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problem-solving+process

  • 21 Thinking

       But what then am I? A thing which thinks. What is a thing which thinks? It is a thing which doubts, understands, [conceives], affirms, denies, wills, refuses, which also imagines and feels. (Descartes, 1951, p. 153)
       I have been trying in all this to remove the temptation to think that there "must be" a mental process of thinking, hoping, wishing, believing, etc., independent of the process of expressing a thought, a hope, a wish, etc.... If we scrutinize the usages which we make of "thinking," "meaning," "wishing," etc., going through this process rids us of the temptation to look for a peculiar act of thinking, independent of the act of expressing our thoughts, and stowed away in some particular medium. (Wittgenstein, 1958, pp. 41-43)
       Analyse the proofs employed by the subject. If they do not go beyond observation of empirical correspondences, they can be fully explained in terms of concrete operations, and nothing would warrant our assuming that more complex thought mechanisms are operating. If, on the other hand, the subject interprets a given correspondence as the result of any one of several possible combinations, and this leads him to verify his hypotheses by observing their consequences, we know that propositional operations are involved. (Inhelder & Piaget, 1958, p. 279)
       In every age, philosophical thinking exploits some dominant concepts and makes its greatest headway in solving problems conceived in terms of them. The seventeenth- and eighteenth-century philosophers construed knowledge, knower, and known in terms of sense data and their association. Descartes' self-examination gave classical psychology the mind and its contents as a starting point. Locke set up sensory immediacy as the new criterion of the real... Hobbes provided the genetic method of building up complex ideas from simple ones... and, in another quarter, still true to the Hobbesian method, Pavlov built intellect out of conditioned reflexes and Loeb built life out of tropisms. (S. Langer, 1962, p. 54)
       Experiments on deductive reasoning show that subjects are influenced sufficiently by their experience for their reasoning to differ from that described by a purely deductive system, whilst experiments on inductive reasoning lead to the view that an understanding of the strategies used by adult subjects in attaining concepts involves reference to higher-order concepts of a logical and deductive nature. (Bolton, 1972, p. 154)
       There are now machines in the world that think, that learn and create. Moreover, their ability to do these things is going to increase rapidly until-in the visible future-the range of problems they can handle will be coextensive with the range to which the human mind has been applied. (Newell & Simon, quoted in Weizenbaum, 1976, p. 138)
       But how does it happen that thinking is sometimes accompanied by action and sometimes not, sometimes by motion, and sometimes not? It looks as if almost the same thing happens as in the case of reasoning and making inferences about unchanging objects. But in that case the end is a speculative proposition... whereas here the conclusion which results from the two premises is an action.... I need covering; a cloak is a covering. I need a cloak. What I need, I have to make; I need a cloak. I have to make a cloak. And the conclusion, the "I have to make a cloak," is an action. (Nussbaum, 1978, p. 40)
       It is well to remember that when philosophy emerged in Greece in the sixth century, B.C., it did not burst suddenly out of the Mediterranean blue. The development of societies of reasoning creatures-what we call civilization-had been a process to be measured not in thousands but in millions of years. Human beings became civilized as they became reasonable, and for an animal to begin to reason and to learn how to improve its reasoning is a long, slow process. So thinking had been going on for ages before Greece-slowly improving itself, uncovering the pitfalls to be avoided by forethought, endeavoring to weigh alternative sets of consequences intellectually. What happened in the sixth century, B.C., is that thinking turned round on itself; people began to think about thinking, and the momentous event, the culmination of the long process to that point, was in fact the birth of philosophy. (Lipman, Sharp & Oscanyan, 1980, p. xi)
       The way to look at thought is not to assume that there is a parallel thread of correlated affects or internal experiences that go with it in some regular way. It's not of course that people don't have internal experiences, of course they do; but that when you ask what is the state of mind of someone, say while he or she is performing a ritual, it's hard to believe that such experiences are the same for all people involved.... The thinking, and indeed the feeling in an odd sort of way, is really going on in public. They are really saying what they're saying, doing what they're doing, meaning what they're meaning. Thought is, in great part anyway, a public activity. (Geertz, quoted in J. Miller, 1983, pp. 202-203)
       Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler. (Einstein, quoted in Minsky, 1986, p. 17)
       What, in effect, are the conditions for the construction of formal thought? The child must not only apply operations to objects-in other words, mentally execute possible actions on them-he must also "reflect" those operations in the absence of the objects which are replaced by pure propositions. Thus, "reflection" is thought raised to the second power. Concrete thinking is the representation of a possible action, and formal thinking is the representation of a representation of possible action.... It is not surprising, therefore, that the system of concrete operations must be completed during the last years of childhood before it can be "reflected" by formal operations. In terms of their function, formal operations do not differ from concrete operations except that they are applied to hypotheses or propositions [whose logic is] an abstract translation of the system of "inference" that governs concrete operations. (Piaget, quoted in Minsky, 1986, p. 237)
       [E]ven a human being today (hence, a fortiori, a remote ancestor of contemporary human beings) cannot easily or ordinarily maintain uninterrupted attention on a single problem for more than a few tens of seconds. Yet we work on problems that require vastly more time. The way we do that (as we can observe by watching ourselves) requires periods of mulling to be followed by periods of recapitulation, describing to ourselves what seems to have gone on during the mulling, leading to whatever intermediate results we have reached. This has an obvious function: namely, by rehearsing these interim results... we commit them to memory, for the immediate contents of the stream of consciousness are very quickly lost unless rehearsed.... Given language, we can describe to ourselves what seemed to occur during the mulling that led to a judgment, produce a rehearsable version of the reaching-a-judgment process, and commit that to long-term memory by in fact rehearsing it. (Margolis, 1987, p. 60)

