Affective Gibsonian Psychology

Rob Withagen

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN: 9781032081199
• eBook ISBN: 9781000588248
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Cognitive Psychology & Cognition
• Index: Psychology

Affective Gibsonian Psychology presents the first comprehensive ecological approach to our affective engagement with the environment, drawing on James Gibson's new foundation of psychology.

This book develops a unique theoretical framework, beginning with Gibson's ecological approach, but also drawing on phenomenology, developmental systems theory, and the pioneering ideas of the psychoanalyst Alice Miller. The advanced perspective allows us to understand our emotional engagement with the environment, and the individual differences therein, without returning to the Cartesian assumptions that have plagued psychology since the 17th century.

This book is intended to contribute to the ecological movement in psychology and is of interest to scholars working in the fields of Gibsonian psychology, affective science, phenomenology, clinical psychology, and (radical) embodied cognitive science.

1The mechanistic foundation of psychology

DOI: 10.4324/9781003213031-2

In my view, the best way to understand the significance of Gibson’s work is as a big critique of and alternative for the mechanistic tradition in psychology (e.g., Costall, 1995; Heft, 2001; Reed, 1996a). Ever since the 17th century, psychology has been dominated by the mechanistic way of thinking that Galileo and Newton, among others, introduced, and that was steadily applied to the study of man in the ensuing centuries. In this chapter, I will briefly sketch this tradition, not only to explain (the origin of) the cognitive approach that Gibson took issue with, but also to highlight some central themes and theories that will be discussed (and criticized) later in the book. I will start with a few words on the Aristotelian perspective and how this was replaced by “the mechanization of the world picture” (Dijksterhuis, 1950/1969). Then I turn to the influential work of Descartes and some of his followers. We will see that at the end of the 18th century, both animals and human bodies were conceived as machines, the movements of which can be understood in terms of mechanics. However, to account for intelligent behavior, a soul and later an intelligent organ (the brain) was introduced. Around 1800, the mechanistic way of thinking was heavily criticized by romantic scientists like Goethe, Schelling, and Blumenbach. Although the romantic movement in science has received scant attention in studies of the history of ecological psychology (e.g., Heft, 2001; Lombardo, 1987/2017; Reed, 1988), I will argue that it has been important. As we will see in the chapters that follow, the conception of organisms that the ecological approach adopts shows similarities with that of the romanticists. The romantic movement paved the way for Darwin’s theory of evolution which in turn influenced the likes of James and Dewey in their critique of the mechanistic tradition in psychology. Yet this tradition prevailed—the cognitive approach that held great sway over psychology when Gibson developed his perspective was clearly rooted in the mechanistic way of thinking. I will end this chapter by broadly sketching the cognitivist image of man, focusing on perception, emotion, and action.

The mechanization of the inanimate world in a nutshell

In the 16th and 17th centuries a new way of thinking emerged in which the machine became the dominant metaphor. Several historians of science (e.g., Dijksterhuis, 1950/1969) and philosophers (e.g., Russell, 1946/1995) take the publication of Copernicus’ On the revolutions of heavenly spheres in 1543 to be the starting point of this mechanization of the worldview. The introduction of the idea that the earth orbits around the sun (and not the other way around) has indeed been a watershed in our thinking of our place in the universe. And Kepler’s subsequent claim that the planet orbits are elliptical rather than circular arguably marked a definite break with the scholastic tradition. However, for our purposes the contributions of Galileo and Newton to the mechanization of the worldview are more important. Especially Galileo forcefully argued against the Aristotelian perspective that dominated thinking for centuries.

Aristotle defended a broad conception of motion that is based on the distinction between potentiality and actuality. A seed, for example, is potentially a plant, and a piece of wood is potentially a table. From this distinction, movement can be understood as the change from potentiality to actuality. And according to Aristotle there are different ways in which this can occur. One of them is when objects are going to occupy a different place, but also when something comes into existence or disappears (an apple grows and decays), or when the nature of something alters (a caterpillar transmuting into a butterfly) there is movement—a transition from potential to actual being.

