Tutorial #2. Behaviourism. Discussion Questions

After having read the article on behaviourism on the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/behaviorism/ and Descartes' Myth (Chapter 1 of The Concept of Mind) by Gilbert Ryle, think about these questions.

Another highly recommended reading is Jaegwon Kim Philosophy of Mind (Dimensions of Philosophy 2nd Edition, Perseus books, 2006) ch.3

• What is the difference between methodological, psychological and logical behaviourism?
• What counts as behaviour and of what counts as observable?
• What is Descartes’ myth? What is Ryle’s argument against the myth?
• In which sense Ryle can be considered a behaviourist?
• What is the relationship between pain and pain behaviour?
• What is pain? What is typical in pain behaviour? and why is it typical? Can you show pain behaviour without feeling pain? Can you be in pain but showing joy-behaviour?
• What’s the role of context when a person tries to infer one’s mental state from her behaviour?
• What problems do we run into if we attempt to translate psychological concepts into talk of behavioural dispositions?
• What’s the role of our understanding of how the mind works when we try to study people’s behaviour?
• Your friend’s observable behaviour (e.g. her movements, physiological reactions, facial expression, posture, and so forth) provides the best evidence for attributing a certain mental state to her?
• Assuming that observable behaviour provides the best evidence for mental states ascription, would it follow that mentality just consists in behavioural tendencies?
• If you were a behaviourist how would you identify “pretence behaviour”? What differences there may be between creatures who—on a certain restrictive notion of behaviour—do indeed behave identically?
• Do you think that behavioural\observable data are the only admissible data for science?
• Is psychology a respectable science?

Tutorial #2. A Joke about behaviourism...

Two behaviourists have sex.
When they are finished, one turns to the other and says:
"It was great for you... How was it for me?"

Tutorial #2. Behaviourisms.

Take a look at George Graham Behaviourism in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/behaviorism/

+ Three senses of Behaviourism

1) Philosophical behaviourism:
Having a mind is a matter of exhibiting, or having the propensity to exhibit, certain appropriate patterns of observable behaviour.

2) Psychological behaviourism:
The meanings of psychological terms derive from operational definitions based on observable behaviour.
E.g. the meaning of mental expressions such as 'pain' or 'belief' are to be explained away by reference to publicly observable behaviour, not to internal states.

3) Methodological behaviourism:
- The only admissible data for the science of psychology are behavioural data.
-Psychological theories\explanations must not invoke internal\psychological states; nor should references to such states in deriving predictions about behaviour.
- Psychological theories must not make reference to inner mental states in formulating psychological explanations.

Tutorial #1. Mind -Body Dualism. Discussion Questions

After having read the relevant sections of Descartes' Meditations (II and VI), think about the following questions. Make sure you have understood what 'a priori', 'a posteriory', 'conceivability', and 'possibility' mean.

• Think about some example of mental and physical aspects of the world.
• Consider a situation where you are dancing, what are the mental aspects of this situation?What are the physical aspects? Are these aspects the very same thing? Or can you find any substantial difference?
• How does Descartes conceive of the essences of mind and body?
• Do we know better the properties of the mind, or the properties of the body?
• Consider the wax example (Meditation ii). If there were no minds to attend the wax, would the wax have a certain color, say white?
• According to Descartes, can a mind exist without a body?
• Is Descartes' concevability argument sound?
• Can you conceive a square circle? What can you conclude about its existence? Can you conceive a living human being without a brain?
• “When we stand in need of drink, there arises from this want a certain parchedness in the throat that moves its nerves, and by means of them the internal parts of the brain; and this movement affects the mind with the sensation of thirst, because there is nothing on that occasion which is more useful for us than to be made aware that we have need of drink for the preservation of our health.” What is the role of the mind here, and what is the role of the body?
• Can a non-physical mind be investigated "scientifically"?
• If mind and body are radically different types of stuff, how can they interact with each other?
• If all physical effect is fully caused by physical causes, then can the mind have a causal influence on anything physical?
• Can dualists provide a satisfactory account of the causal interaction of mind and body?
• Does the mind affect the brain? Make examples.
• What are the arguments for the distinct existence of mind and body? What is the best? Why?
• What is the difference between substance and property dualism?

