Behaviorism

Although this theory was first popularized by psychologists, it has philosophical significance and philosophical adherents. This theory was founded by American psychologist John Watson (1878-1958). The contemporary spokesperson for behaviorism is B. F. Skinner. One reason why behaviorism is somewhat difficult to grasp is that there are several variations of the doctrine, and sometimes its adherents slip unknowingly from one view to another. I will try to distinguish these variations into a few tractable concepts, namely radical behaviorism, moderate behaviorism, and logical behaviorism.

Radical behaviorism holds that there is no such thing as mind or mental activity, mental state or mental process, only the movements of the body (these movements are "behaviors"). This radical theory is obviously vulnerable to criticism. According to common sense, it is difficult for people to interpret sentences such as "Mary feels pain." Either it's wrong, it doesn't make sense, or the word "pain" just expresses a different set of behaviors (making a pain face, moaning, grabbing the "painful" limb, etc.). The argument against behaviorism is that we can fake pain or sometimes suppress pain-related behaviors. Another objection is that some mental states have no corresponding external behavior (such as "curiosity").

Moderate behaviorism avoids some of the problems faced by radical behaviorism. Moderate behaviorism believes that there may be minds, mental events, mental states, or mental processes, but from a methodological point of view, scientists can make adequate conclusions about the behavior of humans or other animals in general even without referring to any mental aspects. explanations and predictions. This view is not a philosophical theory (i.e., ontological), and it is not as controversial as radical behaviorism—although it is not in itself unimpeachable. The problem is that behaviorists who seem to have a "radical" attitude will unconsciously switch to a "moderate" attitude when they encounter difficulties. And when there are no difficulties, they will return to the "radical" position.

Both types of behaviorism hold that all statements about human activity, including so-called mental life, can be translated into observable "behavior." If it cannot be converted, it is either wrong or meaningless. Thus, if I say, "Mary thought it was going to rain," I should be able to show that this statement is shorthand for a chain of assertions, such as:

"Mary said something like: 'I Thinks it's going to rain.'"

"Mary is wearing her raincoat and bringing her umbrella."

"Mary is wearing rain boots instead of rain boots. Shoes."

"Mary canceled the reservation at the outdoor restaurant."

If I say: "Bill is angry with Sam," I should state that some or all of the following assertions are true. Correct:

"Bill said something like, 'I'm angry with Sam.'"

"Bill raised his voice and whenever he mentioned Sam, He just swore."

"Bill was red in the face and cracking his knuckles."

Behaviorism seemed to make sense. In a sense, we are all behaviorists relative to everyone else. Everything you know about anyone, including your best friends, is gained by observing their behavior (which of course includes listening to them speak). We don’t have antennas to pick up other people’s thoughts. In fact, the only way to contact other minds is to observe other people's actions. I think, in a sense, it's the observation of other people's bodies. Moreover, behaviorism seems very philosophically sound because we have a problem with dualism, which leads us to behaviorism. After all, Descartes inadvertently opened the floodgates for behaviorism: first, he could not show how mind-body interaction was possible; second, he could not deal well with "other matters of the mind."

(How do I know that there are other minds besides myself?) After a brief discussion of the "Block of Wax Example," Descartes posed his question, writing:

Looking out of the window, I Seeing people walking down the street, but I don't actually see them, I just infer that I see people... What is that I see out of the window? All I saw were some hats and clothes, maybe they were automatic machines. Yet I still judged these to be human beings. Thus, relying solely on the judgment of my mind, I believe what my eyes see.

Most critics find this conclusion deeply unsatisfactory. Descartes may have proved that he had a mind (or that he was a mind), but he did not prove that other people have minds. Observation material is consistent with this idea: "anyone else" is really just a complex robot (perhaps a flesh-and-blood robot, but a robot). Moreover, the existing mind that Descartes proved—that is, his own mind—has no place; it is nowhere. Behaviorists ask, what is the difference between a mind that is not anywhere and a mind that does not exist at all?

These problems with dualism support the behaviorist view. However, behaviorists had their own problems, some of which were very similar in nature to Descartes' problems. For example, I know you have a stomachache because I saw you crying, holding your stomach, and walking to the medicine cabinet to take out stomach medicine. But of course that's not how I notice my stomach ache, I notice my own stomach ache exactly in the Cartesian way - I feel my pain immediately. A moderate behaviorist (as opposed to a radical behaviorist) might object that scientists do not study themselves, but other people. Even so, a theory would seem strange if it applied to everyone but himself. (What if Newton claimed that objects on Earth fall at 32 feet per second...and that only his own body was exempt from this law?)