Crucially, according to Aristotle, this transition is at least partly the result of telos (purpose). In his worldview, there is a goal directedness in both the animate and the inanimate world. Aristotle claimed that this must be the case because otherwise regularities in nature cannot be accounted for. After discussing several natural phenomena, including rain, Aristotle argued (quoted in Ackrill, 1981, pp. 41–42):

For the things mentioned, and all things that are by nature, either always come to be in the same way or usually, whereas nothing that happens by luck or chance does so. […] So if, as it seems, things are either a coincidental result or for something, and the things we are discussing cannot be coincidental or a result of chance, they must be for something. But they are certainly natural—as our opponents themselves admit. The ‘for something’, then, is present in things that are, and come to be, by nature.

That is, also in the inanimate world there is a purpose. Hence, among the causes that Aristotle distinguished is a final cause that refers to the purpose of a phenomenon and that (partly) makes the phenomenon happen (e.g., it rains because the plants need water).

It was this teleological line of thinking that was heavily disputed during the mechanization of the worldview. Galileo banned the idea of a final cause. In his view, every motion can and should be explained in terms of mechanics—teleological explanations are no longer allowed. In addition, his conception of motion differed fundamentally from that of Aristotle. For Galileo, motion has nothing to do with changes from potentiality to actuality, but should simply be conceived as a change in position. And importantly, he argued that such displacement in and of itself does not require an explanation; rather only change of movement does. In 1632, Galileo introduced the idea that objects persist in their movements, unless a force is acting upon them. And a couple of decades later, Newton added two other laws of motion to this principle of inertia: force is coupled to acceleration (the second law of motion), and action is negative reaction (the third law of motion). With these three laws of motion, and the gravitational principle, a whole variety of movements in the inanimate world could be explained—from falling apples to Kepler’s observations of planetary motion. Importantly, this unprecedented scientific triumph was accompanied by two other ideas that had a profound impact on psychology (and that were criticized by Gibson three centuries later): the machine metaphor and the two-worlds hypothesis.

The machine metaphor

The technical innovations in the 16th and 17th centuries (e.g., telescope, thermometer, barometer, air pump) not only made new scientific discoveries possible, but also inspired the new mechanistic way of thinking. Primarily the mechanical clockwork that originated in the 13th century, but was perfected in the 17th century, became the dominant metaphor. The planetary system, for example, was compared to a clock, emphasizing that its workings can also be understood in terms of mechanics. In Kepler’s words (quoted in Rossi, 1962/1970, p. 141):

The aim that I have set myself here is to affirm that the machine of the universe is not similar to a divine animated being, but similar to a clock, […] and in it all the various movements depend upon a simple active material force, in the same manner that all the movements of a clock are due to the simple pendulum.

The dominance of the machine metaphor fostered a new approach to understand nonliving and living systems alike—we should conceive them as an assemblage of parts (each with their own function), which we can understand by means of decomposing. That is, to come to grips with the functioning of a system, we need to study and understand the workings of the parts that together form the system. As the French mechanist Gassendi put it halfway the 17th century (quoted in Rossi, 1962/1970, p. 142; emphasis added):

Concerning natural things, we investigate in the same way as we investigate things of which we ourselves are the authors. […] In the things of nature in which this is possible, we make use of anatomy, chemistry, and aids of all kinds, reducing the bodies as much as possible, as though decomposing them, to understand of what elements and according to what criteria they are composed.

And when we understand the functioning of the parts, we can reassemble them in thought, giving rise to a genuine understanding of the workings of the whole machine.

