Behaviourism 12 marker
Hempel’s Hard Behaviourism
Hempel’s hard behaviourism is a physicalist theory which argues that mental states can be completely understood/analysed in terms of physical states or behaviour. Hempel argued that to know the meaning of a statement is to understand its conditions of verification. Influenced by the verification principle developed by the Vienna circle, Hempel argued that a similar verification applies to mental states and behaviour. Two statements have the same meaning if they have the same conditions of verification. We can also translate a statement into a series of statements that describe the conditions for its verification. Hempel’s hard behaviourism claims that statements containing mental concepts can be reduced or translated into statements about physical states and behaviour without a loss of meaning. For example, Sam has a headache can be empirically verified by behaviours such as Sam taking painkillers or saying he has a headache, which can then be entirely reduced to a neurophysical statement. Hempel believes we can achieve a full disjunctive translation.
Ryle’s Soft behaviourism
Ryle’s soft behaviourism is also a physicalist theory arguing that we can analyse mental concepts in terms of concepts that relate to the body, including behaviour. However, unlike Hempel, Ryle does not think that psychological statements can be translated or reduced without a loss of meaning, and he doesn’t use the verification principle. Instead, Ryle argues that talk of the mind can be analysed in terms of behavioural dispositions (how someone would behave under a set of certain conditions). Ryle thinks that mental concepts refer to complex multi-track dispositions that are indefinitely heterogeneous, which can be partially defined by an open list of hypothetical statements.
The Multiple Realisability Objection
The Multiple Realisability objection argues that the same mental state can be expressed by different behaviours in different situations or even by the different behaviours in the same situation by different people. This objection can either be understood as an issue of an incomplete translation or the individuation of mental concepts.
Incomplete translation: Its not possible to draw up a complete list of hypothetical conditionals or statements of conditions of verification that describe all the ways that someone with a specific mental state might behave. Therefore, mental states cannot be analysed in terms of behaviour. → Ryle can respond simply: he never says that we will achieve a complete list. Soft behaviourism claims that dispositions will only ever be partially defined by an open list, and therefore the inability to achieve a complete translation is entirely accepted. → This is a more significant issue for Hempel: he could argue that neurophysical statements are part of the conditions of verification, and the inclusion of these would prevent an incomplete translation. However, a reliance on neurophysical states, rather than visible behaviours, moves Hempel’s theory closer to MBTI rather than behaviourism.
The Individuation Issue: people with the same mental state behave differently both in the same circumstances and in different circumstances. Therefore, what makes it true that people have the same mental concepts is not a behavioural disposition. For example, if I see a rat I might scream whereas Jang might run away. → However, Ryle is not claiming that mental states can be translated into a single hypothetical. Instead, he suggests that the partial definition will contain a very long list of hypotheticals. Furthermore, this is not practically an issue for Ryle because many of the hypotheticals of a certain mental state will overlap for a lot of people. For example, being anxious about an exam will mean a lot of people will have shaky hands.
The Circularity Objection
It is difficult to analyse mental states in terms of behaviour and behavioural dispositions because how someone behaves doesn’t depend on a certain mental state, but how that mental state interacts with other mental states (e.g. if I am afraid of snakes I will only scream if I know there is a snake and I believe the snake to be dangerous). Therefore we cannot specify the conditions of verification or set of dispositions without involving other mental states.
→ But this isn’t a problem for Ryle because he accepts that dispositional statements are ‘open’ and cannot be replaced by a complete set of hypothetical statements. Therefore, Ryle accepts that it is impossible to completely specify mental states in terms of behavioural dispositions, thus avoiding a circular analysis.
The Asymmetry Knowledge Objection
The analysis of mental states in terms of behavioural dispositions (or conditions of verification) rule out any asymmetry between self-knowledge and knowledge of other people’s mental states, because both should be analysed purely in terms of behaviour. Yet, from our experience it is obvious that such asymmetry exists, and thus behaviourism faces an issue.
→ Ryle answers by arguing that knowledge of our own mental states and other people’s mental states are gained the same way. Thus, in principle, we should have the same amount of knowledge of our own mental states and of others. But, as Ryle argues, we have greater knowledge of our own mental states because we have access to more behaviour. Ryle describes consciousness as ‘inner speech’, still categorising it as a behaviour. As a result, the reason we have greater self-knowledge can be explained by the idea that we simply have more evidence of our own behaviours which we can pay more close and consistent attention to.
But what about consciousness that doesn’t function like speech such as non-linguistic mental states (e.g. changes in emotional states that don’t happen like inner speech). Furthermore, there is a subjective, experiential quality to mental states and processes that differentiate our own consciousness from observing other people’s behaviours.
