behaviorism, language and meaning - sellars

7/31/2019 Behaviorism, Language and Meaning - Sellars

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BEHAVIORISM, LANGUAGE AND MEANING*

Wilfrid Sellars

I. Behaviorism as a Program

1. Many who went through the behaviorist revolution --whether as more or less innocent bystanders, or torchbearers -- and watched it settle down into an establishedorthodoxy dominating the scene from the commandingheights of learning theory, have been puzzled bysubsequent developments. Although nothing assystematic as a counterrevolution has occurred, freethinking is rampant. And if closely knit groups are notlacking who seek to restore law and order and put

psychology on its proper path, they look to a variety ofmodels.

2. Some of the ideas which have come to the surface inthis period of anarchy would startle, indeed shock, thepioneers of behaviorism. They would find them of a piecewith what they had regarded as modes of explanationwhich either don't explain or are so messy that it isdifficult to determine exactly what did the explaining, howit explained and what was explained.

3. They had sought a methodology which would remedythis situation by generating hypotheses which wereintersubjectively confirmable, and the content of whichwas formulated in such a manner that the nature andlocus of its explanatory power would be manifest.

4. I emphasized above that what was sought was amethodology. This is not to say that the behavioristicmovement was lacking in substantive commitment

concerning the objects -- docile organisms -- whichconstituted its scientific domain. Clearly it was anti-dualistic -- even physicalistic, to use a contemporary term-- in its orientation, fully expecting that the application ofits methods would yield results which would harmonizewith a thoroughly naturalistic conception of the world. Yetas it became increasingly aware of its primary


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methodological character, behaviorism placed more andmore emphasis on the autonomy of psychology as ascience.

5. For, and this was an important insight, even when, as in

the case of chemistry, one is prepared to envisage anidentification of chemical objects, processes andproperties, and properties with complex micro-physicalobjects, processes and properties, and, in this sense, unifythe ontologies or domains of the sciences of physics andchemistry; to achieve this goal would not be in any usefulsense to unify the sciences. For an essential part of ascience, e.g. chemistry, is its methodology -- its mode ofaccess to its subject matter, including its experimental

apparatus and the structures of concepts in terms ofwhich its questions are formulated.

6. Methodological autonomy of chemical inquiry -- ofchemistry as a science -- serves as a powerful constrainton the form a unification of the theories of the twosciences might take. For it is chemical objects andprocesses as conceptualized in the methodologicalcontext of chemical theorywhich must find counterpartsin the domain of micro-physics, conceptualized in the

context of the methodology of micro-physics, if theenvisaged unification is to take place.

7. Thus, while Behaviorists undoubtedly cherished thevision of a sometime identification of psychologicalobjects, processes and properties with complexphysiological and neuro-physiological objects, processesand properties, they fought a determined fight topreserve the methodological autonomy of psychology as ascience. Any unification of the subject matters of these

sciences would have to harmonize with the results ofpsychological investigation, achieved in accordance withthe methodology of psychology as a science.

8. Thus, while there was, so to speak, an 'ideological'conviction that the results which would be achieved by abehavioristically oriented psychology would harmonize


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with a thoroughly naturalistic or physicalistic conceptionof the world, there was an equally strong conviction thatpsychology had its contribution to make to any adequateconception of the world as including sentient organisms.

9. But what, specifically, was the methodological programof Behaviorism? and how, specifically, was it motivated? Iwill take up the second question first. Here the centralpoint is that although the Behaviorist did not deny thateach human subject has an access to his or herpsychological states which is not a matter of inferencefrom publicly observable features of their bodily states,this 'privileged access' is neither clear, distinct, adequatenor infallible. Introspection is not a simple transposition of

psychological reality into the cognitive order; a directapprehension of the facts as they are. It is a conceptualresponse to psychological states and the conceptsincluded in this response are common sense psychologicalconcepts and, as such, no more adequate to anunderstanding of what is really going on than are commonsense concepts pertaining to the middle sized physicalobjects of everyday experience. Common sensepsychological concepts are an ill-disciplined manifold;vague, open-textured, controlled by obscure analogiesand subject in their first person use to special sources oferror.

10. As for explanations in common sense psychologicalterms, they are at their best in connection with humanactivity at a level on which people approximate theirpotentiality as rational animals. The more rational peopleare, the easier it is to explain what they do. The moredifficult task is that of finding, classifying and explaining

lapses from rationality. Explanations in terms of suchcategories as belief, desire, aversion, hope, fear,perception, memory, ends, means -- and such lapses asare implied by impulse, wishful thinking, suppressedemotions, carelessness -- are often satisfying. Theycertainly assimilate the problematic to the familiar.


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11. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with the practiceof classifying phenomena to be explained in terms of thecategories of the theory which explains them -- in thiscase the theory of rational action and lapses therefrom.

But where, as here, the theory has evolved in a poorlyunderstood way by a kind of natural selection, thedangers of circularity and emptiness are ever present.

12. A darker side of the picture begins to emerge when weconsider psychological facts which, though equally in needof explanation, do not fit -- in any neat way -- into theabove framework. To take an example which is very muchin the news -- How does an infant learn a language? Canan answer to this question be given in the categories of

common sense psychology?13. What might such an explanation be like? 1 shall notattempt to answer this question in any detail -- though Ishall be concerned with the topic of language acquisitionat a later stage of my argument. For the moment I shalllimit myself to pointing out that there is available at thelevel of common sense the model of hypothesis formationand the search for confirming (or disconfirming) evidence.

14. According to this model the infant -- confronted bysalient linguistic configurations of sounds, formulatesincreasingly subtle hypotheses about them and thecontexts in which they occur; and accepts, rejects ormodifies these hypotheses. Each new occasion providesmore grist for the child's inductive mill.

15. Now it leaps to the eye that this kind of explanationassumes that the child is no merelypotentialrationalanimal. Its rationality is full fledged. It operates with

concepts and logical forms which have a high degree ofsophistication. Of course a common sense explanation oflanguage acquisition along these lines would undoubtedlyattempt to minimize the rationality of the child byemphasizing the sporadic, careless, undisciplinedcharacter -- in short the childishness of the process --thought not to the extent of completely undercutting the


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applicability of the question, hypothesis, weighingevidence, acceptance, rejection, modification model.

16. If the question is now raised -- How does the infantacquire the conceptual abilities mobilized by his inductive

reasonings? one answer is clearly precluded: "in thecourse of learning a language." Nor could these abilitiesbe acquired by a process of inquiry or reasoning. Thepressure towards an innatistaccount of the child's logicalpowers would be almost irresistible.

17. Notice that the Behaviorist need not claim thatcommon sense does not contain the resources for a non-rationalistic account of the process of languageacquisition. He is simply pointing out that whether or notit contains such resources they are not mobilized anddeployed by common sense, and that the construction ofsuch an alternative non-rationalistic account wouldrequire the deliberate and systematic development of aradically different framework of psychologicalexplanation.

