From Rationalism to Romanticism

• Enormous social changes take place during the Age of Reason (1700-1800).

• American Revolution (1776-1787) – results in the world’s first Democracy created by democratic processes.

• Napoleonic Revolution (1799-1812) – Napoleon provided the defining moments of the French Revolution (1770s – 1830s).

• Many, many other revolutions follow, from Russia to South America.

Socialism

• Socialism was not a philosophy nor a political movement, but a growing rejection of the ruling classes (“divine” rulers, royal bloodlines, etc.).

• From 1770s to 1830s, Western Civilization went from numerous monarchies to numerous democracies.

• The essence of socialism is the belief that people can govern themselves as equals – no need for a ruling class.

Socialism and Romanticism

• After the revolutions, ideas of self-governance and free will were openly discussed which gave rise to a major literary movement.

• Various social doctrines emerge, e.g., American Utopians, German Communists, and many other efforts proposing a blueprint for harnessing the observed social changes.

• During the 1900s, the word “Socialism” becomes closely linked with the German Communists.

Romanticism (1800-1900)

• Romanticism was a reaction to rationalism as much as it was a result of the social changes.

• As rationalism became more popular, more people started questioning the assumption that human nature was rooted in rationalism.

• The “romantics” are the philosophers and literary writers who addressed irrational motivations in human nature, particularly emotions.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

• Commonly considered the first romanticist, and romanticism grew with the increasing popularity of his books: The Social Contract and Emile in 1762 (books are rejected before the revolutions).

• In The Social Contract, Rousseau questions the whole idea that people need government.

• In Emile, Rousseau argues that education should focus on individuality, not society.

The Social Contract

• Published in 1762, Rousseau’s treatise begins with the line, “Man is born free and yet we see him everywhere in chains.”

• The “social contract,” is his proposal that people should only be governed by a ‘general will,’ or the community-driven collection of individuals.

Rousseau and Feelings

• His views on both education and society are based on the belief that people are best guided by their feelings.– Human free-will is the ability to pursue

goals and objectives based on our emotions.

–We have a private will (selfish), and a general will (desire for community).

Romanticism and Psychology

• The romantic literature embraces the role of free will in social struggles. This notion lays the foundation for the study of consciousness and subsequently the field of clinical psychology.

• We can consider the Age of Rationalism to be the cultural foundation of cognitive psychology, and the Age of Romanticism to be the cultural prototype of affective (emotion-driven) psychology.

Existentialism

• Existentialism was a movement that occurred within the Romantic era, but was not focused primarily on understanding the irrational nature of people.

• In fact, existentialism goes beyond human motivation; the existentialists look for the very meaning of our existence.

• There are two forms of existentialism: theistic and atheistic meaning of existence.

Kierkegaard (theistic)

• Soren Kierkegaard (1813-1855) first rejected Christianity, and later embraced it.

• He declared that all religious systems were against the tenets of Christianity and discouraged the religious experience.

• Existence is given meaning through a personal relationship (“love affair”) with God.

Kierkegaard – stages of freedom

• Our existence achieved meaning in three stages.– Aesthetic stage – seeking pleasure– Ethical stage – ability to recognize and

accept responsibilities, but follows external sources of ethics, such as church dogma and secular laws.

– Religious stage – recognizing and accepting personal freedom in a relationship with God. Self-awareness makes person rise above the generally accepted morals and laws.

Nietzsche (atheistic)

• Friedrich Nietzsche (1844 – 1900) is generally considered the most easily misunderstood philosopher since Plato.

• Nietzsche proposed that man had killed God, and that man must now strive to be “over man.”

• Misunderstandings include the German Nazi party’s attempt at a “super race,” and the comic book hero Superman (it actually got started as a satire).

The death of God

• Famous quote – “Is man just one of God’s mistakes, or is God just one of man’s?”

• The quote represents his view that people had relied on “God” to give life meaning, but philosophy and science had taken the meaning out of the universe, and thus we “killed God.”

• Nietzsche thus asked: where do we now turn to for meaning and morality?

