behaviorism

Question 1

simple behaviorism

Answer 1

mental states are actually just physical actions

Question 2

sophisticated behaviorism

Answer 2

mind/mental concepts = behaviors or unexpressed but disposed behavior m

Question 3

problems with sophisticated behaviorism

Answer 3

1. someone could have competing dispositions
2. behaviorsim = metaphysical, not epistemic (only attempts to describe mental, not analyze it further)

Question 4

types of behaviorism

methodological behaviorism

Answer 4

given private nature of mental states and the fact that science is only concerned with what is publicly avaialble, psychology should concer itself with observable behaviors only

Question 5

types of behaviorism

psychological behaviorism

Answer 5

everything an organism does can be explained without reference to some internal mental state and only in terms of external or environmental evidence

Question 6

types of behaviorism

analytical behaviorism

Answer 6

the very idea of a mental state is the idea of a behavioral disposition or family of behavioral tendencies

Question 7

analytical behaviorism

Answer 7

mind is defined in terms of certain behaviors; by definition, mental concepts pick out behaviors

i.e. mental states reduced to behavioral dispositions

Question 8

analytical behaviorism

analytic statements

Answer 8

statements are true based on their meaning alone
- all bachelors are unmarried

Question 9

analytical behaviorism

synthetic statements

Answer 9

true based on meaning and how the world is
- snow is white - true due to meaning & color

Question 10

analytical behaviorism

first AB objection

Answer 10

odds with idea that we behave bc of mental state

reply: mental causation is not akin to “X causes Y” but rather akin to “X broke because it is brittle”

Question 11

analytical behaviorism

second AB objection

Answer 11

odds with the idea that we have privileged access to our minds

Question 12

analytical behaviorism

privileged access

Answer 12

we know our mental states the best, better than anyone else

Question 13

analytical behaviorism

direct access

Answer 13

we can introspect to know, we don’t need to observe ourselves to know what our own mental states are

Question 14

analytical behaviorism

AB Ob 2 - explain altered states of mind?

Answer 14

reply 1: we observe our dispositions better than others bc of a private world
reply 2: sometimes, others know our dispositions better than we do
upshot: some dispositions are difficult to identify

Question 15

analytical behaviorism

verification principle

Answer 15

meaning of a proposition is its conditions of verification

ABs think mental terms must pick out something observable or testable in order to be meaningful