18. What might such an alternative-explanatoryframework be? Before answering this question the

Behaviorist turns to a second example of theunsatisfactory character of common sense modes ofexplanation. He does so because although the idea thatthe child learns to understand and use a language by aprocess of inductive reasoning within a framework ofinnate logical abilities strikes him as flawed by circularity-- in that the acquiring of a language is explained bypostulating an unacquired (innate) languages-likestructure -- he must admit that the account is not absurd.There is nothing self-contradictory about the idea of an

innate language-like structure (Mentalese), and theremight just be no other way of explaining languageacquisition.

19. A second example is more immediately promising. Itsuggests both a methodology and a pattern ofexplanation. It put behaviorism on the track which,


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largely, it still follows. For it concerns the phenomenon ofanimal learning.

20. A common sense explanation of the acquisition by achild of the abilities which animals acquire in experimental

situations (e.g. learning a maze) can be expected to be ofa piece with its explanation of language acquisition. Butwhat of animals? Does it even make sense to attribute toanimals procedure of hypothesis formation andconfirmation which employs an innate conceptualstructure? Perhaps it makes sense -- but barely. Thepressure to find another mode of explanation isoverwhelming. As for methodology: in the nature of thecase it could not be introspection.

21. As for the pattern of explanation, the Behaviorist cameup with stimulus-response-reinforcement theory, whichworks reasonably well in simple, tightly controlled cases.The essential features of this explanatory patternappeared at an early date in Thorndike's explanation ofhow cats learn to escape from specially contrived boxes.

22. The hope, of course, was that if this mode ofexplanation works in simple cases, in connection with

animals, it would also work in complex cases, and thenagain in simple cases in connection with humans andfinally in connection with complex human cases. Languagelearning might be explained in terms of complexstructures of S-R connections, each of which was stampedin by a reinforcing reward.

23. As for methodology -- the study of animal behaviorwas particularly well suited to an experimental techniquein which questions and hypotheses are formulated in

terms of publicly observable variables.

24. Today it is obvious at a glance that in a sense theBehaviorist methodology was unnecessarily restrictive.Once it became clear that the concepts of physical theorycould not be explicitly defined in terms of observables, theBehaviorist was open to the challenge -- why is it not


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legitimate to introduce concepts in Behavioristics whichare not explicitly definable in terms of observablebehavior described in carefully aseptic (non-anthropomorphic) terms? As it was sometimes put: Why

not introduce hypothetical constructs into Behavioristics(compare the postulational concepts of physical theory)instead of restricting yourself to intervening variables(the mark of which -- though the terminology wasmisleading -- is definability in terms of observables)? Tobe sure, in the resulting controversy the phrase'intervening variables' was often used with sufficientlooseness by its proponents that it could cover 'variables'which were not, strictly speaking, definable in observationterms. The latter, however, were treated in an

instrumentalist spirit, as merely 'mathematical,' anddenied psychological reality. Thus, in a sense, the issuewas not clearly joined. Nevertheless the methodologicalpoint of the stress on the concept of an 'interveningvariable' was to block a return to Mentalistic concepts.

25. For this was indeed the real issue. The Behavioristmight grant that he needed concepts which could not bedefined in observable terms. But (a) he would go as far ashe could without them; (b) he insisted that the aboveconcession not be construed as opening the way to a freeuse of Mentalistic concepts.A priorirestrictions on thekinds of concepts to be introduced into psychologicaltheory were out of place. But from the standpoint ofmethodology the binding principle was to be: Don't simplyborrow concepts and principles from the framework ofintrospective knowledge. Use all the analogicalandsuggestive power of Mentalistic concepts and principles,but be sure that the concepts and principles you introduce

have no more Mentalistic structure than can bejustifiedinterms of their ability to explain observable behaviorphenomena.

26. As I see it, this was -- and remains -- themethodological stance of a sophisticated behaviorism.And while it is not as restrictive as the outlook which is


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typical of the more orthodox forms of the movement, andcan be subscribed to by many who are uncomfortableabout the historical connotations of the term'Behaviorism,' it by no means trivializes the latter. It

formulates methodological policy which is so widelyshared as to justify the statement that Behaviorism isindeed alive and well in psychology.

II. Language and Thought: A Behaviorist Strategy

27. Thinking as an activity is often contrasted in a globalmanner withperceiving and doing. The paradigm for thissense of the verb 'to think' is problem solving.

28. But in another sense thinking is itself a constituent ofperception and action, and is, indeed, but a proper part ofproblem solving.

29. The term 'perception' ranges over a spectrum ofpsychological states, but in its most developed form, byanalogy with which we attempt to understand the others,it clearly includes a conceptual element, an awareness ofsomething as being of a certain kind, as having qualitiesand standing in relations. This conceptual element wastraditionally regimented by the term 'perceptual

judgment,' e.g. the judgment: "This is a red apple."30. Perception also involves a sensory element, to whichthe perceptual judgment is a response. In what, exactly,this sensory element consists and how, exactly, these twoelements are related are central topics in perceptiontheory on which much remains to be said.

31. Thinking is also essentially involved in action. One can,of course seek to solve problems about what to do. But,even in impulsive action, there is a conceptual element.One conceptualizes an action as something to be donehere and now. This conceptual element was traditionallyregimented by the term 'volition,' e.g. the volition: "Now Iwill signal a left turn."

32. Actions are responses to volitions, asperceptualjudgments are responses to sensory stimulation.


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33. I have explored on other occasions the variousdimensions of perception theory and action theory fromthe standpoint of a relaxed behaviorism.1 On the presentoccasion I shall concentrate on conceptual activity as

such, abstracting as far as possible -- which, of course, isnot very far -- from its involvement in perception andaction.

III. Thinking and Speaking: The Classical View

34. The classical theory of mental activity recognizesanalogies between certain properties of conceptual statesand certain properties of the linguistic utterances whichexpress them, judgments as well as sentences havesubjects and predicates. Both have logical form and

quantificational structure. Both involve distinctions oftense and of mood.

35. It is characteristic of the classical theory of mentalactivity to regard the syntax and semantics of conceptualepisodes as primary, and those of linguistic episodes asderivative. The latter have the grammar they do becausethis makes it possible for them to express thoughts havingwhat might be called an intrinsic grammar, i.e. agrammar, the possession of which is not to be explained in

terms of the grammar of anything else.2

36. The classical theory takes there to be anintersubjective domain (the exact ontological status ofwhich it usually does not attempt to specify) of whatmight be called thinkables. There is, for example, thethinkable

that 2 + 2 = 4.

When a person thinks that .2 + 2 = 4., he or she is in some

way directly related to the thinkable. If, as seemslegitimate, we speak of the mental term of this relation asan awareness, and continue to think of conceptualepisodes as having structure, we might try to capture thegrammatical character of the awareness as a matter of itsbeing of the 2 + 2 = 4 kind. We would be baptizing theawareness by putting to special use the form of words


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which, in English, express an awareness of this kind.3

37. The classical theory construes the relation ofutterances to thinkables as the logical product of arelation between utterances and thoughts on the one

hand, and the above characterized relation betweenthoughts and thinkables on the other.

