b - greaves,g.(1972) - behaviorism vs phenomenology, a needless conceptual muddle

7/26/2019 B - GREAVES,G.(1972) - Behaviorism vs Phenomenology, A Needless Conceptual Muddle

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Psycholog ical Reports,

1972, 30, 759-770.

Psycholog ical Reports

1972

BEHAVIORISM VERSUS PHENOMENOLOGY:

A NEE3LESS C ONC EPTUAL MUDDLE

GEORGE GREAVES

Georgia

tate

University

Summasy.-The perennial debate which has ensued over whether behavioral

or phenom enological approaches to psychology are the more scientific and

fruitful rests on

fundamental confusions in the way the language and concepts of

these approaches are emp loyed. Th is issue is analyzed in depth, sources of con

fusion are analyzed, and how the two approaches may be related is suggested.

T he behaviorism-phecomenology issue has become a matter of perennial de-

bate in psychology. Perha ps to write still another article about this area may

seem to be beating a dead horse. But in my view the horse is not dead, no mat-

ter how frustrated or tired he may be, nor has sufficient attention been paid to

the conceptzl l b se which gives rise to this issue in the first place. I would like

to attend a moment to this conceptual base in order to see if some of the prob-

lems, arguments, and frustrations concerning this issue as we now experience

them

do not drop away.

W e confuse ourselves so often when we go to talk about things. W e take

our language for granted, assuming that the language we speak is English, or

French, or German , or Russian, and that is that. But, as W ittgens tein has so

convincingly pointed out 1953) , the language we speak is actually composed

of many smaller language-games. Th e appro priate language-game we are to em-

ploy is

a

functio n of w hat we wa nt to say. Furth ermo re, the adm ixture of Ian-

guage-games, the interpo sitioning of the words of one language-game in anoth er,

can lead to logical and conceptual absurdities (Ryle, 1949) .

Psychologists, save for such persons as Mandler and Kessen

1959) ,

have

been, by and large, unaw are of the pervasiveness of their attin ides toward lan-

guage in the way they o about doing their particular thing. Tw o language-

games in particular have been the bane of modern psychology, and constitute

the subject matter of this particular piece.

T h e man-on-the-streex is a naive realist. H e believes in th e existence of a

world qui te indep enden t of his senses. M ore accurately, he knows that if he

shrivels up and blows away, there will still be an Empire State Building and the

Green Bay Packers. N o t s far as

he

is concerned, of course, but insofar as the

rest of the world is co nc er nd . And th e man-on-the-street employs a particular

language to describe that part of reality which is independent of his senses, a

language which I shall refer to

in

this piece as extr sentient discourse. Ships,

shoes, sealing wax, caK~ages, and kings, are all extrasen tient words. So

also are brain,

pH

level, sodium -potass ium depolarization, and n erve net-

work pattern. Extrasentient discourse is the language of the out there, the


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76 G GRE VES

"objective." T he semantical and syntactical rules of extrasentient discourse per-

mit of the predication of such properties, called physical, as "weight," "energy

level," "mass," a nd so on . Th ere are extrasentien t verbs, too, as well as nouns

and adjectives. These includ e such examples as "the rat runs," "th e rat shrieks,"

"the rat jumps," or "the rat moves left or right, or around the cage, or into the

corner," the last expressions being adverbial.

In general, we are able to get along rather w ell with the Norway rat in

terms of extrasencient d isco ~u se. W e are able to talk about him all day with

relative ease. But the hum an confounds us.

Not only does he speak extrasen-

cient language as well or nearly as well as we, the scientist, but he utters a sec-

ond , strange language, a language which follows different rules of semantics and

syntax. T he hu ma n tells us he "feels tired," or is "depressed," or th at he has

"butterflies in his stomach" and is somew hat "nauseous." In other words, he

speaks a language of experiences. Th ere are verbs in this latter language-game,

too. A person tells us he is "thinking," or "imagining," or "daydreaming," or

that he is "working o n a great idea."

Such talk So goyish. W h a t a troublemaker this hum an is. And we be-

gin t o riddle as we sit in our laboratories and study our records of op eran t levels.

"How heavy is an idea?" "W here is an idea?

