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Behaviorism is classified as a psychological theory rather than a philosophy. It has connections to realism through its advocacy of science and empirical verification. Behaviorism views human behavior as observable and governed by natural laws based on environmental circumstances. It rejects notions of free will and looks to facts of behavior to understand patterns and processes. Materialism also influences behaviorism in viewing humans as natural organisms explained by natural laws rather than supernatural concepts.
Behaviorism is classified as a psychological theory rather than a philosophy. It has connections to realism through its advocacy of science and empirical verification. Behaviorism views human behavior as observable and governed by natural laws based on environmental circumstances. It rejects notions of free will and looks to facts of behavior to understand patterns and processes. Materialism also influences behaviorism in viewing humans as natural organisms explained by natural laws rather than supernatural concepts.
Behaviorism is classified as a psychological theory rather than a philosophy. It has connections to realism through its advocacy of science and empirical verification. Behaviorism views human behavior as observable and governed by natural laws based on environmental circumstances. It rejects notions of free will and looks to facts of behavior to understand patterns and processes. Materialism also influences behaviorism in viewing humans as natural organisms explained by natural laws rather than supernatural concepts.
idealism, realism, pragmatism, and other such thought systems are. It is most often classified as a psychological theory. Realism Materialistic Philosophy Behaviorism’s connection with realism is primarily with modern realism and its advocacy of science.
One of the realist elements of
behaviorism includes going from particular, observable facts (particular behaviors) to “forms”, or the laws of behavior. By understanding particular behaviors and how they are caused by environmental circumstances, we can detect the patterns and processes by which behavior comes about.
Thus, it is possible, the behaviorists maintain,
to discern the laws of behavior and thereby come to exercise control over human behavior. Behaviorism holds that we should cease accentuating the mind, consciousness, or soul as the casual agent of behavior and look rather to the facts of behavior, or that which is observable and capable of empirical verification. This consideration is not only Baconian but is representative of contemporary realism. Basically, materialism is the theory that reality can be explained by the laws of matter and motion. We can see that behaviorism is definitely a kind of materialism, for most behaviorists view human beings in terms of their neurological, physiological, and biological contexts. For the materialist, human beings are not partially supernatural beings above nature (as some religious persons might hold), but rather, they are a part of nature; and even though they are one of the more complex natural organisms, they are capable of being studied and are governed by natural law just as any other natural creature. He was an earlier exponent of mechanistic materialism Hobbes was a thorough-going determinist He rejected the elements of self-determination and free will in the thought of Descartes. He was more at home with the thinking of Galileo and Kepler. Life is simply motion, one can say a machine has life, even an artificial one. By the same token, an organized society is like a machine: it has an artificial life that has to be maintained. Even biological natural life is mechanistic in the sense that it operates according to its own design. All that truly exists is matter and motion, and all reality can be explained in terms of mathematical precision. Both materialists and behaviorists believe that we behave in certain ways according to our physical make up. The significant thing is to observe behavior (motion) of a body in an environment (supporting material conditions). The difference however on a behaviorist perspective and to that of mechanistic materialism is that for the behaviorist, human behavior or motion is the significant datum, and knowledge of matter is crucial because it helps us understand behavior itself. Pavlov was an eminent experimental psychologist and physiologist in pre-Soviet Russia. He was noted for his studies of the reflex reaction in humans and animals and devised a number of conditioning experiments. His studies show how both realism and materialism are related. Modern behaviorists hold that Pavlov was headed in the right direction, but that his explanations were too simplistic. The modern view tends more toward a two- way flow while Pavlov showed it only one way. He repudiated the introspective method in psychology as delusive and unscientific. He relied solely on an observational technique restricted to behavior. He believed that the fears people have are conditioned responses to the environment. The behaviorists believe that there is nothing within to develop. If you start with a healthy body, the right number of fingers and toes, and the few elementary movements that are present at birth, you do not need anything else in the way of raw material to make a man, be that man a genius, a cultured gentleman, a rowdy, or a thug. He thought the chief function of the nervous system is simply to coordinate senses with motor responses. Watson also rejected concepts such as purpose, feeling, satisfaction, and free will because they are not observable and therefore not capable of scientific treatment or measurement. One movement that has given a philosophical basis to positions such as Watson’s and Thorndike’s is known as positivism. Philosophical positivism was initiated by Auguste Comte. Comte thought that by applying scientific principles to social conditions systematically, we would be able to recognize the laws constituting the social order, their evolution, and the ways to apply them more systematically. Comte’s thought influenced subsequent thinkers to use science in devising social policy. No longer is science the province of intellectuals and individuals of leisure, but it is now viewed as the key to the better society.
While earlier positivism was founded on the
science of the nineteenth century, contemporary positivism has been more interested in the logic and language of scientific concepts. Positivism is primarily known for its work on the logic of propositions and the principle of verification.