    Historical dictionary of quotations in cognitive science > Thinking

  • 22 about

    1. adverb
    1) (all around) rings[her]um; (here and there) überall

    strewn/littered about all over the room — überall im Zimmer verstreut

    2) (near)

    be about — da sein; hier sein

    there was nobody about — es war niemand da

    3)
    4) (active)
    5) (approximately) ungefähr

    [at] about 5 p.m. — ungefähr um od. gegen 17 Uhr

    6) (round) herum; rum (ugs.)

    about turn!, (Amer.) about face! — (Mil.) kehrt!

    7)

    [turn and] turn about — (in rotation) abwechselnd

    2. preposition
    1) (all around) um [... herum]

    there was litter lying about the park/streets — überall im Park/auf den Straßen lag der Abfall herum

    2) (with)

    have something about one — etwas [bei sich] haben

    3) (concerning) über (+ Akk.)

    an argument/a question about something — Streit wegen etwas/eine Frage zu etwas

    talk/laugh about something — über etwas (Akk.) sprechen/lachen

    4) (occupied with)

    be quick/brief about it — beeil dich!; (in speaking) fasse dich kurz!

    while you're about it — da Sie gerade dabei sind

    * * *
    1. preposition
    (on the subject of: We talked about our plans; What's the book about?) über
    2. preposition, adverb
    1) ((sometimes round about) near (in place, time, size etc): about five miles away; (round) about six o'clock; just about big enough.) ungefähr
    2) (in different directions; here and there: The children ran about (the garden).) herum
    3) (in or on some part (of a place etc): You'll find him somewhere about (the office).) irgendwo in...
    4) (around or surrounding: She wore a coat about her shoulders; He lay with his clothes scattered about.) um
    3. adverb
    ((in military commands etc) in the opposite direction: About turn!) kehrt!
    - academic.ru/115262/be_about_to">be about to
    * * *
    [əˈbaʊt]
    I. prep
    1. (on the subject of, concerning) über + akk
    she had some misgivings \about the talk sie hatte wegen des Gesprächs Bedenken
    he often tells jokes \about dumb blonds er erzählt oft Blondinenwitze
    be quick \about it! beeil dich [damit]!, mach schnell!
    anxiety \about the future Angst f vor der Zukunft, Zukunftsangst f
    a book/movie/programme \about sth/sb ein Buch/ein Film/eine Sendung über etw/jdn
    what's that book \about? worum geht es in dem Buch?
    the movie is \about the American Civil War der Film handelt vom Amerikanischen Bürgerkrieg
    to have a discussion \about how/who/why... darüber diskutieren, wie/wer/warum...
    to have a phobia \about spiders eine Spinnenphobie haben
    to be happy \about sth sich akk über etw akk freuen
    to be sure [or certain] /unsure [or uncertain] \about sth sich dat einer S. gen sicher/unsicher sein
    he was still unsure \about what he should do er war sich noch immer nicht sicher, was er tun sollte
    we are now certain \about our decision to move wir haben uns jetzt endgültig entschlossen umzuziehen
    to ask sb \about sth/sb jdn nach etw/jdm fragen
    to be on \about sth BRIT ( fam) sich akk über etw akk auslassen
    to care \about sth/sb sich akk für etw/jdn interessieren
    I don't care \about your opinion! deine Meinung interessiert mich nicht!
    to dream \about sth/sb von etw/jdm träumen
    she always dreams \about winning the lottery sie träumt immer davon, im Lotto zu gewinnen
    to talk \about sth über etw akk sprechen
    all \about sb/sth alles über jdn/etw
    he taught us all \about biology wir haben von ihm alles über Biologie gelernt
    it's all \about having fun es geht einfach nur darum, Spaß zu haben
    2. (affecting) gegen + akk
    to do something \about sth etwas gegen etw akk unternehmen
    will you please do something \about the leaky tap? kümmerst du dich bitte mal um den tropfenden Wasserhahn?
    I can't do anything \about it ich kann nichts dagegen machen
    to do little/much/nothing \about sth wenig/viel/nichts gegen etw akk tun
    there's nothing we can do \about it dagegen können wir nichts machen
    to do nothing \about a problem ein Problem nicht anpacken, nicht gegen ein Problem vorgehen