In a brain? Th en why can't I

find an idea when lop u p a brain? And, how woiild I even recognize one if I

found it?" "How big would an image be just supposing I found one in a brain?

A micron in diameter? Te n microns? Perhaps three centimeters?" But it

soon becomes obvious th at the rules of semantics and syntax in th e two language-

games will not pe rmi t us to mix the concepts together in this way. Th us, in

the many scores of years that have passed since Descartes formulated the mod-

ern dilemma of interactionism, philosophers have been stru ggling with a per-

plexing question: "How can a massless, incorporeal substance (mind) cause ac-

tivity in, or produce motion in, a corporeal substance (body)

?

But the strug-

gle was in vain, for the above question is not a question a t all. It is a pseudo-

q u e s t i o n a n unquestion, as i t were. Th e above construction forms a sentence

which is not a part of any language-game.

T o recognize the abov e as an unquestion is not to resolve the problem,

however. W e are still faced with a creature who uses two distinctively different

language-games in referring to himself.

There are obviously only two main directions we can go when faced with

the two-language phenomen on. W e can discard one or the other language and

concept-set altogether, or we can try to live wich both . If in t he discarding of

one language mode altogether one keeps experiential discourse as his mode of

speech, he becomes a radical phenomenalist. If, o n the other hand , on e clings

co extrasen tient discou rse alone, on e becomes a radical behaviorist. N ei th er of

these positions is methodologically appealing, for it forces one into the position

of holding that the mode of discourse one is rejecting is somehow irrelevant, or,


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BEHAVIORISM VERSUS PH NOM NOLOGY

76

at best, a needless duplicacion of the preferred language. As Bergmam

1956

puts it, however, Watson's assertion that there was no such thing as conscious-

ness is philosophically "silly."

Given the one-languege approach

as

untenable, however, how do we learn

to live with the two-language problem?

Certainly we would not want to claim on any grounds, especially behavioral

grounds, that there is no overt relationship between the two languages. After

all, when a person says that he is in pain, I have learned from past experience to

expect certain cotemporaneous behavioral manifestations: perhaps a pallid face,

perspiration of the hands, an increased rate of respiration, a drawn expression,

a groan, a change in the q~al ityf the voice. Eventually I may come to associate

these behavioral manifestations of pain with the word "pain" to the extent that

I may hold that "pain" actually names the behavior itself. But, if so, I have

forgotten that the relationship of pain and pain-behavior is a contingent one. If

a person is laughing, smiling, joking, and carrying on a jovial conversation in

which he claims to be in incense pain, I may infer that he is lying or that he mis-

understands how the word is commonly used. Yet this is not necessarily the

case. Documentary literature and folklore are both filled with stories of persons

dying from dread and agonizing diseases, yet who were unable to keep their suf-

fering from the eyes of others.

very intense conceptual and methodological problem is raised when

those suffering from the manic drives of reductionism begin attempting to uans-

late experiential language into extrasentient terms. After all, one way to at-

tempt to live with the two-language problem is to claim that everything that can

be said in the one language can be said in the other. In other words, one could

claim that the concepts of the one language are somehow reducible to the con-

cepts of the other.

I have known persons, for instance, who have held that experiential utter-

ances about pain are reducible to some set of behavioral concepts. Next, con-

fusing physics with psychology, they take Bridgman at his word and proceed

operationally to define

pain.

Eventually "pain" comes to name the deflection

of a galvanometer needle aztached to an eleccrode, imbedded in some nerve or

other. The problem, of course, occurs when the needle is deflected but the sub-

ject insists that he feels no "pain." Now the bizarre situation is created in

which an experimenter and subject may argue with one another

as

to whether

or not the subject feels pain And, if the experimenter absolutely insists that his

definition of pain is the only genuine definition, or at least the only legitimate

one, the subject is now placed in the position of having to invent a new word al

together to name what he formerly called pain. This is made all the more bizarre

when one realizes that man knew for centuries that he was periodically in pain,

long before the invention of galvanometers or the science of neurology.