38. Emphasis is placed on the role of language incommunication. Language is viewed as essentially aninstrument. Furthermore, linguistic activity consistsessentially ofactions. Thus, although communication (anddeceit) may be impulsive, we understand it best when weunderstand it at its best, i.e. in cases where onedeliberates about necessary and sufficient conditions for

realizing one's intention that a hearer becomes aware ofand, perhaps, believes certain thinkables.

39. Classical theory at its best is sensitive to thedistinction between act as action and act as actuality.Actions are actualities, but actualities are not, in general,actions. Actions, to follow Ryle, are those actualities whichappropriately can be spoken of as deliberate or impulsive,careful or careless, etc.

40. A feeling of pain is an act by virtue of being theactualization of a potentiality, but it is obviously not anaction. It makes sense to speak of a passive act, but not(save in a highly derived sense) of a passive action.

41. Mental acts, in the classical sense, are not, as such,mental actions. There are, of course, such things asmental actions, e.g. deliberating about what to do ortrying to solve a mathematical problem.

42. And, of course, there are mental non-actions. Thus onecan not deliberately notice something -- though one candeliberatelypay attention. Again, it is notoriously a sourceof paradox to treat volitions as actions. Nor, whenrelevant distinctions are drawn, is inference properlysubsumed under action.


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43. Obviously, therefore, if all linguistic activity fell in thecategory ofaction, there would necessarily be somethoughts which could not be identified with linguisticepisodes. This consideration has served to reinforce the

classical view that thought is essentially non-linguistic,and that the syntax and semantics of thought (itsintentionality) is primary.

IV. A Contrasting Strategy: Verbal Behaviorism

44. 1 have already called attention to the fact thatclassical theories recognize "analogies between certainproperties of conceptual states and certain properties ofthe linguistic utterances which express them."

45. The limiting case of a theory which recognizes suchanalogies is one which construes them in terms ofidentity. According to it, grammar of conceptual episodesis analogous to the grammar of linguistic episodesbecause conceptual episodes simply are linguisticepisodes.

46. According to this theory, which I have called VerbalBehaviorism,4 thought episodes are, in the first instance,candid linguistic utterances by one who knows the

language. Let me call them 'thinkings-out-loud' -- thoughthey could, of course, be in the vocabulary of the deaf anddumb.

47. Again, in the first instance, they are linguistic non-actions -- as contrasted with the illocutionary andperlocutionary acts (actions) stressed by those who lookat language through the spectacles of communicationtheory.5 There would be noticings-out-loud, inferrings-out-loud and willings-out-loud, all of them actualizations of

linguistic abilities, but none of them actions.

48. There would also, of course, be linguistic actions -- notonly such other-regarding actions as Austin so lovinglybotanizes, but also such actions as deliberating-out-loudand attacking-mathematical-problems-out-loud.

49. The concept of thinking-out-loud is, according to the


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verbal behaviorist, the primary concept pertaining toconceptual activity. All other concepts of thinking are tobe understood in terms of their connection with it.

50. Primacy in this sense is not to be confused with

primacy in other senses. Compare the primacy 'in theorder of knowing' of the concept of a middle sizedperceptible physical object with the primacy 'in the orderof being' of concepts of micro-physical entities.

51. The verbal behaviorist insists that he doesn't inventthis concept out of whole cloth. We all have this concept,but, as is our philosophical wont, confuse it with otherconcepts when we attempt to theorize.

52. But ifthinking-out-loudis the primary conceptpertaining to conceptual episodes, not every concept of aconceptual episode is the concept of a thinking-out-loud.There is, in the second place, the concept of a proximate --a 'tip of the tongue' -- propensity to think-something-out-loud. Such propensities amount to subjunctiveconditionals as

If Jones were in a thinking-out-loud frame of mind, hewould think-out-loud: "the bus didn't stop."

53. Such propensities are episodic in the sense that onecomes to have them and ceases to have them.

54. Needless to say propensities can be remote as well asproximate, and remote to various degrees. Objects canacquire propensities pertaining to the acquisition of otherpropensities. One thinks of a nesting of conditionals.Magnets have the propensity to attract iron filings. Ironhas the propensity to become magnetized in certain

specifiable conditions.55. Thus there is space for complicated structures ofconceptual episodes, construed as shifting propensities ofvarious degrees of remoteness pertaining to thinking-out-loud. To grasp these structures one need only reflect ontheir counterparts in the classical theory of mental


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activity -- for, if the verbal behaviorist is right, the shiftingsands of mental activity, with which we are socommonsensically familiar, simply are the shiftings ofproximate and remote propensities pertaining to thinking-

out-loud.6

56. Verbal Behaviorists are inevitably confronted by thefollowing off-the-cuff objection: "Surely thinking-that-pcan't be just a matter of uttering 'p.' One isn't thinking outloud that-p unless one knows the meaning of the soundsone utters, and this knowing the meaning isn't a matter ofutterances and propensities to utter. It is a genuineconceptual act which alone makes the utterance athinking out loud."

57. The answer, of course, is that there is all thedifference in the world between parroting words andthinkings-out-loud. In the latter the utterances coherewith one another and with the extra-linguistic context inaccordance with the syntactical and semantical rules ofthe language. 'Knowing the meaning' of linguisticexpressions is, in Ryle's terminology a case of knowinghow, and is to be carefully distinguished from 'knowingthe meaning' in the sense of being able to make correct

lexicographical statements about them.

58. A more insightful criticism is that whereas it is afamiliar fact that our thoughts succeed one another withlightning-like speed, overt speech moves as slowly as thetongue. Furthermore, it is argued, we can think twothoughts at once, but speak only one. How can this bereconciled with verbal behaviorism?

59. The answer is that propensities can come and go with

the necessary speed, The propensity to think-out-loud 'Itis raining' can come into being at the time it begins to beactualized. It continues to exist as it continues to berealized. Here it is important to note that the continuingpropensity should not be identifiedwith a sequence ofseparate propensities to utter constituent syllables,though it includes them. Again, propensities for different


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behaviors can coexist even though they cannot besimultaneously realized.

60. It might be objected that much of our thinking doesnot seem to take place in words. We often know that we

have been thinking and, indeed, what we have beenthinking, although no words have 'gone through our mind.'

61. Answer. Just as to be flammable is not to contain ahidden flame, nor an electron's propensity to jump toanother orbit, a concealed jumping, so a propensity toverbalize is not an 'inner' verbalizing. It may beaccompanied by verbal imagery, but does not require it,and is certainly not identical with it.

62. The verbal behaviorist may elaborate this point into ageneral counter attack by arguing that something like theabove confusion would account for the attractiveness ofthe classical theory. The latter, after all, construesthoughts as 'analogous' to, but not identical with,linguistic episodes. Can this not be understood as anattempt to put into one picture of thoughts as episodes,features which they have as episodes of thinking-out-loudand features which they have as episodic propensities to

think-out-loud, i.e. features belonging to radicallydifferent categories?

