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The bestest surname ever... (pg. 2)
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| Boomer187 |
| quote: | Originally posted by Epicurus
-1. Behaviourism is a pathetic theory of the mind and has been debunked a thousand times over.
EDIT:/ By the way, Marcus Lira Skinner sounds tight. Go for it. |
eh, just by that reply I can tell you know nothing of it. It is a science of behavior, not the mind.
nice try.
oh and good luck debunking it. |
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| Epicurus |
| quote: | Originally posted by Boomer187
eh, just by that reply I can tell you know nothing of it. It is a science of behavior, not the mind.
nice try.
oh and good luck debunking it. |
Hmmmmm...and just by your reply, I can tell that your knowledge about it is rather restriced since you obviously are not aware of the existing connection between behaviourism and mental states in the philosophy of the mind.Click here |
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| Boomer187 |
| quote: | Originally posted by Epicurus
Hmmmmm...and just by your reply, I can tell that your knowledge about it is rather restriced since you obviously are not aware of the existing connection between behaviourism and mental states in the philosophy of the mind.Click here |
i don't get your point. I thought we were talking about skinner and his experimental analysis of behavior, not some recent pholosophical works trying to bridge his works.
Skinner himself at teh APA convention in 91 when he won teh lifetime achievement award called all cognitive psychologist traitors to the field. He wanted nothing to do with the unexperimental testing of the 'mind'.
and I wouldn't be quick to label me as not knowing in this department. ;). Yuod be surprised at who I have worked with in the past. |
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| Epicurus |
| quote: | Originally posted by Boomer187
i don't get your point. I thought we were talking about skinner and his experimental analysis of behavior, not some recent pholosophical works trying to bridge his works.
Skinner himself at teh APA convention in 91 when he won teh lifetime achievement award called all cognitive psychologist traitors to the field. He wanted nothing to do with the unexperimental testing of the 'mind'.
and I wouldn't be quick to label me as not knowing in this department. ;). Yuod be surprised at who I have worked with in the past. |
I should have probably been more specific, so my bad on that. Skinner's work is categorized as psychological behaviourism technically, so it's mainly concerned with acconting for human behaviour in terms of stimulus and response. But it's also interested in the methods predicting the outcome of stimuli, and thus from that perspective, has something to say about the mind-body problem and mental states. Thus, implicit in parts of his research was ingrained his position with regards to mental states, and his position turned out to be wrong. Skinner was an eliminationist, and thus believed that mental states (beliefs, desires, attitudes, perceptions) did not really exist. According to him, they are myths and elements of a pre-scientific picture of human beings. Click here. This has been clearly debunked, which is what I was referring to. As for having been too quick to label you as not knowing in this department, I was simply returning the favour based on your previous post to me. |
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| Boomer187 |
| quote: | Originally posted by Epicurus
I should have probably been more specific, so my bad on that. Skinner's work is categorized as psychological behaviourism technically, so it's mainly concerned with acconting for human behaviour in terms of stimulus and response. But it's also interested in the methods predicting the outcome of stimuli, and thus from that perspective, has something to say about the mind-body problem and mental states. Thus, implicit in parts of his research was ingrained his position with regards to mental states, and his position turned out to be wrong. Skinner was an eliminationist, and thus believed that mental states (beliefs, desires, attitudes, perceptions) did not really exist. According to him, they are myths and elements of a pre-scientific picture of human beings. Click here. This has been clearly debunked, which is what I was referring to. As for having been too quick to label you as not knowing in this department, I was simply returning the favour based on your previous post to me. |
this is kinda fun, cause I can tell you are viewing behaviorism through the eyes of philosophy. nothing wrong with that, its just there are a few details which are kind of off. one major one is that Skinner is considered to be outside of traditional watsonian behaviorism. He wanted his work to be known as the experimental analysis of behavior. They stared their own journals and societies seperate from most. Instead of using the watsonian Stimulus - Response language, they used their own language, with operants and schedules of reinforcement.
and skinners view on the mind was not that it did not exist, it was that it was useless for psychologist to study because you could not experimentally test (directly observe) mental phenomenon. i notice the philosophy of the mind article you pointed at used a secondary source for skinners book, which is not looked too highly on.
but I am sure we can go on and on. Id love to. but if you want to know that behaviorism has not been debunked look at clinical psychology and how they treat phobias and a few other disorders. The principles laid out by skinner and later others like herrnstein are still used today and show no sign of disappearing since they are so effective.
