On Tue, 1 Apr 2003 15:15:59 -0500 "RE" <earnest at tallynet.com> writes:
> I worry I may be starting to harp, but with behaviorism if you're in
> for a
> penny, you're in for a pound. The specific plausibility of its
> observations
> need to be sharply distinguished from its programmatic aspirations,
> which
> were appallingly dogmatic. There are some contemporary
> psychoanalysts, like
> Eric Gillette, who argue plausibly for the relevance of learning
> theory to
> psychoanalysis. I buy it. But he's very careful about which system
> assimilates which. Behaviorism was radically reductive.
> Psychoanalysis can
> be, in the simplistic "it's your Mother!" sort of way, but it is
> very
> accepting of a hierarchy of mental mechanisms, including everything
> from
> stimulus-response links to elaborate compromise formations,
> unconscious
> fantasy, and so on. Skinner wanted to raze everything else.
Well, I am not quite sure what your point is here. Unlike some other behaviorists, Skinner did not deny the scientific reality of private events, but insisted that they were to be understood in terms of the same principles that had been applied to more overt kinds of behaviors. Thus, for Skinner thinking, fantasy etc. were treated as covert forms of behavior which were subject to the same laws of behavior as the more overt kind.
Jim F.
>
> Randy
>
>
>
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