5HC : Chinese boxes or tea chests?

Chris · 03 Feb 2005, 11:21 · from 2005-February.txt.gz

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From: rasputin_ at hotmail.com (Chris)
Date: Thu Feb  3 11:21:26 2005
Subject: (urth) 5HC : Chinese boxes or tea chests?
In-Reply-To: <1f76173705020211294435d5d5 at mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <BAY102-F1736CBE7E10D1DF4F15EB4867F0 at phx.gbl>

At the risk of terrible boredom, this is a reasonable reference:

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

Analytical behaviorism seems to go just as far back as the other kind. But 
what I would point out here is that the mere epistemic position - that 
behavior provides the only data we have to go by - is not enough to 
constitute any of these types of behaviorism, and I don't think that what is 
being referred to here as "behaviorism[1]" is really behaviorism.

To draw a parallel with physics: when studying the motion of a ball in 
space, the only data we have to go by is its position in time. Two 
scientists could entirely agree on this much. But let's say that one of 
these scientists concludes that the proper way to study the motion of the 
ball is by mathematically analyzing its motion, whereas the other insists 
that the object of inquiry should not be the mere motion of the ball itself 
but rather the action of the forces which act on the ball, and the laws of 
motion in general.

This is not meant to be a perfect analogy. But my point is that being a 
behaviorist of *any* stripe requires more than just a particular view of 
behavior as data. It requires a certain outlook as to the limits, method, 
and object of study. And to accept Turing's position I don't think you have 
to accept any variety of behaviorism.

As a side note I think that the term has tended to refer to the more radical 
versions as time has gone on at least in part because people took the 
general principles of the most extreme version and imported it into other 
arenas under the name "behaviorism". For example "linguistic behaviorism", 
something Searle was concerned with, is the notion that there is no deeper 
"meaning" than simply the set of external stimuli that would lead one to 
affirm/assert or deny a sentence. [I can only say that his arguments against 
this are much sharper, in my opinion, than the whole Chinese Room thing.] In 
any event anyone familiar with these other arenas rather than psychology is 
going to get a skewed impression of what "behaviorism" means.

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