William James & Psychology

Determinism

-Every event, action, and decision results from something independent of the human will -Things happen in order, because the have happened in the past -Events are predictable -Except we have free will...

Habit

-Neural pathways fire automatically in appropriate situations -Maintains social order/preserves status quo -How you're raised is how you are going to be (determinism) -Because they are neurally ingrained they are difficult to change

Characterizing Mental Life

-Purposeful and willful -Exhibits intentionality -Something we are aware of -Private, personal, and unique -Always changing -Continuous -Selective, attentive, and interested

William James

-Trained as a physician and taught philosophy -Established the first teaching lab in America (1875) -Thought introspection was useless -Sought to discover how consciousness was fundamental to human survival -Wrote Principles of Psychology (still used today) -Stream of consciousness -Selective attention

Stream of Consciousness

-We feel things/experience things because we choose to focus on those things and not the infinite number of other things going on in and around us -Against breaking down consciousness into separate parts, but viewed it as a stream -Sought to discover the role of consciousness to human survival

Free Will

-You can predict things (determinism, things happen in order) -Determinism is for methodology, but free will exists -We are free to live as if we are free -What we attend to is our reality

Theory of Emotion (James-Lange Theory)

-Bodily changes result from the perception of a situation -Recognition of the bodily changes produce subjective feelings/emotions -Emotion: stimulus - autonomic arousal - conscious feeling (fear)

Selective Attention

-Choosing what to be consciously aware of out of our worlds -Certain attention of different parts of consciousness

James' Functionalism

-Collected mental phenomena and then tried to account for them in terms of how they serve us (like darwin) THINK ADAPTION -Assumption: mental life is something that we can access directly and is conscious -Conscious activities are the result of a brain working in an environment -Sought to understand the functions of consciousness through learning motivations and attention