PSYC85H3 Chapter 2: Chapter 2
Document Summary
Chapter 2: touchstones: the origins of psychological thought. Touchstones: touchstone originally referred to stone used to test quality of gold or silver because of mark it left upon them, came to mean any criterion by which the value of something is measured. The pythagorean opposites: pythagoreans believed that some pairs of opposites were particularly useful for describing our experience, most important is limite vs. unlimited. Plato (427-347 bce: problem of irrational became preoccupation for greek mathematicians, attempts made to solve problem of irrational. golden section: famous proportion in history of western thought: obtained by dividing a line into 2 segments such that smaller is to larger as larger is to whole line, example, fibonacci members page 24. Innate ideas exist because human soul is immortal (divine) and is purified through a round of incarnations, from which, when completely purified it may finally escape.
