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A Philosophical Perspective

A Philosophical Perspective. AILUN – Lecture 1 S. Glenn. Philosophy from the Standpoint of a Behaviorist. Philosophy is behavior Learned Operant Verbal Learned behavior is the result of 1 Biological properties of humans Operant processes

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A Philosophical Perspective

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  1. A Philosophical Perspective AILUN – Lecture 1 S. Glenn S. Glenn - AILUN 2008

  2. Philosophy from the Standpoint of a Behaviorist • Philosophy is behavior • Learned • Operant • Verbal • Learned behavior is the result of 1 • Biological properties of humans • Operant processes • Material and social environments of humans characterized by cumulative change over the lifetimes of individuals and of H.sapiens • Behaviorist epistemology in a nutshell: all knowledge is constrained by biology, personal history and characteristics of environment -- but science loosens the constraints S. Glenn - AILUN 2008

  3. Scientific Method • A systematic way to build empirically derived knowledge about the nature of the world • Via nonverbal operant behavior • Ex: Observing the world (discrimination and generalization) • Ex: Conducting experiments • Ex: Designing and building equipment to extend physical limits of humans: telescope, microscope, operant chamber, cumulative recorder, computer • Via verbal operant behavior • Ex: Classifying, describing, defining, relating • Ex: Deducing, formulating principles, mathematical operations, organizing verbal products of those activities into theories S. Glenn - AILUN 2008

  4. Origins of the Scientific Method in the Behavior of Organisms • Non verbal classifying • Involves stimulus generalization and stimulus discrimination • Seen in the behavior of humans and non-humans • Experiments on concept formation2, 3, 4 • Human verbal classifying • New forms of stimulus control made possible by contrived contingencies of reinforcement • Arbitrary response forms could come under control of subtle properties of antecedent conditions5 • Abstraction • Relational concepts continued S. Glenn - AILUN 2008

  5. Scientific Knowledge • Knowledge derived from implementing scientific method • Specialized vocabularies, formulae, graphs, schematics, statements of principles and laws, theories • Retained in human behavioral repertoires; and in culturo-behavioral lineages; and in ‘permanent’ products such as letters, journals, books, web sites • Each scientific domain incidentally introduces new ontologies S. Glenn - AILUN 2008

  6. Pre-scientific Ontologies • Animism6 • Universe is composed of the observed world and a world of spirits (often seen as controlling or “running” the observed world • An object’s spirit can survive the disappearance of the object itself: the spirit world exists outside of time/space • All spirit is equal so humans are part of nature, not superior to or separate from rest of nature • General Philosophy 7 • Systematic, reasoned speculation • Ancients’ ontologies addressed physical world, human existence and social world • Medieval ontology focused mainly on soul and relation of soul to a supreme being (relations in the spirit world) • Modern ontologies typically retained the notion of material and immaterial worlds S. Glenn - AILUN 2008

  7. Slicing Nature in New Ways • Scientific method is revealing nature’s joints in unexpected places: new ontologies • Ex: The periodic table (classification by atomic number) • Ex: Energy = mass x speed of light squared • Adding biological phenomena to domain of science • Understanding change over time in organic world in terms of scientific principles • Variation, selection, retention • Humans no longer set apart from nature: part of nature • More ontology claimed by science • Units of selection in biological evolution • Recovering animism’s wheat and dumping the chaff • Return to concept of humans as part of natural world • Rejection of a separate world of spirits (if there are such things, they have no causal efficacy) S. Glenn - AILUN 2008

  8. Adding Learned Behavior to Scientific Domain • Understanding change over time in behavior of individual organisms (learning) in terms of scientific principles • Operant learning: Variation, selection and retention on a different time scale8 • Operants as behavioral “atoms”9 or “cells”10 • Evolution of behavioral complexity in developing individual repertoires • Higher order units • Organized (ecological) relations among behavioral units in a repertoire • Explanation without reference to inferred non-physical events • More ontology claimed by science • Science stakes a claim to epistemology S. Glenn - AILUN 2008

  9. Adding Social Behavior and Emergent Cultural Level Units of Selection to the Scientific Domain • Operant behavior as the common component in all domains involving social behavior11 • A scientific language for behavior that is consistent with language of EAB and languages of social science12 • Approaching cultural complexity in terms of variation, selection, and retention • What accounts for the evolution of organizational complexity above the level of behavior of individual organism? • Is a unifying conceptual framework possible to explain the origin of biological complexity, behavioral complexity, and complexity of social organization? S. Glenn - AILUN 2008

  10. References 1 Skinner, B. F. (1981). Selection by consequences. Science, 213, 501-504. 2 Herrnstein R. J. (1979). Acquisition, generalization, and discrimination reversal of a natural concept.. Experimnental Psychology Animal Behavior Process,5, 116-29. 3 Lubow, R. E. (1974). High-order concept formation in the pigeon..Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior,.21, 475-483. 4 Watanabe, S. Sakamoto, J. & Wakita, M. (1995). Pigeons' discrimination of paintings by Monet and Picasso. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior,. 63, 165-174. 5 Skinner, B. F. (1957). Verbal Behavior. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts. Republished by B. F. Skinner Foundation. 6 Animism. (2008, July 21). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 16:51, July 25, 2008, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Animism&oldid=226896034 7 In Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved July 25, 2008, from Encyclopædia Britannica Online: http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/429409/ontology 8 Donahoe, J. W. & Palmer, D.C. (1994). Learning and Complex Behavior. Boston: Allyn and Bacon. 9 Skinner, B. F. (1938). The Behavior of Organisms, New York: Appleton Century Crofts. 10 Zeiler, M. D. (1986). Behavioral units: A historical introduction. In T. Thompson & M. D. Zeiler (Eds). Analysis and Integration of Behavioral Units. (pp. 1-12). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. 11 Skinner (1953). Science and Human Behavior, New York: Free Press 12 Bolacchi (2008). A new paradigm for the integration of the social sciences. In N. K. Innis (Ed). Reflections on Adaptive Behavior: Essays in Honor of J.E.R. Staddon (pp. 315-353). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. S. Glenn - AILUN 2008

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