Behaviourism Flashcards
Behaviourism General A01
Analyses mental properties in terms of behaviour.
Does not attempt to reduce mental properties to physical ones.
Hempet = Hard, Ryle = Soft
Hempel’s Hard Behaviourism
- makes use of verification principle.
- mental states are private and so can’t be tested.
- turn to behaviour as is empirically falsifiable.
- so, to be meaningful the conditions of verification for mental states
are behaviour and bodily states, such as physiological and
neurological states and processes. - through translation, statements can be reduced, without loss of
meaning, into statements the describe the conditions of verification. - therefore, to talk of mental states is to talk of behaviour.
- John in pain example.
Hempel’s Verification principle
The meaning of a statement is established by the conditions of its verification. If, in principle, we cannot empirically test a statement - it is meaningless.
21 Degrees example - thermometer, celsius scale.
Ryle’s Soft Behaviourism
- mental states can be understood as behavioural dispositions.
- where behaviour is used in its ordinary sense, compared to HB.
- mental state of proud, would or is likely to do x in y circumstance.
- mental concepts are a very complex set of dispositions, where dispositions are
‘indefinitely heterogenous’ and ‘open’ and expressed in hypothetical conditionals -
many ways of expressing proudness. - Ryle’s behaviourism is non-reductive, mental concepts cannot be reduced, in meaning,
into a series of hypothetical statements about what a person may do. - Instead, mental concepts are analysed in terms of such statements.
- Enable us to support and justify certain inferences about how someone will behave,
but cannot draw all possible inferences and replace ‘proudness’ with list set of
inferences.
Ryle Disposition’s
How something will or is likely to behave under certain circumstances.
E.g. Sugar has the disposition of solubility.
Ryle on thinking
‘What about thinking to myself?’
Ryles claims that this is just internalised speaking, the silence is inessential to the nature of thinking.
Whether the process of private or public is irrelevant.
Thinking is a mental occurrence, meaning it takes places at a particular time, and is not just a matter of dispositions.
E.g. dissolving is the occurrence when sugar is placed in water due to the disposition or solubility. Occurrences are semi-hypothetical in this manner.
Behaviourism Counter - Objection 1
Multiple Realisability:
- many ways in which the disposition can be actualised.
- the same mental state in different people can involve different behavioural dispositions.
- E.g. Lion, I may freeze, you may run.
- So, Hempel’s B says that behaviour is equally translated to mental states but how can different behaviours have the same mental state? What is it that makes them the same? The list of conditions of verification would be indefinietly long - not an adequate account.
- Ryle, is also objected as people with the same mental state behave differently in the same circumstances. So, two ppl having the same mental state is not to have the same behavioral dispositions.
Multiple Realisability - Counter - Hempel
Hempel can emphasis the important of physiological processes and brain processes.
May behave differently, but physiology and brain processes will be the same. These are central to identifying what mental concepts mean.
Multiple Realisability - Hempel - Eval.
Moves theory towards a form of type identity theory.
Since behaviour has become not as important as physical properties in the body.
Type identity also doesn’t avoid the problem of type identity.
Physiology and brain processes do different between people, despite same mental state.
Multiple Realisability - Counter - Ryle
Less of a strong counter to Ryle.
He does not attempt to reduce mental concepts to a fixed list of dispositions.
Dispositions are ‘indefinietly heterogenous’ and ‘open’.
Objections are correct but are not objections, Ryle does not attempt to translate mental states into a finite list.
Multiple Realisability - Ryle - Eval.
Doesn’t address second interpretation of objection from multiple realisability.
If mental states are so ‘heterogenous’, is there any stable correlation, let alone identify, between mental states and their dispositions?
What makes a mental state the mental state it is?
This is where the issue of circularity in accordance with identifying mental states emerges.
Behaviourism Counter - Objection 2
Objection from circularity:
No way of analysing mental states in terms of behaviour without mentioning other mental states.
This is like defining furniture as chair, tables, etc.
E.g. what the mental state of fear when facing snake disposes me to do will depend upon my other mental states. My belief, ‘I do think its dangerous?’, my knowledge, ‘Do I recognise the snake?’, my desires, ‘Do I desire not to be bitten?’.
My fear of snakes could dispose me to start shouting numbers if I believed it effectively prevents snake attacks.
So, my mental states depend upon my beliefs, knowledge and desires. Cannot identify distinct mental states with distinct sets of dispositions.
Leibniz’s Law - same mental state, different dispositions, mental states can’t be dispositions.
Circularity - Ryle Response
Shouldn’t focus on individual pieces of behaviour, as this misunderstands the theory.
We can’t tell what dispositions is being expressed in a single piece of behaviour.
Depends on other hypothetical statements about other situations.
So, being afraid of snakes isn’t fixed to what I say or do, but by a whole host of dispositions to other behaviour in other circumstances.
On the whole, people in the same have very similar dispositions, e.g. fear can caused the same facial facial expressions.
Sufficient overlap for us to say for us to identify they are in the same mental state.
Circularity Eval.
When looking to identify and define mental concepts, ‘overlap’ is not sufficient. In order for the theory to be correct it must identify mental states in all cases, not just in general.
PB doesn’t seem to able to do this. It cannot account for every possible mental state.
Not a adequate theory of mind.
Behaviourism Counter - Objection 3
Asymmetry between self-knowledge and knowledge of other peoples minds:
Our self-knowledge comes from our own consciousness of our mental states and our introspection of that consciousness.
We can’t we be conscious of anyone else’s mental states in the same way. Furthermore, we are aware of our mental states in such a way that we cannot make mistakes, but this is not ture of our beliefs about other people’s minds.
If mental states are dispositions to behaviour, this wouldn’t be true. This would mean I would have to infer my mental states from how I behave. E.g. when I say I am in pain…
This isn’t right. I can know how I feel directly, without inference. Surely, I know what I am thinking in a way no one else can.
So, as B rules out asymmetry between self-knowledge and knowledge of the mental state of others, and it is obvious from experience that there is such an asymmetry exists, B is false.
