B - HOCUTT,M. - The Truth of Behaviorism

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Review: The Truth in BehaviorismAuthor(s): Max HocuttSource: Behaviorism, Vol. 13, No. 1 (Spring, 1985), pp. 77-82Published by: Cambridge Center for Behavioral StudiesStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/27759060 .Accessed: 21/10/2011 17:24

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Behaviorism, Spring 1985, Vol. 13,Number 1

THE TRUTH INBEHAVIORISM:A REVIEWOFG.E. ZURIFF, BEHAVIORISM: ACONCEPTUAL

RECONSTRUCTION

Max Hocutt

University of Alabama

Behaviorism has had a bad press in recent years. Many people have criticized it; few have

had much to say in itsdefense. Much of the criticism has been justified; but if ehaviorism hadever been as bad as they say, we would be hard-put to understand why itenjoyed such a long andcommanding influence over somany intelligent nd thoughtful people. Behaviorism was, afterall, the dominant movement in both psychology and philosophy for most of the first threequarters of this century. Furthermore, if ehaviorism had been as bad as they say, we would beunable to explain how behaviorists were able to produce both a large body of solid and durableresearch findings and an impressively varied educational and therapeutic technology. After all,no other school of psychology, Cartesian or Freudian, can match it on either count.

But explaining these things is easy. At various times in the history of behaviorism, largenumbers of behaviorists have held positions that, however reasonable theymay have been at the

time, cannot now be defended. However, having acknowledged as much, we must insist s wellthat behaviorism has always embodied important and enduring truths. What needs discussing,therefore, isnot what was wrong with behaviorism. Its real and imagined weaknesses have beenthoroughly canvassed. Rather, what needs discussing iswhat was right bout behaviorism. Weneed to separate the truth in behaviorism from the falsehoods, exaggerations, and straw menthat often pass for it in the minds of critics.

Or, anyhow, we needed to do this until Professor G. E. Zuriff (1985) did it for us by writinghis learned, intelligent, thoughtful, beautifully organized, carefully formulated, articulate, andthorough book. Iwish I had written itmyself, and I had recently been giving some seriousthought to doing the necessary reading. But Zuriff has beaten me to it, nd done a far better job

than Icould have. So, what is left or me ismerely to spread theword. And that is what Ihope todo here. I shall not mention all of themany topics covered by Zuriff or review his many carefularguments and formulations. Iam going instead to state inmy own informal and summary wayjust what I take Zuriffs behaviorist message to be and why I think it is right.

Let us begin with the problem of definition. As Zuriff recognizes, the intellectual stances ofbehaviorists have been too varied to be captured by a single formula. To produce such a formulaand to declare it the essential or defining tenet of behaviorism is to imply more unanimity ofopinion than has ever existed. Behaviorists comprise a family, and behaviorists have to eachother what Wittgenstein (1953) called a family resemblance: the eyes of one resemble the eyes ofanother, who has a nose like a third; but there are very few things that all members of the family

have in common. And some members of the family are quite unlike others inpractically everyway. Nevertheless, one theme has always been at the center; and to get far from this theme is to

get far away from behaviorism. Behaviorists have differed inmany ways, but they all wanted tomake psychology into an objective, empirical science.

Doing this had proved impossible for analytical psychologists, and no wonder On theCartesian principles they presupposed, the task cannot be done. As the Cartesians view the

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subject matter of psychology, it is inherently ubjective and beyond the reach of the senses. Everyperson can observe his own mind and its contents by means of introspection, but nobody can

look into anybody else's mind by any means whatsoever; the best anyone can do is observeanother person's behavior and form theories as to the states ofmind that produced it. hus, Icanknow that 1hate my father, because Ican look intomy own mind and detect the passion that lies

open tomy view. And, having observed the unkind things 1 ay about my father nd the unkindway I treat him, you can speculate that Ihate him, because that ishow you behave when you hate

somebody. But, unlike my introspective knowledge, your speculation about my state of mindmust necessarily remain an unconfirmed guess. Since my mind isclosed to your view, and sinceany form of behavior whatsoever might conceivably be associated with any given state ofmind,my hateful behavior might, for all you can know, be an expression of love rather than hate.Which emotion it expresses can never be confirmed by anybody but me, and my confirmation

will do nobody else any good. For, as there isno necessary connection between states ofmindand deeds, so there isnone between states ofmind and words. Thus, asmy hateful deeds mightexpress love, so might my hateful words (Ryle, 1949).

