Hilary Putnam's Super-Spartans attack on Behaviorism
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- Опубликовано: 31 июл 2024
- Video about Behaviorism: • The Behaviorist Theory...
Video about Counterexamples: • What is a Counterexamp...
This is a video lecture about Hilary Putnam's seminal paper "Brains and Behavior". The Super Spartans example and the x-world (or x-worlders) example are both discussed, as are how those examples are meant to present a problem for the logical behaviorist theory of mind. This is part of an introductory level philosophy course, Introduction to Philosophy.
This guy is giving a world-class education in philosophy for free. What an absolute legend
More like world class indoctrination.
I'm sure he got paid for this, whether by the University at which he is employed or by RUclips, maybe both.
@@brokenrecord3523 I don't think he meant that the guy is DOING it for free, but that we are GETTING it for free :)
@@fromeveryting29 Giving vs Getting?, but, you might be right. The irony of sloppy thinking or word choice in a video about the subtle art of philosophy 🤷🏻
A legend in my books.
As an example of the opposite type of counterexample where the disposition to act a certain way is there but the mental state is not, consider the case of a psychopath who feels no concern for other humans but learns to act as though he does to fit in socially. If he never reveals this, then clearly he is disposed to act as though he cares for other people even though there is no corresponding mental state.
Or just consider an actor.
@@brokenrecord3523 lol
Really enjoy your videos, please keep making them... you deserve more subs.
exactly
This is so well explained - and as usual without taking sides on whichever arguments are being presented. Thank you
Many thanks for your contribution to our knowledge, send from Belgium.
Mental concepts are the 4th of the 5 clusters (skandhas) in Buddhist psychology. Cluster 1 is sensory data of the peripheral nervous system. Cluster 2 is the mental reception of the sensory data in the brain. Cluster 3 is the initial distinction-making forming the mental perceptions. Cluster 4 is the formation of concepts from the perceptions. Cluster 5 is the field of the cluster of self-consciousness that arises from the interplay of the first four clusters.
The counter argument put forth by Putnam, while logical within its context creates minds that are not human; or humans whose minds are inhibited by genetics or disease. This assumes that pain serves a purpose, and that suppressing pain also serves a purpose, but when suppression reduces reproductive success (an having no pain would lead to death) then it can no longer be considered possible (Leprosy would be an example of not feeling pain; it is a disease that has impacted the person, now curable, but in the past it would increase the chances of death).
The polio example only shows that when we discover new information, sometimes we need to change definitions or create new words to express that distinction. It does not mean that there's some mystical change in the universe or that we didn't have every reason to believe whatever we believed before.
The set of expressions a virus has is an inherent part of what it is, regardless of the fact that it overlaps with others. The problem is that we don't have a high enough resolution understanding to make that distinction apparent. The cough of virus A is not Actually identical to the cough caused by virus B, because how it came about is an inherent part of what it IS. It's not actually the same symptom, we just can't make that distinction so we understand it as a broader category - coughing.
Cough, cough sneeze - great reply.
I am confused:
just because the Spartans are not outwardly exhibiting the behavior indicative of that they're in pain doesn't mean that it's physically impossible for them to do so - they're just very good at suppressing it. Just because they stop themselves from showing signs of pain doesn't mean that they are incapable of showing signs of pain - they still have the capacity (the disposition) to behave that way.
In the previous video on Behaviorism the professor even said that an object which does not exhibit a given behavior still has the disposition to exhibit that behavior; the glass does not have to shatter for it to be disposed to being shattered.
Let's imagine a different scenario: let's say you want to punch me in the face, but I happen to be really good at avoiding getting hit in the face - I'm excellent at blocking, slipping, whatever. You keep trying to hit me, but are not able to. After a while you give up; I have successfully managed to avoid getting hit in the face. But that doesn't mean that it's physically impossible for me to get punched in the face - I am still disposed to getting punched in the face.
Can someone please explain this to me? I am legitimately curious. Thank you.
Great. As usual.
The inverted example you suggested at the end, we see everyday. It is called acting. Actors are never in pain but act as though they are.
In some ways, Putnam’s example is also about acting - being in pain but acting as if they are not.