    3. (surrounding) um + akk
    he takes little notice of the world \about him er nimmt von seiner Umgebung kaum Notiz
    to put one's arms \about sb jdn umarmen
    4. after vb (expressing movement)
    to wander \about the house im Haus herumlaufen
    to look \about the room sich akk im Zimmer umsehen
    5. (expressing location)
    she must be \about the place somewhere sie muss hier irgendwo sein; BRIT ( form)
    do you have a pen \about you[r person]? haben Sie einen Kugelschreiber dabei?
    6. (being a feature, characteristic of) an + dat
    what exactly didn't you like \about the play? was genau hat dir an der Aufführung nicht gefallen?
    there is a deep sadness \about him ihn umgibt eine tiefe Melancholie
    he has a way \about him that I don't like er hat etwas an sich, das mir nicht gefällt
    there's something strange \about him er hat etwas Merkwürdiges an sich
    7. (aimed at)
    ▪ to be \about doing sth beabsichtigen [o darauf abzielen], etw zu tun
    the takeover was not \about getting rid of competition die Übernahme sollte nicht die Konkurrenz ausschalten; BRIT ( fam)
    to be \about it gerade dabei sein
    could you make me some coffee too while you're \about it? wo Sie gerade dabei sind, könnten Sie mir auch einen Kaffee machen?
    9.
    ▶ to go \about sth (continue) mit etw dat fortfahren; (tackle) etw angehen
    how shall go \about solving this problem? wie sollen wir dieses Problem angehen?
    how do you go \about getting a fishing licence here? was muss man tun, wenn man hier einen Angelschein erwerben will?
    ▶ how \about sth/sb? wie wäre es mit jdm/etw?
    how \about a cup of tea? wie wäre es mit einer Tasse Tee?
    ▶ to know what one is \about ( fam) wissen, was man tut
    ▶ what \about it? was ist damit?
    is that your car? — yes, what \about it? ist das da Ihr Auto? — ja, was ist damit?
    ▶ and what \about us? und was ist mit uns?
    ▶ what \about your job? wie läuft es bei der Arbeit?
    ▶ what \about going [or a trip] to the zoo? wie wäre es mit einem Besuch im Zoo?
    II. adv inv
    1. (approximately) ungefähr
    he's \about six feet tall er ist ungefähr 1,80 m groß
    \about eight [o'clock] [so] gegen acht [Uhr]
    \about two days/months ago vor etwa zwei Tagen/Monaten
    2. (almost) fast
    I've had just \about enough from you! ich habe allmählich genug von dir!
    that's just \about the limit! das ist ja so ziemlich das Letzte!
    3. (barely)
    we just \about made it wir haben es gerade noch [so] geschafft
    he earns just \about enough to live on er verdient gerade mal genug zum Leben
    4. esp BRIT (around) herum
    don't leave things \about on the floor lass nichts auf dem Boden herumliegen
    some people were standing \about ein paar Leute standen so herum
    there's a lot of flu \about at the moment im Moment geht die Grippe um
    to be up [or out] and \about auf den Beinen sein
    to move \about herumlaufen, umherlaufen
    stop moving \about! bleib doch mal [ruhig] stehen!
    5. esp BRIT (in the area) hier, in der Nähe
    is Cathy \about? ist Cathy hier irgendwo?
    she must be \about somewhere sie muss hier irgendwo sein
    have you seen Peter \about? hast du Peter irgendwo gesehen?
    there was nobody \about es war keiner da
    6. ( form: opposite) andersherum
    to turn sth \about etw herumdrehen
    \about turn [or AM face]! MIL [Abteilung] kehrt!
    ▪ to be \about to do sth im Begriff sein [o gerade vorhaben], etw zu tun
    she was [just] \about to leave when Mark arrived sie wollte gerade gehen, als Mark kam
    he was \about to burst into tears er wäre fast in Tränen ausgebrochen
    we're just \about to have supper wir wollen gerade zu Abend essen
    I'm not \about to beg for his apology ich werde ihn bestimmt nicht um eine Entschuldigung bitten
    8.
    ▶ that's \about all [or it] das wär's
    anything else? — no, that's \about it for now wünschen Sie noch etwas? — nein, das wäre erst einmal alles [o das wär's fürs Erste]
    * * *
    [ə'baʊt]
    1. adv
    1) (esp Brit) herum, umher; (= present) in der Nähe