The two-worlds hypothesis

In addition, during the mechanization of the worldview a sharp distinction between primary and secondary qualities was made. Primary qualities are properties of matter in motion (e.g., form, mass, speed) that exist out there in the world. Secondary qualities, on the other hand, are properties of perceptual systems and, thus, exist in the mental domain, not in the world itself. Consider Galileo’s (1623/2008, p. 185; emphasis added) argumentation for making this distinction:

I say that as soon as I conceive of a corporeal substance or material, I feel […] drawn by the necessity of also conceiving that it is bounded and has this or that shape; that it is large or small in relation to other things; that it is in this or that location and exists at this or that time; that it moves or stands still; that it touches or does not touch another body; and that it is one, a few, or many. Nor can I, by any stretch of the imagination, separate it from these conditions. However, my mind does not feel forced to regard it as necessarily accompanied by such conditions as the following: that it is white or red, bitter or sweet, noisy or quiet, and pleasantly or unpleasantly smelling […]. Thus, from the point of view of the subject in which they seem to inhere, […] tastes, odors, colors, etc., are nothing but empty names; rather they inhere only in the sensitive body, such that if one removes the animal, then all these qualities are taken away and annihilated.

Although this distinction between primary and secondary qualities might have worked for the physical sciences, it had a devastating effect on the social sciences. It resulted in the two-worlds hypothesis, the idea that there is a real world (as described by physics) and the perceived world (that is lodged in the skull). And these two are fundamentally different and, thus, can never correspond, implying that our perception is fundamentally illusory. As Whitehead (1925/1967, p. 54) expressed the mechanists’ sentiment of that time:

The poets are entirely mistaken. They should address their lyrics to themselves, and should turn them into odes of self- congratulation on the excellency of the human mind. Nature is a dull affair, soundless, scentless, colorless; merely the hurrying of material, endlessly, meaninglessly.

Although the mechanization of the worldview did not provide room for “our world of quality and sense perception, the world in which we live, and love, and die” (Koyré, 1965, p. 23), the scientific accomplishments of Galileo and Newton nevertheless inspired thinkers to apply the mechanistic principles to the study of the animate world, including animals and human beings.

Descartes

The French philosopher René Descartes was one of the first thinkers who argued that animals are pure machines—their movements can be understood in terms of mechanics. Descartes was very much inspired by the hydraulic robots in the Royal Gardens in Paris. As he put it in his book Treatise of man (1633/1972, p. 21):

[Y]‌ou may have observed in the grottoes and fountains in the gardens of our kings that the force that makes the water leap from its source is able of itself to move divers machines and even to make them play certain instruments or pronounce certain words according to the various arrangements of the tubes through which the water is conducted.

And if it is possible to make a mechanical robot whose movements mimic those of animals, then animal behavior might also be the result of the laws of mechanics. In his Discourse on method, Descartes (1637/1998) invited the reader to conceive animals as machines. Like planetary systems, animals can be compared to mechanical clockworks, the motion of which can be accounted for in terms of mechanics. In addition, Descartes argued that the human body is a machine as well. He developed the theory that nerves are hollow pipes through which animal spirits, “which are like a very subtle wind, or rather, like a very pure and lively flame” (Descartes, 1637/1998, p. 30), can flow. And if these spirits enter, for example, a muscle that is connected to the eye, then “they cause the whole body of the muscle to inflate and shorten and so pull the eye to which it is attached; while on the contrary, when they withdraw, the muscle disinflates and elongates again” (Descartes, 1633/1972, p. 25). Hence, the movements of our bodies follow the same principles as the movements of the hydraulic robots.

Yet, according to Descartes, humans are also equipped with an immaterial soul. Although Descartes believed that one could create a machine that can utter some words, he asserted that it was impossible to make one that is capable of using words in a meaningful way “as even the dullest man can do” (Descartes, 1637/1998, p. 32). In addition, Descartes claimed that although it is possible to construct a machine that outperforms us in certain actions, it is impossible to create one that uses insight, that is truly intelligent. Hence, to account for our ingenuity, Descartes introduced an incorporeal soul, the essence of which is thinking. Thus, although many of our movements can be ex...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-Title Page
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• 1 The mechanistic foundation of psychology
• 2 Gibson’s ecological program
• 3 Affordances, invitations, and emotions
• 4 A plea for developmental history
• 5 Emotions and the (mis)perception of affordances
• 6 Developmental systems theory: Bridging the gap
• Epilogue
• References
• Index