Review: The Truth in Behaviorism

Author(s): Max Hocutt

Source: Behaviorism, Vol. 13, No. 1 (Spring, 1985), pp. 77-82
Published by: Cambridge Center for Behavioral Studies
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Behaviorism,
Spring
1985, Vol.
13,
Number 1
THE TRUTH IN BEHAVIORISM: A REVIEW OF
G.E.
ZURIFF,
BEHAVIORISM: A CONCEPTUAL
RECONSTR UCTION
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 its defense. Much of the criticism has been
justified;
but if behaviorism had
ever been as bad as
they say,
we
would be
hard-put
to understand
why
it
enjoyed
such a
long
and
commanding
influence over so
many intelligent
and
thoughtful people.
Behaviorism was, after
all,
the dominant movement in both
psychology
and
philosophy
for most of the first three
quarters
of this
century.
Furthermore,
if behaviorism had been as bad as
they say,
we
would be
unable to
explain
how behaviorists were able to
produce
both a
large body
of solid and durable
research
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,
large
numbers of behaviorists have held
positions
that,
however reasonable
they may
have been at the
time,
cannot now be defended.
However,
having acknowledged
as
much,
we must insist as well
that behaviorism has
always
embodied
important
and
enduring
truths. What needs
discussing,
therefore,
is not what was
wrong
with behaviorism. Its real and
imagined
weaknesses have been
thoroughly
canvassed.
Rather,
what needs
discussing
is what was
right
about behaviorism. We
need to
separate
the truth in behaviorism from the
falsehoods,
exaggerations,
and straw men
that 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 writing
his
learned,
intelligent, thoughtful, beautifully organized, carefully formulated, articulate,
and
thorough
book. I wish I had written it
myself,
and I had
recently
been
giving
some serious
thought
to
doing
the
necessary reading.
But Zuriff has beaten me to
it,
and done a far better
job
than I could have.
So,
what is left for me is
merely
to
spread
the word. And that is what I
hope
to
do here. I shall not mention all of the
many topics
covered
by
Zuriff or review his
many
careful
arguments
and formulations. I am
going
instead to state in
my
own
informal and
summary way
just
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 of
behaviorists have been too varied to be
captured by
a
single
formula. To
produce
such a formula
and to declare it the essential or
defining
tenet of behaviorism is to
imply
more
unanimity
of
opinion
than has ever existed. Behaviorists
comprise
a
family,
and behaviorists have to each
other what
Wittgenstein (1953)
called a
family
resemblance: the
eyes
of one resemble the
eyes
of
another,
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 in
practically every
way. 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 in
many ways,
but
they
all wanted to
make
psychology
into an
objective, empirical
science.
Doing
this had
proved impossible
for
analytical psychologists,
and no
wonder! On the
Cartesian
principles they presupposed,
the task cannot be done. As the Cartesians view the
77
HOCUTT
subject
matter of
psychology,
it is
inherently subjective
and
beyond
the reach of the senses.
Every
person
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 observe
another
person's
behavior and form theories as to the states of mind that
produced
it.
Thus,
I can
know that 1 hate
my
father,
because I can look into
my
own mind and detect the
passion
that lies
open
to
my
view. And,
having
observed the unkind
things
1
say
about
my
father and the unkind
way
I treat
him,
you
can
speculate
that I hate
him,
because that is how
you
behave when
you
hate
somebody.
But, unlike
my introspective knowledge, your speculation
about
my
state of mind
must
necessarily
remain an unconfirmed
guess.
Since
my
mind is closed to
your
view,
and since
any
form of behavior whatsoever
might conceivably
be associated with
any given
state of
mind,
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 is no
necessary
connection between states of mind
and deeds,
so there is none between states of mind and words.
Thus,
as
my
hateful deeds
might
express
love,
so
might my
hateful words
(Ryle, 1949).
Although
the
analytical psychologists
had not
recognized
the
fact,
this Cartesian doctrine
precludes any possibility
of
making psychology
into
anything deserving
to be called science. For
science,
properly
so
called,
is a
public enterprise
shared
by many people;
it has 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
been
sighted by people
who have consumed too much alcohol on too
many
occasions,
the fact that
these 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
one
person
or in
only
one
way
is not fact but fiction. Measured
by
this
ruler,
the
personal
mental
states that are
supposed by
Cartesians to be the
objects
of each
person's introspection
but
nobody's sensory
observation must also be counted not as realities but as
illusions;
and there can
be no such
thing
as an
objective, empirical
science of
illusory objects.
Realizing
this,
the first behaviorists
correctly
reasoned that
they
had, first,
to free
psychology
from
dependence
on the method of
introspection
and, second,
to
provide
it with an
objective
and
empirically
accessible
subject
matter. And
they proposed
to
accomplish
both
goals
by making
the
objects
of their
study
to be not the
subjective
states of invisible and
intangible
minds 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 difficult
concept
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
to
make themselves into
empirical
scientists, many
behaviorists
sought
or took advice from the
philosophical empiricists (chiefly,
the
logical positivists),
who were
widely regarded
as the
experts
on matters scientific and
empirical.
