Behaviorism - PowerPoint Presentation

Slide1

BehaviorismSlide2

Methodological

B

ehaviorismSlide3

Classical Conditioning

While

investigating the digestion of dogs, Ivan Pavlov (1849-1936) observed that the dogs in his laboratory would salivate when they saw the people who brought their food.Slide4

Classical Conditioning

Pavlov theorized that he could make the dogs salivate to any thing or event, if he had first presented it with food.Slide5
Slide6

Animal Behavior vs. Psychology

Pavlov won a Nobel prize in physiology and medicine for this work.

He was a physiologist, not a psychologist.

At the time, psychology was mostly the study of conscious experience.Slide7

Associationism

Pavlov’s research suggested something like this:

Animal behavior is controlled by the environment. Animals are born behaving in certain natural way, and learned behavior is through a process of association.Slide8

Introspectionism

At the time, psychology was focused on individuals reporting details of their conscious experience. To make this rigorous, there was a heavy focus on expertise:

Wundt required his subjects to perform 10,000 introspective observations before they were considered sufficiently trained.

Titchener

wrote 1000 page training manual for experimental introspection.Slide9

Training was supposed to provide subjects with:

An increased

capacity for attention

An ability

to properly distinguish such facets of experience as ‘tonal intensity’ and ‘tonal clearness’

An ability

to avoid confusions such as ‘stimulus error’ – the description of the object experienced as opposed to the experience itself.Slide10

Famously, however, none of the psychological labs got the same results! For example, they couldn’t agree whether one could introspect imageless thoughts.Slide11

John B. Watson

American psychologist

1878-1958

Progenitor of methodological behaviorismSlide12

Psychology as the Behaviorist Views It

In “Psychology as the Behaviorist Views

It,”

Watson

characterizes

psychology as:

‘purely objective’

‘a branch of natural science’

Concerned with ‘prediction and control of behavior’

NOT concerned with conscious states

Opposed to introspection

Recognizing no difference between human and animalSlide13

Watson vs. Introspectionism

“If you fail to reproduce my findings, it is not due to some fault in your apparatus or in the control of your stimulus, but it is due to the fact that your introspection is untrained… If you can't observe 3-9 states of clearness in attention, your introspection is poor.” (pg. 6).Slide14

Behaviorism

The

conclusion Watson draws

is:

we must get rid of all references to

consciousness. We

shouldn’t

use terms like ‘mental state’, ‘consciousness’, ‘mental image’, or even ‘mind’.

These aren’t

scientific terms.

The

vocabulary of psychology should only involve terms for behavior, stimulus, and so on.Slide15

“[P]

sychology

as a behaviorist views it is a purely objective experimental branch of natural science. Its theoretical goal is … prediction and control”Slide16

The Pervasive Positivism

This movement was part of the positivist zeitgeist of the time. Things that aren’t publicly verifiable– like mental states and their qualities– were not suitable objects of scientific study.Slide17

B. F. Skinner

American psychologist

1904-1990

Verbal Behavior

Beyond Freedom & Dignity

Walden TwoSlide18

Huckle Buckle Beanstalk

Player 1 hides an object

Player 2 moves in random directions and Player 1 says “hotter” if Player 2 is closer to the object and “colder” if Player 2 moves farther from the object.

Eventually, Player 2 finds the objectSlide19

Generate and FilterSlide20

Operant Conditioning

Skinner introduced a variety of conditioning explicitly modeled on Darwin’s ideas.

Classical conditioning (Pavlov)

sets up an association between two external stimuli

.

Operant

conditioning sets up an association between a behavior and a subsequent reward/punishment.Slide21

Skinner BoxSlide22

The Law of Effect

Rewarded

behaviors increase in frequency, punished ones decrease.

Cf. the law of natural selection: fitter phenotypes increase in frequency, less fit ones decrease.Slide23

Skinner’s Radicalism

Watson was primarily concerned with methodology – we shouldn’t talk about internal mental states because

they cannot be objectively studied

.Slide24

B. F. Skinner

Skinner believed that we shouldn’t talk about internal mental states because

the entirety of a person’s behavior can be explained in terms of the stimuli in their environment

– internal mental states don’t have an explanatory role.Slide25

Are Mental States Suspect?

We

can’t see or hear or feel or taste mental states. The methodological behaviorists assumed they were therefore not objective or scientific.

BUT, lots of unobservable things are completely objective and scientific: electrons, dinosaurs, the earth’s core. Slide26

Against Methodological

Be

haviorismSlide27

Chomsky vs. Skinner Part 1

Noam Chomsky wrote an influential critique of Skinner’s views.

In particular, he argued that stimuli didn’t control our behavior. From one stimulus, lots of behaviors were possible.Slide28

The Rembrandt

“Dutch.”

“Wow!”

“It’s a Rembrandt.”

“This old stuff really bores me.”

“Let’s steal it!”

“Can you believe the city paid $32 million USD for that?”Slide29

Chomsky vs. Skinner Part 2

Chomsky

thought the environment didn’t directly control your behavior– your mental states mattered too.

In particular, he thought that we had innate (in-born) knowledge that determined our behavior.Slide30

Universal Grammar

Chomsky thought that in order to learn a language, you had to

know in advance

that certain thing were impossible,

because

you were very unlikely to get evidence that agreed or disagreed with them.Slide31

Philosophical BehaviorismSlide32

Philosophical Behaviorism

Perhaps it’s possible to have our cake and eat it too.