Although the analytical psychologists had not recognized the fact, this Cartesian doctrineprecludes any possibility ofmaking psychology into anything deserving to be called science. Forscience, properly so called, is a public enterprise shared by many people; ithas no truck with

objects or events detectable by only one person and confirmed by means of none of the senses.Indeed, it does not even admit their existence. Thus, although pink rats have reportedly beensighted by people who have consumed too much alcohol on too many occasions, the fact thatthese lurid creatures can be neither sighted nor touched by sober men and women disinclines

zoologists to acknowledge their existence. The rule is that what can be detected by only oneperson or in only one way is not fact but fiction. Measured by this ruler, the personal mentalstates that are supposed by Cartesians to be the objects of each person's introspection butnobody's sensory observation must also be counted not as realities but as illusions; and there anbe no such thing as an objective, empirical science of illusory objects.

Realizing this, the first behaviorists correctly reasoned that they had, first, to freepsychology from dependence on themethod of introspection and, second, to provide itwith anobjective and empirically accessible subject matter. And they proposed to accomplish both goalsby making the objects of their study to be not the subjective states of invisible and intangibleminds but the objective actions of visible and tangible organisms. In a word, they proposed to

make psychology the study of what they called behavior, not yet realizing what a difficultconcept this would eventually turn out to be (Watson, 1930/59).

At first it looked easy, and things went swimmingly for awhile. But in their eagerness tomake themselves into empirical scientists, many behaviorists sought or took advice from thephilosophical empiricists (chiefly, the logical positivists), who were widely regarded as theexperts on matters scientific and empirical. This seemed a good idea at the time, but?as alearned and insightful ut unfriendly book by Australian psychologist Brian Mackenzie (1977)

has shown in some detail?it proved to be a very serious tactical error.Here iswhy. Encouraged by the philosophical empiricists to believe that there is sharp line

between fact and theory?the empirically given and its interpretation or explanation?many

behaviorists resolved always to stay on the safe side of this line, preferring fact to theory, ata toexplanation, the given to the inferred. And, rejecting the Cartesian belief that introspectionprovides us with privileged access to themind and its states, while accepting the Cartesian beliefthat these states of mind are undetectable by means of the senses, they resolved not to permitspeculations about the thoughts, desires, motives, intentions, purposes, and beliefs of otherpeople. Instead, theywould limit psychology to describing observed bodily reactions to observed

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physical stimuli, while eschewing all inferences to the unobservable mental causes of thesereactions. Thus, nobody would say anything about Smith's fear or the rat's hunger; instead, they

would just describe how Smith ran away when the bear appeared and how the rat tapped thelever after being deprived of food for two days.

Though motivated by a laudable desire to avoid making claims that could not be supportedby observation of publicly accessible events and objects, this resolution was unfortunate. Forwhat distinguishes psychology from the physical sciences is precisely its preoccupation with

things mental. By definition, psychology is the study of suchmental states as emotion, desire, andbelief and such mental traits as intelligence and irritability. o, behaviorist resolve to ignoremental states and traits in favor of physical reactions amounted to a resolution to abstain from

psychology in favor of biology, chemistry, or physics.Fortunately, this high-minded proclamation of theoretical and mentalistic celibacy was

never consistently carried out inpractice, and there were many behaviorists who never acceptedit in principle. And a good thing too Had they not departed in practice from the principles ofradical empiricism, behaviorists would probably never have produced anything recognizable as

psychology. They might have expanded Pavlov's account of reflexes, but, finding themselvesunable to reduce actions to complicated groups of reflexes, they would never have been able toaccount for intelligent, purposive, or rule-governed action. Behavioral science without themental in it would have been limited to the study of blinks; it ould never have told us anythingabout winks. Itwould have been confined to studying themechanical and mindless salivating of

dogs; it ould never have investigated the deliberate pecking of starved pigeons or the intentionallever tapping of scared rats, much less the elaborate courting behavior of impassioned human

beings.For what

distinguishesblinks from winks and salivation from pecking, lever tapping, and

courting isprecisely that where the former are mechanical and mindless, the latter re contrived

by more or less intelligent agents to achieve more or lesswell-defined ends (Taylor, 1964).

As Zuriff demonstrates in detail, however, behaviorists rarely foreswore in practice the use

of thementalistic or theoretical vocabulary some (by nomeans all) of them repudiated in theory.A few intrepid empiricists confined themselves to what came to be known as S-R psychology,but most behaviorists soon brought in the back door what some of themore puritanical amongthem had kicked out the front. Thus, Hull got purposive behavior back into psychology by

means of the law of effect, the principle that the frequency of a form of behavior isa function ofits previous effects; and E. C. Tolman got desires, beliefs, and other states of mind back bytalking about complicated functions, called intervening variables, that relate variable stimuli tovariable responses, explaining why the same response is not always produced by the same

stimulus. And when these ingenious devices proved insufficient to do the job, some behavioral

psychologists (even including radical behaviorist B. F. Skinner) went so far as to fill in the blanks

by postulating covert (meaning unobserved) stimuli and responses, while others invented what

they called hypothetical constructs (meaning unobserved states of the organism) to connect overt