63. Perhaps the strongest argument for verbalbehaviorism is that it makes clear how we know aboutthoughts. For thoughts as thus construed are, in theirprimary mode of being, publicly observable episodes ofthinking-out-loud, people non-parrotingly sayingsomething.

64. When we overhear Jones muttering 'I'll get him if it'sthe last thing I do,' we are literally hearing him plotrevenge.

65. We can also hear ourselves think-out-loud. Yes, it willbe said, but how does the verbal behaviorist account forthe fact that we can know what we are thinking, when weare not hearing ourselves think-out-loud? How is the


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awareness of a propensity to think-out-loud to beunderstood?

66. The first part of the story, of course, is that we canhave publicly available evidence of the existence of

propensities. For example, one can infer from suchbehavior as x's gritting his teeth, turning pale andclenching his fists, that he has propensities to lash out inthe manners characteristic of rage.

67. Assume that anger simply is a togetherness of suchpropensities. There would seem to be no problem abouthow one could come to be able to infer that a person(including oneself) is angry.

68. But what about the non-inferentialknowledge we canhave that we are angry? The answer calls for a quickglance at language acquisition. Consider the case of thechild who already has the ability to use sentences of theform "x is angry" in a way which mobilizes publiclyobservable criteria. The child has "I am angry" in itsrepertoire, but so far only for inferential use.

69. Now the child's parents can know inferentially whenthe child is angry. And they can, by behavior toward the

child of a kind which neither they (nor the childpsychologist) need clearly understand, but which involvessomething like the methods of positive and negativereinforcement, bring it about that the child respondsdirectlyto his anger propensities by uttering "I amangry."7

70. The child acquires the ability to think-out-loud 'I amangry' in the non-inferential mode.

71. Notice that the child isn't acquiring the propensity tosay "I am angry," when he notices his anger. This wouldput the cart before the horse. The noticing simply is theactualization of the acquired propensity to say 'I amangry' as a direct response to the anger itself.

72. This strategy applies, mutatis mutandis, to the


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acquisition of the ability to notice one's propensities tothink-out-loud.

V. Behaviorism and Language Acquisition

73. I have already emphasized, in the opening section of

this essay, that the child does not acquire a language byforming hypotheses about the correlation of the verbalepisodes to which it is exposed, with each other and withnon-verbal features of its environment -- any more thandoes a rat when learning a maze.

74. There are, of course, analogies between

(a) the ability to respond to objects in ways whichdiscriminate between different degrees and kinds of

similarity and differenceand(b) the ability to formulate hypotheses which involvegeneric concepts.(a) is more primitive than (b), and the latter would beimpossible without it.

75. The rat does not form the general concept of a trianglewhen it acquires the propensity to jump at a trap door onwhich is inscribed a triangle of some kind or other.

76. Yet it jumps "as though" it were a rat-shapedhomunculus who has said to himself "I will jump at the onewith a triangle on it."

77. One can call such an ability to discriminate degrees ofsimilarity and difference, "having the concept of atriangle." But this is a denomination by analogy whichpapers over essential differences.

78. Again, there are analogies between basic inductivereasoning and certain forms of operant conditioning. Thusinductive reasoning can contribute to the adequacy of themanner in which we represent our environment. It enablesus, so to speak, to construct more complete and moreaccurate maps.

79. In this respect it plays a role which is analogous to


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that played by the maze-learning behavior which leads arat to form a "cognitive map" of its environment.

80. It is important to think of language acquisition asinvolving the reinforcement (and the extinction) of whole

strings or patterns of behavior rather than as a matter ofsetting up isolated stimulus-response connections andthen stringing them together.

81. Too much emphasis on responses to environmentalstimuli can have as its consequence an over-emphasis onconnections between words and things -- as contrastedwith the acquisition of togetherness patterns (syntacticalpatterns, including con-sequential patterns) pertaining tostrings of words in the acquisition of which the characterof the non-linguistic environment has been madeirrelevant.

82. I obviously have in mind the acquisition of sententialand inferential patterns.

83. Acquiring negative uniformities, propensities to avoidcertain modes of togetherness, is obviously just asimportant as acquiring tendencies to favor positivelyspecified modes of togetherness.

84. By giving proper stress in one's conception oflanguage acquisition to the acquisition of positive andnegative linguistic propensities which have no directconnection with specific environmental variables, one willbe in a position to recognize from the start both thepossibility and the importance of environment-free (ascontrasted with 'stimulus bound' or 'tied') linguisticbehavior.8

85. 1 have long stressed that inference patterns --including the patterns characteristic of causal inferenceand explanation -- are at least as essential to verbalbehavior and, as we shall see, the meaning of linguisticexpressions, as are word-object connections.

86. The emphasis on word-object connections and, in


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general, on those features of verbal behavior whichinvolve responses to environmental stimuli, can lead toformulations which are particularly annoying to thehumanistic ear.

87. Thus one may come to think of verbal behavior as'caused' or 'controlled' by external events.

88. The word 'cause' is a notorious source of philosophicalconfusion; particularly when construed as on aninterventionist model -- transeuntas contrasted withimmanentcausation.

89. The trainer does, indeed, intervene and is, in alegitimate sense, one of the causes -- one of the

contributing factors -- in language acquisition. But thechild is another. It is the source of the behavior whichgives trainers clues as to what to do next.

90. The upshot of the training is that the child becomes athinker, exhibiting rational discourse in sequences whichare not fixed responses to intra-organic episodes. It isimportant to note that while, if scientific determinism iscorrect every item of verbal behavior has a causalexplanation, this must not be confused with the idea that

every such item is a conditioned response to a stimulus.

91. Thus the inferential sequences involved in rationaldiscourse would have causes. But the correct descriptionof these cause-effect connections would, to the extentthat they are available, belong in a conceptualframework,'below' that of behavioristics.9

92. The child, so to speak, is trained to be free.

93. Note also that to speak of the fruits of languagelearning as a system of 'habits' is to use a misleadingmetaphor. The child does not acquire a system ofdispositions and propensities, and it is tempting to usethe term 'habit' in this connection.10

94. But not everything the child acquires is a disposition.


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It also acquires abilities -- thus the ability to think. Andonly the above noted confusion between the metaphysicalthesis that every linguistic episode has (in principle) itscausal explanation, with a substantive (and mistaken)

claim in behavioristics to the effect that every linguisticepisode is a conditioned response to a stimulus, wouldinspire the idea that all verbal behavior is themanifestation of habit.

95. An aphorism to the effect that man as thinker isentirely a creature of spontaneity would, of course, beequally false.

96. According to verbal behaviorism, properly understood,man as thinker is both a creature of habit anda creatureof spontaneity.11

97. Finally, it is of equal importance to conceive of theacquisition of the language ofaction as developingpari-passu with the acquisition of the language in which theenvironment is described.

98. The child must learn to represent itself and its actionsas well as its environment.

99. It would be a serious mistake to suppose that alanguage is learned as a mosaic is constructed: firstlanguage about things, then language about self, then . . .; or first the object language, then a meta-language . . . ;or first descriptive expressions, then logical words, ....