I love this content! But I have a real problem with Putnam's argument. When we're talking about mind, I can only assume we're talking about the mind of Homo sapiens and not just any conceivable mind. As it stands, super-Spartans who can somehow suppress pure agony to the point that it no longer gives them a disposition to act in a certain way are no longer human. I'm bothered by the tendency that some philosophers have to ignore bodies of knowledge from science. One might have the discipline to manage pain in a certain way, but this is not a heritable trait. If Mendel and Morgan and the physiologists who study the basis for pain were in the audience listening to Putnam, they'd all have their hands up in the air and they'd be saying "but, but, but, but!!!"
Fantasy works to test conceptual claims, just not composite claims.
-- Crazy counter-example example --
Like, if you say: grandma's are defined as those who give out hard candy and have grey hair, the philosopher could say that is not true. The philosopher would give a so-called "counter-example": If a baby had a baby, and that baby had a baby, then we would have a baby grandmother. Babies do not give out hard candy, nor do they have grey hair. Therefore, hard candy and grey hair is not part of the concept "grandma".
Of course the example is completely bonkers, but theoretically it makes sense. Because grandmothers are per definition mother's parents, and an intelligible counter-example which does not seem to violate the theoretical concept of grandmotherhood is possible, the argumentation is valid
If we were to ask whether being a grandmother is associated with giving out hard candy and having grey hair, then we would have to go out into the world and find some grandmothers to interrogate. That would be a scientific claim
-- Putnam & Locked-in Syndrome --
Putnam is disputing whether mental states are (outward) behaviour. She argues this is not true, because it is conceivable there are mental states possible without behaviour. Therefore, the body (read: brain) does not explain mental states
Personally, I would agree that this is convincing in theory. But the obvious objection is that a body is a necessary condition for having a mind
Also, a real life example of super-spartans is people with (total) locked-in syndrome. Those are people with awareness, but cannot move anything - except their eyes in some cases. They are certainly capable of suffering. Do with that example what you will (:
This is so helpful.
It's awesome.thank you
Is any physical manifestation considered behaviour?
If so, if we have a machine that reads your brain activity and it shows through monitoring your synapses and various brainstuff that you are in fact in pain even if you are this super-super-spartan that won't admit verbally or curl up in a fetal position and so forth, is that enough to support behaviourism?
Seems like a 'cluster concept' would fit well with 'determinism' in that the observance of a behaviour would stem from a 'set' of all the variables factoring in as 'elements' experienced by the mind in the moment before the behaviour was exhibited.
nice, your videos helped me a lot for my studies thank you :D
Happy to hear that! You're welcome!
Maybe the will power to override the typpical outward behaviors of some thing is itself a disposition that can be overriding if practiced
As Colin Hankin also points out here, Putnams Spartans do not affect the theory of behaviourism. Their response to pain is just different from others, but the link between mental state and behaviour remains intact.
The suggestion though, is that they don't respond to pain?
They merely respond with a different behaviour, as learnt from those around them. If anything it just further proves the concept of behaviourism
Isn't Logical Behaviorism a description of how We (Humans) are Now (at this stage of evolution)? How does a counterexample of some fictional possibility disprove it? Sure, there COULD be another way of being, but it's not currently OUR way of being.
Vulkans...Putnam's counterexample of "X-worlders- super-spartans" is a description of Vukans.
Any question that can be understood as "what is the nature of..." is semantic.
Regarding pain, a difference that makes no difference is no difference.
Does this mean kinetic energy changed after Einstein proposed an alternative equation for it to Newton?
If they’re feeling pain then are they not also exhibiting the outward behaviors of pain, for example electrical pulses from nerves in the area experiencing pain to the brain that then processes these electrical signals to be registered as pain. These electrical signals could still be observed by others with the right observation equipment.
It is quite real. Some of our cultures promote such extreme levels of endurance to emerge as a man after initiation.
Considering Wittgensteins private language argument: If in the x world no one ever shows pain behaviour how would the individual x-worlder or super super spartan even know what he feels is "pain" or what kind of feelings he shouldn't show to the external world? If there is no such thing as pain expression in the x-world he wouldn't know and also wouldn't know that's the feeling he is supposed to suppress or show signs of it to the external world? So the difference between the super super spartan in the x world and the super spartan in the real world is the latter can talk about pain because in his world there is a word for it that is connected to behaviour that is at least observable in others where in the x-world there isn't so even if another individual in the x-world showed signs of pain behaviour he wouldn't even know that's pain behaviour the other person is displaying as he has no concept of it.
Really enjoyed your video, mate! Keep up the good work!
