mental disorders are rooted in the brain is still very popular.
Carl Rogers introduces humanistic psychology. Unconditional acceptance of patients. Therapist treats
by listening as much as by talking. This fits with a strongly psychological view of mental disorders.
Diseases or patterns of interactions between affect, cognition and behaviour? Aaron Beck invented
cognitive behavioural therapy.
Three different patterns of research, that share an important feature: naturalization. Despite their
differences, psychological and psychiatric views of mental disorders share a very important
ingredient. They see mental disorders as a part of the natural world that can be systematically
studied and understood. No more witches or black bile!
Extreme naturalization: is crazy just a different kind of normal? In the 1970s, “antipsychiatry”
develops. Thesis: people don’t suffer from mental disorders, but merely deviate from a norm. maybe
the norm is crazy, and society should adapt rather than ‘patients’.
Rosenhan’s study (1972). 8 pseudopatients get themselves admitted into psychiatric hospitals. The
say they hear voices saying ‘empty’ and ‘hollow’, but present no other symptoms. 7 out of 8 received
the diagnosis ‘schizophrenia’… and the pseudopatients spent 7 to 52 days in the institution.
Rosenhan: “we cannot distinguish the sane form the insane in psychiatric hospitals”. Calahan argues
that Rosenhan’s study never occurred and accuses him of fraud. But anyways, it had a big influence.
One flew over the cuckoo’s nest. Movie. These ideas slip into society (good example).
Antipsychiatry is gone, but criticisms on the medical model remain.
Sharp increases of medication for depression. Evidence for effectiveness does not justify in this
increase. Dehue: our conception of disorders like depression has radically medicalized. Increasing
prevalence indicates a change in society rather than in people.
Mind and body intertwined.
Conclusion
- Psychiatry and clinical psychology have naturalized and demystified mental disorders
- This is largely a fortunate development, that has led to more humane treatment
- The question of how far naturalization should go is complicated: where does normal end
- The question of how the mental and the physical relate is open

 Scientifically based societal regulation: The psychological test


Most influential thing that psychology has ever developed: the psychological test
The psychological test is an instrument that probes a person. The person’s response is used to infer a
psychological state or attribute. King Salomon is perhaps the first documented case (Salomon; two
women who claim to be baby’s mother. Cut it in half  woman who doesn’t want this = mother).
Alfred Binet: the inventor of the psychological test as we know it.
Binet attempts to assess children’s level of intelligence. Instead of assessing basic psychological
function like Galton, he lets children solve problems. Binet just counts the number of correct
response and takes that as an indication of intelligence. That is roughly how we still do it today!
Emancipation in many areas. Birth of psychological tests in other fields.
Psychometrics
The psychometric score of Binet’s approach is the total score. Psychometric theory has developed
ways to assess the quality of the total score as a measure of psychological attributes and delivers
concepts like reliability, validity, bias & random measurement error. If the psychological test is
psychology’s atomic bomb, then psychometric theory is its nuclear physics. Advanced measurement
models, most advanced in psychology because measurements are very noisy due to individual
differences. Again interaction between science and society: people thought they could be measured.
Understanding of people. As soon as you have the idea of a continuous scale of people. Then you can
think about people with the same capabilities: do they have the same opportunities. New way of
thinking about society. Ability should determine what job they get, not wealth or something else.
Fairness and testing
In the 20th century, evidence accumulates that test scores are more reliable and less biased than
teacher judgements. In the Netherlands, A.D. de Groot writes an influential treatise arguing for
objective tests. He invents the central institute of exames (CITO). Educational tests are among the
most influential inventions of psychology.
The fairness of tests vs. human judgement remains important. In NL, test scores have been made
subordinate to teacher judgements in 2015. Since, the central bureau of statistics has concluded that
boys receive a higher advice than girls, even if they have the same test score. Francis Bacon’s idols
are still with us!
Psychology and power
Psychological tests legitimize exercising power. Educational tests stand in the service of meritocracy.
In our society, discriminating on the basis of race or gender is unacceptable. However, discriminating
on the basis of ability is seen as just. That is how strongly society has been influenced by science.
Also downsides: smarter = better access to everything. Societal price. Maybe we should spread the
benefits. That’s also an exercise of power, we should be aware of that.
Especially IQ has a strong evaluative component. “ethnic group X has a lower IQ than group Y” is seen
as a societal threat in view of a history of eugenics and institutionalized racism. In psychology, this is
a tremendously controversial topic. Few scholars dare to touch this.
Conclusion
- Psychology changes society deeply by inventing the psychological test and the psychometric
theory to evaluate it (validity, reliability, etc.)
- While they do have problems of their own, psychological tests have shown deficiencies in
human judgement and if wisely used can mitigate these
- Testing has a strong interaction with the ideology of meritocracy
- Practices may change, but the idea of the psychological test is here to stay..

