Ch8 German Mental Activity | Test Bank – 6th Edition

View Product website:

https://selldocx.com/docx/ch8-german-mental-activity-test-bank-6th-edition-1364

Chapter 8

Mental Activity: The German Tradition

Chapter Objectives:

• Review the relatively late organization of Germany from several states, and the historical divisions along religious allegiances.
• The success of German empirical sciences and the development of strong universities where science and medicine prospered.
• Survey the development of an enriched dualism through mental activity culminating with the writings of Kant.
• Explore the implications for psychology from the position of a mind that acts upon itself from a structure predisposed to acquire knowledge in characteristic ways.

Chapter Summary:

German science and culture of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries benefited from the enlightened patronage of the Prussian King Frederick the Great. Moreover, the universities of Germany prospered and became centers of excellence in the West, especially in science. Advances in psychology by German philosophers focused primarily on mental activity. Discarding the environmental determinacy of British empiricism, Leibniz defended the active agency of the mind in molding sensory data to provide experience. The active principle of his monadology lent itself to a dynamic view of harmony between independent physical and psychic processes. The rationalism of Wolff was fully elaborated by Kant, who described pure reason as the formation of perceptions innately through time and space, and asserted an elaborate structure of the mind in terms of categories that order the environment. From these formulations, German psychology received a variety of models suggested by Herbart, Beneke, and Lotze. Further, the Kantian notions of the strivings of the will and the unconscious were explored more fully by Schopenhauer and von Hartmann. Collectively, the German tradition is diverse but united by the belief in the activity of the mind and its control of environmental influences.

Suggested topics and issues for class discussion and/or short essay examination questions:

1. How did the Prussian support of universities enhance the quality of German science and philosophy?

2. How did research in the natural sciences in Germany, especially in physics and mathematics, contribute to the basis of empiricism?

3. Contrast the influence of Descartes and Spinoza on the general philosophical direction of psychology's development within German philosophy.

4. What was the relationship between sensory input and mental activity for Leibniz?

5. Describe Leibniz's monadology, both generally and as it specifically applies to the human mind.

6. What were the major implications of Leibniz's views in terms of setting the direction of German psychology?

7. Describe Wolff's distinction between empirical psychology and rational psychology.

8. What were the features of Kant's structure of the mind?

9. What did Kant mean by a priori knowledge of the mind?

10. What were Kant's mental categories and how did they deal with environmental input?

11. What was the role of the will, suggested in Kant's Critique of Practical Reason?

12. From Kant's position, what is the relationship between the mind and the environment?

13. Describe Herbart's position that psychology may be empirical, but not experimental.

14. How did Beneke view physiological data in relation to psychological study?

15. Contrast the activities of the mind proposed by Herbart and Beneke.

16. In what way did Lotze use physiological data to study psychological events?

17. How did Schopenhauer extend Kant's teaching on the will?

18. Describe von Hartmann's views on unconscious processes.

19. Why did the German tradition of mental activity contain greater diversity than the French or the British traditions?

20. Collectively, how did the views on the mind of the German tradition of mental activity differ from the British empiricist tradition and the French sensationalistic tradition?

Objective Questions:

1. One of the major benefits to intellectual inquiry in Prussian Germany was the

A. efficient government bureaucracy.

B. government support of the university system.

C. universally spoken German language.

D. uniformity in religious belief. E. freedom of the press.

2. Heat absorption and solar radiation were studied by

A. Guericke. B. Fahrenheit C. Tschirnhaus.

D. Euler. E. Kleist.

3. One of the greatest mathematicians of the eighteenth century was

A. Guericke. B. Fahrenheit. C. Tschirnhaus.

D. Euler. E. Kleist.

4. A battery capable of sustaining an electrical charge for several hours was developed by

A. Guericke. B. Fahrenheit. C. Tschirnhaus.

D. Euler. E. Kleist.

5. Mesmer's pseudo-cures were initially accepted because

A. people wanted to believe in them, relative to the primitive state of medicine.

B. he had the support of the French government.

C. his views differed little from the prevailing philosophical directions of Germany.

D. he demonstrated the scientific basis of hypnotism.

E. his views were supported by the Church.

6. The immediate antecedent influence on German thought was from

A. Aristotle. B. Locke. C. Condillac.

D. Descartes. E. Spinoza.

7. Leibniz viewed the mind as

A. a passive receptor of sensory data.

B. the active transformer of sensory data.

C. determined by the environment.

D. limited to association and self-reflection.

E. the storage of sensory experience.

8. The process of thought for Leibniz was viewed as

A. the aggregate of association sequences.

B. the product of self-reflection.

C. an ongoing, continuous activity of the mind.

D. reducible to simple sensations.

E. originating from God.

9. Leibniz defined monads as

A. associations.

B. sensations.

C. the soul.

D. unextended units of force of energy.

E. the organization of the mind.

10. Leibniz's view of the mind-body problem

A. completely followed Descartes's view.

B. completely followed Spinoza's view.

C. was ultimately reduced to environmental determinacy.

D. was replaced by his theory of monadology of the body.

E. asserted independent physical and mental processes.

11. Wolff's empirical psychology dealt with

A. sensory processes.

B. mental activity.

C. monadology.

D. physiology.

E. deduction.

12. Wolff's rational psychology dealt with

A. sensory processes.

B. mental activity.

C. monadology.

D. physiology.

E. deduction.

13. For Kant, the human mind was

A. a passive receptor of sensory information.

B. reducible to sensory input.

C. composed of the brain and the nervous system.

D. endowed with specific knowledge of nature.

E. an active entity governed by innate laws and structures.

14. The perceptual forms of the mind for Kant were

A. imposed by objects in the environment.

B. composed of mental categories.

C. reducible to sensations.

D. empirically derived.

E. acquired through experience.

15. For Kant, the mind

A acted upon the environment.

B. reacted to the environment.

C. was the sum of sensory inputs.

D. was an unnecessary construct.

E. was the same as Aquinas’s notion of the soul.

16. The mental categories of Kant's system were

A. derived from primary qualities.

B. independent of mental activity.

C. physiologically based.

D. a priori knowledge.

E. reducible to sensory input.

17. Moral activities for Kant were governed by

A. a priori mental conditions of the will.

B. social conventions.

C. the acquisition of experience.

D. God's will.

E. subconscious striving.

18. Kant's views on mental activity may be summarized as

A. materialistic. B. sensationalistic.

C. rationalistic. D. empiricistic.

E. inductive.

19. According to Herbart, psychology should

A. be an experimental discipline.

B. question the reliability of observations.

C. study the passive intellect.

D. be reduced to physiological processes.

E. study the mathematical generalizations of mental operations.

20. For Beneke, psychology should

A. be restricted to the study of innate ideas.

B. concentrate on acquired associations.

C. study both acquired and innate dispositions.

D. study sensory experiences only.

E. be reduced to physiological processes.

21. For Lotze, the elements of experience are

A. reducible to sensation. B. explained by nervous activity.

C. quantitative. D. qualitative. E. innate.

22. Lotze's psychology opposed

A. mental activity. B. materialism.

C. physiology. D. empiricism. E. Kant.

23. According to Schopenhauer, the will was

A. rationally governed.

B. environmentally determined.

C. acquired from experience.

D. irrational striving.

E. consciously mediated.

24. According to von Hartmann, the unconscious was defined as

A. dependent upon sensory experience.

B. environmentally determined.

C. rationally governed.

D. always nonphysical.

E. random dream states.

25. The direction of psychology within German philosophy was

A. materialistic based.

B. reductionistic.

C. concerned with mental activity.

D. concerned with mental passivity.

E. dependent upon acquired experience.