    to run/walk about — herum- or umherrennen/-gehen

    to be ( up and) about again —

    there was nobody about who could help — es war niemand in der Nähe, der hätte helfen können

    at night when there's nobody about — nachts, wenn niemand unterwegs ist

    where is he/it? – he's/it's about somewhere — wo ist er/es? – (er/es ist) irgendwo in der Nähe

    See:
    → out, turn, up
    2)

    to be about to — im Begriff sein zu; ( esp US inf

    he's about to start school —

    are you about to tell me...? — willst du mir etwa erzählen...?

    3) (= approximately) ungefähr, (so) um... (herum)

    he's about 40 —

    he is about the same, doctor — sein Zustand hat sich kaum geändert, Herr Doktor

    that's about it — das ist so ziemlich alles, das wärs (so ziemlich) (inf)

    I've had about enough (of this nonsense) — jetzt reicht es mir aber allmählich (mit diesem Unsinn)

    See:
    → just, round, time
    2. prep
    1) (esp Brit) um (... herum); (= in) in (+dat) (... herum)

    to sit about the house —

    there's something about him/about the way he speaks — er/seine Art zu reden hat so etwas an sich

    while you're about it —

    and be quick about it! — und beeil dich damit!, aber ein bisschen dalli! (inf)

    2) (= concerning) über (+acc)

    he knows about it — er weiß darüber Bescheid, er weiß davon

    what's it all about? — worum or um was (inf) handelt es sich or geht es (eigentlich)?