 Debunking psychological pseudoscience: Graphology and lie detectors


Sense and nonsense
In the time scientific psychology surfaced, people believed in many things we now consider bizarre.
An important contribution of ‘dry’ empirical psychology was to debunk all kinds of nonsense. This is
still an important task; people easily believe crazy shit about themselves and others.
Book: 50 great myths of popular psychology. Everything you thought was true about humans but is
not.
Gustave Le Bon : he wrote that all psychologists recognize that women represent the most inferior
form of human evolution. At that time; no opposition. It was believed to be true.
Math ability men/women. Differences are much smaller than you might expect. Now, it seems like
women are performing better in very many fields of science. Men seem to become
underrepresented. What’s going on here? The gaze of psychology. Not interested in statistics, then
impossible to be interested in psychology.
Tom Bombadil is the only character in the Lord of the Rings who does not fear the one ring. In some
interpretations, this causes the ring not to have power over him.
Graphology. New nonsense, old nonsense. Looking at a person’s handwriting will tell you something
about their personality  this is complete nonsense.
Electro-psychometers. According to the Scientology Church, the electro-psychometer measures
mental images, because these contain small amounts of energy that can be detected. Complete
nonsense
Lie detectors. Ever since Salomon’s judgement, people have wanted lie detectors. No evidence to
support the validity of use in criminal settings. Despite this, still often used in the U.S.
Most recent incarnation: no lie fMRI. All these procedures rely on the difference between situation
where you’re telling the truth and when you’re lying.
Forward in Time
It is not impossible to detect lies. However, lie detectors are easy to fool because they all rely on the
contrast between truthful and dishonest answers. If you e.g. bite your tongue in both conditions, the
machine will fail.
Which things do survive criticisms
Tests that do work are generally quite boring. Questionnaires, cognitive tests, working memory tasks.
The main discovery of the 20th century is that everything that sounds good should be distrusted. The
beer rule: if there’s a psychological theory or a psychological effect that sounds so good that if you
talk about it on a party and people will buy you a beer to keep you talking, it is false.
Is science immune to nonsense? No! In the early 21 st century, a lot of nonsense appears to have crept
into the system. Bacon’s Idols are never far, even in scientific research. It is your duty as a scientific
psychologist to stay alert on Baconian Idols!
Boring stuff replicates.
Conclusion
- Systematic empirical psychology has led to skepticism regarding adventurous claims
- The scientific literature shows that psychological research should be interpreted with care
- The position of skepticism has to be balanced, however, because there is a lot of research
that’s solid as well. One of the difficult things. Find and protect the nuance.

