Behaviourism Flashcards
Who was Carl Hempel?
A member of the vienna circle, mostly associated with hard behaviourism.
What did Hempel believe, like Ayer?
That all meaningful statements are either analytic or can be reduced to statements which refer to sense experience, ordinary objects or to physical language. All meaningful language is either analytic or synthetic a-posteriori.
How does Hempel’s belief here apply to hard behaviourism?
- Any statements which seem to refer to unobservable theoretical entities like other minds and mental properties, if not analytic, must be reducible to statements that do refer to observable things, events, and processes,
- Given that mental language is not analytic, we must be able to reduce it to physical descriptions; again, of behaviour.
What is the circularity problem of hard behaviourism?
- To reduce mental language to behavioural language, we need to change statements like ‘Bob is in pain’ to statements like ‘Bob winces’, ‘Bob cries’, etc.,
- However, when we take such behavioural statements, they can seem to themselves make implicit reference to mental concepts and ideas, notably of agency,
- In example, if i translate ‘Miles hungers for the cookie’ into a conjuction or set of statements including ‘Miles reaches for the cookie’, etc., then the latter seems to suppose that Miles has agency, that he can make decisions using his will or volition,
- There seems to be a problem to do with circularity, in that the translations we try to reduce to seem themselves to presume in turn mental concepts which are not purely behavioural.
How could the mental statement be reduced to remove the issue of circularity?
e.g. ‘The hand of the body we refer to as Miles is extended and moves towards the cookie with the hands closing around it…’
Must make sure to eliminate any remaining mental language, a full reduction must remove any such language which can remain due to circularity.
What is the problem of multiple realisability?
- Take the example ‘Bob cries’,
- The act of crying itself may in fact correspond to many mental states,
- The mental state of physical pain is not the only one which we can reduce to crying or the disposition to cry,
- Bob might cry due to deep grief or sorrow, due to depression, or due to happiness and joy, or because he has found something extremely beautiful,
- The same behaviour might manifest distinct mental states on separate occasions.
What is an opposite example of multiple realisability?
An emotion may manifest itself differently depending on circumstance.
What is Ryle’s Soft Behaviourism?
- It does not maintain that a reduction of mental states and language to purely physical, bodily, behavioural states and terms is possible,
- Ryle wants to return to trying to understand the meaning of mental language, and what the ‘mind’ is, by looking at what he thinks determines their meaning, namely, ordinary language and its rules and practices or use,
- So, we should ask what uses of mental language are acceptable, and which are not, after determining what the rules of mental language are from observations and descriptions of linguistic behaviour that involves mental language,
- Ryle notes that mental language is a matter of potential behaviour, dispositions,
- You have a dispositional property if you have a tendency to do something.
What is the response from introspection?
- Behaviourism seems to be counter-intuitive as it seems to go completely against an obvious phenomenological fact that we are aware of the immediate, intrinsic properties of consciousness,
- Introspection of qualia associated with mental states would imply that it is conceivable and therefore possible that one could have an emotive qualia yet show no behavioural or physiological signs of the emotion,
- Even if behaviourism is valuable or convincing to the extent that it allows us to make sense of other’s behaviour, we might nevertheless contend that it does not capture the evidence we have of our own qualia, subjectivity, or intentionality.
How does Hempel respond to the argument from introspection?
- Specifically claims that we would need ‘observable physical data’ for any claim,
- Given that the argument from introspection makes claims dependent on introspection of internal, private states, it does not seem to be able to convey such data,
- This, however, does rely on the verification principle, as well as the distinction of Hume’s Fork
What is the Super-Spartan critique?
- If behaviourism is correct, then we have a mental state, we should show, or be disposed to show, certain associated behaviours,
- Therefore, if someone is in pain, they should show or be disposed to show pain behaviours,
- The super-Spartans are in pain,
- Therefore, the Super-Spartans should show, or be disposed to show, pain behaviour,
- However, they do not show, nor are they disposed to show, such behaviour,
- Therefore, behaviourism is wrong.
How does Putnam continue the Super-Spartan argument against soft behaviourism?
- Argues that it is perfectly conceivable that there be a group of people who would be in pain, yet not even have pain dispositions,
- Putnam states that the behaviourist confuses the outward signs and symptoms of the mental state for the mental state itself.
How would Hempel respond to Putnam?
- Were we to take all the external and internal signs and symptoms into account, then this would in fact exhaust the meaning of mental state; i.e. it doesn’t exist apart from symptomatically - if you don’t have the symptoms do you have the disease?
