What Is Behavior? Statement of Logical Behaviorism (aka, philosophical/analytical behaviorism)

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1 What Is Behavior? 1. Physiological reactions and responses: for example, perspiration, salivation, increase in the pulse rate, increase in blood pressure. 2. Bodily movements: for example, raising and waving a hand, opening a door, throwing a baseball, a cat scratching at the door, a rat turning left in a T-maze 3. Actions involving bodily motions: for example, typing an invitation, greeting a friend, checking a book out of the library, going shopping, writing a check, signing a contract 4. Actions not involving overt bodily motions: for example, reasoning, guessing, calculating, judging, deciding 1 Statement of Logical Behaviorism (aka, philosophical/analytical behaviorism) Logical Behaviorism I. Any meaningful psychological statement, that is, a statement purportedly describing a mental phenomenon, can be translated, without loss of content, into a statement solely about behavioral and physical phenomena. And the claim can be formulated somewhat more broadly as a thesis about the behavioral definability of all meaningful psychological expressions: Logical Behaviorism II. Every meaningful psychological expression can be defined solely in terms of behavioral and physical expressions, that is, those referring to behavioral and physical phenomena. Definition of definition : If an expression E is defined as E* then E and E* must he either synonymous or necessarily equivalent (that is, there is no conceivable situation to which one of the expressions applies but the other does not). Semantic or ontological thesis? 2 1

2 Logical Behaviorism: Hempel's Argument 1. The content, or meaning, of any meaningful statement is exhausted by the conditions that must he verified to obtain if we are to consider that statement true (we may call them "verification conditions"). (Read Hempel 4 pp16-7) 2. (Communication Condition) If a statement is to have an intersubjective content-that is, a meaning that can be shared by different persons-its verification conditions must be publicly observable. 3. Only behavioral and physical phenomena are publicly observable. 4. Therefore, the content of any meaningful psychological statement must he specifiable by statements of publicly observable verification conditions, that is, statements describing appropriate behavioral and physical conditions that must hold if and only if the psychological statement is to count as true. 3 Hempel s statement of the Verification Principle with his temperature sentence example (pp16 17) 4 2

3 Meaning vs Truth-Conditions Compare: Mark Twain is Sam Clemens Mark Twain is Mark Twain Ben Franklin is an astute politician The inventor of bifocals is an astute politician A test for synonymy (sameness of meaning): Substitutivity salva veritate in intensional contexts Example: Lois believes that Superman can fly (true) Lois believes that Clark Kent can fly (false) 5 Hempel s analysis of Paul has a tootache (p17) a. Paul weeps and makes gestures of such and such kinds. b. At the question "What is the matter?" Paul utters the words, "I have a toothache." c. Closer examination reveals a decayed tooth with exposed pulp. d. Paul's blood pressure, digestive processes, the speed of his reactions, show such and such changes. e. Such and such processes occur in Paul's central nervous system. Only (a) seems appropriate, but even (a) or anything like it won t give synonymy: Conditions not necessary, not sufficient Is it conceivable that "Paul has a tootache" is true when not all of the conditions on the right hand side are met? If so, the conditions are not all necessary for the truth of "Paul has a toothache." Is it conceivable that all of the conditions on the right hand side are met but it's not true that Paul has a toothache? If so, the conditions are not all sufficient for the truth of "Paul has a toothache." 6 3

