History of Psychology vol 2

Page 23

E A R L Y E M P IR IC IS M

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solipsism, is rarely held. The tendency is to use this sort of analysis in the interest of a philosophy which denies one sort of reality, in order to reinforce its asser­ tion of the other. In Berkeley, it w as mind which profited by the subjective analysis of b o d y; in the m aterialists, to whom we next turn, it is body which is retained at the expense of mind. I'.ighteenth-century M aterialism . —Am ong w riters in England, H artley (17 0 4 -17 5 7 ), a contemporary of llm ne, and Priestley (17 3 3-18 0 4 ) took the step from sensationalism to m aterialism ; in 'F ran c e, it w as taken by Lam ettrie, a contemporary of Condillac. Intelligence. com prising all the faculties of reflection and volition, having been reduced to sensations, and the self to a complex thereof, it was easy to substitute lor the impression in the mind its cause in the brain. I lie brain state, the organic counterpart of the sensa­ tion, is part of the physical w o rld ; it reflects the physical excitation of the senses. The whole person then, not merely the b ody; the sensation, not merely the exciting cause, is part of the material system of nature. It w as natural, also, in order to give greater positiveness to the law -abiding character of mental phenomena, to ground the association of ideas in the material connections of the brain. Priestley especially developed the idea that the organisation of mental ■■i.iles reflected that of the brain centres. He explicitly 1 night the identity of mind .and hcaim F o r Hartley .1iTTT Priestley, the continuity of mind w as in principle that of brain processes; ideas as states of memory and imagination were due to the reinstatement of brain states according to this law . Thus the last shade of the distinction between sensation and idea disappeared.


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