Behaviorism

1
Behaviorism

• It was great for you

2
Taking Inventory

• Cartesian Dualism
• Mind and body are distinct.
• Mind known through introspection.
• Cognitive science is impossible.
• Hobbesian Materialism
• Mind and brain/heart are identical.
• Mental processes are brain parcels in motion.
• Cognitive science is possible.

3
But Descartes and Hobbes agree!

• That language is an essential component in
  thinking.
• That mental states are internal states.
• Descartes states of your non-material soul
• Hobbes states of your material brain
• That thinking reasoning involves computation
  (though mechanical for Hobbes, and not for
  Descartes.)

4
The Rise of Behaviorism

• Late 19th Century
• Psychology is born as a discipline.
• Wilhelm Wundt (Germany) and Edward Titchner (U.S.
  Cornell) attempt to study the mind using
  introspective techniques.
• They trained subjects to carefully observe what
  was going on in their own minds.
• Whats wrong with that?

5
The Limits of Introspection

• The Problem of other minds
• How do I know that others think, even if we know
  that I do?
• This was a big problem for Descartes.
• Introspection doesnt reveal how the mind works.
• John doesnt have introspective access to what
  his brain is doing.
• How do we know whether reports of introspection
  are accurate?

6
Watsons Behaviorism

• Thinking is observable
• When we think, we are exhibiting linguistic
  behavior.
• Overt linguistic behavior talking, writing,
  gesturing.
• Covert linguistic behavior subvocal speech, fine
  motor movements.
• Behaviorism is the scientific study of behavior.

7
Illustrations of the view

• Ignat believes that Arnold is lagging.
• Overt behavior Just ask him!
• Covert behavior Ignat talks to himself about
  this subject. Check the musculature of the
  throat.
• Ignat longs to vacation in the Bahamas.
• Ignat tends to visit travel agents, etc.

8
Behavioral Dispositions

• What silly introspectionists call mental states
  are merely behavioral dispositions.
• Under conditions x, A is likely to do y.
• x represents a stimulus.
• y represents a response.
• There are non-mental dispositions
• Glass is fragile.
• What is the stimulus and what is the response?
• Behavioral dispositions are dispositions where
  the stimulus is sensory, and the agent action is
  the response.

9
Thinking as behavioral dispositions

• Return to Ignats belief about Arnold.
• Whats the stimulus?
• Whats the response?
• But not all behavior is overt.
• Watson was inspired by studies of deaf persons.
• They sign while dreaming.

10
Watsons claim

• The process of thinking consists in the
  organized interplay of laryngeal and related
  muscular activity used in word responses and
  substitutive word responses
• substitutive word responses means responses
  without words, e.g. arm movements, gestures.

11
This is a testable, empirical claim.

• If Watson is right, then
• If someone is thinking, there is laryngeal and
  related muscular activity.
• So this entails
• If theres no laryngeal and related muscular
  activity, then there is no thinking.
• (1) and (2) are logically equivalent.

12
How to test Watsons claim

• Watson claims
• (2) If theres no laryngeal and related muscular
  activity, then there is no thinking.
• Crucial Experiment Eliminate laryngeal and
  related muscular activity from a subject.
  Determine whether there is thinking present under
  those conditions.
• If there is, then Watsons claim is disconfirmed.

13
Smith, et. al. s Curare Experiment

• d-Tubocurarine, a curare derivative, had been
  used as an anesthetic.
• But people reported that they experienced pain
  during surgery.
• Smith, et. al. decided to test it, by having an
  anesthesiologist (Smith) receive the treatment.

14
The results

• Smith was completely paralyzed.
• Paralysis included laryngeal and related muscular
  activity
• But Smith reported presence of a sensorium and
  thought throughout.
• Had accurate memories of the period of paralysis.

15
Therefore

• One can think in absence of laryngeal and related
  muscular activity.
• This form of behaviorism appears to be refuted.

16
Other problems for behaviorism

• Denies that first person reports are informative.
• Watson says he never learned anything about golf
  from first person reports.
• The behaviorism joke
• It was great for you, how was it for me?

17
Behaviorism and Cognitive Science

• Behaviorism tried to set the study of the mind on
  a scientific footing.
• But it did so at the expensive of the mind.
• Behaviorism denies the existence of mental
  states.
• Behaviorism denies the possibility of cognitive
  science.