1. Michael Lacewing enquiries@alevelphilosophy.co.uk
Logical behaviourism
Michael Lacewing

2. Methodological behaviourism
A theory about how a scientific psychology works (Watson, Skinner)
To be properly scientific, psychology must deal with what can be observed, not what cannot
Therefore, psychology should aim only at the explanation and prediction of behaviour without appealing to ‘inner’ mental states

3. Logical behaviourism
A philosophical theory about what mental states are
Talk about the mind and mental states is talk about behaviour
Rejecting dualism’s ‘ghost in the machine’ (Ryle)
Our psychological terms are about what people do, and how they react
This is a claim about what mental states are, not just about how we know about them

4. The basics Behaviourism is a materialist theory:
There is no mental substance
Mental states are analyzed in terms of behaviour, which depends upon physical properties
Simplest from: to be in mental state x is to behave in way y
E.g. To be in pain is to exhibit pain-behaviour

5. Objections Suppressed pain: Pain without pain behaviour
Same mental state can be expressed by different behaviour on different occasions
Many mental states, e.g. knowing French, are dispositions, not occurrences

6. The analysis
Mental states are dispositions of a person to behave in certain ways (in certain circumstances)
To be in pain is to be disposed to cry out, nurse the injured part of the body …
Analytic behaviourism
Concepts that refer to mental states can be completely translated (or reduced) into concepts that refer only to behaviour

7. Ryle against dualism
Ryle understands substance dualism (‘the official doctrine’) as claiming:
the mind can exist without the body;
the body is in space and is subject to mechanical (physical) laws, while the mind isn’t;
in consciousness and introspection, we are directly aware of our mental states and operations in such a way that we cannot make mistakes; and
we have no direct access to other minds, but can only infer their existence.

8. Ryle against dualism
If this were right, our mental concepts would refer to secret episodes in our minds
We can’t know whether a mental description of someone is true unless they introspect and tell us
This makes using these concepts impossible

9. The meaning of psychological terms
Psychological terms must be grounded on what is publicly available
Children can only learn to name and report their mental states through interaction with others
Other people must therefore be able to identify the expression of mental states in our behaviour

10. The category mistake
Category mistake: To treat a concept as belonging to a different logical category from the one it actually belongs to
E.g. Oxford university; team spirit
The mind is not another ‘thing’
Mental concepts (of ‘states’ and ‘processes’) do not operate like physical concepts
The ‘para-mechanical hypothesis’:
since physical processes can be explained in mechanical terms, mental concepts must refer to non-spatial, non-mechanical processes

11. Dispositions
How something will or is likely to behave under certain circumstances
E.g. solubility, being hard
Mental concepts, e.g. being proud, pick out a set of dispositions that are ‘indefinitely heterogenous’
But statements using mental concepts can’t be reduced to hypothetical statements about behaviour

12. Thinking
How can an internal process like thinking quietly be a disposition to behaviour?
Reply: thinking is internalized speaking
Speaking is behaviour, and thinking is acquired later
The silence is inessential to the nature of thinking – you can think out loud or with pen and paper
Thinking isn’t just a disposition, but also an occurrence
Cp. ‘it is dissolving’
It is still the basis for attributing dispositions