(urth) 5HC : Chinese boxes or tea chests?
Chris
rasputin_ at hotmail.com
Thu Feb 3 11:18:38 PST 2005
At the risk of terrible boredom, this is a reasonable reference:
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/behaviorism/
Analytical behaviorism seems to go just as far back as the other kind. But
what I would point out here is that the mere epistemic position - that
behavior provides the only data we have to go by - is not enough to
constitute any of these types of behaviorism, and I don't think that what is
being referred to here as "behaviorism[1]" is really behaviorism.
To draw a parallel with physics: when studying the motion of a ball in
space, the only data we have to go by is its position in time. Two
scientists could entirely agree on this much. But let's say that one of
these scientists concludes that the proper way to study the motion of the
ball is by mathematically analyzing its motion, whereas the other insists
that the object of inquiry should not be the mere motion of the ball itself
but rather the action of the forces which act on the ball, and the laws of
motion in general.
This is not meant to be a perfect analogy. But my point is that being a
behaviorist of *any* stripe requires more than just a particular view of
behavior as data. It requires a certain outlook as to the limits, method,
and object of study. And to accept Turing's position I don't think you have
to accept any variety of behaviorism.
As a side note I think that the term has tended to refer to the more radical
versions as time has gone on at least in part because people took the
general principles of the most extreme version and imported it into other
arenas under the name "behaviorism". For example "linguistic behaviorism",
something Searle was concerned with, is the notion that there is no deeper
"meaning" than simply the set of external stimuli that would lead one to
affirm/assert or deny a sentence. [I can only say that his arguments against
this are much sharper, in my opinion, than the whole Chinese Room thing.] In
any event anyone familiar with these other arenas rather than psychology is
going to get a skewed impression of what "behaviorism" means.
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