On Wed, 5 Feb 2003 06:59:12 -0800 (PST) andie nachgeborenen
<andie_nachgeborenen at yahoo.com> writes:
> ---
> > >
> > > 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.
Well by the same token Marxism is out in American social science too. I need not concur in the wisdom of either development.
>
> 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.
But then again, there did not exist in their times, anything even resembling a scientific psychology, not that I think that this was in anyway a crippling handicap for them, anymore than was Gregory Mendel, handicapped in his work in genetics by the fact that molecular biology didn't exist in his day.
>
> >
> > 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.
I would turn that around, to argue that what is good in cognitive psychology stems from behaviorism. Actually, much of American cognitive psychology is derived from the largely non-Skinnerian behaviorisms of people like Clark Hull, and especially of Edward Tolman. More importantly, cognitive psychology has largely adhered to the S-R explanatory model that was characteristic of earlier behaviorism, to which they add (following in the footsteps of Hull and Tolman) cognitive intervening variables or "organismic variables" which are posited as standing in between stimuli and responses. Skinner on the other hand critiqued the S-R model, proposing in its place a selectionist causal model. Interestingly enough, some of the cognitivists in recent years seem to be turning to selectionist explanatory models in their work, often without the good grace (with the exception of Dan Dennett) of acknowledging Skinner.
>
> 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.
And that is where I think that Hume went wrong because of his basic political conservatism. He was anxious to show that the radicalism of his epistemological analyses had no practical implications, once we stepped outside of our libraries or lecture halls, but I think he was mistaken on that point.
>
> 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.
Well, by implication, to the extent that the proletariat does draw upon Marxism as a source of weapons for the class struggle, then yes they may find themselves drawing upon Lucretius (whom Marx greatly admired, and wrote about in his doctoral dissertation) and even folk like Hume or Kant or Hegel. Although, in general, he warned against the advisability of waging a direct assault on religion, he did think that as we moved closer to a communist society, religion would tend to wither away, as would presumably the theological and metaphysical apparatus associated with it.
>
> 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.
I think you misread me. No, it would not be irrational in itself to run modus tollens on someone's modus ponens. And indeed, I was pointing out that it would be quite rational for apologists for the status quo to run modus tollens on (in this case) Ted Honderich's modus ponens precisely because Honderich's scientific determinism undermines some of the basic assumptions underlying bourgeois individualism. But then one must ask, do these folk have anything that is better, more scientific, to offer in place of Honderich's scientific determinism? I would submit that they do not.
>
> 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.
Yes, Oskar Lange as I recall thought that neoclassical economic theory might be of use for the administration of socialist economies.
Jim F.
>
> jks
>
>
>
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