The Second Objection The view of Marxism is also Cartesian. Descartes claimed that no explanation of human existence could be given without acknowledging the important role of words that refer to mental actions (such as assert, deny, suppose, know, hope, expect, will, etc.). Now, it was this kind of vocabulary that Skinner wanted to get rid of, on the grounds that these terms for naming mental activities did not actually exist. His own writings, however, make liberal use of these terms. He may have thought (thought!?) that his use of this "pre-scientific" language was justified because he had to convert the simple-minded public to his cause. To do this, he had to speak street slang to the public (in Berkeley's terms, talking in colloquial language but thinking in elegant language).

The view known as "logical behaviorism" is an important philosophical theory. In a sense, however, this approach may not be strictly within the scope of our discussion here, since logical behaviorists are not necessarily materialists—some are, some are not. We next examine the theory of logical behaviorism developed by Gilbert Ryle (1900–1976), a British ordinary language philosopher. In fact, Ryle did not see himself as a materialist but as a pluralist. Indeed, Ryle never used the term "logical behaviorism" to describe his own theory. However, his theory is the most widely discussed logical behaviorist theory, so I include his theory here as well, albeit somewhat inappropriately.

One of Ryle's most influential books was The Concept of Mind, written in 1949, which constituted a lasting attack on Descartes' dualism (although he also criticized Skinner's radical behaviorism, which we will discuss later). Ryle writes in the first chapter of the book:

This "official" doctrine comes mainly from Descartes, and it goes something like this: Everyone except perhaps idiots and babies in their arms There is a body and a mind.

Some people would rather say that each person is both a body and a mind. Usually his body and mind are nested together, but after the body dies, his mind may continue to exist and still function.

The human body exists in space and is subject to mechanical laws that govern all other bodies in space. The processes and states of the body can be examined by an external observer. Thus, a man's physical life is as public a matter as the life of animals and reptiles, and even the history of trees, crystals, and planets.

However, minds are not in space, and their activities do not follow mechanical laws. The activities of a person's mind cannot be observed by other observers, and its life is private. Only I can perceive my mental states and processes. Therefore, a person's life is a double history: the content of one life history is composed of what happens inside his body and the events he encounters, and the content of the other life history is what happens inside his mind. and events encountered. The former history is public, the latter history is private. The events in the former history are events in the physical world, and the events in the latter history are events in the spiritual world.

…

There seems to be a deeper philosophical assumption behind this metaphorical interpretation of dualism about man’s double life. This assumption asserts that there are two distinct existences or states. Things that exist or things that happen can have a state of physical existence or a state of spiritual existence. This situation is a bit like a coin, either heads or tails. It's also a bit like a living thing, either male or female. Therefore, it was believed that some beings were material beings and other beings were spiritual beings.

The above outlines that official doctrine. I have often deliberately disparaged it as "ghost dogma in the machine." I hope to be shown that it is completely wrong, not in detail but in principle. It is not just a collection of many special errors, but one special big error, a category error. When it expresses the facts of mental life, it seems to regard them as a certain logical type or category (or a certain type or category field), but in fact they should belong to another logical type or category. Category error is an error that incorrectly applies terms or words that originally belong to one logical category or grammatical category to another category, and draws absurd conclusions from the misclassification.

In fact, Lewis Carroll's books Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Alice Through the Looking Glass are a treasure trove of category errors. Think of Alice's conversation with King White. The king was worried about the two postmen he was waiting for, so he said to Alice: "Look along that road and tell me if you can see them."

"I didn't see anyone." Alice said.

"I wish I had eyes like yours," the king said in an irritated tone, "so I could see 'nobody'! And at this distance! Because , it’s like I can see a real person in this light!”

The reason why this joke is funny is simple. The sentences "I saw someone" and "I saw no one" look similar. Grammatically, they all have a subject, predicate verb, and object. The category error here is to believe that "someone" and "no one" are names of existing entities.

An example of what Ryle calls a category error is when a foreigner goes to see a cricket match for the first time. He learned about all the features of the playing field and heard about the roles of the individual players, and then he said, "But no one was responsible for this important component of teamwork on the field. I saw who hit the ball, who pitched the ball, and Who is guarding the goal, but I don’t see who is responsible for the team spirit.”

The second example is more instructive. Let’s change cricket to baseball in the above example, because maybe you, like me, are a cricket outsider. Imagine you are watching a baseball game with a visitor from another culture who knows little about baseball but is interested in it.

Some people think deeply about long division of polynomials, but they may not do anything else. Despite Ryle's efforts, the ghost in the machine cannot be completely eliminated, and it still haunts us in philosophy.