THE FIRST ASSOCIATIONIST

 

This entry is devoted to the virtually unknown outside the tight circle of his profession, but important in his own right, English philosopher David Hartley (1705-1757).

His special importance is already capsulated in the title of this entry, but first things first, and our first order of business will be the concise biographical entry on him in my Webster’s Biographical Dictionary, which he shares equally with his diplomat son:

“Hartley, David. 1705-1757. English philosopher; practicing physician  in Newark, Bury St. Edmunds, and London; he expounded his doctrine of associationism in Observations on Man, his Frame, his Duty, and his expectations (1749). His son David (1732-1813), diplomat; with Benjamin Franklin, drafted and signed the peace treaty between U.S. and Great Britain (1783); published Letters on American War (1778-1779), and editions of his father’s philosophical work.”

In his terrific History of Western Philosophy, Bertrand Russell does not allot Hartley a separate chapter, or a subchapter, for that matter, but he mentions him several times in the span of two opening pages (773-774) of the chapter on The Utilitarians:

“Bentham and his school derived their philosophy, in all its main outlines, from Locke, Hartley, and Helvetius; their importance is not so much philosophical as political, as the leaders of British radicalism, and as the men who unintentionally prepared the way for the doctrines of socialism…

He [Bentham] bases his whole philosophy on two principles, the ‘association principle, and the ‘greatest-happiness principle.’ The association principle had been emphasized by Hartley in 1749; before him, even though association of ideas was recognized as occurring, it was regarded, for instance, by Locke, only as a source of trivial errors. Bentham, following Hartley, made it the basic principle of psychology. He Bentham recognizes association of ideas and language and also association of ideas and ideas. By means of this principle he aims at a deterministic account of mental occurrences. In essence the doctrine is the same as the more modern theory of the ‘conditioned reflex,’ based on Pavlov’s experiments. The only important difference is that Pavlov’s conditioned reflex is physiological, whereas the association of ideas was purely mental. Pavlov’s work is therefore capable of a materialistic explanation, such as is given to it by the behaviorists, whereas the association of ideas led rather towards a psychology more or less independent of physiology. There can be no doubt that, scientifically, the principle of the conditioned reflex is an advance on the older principle. Pavlov’s principle is this: Given a reflex according to which a stimulus B produces a reaction C, and given that a certain animal has frequently experienced a stimulus A at the same time as B,--- it often happens that in time the stimulus A will produce the reaction C even when B is absent. To determine the circumstances under which this happens is a matter of experiment. Clearly, if we substitute ideas for A, B, and C, Pavlov’s principle becomes that of the association of ideas.

Both principles, indubitably, are valid over a certain field; the only controversial question is as to the extent of this field. Bentham and his followers exaggerated the extent of the field in the case of Hartley’s principle as certain behaviorists have in the case of Pavlov’s principle…”

Quoting this long passage from Russell was not a fanciful fluke on our part. Focusing on the subject of this entry David Hartley we can see his definite influence on the subsequent history of philosophy and psychology, no matter what… Now, when I say “no matter what,” I mean that despite the by now acknowledged as a fact Hartley’s parentship of the association principles in its more technical sense, Hartley’s name has not received a proper recognition, and, for instance, my big Webster’s New Universal Unabridged Dictionary gives him no credit at all in its entry on associationism:

“Associationism. 1. In psychology, the theory that mental development is reached through the association of ideas that are formed through the medium of the senses. 2. Fourierism.”

The second definition is unrelated to the first, for which purpose, we are clarifying it using Webster’s itself, in its definition of Fourierism. As the reader will immediately see, we are speaking of a very different type of “association”:

“Fourierism. The doctrines of Charles Fourier (1772-1837), French socialist who recommended the reorganization of society into small co-operative communities.”

Let us now reach for a more up-to-date definition of associationism, as appearing in the Wikipedia:

---“Associationism is the idea that mental processes operate by the association of one mental state with its successor states. The idea is first recorded in Plato and Aristotle, especially with regard to the succession of memories. Members of the principally British “Associationist School”, including John Locke, David Hume, David Hartley, James Mill, John Stuart Mill, Alexander Bain, and Ivan Pavlov (for the record--- a bona fide Russian!!!), asserted that the principle applied to all or most mental processes. Later members of the school developed very specific principles, elaborating how associations worked, and even a physiological mechanism bearing no resemblance to modern neurophysiology.”

The Wikipedia passage above does not particularly single out David Hartley, finding him instead somehow buried behind the much better-known philosophical luminaries. To correct this unfair impression, though, we need only to refer to the specific entry of the selfsame Wikipedia on David Hartley proper. Here is how he is introduced there:

David Hartley (1705 – 28 Aug. 1757) was an English philosopher and founder of the Associationist school of psychology…

…Founder of an important school?--- That’s more like it!