But the whole behavioristic-reductionistic muddle does not end here. What


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kind of behavior is named by thinking o r problem solving. Th e idiosyn-

cratic behavior which may accompany problem solving may vary from hyperac-

tive, manic-like activity, to the docile quiet of Sherlock Holm es w hom we a re

told would simply draw his knees up under his chin in his chair, close his eyes

and sit motionless for long periods of time.

I do not w ant to deal any further with the notion of reductionism here.

I

only want to present the view that

I

think the whole notion of reductionism is

untenable and ill-conceived, and hinges on some very dubious assumptions. I

shall defend this view elsewhere. In this present piece I want to show how we

can reject reductionism and still resolve the two-language problem .

Obviously, no methodologist can tolerate interactionistic concepts in his

work (Marx Hillix, 19 63 ). Occasionalism (McD ougall, 19 11 ) is at best a

joke from the psychological perspective.

Parallelism (Hospers, 1953) is a rela-

tively harmless concept for the purpose of psychological methodology, and,

e

facto many psychologists do mak e parallelistic assump tions in their work. Epi-

phenomenalism is yet another position which would be methodologically quite

tenable to most researchers (G reave s, 19 66 ). Ye t parallelism and epiphe -

nomenalism each present their own conceptual and logical problems, including

parsimonious considerations.

But the above approaches are not the only possible ones in attempting to

bridge the gap between the cognitive and non-cognitive methodological posi-

tions.

Implicit in the whole

behavioral phenomenological

affair is that these two

positions repres ent two putatively different ways of talking about the organism,

that they represent different kinds of concepts or have different kinds of refer-

ents. T o pu t it another way, behavioral/phenomenological positions have been

presented as if they are mutually exclusive positions, that somehow there is one

right way to talk abou t the organism, and largely through an accident of history,

the right way has come to mean the behavioral way. Th is is why I am now sug-

gesting that this whole affair is a red herrin g issue, the result of

concepnral mis-

takes and preconceptions which can be avoided altogether.

I a m not going to pretend, however, that the conceptual scheme I am about

to present is a n easy one. And neither is it a wholly original one, being strongly

influenced by Feigl (1961,

196 6), Place ( 19 56 ), Smart (1 959 ), and Spinoza

1919).

Furthermore, the ontological dualism which has come down to us

with our culture forces certain conceptual sets on us from which it is difficult to

escape. Nevertheless, let us proceed as best we can.

W e , as hum an beings, are caught up in a sort of dilemma w hen we try to

talk about ourselves.

First of all, we are living organisms. No w , being an or-

ganism

and

talking about an organism are not the same thing. F~lrthe rmor e, t

is not the same thing to talk about an organism and to talk about being an or-

ganism.

The language-game here, of course, is that of ontology, of that which exists,


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BEHAVIORISM V RSUS PHENOMENOLOGY 763

of reality, if you prefer. Let us not quibble.

Without any sort of philosophical

defense, let us allow that the pen with which I am writing exists, the paper on

which I am writi ng exists, th e desk at which I sit exists. And let us allow that

each of these items is

distinct

from the other.

H o w d o

I

talk about these items? W ell, I can say, this item here, or that

item there. Or,

I can say that the pen is red and the paper white. T he desk is

mad e of birch, and stained in English oak. T he pen is in. long, the paper is

8

X

in., the desk is

X

6

ft.

Now let us hold thae

I

exist. D o not hang on the word 1. Let us just

suppose that an organism is sitting here writing, such that when that organism

refers to itself, or designates itself, or uses what in grammar we call reflexive

langua ge, it calls itself "I." Th is is not to name som e hidden creature inside the

organism , but to distinguish itself verbally from a "you," or a "he," or an "it,"

which are other existent things.

Now, let this organism which refers to itself as

I

talk abou t itself. It is

5

ft., llx in. tall. It weigh s

195

lb. I t has hazel eyes. No w, let it describe it-

self behaviorally.

N o problem. T he organism which calls itself

I

is writing a

paper, the organism periodically paces, looks into the distance, rubs its chin.

Thus, the language used to talk about the organism called

I

is no different

from the language used to talk about other objects. T h e language mode is extra-

sentient.

All

right, now let the organism called

I

talk about what it is like to be the

pen with which he is writing.

