Carrol
---
> >
> > Given what "modern behavioral or social science"
> has on offer,
> > that's not necessarily much of a criticism.
>
> Well when I think of "modern behavioral science" I
> tend
> to think of Pavlov, Watson, Skinner, and others in
> their
> tradition,
Behaviorsim is OUT in psych. Cog psych is IN.
while when I think of "modern social
> science"
> I tend to think of Marx and his disciples. I also
> have time
> for Durkheim and some of Weber but not much else.
Marx, Weber, and Durkheim all use intention talk.
>
> Well, Skinner as I understand him, was in part an
> eliminativist
> in that he thought that much of our mentalist
> language could
> safely be dispensed with and replaced with language
> describing
> functional relationships between environmental
> stimuli and
> operant responses. On the other hand he also seemed
> to think
> that much of our mentalist language was translatable
> into
> language describing behavioral dispositions.
Skinner's old hat. I mean, he has some good
experimental results, but his kind of behaviorism is
two generations back out of fashion, and not just
fashion. Waht's good in behaviorism has been absoebed
into cog psych.
So, I
> don't think
> that he was as extreme an eliminativist as the
> Churchlands
> are,
Actually I don't think the C's are eliminativists
about the mental at all, just about common sense
psychology. By contrast, Stich is, or was, an
eliminativist. I did several chapters of my diss on
this.
> And indeed, the Epicureans proved the irrationality
> of the fear
> of death more than two millenia ago . . . And
> Hume
> and other philosophers have called into question the
> validity
> of our notions concerning personal identity.
OK, so you picked up my allusions. But you missed my
Humean point, which is when we go back from our
studies into the world, no one can possibly take this
stuff seriously.
All
> that in of itself
> may be philosophical parlor games but given the
> right social
> conditions it can become a lot more than that.
Apart from the times when people equipped with a
philosophical doctrine have gotten control of the
police, what are you thinking of?
> As a Marxist, I would whole heartedly agree with
> that (social being
> determining consciousness and so forth). However,
> you may
> also wish to note that the young Marx in
> CONTRIBUTION TO THE
> CRITIQUE OF HEGEL'S PHILOSOPHY OF LAW:
>
> "As philosophy finds its material weapons in the
> proletariat,
> so the proletariat finds its spiritual weapons in
> philosophy."
Maybe, though I don't think the proletariat is going
to find itself armed with Lucretius on death or Hume
on personal identity.
I said:
> > But of course it would not be irrational to say
> that if that is what
> > we must do to maintain scientific determinism of
> Honderich's sort,
> > then to hell with it.
>
> And indeed, apologists for the status quo would no
> doubt say
> exactly that,
An obvious fallacy. They'd say that, I'd say that, so
I'm an apology for the status quo? My point is that it
is NOT irratonal to run modus tollens on someone's
modus ponens.
just as many of these same same
> apologists
> would trot out the theorems of neoclassical
> economics
> (which you yourself have condemned as being
> unscientific)
Well, empty and silly if used out of their limited
place, and as deployed today, obscurantist, but
there's something there; the theory _is_ moderatey
predictive in special circumstances.
jks
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