PSYC 4008 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Systematic Desensitization, Logical Positivism, Little Albert Experiment
Document Summary
Thorndike was important to behaviorism: still used mentalistic concepts to explain. Explain it: know what logical positivism is (also positivism) Philosophical movement associated with the vienna circle (small group of philosophers) that extended positivist thinking; distinguished between theoretical and observable events and described ways of connecting the two through operational definitions. Rejection of the validity of the proposition of synthetic, apriority knowledge. Associated with auguste comte and eventually taken as an article of faith by behaviorists. Positive knowledge was said to be the result of objective observations using the systematic methods of science, to be made by unbiased observers. Positivists also valued practical knowledge, believing that an intimate connection existed between understanding nature and controlling it. Comte argued that the ability to control nature was evidence that nature was understood creating an effective steam engine, for instance, demonstrated an understanding of several principles of physics. The type of propositions about nature that were valid.
