Chapter 5
Empiricism, Sensationalism, and
Positivism
Updated: 3/2/99
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)
- 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)
Lecture Outlines
Graphics
URLs
- 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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