(meaning observed) stimuli and responses. And so on. Thus, by one means or another, workingbehaviorists welcomed back thementalistic concepts and theoretical apparatus the preachers of

radical empiricism had once made such a show of banishing.With some measure of justice, critics have held this against them (Dennett, 1978). The view

of most critics is that behaviorists should either liveby their radical empiricist principles ormaketheir working mentalism honest by acknowledging it openly. As the critics have frequentlyremarked with glee and malice, radical empiricism remained for behaviorists an unpracticedideal, to be paid pious lip service but not obeyed in fact. Working behaviorists usually permittedthemselves (if not always each other) to describe fleeing Smiths as "afraid" and starved rats as

"hungry," while excusing their own departure from the empiricist high road as an expedient if

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questionable facon de parler. Flagging dubious mentalistic terminology with scare-quotes, like

grocer advertising pork shoulder as "picnic ham," behaviorists enjoyed the advantages of atheoretical and mentalistic vocabulary while disclaiming responsibility for its ccuracy. This was

slightly hypocritical, as they knew; and itwas often done at the cost of a bad conscience, but itwas done.

All this is true, but if his information isoffered as an objection, the argument assumes two

things that the history of behavioristic psychology, as reconstructed by Zuriff, shows to beclearly untrue. First, it ssumes that behaviorism iswedded to radical empiricism. Second, itassumes the essential correctness of the Cartesian view of the mental. Both assumptions arewrong. Although many behaviorists have naively paid lip service to radical empiricism, theworking epistemology for behaviorists has always been not empiricism but pragmatism, thephilosophy from which behaviorism historically emerged; and pragmatism justifies, whereradical empiricism could not, pragmatic use ofmentalistic theory. So, although behaviorists are

committed to repudiating Cartesianism, itdoes not follow that their principles require them todeny the reality of themental. What their principles require isonly that they explain thementalbehavioristically. Let me elaborate both points.

Begin with the first. We noted earlier that the essence of radical empiricism is the assumptionthat empirical and objective science requires the existence of a sensory given, an uninterpreteddatum. Although this was once an unquestioned dogma of empiricism, it has proved to beinsupportable. Recent discussions among psychologists, epistemologists, and philosophers ofscience have made clear that the once hallowed dichotomy between datum and interpretation is

myth. There is no such thing as a sensory given, an empirical fact devoid of interpretation;observation is theory-laden; to observe is to interpret Hanson, 1958). Seeing, hearing, and the

like are not acts of passive reception of incoming information; they are active acts ofdiscriminating (Gibson, 1966). In short: Observation properly so-called involves the use ofconcepts as well as the use of the organic senses. Without concepts, seeing is just staring, notcomprehending; eyeballing, not observing. To comprehend what you see, to observe it,you mustnot merely aim your eyeballs at it;you must also classify it, escribe it, ut it nder some heading.

Not only does observation thus involve description, but?contrary to radical empiricistdogma?description involves theory, explanation. The concepts we use to describe and classifythings themselves embody or presuppose certain ways of explaining those things. Thus, as

Aristotle astutely remarked, to observe that the moon isbeing eclipsed isnot merely to record thefact that part of it is in shadow but also to explain that fact by suggesting what has caused theshadow. Similarly, to observe that Smith spoke angrily toMary?or even just that he spoke toher (as distinguished from grunting or crying out inpain)?is not just to describe what happenedbut also to provide the event with some measure of explanation. Nor is there ny avoiding thissort of nascent theorizing. One theoretical leaf of the observational onion can be peeled away,and then another, but if ll the leaves are peeled away, no onion is left. o, just as there isnecessarily no such thing s observation without interpretation, there is also necessarily no suchthing as interpretation without explanation?no such thing as fact without theory.

To say this is not at all to say that no useful distinctions can be made between fact andtheory, data and interpretation, description and explanation, just that the distinctions are notabsolute or fixed but relative and shifting. As the philosopher Willard Quine (Quine & Ullian,1970) has emphasized, the practical, working measure of these distinctions is the amount of

agreement or disagreement between informed scientists: We count as data statements aboutwhich there isno longer any serious dispute; and we count as theory statements which remainsubject to serious doubt by informed and competent members of the scientific community.Unlike truth, mpirical content and objectivity are, therefore, not inherent features of theworldbut functions of intersubjective agreement. Thus, the daily rising of the sun isno longer regarded

