Over half a century ago in the heyday of behaviourism Wittgenstein said, the

confusion and barrenness of psychology is not to be explained by calling it a young

science.. For in psychology there is conceptual confusion... The existence of the
experimental method makes us think we have the means of solving the problems which
trouble us; though problem and method pass one another by
Does this critique apply to modern psychology?
What was wrong with behaviourism to make it change to cognitivism, does cognitivism
justify the change?
Obstacles are not complications or deterrents. They are the reason psychologists strive to
understand. The mission is to fashion an instrument that could understand, including hurdles.
The goal is to create a useful study guide towards the science of mental life, to fuse the
psychological with the neurobiological, which started with behaviourism and continues on
today through cognitivism.
Psychology lacks the detailed knowledge of psychological phenomena. The idea of
psychology as a young science should be disregarded, as Wittgenstein stated it is not
comparable to physics as the main development of physics was the transformation of
qualitative observations to into quantitative measurement by means of instruments. In some
ways psychology is on the right track, replacing introspectionist methods with methodical
observations of behaviour, even though they fail to appreciate that the direct experience of the
subject remains.
Titchener noted two major difficulties that stand in the way of behaviorism. First, he argued,
there is more to science than Watson seemed to believe. Second, what would the "natural
science of psychology," as envisaged by Watson, make of concepts and phenomena of
consciousness?
Against this background, the following observations concerning the fate of consciousnessrelated terms and phenomena in psychology are inescapable. Behaviorist psychology took a
wrong turn first by ignoring such phenomena. It then made matters worse by simply
renaming them with the claim that they are all simply behaviorsjust like bar pressing, book
writing, eating a meal, and any other commonly observable activity. Nonbehaviorist
psychology, on the other hand, took those terms unexamined, on the implicit assumption that
they were names of identifiable events, and proceeded to search for them. This practice was
labeled "cognitive psychology," which was regaled as a revolution by some of its advocates.
This revolution seemed to absolve the psychologist from carefully examining how such terms
function in language and what sorts of observations might have given rise to them (see
Harzem, 1996, for a discussion of the same curious way of proceeding that occurred in
philosophy).
The misconceptions of mental processes, of the faculties of the mind, and of the
relationship between the mind, the brain and behaviour are a primary cause of what
Wittgenstein saw as the barrenness of psychology. Behaviourism and cognitivism both rely
on the unconscious, which is still relatively unknown, supporting the idea of conceptual
confusion.

The heyday of behaviourism was in the inter-war years of the twentieth century. It
was succeeded by the so-called cognitive revolution in psychology in the 1950s and 60s,
which reacted to the excesses of behaviourism. Its initial aim was to revive the study of
cognition in experimental psychology. However, it rapidly abandoned this objective. For the
explanatory models that dominated the discipline were based on information-processing,
hypothesized internal representations, and computational operations on internal
representations. Here, I think, Wittgensteinian reflections can pinpoint confusions.
It is common among psychologists and cognitive neuroscientists to speak of internal
representations in the brain. In so far as representation signifies no more than a causal
correlate in the brain of an external stimulus, this is innocuous. But it is evident that all too
frequently it is meant to signify a symbolic representation. And it makes no sense to speak of
semantic (symbolic) representations in the brain.
Alongside the tendency to ascribe semantic representations to the brain was a further
questionable commitment, namely to the idea that the brain operates upon representations,
transforming them according to rules. This idea seems to be inspired, at least in part, by a
misapprehension and misdescription of information processing by computers. But it was
greatly strengthened by Chomskys linguistic theories in the 1950s and 60s. According to
Chomsky, to understand an utterance the mind/brain must determine its phonetic form and
its words and then use the principles of universal grammar and the values of the parameters to
project a structured representation of this expression and determine how its parts are
associated. To understand a sentence, Chomsky averred, is to interpret it by a computational
process of unconscious inference. The computations involved may be fairly intricate ... But
since they rely on principles of universal grammar that are part of the fixed structure of the
mind/brain, it is fair to suppose that they take place virtually simultaneously and beyond the
level of possible introspection.
First, it makes no sense to speak of symbolic or semantic representations in the brain.
For such representations are determined by conventions. They are representations only in so
far as they have a rule-governed use, and hence only in so far as there is a correct and
incorrect way of using them. For an object, a sign, to be a semantic representation of
anything, it must have a meaning. It is not a sign of, but a sign for, what it represents. And
that it is a sign for what it represents is exhibited in explanations of its meaning given in a
symbol-employing community, in corrections of mistakes by users, and in explanations by
users of what they mean by it. But brains are not members of a community, and it makes no
sense to suppose that brains can be said to employ symbols. Moreover, those who use a
symbol mean something by it when they use it, but it makes no sense to ascribe meaning
something to the brain or its parts.
Secondly, the supposition that a system of rules might be part of the fixed structure of
the mind/brain ... beyond the level of possible introspection is nonsensical. It makes no sense
to speak of an unformulated rule being part of the fixed structure of the mind or of the brain.
Human beings may engage in rule-governed activity without formulating the rule in so many
words they would teach the activity by example and exemplification. But brains and minds