by for real, give Beyond Freedom and Dignity a read, it is a really good book. |
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| Epicurus |
| quote: | Originally posted by Boomer187
this is kinda fun, cause I can tell you are viewing behaviorism through the eyes of philosophy. nothing wrong with that, its just there are a few details which are kind of off. one major one is that Skinner is considered to be outside of traditional watsonian behaviorism. He wanted his work to be known as the experimental analysis of behavior. They stared their own journals and societies seperate from most. Instead of using the watsonian Stimulus - Response language, they used their own language, with operants and schedules of reinforcement.
and skinners view on the mind was not that it did not exist, it was that it was useless for psychologist to study because you could not experimentally test (directly observe) mental phenomenon. i notice the philosophy of the mind article you pointed at used a secondary source for skinners book, which is not looked too highly on.
but I am sure we can go on and on. Id love to. but if you want to know that behaviorism has not been debunked look at clinical psychology and how they treat phobias and a few other disorders. The principles laid out by skinner and later others like herrnstein are still used today and show no sign of disappearing since they are so effective.
by for real, give Beyond Freedom and Dignity a read, it is a really good book. |
You're right, I am looking at it from a philosophical perspective, since my expertise comes from there. I assume yours comes from the experimental psychology side of things?
As for Skinner's position with regards to mind, I know that "he claimed it was useless for psychologists to study because you could not experimentally test (directly observe) mental phenomenon", but he also made a much stronger point, and a fallacious one at that, the point being (from the article):
| quote: | 4. The "middle link" argument. Skinner suggests that, since the inner mental states which are supposed to explain behavior are themselves determined by external stimuli, they can safely be ignored: we can leave out the middleman and simply study the relations between stimuli and behavior. "Unless there is a weak spot in our causal chain so that the second link is not lawfully determined by the first, or the third by the second, then the first and third links must be lawfully related. If we must always go back beyond the second link for prediction and control, we may avoid many tiresome and exhausting digressions by examining the third link as a function of the first" (35 [42]).
At first sight, this looks very reasonable. If S determines M and M determines R, then S indirectly determines R: why not just consider the relationship between S and R, ignoring M? Dennett's computer analogy, which I mentioned above, is helpful here. It may be that the most effective way of explaining the relationship between S and R is by way of hypotheses about the nature of M. What is "hard-wired" in aside (this is comparable to human genetic makeup), how the machine is programmed is determined by inputs to the machine and, together with current inputs, determines the machine's output: but trying to predict output on the basis of input alone, without hypotheses about the machine's internal states and processes, is likely to be a disaster. It is worth mentioning Noam Chomsky's discussion of this point early in his review of Skinner's Verbal Behavior (in Language vol. 35 no. 1, 1959; reprinted in Ned Block, ed., Readings in the Philosophy of Psychology Volume 1 (Harvard, 1980)): "Anyone who sets himself the problem of analyzing the causation of behavior will . . . concern himself with . . . the record of inputs to the organism and the organism's present response, and will try to describe the function specifying the response in terms of the history of inputs. . . . The differences that arise between those who affirm and those who deny the importance of the specific 'contribution of the organism' to learning and performance concern the particular character and complexity of this function" (49). |
Now I wasn't aware that experimental psychologists weren't thrilled with Block's "Readings in the Philosophy of Psychology", but its got a pretty good reputation in philosophy of mind circles, and I doubt that Block would put words into Skinner's mouth or falsify his positions. Anyway, I have to admit that I've never read "Beyond Freedom and Dignity", and will probably do so in the near future. And yes, we could probably go on and on about this, but this is the COR :p However, we could always start a thread in the PDD if you're interested. |
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| mezzir |
| wtf go back to the PDD :toothless |
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| Epicurus |
| quote: | Originally posted by mezzir
wtf go back to the PDD :toothless |
off :toothless
PS. Sorry to hijack your thread Lira. I'm going back to the PDD :D |
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| Boomer187 |
WTF, PDD my ass. |
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| D-res |
| quote: | Originally posted by Yan
Yes, superintendent Chalmers? |
Its Super Nintendo Chalmers you n00bian :wtf: :stongue: |
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| occrider |
| quote: | Originally posted by Epicurus
off :toothless
PS. Sorry to hijack your thread Lira. I'm going back to the PDD :D |
Don't give in. Seek argumentative closure until the bitter end. It's the PDD way :p. |
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| tribu |
| quote: | Originally posted by occrider
Don't give in. Seek argumentative closure until the bitter end. It's the PDD way :p. |
:haha: :haha: :haha: so true
I wish I were smart enough to post there regularly |
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