According

to the philosophical behaviorists, mental

states exist, and they explain our behavior.

But mental states aren’t private things: they are dispositions to behave in certain ways.Slide33

The Problem of Other Minds

If this is true, then it might help solve a longstanding problem in philosophy: how do we know that other people have mental states?

Here’s the solution: mental states = behavioral dispositions. We observe the dispositions, and thus observe the mental states.Slide34

Wittgensteinian Motivations

According to Wittgenstein, the meaning of a word is related to our use of that word:

“The meaning of the word ‘length’ is learnt among other things, by learning what it is to determine length.” PI, sec. 199Slide35

Wittgensteinian Motivations

So by analogy, to learn the meaning of ‘X has a toothache’ would be to learn how to determine that someone had a toothache, which we do by observing their words and deeds.Slide36

DispositionsSlide37

Dispositions

The vase is fragile: a dispositional property.

To be fragile is to be such that if you are hit or dropped, then you break.

When the vase breaks there are two explanatorily relevant features: 1. its being hit or dropped and 2. its being fragileSlide38

A Dispositional Account of Mental States

Normally, we say that we are disposed to behave in certain ways when we are in pain.Slide39

MSs Don’t Cause

Dispositions

Ravenscroft makes clear that according to behaviorism, pain doesn’t

cause

me to say “ouch” when I’m hit.

Pain = me saying “ouch” when I’m hit.Slide40

Not about Finding Out

It’s normally true that I find out about other people’s mental states by observing their behavior.

But normally we think we observe their behavior.

The philosophical behaviorist thinks we observe their mental states!Slide41

1. Physical Events Cause MSs

Ravenscroft says this is a plus for behaviorism:

supposedly states of the world cause

MSs.

E.g. standing on a tack causes pain.

But is this true? Does standing on a tack cause me to have the disposition that when I stand on a tack, I say “ouch”? Usually I have that disposition prior to standing on tacks.Slide42

2. Some MSs Cause Actions

The glass broke when I dropped it because it was fragile. (Is this just Moliere again?)Slide43

5. MSs Represent Things

“The English word ‘dog’ expresses the property of being a dog… This semantical fact about English reduces to a certain fact about the behavioral dispositions of English speakers;

viz

, that their verbal response ‘dog’ is… under the control of dogs.” – Fodor, “A Theory of Content I,” describing Skinner’s view.Slide44

MSs Correlated with Brain States

Analogy: fragility correlated with molecular structure. (Dispositional and categorical properties.)Slide45

1st

Argument for Phil. Behaviorism

People’s behavior in certain circumstances is evidence for what mental states they have or lack. (E.g. wanting or not wanting something.)

If their mental states = behavior in certain circumstances, then it’s obvious why that is.Slide46

1st

Argument for Phil. Behaviorism

(Obviously this argument isn’t conclusive. No one thinks electrons are dispositions to bond in certain circumstances.)Slide47

Empiricist Criterion of Cognitive Significance

According to the logical positivists, in order for a sentence to have cognitive significance (to be meaning

ful

), it had to have

verification conditions

.

(‘Verification’ is a Latinate English word < ‘

veri

-’ true + ‘

facere

’ to make. Verification conditions are conditions under which the truth of a statement can be conclusively established.)Slide48

Empiricist Criterion of Cognitive Significance

In fact, the positivists maintained that the meaning of a sentence

was

its verification conditions. So a sentence with no verification conditions– where no experience can establish its truth– is meaningless. Slide49

Truth vs. Verification

Many philosophers (even today) have identified the meaning of a sentence with its

truth

conditions. These are the circumstances in which

the sentence would be true

. But the positivists went farther– they held that the meaning of a sentence was its

verification

conditions– the circumstances in which

we would know the sentence was true

.Slide50

The Elimination of Metaphysics

This was part of a radical philosophical agenda, which included “the elimination of metaphysics.” The idea was to view many philosophical problems of the past (and also many religious claims) as meaningless disputes that could simply be ignored.Slide51

The Elimination of Metaphysics

Example: In a religion where God is beyond human experience, the positivists would say that “God exists” is neither true nor false but meaningless, since no experience could verify it.

Kant, Hegel, and Heidegger were also big targets for the positivists. Example Hegel quote

:

“But

the other side of its Becoming, History, is a conscious, self-meditating process — Spirit emptied out into

Time.”Slide52

Positivism for Behaviorism

Since the way we discover whether people are in pain, believe that it’s raining, want coffee, etc. is by observing their behavior in certain circumstances, “X wants coffee” means “X drinks coffee when…”Slide53

Against Philosophical

B

ehaviorismSlide54

Logical Relations

From

:

If Joe fails the final exam, he will fail the course.

If Joe fails the course, he will not graduate.

It follows logically that

:

3. If Joe fails the final exam, he will not graduate.Slide55

Logical Relations

If you believe

:

If Joe fails the final exam, he will fail the course.

If Joe fails the course, he will not graduate.

These beliefs can cause you to also believe

:

3. If Joe fails the final exam, he will not graduate.Slide56

Rationality

It’s not clear how behaviorism can explain the rationality of mental processes.

We can have dispositions to behave in all sorts of ways that aren’t rational. (Outside control doesn’t respect rationality.) Slide57

Consciousness

Paralyzation

and surgery. (Cf. Super-stoics.)Slide58

Consciousness

Pretending to feel pain.Slide59

Behavior Depends on LOTS of MSs