 Changing our conception of ourselves: Diagnostic categories


Example of second route of interaction between psychology and society. The case of multiple
personality disorder.
The concept of multiple personalities first surfaces in the 19 th century studies in hypnosis. People
appeared to show “secondary personalities”. This idea becomes popular in theatre and film. Hard to
find anything that resembles multiple personality disorder. Where does it come from? Hypnotized
people, sometimes they started to behave very differently. (Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde).
1957 the psychologists Thigpen & Checkley publish the case study of Chris Costner Sizemore. She
seems to have multiple clearly distinguishable personalities. The book becomes the film “the three
faces of Eve”. In 1974, the equally successful movie Sybil appears. In 1980, 200 cases have been
documented in total. Between 1980 and 1990, 20.000 new cases are recorded. The number of new
cases increases suddenly and considerably. Again interaction between society and psychology.
Science follows suit. Then with a diagnostic criterium, the diagnoses goes down again. This makes
assessment of psychology as a science very difficult. People, the object of the investigation, construct
their own narratives in terms of cultural concepts, meanings, words that have been delivered by
psychological science itself. Level of complexity. Psychology most interesting and most difficult of all
sciences. Regardless of what is actually going on, psychology and science interact continuously.
Psychological categories are not static! Like for instance, the periodic table. As far as we know, he
elements do not care for our categorization of them. It has no concept. Same holds for chemical,
biological, mathematical structures. But the DSM-V, that does the same thing as the periodic
element, except with people: ordering people on terms of symptoms. In reality, this is nothing like
periodic table because people do care about where they are. People legitimize their behaviour
according to the diagnosis/categorization. People construct their own worldview based on this.
Psychology and power
Because scientific categories order society, they are political as well. Foucault: mental disorders serve
the powers that be. Mental disorders do legitimize exercising power and have often done so in the
past. Example: slavery. Same slaves ran away. Disorder: drapetomania; explain the behaviour that
explained why slaves fled. Power of categorization. Or: sluggish schizophrenia: Soviet Russian
society. People who were critical = this disorder, so they have to be locked up.
To bring aberrant behaviours ‘under the scientific gaze’ is an important step. Disorders become real
in the public image. Cf. the contemporary “if it’s biological, then it’s real”
Loopings
Philosopher Ian Hacking talks of the looping effect of social kinds. Social kinds can start out as
arbitrary, but acquire causal power in our social system. Psychological categories often doe this,
because they become part of people conceptualization of their own identity. E.g. the diagnosis
“major depressive episode” has arbitrary components. However, the diagnosis steers social reality.
After diagnosis, people may interpret their behaviour differently. Society also treats people
differently (e.g. they become eligible for therapy and can access supporting funds). Hacking: the
category ‘becomes real’ in this process of social interaction. Has something to do with the way we
represent ourselves to ourselves and to others. Important to research.
Conclusion
- Psychology has influence society deeply and profoundly
- Sometimes via the route science  application, but more often via a “soft” route, where
psychology changes the way we look at ourselves
- Demystification, naturalization, and debunking nonsense are important processes in this
respect
- Psychological categories are inherently reactive, and we should be careful with interpreting
psychology as a simple natural science.

Lecture 12:
Criticasters, alternatives, and the future
 Quantitative versus qualitative approaches
Where does psychology belong? Natural sciences vs. humanities.
Some say: psychology is confused. They think they belong to the natural sciences, but psychology
actually fits better within humanities. Should do more with qualitative, interpretive methods. Why is
psychology not interested in literature, art, politics, and ideology?
The big question (again): do humans fill within or outside the scope of (natural) science?
I. The quantitative paradigm
We measure things: intelligence, depression, etc. Very deterministic. A lot of discussion whether the
things we measure in psychology is even a measurement. Laws that have to be fulfilled to deal with
something quantitative (which is necessary for measurement). Measurement plays a central role in
psychology now.
To measure is to know?
Mainstream psychology is characterized by: controlled experiments, measurement procedures and
measurement models & the use of statistics to analyze data.
Tendency of objectifying: avoid subjective reports. As objective as possible.
“The quantitative approach”.
Quantitative imperative: the conviction that you cannot know what you cannot measure. Ignore
certain things, just because they’re not measurable.
Measurement is a loaded term.

