[Wittrs] Re: On Wittgenstein and Originality
- From: kirby urner <kirby.urner@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 20 Sep 2009 20:00:09 -0700
On Sun, Sep 20, 2009 at 7:49 PM, SWM <SWMirsky@xxxxxxx> wrote:
<< snip >>
> My main beef with Glen (aside from his rather thin skin when anyone disagrees
> with him about his theses re: behaviorism) is in his argument that mental
> phenomena (thoughts, mental images, ideas, memories, etc.) are properly
> referred to as behavior, too, and thus we save behaviorism! While it is
> certainly possible to expand the meaning of "behavior" as Glen and Gerardo
> do, I have argued that the end result is simply to call something behaviorism
> that isn't.
>
> SWM
>
I've seen this maneuver by other behaviorists e.g. the late Lou Geller
on the Synergeo list (Yahoo!) which I frequent.
"Behavior" comes to mean "change" and/or "phenomena" i.e. any
differences that make a difference (Bateson).
Language then enters the flow along with mental images and sensations
as just more behavior.
We're back the Heraclitus and his river. I'm not saying that's bad,
but then it's not that original, either.
Wittgenstein likes to point out how it's easy to give a uniform veneer
to everything e.g. "language consists of propositions" (because with
clever rewording, you can "make it so" to quote Capt. Picard).
One wonders what it gained by simplifications sometimes i.e. finding
the right level of complexity for the job may mean *not* trying to
bring everything back to "logic" or "behavior" or whatever the hell
(beware faux simplicity).
Kirby
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