What is a mental state, like arrogance, or pain, or thought?
According to Descartes it is a very
special inner state of a person, a non-physical state of a non-physical
substance, a state which the person himself knows
about directly and immediately, but which other people have no real
access to. That's what lies at the bottom of Descartes' argument
from
doubt. I can know all about my own inner mental
states even if I really know nothing
at all about my body (even its existence). That seems a
bit extreme.
Behaviorism is a multi-faceted affair. In Psychology it is a
doctrine about how to go about
studying mental phenomena (viz.
you should study behavior, which is the only aspect of a person
that we can actually observe). In Philosophy it is a doctrine
about the nature of the
mental. It starts from some simple observations about how
we learn mental-state language (language about states of the mind).
How do I learn the mental-state lingo? A brief answer to this question might go something like this. I start to learn the meaning of a word by using and applying the word in the presence of other language users who already know its meaning. They will either commend my use of the words or disapprove of my use of the word, according to whether my use of the word fits with other people's usage. For example, if I start applying the word 'arrogant' to people who behave in a perfectly humble and modest manner, I will be corrected. But if I apply the word to someone who is sneering at the achievements of others, my use of the word will be commended. In order for other people to be able either to commend or to correct my use of the word 'arrogant' there will have to be publically accessible criteria for what counts as arrogant behaviour. The criteria have to be publically accessible, because language users have to be able to agree on their usage, and they can agree only if they all have access to whatever it is that makes the application of the word correct or incorrect. What else could be the publically accessible criteria for the correct application of the word 'arrogant' other than observable arrogant behaviour?
Note that arrogance appears to be some kind of mental state and we pick out this state by the word 'arrogant': we will call words which appear to stand for mental states 'mental state terms'. We apply this word to a person if he behaves in a certain characteristic manner; e.g. scorns the achievements of others, talks loudly about his own, etc. Behaviourism (or, at least a simple version of it) claims that a mental state term (like 'arrogant') correctly applies to a person just when the person exhibits the behaviour connected with the term. And the behaviour connected with the term is the publically accessible behaviour which enables us to learn the correct use of the word. But that is too simple. Rather, mental state terms, like 'arrogant' are associated with various behvioural dispositions.
What does the behaviourist gain? Well, if the
meanings
of the words we use for the mental can all be explained in this way,
then
it turns out that talking about the mental is simply another way of
talking
about the behaviour of other people. And so if a person's
behaviour
is just a matter of his moving his body in various sophisticated ways,
then all mental talk reduces to talk about bodily movements. And
bodily movements are clearly material states of a material item.
So if this linguistic strategy can be pulled off the behaviourist would
have shown that mental states are nothing but certain familiar physical
states of the body.
1 It shows why dualism might have seemed plausible,
but without postulating weird ghostly things.
2 It solves the problem of causal interaction. Dispositions can play a causal role in behavior even if they are not the causes of behavior.
3 It gives a very nice account of mental states of
which we are not conscious.
1 Is the behaviourist analysis of the meaning of
words
adequate? Consider the phrase 'is now dreaming'. Typical
behaviour
associated with this is rapid eye movement, tossing and turning
etc.
But this is not what the term means.
These behavioural dispositions do
constitute evidence for
someone's dreaming, but that is not what we mean by saying that the
person is dreaming.
2 A total paralytic may be incapable of any significant behaviour. Yet it seems clear that he could have a rich mental life. However, if in order to be sad or arrogant, one has to exhibit sad or arrogant dispositions to behave, then the total paralytic cannot be either sad or arrogant.
3 Someone pretending to be in pain (and hence not in pain) could exhibit behavioural dispositions indistinguishable from someone really in pain. But if pain just is pain-behaviour-dispositions then there can be no such possibility.
4 According to the behaviourist being in pain just is the behaviour that a person typically exhibits when she is in pain (shouting, groaning, grimacing, asking for aspirin etc.) Call this behaviour: pain behaviour. So according to the behaviourist pain just is pain behaviour or dispositions to exhibit pain behavior. However, we are inclined to say that pain is not identical to, but rather causes, pain behaviour.
5 Behaviorism also seems to miss the point
that
mental states are inner states which may go unmanifested in behavior
altogether.