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From: jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton)
Subject: Re: Ryle
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Date: Mon, 20 Feb 1995 03:29:52 GMT
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In article <3i09qb$gjn@mp.cs.niu.edu> rickert@cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert) writes:
>In <D43oDt.CKs@cogsci.ed.ac.uk> jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton) writes:
>>In article <3hb0bh$15l@mp.cs.niu.edu> rickert@cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert) writes:
>
>>>For his alternative, I think his case is weaker.  He pushed knowhow
>>>rather than 'knowing that', and I wholeheartedly support him there.
>>>But, having made that step, one of the major reasons that
>>>philosophers talk about 'belief' is dissolved.  He would have done
>>>better if he had simply dispensed with belief altogether, instead of
>>>his not-very-convincing dispositional analysis.
>
>>Out of behaviorism and into eliminativism, we might say.
>
>There are some senses in which Ryle does not seem to fit very well as
>a behaviorist.  He does talk about thinking, and recognizes its
>importance.

Ryle is commonly considered a "logical behaviorist", but I wouldn't
be surprised if his actual views were less easily categorized.
Perhaps no one is a behaviorist, as the behaviorist positions are
normally described.  For instance, in his useful book _The Science
of Mind_ (2nd ed), Owen Flanagan says of Skinner that "what makes
his theory behavioristic is really only an attitude" and goes on
to talk of Skinner's "epistemological conservatism" (p 89).  Later
(p 93), he quotes Skinner as follows:

  The objection to inner states is not that they do not exist
  but that they are not relevant in a functional analysis.

>Whether I was proposing eliminativism depends on your definition
>of that term.  One can stop talking about belief, and not base
>one's epistemology on it, without denying that beliefs can
>exist.  John Searle said (around page 58 of "Rediscovery ..")
>
>	First, we do not postulate beliefs and desires to account for
>	anything.  We simply experience beliefs and desires.
>
>I don't find anything terribly wrong with this Searle statement.  If,
>by your terminology, I am an eliminativist, then presumably Searle
>must also be one.

Just out of curiousity, why do you say "around page 58"?  58 is
kind of precise for an "around".  Are there different editions or
printings in which the page numbering is different?  Anyway, in
the copy I have it's on page 59.

You wrote:

  But, having made that step, one of the major reasons that
  philosophers talk about 'belief' is dissolved.  He would have done
  better if he had simply dispensed with belief altogether, instead of
  his not-very-convincing dispositional analysis.

"Dispensed with belief altogether" sounds eliminativist to me,
where eliminativism (often "eliminative materialism") is the view
that beliefs and desires don't exist.  One can be eliminativist about
other things as well.  For instance Dennett may be so about qualia
(when he "quines" them).  This is not my terminology; it seems to
be fairly standard.

One eliminativist argument against the existence of beliefs and
desires is to say they are part of "folk psychology" and that folk
psychology is a folk theory, doomed to be replaced by a proper
scientific theory in due course.  Beliefs and desires will then
go the same way as phlogiston.

The line you quote from p 59 is part of Searle's reply to that
sort of argument.  Searle says he does not believe his views "have
been represented in the literature so far" (p 58), and I speculate
that part of what's different about his views is that he disagrees
with the "folk theory" line at a fairly early point:

  Thesis: ... FP postulates beliefs and desires to account for
  behavior, but if it turns out that the CS [CogSci] account of
  behavior is inconsistent with this, then beliefs and desires
  do not exist.

  Answer: Just about everything is wrong with this claim.  First,
  we do not _postulate_ beliefs and desires to account for anything.
  We simply experience conscious beliefs and desires.  Think about 
  some real-life examples.  It's a hot day ...  you want a cold
  beer so bad you could scream.  Now where is the "postulation"
  of a desire?  Conscious desires are experienced.  They are no
  more postulated than conscious pains.

Thus, page 59.  Then on the next page:

  Beliefs and desires, unlike phlogiston and caloric fluid,
  were not postulated as part of some special theory, they are
  actually experienced as part of our mental life.  Their
  existence is no more theory-relative than is the existence
  of ranch houses, cocktail parties, football games, interest
  rates, or tables and chairs.

Searle is not an eliminativist, and if you agree with what he's
saying in this section (the Appendix after Chapter 2), you're
not one either.  Anyway, I read you as saying Ryle "could have
done better", not as saying you agreed with that better approach.

However, Searle does not "stop talking about belief", and I'm
not sure what you mean by and "base one's epistemology on it",
so I'm not sure what you're saying your view of this is.

-- jeff