The Distinctness of Mental States from Behaviour
Mental states appear to have an inner distinctness that cannot be entirely captured by behaviour. Pain might involve doing things like wincing, but these behaviours don’t capture the essence of pain. Moreover, behavioural dispositions or conditions of verification might tell us about how to recognise certain mental states but they don’t provide the essence of these mental states.
Perfect actors: someone could pretend to be in pain and do so utterly convincingly, but not actually be in pain. They might display all of the behaviours and convince us they are in pain without actually being in pain
→ Ryle might respond by saying that mental states aren’t just doing things but having the dispositions to do them. The ‘if…then…’ statements don’t apply to the person who is not really in pain.
→ Hempel can argue that the actors only meet some of the verifications of behaviour, as physiological and neurological behaviours are also involved. But, then he faces the issues of Super Spartans
But, at least when it comes to phenomenal properties of consciousness, this feels like it misses the point. Pain isn’t purely a disposition to wince or shout but instead is what pain feels like. This experiential quality is what differentiates behavioural dispositions and the mental states themselves.
Super Spartans: Putnam asked us to imagine a community of ‘super spartans’, who disapprove of displaying pain so severely that they never have any pain behaviours, and yet they still feel pain. Pain is conceivable without the associated behaviours.
The conditions of verification for their pain will have to be physiological/neurological statements, but this makes behaviourism hugely similar to MBTI theory, and departs from the initial claims of behaviourism as a theory.
Blurting
hempel’s hard behaviourism is a physicalist theory that argues that mental states can be entirely understood in terms of behaviour or other physical states. Inspired by the Vienna circle, hempel adopted the idea of conditions of verification, arguing the meaning of mental states is provided by their conditions of verification, which are physical observable statements. According to hempel, statements containing mental concepts can be completely analysed in terms of statements containing physical states/behaviour without a loss of meaning. For example, Sam has a headache can be empirically verified by such behaviours as sam taking a painkiller or sam wincing, which can then be entirely redused to a neurophysical statement. hempel believes we can achieve a complete disjunctive translation.
Multiple realisability: mental states can be realised by the same person in different situations in different ways, or even by different people in the same situation in different ways. Therefore what makes it true that someone has the same mental state as someone else is not behaviour.
Ryle argues that we won’t ever achieve a complete translation. Instead he think what we will get is a partial definition containing a lomg list of hypotheticals. A lot of these hypotheticals will overlap for different people even if not everyone displays the same one, and therefore behaviourism still provides meaning. For example, before an exam a lot of people will have shaky hands, or will be sweating, so even though different behaviours are displayed they still all are part of the list of hypotheticals in the open statement that we achieve.
The circularity objection argues that it is difficult to analyse a mental state purely in terms of behaviour or behavioural dispositions, because mental states involve lots of other mental states rather than just directly causing a behaviour. For example, if I am scared of snakes and I scream (the behaviour displaying this) ‘If I am afraid of snakes, I will only scream if I believe the snake to be dangerous and I know there is a snake’
However, Ryle doesn’t suggest that we will ever achieve a complete translation of mental states into physical states. Instead he argues that we will only get an open list of hypothetical statements, so he accepts that it is completely impossible to fully analyse mental states in terms of physical states, thus avoiding circularity.
The perfect actor demonstrates the distinction between actually experiencing mental states - their ‘distinct’ quality - and behaviours. Imagine that there is a perfect actor pretending to be in pain: they have emulated all the behaviours of someone in pain, they wince or scream, take painkillers etc. But they aren’t experiencing any pain - there’s an experiential quality to the mental state that they aren’t experiencing even if they display all the behaviours. Ryle can argue that they lack the behavioural dispositions of pain: the ‘if…then…’ don’t apply to them. But this misses the point; there is something about the phenomenal experience of pain that makes it different from the behaviours or dispositions that are displayed when someone is in pain.
Super spartans: people who are in pain - have the mental state of pain - but have been socially and culturally conditioned to not display any of the physical displays/behaviours of pain. Becomes impossible to verify their mental states and yet they still have them. Pain is conceivable without the associated behaviours.
Behaviourism is a physicalist theory that claims mental states can be analysed in terms of behaviour and behavioural states. behaviourism is a family of theories with two strands: hard and soft behaviourism. Hard behaviourism, developed by Hempel, claims that mental states can be completely translated into a series of behaviour statements containing no mental concepts. Hempel’s behaviourism was inspired by the vienna circle, and he argues that the meaning of mentla states are provided by the conditions of verification, which are the behavioural statements. According to Hempel, mental states can be entirely translated without a loss of meaning. Ryle also thinks that mental states can be analysed in terms of physical states. However, unlike hempel, Ryle does not think we can achieve a complete translation of mental