In the previous post I said that Chalmers defines "psychology" in the narrow sense, using it to refer to "cognitive science" or "behaviorism". Specifically, cognitive science seeks to determine behavioral causes and effects.
Well this morning I picked up one of Lindsey's cognitive psychology text books, and found that it distinguished between even cognitive psychology and behavioral psychology. Namely, it says on page 14 that the "cognitive revolution... came to believe that no complete explanation of a person's functioning could exist that did not refer to the person's mental representations of the world. This directly challenged the fundamental tenet of radical behaviorism, that concepts such as "mental representation" were not needed to explain behavior" ("Cognitive Psychology: In and Out of the Laboratory" Third Edition, by Kathleen Galotti).
So is it that cognitive psychology is still behavioral in nature, but searches for explanations of behavior in both the psychological third-party data, and the phenomenal first-person data, while behavioral psychology proper ignores mental experiences when searching to explain and modify behavior? Does this mean that Chalmers' question of consciousness differs even from this construel of cognitive psychology in that it is not in search of behavioral explanations, but of how and why any of this stuff is accompanied by conscious experiences? If so, it seems that cognitive psychology proper can handle mental states as best it can, using them to explain behavior, without ever questioning how and why such mental states exist. Also, Chalmers might be questioning how and why such mental states exist, without trying hard to apply any of his findings immediately to behavior theories or behavior modification. Both fields are necessary and helpful, but they are distinct, and Chalmers is after the "hard question".
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
Cognitive vs. Behavioral Psychology
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4 comments:
If I understand Chalmers correctly, behavior can be explained without reference to mental states, and therefore there is no need to even postulate any such things as mental states. Chalmers must hold this view because it's entailed by his zombie argument:
There is no possible world where your neurobiology is the same in this world but you behave differently than you do in this world.
But there is a possible world where you do everything you do in this world but you are not conscious.
Neurobiology type logically entails a behavior type; but neurobiological type does not logically entail any conscious experience type.
Chalmers-style dualism affirms the following:
There are mental states and they are not reducible to physical states.
Mental states are explanatorily irrelevant to behavior,
Therefore epiphenomenalism.
In chapter four, under the subhead "is this epiphenomenalism?" Chalmers reacts to the argument you seem to outline here with "two prongs". in the first "prong" he argues that "it is not obvious that mere natural supervenience must imply epiphenomenalism in the strongest sense" (p. 150).
in the second "prong" he gives "reasons why epiphenomenalism might be found unpalatable" (Ibid.).
Chalmers outlines strategies for "avoiding epiphenomenalism".
do you argue then, that his view logically entails epiphenomenalism, but he is in denial, or were you mistaken about his view?
also - and I could be wrong - i think his zombie argument, while implying what you say, isn't meant for that purpose. the main point of it is that the you can completely describe the physical world without even touching conscious experiences, thus proving substance dualism.
if you focus on the fact that, for the thought experiment to really and strictly work, you have to believe that behavior can be sufficiently explained my the physical facts alone, then yes - you get determinism without room for a libertarian model of human freedom. but i am not yet convinced that Chalmers himself would consider himself a determinist. further, i am not yet convinced that the essential framework he lays out (or arguments for it) is destroyed by introducing libertarian free will.
again, i am new to this, so i guess i'll see.
Hello, I do not agree with the previous commentator - not so simple
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