4 Experiences vs Propositional Attitudes Even if behaviorism can handle qualitative experiences, it seems incapable of providing behavioral definitions for propositional attitudes, like beliefs and desires. So verbal behavior becomes important: S believes that p = def If S is asked, "Is it the case that p?" S will answer, "Yes, it is the case that p. Won t do: requires too much mental baggage Language use is heavily mentalistic Requires mentioning other mental states in the definiens 7 Defeasibility of Mental-Behavioral Entailments (Kim) Desire-Belief-Action Principle (DBA). If a person desires that p and believes that doing A is an optimal way to secure that p, she will do A. 1. If Mary desires that fresh air be let into the room and believes that opening the window is a good way to make that happen, she will open the window. 2. If Mary desires fresh air to be let in and believes that opening the window is a good way to make that happen, but if she also believes that by opening the window she will let in the horrible street noise, she will not open the window. 3. But Mary will still open the window if she also believes that her ill mother very badly needs fresh air. Defeasibility of Mental-Behavioral Entailments. If there is a plausible entailment of behavior B by mental states M 1,, M n, there always is a further mental state M n+1, such that M 1,, M n, M n+1 together plausibly entail not-b. 8 4

5 Indefinitely many physical movements There are indefinitely physical bodily movements that can be associated with intentional behavior types such greeting behavior, avoidance behavior, etc. Example: greeting behavior Indefinitely many types of physical bodily movements and motions can count as greeting behavior depending on the context (social, cultural, physical, etc.) A given type of movement can count as indefinitely many types of behavior So in many cases, there are no one-to-one correspondences between behavior and physical bodily movements. 9 Pains, Itches, Etc. But what about bodily sensations with a pronounced affective/emotional dimension such as pains, itches, etc.? What is entailment? No actual behavior need be entailed Behavioral dispositions cannot be universal but must be confined to species-specific behavioral patterns. Weak Behavior Entailment Thesis: For any pain-capable species, there is some behavior type B such that, for that species, being in pain entails a propensity to emit behavior of type B. This is too weak as it won t explain what makes all these pains in different species pain. But even then, entailment seems to be too strong (super- and super-superspartans, x-worlders -- Putnam. Or Hempel s example from feigning.) 10 5

6 What is the relationship btw pain and pain behavior? Diseases and symptoms model (Putnam) Symptoms are contingently related to their causes Pain behavior is also contingently related to pains Pains = internal causes of a certain range of behavior of a certain type Although contingent, the behavior plays an important role fixing the reference of pain in the way the length of Standard Meter plays a role in fixing the reference of one meter (Kripke model -- Kim) 11 Methodological (Scientific) Behaviorism Behaviorism in science can be viewed in two ways (Kim): First, as a precept on how psychology should be conducted as a science, it points to questions like what its proper domain should be, what conditions should be placed on admissible evidence, what its theories are supposed to accomplish, by what standards its explanations are to be evaluated, and so on. Second, behaviorism, especially B. F. Skinner's "radical behaviorism," is a specific behaviorist research paradigm seeking to construct psychological theories conforming to a fairly explicit and precisely formulated pattern (for example, Skinner's "operant conditioning") 12 6

7 Official IASP definition of pain Pain: An unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with actual or potential tissue damage, or described in terms of such damage. Note: Pain is always subjective. Each individual learns the application of the word through experiences related to injury in early life... Experiences which resemble pain, e.g., pricking, but are not unpleasant, should not be called pain. Unpleasant abnormal experiences (dysaesthesia) may also be pain but are not necessarily so because, subjectively, they may not have the usual sensory qualities of pain. Many people report pain in the absence of tissue damage or any likely pathological cause; usually this happens for psychological reasons. There is no way to distinguish their experience from that due to tissue damage if we take the subjective report. If they regard their experience as pain and if they report it in the same ways as pain caused by tissue damage, it should be accepted as pain. This definition avoids tying pain to the stimulus. Activity induced in the nociceptor and nociceptive pathways by a noxious stimulus is not pain, which is always a psychological state, even though we may well appreciate that pain most often has a proximate physical cause. 13 Three Formulations of Methodological Behaviorism (I) The only admissible evidence for the science of psychology is observable behavioral data-that is, data concerning the observable physical behavior of organisms. (II) Psychological theories must not invoke the internal states of psychological subjects; that is, psychological explanations must not appeal to internal states of organisms, nor should references to such states occur in deriving predictions about behavior. (Ill) Psychological theories must make no reference to inner mental states in formulating psychological explanations. 14 7