--- On Wed, 8/19/09, Stuart W. Mirsky <SWMirsky@xxxxxxx> wrote: From: Stuart W. Mirsky <SWMirsky@xxxxxxx> Subject: [Wittrs] Re: When is "brain talk" really dualism? To: Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Date: Wednesday, August 19, 2009, 9:35 AM SWM: And yet, Glen, you wrote that "mind" is "conceptual garbage" right here on this list where we're using ordinary language and not discussing Behaviorist issues (though we were discussing the issue of Behaviorism at the time -- a different kind of issue). GS: As I have pointed out, "behaviorism" IS a philosophy (which you seem to have confused with the science now generally called "behavior analysis"). It is, indeed, among other things, a philosophy of "mind." Even given the distinction between "behaviorism" and "behavior analysis," it is easy to imagine many philosophical issues for which scientific data are relevant, including those generated by behavior analysis. Further, the fact that "mind" is part of "ordinary discourse," does not mean that the term "mind" is not "conceptual garbage." Even if you limit "mind" to mean "subjectivity," I (and Gerardo, though I do not claim to speak for him) have expressed a PHILOSOPHY that holds that what one perceives when one (sometimes) says things like "I am in pain," or "I am hungry" etc. is behavior, and sometimes behavior that is observable only to the behaving individual him or herself. This view is philosophical, but it draws on terminology relevant to behavior analysis, namely that the behavior observed serves a discriminative function. It is consistent with, but goes beyond, Wittgenstein's treatment of subjectivity and the impossibility of private language. Wittgenstein asserted, as far as I can tell, that statements like "I am in pain" are, when "true," a product of the same social processes that are responsible for statements like, "My finger's bleeding." Thus, according to this philosophy, "mental" has no special status, other than that the discriminative stimuli are accesible to only one person. Whether or not Wittgenstein would embrace this view if it could have been put to him is largely beside the point. The view is certainly consistent, it seems to me, with Wittgenstein's view on "reports of private events" but, as I said, it goes beyond his interests in that it specifies what behavioral processes are involved. If you want to extend the discussion to uses of "mind" that do not necessarily involve subjective phenomena (or, at least, the issue of subjectivity), then the notion that "mental events are the causes of behavior" is clearly revealed as conceptual garbage (or "rubbish" as our friends across the pond favor). This is "clearly revealed" by looking at ordinary usage; we often use mental terms in the third person when we are, in fact, observing behavior. We say someone "understands" a language, for example, when they behave in particular ways both as a speaker and as a listener. That is, it is no more mysterious than calling a dog "dog." To turn around and say that our "understanding" is somehow a cause of our behavior is, well, conceptual garbage. Whether or not Wittgenstein could be persuaded to agree with me, I would argue that much of what he has said on the topic is consistent with what I have argued. I would be willing to point to parts of his writing that demonstrate that, but I will not do so now. SWM: Anyway, I suppose we have now cleared this up. You don't like using the term "mind" in a psychology discussion and that's fine. I think the term makes good sense and cannot be dispensed with in the kinds of discussions we have here though I have no reason to object to your usage preferences in your own field. -- SWM GS: It is unlikely that we have "cleared this up," since I have largely disputed what you have said. But I would say that the term "mind" cannot be dispensed with because of the philosophical history of the term. Like it or not, if one wants to give one's take on "mind," one is bound, at some point, to use the term. No? There is one final point that I would address, and it is a bit of a departure from the above discussion: much of what constitutes "ordinary language" is, in fact, a sort of "trickle down" from academic philosophy. There is a difference between how someone responds to some witnessed behavioral event, and how they answer questions about the terms they use. A child, for example, may say, having witnessed some behavioral episode, "Gary's angry." But when asked, "Is 'anger' a mental cause of behavior?" one is likely to receive a puzzled stare. But not so an adult that has been exposed in any way to any academic treatment of "anger as a cause of behavior." They, like the child, "identify" anger in the same way as a child, but they "have" verbal responses that are logically distinct from this. They are likely to say that "anger is a cause of behavior," but this is little more than a