> > P.S. Between Skinner and Chomsky, there stands Wittgenstein:
>
>Actually, Skinner seems to have been very much influenced by
>Wittgenstein.
>Commentators have note the similarities between the examples that
>Skinner gave of the learning of language in his book *Verbal Behavior*
>and the ones that Wittgenstein provided in his *Philosophical
>Investigations*.
>It seems rather likely that Skinner drew directly upon Wittgenstein's
>book.
>Skinner was also BTW a great admirer of Gilbert Ryle, whose general
>viewpoint was rather similar to that of the later Wittgenstein.
>
>Jim Farmelant
Yes, in many ways, we can say that Skinner & Wittgenstein were attacking the same target with similar tools, noted, for instance, by W. F. Day ("On Certain Similarities between the 'Philosophical Investigations' of Ludwig Wittgenstein and the Operationism of B. F. Skinner"). One difference that is important, I believe, is that while Skinner developed his own positive research program (as an experimental scientist, he couldn't afford not to develop one), Wittgenstein (as a philosopher who advocated the end of philosophy) refused to do so (though some Wittgenstein scholars believe that he did). For instance, about pain, Wittgenstein wrote:
***** "But you will surely admit that there is a difference between pain-behavior accompanied by pain and pain-behavior without any pain?" -- Admit it? What greater difference can there be! -- "And yet you again and again reach the conclusion that the sensation itself is a _nothing_." -- It is not a _something_, but not a _nothing_ either! The conclusion was only that a nothing would serve just as well as something about which nothing could be said. We have only rejected the grammar which tries to force itself on us here. (Philosophical Investigations, p. 304) *****
Emphasis is upon the rejection of "the grammar which tries to force itself on us" when we think about "an inner process," "mental processes and states," etc. In truth, what motivated Skinner to develop radical behaviorism was his rejection of the grammar that Wittgenstein also rejected, but sometimes Skinner went further than Wittgenstein would have liked, I believe:
***** A single set of facts is described by the two statements: 'He eats' and 'He is hungry.'...A single set of facts is described by the two statements: 'He plays well' and 'He has musical ability.'" (Science and Human Behavior in Ned Block, ed., Readings in the Philosophy of Psychology, p. 39) *****
Wittgenstein probably wouldn't have said "a single set of facts." He simply argued that the "paradox disappears only if we make a radical break with the idea that language always functions in one way, always serves the same purpose: to convey thoughts -- which may be about houses, pains, good and evil, or anything else you please" (PI, 304).
***** "But you surely cannot deny that, for example, in remembering, an inner process takes place." -- What gives the impression that we want to deny anything? When one says "Still, an inner process does take place here" -- one wants to go on: "After all, you _see_ it." And it is this inner process that one means by the word "remembering." -- The impression that we wanted to deny something arises from our setting our faces against the picture of the 'inner process.' What we deny is that the picture of the inner process gives us the correct idea of the use of the word "to remember." We say that this picture with its ramifications stands in the way of our seeing the use of the word as it is. (PI, 305) *****
Yoshie