History 1-5 Methodological and Radical Behaviorism

B.F. Skinner (1904 - 1990)

-Behaviorism was a reaction against unobservable mental entities, like the id, ego, and superego. -Behaviorists didn't believe mental entities could be studied scientifically because they couldn't be observed -Focused instead on observable behaviors

The Mind as an Epiphenomenon

-If we have any mental activity, it clearly arises from the brain. -A brain is just a collection of neurons (and a few other types of cells) -And each cell is just a physical device made out of chemicals. -How could a bunch of chemicals, which are physical, be influenced by mental processes, which are not physical? -How could nonphysical thoughts and feelings cause changes in our brains and influence behavior? -The Radical behaviorists' answer was that mental processes cannot influence behavior. -They are at best a noncausal side effect. -They argued that psychology should be the science of behavior, not the science of the mind

Thesis-Antithesis-Synthesis

-Original thesis, from Wundt and Freud: We can study mental processes by asking people to describe them. -This didn't work well, and led to the antithesis, behaviorism -Rejected the idea that we can study mental processes at all. -The synthesis was cognitive psychology.

Methodological Behaviorism

-Rejected introspection -The mind exists but cannot be observed and therefore cannot be studied scientifically -All we can study scientifically is behavior and how it varies depending on things in the environment (stimuli and rewards). -Focused on experiments with animals, in which they could precisely control everything and easily measure simple behaviors.

Radical Behaviorism

-Skinner: all aspects of human behavior could be explained by the same conditioning processes that they were studying in rats and pigeons. -All interesting aspects of human behavior—communication, learning, and creativity—can be explained by operant conditioning -Everything interesting about the human mind can be explained by the idea that the probability of a behavior being emitted is controlled by the history of reinforcement. -Humans do what we do because of our past experience getting rewarded or punished for our behavior

Philosophical Zombie

-This is related to the philosophical zombie idea. -If wiring of the brain is sufficient to produce normal- looking behavior, without awareness, does having a conscious mind actually influence our behavior? -Radical behaviorists would say "No. The mind is not physical, so even if it exists it does not have a causal influence on our behavior."

Radical Behaviorism

-mental activity does not exist Or Mental activity is epiphenomenal (has no causal impact) -Skinner and others proposed radical behaviorism. -There aren't any mental process at all. -Or, if they exist, they are epiphenomenal: May exist, but they are a side effect of brain activity and play no causal role.