Wait a minute.

Prima

f cie

the organism is no t the pen. Being the pen

means being identical with the pen. I n other words, in order to be the pen,

the organism called

I

would have to

be

the pen. Th is is an imp orta nt tautology.

Could the organism which calls itself then talk abou t what i t is like to be

the organism called

I?

Given that it has the power of language, of course it

could.

What is i t l ike, then, being this organism? Well at this moment this or-

ganism is rather excited ab ou t wh at he has to say. Bu t he is tired, also, and his

eyes burn.

H e has a crick in h is neck, also.

W h a t is all this stuff Ach "Excited?" "Tired?" "Eyes bu rn? " "Crick

in the neck?" W h a t kind of nonsense language is this?

This is no nonsense at all to the organism which uttered these statements.

Nor ate these utterances ncnsensical to any other organism which understands

the meaning of these words.

Can we conclude, however, from the basis of the foregoing that because the

organism speaks in two different ways that there are two different things: the

organism

nd

something called the organism's experiences? Th e answer is

an

unequivocal

no

Because tte organism talks first about itself in extrasentient

terms, and then again in experiential terms, this in no way logically implies

that two differen t things are being named. Th ere is not one being called th e or-


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GREAVES

ganism and anoth er bein g called experiences-yet this is exactly what traditional

dualism has been conning us to believe.

This organism is a being (thin g) in the same way a pen is a being (th ing ).

Th is organism is qui te different, however, from the pen it is holding. Th is or-

ganism has limbs, a heart, lungs, bloodstream, and a brain, co mention only a

few choice omissions in the pen. T he pe n cannot tell us about its being because

it is not the right kind of thing to be aware of its being, let alone talk about

such. It simply does not have the necessary equipm ent for experiencing and

talki ng abo ut it. But just because I do have the necessary equipment does not

mak e me any less unified than t he pen, a Paramecium, a toad, or a walrus. It is

curious that the concept of a Paramecium w ithin a Paramecium, or a toad withi n

a toad, has not caught on like the little invisible man within the man. And,

theologically speaking, it is curious chat when one reaches the phyletic level of

man a soul suddenly appears.

Anim als are automata; man has a soul. I t is un-

fortunate chat gorillas and pigs d o not discourse i n language we can understand.

W he n they began to tell us about their aches and pains, their aspirations, their

fears, their feelings, we should have to talk about gorillas within gorillas and

pigs within pigs using our logic. Th e confusion these two modes of discourse

have caused is boundless

All right, then, what exactly are we talking ab out when we use experiential

discourse? My assertion is that the refere nt of experiential language is the or-

ganism.

W ai t another minute. D id we not just state above that when we talk about

the organism we use extrasentient discourse?

Now you are saying that experi-

ential language also talks about the organism.

My reply is that both of the assertions are true, but they do not talk about

the organism in the same way. W h at ultimately determines whether we utter

experiential o r extrasentient language is the structure of the situation, or the

frame of reference, within w hich we find ourselves. If w e perceive our task to

be that of describing the "out there," the object world, we choose extrasentient

language.

This also applies to the organism called I W e have no particular

difficulty in regarding ourselves as an object in the world of objects nor of

speaking of ourselves in appropriate extrasentient terms.

On the other hand, if

we perceive our task to be th e regarding of the organism referred to as

I

as sub-

ject, i.e., of describing our being, w e select experiential language. T o put i t an-

other way: describing what an organism is like, and what it is like to be an or-

ganism are different tasks for which we employ different language. Neverth e-

less, whether this organism is referring to itself in experiential or extrasentient

language, it is still referring to this organism.

Why, then, the question follows, if the organism is referring to one thing,

viz., the organism, does it need two languages?

It is not a question of need in any motivational sense, but of need in a

logical sense. T h e organism is not mentally frail.

It does not suffer from a


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VERSUS

PH NOM NOLOGY

76

lack of wit. I t simply is incapable of b eing simultaneously i n a subjective and

objective orientatio n or f ram e of reference.