This seemed a
good
idea at the
time, but?as a
learned and
insightful
but
unfriendly
book
by
Australian
psychologist
Brian Mackenzie
(1977)
has shown in some detail?it
proved
to be a
very
serious tactical error.
Here is
why. Encouraged by
the
philosophical empiricists
to believe that there is a
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,
data to
explanation,
the
given
to the inferred. And,
rejecting
the Cartesian belief that
introspection
provides
us with
privileged
access to the mind and its
states, while
accepting
the Cartesian belief
that these states of mind are
undetectable
by
means of the senses,
they
resolved not to
permit
speculations
about the
thoughts,
desires, motives, intentions,
purposes,
and beliefs of other
people.
Instead,
they
would limit
psychology
to
describing
observed
bodily
reactions to
observed
78
REVIEW OF ZURIFF
physical
stimuli,
while
eschewing
all inferences to the unobservable mental causes of these
reactions. 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
the
lever after
being deprived
of food for two
days.
Though
motivated
by
a laudable desire to avoid
making
claims that could not be
supported
by
observation of
publicly
accessible events and
objects,
this resolution was unfortunate. For
what
distinguishes psychology
from the
physical
sciences is
precisely
its
preoccupation
with
things
mental.
By
definition,
psychology
is the
study
of such mental states as
emotion, desire,
and
belief and such mental traits as
intelligence
and
irritability.
So,
behaviorist resolve to
ignore
mental 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 in
practice,
and there were
many
behaviorists who never
accepted
it in
principle.
And
a
good thing
too! Had
they
not
departed
in
practice
from the
principles
of
radical
empiricism,
behaviorists would
probably
never have
produced anything recognizable
as
psychology. They might
have
expanded
Pavlov's account of
reflexes, but,
finding
themselves
unable to reduce actions to
complicated groups
of
reflexes,
they
would never have been able to
account for
intelligent, purposive,
or
rule-governed
action. Behavioral science without the
mental in it would have been limited to the
study
of
blinks;
it could never have told us
anything
about winks. It would have been confined to
studying
the mechanical and mindless
salivating
of
dogs;
it could never have
investigated
the deliberate
pecking
of starved
pigeons
or the intentional
lever
tapping
of scared rats, much less the elaborate
courting
behavior of
impassioned
human
beings.
For what
distinguishes
blinks from winks and salivation from
pecking,
lever
tapping,
and
courting
is
precisely
that where the former are mechanical and
mindless,
the latter are contrived
by
more or less
intelligent agents
to achieve more or less well-defined ends
(Taylor, 1964).
As Zuriff demonstrates in
detail, however,
behaviorists
rarely
foreswore in
practice
the use
of the mentalistic
or theoretical
vocabulary
some
(by
no means
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 the more
puritanical
among
them 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 is a function of
its
previous
effects;
and E. C. Tolman
got desires, beliefs,
and other states of mind back
by
talking
about
complicated
functions,
called
intervening
variables,
that relate variable stimuli to
variable
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,
working
behaviorists welcomed back the mentalistic
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 live
by
their radical
empiricist principles
or make
their
working
mentalism honest
by acknowledging
it
openly.
As the critics have
frequently
remarked with
glee
and malice, radical
empiricism
remained for behaviorists
an
unpracticed
ideal,
to be
paid pious lip
service but not
obeyed
in fact.
Working
behaviorists
usually permitted
themselves
(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
79
HOCUTT
questionable facon
de
parler. Flagging
dubious mentalistic
terminology
with
scare-quotes,
like a
grocer advertising pork
shoulder as
"picnic
ham,"
behaviorists
enjoyed
the
advantages
of a
theoretical and mentalistic
vocabulary
while
disclaiming responsibility
for its
accuracy.
This was
slightly hypocritical,
as
they
knew;
and it was often done at the cost of a bad
conscience,
but it
was done.
All this is
true,
but if this information is offered as an
objection,
the
argument
assumes two
things
that the
history
of behavioristic
psychology,
as reconstructed
by
Zuriff,
shows to be
clearly
untrue.
First,
it assumes that behaviorism is wedded to radical
empiricism.
Second,
it
assumes the essential correctness of the Cartesian view of the mental. Both
assumptions
are
wrong. Although many
behaviorists have
naively paid lip
service to radical
empiricism,
the
working epistemology
for behaviorists has
always
been not
empiricism
but
pragmatism,
the
philosophy
from which behaviorism
historically emerged;
and
pragmatism justifies,
where
radical
empiricism
could not,
pragmatic
use of mentalistic
theory.
So,
although
behaviorists are
committed to
repudiating Cartesianism,
it does not follow that their
principles require
them to
deny
the
reality
of the mental. What their
principles require
is
only
that
they explain
the mental
behavioristically.