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as an objective, observed fact. Now the fact isbetter reported (and simultaneously explained) bysaying that the horizon falls. Should that interpretation of events itself ver be challenged again,

weshall peel away

onelayer of

onion and talksimply

about theincreasing angle

of incidencebetween sun and horizon. But while this description would be less theoretical and more factual,even itwould contain the comparatively theoretical concepts of the sun and the horizon. On the

pragmatic view of observation, there is no such thing as a bare, uninterpreted datum; all facts

embody theories.As Zuriff explains with admirable clarity and detailed illustration, such a pragmatic account

of observation justifies the working behaviorisms departures from radical empiricism. Thus, it

justifies talk of purposiveness, intervening variables, hypothetical constructs, and covert stimulior responses. It even justifies the behaviorist who makes use for the time being?until better

concepts have been fashioned by experimentation and analysis?of such unscientific concepts of

folk psychology as belief, desire, emotion, intelligence, and the like. (The correct view forbehaviorists to take is not that these concepts are illegitimate because they are mental andtheoretical but that they are liable one day to replacement because they are primitive andunscientific (Stich, 1983).)Thus, behaviorists need feel no compunction about saying that the rat

taps the lever deliberately, that he approaches the gap in themaze cautiously, or that he runsfrom the noxious stimulus infear, for such descriptions normally have no difficulty securing the

agreement of competent observers. And while agreement may not guarantee truth, it is goodenough for the purposes of an ongoing science. Besides, it can be withdrawn when it becomes

suspect; it is a working hypothesis, not something fixed in concrete. In short, pragmatismpermits behaviorists to do what radical empiricism could not?make use ofmentalistic concepts

while recognizing their defects and limitations.To be sure, even pragmatic epistemology could not have secured this desirable outcome if

behaviorism were the doctrine that mental states and traits re inherently ndetectable bymeansof the senses. And agreement with that proposition was one mistake made by the radical

empiricists, who accepted the Cartesian view that the only access to mental states was bypersonal introspection. However, while that contention is the central doctrine of Cartesianismand is shared by radical empiricism, it has nothing to do with behaviorism properly so-called.

Rightly understood, behaviorism requires the contrary thesis: that mental traits, dispositions,and states are empirically detectable because manifest inbehavior. Belief that there are invisibleand inaudible states ofmind isa Cartesian myth. The behaviorist truth is that aman's emotionsare quite literally visible in his movements and audible in the sounds he makes; so that, ifyouknow the context in which these are occuring and how they are normally related to suchcontexts, you can tell how he feels and thinks by looking at and listening to him. That iswhat

makes so apt the old joke about the two behaviorists who greet each other by saying, "You feelfine; how do I feel?"

Since the point is important, letus belabor itjust a bit. Rightly understood, the behaviorist'sview isnot that a man's anger, a child's love, a woman's intelligence, or a horse's gentleness are

undetectable by means of the senses. Rather, his view is that all of thesemental states and traitsare observable by means of the senses because manifest in behavior. Thus a knowledgeableobserver can

quite literallyee a man's emotion in the flush of his face, hear it in the shrillness of

his voice, and feel it in the menace of his posture?just as a skilled sailor can see the strength ofthe wind in the textures and waves on the surface of the water. That a lessacute observer would

regard these observations as inferences from tone of voice and posture of body proves nothing tothe contrary?no more than does the fact that a naive sailor can only infer the force of the windfrom readings of the wind meter. All both cases prove is that speculation for one person isobservation for another.

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But I have run out of space without telling you about any of themany interesting etails. Itwould be fun to recount such things as how behaviorists made intervening variables and

hypotheticalconstructs

empirically respectable,how behaviorism can accommodate what is

good in cognitive psychology while avoiding what is bad, and how Skinner can answer

Chomsky. To find out all of these things and more, read Zuriffs book. YouH be glad you did.

REFERENCES

Dennett, D. C. (1978). Skinner skinned. Brainstorms. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 53-70.

Gibson, J. J. (1966). TTie senses considered as perceptual systems. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

Hanson, N. R. (1958). Patterns of discovery. Cambridge University Press.

Mackenzie, B. D. (1977). Behaviourism and the limits of scientific method. Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press.

Quine, W. V. ,& Ullian, J. S. (1970). The web of belief. New York: Random House.

Ryle, G. (1949). The concept of mind. New York: Barnes and Noble.

Stich, S. P. (1983). From folk psychology to cognitive science: The case against belief. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Taylor, C. (1964). The explanation of behaviour. New York: Humanities Press.

Watson, J. B. (1930/59). Behaviorism. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

Wittgenstein, L. (1963). Philosophical investigations. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.

Zuriff, G. E. (1985). Behaviorism: A conceptual reconstruction. New York: Columbia University Press.

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B - HOCUTT,M. - The Truth of Behaviorism