    he's promised to do something about it — er hat versprochen, (in der Sache) etwas zu unternehmen

    how or what about me? — und ich, was ist mit mir? (inf)

    how or what about it/going to the cinema? —

    (yes,) what about it/him? —

    he doesn't know what he's about — er weiß nicht, was er (eigentlich) tut

    * * *
    about [əˈbaʊt]
    A adv
    1. umher, (rings-, rund)herum, in der Runde:
    all about überall;
    a long way about ein großer Umweg;
    the wrong way about falsch herum;
    three miles about drei Meilen im Umkreis
    2. ungefähr, etwa, nahezu:
    it’s about time that … es ist an der Zeit, dass …; es wird langsam Zeit, dass …;
    and about time, about time too es wurde aber auch langsam Zeit;
    it’s about right umg es kommt so ungefähr hin;
    that’s about it, that’s about all das wärs; → just B 5
    3. (halb) herum, in der entgegengesetzten Richtung:
    be about SCHIFF klar zum Wenden sein; → face C 1, turn1 A 27
    4. be about to do sth im Begriff oder dabei oder auf dem Sprung sein, etwas zu tun;
    he was about to go out, when … er wollte gerade ausgehen, als …;
    not be about to do sth bes US umg nicht die Absicht haben oder nicht daran denken, etwas zu tun
    5. in der Nähe, da:
    6. be about umgehen (Krankheit):
    there are a lot of colds about at the moment zurzeit sind viele erkältet
    B präp
    1. besonders Br um, um … herum
    2. (irgendwo) herum in (dat):
    wander about the streets in den Straßen herumwandern
    3. bei, auf (dat), an (dat), um:
    have you got any money about you? haben Sie Geld bei sich?;
    there is nothing about him an ihm ist nichts Besonderes;
    have sth about one etwas an sich haben;
    he had a gun hidden about his person er hatte eine Pistole in seiner Kleidung versteckt
    4. um, gegen, etwa:
    about my height ungefähr meine Größe;
    about this time (etwa oder ungefähr) um diese Zeit;
    about noon um die Mittagszeit, gegen Mittag
    5. über (akk):
    what is it (all) about? worum handelt es sich (eigentlich)?
    6. beschäftigt mit:
    he knows what he is about er weiß, was er tut oder was er will;
    what are you about?
    a) was machst du da?,
    b) was hast du vor?;
    and while you’re about it und wenn du schon dabei bist
    C v/t SCHIFF ein Schiff wenden
    * * *
    1. adverb
    1) (all around) rings[her]um; (here and there) überall

    strewn/littered about all over the room — überall im Zimmer verstreut

    be about — da sein; hier sein

    3)
    5) (approximately) ungefähr

    [at] about 5 p.m. — ungefähr um od. gegen 17 Uhr

    6) (round) herum; rum (ugs.)

    about turn!, (Amer.) about face! — (Mil.) kehrt!

    7)

    [turn and] turn about — (in rotation) abwechselnd

    2. preposition
    1) (all around) um [... herum]

    there was litter lying about the park/streets — überall im Park/auf den Straßen lag der Abfall herum

    have something about one — etwas [bei sich] haben

    3) (concerning) über (+ Akk.)

    an argument/a question about something — Streit wegen etwas/eine Frage zu etwas

    talk/laugh about something — über etwas (Akk.) sprechen/lachen

    be quick/brief about it — beeil dich!; (in speaking) fasse dich kurz!

    * * *
    adj.
    etwa adj.
    gegen adj.
    um... adj.
    ungefähr adj. prep.
    über präp.

