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From: David E. Weldon, Ph.D. <David.E.Weldon@DaytonOH.ATTGIS.COM>
Subject: Re: FIRST order? was: why Ginsberg grouses
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References: <19950717.122617.21@daffodif.demon.co.uk>
Date: Tue, 18 Jul 1995 22:54:31 GMT
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Xref: glinda.oz.cs.cmu.edu comp.ai:31671 sci.logic:12709 comp.ai.philosophy:30514 sci.cognitive:8411


}==========PHIL@daffodif.demon.co.uk, 7/17/95==========
}
}On Thu, 13 Jul 1995 20:31:56 GMT,
}  Andrzej Pindor (pindor@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca) wrote:
}
}
}> > > I am not sure what you mean by "doctrine". I am not 
}committed to any >
}ideology (like behaviorism), but it seems to me that intensional 
}terms, as >
}soon as you try to go beyond their function as categorising 
}behaviors (or >
}complex behavioral correlations), become to ill-defined to be 
}scientifically
}> useful. >  > Andrzej
}
}I'm sorry but I doubt you could even characterise 'behaviour' in 
}any
}scientifically useful way without reference to things like beliefs 
}and
}desires. Forget Quine, try reading Norman Malcolm's classic 
}paper 'The
}Conceivabiltiy of Mechanism' reprinted in 'Free Will' ed. Gary 
}Watson
}(OUP,1982); or The Philosophical Review, vol lxxvii, No.1 (Jan 
}1968); and
}many other places.
}
}-- 
}Phil S. 
}
}<PHIL@daffodif.demon.co.uk>
}
A successful science of behaviour requires that we classify behaviours in some
fashion.  A chicken's peck at the food button in a skinner box shows all sorts
of variation (presumably as the chicken tries to figure out just what type of
peck does the job of producing food since it cannot figure out the random
reinforcement pattern), yet the observer classifies some as pecks and others
as non-pecks.  The assumption that a behaviour reflects an underlying attitude
is simply a different level of abstraction.  It is helpful if it helps us to
classify and understand later behaviours.  If it is not helpful, we tend to
change the asummption about the underlying attitude.  There is no difference
between the two inferences except in the eyes of the beholder (who carries
with him/her a set of assumptions about which is appropriate).
}

