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17. Mind and Body / B. Behaviourism / 1. Behaviourism

[mind is no more than the sum of behaviour]

7 ideas
Behaviourism is false, but mind is definable as the cause of behaviour [Armstrong]
     Full Idea: Behaviourism is false, but one is not far from the truth if one defines the mind as the cause of behaviour.
     From: David M. Armstrong (Pref to new 'Materialist Theory' [1992], p.xvi)
     A reaction: As Putnam says, if you cut all the efferent (outgoing) nerves, you would have a mind with no behaviour at all. I would say my mind is full of stuff that never affects my behaviour. However, influencing behaviour is certainly the main function of a mind.
Logical behaviourism translates mental language to behavioural [Kim]
     Full Idea: Logical behaviourism says any meaningful statement about mental phenomena can be translated without loss of content into a statement solely about behavioural and physical phenomena.
     From: Jaegwon Kim (Philosophy of Mind [1996], p. 29)
     A reaction: Also called analytical behaviourism. If we are supposed to infer the ontology of mental states from language, this makes me cross. Maybe we only discuss mentality in behavioural terms because we are epistemologically, and hence linguistically, limited.
Behaviourism reduces mind to behaviour via bridging principles [Kim]
     Full Idea: Behaviourism can be considered as an attempt to reduce the mental to the physical via definitional bridge principles (every mental expression being given a behavioural definition).
     From: Jaegwon Kim (Philosophy of Mind [1996], p.217)
     A reaction: Effectively these would (if they had been discoverable) have been the elusive psycho-physical laws (which Davidson says do not exist). The objection to behaviourism is precisely that there is no fixed behaviour attached to a given mental state.
Behaviourism seems a good theory for intentional states, but bad for phenomenal ones [Kirk,R]
     Full Idea: For many kinds of mental states, notably intentional ones such as beliefs and desires, behaviourism is appealing, ..but for sensations and experiences such as pain, it seems grossly implausible.
     From: Robert Kirk (Mind and Body [2003], §5.1)
     A reaction: The theory does indeed make a bit more sense for intentional states, but it still strikes me as nonsense that there is no more to my belief that 'Whales live in the Atlantic' than a disposition to say something. WHY do I say this something?
Behaviourism offers a good alternative to simplistic unitary accounts of mental relationships [Kirk,R]
     Full Idea: There is a temptation to think that 'aboutness', and the 'contents' of thoughts, and the relation of 'reference', are single and unitary relationships, but behaviourism offers an alternative approach.
     From: Robert Kirk (Mind and Body [2003], §5.5)
     A reaction: Personally I wouldn't touch behaviourism with a barge-pole (as it ducks the question of WHY certain behaviour occurs), but a warning against simplistic accounts of intentional states is good. I am sure there cannot be a single neat theory of refererence.
Behaviourism is eliminative, or reductionist, or methodological [Rey]
     Full Idea: There are three different views concerning behaviourism - the 'radical' view, which aims at eliminativism, the 'analytical' view, which is a reductionist enterprise, and the 'methodological' view, somewhere between the two.
     From: Georges Rey (Contemporary Philosophy of Mind [1997], 4)
     A reaction: The first appears to be ontological, the second about relationships between areas of our language, and the third epistemological. You could attempt language reduction because we can only know behaviour, because that's all there is.
Maybe behaviourists should define mental states as a group [Rey]
     Full Idea: Defining most mental states seems to requiring citing other mental states - but perhaps behaviourists can define them all simultaneously
     From: Georges Rey (Contemporary Philosophy of Mind [1997], 5.3)
     A reaction: This is an interesting strategy for trying to avoid the well known circularity of attempting to define mental states in behavioural terms. Behaviourism won't go away.