    English-german dictionary > about

  • 23 Pötsch, Friedrich Hermann

    [br]
    b. 12 December 1842 Biendorf, near Köthen, Germany
    d. 9 June 1902 Dresden, Germany
    [br]
    German mine surveyor, inventor of the freezing process for sinking shafts.
    [br]
    Pötsch was the son of a forest officer and could not easily attend school, with the consequences that it took him a long time to obtain the scholarly education needed to enable him to begin work on a higher level with the mining administration in the duchy of Anhalt in 1868. Seven years later, he was licensed as a Prussian mining surveyor and in this capacity he worked with the mining inspectorate of Aschersleben. During that time he frequently came across shafts for brown-coal mines which had been sunk down to watery strata but then had to be abandoned. His solution to the problem was to freeze the quicksand with a solution of chloride; this was better than the previous attempts in England to instal cooling coils at the bottom of the shaft. Pötsch's conception implied the construction of ice walls with the means of boreholes and refrigerators. By his method a set of boreholes was driven through the watery strata, the smaller pipes contained within the main bore pipes, providing a channel through which calcium chloride was pumped, returning through the longer pipe until the ground was frozen solid. He obtained a patent in 1883 and many leading international journals reported on the method the same year.
    In 1884 he established the Internationale Gesselschaft für Schacht-, Brucken-und Tunnelbau in Magdeburg and he also became Director of the Poetsch-Sooy-Smith Freezing Company in New Jersey, which constructed the first freezing shaft in America in 1888.
    However, Pötsch was successful only for a short period of time and, being a clumsy entrepreneur, he had to dissolve his company in 1894. Unfortunately, his decision to carry out the complete shaft-sinking business did not allow him to concentrate on solving upcoming technical problems of his new process. It was Louis Gebhardt (1861–1924), his former engineer, who took care of development, especially in co-operation with French mining engineers, and thus provided the basis for the freezing process becoming widely used for shaft-sinking in complicated strata ever since.
    [br]
    Bibliography
    1886, Das Gefrierverfahren. Methode für schnelles, sicheres und lotrechtes Abteufen von Schächten im Schwimmsande und uberhaupt im wasserreichen Gebirge; für Herstellung tiefgehender Bruckenpfeiler und für TunnelBauten in rolligem und schwimmendem Gebirge, Freiberg.
    1889, Geschichtliches über die Entstehung und Herausbildung des Gefrierverfahrens, Magdeburg.
    1895, Das Gefrierverfahren und das kombinierte Schachtabbohr-und Gefrierverfahren (Patent Pötsch), Freiberg.
    Further Reading
    D.Hoffmann, 1962, AchtJahrzehnte Gefrierverfahren nach Putsch, Essen: Glückauf (the most substantial biography; also covers technological aspects).
    G.Gach, 1986, In Schacht und Strecke, Essen: Glückauf, pp. 31–53 (provides information on the development of specialized mining companies in Germany originating in the freezing process).
    WK

    Biographical history of technology > Pötsch, Friedrich Hermann

  • 24 Weldon, Walter

    SUBJECT AREA: Chemical technology
    [br]
    b. 31 October 1832 Loughborough, England
    d. 20 September 1885 Burstow, Surrey, England
    [br]
    English industrial chemist.
    [br]
    It was intended that Weldon should enter his father's factory in Loughborough, but he decided instead to turn to journalism, which he pursued with varying success in London. His Weldon's Register of Facts and Occurrences in Literature, Science, and Art ran for only four years, from 1860 to 1864, but the fashion magazine Weldon's Journal, which he published with his wife, was more successful. Meanwhile Weldon formed an interest in chemistry, although he had no formal training in that subject. He devoted himself to solving one of the great problems of industrial chemistry at that time. The Leblanc process for the manufacture of soda produced large quantities of hydrochloric acid in gas form. By this time, this by-product was being converted, by oxidation with manganese dioxide, to chlorine, which was much used in the textile and paper industries as a bleaching agent. The manganese ended up as manganese chloride, from which it was difficult to convert back to the oxide, for reuse in treating the hydrochloric acid, and it was an expensive substance. Weldon visited the St Helens district of Lancashire, an important centre for the manufacture of soda, to work on the problem. During the three years from 1866 to 1869, he took out six patents for the regeneration of manganese dioxide by treating the manganese chloride with milk of lime and blowing air through it. The Weldon process was quickly adopted and had a notable economic effect: the price of bleaching powder came down by £6 per ton and production went up fourfold.
    By the time of his death, nearly all chlorine works in the world used Weldon's process. The distinguished French chemist J.B.A.Dumas said of the process, when presenting Weldon with a gold medal, "every sheet of paper and every yard of calico has been cheapened throughout the world". Weldon played an active part in the founding of the Society of Chemical Industry.
    [br]
    Principal Honours and Distinctions
    FRS 1882. President, Society of Chemical Industry 1883–4.
    Further Reading
    T.C.Barker and J.R.Harris, 1954, A Merseyside Town in the Industrial Revolution: St Helens, 1750–1900, Liverpool: Liverpool University Press; reprinted with corrections, 1959, London: Cass.
    S.Miall, 1931, A History of the British Chemical Industry.
    LRD

