PSYCH 4150 Lecture Notes - Lecture 24: Empiricism, Logical Positivism, Tabula Rasa
Document Summary
We come into the world as a blank slate. We create a behavior technology: s r (stimulus response) psychology. Applicability of science will become a major factor for the rest of the semester. Fits in with british empiricist tradition of association and reductionism. Believed the arrow would go both ways. The relationship between stimulus and response is not unidirectional. James, as a holist, would agree with dewey that the arrow goes both ways. Compare and contrast the british empiricist tradition with the association tradition. Watson: sees the environment as active and person as passive. James: sees both the environment and individual as active. A group that got together in vienna coffee shops to discuss how science could progress and become even better. Discussed operational definitions to make investigations empirical. A behaviorist would say that theories about cognition or thoughts would not be supported because we lack the ability to study it empirically.
