David Hartley
1705-1757
English Physician and Philosopher
David Hartley was an English physician who developed an influential philosophy of thinking known as associationism. Hartley strove to explain how the mind and consciousness functioned; and he speculated that the mind is able to work by the association of sensations and the cumulative experiences of life, or memories. Hartley was also influential in suggesting that the mind and body do not function independently of each other but work together in concert.
Hartley was the son of a poor Anglican clergyman; his mother died before he was a year old and his father died while he was a young boy. He entered Jesus College, Cambridge, in 1722 where he studied mathematics and divinity; he received his Bachelors in 1727 and his Masters in 1729. This course of education would have led to a career in the Anglican ministry, but Hartley was not willing to sign his commitment to the Thirty-nine Articles on the Church of England. Thus, having abandoned the ministry, he turned to medicine.
Hartley never obtained a degree in medicine, but he started his medical studies in Newark where he then began to practice. He later practiced medicine in Nottinghamshire, London, and finally Bath, where his second wife could take advantage of the nearby health spa for her illness. Hartley remained in Bath until his death.
Hartley's major work, Observations on Man, His Frame, His Duty, and His Expectations, was published in 1749 in two volumes. In this work, he further developed a concept from John Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding, namely that complex ideas are the result of simpler, earlier ideas tempered with memories and experience. Hartley then joined this idea with a concept of memory and sensation from Isaac Newton's Opticks in which Newton theorized that the vibrations that make up light entered the eye and traveled by way of vibration to the brain where they are recognized as light. Hartley forwarded the idea that all mental processing, especially that of memories, is based on vibrations in the brain and spinal column. The very existence of memories was based on "vibrantuncles," as Hartley called them, which resulted from the vibrations entering the brain from experiences. In this way, Hartley was able to formulate his idea that memories and experiences work together to make the brain operate.
The significance of Hartley's work Observations was realized later as other thinkers and scientists used his concept of associationism to explain psychological, social, and physiological concepts. Hartley wrote Observations intending it to be considered a work of philosophy, but it has been that and much more. Hartley's idea that things work together in order to function properly opened a floodgate of ideas that were cultivated by later scientists in areas such us biology, evolutionary theory, neurophysiology, psychiatry, social theory, and neurology. Hartley was the first to use the term "psychology" to describe the study of behavior and brain functioning.
Hartley's concept of association can be easily seen in use with the psychotherapeutic tool "free association" in which a patient reports the first image that comes to mind when the therapist says a random word. Brainstorming, an idea generating tool used in advertising and business, has its roots in associationism. Hartley's work Observations, based on his speculations regarding the functioning of the brain, is regarded as one of the pivotal pieces in the foundation of modern science, if not expressly for the principles of associationism.
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