100. The language learner gropes in all these dimensionsat once. And each level of achievement is better picturedas a falling of items belonging to different dimensions intoplace, than as an adding of new rooms and stories to a

building.VI. Behaviorism and Awareness as

101. An awareness of an item as green is a response tothe item as green. But it isn't an awareness of it as greensimply by virtue of being a response to it as green.


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102. An iron filing can be said to respond to a greenmagnet as a magnet. It doesn't respond to the magnet asgreen, and, indeed, it would respond in the same way ifthe magnet were of any other color.

103. But though the filing responds to the magnet as amagnet, we don't say, except in a metaphorical way, thatthe filing is aware of the magnet as a magnet. I shall referto the sense of 'responds to as' in which the filingresponds to the magnet as a magnet, as the causal senseof this phrase.

104. By virtue of what is a response an awareness? Theproblem is clearly a special case of that of distinguishing,within a naturalistic framework, between natural signsand semantical signs.

105. As a minimum we can say that to be an awareness, aresponse must be a manifestation of a system ofdispositions and propensities by virtue of which thesubject constructs maps of itself in its environment andlocates itself and its behavior on the map.

106. Such representational systems or 'cognitivecartography' can be brought about by natural selection

and transmitted genetically, as in the case of the'language' of bees.12 Undoubtedly a primitive form ofrepresentational system is also an innate endowment ofhuman beings. The concept of innate abilities to be awareof something as something, and, hence, ofpre-linguisticawarenesses, is perfectly intelligible.

107. People obviously have innate psychological abilities.Not even the most radical empiricist has ever denied this.The proper empiricist stance has been to keepinnatenesses and their degree of sophistication to aminimum.

108. Primitive representational abilities show analogies tothe more sophisticated forms which became available withlanguage acquisition (otherwise they wouldn't berepresentational). But while they may, to use Leibnitz'


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phrase, ape reason, by achieving results which can beachieved by reason, they should not be construed as moreakin to reason, than it is necessary to suppose them to befor the purpose of the explanation of behavior. Thus it is

only in extremis that one would ascribe to animals andinfants the assignment of degrees of confirmation togeneral hypotheses.

109. An interesting case of responding to something assomething is that of a rat which has acquired thepropensity to leap at panels with varieties of trianglespainted on them. As in the case of the filings and themagnet we can describe the rat correctlyas responding totriangles as triangles. But we should be cautious about

concluding that simply by virtue of this training, the rathas acquired an ur-conceptoftriangle. A much greaterdegree of integration of this pattern into the rat'smapping behavior, and its satisfaction of its needs by goaldirected activity, would be necessary to justify this move.

110. I have long argued that our concept of innerrepresentational episodes ('thoughts') is an analogicalextension of our notion of meaningful linguistic episodes. Ihave distinguished between the problem of how we come

to be able to thinkof 'inner episodes,' and that of how wecome to be able to have 'inner episodes.'

HI. Notice that at this point we have gone beyond verbalbehaviorism proper as we have hitherto characterized it.The inner conceptual episodes I now have in mind are nolonger proximate and remote propensities to think-out-loud. They belong to a theoretical framework whichpurports to explain the comings and goings of verbalpropensities in terms of finer grained structures, as micro-

physical theory explains the powers and propensities ofmiddle-sized objects. Nevertheless, the episodespostulated by the theory are, at least initially, taken beanalogous to verbal episodes.

112. The substantive framework of verbal behaviorism isnow viewed as methodological prelude to a full-blooded


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theory of representational systems, much as macro-physics is a methodological prelude to a unified theory ofthe behavior of physical things.

113. It is useful to view this extended theory of conceptual

episodes as a placeholder for the future achievements of aneurophysiological theory of representation.

114. As it currently exists, this theory of 'innerrepresentational episodes' has little more explanatorypower with respect to conceptual thinking at the verballevel than does substantive verbal behaviorism. Itsprimary structure is essentially that of the classicaltheory, though it is self-consciously formulated as atheory, not a report of Cartesian givens.

115. This freedom from Cartesian methodology, however,enables it to make a unique contribution. It attempts, withincreasing success, to make sense of the concept of moreand less adequate representational systems, and to viewthe sophisticated structures of the classical theory asbelonging to a hierarchy of representational systems, thelower forms of which are only remotely analogous tolinguistic structures.

116. Thus viewed from the standpoint of methodology,verbal behaviorism is perfectly compatible with the ideathat there are pre-linguistic representational activities.

117. Indeed, the ability to have primitive representationalepisodes might be not onlypre-linguistic, but innate. Onthe other hand, ability to representthese representationalepisodes with any degree of adequacy might presuppose adegree of sophistication which comes only with themastery of language.

118. What about the ur-awareness of representationalstates? Here the important thing is not to suppose that anur-awareness of a representational state which is, in thecausal sense, a response to it as an inner representationalstate, must also be an awareness of it as an innerrepresentational state.


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119. A child can have an ur-awareness of an ur-awarenesswhich is adequate to play the role of self-awareness inprimitive mapping activity, without being aware of it as a'mental' activity; indeed without being aware of it as an

'inner' as contrasted with 'overt' representational activity.This contrast is a highly sophisticated one.

120. Thus an ur-representation of ur-representations asrepresentations should not be supposed to representthem as judgements, or inferences, as involving singularterms, predicates, or modalities. Just as animalrepresentational systems are, so to speak, minimal, so theanimal's representation of its mapping activities, its meta-representations are equally primitive or minimal.

Analogous though it is, in certain respects, to meta-linguistic activity, the analogies should not be pushedbeyond necessity.

121. The myth of the given is hovering around because ithas been tempting to suppose

(a) that the characteristic features of developedrepresentational activity -- formulated in terms of thecategories of intentionality -- are present in any activitywhich is worthy of being called representational.

The truth of the matter is that the generic concept of arepresentational system admits of many gradationsbetween primitive systems and the sophisticated systemson which philosophers tend to concentrate.

(b) that a response to representational activity asrepresentational activity must involve an adequateawareness of it as the kind of representational activity itis.

Thus the Cartesian is tempted to think that an awarenessof a mental state is a direct grasp of its character as thespecific kind of mental slate it is.

122. A basic form of the Mvth of the Given is the idea that

if we are directly aware of an item which in point of fact


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(i.e. from the standpoint of the 'best explanation') hascategorial status C, then one will be aware of it as havingcategorial status C.

123. Closely related to this is the idea that

the 'directness' of an awareness, its confrontation withthat of which it is the awareness, guarantees that if theconfronted item has the property of being , and if the awareness is a response to the item as, in the causalsense, , then the awareness is an awareness of the itemas .

124. This idea easily develops into the givenness accountof concept formation. According to the latter one acquires

concepts of perceptible qualities and relations fromexperiences of being directly aware of instances of thesequalities and relations

125. This account has had disastrous consequences forthe theory of meaning. According to it, the concept ofis, so to speak, a conceptual atom. The one-on-one pictureofapprehension and item apprehendedleads to the ideathat inferential relationships, and, in particular, non-logical or 'material' inferential relationships are notessential features of basic concepts.

