Association of Ideas

ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS. - It is the fact that the images of consciousness, like ideas and cognitive contents in general, present themselves in connection with one another so that the evocation of one of them tends to recall some of the others or the entire complex to which it belongs. The explanation of the principles and nature of this connection concerns in itself the theory of knowledge and the philosophical orientation of the psychological schools: the presupposition common to all associationist schools is the "principle of synthesis," namely that the element precedes the compound and the part comes before the whole... and the compound and the whole are its "result." It is therefore a matter of seeking, in reflection and through experimental investigation, what the forces of cohesion of the elements and of the parts are and how they function in the various manifestations of conscious life, both in the cognitive sphere and in the practical one. Associationism is also called "psychic atomism," inasmuch as it explains precisely the structures and complexes of consciousness starting from the elements or parts that contribute to them: it can be founded and found both in empiricism or pure phenomenism and in absolute rationalism, inasmuch as both these philosophical orientations place truth in a simple and immediate apprehension (in sensibility or in the intellect) and not in the functional solidarity of structures and in the convergence of the sensory sphere with the intellectual one. Thus associationism stands at the foundation (it has been the pretext) of a great part of modern philosophy: it is affirmed by Kant with the theory of the "dust of sensations," it is already presupposed in pre-Kantian rationalism and is developed into a system in English empiricism. But in the theoretical function of the association of ideas empiricism and rationalism diverge: for empiricism, since every learning consists in the formation of associations, the meaning of the complexes must be sought in the original elements from which learning begins; for rationalism, on the other hand (including idealism), the meaning of the complexes derives solely from the activity of reason, and the contents of association are pure matter of knowing or only the starting point of it, which it must overcome and negate.

The first theory of the association of ideas is traced back to Aristotle, who treats it in connection with memory and recollection (cf. De mem., 2, 451 b 10 ff.): the ease of the return of images taken from experience varies from individual to individual, inasmuch as for some a single experience suffices to remember a thing and they remember it better than others who have had it many times. In general recollection occurs when the first movements of experiences (πράττεραν συνήσεις) come to be repeated in consciousness until they become "habitual": the attraction therefore of the associated elements is exercised, according to Aristotle, by past experiences upon the present experience and according as something presents itself as similar or contrary or contiguous to another (ἀφ' ὁμοίον ἢ ἐναντίον ἢ τοῦ σάναγγος, διὰ τοῦτο γίνεται ἢ ἀνάμνησις; ibid., lines 19-20). The Aristotelian text has suggested the three fundamental laws of the association of ideas, namely similarity, contrariety, contiguity of space and time, which St. Thomas illustrated as external forms of an interior induction: a) "... sicut si cogitemus vel loquamur de lacte, de facili pervenimus in album propter lactis albedinem, et de albo in aërem propter claritatem diaphani quae causat albedinem, et ab aëre in humidum, quia aër est humidus; ab humido autem pervenitur ad reminiscendum temporis autumnalis, quod quaerebat, ratione contrarietatis: quia hoc tempus est frigidum et siccum." b) "Et dicit (Aristotle) quod istud quod est universale videtur esse principium et medium per quod potest perveniri ad omnia...": not the universal in the abstract logical order, but in the intentional order of the movement of representative complexes, like the white milk of the example cited (in De mem. et rem., lect. 6, ed. A. Pirotta, Turin 1928, nos. 378-79). The Aristotelian conception is therefore alien both to the empiricist and to the rationalist position.

