Posted by alexandra_k on August 28, 2005, at 19:46:31
In reply to Re: Reinforcement of behavior, posted by alexandra_k on August 28, 2005, at 19:06:06
>and there is a problem with respect to defining 'kinds' of behaviours in a way which isn't circular... they typically say that a type of behaviour can be defined functionally with respect to what the function of a token instance is and if different tokens have the same function then they count as instances of the same type...
a problem is that all behaviour would seem to have the same function: attainment of a reinforcer.Crap. Thats not quite right. It is very hard indeed to pinpoint exactly what is wrong with behaviourism... There is a problem of circularity. But it isn't true that the function of all instances of behaviour is to attain a reinforcer (because not all behaviour tokens are reinforced).
Incase anyone is interested I found this on the net somewhere... Its a summary from "Skinner Skinned" and article in "Brainstorms"
>However, Dennett does not think behaviorist psychology will be able to explain human intentional action
1. the problems have to do with novelty and generality (76a-b)
Dennett uses the example of being held up for his wallet (76b)a. since he has never been a victim of armed robbery before, one cannot say that his behavior in this case was "reinforced"
b. Skinner would try to say that this behavior was not really new at all, but simply an instance of a more general type of behavior that has been reinforced
c. say the only time Dennett has been threatened before was in response to something he said1.) in these instances, his response was to apologize
2.) but that's not how he would respond to a hold-up!
4. Skinner would have to say that one's present "threat stimuli" must be similar to some threat stimuli one received in the past, which were followed by responses similar to that which one is making nowa. to make this move, however, is to posit an "external" dormitive virtue
b. that is, Skinner does not know but merely infers a person's past history of stimuli in precisely the same way that Skinner accuses others of inferring mental statesJ. When Skinner turns from pigeons to people, his explanations and predictions tend to postulate such speculative histories ofreinforcement (77a-b)
1. as long as Skinner is dealing with pigeons in the lab, he knows their reinforcement history (77a)
2. but when it comes to people, he has to make it up
3. Dennett makes an analogy with chess-playing computersa. we might give intentional explanations of its behavior -- e.g, it wants to capture a rook
b. But Skinner would have to record every move and whether it was "reinforced"
c. Assume we were to let two computers that are capable of learning from mistakes play each other unobserved by us (77b)1.) we could still predict their moves in the same way we would predict those of a human player who is new in town (77b)
2.) Skinner would either not be able to, or have to cheat by predicting its moves the same way we do but saying that it must have been reinforced to make those moves
3.) But he would have no grounds for doing this except to save his theory
4. Skinner is on no stronger grounds when he attributes a reinforcement history to a person to explain his behavior
5. if he complains that mentalistic explanations are too easy, the same can be said of his inferred histories of reinforcement (77b-8a)
6. Skinner is playing the "same game," only using "more cumbersome terminology" (78a)
K. for Dennett, what would count as "unmasking" human intelligence in the way that Skinner unmasks that of animals might include showing that people still turn over their wallets to gunmen even when accompanied by police, etc.
L. Skinner fails to show that there can be a psychology that wholly dispenses with mentalism
poster:alexandra_k
thread:547344
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20050828/msgs/547823.html