Suppose that

I m

magining the proverbial patch of green and a neurologist

who is probing my brain says that he has isolated a characteristic pattern of

neural activity when I do this. Suppose he arranges mirro rs so I can see what

is going on in my head end on the oscilloscopes to which I am attached such

that

I

can also witness the characteristic neural patterns which occur when

I

imagine a patch

of

green.

m I

not now in

both

frames of reference at once?

No , for I am first regarding myself a s the experiencer of the patch of green and

then as the object whose brain is doing so and so. N o matter how quickly I al-

ternate from o ne orientation to another, I am never in both frames of reference,

or orientations, at once. Consequently, it is logically impossible for m e to con-

struct a legitimate statement of the sort: The patch of green

s

the change in th e

electrical potential in the brain of the organism called

I.

There is, however,

the legitimate statem ent of the for m: W he n a certain pattern of brain activity

is present in the brain of chis organism, this same organism experiences a patch

of green, and vice versa.

My objection to identity-statements of t he an image is a brain process sort

is that they fail to preserve th e orientation or frame of reference distinctio n which

is at the roo t of experiential and extrasentient discourse. W e do not arrive at ex-

trasentient and experiential concepts in the same way, and we do not intend to

convey the same things by them. T o atte mp t the identity-reduction commits a

semantical error.

There is a slightly different approach which both preserves the integriry of

the modes of discourse and allows us

to

be monistic. Instead of holding that

ideas and brain processes are identical concepts, as surely no on e would seri-

ously attem pt to do, one can argue that the word idea and the word brain

processes nam e the same actual process in the brain. In ocher words, one can

ma intain the logical independence of the words, as one must do if he is to avoid

a tautologous statement, while at the same time having a common link, viz.,

some aspect of the organism. I t should be evident, however, that this

link

does

not permit of linguistic reductionism, for the link between the

two

languages

is not a linguistic link, it is a factual link.

But this is hardly a handicap, for

s

in ll factual schemas, given one ele-

men t of the factual relationship, w e can infer the other. Hence, given that the

subject reports a patch of green, our factual relationship allows us to infer cer-

tain neurological processes are present and vice versa.

It

should be made clear at the onset exactly who is doing the inferrin g. At -

tempts to reduce data about consciousness to behavior lead to ridiculous asser-

tions about an individual's inferring certain data of consciousness from his be-

havior. On this view a person infers that he is in pain by referencing his be-

havior.

The inadequacies of this view are immediately evident, and again represent


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the confusion which inevitably results from equating or identifying behavioral

an d phenom enal concepts. O n the other hand, if we wish to argue that

an

out-

side observer somehow makes certain inferences about a subject's phenom enal

experiences o n the basis of the sub ject's behavior, this is quit e another matter.

The problems involved in acquiring such knowledge have been extensively ex-

plored by such writers as Ayer (1 9 64 ), Malcolm (1 96 4 ), and many others.

There is no need to duplicate their efforts.

I t is imp ortant to our discussion, however, to review some of the conceptual

problems implicit i n this frame of reference scheme as

have presented it here.

Let us look again at our claim. T h e theoretical stand being taken is that

certain neurological events referred to in extrasentient language are the same

events referred to i n certain experiential language. In other words, the orga-

nism itself is the referen t for each kind of discourse. Th is does not perm it us to

claim, however, that an image, for instance, is the same thing

s

a neurological

event, for our discourse will not perm it of such constructions (he rein I diff er

sharply from Place and Sm art) . Th e claim is, rather, that images and neurologi-

cal events have a comm on reference in terms of the organism, and differ in their

conceptual character as a function of their being grounded in two different and

mutually exclusive frames of reference, or orientations, viz., the organism as sub-

ject and the organism as object.

The intention of the subject when using experiential discourse is not to

refer to some neurological event or other. s was pointed out before, experi-

ential discourse existed for centuries before anything was known about brains or

nerves or synapses. Conversely, the intentio n of th e neurophysiologist is not to

talk about consc io~~snessr images. T he concepts of experiential discourse and

that of extrasentient discourse are quite logically independent and in no way

imply one another except as a contingency.

