[Wittrs] Re: some helpful guidelines for reading Wittgenstein's philo...
- From: "Stuart W. Mirsky" <SWMirsky@xxxxxxx>
- To: Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 09 Aug 2009 02:02:07 -0000
--- In Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "gerardoprim" <gerardoprim@...> wrote:
>
> (Stuart) When I was driving up through the Carolinas and suddenly realized
> the meaning of a sign that had initially seemed incomprehensible to me, I
> suddenly had certain images in my mind. There were no behavioral changes. I
> just kept driving. (The wiper blades and lights were already on.) But at one
> point I didn't understand and then I did. What occurred is not explainable as
> behavior unless you so broaden the term of "behavior" as to make it
> meaningless.
> (Gerardo) Why do you say that the broader concept of behavior would be
> "meaningless"? It will be meaningful as long as it´s part of a language game,
> and new language-games come into existence all the time (PI 23). Also,
> cognitive science has changed the traditional grammar of many concepts (e.g.
> "representation", "cognition", "computation"), and possibly you wouldn´t say
> those concepts became "meaningless". The narrower meaning of behavior is
> "publicly observable activity", the broader meaning includes also "privately
> observed activity". There´re many similarities that allow the extension of
> the concept, e.g. there´s a degree of public observability (e.g. talk aloud,
> talk whispering, talk privately to ourselves), conditioning principles can be
> applied to both overt and covert activities, covert activities are previously
> learned as overt behavior (covert reading comes from previous overt reading,
> mental math calculation comes from previous overt math calculations, imagery
> comes from previous perception, self-talk comes from previous overt talk),
> etc. You can say "I don´t like it" or "I´d prefer another word", but you
> cannot say it´s "meaningless".
>
> Regards,
> Gerardo.
>
Yes, you're right Gerardo. It has meaning the way you put it. But it still
fails a test that I think is important here. Terms do change all the time.
Language isn't static though it usually changes fairly slowly. However it is
possible to so broaden what we mean by a term as to extract it from its
original uses. If "behavior" means what is observable in a being capable of
acting (though we can and do talk of the behavior of rocks and gases, etc.
though that is irrelevant to behaviorist psychology) then to add in "and I also
mean all the mental events the being is having that prompt him/her/it to act or
that accompany the said acts or that may presage the entity's acting under
certain conditions (when a response is called for), then it no longer is about
the acts of the entity under study. It is now about the very things the usual
idea of behavior does not apply to.
If behavioral pyschology includes our mental events (ideas, thoughts, feelings,
beliefs, images, logical connections, etc.) then how can we continue to call it
behavioral? Now I take it you and, perhaps, Glen are arguing that that is
precisely what Skinner really meant (or what his followers now mean) and as I
have said I am no expert on psychology or behaviorism or Skinner so I don't
want to be seen here as passing judgment on that claim. Certainly, I must
reiterate, I do NOT believe that any real behaviorists ever really thought they
don't have the kinds of mental events I've described here despite how many of
their claims might sound. So it is possible that your interpretation is correct
and they do mean more by "behavior" than merely overt (observable) actions.
But if THAT is the case it looks to me that they are confused because they are
so redefining "behavior" as to make it no longer about behavior but about all
the things most of us usually recognize as being other than behavior. Perhaps
this debate is really just about terms and meanings though?
SWM
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