13/14. Objections to Behaviourism

• The Multiple Realisability objection claims that the same mental state can be expressed by different behaviours in the same situation by different people
• There are two interpretations of the multiple realisability objection: incomplete translation and the individuation of mental concepts
• Incomplete translation is a problem for Hempel’s hard behaviourism because Hempel claims that it is possible for any mental statement to undergo a complete translation from mental concepts into behavioural concepts and then to neurophysical concepts
• The objection from incomplete translation is not an issue for Ryle’s soft behaviourism as Ryle accepts that no complete translation of mental state concepts is possible - he thinks we can only partially define behavioural dispositions
• The objection from incomplete translation claims that it is not possible to draw up a finite list of hypothetical conditionals or statements of the conditions of verification that describe all the ways that someone with a particular mental state may behave
• Ryle claims that we can partially define behavioural dispositions using an open list of hypothetical statements
• Hempel claims that psychological statements can undergo a complete disjunctive translation into neurophysical statements using the verification principle
• The circularity objection to behaviourism claims that it is difficult to analyse mental states in terms of behaviour and behavioural dispositions because how someone behaves in a particular situation depends not on just one mental state, but how this interacts with other mental states, meaning that we cannot specify the verification condition or set of dispositions without mentioning other mental states, leaving us with a circular analysis
• An example of the circular objection is trying to analyse furniture as chairs, tables etc.
• The circularity objection is a problem for Hempel because he thinks a complete disjunctive translation of psychological statements into behavioural statements is possible but mental concepts are stated in the conditions of verification, making his analysis circular
• The circularity objection is not a problem for Ryle because Ryle argues that disposition statements are open and cannot be replaced by a complete set of hypothetical statements, therefore he accepts it is impossible to completely specify mental states in terms of dispositions and so he avoids a circular analysis
• The multiple realisability objection and the circularity objection are both problems for Hempel‘s hard behaviourism but not Ryle’s soft behaviourism
• The objection from incomplete translation targets both Hempel and Ryle
• The objection from incomplete translation argues that it is not possible to draw up a finite list of hypothetical conditionals or statements of the conditions of verification that describe all the ways that someone will behave
• Hempel argues that it is possible to draw up a finite list of statements of the conditions of verification, given that there is only so many behaviours that satisfy its conditions
• Hempel argues that multiple realisability will not be an issue for neurophysical statements, which moves his analysis closer to type-identity theory, which faces its own version of multiple realisability
• The objection from the individuation of mental concepts challenges Ryle’s soft behaviourism
• The objection from the individuation of mental concepts argues that what makes it true that two people have the same mental state is not that they have the same behavioural dispositions
• The individuation of mental concepts is not a problem for Ryle because an open list of hypothetical statements means that it is acceptable for a hypothetical statement being true of me also being false for someone else
• The open list of hypothetical statements accepts contradictory hypotheticals co-existing e.g. two people see a rat and one screams whereas the other stays silent
• Individuation means to single out a mental state or concept
• The individuation of mental concepts is not a problem for Ryle from a theoretical POV because he suggests that the list of hypotheticals as a whole gives the partial definition, not each singular hypothetical on its own
• The individuation of mental concepts is not a problem for Ryle from a practical point of view because the hypotheticals that are true of us will overlap so a specific mental state can be individuated
• The knowledge asymmetry objection claims that an analysis of mental states in terms of behavioural dispositions or conditions of verification rules out an asymmetry between self-knowledge and knowledge of other people’s mental states.
• Knowledge asymmetry is the idea that we know more about our own mental states than that of others
• The knowledge asymmetry objection states that our experience makes it seem obvious that there is an asymmetry between self-knowledge and knowledge of mental states in other people
• The knowledge asymmetry objection is a crucial objection as it makes behaviourism seem to be counterintuitive
• Both hard and soft behaviourism fail to explain mental causation
• Behaviourism claims that knowledge of other people’s mental states is gained in the same way as knowledge of our own mental states, ruling out any asymmetry between them
• Hempel’s hard behaviourism claims that mental states are made observable through conditions of verification, meaning we can observe the mental states of others just as easily as we can observe our own
• Ryle’s soft behaviourism claims that we can make dispositional claims about ourselves and other people
• Ryle says that the only reason why we feel that we have more self-knowledge is because we have more evidence available to ourselves regarding our behaviour, specifically our inner speech
• Ryle argues that we pay attention to our behaviour in the same way we pay attention to other people’s behaviour - we are the ‘audience’
• Ryle understands consciousness as paying attention to what one is conscious of and therefore it provides the same kind of knowledge in knowing our mental states and that of others
• The distinctness objection claims that mental states are distinct from behaviour
• The distinctness objection claims that mental states have an inner essence to them, for example what it is like to feel pain
• The distinctness objection focuses on phenomenal properties of consciousness and states that conditions of verification and behavioural dispositions do not capture them correctly
• The distinctness objection is illustrated by the examples of the Perfect Actor and Putnam’s Super Spartans
• The Perfect Actor can express pain behaviour without having the mental state of pain
• In response to the Perfect Actor, Hempel argues that the actor does not meet the physiology verification conditions for having the mental state of pain