Th e first link-u p of th e two conceptual sets occurred th roug h the process

of correlation, largely through brain-damage studies. Especially du rin g and af-

ter World Wars I and 11, certain types of brain lesions were seen to be accom-

panied by certain changes in experiential reports s well as in behavior. In the

pas t forty years, th e study of so-called psychophysical co-ord inates of behav ior

has become an area of considerable im portance, culmin ating in the w ork of such

important researchers as Luria (1966).

It is often pointed out, however, that one cannot argue from a large correla-

tion, even one- to-on e correlation to any form of identity-hypothesis. Suppose I

find a perfect correlation between the presence of knives and forks at every

place setting in a large banquet hall. From this I cann ot assert that a knife is a

fork. Furthermore, i t is routinely pointed o ut that it would be impossible, in

principle, to design an ex perim ent which could ever validate any sort of identity-

hypothesis. W e can equate things only if we can show that they are conceptu-

ally or operationally equivalent or if we can locate them at the same place at

the same time. I can say that an qw s is a horse, because we can compare con-


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BEH KORISM

VERSUS PH NOM NOLOGY 7 7

cepts and find them t be the same. Or we can point to an object in a field

somewh ere and find that we give it a different name although the names have

an identical referent.

I n the case of images and neural events however

I

have no such ability.

Th e two terms ate con ce~ tua lly ar different and since I cannot apply spatial

predicates to experiential language I can never p i n t t o a common referent in

space. Th e strongest empirical hypothesis I can ever validate concerning the

relation of images and neural events is that wh en one is temporally present the

other is also and vice versa.

Still another problem arises out of the peculiar conceptual status of the term

organism i n my approach to the problem of the tw o modes of discourse. Ex

hypothesi extrasentie nt discourse regardless how mu ch it is com plicated fails

to completely describe the organism for it refers to only one aspect of the or-

ganism viz. its objective status or orientation. O n the other hand experiential

l anguage desc ribes only t h ~ubjective stams or orientation in regard to the or-

ganism. T he organism however is viewed as lying in both frames of reference

at once i.e. th e organism is simultaneously a subjective and objective being or

thing. Y et it is logically inconceivable that any language could be devised which

could describe the organism qua organism i.e. a language neither experiential

or extrasentient yet a language to which each is reducible. T o put it another

way the theory I have described is a double-aspect theory in which

org nism

becomes a primitive undefinable concept. Th e closest we could ever com e to

describing an organism would be through the conjoining of all possible corre-

latable experiential and extrasentient statements. Th is would however consti-

tute a parallelism and no t a monism .

I am of course aware

of

these difficulties

and

more but I am

not

sure ex-

actly how important they are. T h e empirical objections in terms of th e in-

validatability of identity or double-aspect hypotheses d o not bother me. W e ate

after all w orking with a theory here not an hypothesis. Theo ries ate not capa-

ble of being true or false. They are good or bad productive or unproductive.

The ultimate justification of a theory is to be found solely in pragmatic con-

siderations. Even the coveted principle of parsimony so ofte n used as a con-

ceptual ax is justified only o n pragmatic grounds. Eliteness has no intrinsic

value. theory is said to be validata ble if i t predicts previously unobs erved

events and explains and organizes already existent data. Later we shall explore

some of the predictions of th e present theory and see that they can i n principle

be verified or falsified.

The concepmal problems are another matter and I should best deal with

them i n this way. T he conditions of our existence and the repertoire of o ur

possible experiences impose certain limits on our ability to reason about the

world. I n this respect I am very much a Kan tian. No rhin g has so much occu-

pied the history of the problem of knowledge as the dichotomy between subject

and object. Th e pendulum

has

swung smugly from materialisni to idealism a


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7 8

G GRE VES

number of times and in a number of guises, and scores of attempts have been

made to reduce subject-object language either to one another or to a common

language. Only humans seem to have this problem, for only humans seem to

use language to any appreciable extent. What

I

am suggesting, however, is

that the condition of our existence imposes the subject-object dichotomy on us

inescapably. W e are simultaneously an object in a world of objects and an ex-

periencing being. The reason I cannot devise a reductionistic language in which

to describe myself is that the conditions of my existence prohibit any possibility

of entering into an experiential world in which I am neither subject nor object

or into an extrasentient world in which I am one with all objects.