It is surprising to me that a fantasy counter example can be considered as a real refutation. But I do know that veterinarians report that their animal patients are often in pain, as the veterinarian assesses the swelling or the discolouration or the temperature or range of motion or various other sensible observations about the 'hurt' animal's condition. Often the animals try their best to hide that they are in pain. We suppose this super-stoicism is due to the serious consequences of, in the wild, being seen to be an easy target. And people, with their strong urge to live in society, have a tendency to telegraph when they are in pain, because they are likely to get help from those other humans nearby.
As for the case you look for of people showing signs of pain when they do not feel pain, people often do that to get sympathy. Also, actors may get called on to do this, professionally.
Always a good lecture! thank you.
The reason is because feeling or emotions and behaviors are 2 different things. Feelings are the emotions such as sadness,anger, fear, etc and the behavior or actions motivated by emotions would be crying, punching somebody, or running away as just a few examples of how someone might act out on their feelings. People can act out or choose to not act out on their feelings and also people can act out both consciously and subconsciously both aggressively or passive aggressively.
Yes, exactly - this means you don't believe in behaviorism.
@@fluffysheap thanks yes I see now. Behaviorism says the the behavior is the same as the mental state. Yes I don’t agree with that.
Behaviourism: "the mental state of pain is the disposition to cry"
Putnam: "behaviourism must be false given that one might feel pain and yet always smile indifferently"
Possible counter argument from behaviourism to Putnam's counter example: but why would smiling indifferently as response to pain be considered less of a disposition than crying? After all, the decision to bottle up the pain is a decision, a way of behaving just as much as venting your pain is
Well then you just lost the meaning of Pain. Because now, Pain is the disposition to cry but also the disposition to smile. If I see one smiling then I am righfully under the umbrella of your argument to say that this someone is in pain, is showing pain. And I could modify it to replace "smile indifferently" by "tell a joke", or by "sit down", then the consequence is Pain can be many things, too many things and we lost track of what we were suppose to speak about in the first place.
This behavior arises with the premisses of "Behaviorist theory premisses"+"Putnam argument"+"your extension of argument"
A behaviorist can certainly reject the argument of Putnam because his argument seems to imply that possibility of losing common sense of what mental state means, but they cannot use it as a leverage to bypass Putnam argument.
Or they will never acknowledge your argument, because the behavior-type disposition need to be link with commonly, what pain is. Because if not, what are we talking about in the first place.
Or it can be another point to reject logical behaviorism
@@ajensen6195 I love your comment. It helped me understanding the idea better 🙏
We don't even need to posit a hypothetical group of Super Spartans to dismantle Behaviorism. Think about actors playing a married couple having an argument in a movie. They can portray the behaviors identically to a real married couple. But no rational person thinks they are experiencing the same depth of anger, hurt, or frustration that a real world couple would.
Although I don't find the behaviorist position convincing, it seems Putnam's argument rests on some equivocating regarding what is a "disposition to behave in certain ways." If any of the Spartan levels involve any sort of suppressing of some possible behavior which is not to be chosen, then there is a disposition whose expression is being avoided by the making of some substitution. Just because it is the behavioral road not travelled does not mean there is no disposition. I think he needs to find a way to get rid of the whole suppression aspect of his counterexamples.
All mental states are dispositions to behave in certain ways. If those ways are imminent, the mental state becomes relevant.
Immenant? (As opposed to transcendent?) Is that the word you were thinking of?
I lived among the Mborenakam people of Papua New Guinea. In their culture it was taboo for a person to show pain in any way in front of in-laws. If your in-law burned his hand in the fire in front of you, you were obligated to put your hand in the fire as well. Therefore you learned to suppress all pain responses whenever in-laws were present so that they would not feel the reciprocal obligation.
People are weird.
"The other day I got out my can-opener and was opening a can of worms when I thought, What am I doing?!" Jack Handey
SuperSpartans and X-worlders has brain and neuron cell activities simply visible with MRI, PET, etc. neuron diagnostic tool. If we can see certain neuron behavior always matching the SuperSpartans pain, that would not support behaviorism ?
4:45 It's not polio if there is no hole in the centre.
By referring to “logical behaviorism”-one of the more obscure branches of behaviorism as simply “behaviorism”-this video mischaracterizes behaviorism as a philosophy of psychology, whatever the merits of some thought experiment might be. B.F. Skinner, the most well-known proponent of behaviorism (i.e., “radical behaviorism”) was unequivocally clear that sensations “within the skin” (as he put it) are real, entirely legitimate and within the purview of behaviorism. To the extent that “private events” (again, “within the skin”) are behavioral, they are simply more behavior to be accounted for.
