[Wittrs] Re: When is "brain talk" really dualism?
- From: Glen Sizemore <gmsizemore2@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 20 Aug 2009 14:09:02 -0700 (PDT)
--- On Thu, 8/20/09, Glen Sizemore <gmsizemore2@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
From: Glen Sizemore <gmsizemore2@xxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [Wittrs] Re: When is "brain talk" really dualism?
To: Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Thursday, August 20, 2009, 4:53 PM
GS: Somehow, the post below got sent in some mysterious fashion - let me finish
it below.
--- On Wed, 8/19/09, Stuart W. Mirsky <SWMirsky@aol. com> wrote:
From: Stuart W. Mirsky <SWMirsky@aol. com>
Subject: [Wittrs] Re: When is "brain talk" really dualism?
To: Wittrs@yahoogroups. com
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 [here is where the post was sent inadvertantly] response to the
question. These are two, separate, responses, whose origins are completely
different. To argue otherwise is to say that, necessarily, the answers reflect
some privately held essence of meaning. But, again, they ar not.
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