    Biographical history of technology > Weldon, Walter

  • 25 Psychology

       We come therefore now to that knowledge whereunto the ancient oracle directeth us, which is the knowledge of ourselves; which deserveth the more accurate handling, by how much it toucheth us more nearly. This knowledge, as it is the end and term of natural philosophy in the intention of man, so notwithstanding it is but a portion of natural philosophy in the continent of nature.... [W]e proceed to human philosophy or Humanity, which hath two parts: the one considereth man segregate, or distributively; the other congregate, or in society. So as Human philosophy is either Simple and Particular, or Conjugate and Civil. Humanity Particular consisteth of the same parts whereof man consisteth; that is, of knowledges which respect the Body, and of knowledges that respect the Mind... how the one discloseth the other and how the one worketh upon the other... [:] the one is honored with the inquiry of Aristotle, and the other of Hippocrates. (Bacon, 1878, pp. 236-237)
       The claims of Psychology to rank as a distinct science are... not smaller but greater than those of any other science. If its phenomena are contemplated objectively, merely as nervo-muscular adjustments by which the higher organisms from moment to moment adapt their actions to environing co-existences and sequences, its degree of specialty, even then, entitles it to a separate place. The moment the element of feeling, or consciousness, is used to interpret nervo-muscular adjustments as thus exhibited in the living beings around, objective Psychology acquires an additional, and quite exceptional, distinction. (Spencer, 1896, p. 141)
       Kant once declared that psychology was incapable of ever raising itself to the rank of an exact natural science. The reasons that he gives... have often been repeated in later times. In the first place, Kant says, psychology cannot become an exact science because mathematics is inapplicable to the phenomena of the internal sense; the pure internal perception, in which mental phenomena must be constructed,-time,-has but one dimension. In the second place, however, it cannot even become an experimental science, because in it the manifold of internal observation cannot be arbitrarily varied,-still less, another thinking subject be submitted to one's experiments, comformably to the end in view; moreover, the very fact of observation means alteration of the observed object. (Wundt, 1904, p. 6)
       It is [Gustav] Fechner's service to have found and followed the true way; to have shown us how a "mathematical psychology" may, within certain limits, be realized in practice.... He was the first to show how Herbart's idea of an "exact psychology" might be turned to practical account. (Wundt, 1904, pp. 6-7)
       "Mind," "intellect," "reason," "understanding," etc. are concepts... that existed before the advent of any scientific psychology. The fact that the naive consciousness always and everywhere points to internal experience as a special source of knowledge, may, therefore, be accepted for the moment as sufficient testimony to the rights of psychology as science.... "Mind," will accordingly be the subject, to which we attribute all the separate facts of internal observation as predicates. The subject itself is determined p. 17) wholly and exclusively by its predicates. (Wundt, 1904,
       The study of animal psychology may be approached from two different points of view. We may set out from the notion of a kind of comparative physiology of mind, a universal history of the development of mental life in the organic world. Or we may make human psychology the principal object of investigation. Then, the expressions of mental life in animals will be taken into account only so far as they throw light upon the evolution of consciousness in man.... Human psychology... may confine itself altogether to man, and generally has done so to far too great an extent. There are plenty of psychological text-books from which you would hardly gather that there was any other conscious life than the human. (Wundt, 1907, pp. 340-341)
       The Behaviorist began his own formulation of the problem of psychology by sweeping aside all medieval conceptions. He dropped from his scientific vocabulary all subjective terms such as sensation, perception, image, desire, purpose, and even thinking and emotion as they were subjectively defined. (Watson, 1930, pp. 5-6)
