IV. Logical Behaviourism

Question 1

What is a category mistake?

Answer 1

• based on a mistake as to the ‘logical’ type of thing to which a particular linguistic expression refers - the expression refers to something that belongs to one ‘category’ of thing, but we treat it as if it refers to something that belongs to another, logically incompatible ‘category’ of thing.
• Acategory mistakearises when we treat as sensible a question that involves this kind of confusion as to the category of entity to which a term refers.

Question 2

What is an example of a category mistake?

Answer 2

• thinking that signs marked ‘OCELOT’ at the zoo are acronyms for ‘Ontario Centre for Environmental Learning and Outdoor Teaching’, and saying that you think ocelots are a good thing and that they should set up more of them.
  Here you have mistaken a word referring to a kind of living thing for a word referring to a kind of institution.
  AND IMPORTANTLY THE QUESTION DOES NOT MAKE SENSE BECAUSE OF THE MISTAKE
• Theuniversityis not another building, but a collection of buildings and individuals organised to perform a certain kind of function.
• ‘Team spirit’ is not anotherrolein a game which it is the task of particular individuals to perform (like goalkeeper, or defender), but a function of how all the players relate to one another in playing their respective roles.

Question 3

What is the problem with making a category mistake?

Answer 3

• A category mistake can lead us to ask questions that actually make no sense because the kinds of questions that can sensibly be asked about a given entity depend upon thekind of entityit is.

E.g. ‘abstract entities’ like numbers don’t possess sensible properties, like colours, so we cannot sensibly ask as to thecolourof the number five (though we could ask this about a particularsignstanding for the number five).

Question 4

How does Cartesian dualism rest upon a category mistake?

Answer 4

• not, as with the ordinary examples above, a matter of being unable to use an expression correctly in ordinary contexts of use.
• Instead, the mistakes of Cartesian Dualism arise when we engage in abstract thinking.
• Ryle claims that the “double-life” theory has its origins in “a family of radical category mistakes”.

Question 5

What does Ryle trace Descartes’ error back to?

Answer 5

He traces these mistakes to the context in which Descartes is writing–his dilemma in the face of the new Science:
*
 As a scientist, he must endorse the claim that the ‘corpuscular’ theory applies to everything that enjoys spatio-temporal existence - ‘mechanical’ order of things.
* As a religious and moral person, cannot allow that human beings be viewed as no more than complex mechanisms.

Question 6

What is Descartes’ solution to the dilemma Ryle says he has?

Answer 6

1) Our talk abouttwm’s- “mental discourse” - cannot be talk about merelymechanicalstates or processes that underlie, and cause, human behaviour.

2) But (by the New Science) allphysicalstates or processes operate in a merely mechanical manner.

3) So mental discourse must be talk aboutnon-physicalstates or processes that underlie, and cause, human behaviour.

4) Thus the difference between, e.g., ‘intelligent’ and ‘unintelligent’ behaviour (e.g. humans versus brutes) is a difference in the type ofinner cause.

Question 7

What is Descartes’ first category mistake?

Answer 7

• Descartes is analyzing mental discourse, which he believes to be non-physical, in mechanical (physical) terms.
  -‘inner state or process’
  -‘cause’
  -‘substance’ or ‘stuff’.
• Then he analyzes what mental discourse is about in terms of anon-physicalversion of this framework:

This is why the only account we are ever given of CM’s is in terms of an “obverse vocabulary”.

Thus we derive the Dualist claim that:
*
Physical states and processes, occurring in a spatially-extended physical ‘substance’underlie and causethe behaviour of physical entities.
*
Mental states and processes, occurring in a non-physical thinking ‘substance’underlie and causethe behaviour of TWMs.

Question 8

Why does Ryle believe that Descartes’ view must be wrong? How do we develop a correct understanding of mental discourse (MD)?

Answer 8

• If it were right, we couldn’t explain our ability to learn and correctly employ mental discourse.
• What we must do is clarify the “criteria” by reference to which speakersareable to use MD.

Question 9

What does Ryle believe Mental discourse is actually about?

Answer 9

• Ryle claims that mental discourse is really talk aboutcertain properties of a system’s observable behaviour, not talk aboutinner causesof that behaviour. This is where Descartes’ “category mistake” comes in.

Question 10

What are the two principal elements in Ryle’s account of mental discourse?

Answer 10

1) Ascriptions of intentional and qualitative states are not ascriptions ofcausally efficacious inner states but talk about [certaindispositions to behave] or[observable patterns/regularities in behaviour].

2) Talk of people acting intelligently, or thoughtfully, or carefully, is not talk of some inner state or process guiding behaviour, but a moredetaileddescription of the observable behaviour itself.

Question 11

What is a dispositional analysis of mental states?

Answer 11

Adispositionisa tendency to behave in certain ways in certain circumstances.

Ryle describes mental states as a bundle of these dispositions.

Dispositional properties can be analysed in terms ofconditionals, of the form: If C, then B.

Question 12

What is the difference between a manifest and a real disposition?

Answer 12

Manifest disposition: glass is brittle
Real disposition: glass is broken

Question 13

What does Ryle believe that acriptions of mental states are?

Answer 13

Ascriptions of mental states such as beliefs, desires, and sensations are ascriptions ofmulti-tracked dispositions to behavethat can be expressed as a conjunction of conditionals.