Let me elaborate both
points.
Begin
with the first. We noted earlier that the essence of radical
empiricism
is the
assumption
that
empirical
and
objective
science
requires
the existence of a
sensory given,
an
uninterpreted
datum.
Although
this was once an
unquestioned dogma
of
empiricism,
it has
proved
to be
insupportable.
Recent discussions
among
psychologists, epistemologists,
and
philosophers
of
science have made clear that the once hallowed
dichotomy
between datum and
interpretation
is a
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 of
discriminating (Gibson, 1966).
In short: Observation
properly
so-called involves the use
of
concepts
as well as the use of the
organic
senses.
Without
concepts, seeing
is
just staring,
not
comprehending; eyeballing,
not
observing.
To
comprehend
what
you see,
to observe
it, you
must
not
merely
aim
your eyeballs
at
it; you
must also
classify it,
describe
it, put
it under some
heading.
Not
only
does observation thus involve
description, but?contrary
to radical
empiricist
dogma?description
involves
theory, explanation.
The
concepts
we use to describe and
classify
things
themselves
embody
or
presuppose
certain
ways
of
explaining
those
things.
Thus,
as
Aristotle
astutely
remarked,
to observe that the moon is
being eclipsed
is
not
merely
to record the
fact that
part
of it is in shadow but also to
explain
that fact
by suggesting
what has caused the
shadow.
Similarly,
to observe that Smith
spoke angrily
to
Mary?or
even
just
that he
spoke
to
her
(as
distinguished
from
grunting
or
crying
out in
pain)?is
not
just
to describe what
happened
but also to
provide
the event with some measure of
explanation.
Nor is there
any avoiding
this
sort of nascent
theorizing.
One theoretical leaf of the observational onion can be
peeled away,
and then
another,
but if all the leaves are
peeled away,
no onion is left.
So,
just
as there is
necessarily
no such
thing
as observation without
interpretation,
there is also
necessarily
no such
thing
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 and
theory,
data and
interpretation, description
and
explanation, just
that the distinctions are not
absolute 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 about
which there is no
longer any
serious
dispute;
and we count as
theory
statements which remain
subject
to serious doubt
by
informed and
competent
members of the scientific
community.
Unlike
truth,
empirical
content and
objectivity
are,
therefore,
not
inherent features of the world
but functions of
intersubjective agreement. Thus,
the
daily rising
of the sun is no
longer regarded
80
REVIEW OF ZURIFF
as an
objective,
observed fact. Now the fact is better
reported
(and
simultaneously explained) by
saying
that the horizon falls. Should that
interpretation
of events itself ever be
challenged again,
we shall
peel away
one
layer
of onion and talk
simply
about the
increasing angle
of incidence
between
sun and horizon. But while this
description
would be less theoretical and more
factual,
even it would 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 stimuli
or
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 for
behaviorists to take is not that these
concepts
are
illegitimate
because
they
are mental and
theoretical but that
they
are liable one
day
to
replacement
because
they
are
primitive
and
unscientific
(Stich, 1983).) Thus,
behaviorists need feel no
compunction
about
saying
that the rat
taps
the lever
deliberately,
that he
approaches
the
gap
in the maze
cautiously,
or that he runs
from the noxious stimulus in
fear,
for such
descriptions normally
have no
difficulty securing
the
agreement
of
competent
observers. And while
agreement may
not
guarantee
truth,
it is
good
enough
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,
pragmatism
permits
behaviorists
to do what radical
empiricism
could not?make use of mentalistic
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 are
inherently
undetectable
by
means
of 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
by
personal introspection.
However,
while that contention is the central doctrine of
Cartesianism
and 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 in behavior. Belief that there are invisible
and inaudible states of mind is a Cartesian
myth.
The behaviorist truth is that a man's emotions
are
quite literally
visible in his movements and audible in the sounds he
makes;
so
that,
if
you
know the context in which these are
occuring
and how
they
are
normally
related to such
contexts,
you
can tell how he feels and thinks
by looking
at and
listening
to him. That is what
makes so
apt
the old
joke
about the two behaviorists who
greet
each other
by saying,
"You feel
fine;
how do I feel?"
Since the
point
is
important,
let us belabor it
just
a bit.
Rightly
understood,
the behaviorist's
view is not 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 these mental states and traits
are observable
by
means
of
the senses because
manifest
in behavior. Thus a
knowledgeable
observer can
quite literally
see 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
of
the wind in the textures and waves on the surface of the water. That a less acute observer would
regard
these observations as inferences from tone of voice and
posture
of
body proves nothing
to
the
contrary?no
more than does the fact that a naive sailor
can
only
infer the force of the wind
from
readings
of the wind meter. All both
cases
prove
is that
speculation
for one
person
is
observation for another.
81
HOCUTT
But I have run out of
space
without
telling you
about
any
of the
many interesting
details. It
would be fun to recount such
things
as how behaviorists made
intervening
variables and
hypothetical
constructs
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.
82