Physicalism

Physicalism

Everything is physical or supervenes on the physical.

Hard behaviourism

The view that all propositions about mental states can be reduced without loss of meaning to propositions that exclusively use the language of physics to talk about bodily states/movements.  

Soft behaviourism

The view that statements about mental states can be reduced to statements about behavioural dispositions. 

Ryle’s category mistake

Dualists treat the mind as if it were a separate entity like the body, when in fact mental concepts belong to a different category: they describe behavioural dispositions, abilities and tendencies, not inner objects.

Analytic Reduction

A claim that words of one sort mean the same as words of another sort. This means that we could change the language in a sentence from one to the other and the sentence would still keep its meaning. 

Ontological Reduction

The terms refer to the same thing but are not interchangeable in a sentence. The terms cannot be swapped and keep identical meaning.

Soft behaviourism’s definition of mental states

Tendencies to behave a certain way in certain conditions

The physicalist claim about mental states

Thoughts, sensations and emotions depend entirely on brain and nervous-system processes.

What physicalism denies

The existence of any non-physical “mental substance”.

How hard behaviourism treats mental vocabulary

Terms like “belief” and “pain” are shorthand for observable behaviour.

The conceivability argument against behaviourism

We can conceive of having mental states without producing any behaviour. If the mental can exist without the physical, then mental states cannot be identical to behavioural states or dispositions.

The introspection argument against behaviourism

When we introspect, we have direct access to our mental states without needing to observe our behaviour. This suggests that to understand our own mental state, we do not need to know the behaviour.

The interaction argument against behaviourism

In everyday experience, we take mental states to cause behaviour as pain causes wincing; a desire causes action. If behaviourism says mental states are behaviour or dispositions, it cannot explain this causal role that mental states have.

The circularity argument against behaviourism

To specify the right behaviour we usually end up referring back to the mental state we are trying to define, for example: “Fear is the disposition to behave as someone who is afraid would behave.”

The multiple realisability argument against behaviourism

Because a single mental state corresponds to many different behaviours, it can’t be neatly reduced to one behavioural description undermining (especially hard) behaviourism’s reduction claim. 

The asymmetry argument against behaviourism

We know our own mental states directly through introspection and first-person awareness because we can feel it. But we only know others’ mental states indirectly, by observing their behaviour. If behaviourism were true, there would be no difference between how we know our own mental states and how we know others’.

Super Spartans against behaviourism

Putnam’s Super-Spartans feel pain without producing any pain behaviour at all; no crying, wincing, withdrawal, or reports of suffering. They have the mental state but not the behaviour. This shows that mental states can exist without behaviour, meaning they cannot be reduced to behaviour.

Perfect actors against behaviourism

A perfect actor can imitate pain behaviour flawlessly while not actually feeling pain. They exhibit the behavioural pattern without the corresponding mental state. This shows that behaviour can exist without the mental state.