The Philosophical Roots of Psychology (by Thomas Wren)

1. The Philosophical Roots of Psychology(by Thomas Wren) Lecture 3 Descartes

2. Agenda • Descartes’ Historical Context • His Big Question • 1. His Conception of Human Development • 2. His Model of the Mind • 3. His Method of Inquiry • 4. His Conception of the Individual & Society • Appendix: His Relevance to Contemporary Psychology

3. Human Development Model of the Mind Method of Inquiry Self & Society Plato Knowing the Good (escaping from the cave) Four levels of knowledge and four levels of reality Conceptual analysis and reminiscence Three parts of soul and three classes of society Aris-totle Eudemonia (human flourishing, happiness, virtue) Rational & irrational faculties of the soul (teleology) Logical and empirical observation Man as zoon politikon (civic life as part of human flourishing) Des-cartes Quest for certainty (from naïve belief to solid knowledge) Mind and body as separate substances (dualism and innate ideas) Analytic meditation (radical doubt and “The Cogito”) The autonomous self (Descartes’ robot problem) Our Four Psychological Themes

4. Historical Context • The Renaissance and the Thirty Years War • Descartes, “Father of Modernity” (1596-1650) • Born in central France • Interested in various sciences and mathematics • Most famous philosophical work is Les Mèditations Metaphysiques (1641).

5. Descartes' Big Question “What can we be sure about?” Related Issues: • Innate Ideas • The Mind-Body relationship • Sense qualities and natural quantities

6. Rebuilding the Edifice of Knowledge

7. Descartes' Conception of Human Development (1a) Radical doubt (1b) The First Certainty: “Cogito, ergo sum” (1c) Challenges to the theory (1d) Solution to the challenges (1e) Conclusion

8. 1a. Radical Doubt:Game or Madness? • Doubt as game. • The rules and the goal. • Doubt as madness. • The symptoms and the New York “Fuggendabudit” cure.

9. 1b. One Certainty: The Cogito • The act of declaring “I think, therefore I am”(Cogito, ergo sum) is the famous Cogito.

10. The Cogito auf Deutsch • “Aber es gibt einen, ich weiß nicht welchen höchst mächtigen und verschlagenen Betrüger, der mich geflissentlich stets täuscht; aber wenn er mich täuscht, bin ich also zweifellaus auch; und er täusche mich, so viel er kann, niemals wird er dennoch bewirken, daß ich nichts bin, solange ich denken werde, ich sei etwas. Derart muß, alles genug und übergenug durchdacht, schließlich statuiert werden: dieser Satz, ich bin, ich existiere, ist notwendig wahr, sooft er von mir gesagt oder im Geiste konzipiert wird.” (Meditationes metaphysicae, 2. Meditation)

11. Descartes’ Clever Move in the Game of Radical Doubt “Thinking” refers to all cognitive activities.

12. 1c. Challenges Descartes Confronts Three Challenges: • Sensory Illusions • Dreams • The “Evil Genius”

13. 1c. Challenges • Sensory Illusions Mirages Hallucinations Simple mistakes

14. Challenges, cont. 2.Dreams “Realistic” dreams Fantastic dreams Dreams of mathematical judgments Dreams that I’m dreaming Dreams that someone else is dreaming of me (Doesn’t it make you feel better to know Descartes worried about this too?)

15. What about Innate Ideas?

16. Descartes vs. Evil Genius

17. 1d. God the Guarantor • From my existence to God’s existence: • Idea of God • God’s perfections • Incompatible with existence of an omnipotent evil genius. • Mathematics and logic are now trustworthy. • So are laws of nature.

18. 1e. Conclusion: God Exists and So Does Descartes! And the World Too!

19. But Such a World!

20. 2. Descartes’ Model of the Mind Two Distinct but Related Models: (2a) Dualism of Mind and Body (2b) Innate Ideas

21. 2a. Descartes’ Dualism vis á vis Aristotle & Plato • The soul is not “the substantial form” of the body. • It is a separate substance. • DUALISM: Mind and Body are totally different types of reality, namely Thought and Extension.

22. The Mind-Body Relationship • The Plausibility of Dualism. • The Problem with Dualism.

23. Two Puzzles • The body seems to influence thoughts. • Thoughts influence the body.

24. The Pineal Gland:Descartes’ Emergency Answer • Drawn from Descartes knowledge of anatomy. • But is this consistent with his dualism? • Seems there is no good solution.

25. A Better Answer • What is irreducible is the WAY WE THINK AND TALK about mental and physical phenomena, not the nature of the phenomena in themselves. • The “dual aspect theory” of the mind-body relationship.

26. 2b. Descartes’ Model of Innate Ideas vis á vis Aristotle & Plato • Ideas about world are learned from experience • (Descartes & Aristotle) • But some of our ideas are innate • (Descartes, Plato for Forms, Aristotle for the basic principles of rational thought)

27. Innate vs. Adventitious Ideas • Innate ideas are inherently present in the reasoning of the mind. • Adventitious ideas are ideas derived from our experience of the world.

28. Examples of Innate Ideas • The idea of self as a thinking thing (Lat. res cogitans) • The idea of God as a perfect being • The idea of causation • The ideas of mathematics • The ideas of substance, thought, extension

29. 3. Descartes' Method of Inquiry The method of Radical Doubt is: • The one that works for him, and others like him, but • May be “too bold” and hence not appropriate for some people, including: • Those who could misunderstand the purely methodological function of Radical Doubt, and • Those whose religious beliefs might be threatened.

30. Or as Descartes Put It . . . • “…My intention has never been to do more than try to reform my own thoughts and to build on a foundation which is entirely my own. And if my work has pleased me sufficiently to make me show you the model of it here, that is not because I wish to advise anyone to imitate it. Those to whom God has given more of his grace will perhaps have loftier intentions, but I fear that this work may already be too bold for some people. My resolution to strip away all the opinions which I previously absorbed into my beliefs is not an example which everyone should follow.” (Discours de la Mèthode, part 2)

31. 4. Descartes' Conception of Self and Society The “Autonomous Self” is a two-edged sword. 1. Humans now can think and act for themselves, but 2. They are alienated from other selves.

32. Descartes as the Father of Modernity • Emphasis on autonomy. • Emphasis on abstract reasoning.

33. A Bizarre Example Descartes admitted that he had no way to be sure that there were any other people in the world besides himself (and God). We cannot “see” (1st level of knowing) that others are people and not just meaty robots. He thought the most we can do is “judge” (2nd level of knowing) that they are people, even though we also know (3rd level of knowing) that our judgments are sometimes wrong.

34. Another Palmer Drawing

35. APPENDIX: DESCARTES' RELEVANCE TO CONTEMPORARY PSYCHOLOGY Descartes anticipated central ideas in: • Behaviorism • Cognitive Psychology

36. Behaviorism We have no access to other person’s thoughts or inner states. We can only • Project from our own inner experiences, or • Limit our psychological inquiry to external behavior.

37. Cognitive Psychology We cannot do without some version of Descartes’ theory of innate ideas. They enable us to act creatively, i.e., go beyond simple mimicry to produce actions that are genuinely novel.

38. Finale An Alternative Story of Descartes’ Death Café Waiter: “Monsieur Descartes, will you have another coffee?” (Möchten Sie noch ein cafe?) Descartes: “I think not.” (Nicht.) Poof!