Chapter 5

Empiricism, Sensationalism, and Positivism

Updated: 3/2/99

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Text Outline

• British Empiricism
  • Thomas Hobbes (p. 109)
    • Humans as machines
    • Government protects humans from their own destructive instincts
    • Hobbes's empiricism
    • Hobbes's materialism
    • Explanation of psychological phenonmena
    • Explanation of motivation
    • Denial of free will
    • Complex thought processes
  • John Locke (p.112)
    • Opposition to innate ideas
    • Sensation and reflection
    • Simple and complex ideas
    • Emotions
    • Primary and secondary quailities
    • Association of ideas
    • Education
    • Government by the people for the people
  • George Berkeley (p. 117)
    • Opposition to materialism
    • To be is to be perceived
    • Only secondary qualities exist
    • Berkeley did not deny the existence of external reality
    • Principle of association
    • Berkely's theory of distance perception
  • David Hume (p. 121)
    • Hume's goal
    • Impressions and ideas
    • Simple and complex ideas and the imagination
    • The association of ideas
    • Analysis of causation
    • Analysis of the mind and the self
    • The passions (emotions) as the ultimate determinants of behavior
    • Hume's influence
  • David Hartley (p. 128)
    • Hartley's goal
    • Hartley's explanation of association
    • Simple and complex ideas
    • The laws of association applied to behvior
    • The importance of emotion
    • Hartley's influence
  • James Mill (p.131)
    • Utilitarianism and associationism
    • James Mill's analysis of association
    • The determinants of the strength of associations
    • James Mill's influence
  • John Stuart Mill (p. 133)
    • Mental chemistry versus mental physics
    • Toward a science of human nature
    • J.S. Mill's proposed science of ethology
    • Social reform
  • Alexander Bain (p.137)
    • Bain's goal
    • Laws of association
    • Voluntary behavior
• French Sensationalism
  • Pierre Gassendi (p. 140)
  • Julien de La Mettrie (p. 141)
    • Man a machine
    • Human and nonhuman animals differ only in degree
    • Acceptance of materialism will make for a better world
  • Etienne Bonnot de Condillac (p. 144)
    • The sentient statue
  • Clause Helvetius (p. 145)
• Positivism
  • August Comte (p. 146)
    • Positivism
    • The law of three stages
    • Religion of humanity
    • The hierarchy of the sciences
  • A Second Type of Positivism (p. 149)

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Lecture Outlines

• British Empiricism
• The British Empiricists
• The Materialists and Positivists

'isms and 'ologies

• associationism
• empiricism
• scientism
• utilitarianism

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Graphics

• Hume (several graphics
• The Philosopher's Gallery (a gallery of portraits, with links to more)

• Mind and Body: From Descartes to James (a nice psychology-based site)
• Hobbes (a must-see)
• Hobbes (from The Pre-History of Cognitive Science )
• Hobbes (Leviathan, 1651 - HUGE text, not for the faint-hearted or electronically ill-equipped)
• Hobbes (general information and biography, download Leviathan)
• Locke (biography)
• Locke (Book II, and Book III - pages contain links to chapters)
• Locke (general information and biography, contains full text of four works)
• Hume (general information and biography)
• Hume (A Treatise of Human Nature)
• Hume Society (a Web page devoted to Hume)
• Berkeley (welcome page with links to texts and biographies and more)
• Berkeley (an essay about three of his works)
• Berkeley (gopher text of A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge)
• Berkeley (short biography and discussion of conflict with Newton)
• Hartley (200 items of correspondence with the British Secretary of State)
• J.S. Mill (biography with portrait)
• J.S. Mill (biography on The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy - excellent site)
• On Liberty--J.S. Mill, (full text)
• Condillac (and others)
• Comte (bibliography of works)
• Comte (a nice URL, mostly in French, 3/2/99 did not respond)
• Comte (link page from Dept. of Anthrpology and Sociology at Universtity of Tennesse at Martin)
• Comte, as mentioned in an article on Samuel Anderson in Flagpole magazine online
• Carolus Linnaeus (father of taxonomy)
• The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
• Philosophy Page (a most impressive list of texts from Aristotle to World Congress of Philosophy) on The English Server
• Oxford University Modern Political Theorists web page and Main Page
• Epicurus, Gassendi and Democritus - brief bios with portraits
• de La Mettrie (small link in a big chain by Justin Leiber at the University of Houston)
• Ernst Mach (short biography)

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