It is only with English empiricism that the association of ideas receives a systematic and preeminent development: Locke's treatment in An essay concerning human understanding (Book II, chaps. 33: Of the association of ideas) limits itself to gathering experimental data, especially from the pathology of perception and behavior. The classic of the association of ideas is D. Hume, who places it at the beginning of his theory of knowledge (cf. A treatise on human nature, Book I, chap. 4: Of the connection or association of ideas; Enquiries concerning the human understanding, part 2, sec. 3; part 2, sec. 5). Association is called a "gentle force" (a gentle force) and to the associative principles of similarity-contrariety and of contiguity, indicated by Aristotle, Hume adds the relation of cause and effect, as the most important, because it is this that founds the persuasion of reality that external impressions are incapable of giving. It is at this point that Hume's empiricism passes over into a form of productive subjectivism or apriorism of feeling, as it has also been called: unlike the other associative relations, that of cause and effect cannot rest on any external "impression of experience": "The sight and touch give us an idea of the actual motion of bodies, but they cannot even remotely conceive that wonderful force or power that would maintain a body forever in continuous motion and that bodies never lose except by communicating it to others" (Enquiries, part 2, sec. 4, § 29; ed. L. A. Selby-Bigge, Oxford 1936, p. 33). Man is convinced that by eating bread he will be nourished, but the nourishment that follows has no relation to the sensible qualities that the bread presents: the connection between these and the wonderful force or power that is causality and, concretely, with the secret powers by which bread nourishes, lies outside external experience however one considers it. Hume therefore, with regard to the association of causality (which for him is the category of the real inasmuch as it stands at the foundation of the very identity of objects: it ensures indeed their "permanence" in time) speaks of "habit" and "custom" (habit, custom), in the precise sense of "inner conviction" or also "belief" (belief). The nature of this "belief" is that of a "peculiar feeling" (a peculiar feeling): but on the nature of such a feeling, on its origin and on its precise functions regarding the notion of reality, Hume confesses that he has never come to clarity, limiting himself to saying that it is "something felt rather than conceived" (felt, rather than conceived) and approaches the impression, from which it is derived, in its form and influence (Treatise..., Appendix, ed. Selby-Bigge, Oxford 1928, p. 627). It is well known that Kant presented his critical reform of thought as a generalization of this Humean conception of causal belief (cf. E. Kant, Prolegomena zu einer jeden künftigen Metaphysik, ed. E. Cassirer, Berlin 1913, §§ 2 and 5; pp. 18 ff. and 26).

It is only with the positivism of the 19th century that the principle of the association of ideas is explained solely with reference to elementary sensations: these form the primary content of truth, all the other operations of consciousness are considered secondary and derived. Modern experimental psychology is largely dominated by this principle, which M. Wertheimer has presented in two moments or hypotheses:

1. The mosaic or "bundle" hypothesis: "Every complex results from a sum of elementary contents or pieces (e.g., sensations)." For example, if one has a₁, b₁, c₁ and replaces b₁ and c₁ with b₂ c₃, then one has a₁ b₂ c₃. There is therefore an associative multiplicity of variously connected components (a "bundle"), and everything is thus built upon "extrinsic connections" (Und-Verbindungen).

2. The association hypothesis: "If a certain content A has frequently been found united with B ('in spatio-temporal contiguity'), then there is in A a tendency to recall B" (M. Wertheimer, Untersuchungen zur Lehre von der Gestalt, I, in Psychol. Forschungen, Berlin 1922, p. 49). A typical example was the mnemonic exercises with nonsense syllables (e.g.: Pud sol dap rus mik nom!, from K. Koffka, Principles of Gestalt psychology, London 1936, p. 557): association is reduced to an entirely external, adventitious factor, to contingencies (sachfremd, says Wertheimer), and at the same time, once the connection of A and B is established, the succession of B to A is understood to occur in a necessary and univocal manner.

