Behaviourism

Question 1

Locke skepticism of Metaphysics

Answer 1

we cannot have a clear understanding of reality using our reason. All knowledge arises from our sensory experience

Question 2

Hume and Kant

Answer 2

we can only know the world as we experience it, we cannot know the underlying nature (necessary truth)

Question 3

Logical positivism

Answer 3

metaphysics is meaningless because there is no empirical evidence used to specify why it is true

Question 4

Verifiability of meaning

Answer 4

a sentence is proven to be true of false with evidence

exceptions are tautologies and contradiction

Question 5

Motritz Schitz, what is philosophy?

Answer 5

the search for meaning, rather than necessary truths

Question 6

Behavioursim

Answer 6

she is in pain, she understand what an avocado is, this is meaninful, and it encapsulates behaviourism. Humans should be observed by how they respond to stimuli. John Watson.

Question 7

B.F. skinner

Answer 7

Humans modify their behaviour in light of different stimuli

Question 8

Gilbert Ryle, logical behaviorism

Answer 8

1. metaphysical statements are meaningless
2. clarify the meaning phychological statements, the problems of philosphy can go away if you a analyze the meaning of the terms used

Question 9

logical behaviourism

Answer 9

human states are the result of stimuli and response, and we find meaning in them when we use sentences to describe them that are linked to the mind. When mental concepts are described in terms of behaviour.

Question 10

Ryle and the knowledge of another;s thoughts

Answer 10

we can only know someone else’s thoughts through the physical world. The internal minds are separate from eachother.

Question 11

Ryle’s objections to the cartesian theory

Answer 11

Category mistake: the mind and the body, except one belongs to the other, they do not belong to the same logical category, they are not the same

Does not believe in internal states. Simply believes in dispositions of property.

There is no explanation between the mind and the body and how they interact

Question 12

Mental states as disposition

Answer 12

a person ‘knows’ when they are inclined to do something under certain conditions
there is a need for dispositions because we may do several different things, unpredictable which one we will do when we are exposed to the same stimuli

Question 13

Wittgenstein and the cartesian theory

Answer 13

inner states refer to a private language

• when I have a headache, only I can know what the headache is like
  1. cartesian theory brings about the idea of private languages
  2. private language is incoherent

It is incoherent because it has no method for validation or correctness, because if it seems right to me, then everything is right, and also because there is no outer validation.
A language is meaningful only with an accepted social practice.