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Problems With Analytic/Logical Behaviourism

An analytic behaviourist claims that mental terms express behavioural dispositions. It turns out to be impossible to analyse mental terms in a behavioural language. Lets begin with an example such as Mat wants a glass of wine. Consider the following disposition as part of the analysis: If there is a bottle of wine open and a glass beside it, Mat will pour himself a glass of wine. This cannot be right as it stands because there are lots of reasons why Mat may nevertheless not pour himself a glass of wine: It is not his bottle. He is trying to be abstemious. His hands are paralysed. He does not believe it contains wine. and so on.

We could try to repair our analysis by saying: If there is a bottle of wine open and a glass beside it, Mat will pour himself a glass of wine unless it is not his bottle. he is trying to be abstemious. his hands are paralysed. he does not believe it contains wine. and so on. But this is no good. Remember that analytic behaviourism is a thesis about the meaning of terms. There are all sorts of additions we can make to the above list. But it does not seem that they are all part of what it means to want a glass of wine. For we can understand Mat wants a glass of wine without understanding this complex analysis. We can extend this point by observing that the list of qualifications is endless. This means that (a) when I understand Mat wants a glass of wine, I understand an infinitely long list of qualified behaviours, or (b) I dont fully understand it because I cant grasp an infinitely long list. Neither seems correct. So, the first problem is that behavioural translations are incurably open-ended. In order for Mat to pour himself a glass of wine, he must believe that he can pour a glass of wine and desire to do so. These terms are clearly mental terms. But since we are trying to translate wants a glass of wine into behavioural terms, we cant allow them to feature in our analysis. Let us therefore resolve to steer clear of mental terms. Whats left? Not very much. We cant say any of the following: If Mat sees that there is a bottle of wine on the table, he will reach for it If Mat is asked whether he wants a glass of wine, he will say, yes! If there is no wine in the house, Mat will look for an open off-licence. All of these terms are mental terms. See: To say that Mat sees that there is a bottle of wine attributes Mat the concept of a bottle of wine, which is to say that he has beliefs about what a bottle of wine is. There is a use of sees where this does not follow. For example, I can say that a small child sees a Rubiks cube before him. In using see rather than see that, we dont attribute a concept. We imply that the child sees
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that some coloured thing is before him. But if we are to explain more precise behaviour, such as reaching for bottles, we need to attribute someone the concept of a bottle to explain why they can discriminate bottles and reach for bottles when they want bottles rather than anything else. Reach: to reach is an action and actions are done for reasons. Want: this is clearly a mental state. Say/Ask: If Mat replies Yes! to a question, he has to believe that a question was asked (otherwise, why reply?), believe that his utterance will answer the question and want his audience to understand that he is replying. He has to understand the words in the question and the words in his reply. In general. Look for: To look for a bottle of wine supposes that you have the concept of a bottle of wine (for how else would you know whether you have found what you are looking for?) It may also imply that you have a strategy, which in turn implies the presence of beliefs concerning what to. What can we do? Well, let us take reach. We would need a a language for describing how objects move around in space. We have to try to say that if Mat wants a glass of wine and a glass of wine is nearby, his hand will move in such-and-such a way towards the bottle. But what is such-and-such a way? Let us suppose we can describe the exact motion of Mats hand through space. It is not the case that I will move my hand the same way again. So, to analyse my reaching in purely behavioural terms, we would need to say that my hand needs to move in any of the following ways: way 1, way2. and so on. Who knows how many there are? And then there is your hand. It may move in a yet different way. (Perhaps you are lefthanded, for example). The total number of ways a hand can move through space is ill-defined. We might also consider the problem of language. Instead of saying, Yes!, we would need to consider the physical pattern sound-waves. But I will not issue the same pattern twice. And each of us say Yes! differently anyway. So, to be fully general, we would have to analyse says, Yes! into a vast, open and illdefined set of sound-patterns. And what of more complex mental states such as believes that it is raining, hopes for world peace or believes that there are infinitely many prime numbers? There is no way to capture how someones body would move as a consequence