So the initial supposition (mental states are dispositions to behave a certain way) lacks a certain amount of definition. Because the super Spartans could have that "disposition" but also have various counteracting dispositions that cause them not to writhe in agony. Minds are complex. So that doesn't seem like a good counterexample.
I don't have to go to a philosophy class after this.
Great lecture! Whoever invented Behaviorism should have thought about it some more. It seems like a pretty bad idea and a lot of people have spent a lot of time to refute it. That time would have been better spend in figuring out how the mind works, not how it does not work.
Gotta love that the counter argument is simply a denial of social constructivism
If the children don't show symptoms of pain but still feel it, they would likely want to get rid of it, so they would go to the doctor. Going to the doctor in this case would be an expression of pain, confirming its existence. However, if the children experience pain but don't seek medical help, the society would likely perish, which itself would be a visible manifestation of pain. If the children went to the doctor, they would prepare and discuss it with their parents, which is a full manifestation of pain.
Wouldn't refusing the admit to pains for fear of reprisal also be a disposition, since denial is itself a behaviour? Because in the context of the super super spartan it would just be the natural behavior associated with pain in the same way that shouting would be for us normal people.
I thought about the same thing but then what would be pain? Because according to behaviorism it is the disposition to cry, shout, wince, etc. But if we say that it is also the disposition to refuse to do those things, is it still pain?
Let's also imagine a person who has a disorder that makes him laugh when he is in pain. In this scenario then, would the definition of pain be the disposition to laugh? What about the times he laughs because something is funny? Would that mean that for him being in pain and finding something funny is the same thing?
I don't know, I've always found behaviorism absurd, not only in philosophy of mind but also in psychology.
@@denizsarkaya5410 I see what you mean and I agree. I feel like their is a piece missing in the definition of "what is pain" perhaps pain is a personalized concept in relation to specific individual's point of view. .
@@averageman1009 I think it makes sense to revise the original statement to be something like "Emotions always come with some resultant action (such as X, Y and Z) but not any specific action." It gets out of the trap of committing to a specific action and getting whacked by a counterexample while maintaining the possibility of a super-spartan's denial as a form of responsive action and better yet maintains the intuitive premise of behaviorism that we can't separate mental and physical states because we can't separate mind and body. Wins all around.
@@denizsarkaya5410ith regards to ur 1st comment*, I think that it is only possible to be in a disposition to battle against the disposition to cry/scream/run etc, only if you already have a preexisting disposition to do these things. You can't resist a temptation if you didn't have it in the first place. So you can have a temptation, or disposition to cry/scream/run, but also have feelings opposed to that at the same time.
@@jackruwe7142yeah super tricky to define stuff clearly. As much as we'd like to, it's nearly (if not at all) impossible to do so. According to my own intuition, pain and other mental states can be best defined by looking at some sort of sophisticated brain scan, such that, if you see Pattern ABC (or a family of such patterns) in the brain, you know for sure that that person or animal is in pain. This qualifies as a behavioralist definition I think, so long as you consider neuron firings etc. as behavior.
However, this approach is susceptible to the same problems as the screaming/kicking/etc definition: someone experiencing pain might exhibit Brain Pattern ABC instead. It also may never be definitively proven that exhibiting Brain Pattern ABC necessarily means pain.
Some people out of desparation might say that pain doesn't really mean anything anyway, because each one of has no assurance of experiencing reality in the 'same' way (your red is not my red kinda thing). Still, strangely, we seem to be able to pass around concepts like 'pain' to each other.
Pain, understood as the inner stimulation of the nervous system, is just a dispositional variable among many others that will increase (or decrease) the probability of displaying observable behaviours. When we accept the probability of displaying a particular behaviour we accept the probability of not displaying it. Putnam’s counter example includes the fact that the super-spartans practise and anticipate a consequence in case they display the (embarrassing?) behaviour of crying so other variables have influence in the behavioural segment… wouldn’t it be great if there was a proper context to understand the counter example? Putnam’s counter example is pure behaviourism. Just a little biased.
Great video.
