NGUYEN DO TO UYEN THEORY OF EDUCATION PAHTIA-KANT202 András PetÅ‘ Faculty, Semmelweis University Making Sense of Education. An introduction to the philosophy and theory of education and teaching Written by David Carr Chapter 6. Learning: behaviour, perception and cognition The philosophy of mind Since a very ancient time, philosophers always have been divided into two different belief about the relationship of the psychological to the physical, or of mind to body. It is obvious to see the differences between those philosophers who believe that the mind and body, or the psychological and the physical as separate things, and those who believe that they are connected with each other continuously but not identical. Those humanoid species adapting to the environment by developing technologies of communication or problem solving survived and transmitted their accumulated experience as culture to their following generations, for those who could not get adapted, they died out. This concept is a purely contingent result of trial and error. The empirical investigation of learning The first logic lying behind this first empirical support was a story about an animal experiment conducted by the Russian biologist Ivan Pavlov. He conducted experiments to measure canine salivation on dogs. He found out that dogs were able to salivate not just in the response of natural or ‘unconditioned’ stimulus of food but also to sensory input coming along with the introduction of food such as the ringing of a bell. Kant and the constructivist turn Cognitive psychology states that the contingencies of environmental stimulation are responded by learning followed by rules. Kant believes that moral philosophy was just about constructivist where moral judgements conclude a type of prescription dissociated from the normal workaday motives, wants or inclinations of agents. They have nothing in the connection with empirical content or sensible experience. Gestalt and cognitive psychology ‘Gestalt’ psychologists made attempts to bring empirical expression to this key Kantian insight in the course of empirical experimental investigation into the nature of perception. This perception involves both human agents and non-human animals. The Gestaltist point was stated that human perception was not just the result of sensory input itself alone because perception is interpretative and it is inherited from the past. This interpretation is the combination of sensory experience under meaning-constitutive categories and concepts. To understand this in a simple way, an example about the perception of the flashing of a light was given. We see the flashing of a light at one specific position and this was followed by the slightly delayed flashing of a second light in close spatial proximity to the first. This phenomenon was perceived as a continuous movement of light from one position to the next one but not two separated positions of two different events. Wertheimer named this as ‘phi-phenomenon’ which allows human beings to perceive a series of illuminated lightbulbs as an animated cartoon of Mickey Mouse.
