Philosophical behaviourism

Define physicalism.

Everything is physical or supervenes upon the physical (this includes properties, events, objects and any substance(s) that exist).

Explain physicalism.

Explain behaviourism.

Focus on questions of philosophy of language (what it means to talk about mental properties). It claims that what we are talking about when we talk about the mind and mental states is behaviour (aka the mind can be analytically reduced to behaviour (identical in meaning)).

Define analytical reduction.

Is the claim that one statements, or set of statements really mean another set of statements.

What are arguments for behaviourism?

Overcomes the problem of interaction that dualists face, overcomes the problem of other minds that dualists face, has basis in experience and so propositions about the mind have meaning, which theories about a non physical substance do not.

Define Hard behaviourism.

All propositions about mental states can be reduced without loss of meaning to propositions that exclusively use language of physics to talk about bodily states/movements. Talk of mental states e.g emotions can be analytically reduced to talk of publicly observable (actual or potential) behaviour.

What type of philosopher is Hemple?

A logical positivist, he adheres to the verification principle.

Give an example of an analytical reduction that Hard behaviourism would make.

The claim ‘Paul has toothache’ can be analytically reduced (translated without loss of meaning) to behavioural claims/physical claims e.g ‘Paul weeps and makes gestured of such kinds’, ‘closer examination reveals a decayed tooth’ etc. These are the circumstances in which the claim can be verified.

What claims does behaviours make?

The existence of mental states is not a real question. Hemple doesn’t make claims about what exists (i.e whether mental states do or dont exist), behaviourism does not make ontological claims so doesn’t directly say that the mind is physical, rather it is an analytical theory (makes claims about the meaning of statements). The issue of the mind being something other than physical does not arise for behaviourists. It leads to physicalism so is justifiably a physicalist theory.

Define soft behaviourism.

Propositions about mental states are propositions about behavioural dispositions (ie propositions that use ordinary language).

What type of philosopher was Ryle?

An ordinary language philosopher meaning that he believed that the best philosophical approach to any topic was to analyse and clarify that proper ways in which language about that topic was used in every day discourse. Once we do this, the philosophical problems in that area should dissolve.

What strength does soft behaviourism have over hard behaviourism?

A difficult for hard behaviourism is that a mental state does not always have to manifest in any actual behaviour, e.g someone may hide the fact that they are suffering from a toothache and so accoring to hard behaviourism they are not suffering. Ryle argues that to say someone has a toothache is not to say that they are necessarily displaying the behaviours of having one but rather will only display them in the right circumstances. Dispostions can be expressed in terms of hypothetical propostions.

Give an example of soft behaviourisms analyse of mental states in terms of dispostions and how this showcases its strength over hard behaviourism.

To say ‘Myrtle wants a pint of stout’ is the same to say (analytically reducible to) ‘if asked whether stout was what she wants, then she would answer yes’, ‘if she is in a pub and she isn’t driving, she will drink stout’, ‘if given a choice of stout or lager, then she will choose the stout’ etc. Sentences expressing dispositions are always in hypothetical form. They sum up behaviours in a law like way and are used to make predictions about future behaviours. ‘Inference tickets’

Dualist arguments applied.

What is the issue regarding the distinctness of mental states from behaviours (Hilary Putnam’s Super-Spartans and perfect actors)?

It seems that man mental states have an inner aspect that cannot be captured by behaviour or behavioural dispositions. Behaviours do not capture the essence of pain (qualia). Putnam gives an example of Super-Spartans (people whose behaviour does not correspond with their mental states). Even if a Super-Spartan is in pain, there behaviour will not reflect this meaning that behaviourists would conclude that they are not in pain. Similarly, perfect actors (someone who is showing all of the behaviours of a mental state without being in that mental state) are conceivable, behaviourist would conclude that they are in fact ‘in pain’ if there behaviours are corresponding with that proposition despite this not being the case. Putnam argues that (pain) behaviour is a symptom of being in pain rather than constitutive of it. Behaviours and mental states are conceptually distinct.

How do behaviourists reposed to the isse of the distinctness of mental states from behaviour?

What is the issue of defining mental states satisfactorily due to circularity?

A complete behavioural analysis of mental states would have to reduce all talk of mental states to talk of behaviour however whether a mental state manifest itself in terms of specific behaviours depends on the other mental states the person has. For example the statement ‘I am thirst’ does not entail the behaviour of drinking of the disposition of accepting a drink due to other beliefs that I may hold. For example, if I believe the drink is poisoned i will not exhibit the behaviour of somebody thirsty. Therefore, a complete analysis of the proposition ‘I am thirsty’ must also include further beliefs concerning whether I will drink the drink (ie whether it is poisoned). Therefore, talk of mental states are reintroduced at every step and so mental state concpets can never be fully reduced to behaviour/behavioural dispositions.

How do behaviourist reply to the issue of circularity in defining mental states adequately?

What is the issue of defining mental states satisfactorily due to the multiple realisability of mental states in behaviour?

The fact the same actions can be manifested in a great variety of bodily movements may be expressed by saying that the action is multiply realisable in behaviour. For example the mental state of feeling thirsty could be manifested in many ways e.g buying a drink immediately, buying a drink later, going home to get a drink etc. There is no limit to the amount of different actions a realisable action might take. A complete analysis would have to include all of the potential behaviours of the multiply realisable action and so the list would be indefinitely long and so could never be completed. Therefore, philosophical behaviourism cannot complete its analysis/ cannot analyse all mental states fully in behavioural propositions.

What is the issue of the asymmetry between self-knowledge and knowledge of other peoples mental states?