I love your videos! Everything is so clear when you teach it. You're cute too so that doesn't hurt either XD
interesting. But couldn't the behavior of suppressing the pain or whatever emotion it is, be the actual behavior we call mind? Yes it is contradicting what we feel inside but who's to say it's not the inside that's contradicting that behavior of suppressing. Or, who's to say it's not an individual subjective thing whereby feeling pain but not expressing is actually considered the "proper" reaction or behavior? who's to say suppression or silence aren't the correct reaction or behavior of pain or other emotions?
That last part of the counter example is based on a fantasy, that an entire culture lives with acute pain, a very unpleasant feeling, but there's not even a word for it?! so a counterexample doesn't have to be possible to work?
What I like about philosophy.....it forces the consideration of ideas to such an extreme it makes me reconsider what I think.
What I dislike about philosophy.......the conclusions some philosophers reach from forcing ideas to such extremes.
Even if someone does not "display" the pain felt, I bet it is expressed in a change of the state of the brain at the moment of pain. Not sure I buy the "pain = some expressive behaviour" argument. People with CIP/CIPA may not register an alternate brain state with what would normally cause pain, but they actually do not feel it. People without CIP are sure to register an alteration of their brain state whether outwardly expressing the pain or not. But then I guess snarky me can imagine a world where individuals function without a brain and without reaction to pain and are made of Cheerios and therefore no to Behaviorism?
Love the videos by the way, Great explanations.
Wouldn't we call "pain" releasing of certain hormones and whatever goes on in our body at the moment? Ok also assume that we don't exhibit any outward behavior for pain but still some processes are going on in our body, wouldn't they be called pain?
@@manahil558 Exactly.
Could Putnam's 'super-Spartan's' have been the inspiration for Star Trek's Vulcans?
These super spartans make me think of Space Marines, from warhammer 40k
Also, they make me think of fish
Or those in a vegetative state, who do have consciousness but no way to move. This is the best and most believable example, because it is real
I would submit that a large piece of social responsibility is restraining ourselves from demonstrating our desired behavior a significant portion of the time. A world of logical behaviorism would be untenable. We would do nothing but address our immediate, personal concerns.
I would argue that that's exactly what we do, but also what we think are our desires and what are actually our desires are two different things that sometimes intersect. The justification for action also follows these same behavioral dispositions dependent on the environment.
These counter example claims absolutely do matter and fail because the fantasies are false from the beginning.
What but why does total fiction have to follow logic rules?
Dear professor, I ask u, to ask yourself or rather than that, explain to me, if in the second and last case of having the dispositions and dont having the mental states has nothing to do with in same ways, the demons of descartes and the deceiving of him for us than us for ourselfs, or separeted. Or in the case of having the mental state and dont having the dispositions, isnt about god, or is the deceiver again...?
Every "thing" is a set of attributes and boundary conditions. The word "angry" refers to the entire set of internal and external components. For internal purposes it must be internally consistent if you are a rational thinker and for external purposes we must agree or compromise.
The definition of a thing is nothing more or less than a low-resolution pointer to the most relevant attributes or boundary conditions, by which it can be distinguished toward pragmatic intents. Actionable certainty is the purpose of all knowledge, wisdom, and understanding.
Whether or not a thing has an external component is not inherently relevant, it depends on what you're trying to do. Where it is relevant is in concepts like god, which are undeniably real in the internal sense - a real concept/idea/set of attributes and boundary conditions, but at minimum debatable in an external sense.
Defining a concept (rendering it explicit) is a prerequisite for elucidating it's relationships to other entities/substances, which is a prerequisite for obtaining predictive certainty, which is a prerequisite for advancing the changes we want to see in the world, which is a universal attribute of the meaning of life.
This document explores this difference through various philosophical lenses and in various fields of knowledge:
docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1p7hKimR4_lJS8cRWNUaEVgT0Dig9QZV1UWy_X2Kbneo/
As a connoisseur of pain (chronic pain, not kinky stuff sadly), suppression of pain responses is a pain behavior. I do it all the expletive time, nobody wants to be around the person walking around moaning; hell it even gets old when your alone. Sooooo I really don't get her argument. I'm probably just an idiot lol.
I guess I'm saying that one cannot be aware of a state of being and simultaneously not be effected by it. I think I'm referring to the "Observer effect". And this may be bypassed by the fantastic example still working....... but still.
sweating is autonomic gl with that
... but the (fictional) x worlders only experience fictional pain, so this counter example only works in a fictional context.
The last counter example is indeed a disease, where some patients doesn't feel pain because they don't have the nocioceptors (or parts of the neuron cells that alerts a danger state in the periphery of our bodies). Would that be enough to contradict the Logical Behaviourism argument?