A first reaction to the psychology of association came from the so-called "Graz school" and above all from von Ehrenfels, who maintained the priority of the formal factor over merely associative factors: there exists in the objects of experience a "formal quality" (Gestaltqualität), e.g., the rhythm of a melody, which cannot be explained as a mere summation of elementary sounds, but presents itself as original. The criticism continued with the "Würzburg school," directed by Külpe, which, advocating a "psychology of thought" (Denkpsychologie) and the originality of the higher functions of understanding (Külpe, Ach, Willwell) and of willing (Ach, Lindworski), restricted association to the sphere of sensory representations. The most resolute criticism of the association of i. came from "Gestalt psychology" (Gestaltpsychologie) founded by M. Wertheimer and expanded with original research by W. Kohler, K. Koffka, K. Lewin. The cornerstone of this school is the following principle: "There exist (perceptual) wholes, the behavior of which is not determined by any of their individual elements, but instead the behavior of their parts is determined by the intrinsic nature of the whole" (M. Wertheimer, Über Gestalttheorie, Erlangen 1925, p. 45). To this phenomenological principle the "Gestaltists" added an explanatory principle called that of "physical forms" (physische Gestalten) or of isomorphism, insofar as it is admitted: a) that the behavior of the nervous energy of the perceptual and operative centers follows the laws of internal self-regulation, such as is observed, e.g., in the distribution of electrical energy in a closed circuit; b) the strict dependence of perceptual and dynamic structures on such supposed phenomena of self-regulation of the underlying "transverse functions" (Querfunktionen) of the nervous system. Thus one could affirm the unity of the functionality of consciousness insofar as "what is inner, is outer" (Deun was innen, das ist aussen), a Goethean motto that the Gestaltists apply in the sense of a rigorous correspondence between sensory experience and the physiological processes that accompany it, and not, as some have misunderstood, between organic processes and the environment (cf. W. Kohler, Die physischen Gestalten in Ruhe und im stationären Zustand, Erlangen 1920, p. 173 ff.). An energetic revival of the principle of association, against "Gestalt psychology," was attempted by G. E. Müller, who, distinguishing a double collective apprehension, simultaneous and successive, attributed the tendency of elements to gather into the "complexes" of collective apprehension to "coherence factors" (Kohlerrefaktoren) such as spatial contiguity, equality, similarity, efficacy (Eindringlichkeit = "penetration"), symmetrical course, the influence of the contour, etc. (G. E. Müller, Komplextheorie und Gestalttheorie, Göttingen 1923, p. 9 ff.). But the harvest of results and the genius of the method made explicit by the factors of the Gestalt prevailed over the last resistances of the old psychology; in America the "principle of form" had an interesting development in the psychology of behavior (cf. E. C. Tolman, Purposive behaviour in animals and men, New York 1933). By spiritualist psychologists of neo-Scholastic tendency, while they are prepared to accept the acquired results of the research of the "school of form," two reservations of principle are advanced: a) against the unjustified devaluation of so-called sensory material with respect to subjective organizational factors; b) the physical-materialistic interpretation of these factors (principle of isomorphism). It is affirmed finally that the central nucleus of human understanding is not in the apprehension of "form," but of the "meaning" of objects, and therefore above the purely perceptual sphere there is the original life of thought to which that sphere is related and on which it depends (Michotte, Gemelli, Moore).

The reality is that all the functions of consciousness are related to one another and each to its own object according to a principle of interior cohesion in view of the terminal result they must reach: the exercise of the animal's instinct and the life of intelligence in man. Hegel had already energetically criticized the psychology of association point by point. "In the first place, it is not ideas that are associated. In the second place, those modes of relation are not laws, and more than laws they are arbitrary and accidental processes: the proceeding in images and representations according to association is properly the antithesis of thought." Hegel observes that being is the proper determination of intelligence and that "intelligence integrates the given through the meaning of universality and what is proper, what is inner, through that of being." Therefore the dynamism of association remains still within the ambit of pure exteriority and hence of insignificance as long as such connections are not subsumed under a "universal connection," and the bond (Band) becomes objective from subjective (G. W. F. Hegel, Enzyklop. d. philos. Wissenschaften, ed. L. Boumann, Berlin 1845, § 455, p. 329 ff.; Zusatz, p. 331 ff.). But since idealism condemns immediate experience as mere "appearance," such subsumption of sensory and representational contents, on which the association of i. is exercised, proves groundless; in Aristotelianism, on the other hand, the universal has its starting point in sensory and representational contents, to which it must continually "refer" in order to guarantee its warmth of reality (τὰ μὲν εἴδη τὸ νοητικὸν ἐν φαντάσμαι νοεῖ: De an., III, 7, 431 b 2). By virtue of the dominion that the concept obtains over the image, the process of the association of i. can be stimulated, directed, inhibited and criticized on occasion, just as the conscious exercise of freedom can check or direct the inclinations and habits that life comes to form.

Cornelio Fabro