Philosophy of Mind Lecture II: Mind&behavior. Behaviorism in philosophy of mind

On mental states Behaviorism a stance explaing the mind not in terms of internal mechanisms responsible for our behavior, but as something constituted by such behavior. Behavior could be understood twofold: physical behavior agential behaviour Broad and narrow conception and their consequences for philosophical stances

Psychological “roots” 1913 Watson: Psychology as an objective science Aim: prediction and control of behavior Consciousness has no special role (in explanations) Continuity between non-human creatures and human beings (similar mechanisms) Mechanisms responsible for behavior decomposable into simpler ones (finally: S-R) Consciousness: an epiphenomenon at best

Some doubts... CNS and brain have no distinguished role in explanation of behavior Description of stimuli and reactions: mentalist or physicalist description? Attitude to the mental: elimination, mental states are irrelevant (unimportant) Mental terms are translatable into physical ones

Philosophical behaviorism Interested in: meanings of psychological terms the problem of ascription of states of mind John is thinking of London What is it about John that makes it true that he is thinking of London?

Eliminativist behaviorism ...rejects (repudiate) all or most of our commonsense psychological ontology: beliefs, conscious states, sensations, and so on. Folk psychology, (our tacit theory of the behavior of others) suffers various deficiencies and should be replaced the replacement theory is to be couched in the vocabulary of physical behavior ( terminology of kinematics, fragment of English); the vocabulary should not contain mentally loaded terms. W.v.O. Quine: belief and desire talk resists regimentation in first order logic the thesis of the indeterminacy of translation

Logical (analytical) behaviorism All psychological statements which are meaningful (which are in principle verifiable) are translatable into propositions which do not involve psychological concepts, but only concepts of physics [C.G. Hempel] Inspirations: Verificationism as the theory of meaning Our behavior is the evidence for ascribing mental states What is the content of psychological claims?

Privileged access Immaterial states vs observable states The problem of “inner feeling/inner access” (A to B): You're in pain. (B): I am in pain! Putnam: logical behaviorism wants to show that mental events are logical constructions out of actual or possible behavior. Brain events have nothing in common with meanings of utterances; Commonsense utterances have nothing in common with “thinking substance”

Logical behaviorism according to Putnam Theses: There exist entailments between mind-statements and behavior-statements [analytic entailments] These entailments may not provide and actual translation of 'mind talk' into 'behavior talk' Cluster concepts – the application is controlled by a whole cluster of criteria (cf. pain, polio) Thought experiment: community of 'super-spartans' States of mind (e.g. pain) are responsible for particular behavior, but only in a context.

Fragility of a goblet is its state What are dispositions? We may consider dispositions as states: Fragility of a goblet is its state 1. thoughts are dispositions 2. dispositions are states 3. conseq: thoughts are states The logical problem with defining dispositions: M(x)≡[D(x)→N(x)]

Contemporary behaviorism P. Geach: atomistic version of behaviorism leads to a dead end Roots: Analitical functionalism (Armstrong, Lewis) Rejection of the idea that a mind need internal, causal organization to have beliefs (vs. functionalism) Wittgenstein's attack on the possibility of a “private language” (meaning must be manifestable in behavior)

Contemporary behaviorism: theses Behavior-as-necessary: necessarily, anything that has no physical behavioral dispositions of a certain kind and complexity does not have a mental life. Behavior-as-sufficient: necessarily, anything that has physical behavioral dispositions of a certain kind and complexity has a mental life (cf. Dennett, intentional stance) Supervenient behaviorism: psychological facts supervene on physical behavioral dispositions: necessarily, if x and y differ with respect to types of mental states, then they differ with respect to types of behavioral dispositions

Most important: Mind as constituted by behavior (or dispositions) Physical and agential behavior Psychological behaviorism Behaviorism and the mental Eliminative behaviorism Logical behaviorism Verificationism as a theory of meaning Translatability of mental terms into physical Common-sense psychology Privileged access Dispositions Putnam's arguments against behaviorism 3 theses of contemporary behaviorism Arguments against above theses