of holding these beliefs. So, the second problem is that a purely behavioural language is too impoverished or simple to translate mental states. This leads to a third problem. Arent there mental states that dont (or dont necessarily) result in any behaviour? For example, what about idly wondering what would happen if the dinosaurs had never died out? Enjoying a piece of music? The fourth, fifth and sixth problems are related. The fourth is that the same input and same mental state can lead to very different outputs: so there is no distinctive behavioural output. So, suppose we analyse believing that it is raining in terms of the seeing of rain and the grabbing of an umbrella. Well, this is what Kasia would do as she doesnt like rain. But Basia loves going for walks in the rain. When she believes that it is raining, she goes out without an umbrella. Gosia simply refuses to go out. Ania waits until the rain has died down a bit. Magda always thinks about Paris when it rains. And so on. But we cant say: S believes it is raining Input: Output: S sees rain through the window and needs to go S grabs an umbrella and coat before leaving or out. S goes out without an umbrella or S refuses to go out or S waits until the rain has ceased or S thinks about Paris or Far too many things can happen as a consequence of the belief that it is raining for this to be a sensible analysis.1
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A famous version of this problem is the super-Spartan problem. A super-Spartan will display no emotion when happy or sad or in pain. So, for the same input [e.g. stands on a pin], he and I will exhibit very different behaviours: I will scream and hop about, he will not flinch. Yet we share the same mental state. So, we cannot say that there is a behaviour distinctive of pain. The fifth problem is that two people could be in the same output and same mental state can be triggered by different inputs: so there is not distinctive behavioural input . So, Kasia and Basia both desire to make a ham sandwich and move to the fridge. But Kasia is moved by the hunger and Basia by a desire to make a sandwich now to take to work. Ania is moved by Gosias request for one. Magda wants to practise to get that job at the top sandwich shop. And so on. But we cant say: S desires to make a ham sandwich Input: Output: S is hungry for ham or S moves to the fridge S needs a sandwich for lunch or S is acquiescing to S*s request for a ham sandwich or S wants to practise or As with the fourth problem, this is far too open-ended. The sixth problem is that the same behaviour can reflect many different mental states . For example, if we see Kasia putting on her shoes this may be because she (a) wants to go out; (b) wants to see if they still fit; (c) has cold feetand so on. Now, one might try to say that we need merely to involve inputs. So, if Kasia needs to go out and puts her shoes on, this is wanting to go out whereas if Kasia does not need to go out, this is wanting to keep her feet warm. But this neednt be the case. Imagine many people looking at the same painting [input] and not moving [output]. They could be thinking very different things: that it is beautiful, that it must have taken ages to paint, that the lighting is pooretc. So, the same input/same output can correspond to very different mental states. A famous example of this is the perfect actor. A perfect actor will exhibit all the right behaviours for the right inputs but not share the mental states: he is merely acting. All of these points are of lesser importance than our seventh and final point: the unavoidable holism of the mental. It was said earlier that we cannot allow verbs like believe and desire to appear in our analysis of mental states, such as wants a glass of wine. Yet we must allow them to feature. For no mental state leads to any kind of behaviour by itself. Behaviours are the results of complexes of mental states. If Mat does not believe the bottle contains wine nor desires some wine, then he wont pour himself any. One way we might try to solve this problem is the following. We analyse wanting a glass of wine in terms of beliefs about the bottle of wine and desires to pour the wine. We then analyse beliefs about the bottle of wine and desires to pour the wine. If analyses of these terms also make reference to mental states, then well keep going and analyse them. But since analyses will always involve references to other mental states, our task will never end. So, the seventh problem is that mental terms will be ineliminable from behavioural analyses and hence the mental cannot be translated into the behavioural.

We cant say that a belief that it is raining will lead both to rain-avoiding behaviours (=staying indoors) and rain-seeking behaviours (=going outside). Kasia hates sunshine and Basia likes it. If we say that believes that it is sunny will lead both to sun-avoiding behaviours (=staying indoors) and sun-seeking behaviours (=going outside), then we are giving the same analysis for believes that it is raining and believes that it is sunny. But this means that to believe that it is raining is to believe that it is sunny, which is absurd.