Question 14

What am I saying when I say that Jane wants to go on a holiday to Cuba?

Answer 14

1) If Jane hears of a seat-sale on flights to Cuba, she will investigate.
2) If J is asked whether she wants to go to Cuba, she will say yes.
3) If J hears of a seminar on holidays in Cuba which she is able to attend, she will go to it….
4) If J learns of an internet site on Cuban holidays, she will check it out.

Question 15

Why is there a problem for a Logical Behaviourist account in theexplanatoryfunctions of MD?

Answer 15

• We think of the explanation of a phenomenon P as identifying some or all of thecausesof P.
• But a Rylean analysis does not consider causes.
• Ascriptions of mental states are ascriptions ofmulti-tracked dispositions to behave, not of inner causes.

Cf. Putnam’s analogy between MD and our talk about diseases.

Question 16

What is Putnam’s analogy between MD and our talk about diseases?

Answer 16

1) Talk about diseases is not just another way of describing certain patterns in observablesymptoms-
-e.g. when the doctor ‘explains’ your discomfort by saying that you have the flu, she isnotmerely redescribing your symptoms
2) This is why we take such talk to beexplanatoryof the symptoms.

3) In Putnam’s terminology, disease-talk is not alogical constructionout of symptom-talk. In general, a cause is not alogical constructionout of its effects.
4) So, if we want intentional explanation to be a species of causal explanation, we must view mental discourse as talk about thecausesof behaviour, i.e.notas a ‘logical construction’ out of talk about behaviour.

Question 17

Why are there problems for a Logical Behaviourist account with formulating ‘translations’ of MD?

Answer 17

• How can we specify the relevant conditionals making up the ‘multi-tracked dispositions’ such that people in very different cultural/historical circumstances can be in thesamemental states?

-e.g. ‘believe it will rain this afternoon’, as applicable to a culture whose practice is to bring out their sick when rain is expected.

How are they then in the same mental state as us, when we would not have this conditional in our bundle?

• Even in our own culture, we will only get conditionals thatapplyto all those intuitively ascribed a particular mental state if we incorporatereferences to other mental statesin the antecedents of the conditionals:

“Jane believes she has a class today at 11:35 a.m. in ARTS W-215’.
We might give a logiocal behaviourist account of this belief as:
If Jane is not physically prevented from doing so, she will go to ARTS W-215 at 11:35 today.

But Jane could fail to satisfy this condition for many reasons, without leading us to doubt that she has the belief in question:
a/ She mayalso believethat the air in ARTS W-215 will become toxic at 11:40 p.m. today.
b/ She maywantto head off early for the weekend, andbelievethat nothing crucial will be covered in class today.

Question 18

How does Putnam demonstrate that Logical Behaviourism is unacceptable?

Answer 18

it could be reasonable to ascribe pains to creatures even when there wasnodisposition to observable pain-behaviour (Super-Stoic thought experiment).

Question 19

Why does Ryle assume that there is a conceptual link - ‘analytic entailments’ - between ascriptions of mental states and statements about observable behaviour?

Answer 19

Wittgenstinian view that we can’t learn what anything, such as “pain”, means from the distinctive qualities of our own experience.
*
We must then learn what “pain” means by learning that the term is rightly applied when there is a certain pattern of observable behaviour – we need a criterion.

Question 20

What is the Super Stoic thought experiment?

Answer 20

Consider the following people:

1: The Super-stoics/Super-spartans Mk1
They learn to inhibit allnon-verbal behavioural manifestationsof pain.
LB would presumably argue that we are justified in ascribing pains because we have (a) verbal pain-behaviour, and (b) unconditioned pain responses.

2: The Super-stoics/Super-spartans Mk2
They have evolved such that they are born fully acculturated, and therefore manifest no unconditioned pain responses.
We still haveverbalpain behaviour in the kinds of circumstances in which we would exhibit standard non-verbal pain behaviour.
Given the evolutionary history of the Super-Spartans Mk2, we have good reason to believe there are ‘inner states or processes’, in the case of the Super-Spartans, which would, in the absence of their genetic history and education, manifest itself in standard pain-behaviour.
Putnam: It would be absurd to deny that there is pain simply on the grounds that we lack non-verbal pain-behaviour. Indeed, we could change his ideology.

3:The X-worlders
Their ideology prohibits even verbal pain-behaviour.
Putnam’s claim: There could be good evidence that we were dealing with a being whose with this ideology, rather than with creatures lacking any ‘inner states’ that might otherwise issue in pain-behaviour.
If wehadsuch evidence, then we should ascribe pains to the X-worlders.

Conclusion: It is not because we do not see pain-behaviour that there is no pain.

Question 21

How does the Super Stoic thought experiment disprove Logical Behaviourism according to Putnam?

Answer 21

• If the fantasy of the thought experiment is not self-contradictory, then Logical Behaviourism is a mistake.
• The second thesis (the existence of a near translation of pain-talk into behaviour-talk) of LB is wrong.
• But the first thesis (the existence of analytic entailments) is also wrong: From the statement ‘X has a pain’ by itself, no observational statement follows, not even a behavioural statement with a ‘normally’ or a ‘probably’ in it.’

Question 22

Who came up with Logical Behaviourism?

Answer 22

Gilbert Ryle