do not do so. And it is unintelligible to suppose that a rule-formulation is part of the fixed
structure of the mind/brain, unless there is writing or speech to be found in this strange
organ.
Thirdly, it makes no sense to speak of the brains following rules, just as it makes no
sense to speak of a computer following rules (as opposed to producing results that accord
with rules). To follow a rule is the exercise of a two-way ability to act or not to act. But
neither brains nor computers have two-way abilities. But to be caused to behave in a manner
that coincides with what a rule follower would do, to be caused to generate the same output
as would result from following a rule, is not to follow a rule at all. Indeed, it is to make any
rule altogether redundant for the operations of the entity (brain or computer) since
mechanical necessitation has replaced normative behaviour. A medieval monk who struck a
bell every hour as determined by an hour glass, was following a rule; a church clock is not.
An abacus or slide rule does not follow any rules. Neither does a computer. Nor does a brain.
And when they malfunction, they do not transgress rules.

Fourthly, it makes no sense to suppose that the brain engages in computations (any
more, strictly speaking, than a computer engages in computations and calculations). For to
engage in calculations and computations is precisely to follow a set of rules, which
presupposes not only a two way ability, but also an understanding of the symbolism and of
the computational rules associated with it. But the brain is not a possible subject of
understanding (any more than is a computer). It cannot be said to understand any symbols or
to know what they mean, let alone to use symbols and mean something by their use, for
brains can neither mean nor fail to mean anything. If these four points are correct, as I believe
them to be, then computational theories in psychology, cognitive neuroscience and theoretical
linguistics need extensive revision.
Rangell (2006) expressed that all theory was both clinical and abstract, some closer to
one side, some to the other, that every abstract formulation is derived from a clinical base,
and vice versa, that every clinical observation is understood by abstract thinking. This being
an example of flawed logic, the denial of consequentiality. Rational argument and the
consequences of reason need not be countered; they can be ignored.?
Craik (1991) concludes that cognitivism will bury experimental psychology. stems
from a concern about the rationalist, non-empirical bias of much of current cognitive
science. What is going on is a corrective to a long-standing imbalance in the relative
importance experimental psychologists have given to theory and data. Psychologists, are full
of misapprehensions about what function theories serve in science, and their relation to data.
The relation is one of logical interdependence. Data in and of itself cannot make science
go. Data must bear on a theory to be of use to science.
Behaviorism and Cognitivism are two movements in psychology that have significant
implications for viewing learning and education. Behaviorism is the study of behavior for the
purpose of identifying its determinants. Behaviorism employs mechanism as a fundamental

metaphor, which assumes that behavior is governed by a finite set of physical laws.
Cognitivism was a reaction to Behaviorism. It is the study of mental processes through the
scientific method and abstractions from behavior. Cognitivism employs mechanism and
information processing as the principle metaphors for interpreting findings.
The two movements differ particularly in their views on behavior. Behaviorism, whose
research subjects were mostly animals, views behavior as an irreducible consequence of
environmental stimuli, where as Cognitivism, whose research subjects are often humans, sees
behavior as a point from which to abstract the mental processes behind the behavior.
Cognitivism and Behaviorism are also similar in significant ways. They both use mechanism
as a fundamental assumption. Cognitivism goes beyond behaviorism in that it extends the
mechanical assumptions to the mind, not just behavior. But nonetheless both movements
view human action, mental or otherwise, as determined by physical laws.
The two movements also hold in common a contradiction; they use subjective metaphors as
the base for objective science. Behaviorism uses the stimulus and response metaphor to
interpret exhibited behavior in the world and sets its inquiry according to the affordances of
the metaphor. Similarly, Cognitivism uses information processing as a way to explain how
humans perceive, remember, and understand the world around them. Because cognitive
science bases its inquiry within the information processing metaphor, the conclusions about
mental processes are only as objective to the level that metaphor is subjective.
Though the two movements are different, cognitive does not escape all of behaviorisms
criticism. Cognitive science, however, overcomes Behaviorisms main faults, particularly that
reflexes and reinforcements cannot account for all human behavior and that animal behavior
is not the best predictor of human behavior.
Cognitivism also attempts to go beyond behaviorism by attempting to explain how humans
reason, make decisions, why they make errors, how they remember and mis-remember, in
other words, things that are very much part of the human experience but cannot be explained
by behavior alone. Nevertheless, with its roots in mechanism, cognitivism is still subject to
the reductionism that leaves no room for meaningful human action. Cognitive science may
have made advances over a strict stimulus/response view of the world, but a metaphor of
inputs and outputs to explain how humans think a feel does not reconcile within mechanics
and physical laws how humans are self-actuating. A machine, by default has no inherent
meaning or sentience, but in humans, something is doing the filtering, the creating, and the
development of meaning. A science that has at its core a metaphor that assumes there is no
action until acted upon cannot fully explain human behavior, mental processes, or human
meaning.