126. Thus, although it is obvious that being (an expanseof) red implies not being (an expanse of) green, the abovepicture suggests that the concept of red has no intrinsicconnection with this fact.

127. No one would say that the fact that a certainconceptual item stands for negation is independent of

inferential relations to items standing for other logicalconnectives. It is obvious that the meaning of logicalwords, the aboutness of logical concepts, essentiallyinvolves these inferential relationships.

128. And exactly the same is true of basic conceptsgenerally, a fact which is obscured by the above picture of


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concept formation.

129. I have been highlighting the idea ofprelinguisticdirect awarenesses. Let me emphasize that although theyare pre-linguistic, they are not pre-symbolic. They involve

the occurrence and functioning of signs in that broadsense of 'sign' to which Peirce devoted so much loving (ifoften obscure) commentary.

130. Thus a prelinguistic awareness of something as red isa primitive member of the "this is red" family ofrepresentations. If we signal that an item has a function ina representational system akin to that performed in ourlanguage by a certain sentence, by enclosing the latter indot-quotes to form a predicate of functional classificationwhich applies to items which perform a function which isrelevantly similar, we can represent the occurrence of adirect awareness of something red as red as follows:

Although t is a response to as red in the causal sense,this is a small part of what is true of t, for the ability tohave a representation of the this is red kind essentiallyinvolves propensities which relate it to other elements of

the representational system to which it belongs.VII. Behaviorism and Meaning

131. Verbal behaviorists are sooner or later confronted bythe problem of relating the concepts which they find itnatural to employ in describing the involvement oflinguistic expressions in behavior to the concepts andcategories used by grammarians and logicians.

132. Concepts pertaining to syntax cause them little

immediate trouble, although in the long run they hope toarrive at an understanding of why natural languagesexhibit the syntactical structures and transformationsthey do.

133. Semantical concepts and categories, on the otherhand, are notorious sources of discomfort. Attempts to


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provide behavioristic definitions of such terms as'meaning,' 'sense,' 'reference,' and 'denotation' -- not tomention 'truth' -- have been startlingly inept.

134. Yet the behaviorist feels that there must be some

close connection between these two families of concepts,each of which concerns essential features of language.

135. The mentalist, on the other hand, feels no qualm,about treating semantical terms as standing for ultimateproperties of mental events, properties, indeed, thehaving of which makes them mental.

136. But this line of thought is not open to verbalbehaviorists, for whom concepts pertaining to thoughts

simply are, at bottom, concepts pertaining to linguisticbehavior.

137. Their lack of success in defining semantical conceptsin behavioristic terms appears as a threat to their veryenterprise, for it would seem to mean that linguisticepisodes have non-behavioristic attributes which arenevertheless essential to them.13

138. Fortunately aprima facie14 case can be made for the

thesis that the verbal behaviorist has been confronted bya false dilemma. I shall sketch this case with respect tothe semantical concept of meaning, as represented by thecontext

E (in L) means . . .

and standing for, as represented by the contextE (in L) stands for . . .

139. Ostensibly these contexts are relational, i.e. contextsof the form

xRy

According to the thesis I wish to advance nothing could befurther from the truth.

140. If so, then the question 'Is the relation in questiondefinable in behavioristic terms or is it a unique non-


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behavioral relation?' does not arise.

141. But before embarking on the task of defending theabove thesis, it will be useful to set the stage by callingattention to a grammatical concept which is essential to a

naturalistic theory of reference.

142. Consider the statement

Man is an animal

The subject term 'man' obviously falls in the generalcategory of singular terms, as is shown by the fact that itis followed by a verb in the singular.

143. But if the statement has the surface grammar of asingular statement, it -- shall I say "obviously" -- has thedepth grammar of a general statement, thus

Men are animals

144. The topic of what grammatical connections betweenthe predicate 'man' and the predicates 'man' and 'animal'underwrite the transformation of "men are animals" into"man is an animal" belongs to the grammatical theory ofclassificatory systems.

145. 1 have called such terms as 'man' in the abovestatement15 distributive singular terms (DSTs), for thepredications made of them distribute over the manyobjects which satisfy the predicates from which they areformed.

146. Parallel considerations apply to such statements as

'And' (in E) is a conjunction

just as 'man' in "man is an animal" is not a name, but aDST formed from the predicate 'man,' so " 'and' " in theabove statement is not a name, but a DST formed from thepredicate " 'and.' " Thus the above statement is equivalentto'And's (in E) are conjunctions.

147. Other relevant examples of statements with DSTs assubjects are


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The lion is tawnyThe elephant has a long memory

These are equivalent respectively, toLions (typically) are tawny

Elephants (as a rule) have long memories148. The parenthetical comments remind us that it wouldbe a mistake to regard the original statements asparaphrases of the unqualified

All lions are tawnyAll elephants have long memories.

149. With these elementary -- but invaluable -- pointsunder our belts we can return to our central topic.

150. Consider

'Und' (in G) means and

It leaps to the eye that " 'und' " is functioning here not asthe name of an abstract-linguistic object -- the class ofwhich individual tokens of the German word are members-- but rather a DST formed from the sortal predicate " 'and' "

151. But the most striking fact about the original

statement is the unusual role which is being played by theEnglish word 'and.' Thus, it is not in any straightforwardway playing the role of a sentential connective.

152. A natural move is to construe the context in which'and' occurs as a quoting one. One is tempted to rewritethe original statement as

'Und' (in G) means 'and' (in E)

and to paraphrase this, in turn, as

'Und' (in G) means the same as 'and' (in E)153. But something has clearly been lost. For the originalstatement doesn't merely tell us that 'und' and 'and' havethe same meaning, it is, in some way, designed to givethis very meaning -- which

'nein' (in G) means the same as 'nyet' (in R)


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clearly does not.

154. I pointed out in paragraph 139 above that statementsof the kind we are considering are ostensibly relationalstatements. We are tempted to speak of the meaning

relation and to search for its terms.

155. I shall present, however, without further ado, analternative account which undercuts the centuries-oldpuzzles which this search has generated.

156. According to this alternative, the English word 'and'is, indeed, occuring in a quoting context. But the contextis not

. . . means the same as . . .

but, simply. . . . means . . .

157. Quoting contexts, however, are often such that toleave them unchanged while adding quotes to the itemwhich is, in effect, being quoted, changes the sense. Thusit is incorrect to keep the term 'means' while addingquotes to the 'and.'

158. To pick the situation up by the right handle: If we add

quotes to 'and' must we drop the word 'means' -- in favorofwhat?

159. The answer is both simple and powerful: In favor ofthe, copula. Mobilizing the already detected DST structureof the subject of the original statement, we get

'Unds' (in G) are . . .

Whatare they? Obviously they are not 'and's. They do nothave the sign design of 'and's.