       According to the medieval classification of the sciences, psychology is merely a chapter of special physics, although the most important chapter; for man is a microcosm; he is the central figure of the universe. (deWulf, 1956, p. 125)
       At the beginning of this century the prevailing thesis in psychology was Associationism.... Behavior proceeded by the stream of associations: each association produced its successors, and acquired new attachments with the sensations arriving from the environment.
       In the first decade of the century a reaction developed to this doctrine through the work of the Wurzburg school. Rejecting the notion of a completely self-determining stream of associations, it introduced the task ( Aufgabe) as a necessary factor in describing the process of thinking. The task gave direction to thought. A noteworthy innovation of the Wurzburg school was the use of systematic introspection to shed light on the thinking process and the contents of consciousness. The result was a blend of mechanics and phenomenalism, which gave rise in turn to two divergent antitheses, Behaviorism and the Gestalt movement. The behavioristic reaction insisted that introspection was a highly unstable, subjective procedure.... Behaviorism reformulated the task of psychology as one of explaining the response of organisms as a function of the stimuli impinging upon them and measuring both objectively. However, Behaviorism accepted, and indeed reinforced, the mechanistic assumption that the connections between stimulus and response were formed and maintained as simple, determinate functions of the environment.
       The Gestalt reaction took an opposite turn. It rejected the mechanistic nature of the associationist doctrine but maintained the value of phenomenal observation. In many ways it continued the Wurzburg school's insistence that thinking was more than association-thinking has direction given to it by the task or by the set of the subject. Gestalt psychology elaborated this doctrine in genuinely new ways in terms of holistic principles of organization.
       Today psychology lives in a state of relatively stable tension between the poles of Behaviorism and Gestalt psychology.... (Newell & Simon, 1963, pp. 279-280)
       As I examine the fate of our oppositions, looking at those already in existence as guide to how they fare and shape the course of science, it seems to me that clarity is never achieved. Matters simply become muddier and muddier as we go down through time. Thus, far from providing the rungs of a ladder by which psychology gradually climbs to clarity, this form of conceptual structure leads rather to an ever increasing pile of issues, which we weary of or become diverted from, but never really settle. (Newell, 1973b, pp. 288-289)
       The subject matter of psychology is as old as reflection. Its broad practical aims are as dated as human societies. Human beings, in any period, have not been indifferent to the validity of their knowledge, unconcerned with the causes of their behavior or that of their prey and predators. Our distant ancestors, no less than we, wrestled with the problems of social organization, child rearing, competition, authority, individual differences, personal safety. Solving these problems required insights-no matter how untutored-into the psychological dimensions of life. Thus, if we are to follow the convention of treating psychology as a young discipline, we must have in mind something other than its subject matter. We must mean that it is young in the sense that physics was young at the time of Archimedes or in the sense that geometry was "founded" by Euclid and "fathered" by Thales. Sailing vessels were launched long before Archimedes discovered the laws of bouyancy [ sic], and pillars of identical circumference were constructed before anyone knew that C IID. We do not consider the ship builders and stone cutters of antiquity physicists and geometers. Nor were the ancient cave dwellers psychologists merely because they rewarded the good conduct of their children. The archives of folk wisdom contain a remarkable collection of achievements, but craft-no matter how perfected-is not science, nor is a litany of successful accidents a discipline. If psychology is young, it is young as a scientific discipline but it is far from clear that psychology has attained this status. (Robinson, 1986, p. 12)

    Historical dictionary of quotations in cognitive science > Psychology

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