The one possible exception to this claim is that experience referred to as

the mystical state in which the predominant description is a feeling of one-

ness, or a feeling of unity with the

All

(James,

1902 . I

certainly do not

make light of such claims, for the I-thou/I-it distinction does nor seem to be

prevalent in newborn children and is developed only through perceptual ex-

perience. Furthermore, the sharpness of the I-thou distinction seems to be

largely dissolved through training in Zen, through the effects of such drugs

as

LSD, through religious experiences, autohypnosis, or plain old mystical states.

Even so, written or oral discourse while in these various states still maintains its

dualistic flavor, and when a person under the influence of LS claims to be

One with the flower petals at which he is gazing or claims to be the flower it-

self, we are more likely

to

regard such language

as

metaphorical or projective.

The person involved in the mystical experience is generally quite cognizant of

his linguistic limitations and knowingly resorts to the use of metaphors. Uni-

versally the claim is found that the pure mystical experience is ineffable

(James,

1902 .

The One or the All in mystical language thus takes on the same

quality of the primitive and undefinable as our concept organism.

Obviously, I am not claiming that organism is a mystical term, though I

am

sure some reader might have some fun with this notion. My claim is simply

that when we attempt to dissolve the subject-object dichotomy, we dissolve our

language as well. This is just as true whether the dissolution takes the form

of reductionism to materialistic or phenomenalistic terms, or whether the dis-

solution takes the form of a common, underlying monism. Given that the terms

ideas and neural events are not reducible to one another but refer to a common

entity, one is immediately moved to ask what the entity is like. But there are

no words. The entity is a logical construct made necessary by the demands of

the language-games we play, and from which we cannot escape.

There is nothing to bemoan in this state of affairs.

Just because the dic-

tates of our language which reflect the conditions of our existence compel us

to deal with the problem in this way, this does not mean that organisms do not

exist.

I

am an organism;

I

exist. You are an organism; you exist. Our problem

is not whether organisms exist; this has never been a problem in our discussion.

The problem, if it be a problem at all, is that we cannot talk about the organism


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BEHAVIORISM VERSUS

PH NOM NOLOGY

769

qua organis m because of th e impossibility of devising such a language.

W e can

talk about characteristics of th e organism all nigh t: it chinks, feels, moves,

speaks, eats, sleeps, runs, jumps, swims, writes music, listens to music, etc.

W e

can predicate literally thousan ds of things about organisms. Buc we cannot

predicate organismic essences of organisms.

W h at empirical hypotheses follow from our theory? Let us list just a few:

(a) Given certain brain states of an organism, certain phenomenal states can be

inferred and vice versa, based on prior correlational data.

( b ) Th e repetit ion of

a given neural patcern would be cotemporaneous with the repetition of a given

phenomenological pattern. ( c ) Phenomenological experiences and specifiable

neural activities are always exactly co tem pr an eo us occurrences. ( d ) Phe-

nomenological activity could nor take place apart from the locus of the orga-

nism. ( e ) Phenomeno logical experiences are not, in principle, private experi-

ences.

Admittedly, hypotheses a, 6 and are neither particularly exciting or re-

vealing. O ne m ig ht describe them as old hat.

Yet hypothesis d is of crucial

importance, for its refutation would strike a telling blow to our theory. Th is is

also true of hypotheses a 6, and c, though they would be somewhat harder to re-

fute based on technological limitations.

If

the science-fiction and gr nd ui nol

aspects of psychic research could be thrown away, some m eaningf ul experim ents

might be performed in this area, experiments which might take this important

hypothesis to task. T he verification of such elusive pheno men a as astral pro -

jection o r clairvoyance wou ld be significant in the rejection of this hy pothesis.

Hyp othesis is as crucial to the su pp or t of the theory as hypothesis d. Hy-

pothesis is especially interescing since no form of Cartes ian dualism would

predict it, i n fact, would predict precisely the opposite. Furthe rmor e, hy-

pochesis e is thoroughly at odds with ou r folklore, both in and out of psychology,

as well as being at odds with our common-sense view of personal identity.

T h e concep tual basis for hypothesis may be understood in terms of a

thought-experiment which I will refer to as the Siamese brain experim ent.