160. But to think that quoting has as its primary functionto form expressions for sign designs is to take far toomyopic a view of the power of quoting devices. Quotingdoes form sortal predicates from linguistic exemplars. Butthe criteria for satisfying the sortal need not be thedesign of the exemplar. It obviously can be the function ofthe exemplar. Indeed the criteria can abstract from the


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design.16

161. To make a long story short, our original statementhas the deep structure

'Und's (in O) are ands

where the criterion for being an and is to be an itemwhich functions in some language or other in a way whichis relevantly similar to the way in which 'and's function inour language.

162. Our meaning statement gives the meaning of 'und'(in German) by presenting us with an exemplar and tellingus that if we want to understand how 'und's function (inGerman) we should rehearse in imagination the cluster of

functions characteristic of 'and.' See, for example, thetransformation authorized by De Morgan's formulae.

163. To draw a distinction between propensities to exhibitpatterned behavior which arc governed by rules, andthose which are not, requires an account of the causalinvolvement of rule sentences in the generation ofbehavior which conforms to them. This topic, which iscentral to the theory of normative discourse, is a difficultone in its own right, and I can do no more on the present

occasion than suggest that here, as elsewhere, thedistinctions and principles of classical mentalisticpsychology will be found to contain a large measure oftruth which needs only demystification to be incorporatedinto behavioristics.

164. Just as to be a pawn is not to have a certain shape,but to be directly or indirectly involved with other piecesin a system of behavioral propensities specified by therules of chess, so to be an and is to be involved in a

system of behavioral propensities conforming to thelogical rules of the language.

165. And just as we can draw a conceptual distinctionbetween propensities which conform to the constitutiverules of chess, propensities which conform to the tacticaland strategic rules for winning at chess, and the


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idiosyncratic propensities of individual chess players, sowe can distinguish in principle between propensitieswhich conform to the constitutive rules of a 'languagegame,' propensities which conform to tactical and

strategic rules for effectively playing the game, andpropensities which reflect the happenstances of individualplayers.

166. Needless to say, the tidiness of our distinctions is aconstructed tidiness, and not a datum plucked from theflux of experience as one might pluck a plum from a pie.

167. Nor does the ability to draw these distinctions in theabstract, carry with it a tidy decision procedure fordetermining, from sample behaviors, the rules of thegame -- if any -- which certain people play.

168. The task of the anthropological grammarian is farmore difficult than that of the anthropological student ofgames which bear a family resemblance to chess.

169. In just what ways it is more difficult, and in just whatways there are constraints on what the anthropologicalgrammarian can -- even in principle -- hope to achieve, aretopics of current interest on which one can say nothing

without saying a great deal indeed.

170. But these issues do not touch directly on the viabilityof verbal behaviorism as a philosophy of mind.

171. There is, however, an indirect connection to which Ishall devote my concluding remarks.

172. It will be remembered that 1 undertook to explorenot only the context

E (in L) means . . .but alsoE (in L) stands for. . .

173. Consider, for example,

'dreieckig' (in G) stands for triangularity


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Ostensibly this, too, is a relational context.

174. Notice that not every open sentence which has two'openings' stands for a relation. Thus

... or ---

if ... , then ---

do not stand for relations -- unless one so stipulates, andby doing so, rides roughshod over important distinctions.

175. The essential feature of relations proper is that theyrelate individuals. Otherwise put, relation words arepredicates and are properly flanked by individualconstants.

176. If we look, with this in mind, at the statement we are

considering, the idea that it is a relational statementseems to pass this crucial test.

177. Of course, if we take into account our previousdiscussion of DSTs, we may be prepared to regard ourstatement as a transform of

'drcicckig's (in G) stand for triangularity

But this, by itself, is quite compatible with the idea thatstanding foris a relation.

178. Now, when the question "Is stands fora relation?" israised, just what is at stake? Let me remind you of theproblem posed to the verbal behaviorist by semanticalconcepts. I wrote (in paragraph 137 above): "[The verbalbehaviorists'] lack of success in defining semanticalconcepts in behavioristic terms appears as a threat totheir very enterprise, for it would seem to mean thatlinguistic episodes have non-behavioristic attributes whichare nevertheless essential to them."

179. This same problem arises in heightened form inconnection with the ostensible relation ofstanding for. Itcan scarcely be denied that it is an essential feature of thesemantic functioning of the German word 'dreieckig' thatit stands for triangularity. Its involvement in Germanverbal behavior would necessarilybe different if it stood,


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instead, for, say, temperance.

180. Yet no behavioristic definition of 'stands for' hasgotten off the ground.

181. Once again, the behaviorist is ostensibly confrontedby a dilemma: Either define in behavioristic terms arelation which can obtain between utterances involving'dreiecking' and the property of being triangular, arelation which can assume the place ofstands forin thefamily of semantic concepts; or grant that a relationessential to the functioning of 'dreieckig' in German verbalbehavior can not be expressed in a behavioristicvocabulary.

182. The way out of this apparent dilemma is,interestingly enough, a more elaborate form of theprevious strategy. The clue is provided by the fact thatthere is obviously a strong equivalence between the twostatements

'dreieckig' (in G) means triangular

and'dreieckig' (in G) stands fortriangularity

183. One looks for a way of tracing them to the same deepstructure.

184. Now if the previous argument is correct, the deepstructure of the meaning statement is

'dreieckig's (in G) are triangulars

How might we get from this to our stands for statement?Consider the followingPubs arc poor man's clubsIf this sentence is viewed against the background ofinstitutional sociology, do we not find a transformationintoThe pub is the poor man's clubappropriate? Here we have a statement of which both thesubject and the predicate involve distributive singularterms.


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185. If we apply this type of transformation to

'dreieckig's (in G) are triangulars

we would getThe 'dreieckig' is the German triangular.

186. We would be home free if we could construetriangularity as having the depth grammar of a DST.Roughly,

Triangularity = the triangular.

187. Now 1 have argued on a number of occasions17 thatthis is the truth of the matter, and that it makes possiblea fundamental breakthrough in the ontology of attributesand,par passu, in the philosophy of mind.

188. The gist of the matter is that "... triangularity merelylooks (to the eye bewitched by a certain picture) to be aname. It merely looks as though it referred to somethingnon-linguistic. Applying to expressions in anylanguagewhich do a certain job, its inter-linguistic reference isconfused with a non-linguistic reference. Again 'standsfor' merely seems to stand for a relation. It is, as 'means'proved to be, a specialized form of the copula."18

189. What is the point of there being two surfacetransformations of the deep structure

'dreieckig's (in G) are triangularss?

The answer is that whereas the surface grammar of'means' statements is suited to the task ofgivingmeanings, the surface grammar of 'stands for' statementsis suited to connecting functional classifications oflinguistic expressions with predications of truth. Thus, thesingular term 'triangularity' fits both into the context

'dreieckig' (in G) stands fortriangularityandtriangularity is exemplified by(i.e. is true of) a19

190. Now the relevance of all this to behaviorism can bemade vivid by considering a question which I posed toProfessor Quine in the letter to which he refers in his


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remarks ("Sellars on Behaviorsim, Language andMeaning") on my contribution to the symposium. Therelevant passage of my letter (of March 28, 1978) reads asfollows:

I suspect that our major disagreement continues to lie inthe area of ontology. I simply do not see how to fitplatonic objects (classes and sets) into a naturalisticframework. Bluntly put: If sets are basic objects, how doesthe mind get in touch with them? (See my "Empiricism andAbstract Entities" in the Carnap volume.) I would use thesame strategy with sets as I do with attributes andpropositions. Statements about triangularity are to beparsed out as statements about any triangular. We "getin touch with triangularity" by acquiring the ability to usetriangular tokens.

