Re: Phenomenological Continuity and Discontinuity

From: David Longley (David_at_longley.demon.co.uk)
Date: 06/08/04 

Date: Tue, 8 Jun 2004 13:00:24 +0100

In article <d4bd1f7c.0406080337.3765ba03@posting.google.com>, neepy
<dsutherland7@hotmail.com> writes
>
>Anyway, I am not sure what you would count as a "generation of
>scientists" (30 years? 40?), but at most there have only been two
>generations of psychologists since the so-called "cognitive
>revolution" of the 1950s. I would be interested in your view of why
>so many psychologists who had been working (and progressing) in the
>behaviorist tradition moved so painlessly to cognitive psychology
>(e.g. Miller), but who is to say that "mainstream" psychology won't
>swing back to behaviorism just as quickly? Though that view of two
>diametrically opposed schools that could not exist in the same space
>is also a bit of a caricature (at least outside of the US).

<snip>

 From Saturday, 15 May:

Here's a little something (edited/expanded) to think on:

"As our debate progressed and our conception of Plans became clearer, a
conviction grew on us that we were developing a point of view toward
large parts of psychology. We then began to wonder how we might best
characterise our position so as to contrast it with others more
traditional and more familiar. The question puzzled us. We did not feel
that we were behaviorists, at least not in the sense J.B. Watson defined
the term, yet we were much more concerned - in that debate and in these
pages at least - with what people did than with what they knew. Our
emphasis was upon processes lying immediately behind action, but not
with action itself. On the other hand, we did not consider ourselves
introspective psychologists, at least not in the sense that Wilhelm
Wundt defined the term, yet we were willing to pay attention to what
people told us about their ideas and their Plans. How does one
characterize a position that seems to be such a mixture of elements
usually considered incompatible? Deep in the middle of this dilemma it
suddenly occurred to us that we were subjective behaviorists. When we
stopped laughing we began to wonder seriously if that was not exactly
the position we had argued ourselves into. At least the name suggested
the shocking inconsistency of our position.

As a matter of fact, we recognised that we had been drifting in that
direction for several years.
...
Why not be subjective behaviorists? The objection, of course, is that
"subjective" and "behaviorism" do not go together. We might as well talk
about a black whiteness, or a square circle.....
....
What matters to us far more than a name, however, is whether or not we
have glimpsed an important aspect of human intelligence...
..
..The development of modern computing machines, more than anything else,
has given scientists the tools required to re-enact, or simulate, on a
large scale, the processes they want to study. the program for a
computer that re-enacts a process is becoming just as acceptable a
theory of that process as would be the equations describing it. There is
still much that needs to be clarified in this new application of the
artist's ancient attitude, but clarification will not lag far behind
application. And as the understanding of these complex systems grows,
the need to distinguish between introspectively derived and behaviorally
derived concepts should decline - until eventually both our experience
and our behavior will be understood in the same terms. Then, and only
then, will psychologists have bridged the gap between the Image and
Behavior."

G. Miller, E. Gallanter and K.H. Pribram
(Harvard*, Pennsylvania, and Stamford respectively)
Excerpts from "Epilogue" to:
"Plans and The Structure of Behavior" (1960) p.211-4

<Those familiar with Skinner's Operant Behaviorism (Skinner held the
chair at Harvard at the time) should read the Epilogue and wonder how
Miller had the audacity to author the above given this fact, not to
mention Skinner's "Science and Human Behavior" 1953 and his subsequent
"Verbal Behavior">.

But "the gaps" had, of course, already been bridged long before by
(Skinner's Radical Behaviorism) and I find it hard to believe that
Miller, for one, did not "know" this (but see below). Miller, Gallanter
and Pribram are naively talking about the environmental contingencies of
reinforcement which differentially shape both public and private
behaviour!.

I've said this before, but here's what I reckon happened. Miller and the
others (and there are more than the above three) have I suggest, just
tacitly absorbed much of Skinner's Radical Behaviorism (ie they have not
fully "understood" what they have learned) or, more sinisterly, perhaps
like others such as Chomsky (and perhaps not, it doesn't really matter
for the sake of the point I've been making) wilfully misrepresented,
Skinner's *Radical* Behaviorism as mainstream S-R *Methodological*
Behaviorism in pursuit of their own interests/careers. Skinner retired
from the Psychology Department exhausted after a six year battle. In
1961 he'd said that he was "no longer interested in the department. It
had resisted all my efforts to improve it and is actually scandalously
weak. It will be dominated for some time by intellectual fakes and
smart-aleks." (Bjork 1993). There were others who were caught up in this
debacle, but as I've been through that before, this will suffice for now
(see the JEAB site for the history of the Harvard "Pigeon Lab form the
early 1960s onwards, the acrimony, and how Miller and others figured in
this <http://seab.envmed.rochester.edu/jeab/toc/2002/jeabmay02.shtml>
especially the Baum and Catania articles).

I say it doesn't matter which way one looks at it because what I'm
drawing attention to is not so much the recent historical, and tragic
disaster in recent psychology and the emergence of a new genre of
science fiction known as "Cognitive Science" (that's not something I'm
not too interested in debating though I'm open to suggestions), rather,
what I'm drawing
attention to what I consider to be a more useful/significant point,
which is that we can see here yet another, quite dramatic, example of
what goes profoundly awry in *intensional contexts*.

I have in fact, spent some time (years) demonstrating this from a number
of perspectives both in this newsgroup and elsewhere using both the
literature and, in some cases, posters actual behaviour here, to
explicate, hopefully, a quite pernicious feature of our behaviour for
anyone who is prepared to look. If anyone looks carefully, and
objectively at the history of what people have written here over the
years) they'll find plenty of examples of what I'm referring to. Take it
as an exercise in forensic behavioural science.

People simply don't generally see what shapes their learning/behavioural
plasticity. They just don't generally know where their "ideas" come
from. In fact, if you look carefully through books like "Plans and the
Structure of Behavior" you'll find translations of what you'll find in
the field of the EAB. What you'll find throughout the tradition which it
is typical of is metaphors, analogues and synonyms (such as the "TOTE"
notion) which are basically just cryptic paraphrases. This is why I
concocted the Taiwan translation story a while back - although the story
also applies to much that we see being posted by "critics" here.

Anyone interested in the wider ("cultural") context, see below. 

-- 
David Longley
http://www.longley.demon.co.uk/Frag.htm
-- 
David Longley

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Religion center in the brain
    ... And Darwin did not argue that his view was a reaction to ... insouciantly ignored all cognition as irrelevant to behavior. ... Radical behaviorism holds that "covert psychological activity" is ... important, and is a proper subject matter of psychology, even though it can ...
    (sci.cognitive)
  • Re: Robust Algorithms
    ... Learn that psychology!= philosophy, and that drivel ... about behaviorism, ... newsgroup, much less a computer theory newsgroup, ... for posting it there. ...
    (comp.theory)
  • Re: Religion center in the brain
    ... :> Sizemore gmsizemore2@xxxxxxxxx said: ... Darwinian evolution begat the ... modern creationist movement, and behaviorism, in the same sense, begat ... psychology as well as classical and operant conditioning ...
    (sci.cognitive)
  • Re: Feelings of Worthlessness
    ... all have their roots in behaviorism even if they've ... Physical science has proceeded at the speed of light while ... psychology has remained a basket case. ...
    (sci.bio.evolution)
  • Re: type writers and tooth aches II
    ... > and to behavioral science in particular. ... The point of behaviorism is to extend the physical langauge, ... that language is not grounded to objective data so you can not ... it with the bogus language of mentalisms. ...
    (comp.ai.philosophy)