That doesn't work as a counterexample unless they're acting like they do feel pain for some reason. The idea with behaviorism is that thoughts and behaviors are the same thing, so to disprove it you need an example where someone's behavior doesn't match what they're actually feeling.
An easier counterexample is that I can think of something, and I can keep it completely private to anyone else.
I can't prove this to others because they don't know my internal mental state, but this is sufficient from my point of you to destroy behavioralism.
Isn't this, at some level, just saying "people might feel things and never show it or talk about it?"
The idea of denying mental states so things can be measured is embarrassingly dumb. It's like looking for lost keys in better light rather than where you dropped them.
Certainly B.F. Skinner, the leading exponent of radical behaviorism, thought so. “Private events” that were, in his words, “inside the skin,” (to the extent they were behavioral) were entirely legitimate types of behavior to take into account in a science of behavior-they were simply more behavior to be accounted for.
Couldn't it be claimed that these fictional men had the disposition not to admit they were in pain or show any symptoms of being so? If so, behaviourism is not false.
I wonder what virus that sounds like?
The super Spartans and X-worlder examples are fatally flawed. If future generations of their children were born with resistance to pain “bred in” - and that’s the only way they could be born like that - this would most certainly be achieved by not experiencing pain in the first place, or by experiencing reduced pain. Whereupon the analogy falls apart, because you can’t then claim to have demonstrated that the experience is separable from exhibited behaviour.
Besides, if the spartan children did feel as much pain, feeling all those pain hormones and pain signals in the brain as a pain response - is a pain behavior as well! Theoretically visible to people who either have siphisticated brainscanners or are like Superman with mind reading capabilities.
The remaining debatable thing, it appears to me, would be whether all these mental indicators of pain, count as "exhibited behavior" when no one is looking at them. If you consider all mental things as tied to physical phenomena, just like the rest of the body, you can generalize this question to the body language/speech/etc of someone in pain. Which feels a bit absurd tbh.
than who can prove that they feel pain? this is not a proof, this is assuming the conclusion
One might wonder if the super super Spartans would take up drinking
Again, that's not a counterexample. It's a refusal to accept the behaviorists' proposed redefinition of the terms. You want to call the super-Spartans' pain "pain". I want to call the super-Spartans' pain "pain". The behaviorists don't want to call it "pain". They want to redefine the word, at least for their own use, so that it conforms with their goofy theory. If we want to refute them, we need an argument that starts from premises they're willing to accept, and we need to be willing to express it in their vocabulary. We can refute behaviorism if we have an argument that super-Spartans "non-pain" should be called "pain", but we can't refute it just by saying "no, I refuse to speak to you in the jargon of your chosen theory".
prisoners fake to be in pain all the time to have a break from prison, by getting a visit to hospitals....
Might as well say aliens.
exactly, ridicolous argument
This isn't what behaviorism is. You've essentially used a non-behaviorist to define behaviorism very poorly. Behaviorists like bf skinner not only believe in these internal processes you describe, they call them "private events."
Putnam is nonsense here, if a comunity has no sign of behaviour of a concept they have then how Putnam will claim that they do have the concept (of pain) in the first place. If X worlders dont even do the talk of pain, how can we claim that they have the concept of pain, considering concepts are shared ideas. If they do communicate in a different way than we do (not by means of talk) well, then they are still exhibiting the pain through the means of their special communication ways. Putnam's counter example is overthrowing the assumptions regargind what a concept is, so his example doesnot meet the criteria for counterexamples.
I dont think that is a good counter example. Refusing to behave as expected to behave in regards to pain is itself behavior. Maybe it is not standard/stereotypical pain/stress behavior, but it is still behavior. They will themselves against expressing the pain. That’s their behavior. Developing a behavior to overcome pain…yeah, you’re just pushing the problem back a step, and here I come again to slam the answer in.
Im honestly having trouble believing that anyone has ever taken behaviorism seriously!
This video mischaracterizes behaviorism as a philosophy of psychology, whatever the merits of some thought experiment might be. B.F. Skinner, the most well-known proponent of behaviorism (i.e., “radical behaviorism”) was unequivocally clear that sensations “within the skin” (as he put it) are real, entirely legitimate and within the purview of behaviorism. To the extent that “private events” (again, “within the skin”) are behavioral, they are simply more behavior to be accounted for.