Tutorial #1. Mind -Body Dualism. Descartes

Descartes was a substance dualist.
There are two kinds of substance:
- Matter, of which the essential property is that it is spatially extended;
- Mind, of which the essential property is that it thinks.

Descartes used a conceivability argument in support of dualism.
The argument goes from the conceivability of my existing without a body to the possibility of my existence without a body, and from there to the conclusion that I am not physical.

A detailed reconstruction of Descartes' argument can be found in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy HERE

A Trilingual HTML Edition of Descartes' Meditations can be found HERE Edited by David B. Manley and Charles S. Taylor, think about these questions.

Tutorial #1. Conceivability & Possibility - A priori & A posteriori

Often in philosophy a priori methods are used to draw conclusions about what is possible and what is necessary.

Here is some excertps from Dave Chalmers ' Does Conceivability Entail Possibility?

"Arguments like this typically have three steps: first an epistemic claim (about what can be known or conceived), from there to a modal claim (about what is possible or necessary), and from there to a metaphysical claim (about the nature of things in the world)."

The method of conceivability.

"One argues that some state of affairs is conceivable, and from there one concludes that this state of affairs is possible. Here, the kind of possibility at issue is metaphysical possibility, as opposed to physical possibility, natural possibility, and other sorts of possibility. Metaphysical conclusions turn most directly on matters of metaphysical possibility: if one domain is reducible to another, the facts about the second should metaphysically necessitate the facts about the first. So it is metaphysical possibility that is relevant in the three-step argument above. And there is at least some plausibility in the idea that conceivability can act as a guide to metaphysical possibility. By contrast, it is very implausible that conceivability entails physical or natural possibility.

For example, it seems conceivable that an object could travel faster than a billion meters per second. This hypothesis is physically and naturally impossible, because it contradicts the laws of physics and the laws of nature. This case may be metaphysically possible, however, since there might well be metaphysically possible worlds with different laws. If we invoke an intuitive conception of a metaphysically possible world as a world that God might have created, if he had so chosen: it seems that God could have created a world in which an object traveled faster than a billion meters per second. So in this case, although conceivability does not mirror natural possibility, it may well mirror metaphysical possibility."

- What is meant by "conceivability" anyway?

In that paper, Chalmers distinguishes 8 senses...

In general,

Definition:
- conceivability is an epistemic notion (i.e. it has to do with a way of knowing).
It is the capability of "being conceived", of "being imagined". "What can be thought". It is NOT the ability to form mental images.
Chalmers characterizes it as "a property of statements, and the conceivability of a statement is in many cases relative to a speaker or thinker."

Example
You can conceive golden mountains.
You cannot conceive round squares.
You can conceive chiliagons, God, but presumably you cannot form a mental image of chiliagons or God.

- possibility is a metaphysical notion. It has to do with how things can be.
"Possibility" can also be understood in many different ways.
We have:
physical \ natural possibility.
metaphysical \logical possibility.

HERE You can find some very good lecture notes on possibility and conceivability by Jim Pryor


+++

The terms "a priori" and "a posteriori" are used in philosophy to distinguish between two different ways of knowing.
"A priori" and "A Posteriori" are also often used to distinguish different types of arguments.

Definition:
- a priori knowledge is independent of experience or experimentation. It is knowledge based on pure reason.

- a posteriori knowledge is dependent on experience or experimentation.

Examples

You know a priori that cubes have six sides; or that if today is Wednesday then today is not Thursday; that two plus five equals seven, etc.
In all these cases, it suffices that you understand the meaning of the relevant terms for you to gain that knowledge, you don't need to set up an experiment or to observe the world.

You can know a posteriori that some bachelors are beautiful; that Edinburgh is in Scotland; that water is H2O; that pain is correlated to he activation of certain brain areas.
In all these cases, it is not sufficient to sit comfortable in your armchair and reason about the meaning of the relevant terms for you to gain that knowledge. You have to go outside and observe how things are in the world.