The connection of this philosophical
“school” of thought with behaviorism is that behaviorists seek a language framework that more accurately reflects the facts of behavior to them. Rather than using the word “self” to signify personal identity or the characteristics of an individual, the behaviorists speak of “conditioned” or “reinforced behavior”, “repertoire of behavioral responses”, or perharps “operant conditioning” in regard to the specific organism we may call John Jones. Behaviorists maintains that because we do not know very much about behavior and because of our lack of knowledge we wrongly impute meaning to behavior by reference to an “inner being”, a self, mind, consciousness, soul, or some such hidden entity that “causes” the behavior. Coupled with their concern for more linguistic precision, logical positivists have also championed what is called “the principle of verifiability”. Logical positivists try to discourage nonsense statements and promote language and thought that is more controllable and rigorous. Skinner is sometimes referred to as “the high priest of behaviorism”. He thinks a great deal of error and misunderstanding have come about because philosophers have tried to deduce an understanding of human beings from a priori generalizations, or they have been “armchair scientists” content with introspection. Human nature has been central to the metaphysics of many great philosophers and has been of considerable influence in the philosophical treatment of ethics. Skinner attacks what he calls the traditional views of humanity. From a Skinnerian point of view, we could say that however deplorable the behavior, finding a guilty culprit and punishing him does not get at the real problem. Too often we think knowing is a cognitive process, but it is behavioral and environmental, neurological and even physiological. In response to his critiques saying that Skinner is destroying or abolishing humanity, he said that what is too often destructive is actual human behavior, not a theory. Skinner believes that the importance lies in human behavior and how it makes us what we are. It is Skinner’s position that we have developed through two processes of evolution: one is the biological process from which we evolved, and the other is the cultural process of evolution that we have largely created. We may say that we are our own makers, and while we are doing the making, we are being made or we are in the making. Basically, behavior carries the ideas and values of a culture, and it transforms, alters, and changes a culture. We may say that in cultural that in cultural evolution, what actually evolves are practices set in a social context. Reinforcement follows behavior: it does not precede it (even though most human behavior is conditioned by previous reinforcement). Control lies at the crux of sensitivity to the consequences of our behavior. If we want to change culture or individuals, we must change behavior; and the way to change behavior is to change the contingencies, that is, culture or social environment. Contingencies are the conditions in which behavior occurs; they reinforce it and influence the future direction and quality of behavior. Skinner maintains that contingencies are accessible (even if with difficulty), and as we progressively come to understand the relation between behavior and environment, we will discover new way of controlling behavior. It is possible, as further understanding is developed, to design and control not just isolated behaviors and their contingencies, but a whole culture. Skinner views the educational process as one of the chief ways of designing a culture, and his attention is also directed at numerous other institutions. Good consequences are positive reinforcement and bad consequences are negative or aversive reinforcement. It is easier to change particular teaching practices than a whole educational establishment, and it is easier to change one institution than a whole culture. “If a scientific analysis can tell us how to change behavior, can it tell us what changes to make?” People act to effect changes for reasons, and among these reasons are behavioral consequences. We can see that, for Skinner, the good society and values are within the domain of the behavioral scientist precisely because those goods and values are involved in behavior, even based in it and coming out of it. “personal goods” “goods of others”
“the good of culture”
Change does not occur simply because of the
passage of time, but because of what occurs while time passes. If we are reinforced by human survival, and if human survival depends upon the cultural and physical environment in which we exist, then we will work for human survival by designing culture to that end. The good society is one that gives personal satisfaction, supports social interaction, and furthers our survival. The goods society is valuable, and the way to achieve it is through the proper design of the culture; that is , through the proper arrangement and development of the contingencies of reinforcement. Skinner maintains we need a sophisticated science and technology of human behavior. Although such a development would be morally neutral and could be misused and abused, he believes that it has a definite survival value. Although many people disapprove of the concept of behavioral engineering, it has increasingly become a part of our educational process. Skinner believes that extrinsic rewards are necessary when other methods do not work, or do not work so well, though they should be replaced by more intrinsic rewards at a later date. Behaviorists have a conception of the child as an organism who is already highly programmed before coming to school. Skinner believes that one of the reasons of people having trouble in making moral decisions is that the programming they have received on morality has been very contradictory. Skinner maintains that one of our obligations as adults, and particularly as educators, is to make educational decisions and then to use whatever methods we have at our disposal, conditioning being the best, to achieve them. He believes we should try to create a world of brotherhood and justice, and if conditioning can help, it should be used. One of the points of contention between Skinner and many other people is that they see education and conditioning as two different things. Skinner does not draw any distinction between education and conditioning. He does not feel that the mind is free to begin with. Whatever kinds of critical judgment or acceptance of ideas students make are already predicated on ideas with which they have been previously conditioned. Since so much of our education at present involves rote or memory learning, Skinner feels that mechanical electronic devices also have a very useful part to play. Teaching machines may take very different forms but they are all based on the theory that we should reward the kinds of responses we want, and we should do it immediately. In terms of behavioral engineering, although it has been heavily based on experiments with laboratory animals it can still be applicable to humans and to human education. Skinner argues that the human being is an animal, although more advanced, and the basic difference between humans and other animals is one of degree and not of kind. The primary aim of behavioristic techniques is to change behavior and point it in more desirable directions. Skinner does away with the concept of innate freedom by saying that people have always been controlled, though we have not always been aware of the control and the direction in which it leads. One thing primarily wrong with control is not that it has always existed, but that it has been random and without any real direction. Skinner advocates control and thinks that a new society can be shaped through control. Skinner is a strong advocate of education, although many critics argue that what he means by education is not education but “training”. He charges that much of what passes for education is not good education because it is not reinforcing, it does not properly motivate students to progress and does not deal with immediate reinforcement. Skinner maintains that the children should know immediately when they are right or wrong, and this is why he has championed such methods of immediate reinforcement as programmed learning and teaching machines. Skinner advocates positive reinforcement. Aversive (or negative) reinforcement, although it may be effective, often has many bad side effects. Skinner maintains that the most effective procedure is to withdraw reward. It could be construed that depriving is a form of punishment but he argues that it is simply a matter of ceasing to reward a specific behavior. Many people argue that the aim of behavioral engineering is to turn out robots. But Skinner counters that this is not true, for when we look around at our present world we find that most people are controlled by forces of which they are unconscious. Skinner points out that one who is conditioned may not assent to or be aware that he or she is conditioned. We are all conditioned anyway, and we could even assist in our own conditioning. The development of personal habits depends to a large extent on conditioning techniques that we ourselves use.