3.4.3 Philosophical behaviourism

Question 1

Define physicalism

Answer 1

Everything is physical or supervenes upon the physical (this includes properties, events, objects
and any substance(s) that exist).

Question 2

What is philosophical behaviourism?

Answer 2

Philosophical behaviourism claims that we can analyse mental concepts in terms of concepts that relate to the body, and in particular, the concept of ‘behaviour’.

Question 3

What are the two types of behavioursim?

Answer 3

• hard behaviousim
• soft behaviourism

Question 4

Define hard behaviourism

Answer 4

all propositions about mental states can be completely reduced to propositions about observable bodily states/movements.

Question 5

Which philosopher championed hard behaviourism?

Answer 5

Carl Hempel

Question 6

What philosophical group was Carl Hempel part of?
and what philosophical movement were they founders of?

Answer 6

The Vienna circle
founders of the logical positivist movement

Question 7

What account of meaning did Hempel believe in?

Answer 7

The verificationist account of meaning,
according to which all meaningful propositions are either analytic or provable by reference to observable statements.

Question 8

What is the only way for Hempel and hard behaviourists for mental language to have meaning?

Answer 8

In order to be scientific, and therefore meaningful, Hempel resolved to devise a philosophy of the mind which reduced all understandings of the mind to physical behaviours which we can empirically verify.

Question 9

Why is hard behaviourism sometimes referred to as analytic behaviourism?

Answer 9

Because it involves taking something apart and defining it in terms of its constituent parts.
Mother = female parent

which is an analytic reduction

Question 10

Give an example of a translation from mental state language into behavioural language:

Answer 10

Kitty loves Oasis
becomes
- Kitty has ‘supersonic’ tattooed on her arm
- Kitty listens to Oasis for three hours a day (despite Mr OCs disapproval)
- Kitty says things like ‘ABBA is a pile of leaves and Oasis is a log.’

Question 11

What are the two problems for hard behaviourism?

Answer 11

• circularity
• multiple realisability

Question 12

Explain the circularity problem?

Answer 12

analysing mental states in terms of behaviour (and behavioural dispositions) makes implicit reference to human agency
human agency involves intent, which is an aspect of a mental state
therefore: the definition (of mental states in terms of behaviour) is circular because the term we want to define (mental states) appears in the definition.

Question 13

How might behaviourists try to avoid the problem of circularity and what new problem does that create?

Answer 13

would have to define behaviour (eg Lily paints a picture) purely in terms of bodily movements: ‘Lily raises her right arm to the canvas and moves it from left to right)
the new statement is completely void of the original meaning –> multiple realisability

Question 14

Explain the (2 way) multiple realisability problem

Answer 14

There are many different ways a mental state might be expressed in behaviour.
eg: Person A and person B see a lion, person A runs person B freezes (same mental state- fear, causes two differnt behaviours)
A behaviour may be the result of more than one particular mental state.
eg: Person C and D s ankle both make contact with a stick, person C intented to kick it, person D tripped over it

Question 15

reminder (dualist criticism)

What did Ryle say about Descartes’ substance dualism?

Answer 15

That it made a ‘category mistake’
when we look at the meaning of words the mind body problem goes away

Question 16

Define soft behaviourism

and which philosopher

Answer 16

Ryle rejected hard behaviourism and argued it is impossible to complete;your reduce mental states to actual and current behaviour
instead he proposed we should anaylse mental states in terms of something’s disposition to behave in a certain way.

Question 17

Give an example of how Ryle says we should analyse mental state language :

Answer 17

Ben loves swimming in the sea becomes:
- when at the beach it is likely that Ben will jump into the sea straight away

Question 18

Issues

What are the two Dualist arguements against behaviourism?

Answer 18

1. Behaviourism involves denying Qualia
2. Dualist critique from interaction/mental causation

Question 19

Explain the dualist critique that Behaviourism involves denying Qualia

Answer 19

To have pain does not seem to just be a mtter of inclination to moan and whince, pains also have an intrinsic qualitative nature that is revealed in intropection (qualia)
Any theory of mind that ignores qualia fails to do justice to our own knowledge of our own mental life.

Question 20

issues

Explain the dualist critique from interaction/mental causation

Answer 20

Behaviourists can’t explain why we do anything because they don’t accept mental causes like ‘I want to go because I want to have fun’
accepting the mental cause would lead to dualism.

Question 21

issues

Explain the criticism: The assymetry between self-knowledge and knowledge of others people’s mental states

give an example to illustrate the issue

Answer 21

According to behaviourism, mental states can be reduced to concretly observable behaviour.
What we observe, is other people’s behaviour
So according to behaviourism, other people are better able to verify the truth of mental state language to do with ourselves that we are.

For example: concert with a freind, after you say, I know you had fun, how was it for me?

one might say this is why we go to therapy but really in 99.9% of cases yoy know your own mental state better, and even in the 0.1% the other person cannot be 100% sure - we are capable of lying

Question 22

issues

Explain the criticism: there is an assymetry between the knowledge of my mind and knowledge of other minds

Answer 22

Behaviourism is the theory that we can completely reduce mental states to observable behaviour.
This means our own mental states may be reduced down to the** same behaviour** as **another persons mental state **- so according to behaviourism there is no difference between the origins of that behaviour (because nothing mental on its own holds any real meaning because its not empirically observable)
so there is no difference between our minds and other minds
but there is…(an assymetry)
our minds:
- accessible
- certain
- incorrigable
- infalible
- complete
other minds:
- inaccessible
- uncertain
- corrigable
- falible
-incomplete
Therefore philosophical beaviourism is false

Question 23

issues

Explain the criticism: The distinctness of mental states from behaviour (super- spartans)

Hilary Putnam

Answer 23

Imagine a community of ‘Super-Spartans’ in which adults have the ability to successfully supress all voluntary pain behaviour . They do not wince, scream or even flinch. But they do feel pain.
This is inexplicable according to behaviourism
According to them it seems that they don’t feel pain at all since they do not display the behaviour for it.

Question 24

What is Ryle’s response to the super spartans critique?

Answer 24

Super spartans may not display any actual pain behaviour but they remain disposed to display the behaviour were it not for the fact that they have ‘important ideological reasons’ for not doing so.

Question 25

Putnams’s response to Ryle’s Super spartan defence

Answer 25

SUPER DUPER SPARTANS
in this world people have been super spartans for so long that people no longer talk about pain, there isn’t even a word for it, people pretend to not know what it is…. so they aren’t even disposed to show it

Question 26

What does Putnam think about behaviourism?

+ what’s the example he uses to demonstrate what we means

Answer 26

It confuses the evidence we use to ascribe to mental states with the mental states themselves.
For example: People used to think that polio, the disease, was it’s symptoms: stiffness of limbs, fever, vommitting etc, but now we know polio is a virus.
In the same way we can identify people’s pain by the symptoms- the pain behaviour.
But this doesn’t mean the pain behaviour is the pain itself, they are not equivalent. That is why it is possible to be in pain without exhibiting pain beahviour.