Nietzsche and Existence

• Nietzsche stated that now we can only look within ourselves for meaning in life.

• His first major proposal that meaning and morality have a formless origin, and our lives shape meaning and morality stimulated enormous discussion and debate.

• Nietzsche proposes that the basic motive of human nature is the will to power, and should not be inhibited.

The Superman

• The most easily misunderstood concept, the “superman” (or “over-man”) appears in his book Thus Spoke Zarathustra.

• In its purest form, the superman is something we learn to become, and superman is achieved when we become free from social restraints and personal inhibitions.

• Remove Nietzsche’s gift of dramatics, and the superman is like an atheistic counterpart to Kierkegaard’s stages of freedom.

Philosophy to Science and the Making of Modern Psychology

• Science is based on observation to understand the natural world; psychology is about understanding the observer.

• During the 1800s, psychology was (still?) generally treated as a type of philosophy.

• Some scientists “dabbled” in some areas of psychology. Most were physiologists.

Physiological Beginnings

• Physiology is the study of how organs and organ systems function within an organism. Some of the early physiologists were interested in nerves and senses as parts of the observable organism.

• Bell-Magendie Law – Bell (1811), and then Magendie (1822), discovered that nerves were either sensory (going to brain) or motor (coming from brain). (Magendie published findings first)

Physiological Beginnings (continued)

• Johannes Muller (1801-1858) – demonstrated that nerves need “adequate stimulation.” This scientific finding led to the conclusion that we are conscious only of sensations, not of the physical world.

• Hermann von Helmholtz (1821-1894) – studied nerve conduction and concluded that nerves act in both a physical and chemical manner. – Impulses move at 50-100 meters per second. – Theorized that past experiences are added to

a sensation when it is converted to perception.

Other Related Discoveries

• Paul Broca – discovered an area of the brain, “Broca’s area,” responsible for speech and provided evidence for distinctive functional “areas” of the brain.

• Other early researchers demonstrated that -

– The brain had many other functional areas.

– Areas within the areas (arm movement is itself an area within the motor area).

– The brain-halves control the opposite sides of the body (left brain-half controls right arm).

Psychophysics Roots

• Psychophysics is the study of the relationships between the properties of stimuli as measured by a physical scale and the psychological or subjective impressions of those stimuli.

• Early researchers in psychophysics studied thresholds.

• Upper and lower absolute thresholds were operationally defined as the minimal or maximal (for upper thresholds) stimulus intensity that is detected 50 percent of the time.

Psychophysics Roots (continued)

• Researchers also investigated difference thresholds, the minimal stimulus difference that is detectable 50 percent of the time.

• Psychophysicists pioneered the quantification of certain mental processes and demonstrated lawful relationships between physical stimuli and the psychological impressions of stimuli.

Ernst Weber and Gustav Fechner

• In line with the psychophysics paradigm, both Ernst Weber (1795-1878) and Gustav Fechner (1801-1887) studied “thresholds,” or the potential for a stimulus to become a sensation.

• Weber studied the sense of touch, and demonstrated that different locations on the body have different two-point thresholds.

• Weber’s Illusion refers to the experience of divergence of two points when they are moved over insensitive areas and the experience of convergence of two points when they are moved over sensitive areas.

Weber and Fechner (continued)

• Weber pioneered research into difference thresholds, seeking the just noticeable difference (JND) between stimuli in a variety of modalities. He formulated Weber’s law to describe the relationship between physical and experienced differences.

• Fechner expanded Weber’s discovery.– Presented absolute thresholds and differential

thresholds, measured in subjective “JND” units.

– Looked for other areas of subjective measures.

Weber and Fechner (continued)

• In fact, Fechner reformulated Weber’s law as a log relationship called Fechner’s law, which accounted for response compression, the tendency of a series of constant increases in physical stimulation to produce smaller and smaller experiential differences.

• Fechner developed new methodologies in psychophysics including the method of limits, the method of constant stimuli, and the method of average error, sometimes called the method of adjustment.

• Fechner’s methods are still taught in experimental psychology programs.