Suppose we take two subjects,

A

and

B

and attach th e left optical cortex of

A to the right optical cortex of

B.

W h en the juncture is made we can con-

ceptually no longer speak of the right op tical cortex of A or the left optical

cortex of

B,

but only of the comm on cortex of

A

and

B.

Suppose now that

B

closes his eyes and we show a red card to

A .

Then

suppose we ask

B

what he is experiencing and he tells us he experiences some-

thing red. W e show A a blue card, and reports blue, etc.

Then we turn the

situation around and show the cards to

B

and ask for A's report. Giv en these

conditions there would be no logical basis on which to assert that

A

had an ex-

perience and

B

had an experience, making two experiences in all. In oth er

words, from a common neurological event we cannot argue that tw different

perceptual events occurred. T o do so would be to confuse the perceptual report

with the perceptual event, and to argue that since one report came from

A s


12/12

770

G. GREAVES

mo uth and ano ther from B s, there were two events. Th ere were only two re-

ports.

The point I am making, of course, is that the reason I do not experience

what you experience simply by looking at your brain activity is that

I

am not a

part of your system. T h e brain, after all, is easily view ed as a system of closed

circuits, or rather as a closed electrical system. Insofar as I becom e merged w ith

your system, therefore, insofar as I become neurologically hooked u p with you,

as it were, to that extent would we have common experiences.

ll this, of course, represen ts a grea t oversim plification .

A

thought-ex-

periment is not in any way designed to be a laboratory experiment or to sub-

stitute for it.

It is designed to test and explore concepts. Ye t with ou r vastly

accelerating knowledge of neurophysiology and ne~~ rop hys iolo gic alechniques,

it will not be far off before some expe rimen tal tests of hypothesis will be

realized.

In laying

a

firm theoretical foundation which removes the dualistic stigma

from our heritage without doing injustice to our language, we still have not re-

solved all of the main problems associated with

behavioral/phenomenological

issues. W e have treated only one aspect, the most imp orta nt aspect, of the is-

sues. Th ere are yet other conceptual problems which have led to the behavioral/

phenomen ological split. T o some of these we will later turn our attention .

REFERENCES

AYER

A.

J.

One s knowledge of other minds.

In

D.

Gustafson (Ed.),

Essays in philo-

sophical psychology.

New York: Anchor, 1964. Pp. 346-364.

BERGMANN,

. The contribution of John B.Watson.

Psychological Review

1956, 63,

265-276.

FEIGL,H. Mind-body,

not

a pseudo problem.

In S. Hook (Ed.),

Dimensions of mind.

New York: Collier, 1961. PD. 33-44.

GREAVES,

. Mind, monism, and mecapsychology. Unpublished Master s thesis, Univer.

of Georgia, 1966.

HOSPERS,. An in troductio n to philosophical analysis.

New York: Prentice-Hall, 1953.

JAMES,

W. The varieties

o f

religious experience: a study in human nature.

New York:

Longmans, Green, 1902.

LURIA,

.

Higher cortical functions i n m an.

New York:

Basic

Books, 1966.

MALCOLM, . Knowledge of other minds. In D. Gustafson ( E d . ) , Essays in philo-

sophical psychology.

New York: Anchor, 1964.

Pp.

365-376.

MANDLER,

.,

KESSEN,

W. T h e Iangaage of psychology. New York: Wiley, 1959.

MARX,M.,

HILLIX,

W.

Systems and theories in psychology.

New York: McGraw-Hill,

1963.

MCDOUGALL,

.

Body and mind.

London: Methuen, 1911.

PLACE

.

T.

IS consciousnes~ brain process?

British Journal of Psychology

1956, 47,

44-50.

RYLE,G.

T he concept of mind.

New York: Barnes Noble, 1949.

SMART,.

J.

C.

Sensations and brain processes.

Philosophical Review 1959 48 141-

156.

SPINOZA,

B . Ethics. London: Bell, 1919

WI ~G EN S T E I N

. Philosophical investigations.

New York: Macmillan, 1953.

Accepted February 28

1972.

b - greaves,g.(1972) - behaviorism vs phenomenology, a needless conceptual muddle

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