Quantitative research as a method


Strengths:
- Lends itself well for statistical analyses of large datasets: generalizability
- Can produce precise predictions that can be tested
- Easier to investigate confounds and validity threats
Weaknesses:
- Little interest in the perception of participants
- Research limited by what is measurable: ignore things that aren’t measurable
- Better suited to testing general theories than to finding solutions for specific situations:
specific situations are always context-dependent.
- If you don’t have a well-developed theory yet, quantitative methods aren’t as helpful: they
are not very suitable for generating theories
Are we positivists?
Quantitative research typically focusses on a specific task: ‘discovering’ reality. Focus on revealing
causal relationships. Experimental and correlational research. Big N, small T. often driven as much by
what we can as by what we want.
(According to some, psychology is like a drunk who searchers for his keys under the street lantern
because the light is better there, even though he lost his keys somewhere else)
Only focus on things that are quantifiable.
Research is designed nomothetically. Search for general laws. People are considered more or less
interchangeable. Most statistic approaches have this as an explicit assumption! Every person is the
realization of the same population. Same model holds for all people. But maybe, everyone has their
own model. this positivist view is understandable given the history of psychology, but is it necessary?
Hans Eysenck: “Everyone is indeed unique, but in the same trivial way that every old shoe is unique”

 Alternative methodology: understanding, interpretation, and qualitative research


II. The qualitative alternative
Alternative that doesn’t focus on numbers, doesn’t quantify everything. No focus on statistics.
Different methodology.
Qualitative research as a method
Method: qualitative research. (Participant) observation, semi-structured interviews. Result:
experiences of the researcher and/or interview transcripts. Studying homeless people can be done
by talking to these people, or living with them for a while.
Rather than sending tests/questionnaires, it is more about the experiences of those people. Then it’s
logical to try another method. Participant observations, etc.
- Grounded theory: systematic analysis of problem. Based on structured and semi-structured
interviews, the researcher writes a problem analysis:
What is going on? With what kind of problems are my participants dealing? How do they try to solve
these problems? Strongly inductive. Grounded theory tries to “ground” the analysis in observations.
Interested in the things itself, focused on the problems, not how they are experienced.
- Interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA): is a different method that does this more
than grounded theory.
Ability for interpretation, empathy, feeling with people. We don’t understand how this works, but we
know we have it. Use this ability to learn about others. Put more emphasis on the experience of
people studied. What is it like for them to be in a certain position? The interpretive ability of the
researcher then acts as a “measuring instrument”.
IPA tries to capture people’s subjective experiences. But: do we really have access to the experiences
of others?

Complementary?
As a method, qualitative research can be seen as complementary to quantitative research.
Generates theories, from general laws to applied cases. Well studied for quickly mapping out
complex situations. Often different methods are combined, such as a focus group and a
questionnaire.

Recognizable?
A characteristic of qualitative research is that participants find the data recognizable. As a result, the
participant have a real say in the processing of the data. If they don’t recognize themselves in the
data, something’s wrong. This does not apply to the interpretation of the data. This is completely
different from quantitative research. Participants should recognize themselves in the data, but not
necessarily in the analyses of the data.

Qualitative research as a method


Strengths:
- Direct involvement with situation
- Generates theories, exploration
- Responsive to the needs of participants
Weaknesses:
- Less suitable for demonstrating general laws: conclusions are often not generalized
- Little room for precise predictions/falsification
- Less suitable for deciding between theories
- Largely based on introspection/subjective evaluation
Strengths and weaknesses
From the point of view of the criteria we use to evaluate quantitative research (reliability,
replicability, etc.), it is a weakness that the researcher himself contributes so much to the
interpretation. But you can also look at it in a completely different way. For example, by letting go of
the pursuit of objectivity…

