behaviourism Flashcards
who created hard behaviourism?
Hempel
who are the logical positivists?
empiricists who insist that meaningful propositions must be empirical.
what is hard behaviourism?
all propositions about mental states can be reduced without loss of meaning to propositions about behaviours and bodily states using the language of physics.
what are mental states reducible to?
hard behaviourism says mental states analytically reduce to behaviours (and other externally observable physical facts)
what is the circularity criticism?
we can argue that the process of analysing mental states in terms of behaviour is CIRCULAR
- behaviourism must assume other mental states in order to give an analysis of mental states in terms of behavioural dispositions
- if you define the OTHER mental states in terms of behavioural dispositions, you will end up back where it started.
what is the multiple realisability criticism?
the same mental state can be realised through multiple different behaviours depending on someone’s OTHER mental states which need to be analysed in terms of behaviours which may vary depending on other mental states.
what is the example for multiple realisability?
if we are both thirsty (both have that mental state) - but i might not drink it because i have the mental state of believing the drink is poisoned.
- we need to appeal to other mental states to explain why this behavioural disposition occurs.
thus it seems impossible for behaviourism to explain mental states as behaviours without assuming other mental states.
what is the criticism that observable ≠ the mental?
observable pieces of behaviour are not enough to determine someone’s mental state.
- someone may be pretending
- we would not believe someone on trial who pretended to be mad without a therapy
we cannot know someone’s desire just from their actions
- maybe someone wants something but can’t have it for some reason
what is Hempel’s response to observable ≠ the mental?
while there may be no directly observable basis for telling whether someone is pretending we could examine their neurons to tell us the truth
HOWEVER, one could argue that one could fail to display the overt behaviour and the physiological symptoms (brain activity) but be in a state
but this is not a coherent idea, if all signs for a mental state are there, we should believe it.
what is soft behaviourism?
Propositions about mental states are propositions about behavioural DISPOSITIONS.
what is a dispositional property?
it’s liability or proneness to act in a certain way
- the property of being soluble is a liability or proneness to dissolve in water.
it is not to say that it is dissolving CURRENTLY, just that it is disposed to UNDER CONDITIONS.
what are hypothetical propositions?
if… then propositions
e.g. IF the sugar goes in water THEN it will dissolve
what are mental states?
ultimately dispositions to behave in certain ways and sentences expressing dispositional properties are always HYPOTHETICAL IN FORM.
why are mental concepts different than what dualists believe in soft behaviourism?
mental concepts are not OCCULT CAUSES AND EFFECTS but they are INFERENCE TICKETS - ways of inferring future behaviour based on past behaviour.
what is the qualia objection?
dualists argue that a theory of mind that ignores or denies qualia fails to do justice to the subjective point of view and the direct awareness i enjoy of my own mental states.
what is hempel’s response to the qualia objection?
hempel responds by saying that we can only appeal to the OBSERVABLE PHYSICAL DATA in order to make MEANINGFUL claims about someone’s mental states.
- one difficulty with this is that the verification principle itself cannot be meaningful.
what is the criticism about self knowledge and knowledge of other’s mental states?
i can make mistakes about others’ mental states but knowledge of my own seems incorrigible.
- other people may have a better idea of what i am thinking and feeling than i do because they observe my behaviour.
we do not gain knowledge of others’ mental states in the same way as our own
how does Putnam develop his asymmetry argument?
he uses the super spartans example.
- super spartans do not outwardly demonstrate pain (no pain behaviour) and they have no dispositions towards pain behaviour (e.g. increase heart rate)
super spartans do feel pain internally
but the pain and behavioural dispositions are two separate things
then it would be possible to have a mental state without the behavioural disposition.
what would the response to the super spartan argument be?
the behaviourist could reply that without any outward display of pain, it would be impossible to form the concept of pain.
- without the concept of pain, it would be impossible to distinguish which behaviour they should be supressing.
so it is an incoherent argument.
how would putnam deal with the response to super spartan?
he would introduce the super-super spartans - they do not even admit to having pain - they don’t know the word or the phenomenon
- putnam shows that a reduction of pain to behaviour cannot work - these people are not disposed to pain behaviour
putnam argues that behaviourism confuses the evidence we use to ascribe mental states with the mental states themselves.
what is hempel’s response to the perfect actor objection?
he rejects the complaint of the perfect actor by saying that displaying literally all the symptoms does indeed exhaust the meaning of the mental state
- if someone was in pain but showed no symptoms both physiologically and physicallyit would be senseless to insist that they were in pain.
there is no difference between putnams super super spartans and people who don’t experince pain
