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Cartesianism

n. the system of philosophy developed by René Descartes. The three fundamental tenets of the system are (a) that all knowledge forms a unity; (b) that the purpose of knowledge is to provide humankind with the means of mastery over the natural world; and (c) that all knowledge must be built up from a foundation of indubitable first principles, the truth of which can be known intuitively (see innate ideas). Many ideas and assumptions influential in psychology can be traced back to Descartes, including the notion of a rational self capable of knowing truth, the contention that the most trustworthy knowledge is of the contents of one’s own mind, and the idea that the deductive methods that have been successful in producing certainty in mathematics can be applied to produce equally valid knowledge in other fields of human endeavor. Of particular importance to the development of psychology are Descartes’ understanding of the ego (see Cartesian self) and his attempt to explain the relation of the mind to the body (see Cartesian dualism). See also modernism; rationalism. —Cartesian adj.

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Psychology term of the day

January 18th 2025

group fallacy

group fallacy

1. the assumption, regarded as erroneous, that the actions and experiences of people in groups cannot be understood completely through analysis of the qualities of the individual members.

2. the mistaken assumption that a group is totally uniform, whereas in fact members differ from one another in many respects. See also outgroup homogeneity bias.