III. Relativize
Considered in relation or in proportion to something else. Kuhn’s idea that we’re all going to different
goals. We’re not all going to the same point.
Qualitative research as a paradigm
Rather than viewing qualitative research as a different method, you can also view it as a different
paradigm. Quantitative and qualitative are not “complementary”. They aim for something
fundamentally different.
Maracek fights misconceptions about qualitative research:
1. Qualitative and quantitative provide the same kind of understanding
2. Qualitative research is a first exploration
3. Qualitative research is purely inductive.
4. Qualitative research is the same as quantitative psychology but without numbers
Article: Dancing through minefields: towards a qualitative stance in psychology.
Qualitative research (as a paradigm) is not bound to the same methodological criteria as quantitative
research. The researcher’s contribution to interpreting the data is its strengths. The research does
not need to be replicable. Objectivity is not the goal, there is not ‘truth’, reality is a construction. So,
methodological criteria that are based on the idea of an underlying existing truth, miss the point!
Can the qualitative paradigm keep the methodology police at bay?
Qualitative research is quite big in other research: anthropology, social studies. Not just a few
people, it’s a big paradigm, just something we don’t really do in psychology. In psychology, it’s very
small, almost non-existing. There have been movements that wanted more of that paradigm in
psychology:
- Hermeneutics
The traditional quantitative approach is unsuitable for grasping the richness of the mind and the
experience of human beings. Science is defined by its methods rather than by its content.
Methodologism: emphasis on following g methods at the expense of other types of considerations.
Quantitative approach explains, hermeneutics tries to understand.
Only sticking to the rules, ignoring all kinds of considerations (political, e.g.).
- Understanding versus explaining
The phenomenological perspective is an extension of the qualitative approach. Phenomenology is a
20th century movement that tried to develop an interpretive methodology. Focus on intentionality,
conscious and qualia instead of behaviour. Verstehen vs. Erklären. In the Netherlands, there is a
strong school of phenomenology in Utrecht until the 1970s.
The fundamental task of psychology is not to explain human behaviour. It is to understand people’s
actions and their motives. So it is not about action potentials and cognitive processes. It is about
motives and intentions. Not the behaviour itself, but its meaning, should be at the center of the
research.
Is science independent of the reality it studies?
The results of psychological research constructs a new reality, social constructivism: knowledge is a
social construction. Science transforms reality. One acts according to their view of reality: “if men
define situations as real, they are real in their consequences”- Thomas & Thomas.

A constructed reality
Kenneth Gergen argues that psychology transforms reality instead of passively describing it.
Examples: obedience and authority, the bystanders effect. So it’s also hard to say if knowledge is
cumulative. Consequence: theories should not be judged on truth but on the ability to generate new
openings for action. How can we transform social life in such a way that the consequences are
desirable?
These aren’t people who think that scientific psychology contains nonsense. These are movements
that deny both the possibility and the necessity of striving for objectivity and truth. So in that sense
really a different paradigm: different goals, different methods, different norms and values! Kenneth
Gergen believes that psychology should let go of the ideal of objectivity.
Is social constructivism limited to humanities? Latour: “Give me a laboratory and I will raise the
world”. Pasteur, anthrax and microbes: “Scientific facts are like trains”.
Science and technology studies: studies how society and politics shape science and technology, and
vice versa.
His reasoning: you’re rehearsing, doing it over and over again, until you get it right. Then taking
knowledge outside: show that it works outside the lab. Becoming a fact is a procedure: describe
problem, people will see it as solution. Important moment: extend laboratory. Laying out the tracks.
Vaccination can work only on the one farm. Standardize all sorts of things on the farm so it stays the
same as in the laboratory, but not too much so people won’t recognize it as being taken outside of
the lab. Still clever and important, but not a miracle. …
Constructivism comes with a responsibility. We can’t hide behind “revealing the truth” as researcher
you contribute to what is true. What questions are you asking? Which categories do you consider
relevant? Political motive as well. Asking question = building knowledge.
What is truth?
Science constructs reality + Some say that the work of Kuhn and others shows that science is
irrational = Objectivity and truth are not feasible.
Theories are stories about how the world works
In this respect, scientific theories are in essence not different from other stories

 Truth does not exist: postmodernism and social constructivism


Postmodernism
Logical positivism and alter (nuanced/sophisticated) falsificationism preserve the rationality and
objectivity of science. Scientific psychology also rests on such ideas. But are these assumptions
correct?
Postmodernism rejects assumptions in principles in modernity: among other things, trust in science
and technology.
Modernity vs. postmodernism
- Rules and methods vs. no privileged methods
- External reality vs. socially constructed reality
- Moving towards truth vs. different possible stories to tell
- Positivism vs. relativism
Friction between different scientists. More and more postmodernists also started writing about other
natural sciences. Natural sciences also criticize back, of course.