191. Quine counters (in "Sellars on Behaviorism, Languageand Meaning") with

My reply is another question: "How does the mind get intouch with neutrinos?" What we have is a ponderoustheory consisting of interlocking laws and concepts. It is incontact with sensory evidence only at its edge. Thedoctrines of elementary particles and spin in cosmic

radiation occupy a remote part of this theoreticalstructure, and so do the doctrines of real numbers andsets. Epistemologically, sets differ from neutrinos only inbeing somewhat less analogous to observable bodies.

192. To this Duhemian ploy I have replied as follows:20

Thus, suppose a platonist with respect to attributes and/orclasses to be asked: "Must there not be matter-of-factualrelations between abstract entities and human minds by

virtue of which abstract singular terms acquire a hook-upwith the world?" Might not our platonist reply: "It is ourtheory as a whole, including its logical apparatus and suchsortal predicates as 'molecule,' 'positron,' 'attribute,''proposition,' 'class,' 'class of classes,' etc., whichconfronts the tribunal of experience. Our language hooksup with positrons and classes alike by virtue of the


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application of the theory to experience. It is only the will-o'-the-wisp of the analytic-synthetic distinction whichkeep one from recognizing that 'class' and 'proposition'are in a continuum with 'current' and 'positron.' It is

simply a matter of degrees of theoreticity, of remotenessfrom the occasion-sentences elicited by sensorystimulation."

The following consideration, however, should generate ameasure of skepticism with respect to this facile gambit.The theory-whole has specific things to say about thecausal relations which connect micro-physical objects withthe sensory stimulations which bombard the sensorysurfaces of experimenters looking at bubble chambers andphotographic plates. The theory explains how we are intouch with micro-physical objects.

Thus, in addition to the Duhemian point that expressionsfor micro-physical particles acquire a hook-up with micro-physical particles by virtue of belonging to a theory whichis applied as a whole, the theory offers a causal account ofthe specifics of the hook-up. This is not the case with suchterms as 'number,' 'class,' 'attribute,' and 'proposition.'This fact introduces a radical discontinuity into Quine's

Continuum, one which has important consequences for theproblem of abstract entities, for ontology and, above all,for the philosophy of mind.

University of PittsburghPittsburgh, Pennsylvania

NOTES

* A revised version of a paper presented in a Symposium on Behaviorism and Philosophy at the

University of Missouri (Columbia). April 1978.

1 On perception, see, for example, "Some Reflections on Perceptual Consciousness." in SelectedStudies in Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy, edited by R. Bruzina and B. Wilshire, The

Hague, 1977. On action, see "Actions and Events," inNous, 7, 1973 [reprinted inEssays inPhilosophy and its History, Dordrecht, 1976].

2 That is, of any otherepisodes. For in its platonistic -- as contrasted with conceptualistic -- form,the classical theory posits a domain of independent entities (attributes, relations, propositions,

possible worlds, etc.) which have syntactical and semantical properties.


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3 Some philosophers (e.g. Gustav Bergmann) postulate unstructured awarenesses. According to

them, all structure belongs to the other term of the relation. But this is not the orthodox form of the

classical theory.

4 For example, see "The Structure of Knowledge," in the Machette Foundation Lectures for 1971

at the University of Texas. These lectures were printed inAction, Knowledge and Reality, editedby H. N. Castaneda, Bobbs-Merrill, 1975. The reference is to lecture II, "Minds."

5 Notice that as the phrase 'locutionary act' is used it tends to straddle the distinction between alinguistic actuality and a linguistic action.

6 I have added these two paragraphs in reply to Quine's comment on the vagueness of the concept

of verbal propensities. (See the fifth paragraph of his remarks "Sellars on Behaviorism, Languageand Meaning")

7 That the acquisition of this linkage of propensities is grounded in neurophysiological episodes isa part of the story which goes beyond my immediate purposes. For an exposition which takes it

into account see my essay "The Structure of Knowledge." inAction, Knowledge and Reality, H. N.

Castaneda, ed., Bobbs-Merrill, 1975. The reference is to pp. 316-31.

8 For an early account which stresses the difference between 'free' and 'tied' verbal behavior, see

my "Language, Rules and Behavior," inJohn Dewey: Philosopher of Science and Freedom, edited

by Sidney Hook, New York. 1949.

9 For an elaboration of this point, see my "Philosophy and the Scientific Image of Man," in

Frontiers of Science and Philosophy, edited by Robert Colodny, University of Pittsburgh Press,1962 [reprinted as Chapter 1 ofScience, Perception and Reality, London, 1963]. See especially

part four, "The Scientific Image."

10 In my early writings I succumbed far too often to this temptation.

11 I am clearly touching on themes central to perennial controversies over freedom anddeterminism. For a discussion of these issues in the spirit of the preceding paragraphs see my

"Fatalism and Determinism," in Keith Lehrer, ed.,Freedom and Determinism (New York, Random

House. 1966): also Alan Donagan, "Determinism and Freedom: Sellars and the Reconciliationist

Thesis," inAction, Knowledge and Reality (cited above, footnote 4), and my "Reply to Donagan,"Philosophical Studies, Vol. 27. 1975.

12 For a development of this point, see "Some Reflections on Language Games," in Science,Perception and Reality, pp. 324 ff.

13 Not even the suggestion that semantical properties are 'epiphenomenal' or, perhaps, 'emergent'would give them aid and comfort, for the task of finding correlations between these equally

essential semantical and behavioral properties would remain to haunt them.

14 I say 'aprima facie case' because the issues involved are so central to metaphysics that aconciliance of many lines of thought, many of which can not even be hinted at on the present

occasion, would be necessary to bring conviction. For systematic attempts to develop these lines of

thought, see Science and Metaphysics, London and New York, 1968, andNaturalism and


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Ontology, Reseda, Calif. 1979.

15 By contrast, in the statement 'man is a species,' the term 'man' is not a singular transform of thepredicate 'man' but rather, as will become clear, of a predicate which refers to this predicate.

16 Though, of course, the criteria will require that the items which satisfy the sortal have a design

which is capable of embodying the function.

17 Originally, in "Abstract Entities,"Review of Metaphysics, 16, 1963 [reprinted in bothPhilosophical Perspectives, Reseda, Calif., 1979, andEssays in Philosophy and its History,

Dordrecht, 1974].

18 "Meaning as Functional Classification," Synthese, 27, 1974, 417-437.

19 A systematic working out of this strategy will be found inNaturalism and Ontology. See

particularly Chapter IV, paragraphs 77-84.

20Naturalism and Ontology, Chapter I, paragraphs 32-34.

behaviorism, language and meaning - sellars

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