A Philosophical Perspective AILUN – Lecture 1 S. Glenn S. Glenn - AILUN 2008

Philosophy from the Standpoint of a Behaviorist Philosophy is behavior – Learned – Operant – Verbal Learned behavior is the result of 1 – Biological properties of humans – Operant processes – Material and social environments of humans characterized by cumulative change over the lifetimes of individuals and of H.sapiens Behaviorist epistemology in a nutshell: all knowledge is constrained by biology, personal history and characteristics of environment -- but science loosens the constraints S. Glenn - AILUN 2008

Scientific Method A systematic way to build empirically derived knowledge about the nature of the world – Via nonverbal operant behavior Ex: Observing the world (discrimination and generalization) Ex: Conducting experiments Ex: Designing and building equipment to extend physical limits of humans: telescope, microscope, operant chamber, cumulative recorder, computer – Via verbal operant behavior Ex: Classifying, describing, defining, relating Ex: Deducing, formulating principles, mathematical operations, organizing verbal products of those activities into theories S. Glenn - AILUN 2008

Origins of the Scientific Method in the Behavior of Organisms Non verbal classifying – Involves stimulus generalization and stimulus discrimination – Seen in the behavior of humans and non-humans – Experiments on concept formation 2, 3, 4 Human verbal classifying – New forms of stimulus control made possible by contrived contingencies of reinforcement – Arbitrary response forms could come under control of subtle properties of antecedent conditions 5 Abstraction Relational concepts continued S. Glenn - AILUN 2008

Scientific Knowledge Knowledge derived from implementing scientific method – Specialized vocabularies, formulae, graphs, schematics, statements of principles and laws, theories – Retained in human behavioral repertoires; and in culturo-behavioral lineages; and in ‘permanent’ products such as letters, journals, books, web sites Each scientific domain incidentally introduces new ontologies S. Glenn - AILUN 2008

Pre-scientific Ontologies Animism 6 – Universe is composed of the observed world and a world of spirits (often seen as controlling or “running” the observed world – An object’s spirit can survive the disappearance of the object itself: the spirit world exists outside of time/space – All spirit is equal so humans are part of nature, not superior to or separate from rest of nature General Philosophy 7 – Systematic, reasoned speculation – Ancients’ ontologies addressed physical world, human existence and social world – Medieval ontology focused mainly on soul and relation of soul to a supreme being (relations in the spirit world) – Modern ontologies typically retained the notion of material and immaterial worlds S. Glenn - AILUN 2008

Slicing Nature in New Ways Scientific method is revealing nature’s joints in unexpected places: new ontologies – Ex: The periodic table (classification by atomic number) – Ex: Energy = mass x speed of light squared Adding biological phenomena to domain of science – Understanding change over time in organic world in terms of scientific principles – Variation, selection, retention – Humans no longer set apart from nature: part of nature More ontology claimed by science – Units of selection in biological evolution – Recovering animism’s wheat and dumping the chaff Return to concept of humans as part of natural world Rejection of a separate world of spirits (if there are such things, they have no causal efficacy) S. Glenn - AILUN 2008

Adding Learned Behavior to Scientific Domain Understanding change over time in behavior of individual organisms (learning) in terms of scientific principles Operant learning: Variation, selection and retention on a different time scale 8 Operants as behavioral “atoms” 9 or “cells” 10 Evolution of behavioral complexity in developing individual repertoires Higher order units Organized (ecological) relations among behavioral units in a repertoire Explanation without reference to inferred non-physical events More ontology claimed by science Science stakes a claim to epistemology S. Glenn - AILUN 2008

Adding Social Behavior and Emergent Cultural Level Units of Selection to the Scientific Domain Operant behavior as the common component in all domains involving social behavior 11 A scientific language for behavior that is consistent with language of EAB and languages of social science 12 Approaching cultural complexity in terms of variation, selection, and retention – What accounts for the evolution of organizational complexity above the level of behavior of individual organism? – Is a unifying conceptual framework possible to explain the origin of biological complexity, behavioral complexity, and complexity of social organization? S. Glenn - AILUN 2008

References 1 Skinner, B. F. (1981). Selection by consequences. Science, 213, Herrnstein R. J. (1979). Acquisition, generalization, and discrimination reversal of a natural concept.. Experimnental Psychology Animal Behavior Process, 5, Lubow, R. E. (1974). High-order concept formation in the pigeon..Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior,.21, Watanabe, S. Sakamoto, J. & Wakita, M. (1995). Pigeons' discrimination of paintings by Monet and Picasso. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior,. 63, Skinner, B. F. (1957). Verbal Behavior. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts. Republished by B. F. Skinner Foundation. 6 Animism. (2008, July 21). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 16:51, July 25, 2008, from In Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved July 25, 2008, from Encyclopædia Britannica Online: Donahoe, J. W. & Palmer, D.C. (1994). Learning and Complex Behavior. Boston: Allyn and Bacon. 9 Skinner, B. F. (1938). The Behavior of Organisms, New York: Appleton Century Crofts. 10 Zeiler, M. D. (1986). Behavioral units: A historical introduction. In T. Thompson & M. D. Zeiler (Eds). Analysis and Integration of Behavioral Units. (pp. 1-12). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. 11 Skinner (1953). Science and Human Behavior, New York: Free Press 12 Bolacchi (2008). A new paradigm for the integration of the social sciences. In N. K. Innis (Ed). Reflections on Adaptive Behavior: Essays in Honor of J.E.R. Staddon (pp ). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. S. Glenn - AILUN 2008