 The constant tension between hard and soft approaches to studying humans
V. The science wars
Alan Sokal. Pofessor of Physics at New York University. Worked on quantum mechanics. Has become
famous outside of his field because of the fuss surrounding his article “Transgessing the boundaries:
towards a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity” (1996), Social Text.
Prestigious, post-modernist journal. He used modern physics to show that reality is not objective.
Sokal writes in an article that physics itself shows that there is no objective reality. Writes about
quantum mechanics, theory of relativity and quantum gravity. Uses quantum gravity to show that
everything is relative and context-dependent. It follows from physics itself that there is no absolute
truth!
Quotes: “Physical reality, no less than social reality, is at bottom a social and linguistic construct”.
“Not only the obsberver, but the very concept of geometry, becomes relational and unclear”.
“Quantum gravity informs us that space and time themselves are contextual, their meaning defined
only relative to the mode of observation”. Political argument.
We must have a liberating postmodern science, independent of objective truth. What used to be only
the domain of humanities now crosses the border and enters natural sciences. Political conclusions
from modern physics…
But… it was a hoax! He had a very different intention. Sokals true intention was quite another..
Would a leading North American journal of cultural studies, publish an article liberally salted with
nonsense if (a) it sounded good and (b) it flattered the editors’ ideological preconceptions? The
answer is ‘yes’, Sokal’s parody was accepted for publicated.
He put in quotes that were absurd to him. Sokal confesses: ‘the article consists of falsities and
syntactically correct sentences that mean nothing at all’. Moreover, the article presents speculative
theories as accepted science. Sokal turns out to be a scientist who believes that there is an external
world, that there are objective truths, and that his job as a scientist is to discover these truths”.
Political motive. Why did Sokal do this? “Deny that non-context-dependent assertions can be true,
and you don’t just throw out quantum mechanics and molecular biology: you also throw out the nazi
gas chambers, the American enslavement of Africans, an the fact that today in NY it’s raining… Facts
do matter, and some facts matter a great deal”. He brings in moral considerations.
Sokal shows the political consequences of a relativist view. So this is not a purely epistemological
consideration, but a political one. It is important to have absolute truths.
Another hoax
In 2017-2018, Helen Pluckrose, James Lindsay, and Peter Boghossian write 20 fake articles. They send
these articles to journals in the field of gender studies, queer studies and critical race studies. 7
articles are accepted for publication. Example; “Human reactions to rape culture and queer
performativity at urban dog parks in Portland, Oregon”.
Criticisms on this hoax:
- There is a thin line between hoax and fraud
- This probably could have happened in other disciplines as well, giving similar results.. (at
least that is not tested)
- Naïve about how the academic system works: peer review is not to expose fraud or
fabrications
You cannot expect from peer reviewers to identity fraud and fabrication of results.

Science war?
Latour: came back. “Nothing that happened during the 90s deserves the name ‘war’. It was a dispute,
caused by social scientists studying how science is done and being critical of this process’.
But now: “We’re in totally different situation now. We are indeed at war. This war is run by a mix of
big corporations and some scientists who deny climate change. They have strong interest in the issue
and a large influence on the population”
Now we really have a problem, because people distrust science. Now help regain trust in science.

 Biology, psychology, and the future


Future of psychology
From the first moment psychology became a scientific discipline of its own, there has been the
feeling that the scientific method does not provide all the information psychologists are looking for.
Currently, in psychology, positivism and the quantitative method are dominant.
Will the pendulum wing the other way again?
There is also the qualitative side that we might be able to learn from.
Do humans fall within or outside the scope of natural science? Unanswered. Who knows, maybe it
will change. Currently: quantitative method.

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