Today we came up with a bunch of statements that didn't have any literal or empirical truth-value; statements like "ow" or "whatever" or "step on a crack..." A couple of these were controversial, but for the most part, these sentences were able to be translated into demonstrable behaviors.
One thing I'd like to point out, however, is that even these translations don't really escape Austin's (implied) claim that getting to literal verifiability is impossible. Everything's a metaphor of a metaphor, and so on. We've heard this before. But translating abstract expressions or thoughts into observable behaviors ends up turning into behaviorism.
There are to types of behaviorism: methodological and philosophical. Methodological behaviorism was a bunch of early 20th century psychologists getting fed up with the fact that with the technological limitations of the time, it was basically impossible to observe internal mental states (and pretty much still is, actually). So, the new "method" became a strict study of behaviors. Philosophical behaviorists, on the other hand, took this one step further, claiming that mental states are logically reducible to behaviors (i.e. to talk about a mental state, such as feeling happy, is really just the same thing as saying that, for example, I'm smiling).
Basically, philosophical behaviorism was a really, really dumb movement. For one thing, it claims that there are no internal mental states...which is problematic. For another, it claims that mental states (seeing as they don't really exist) can't cause behaviors. Clear counterexample: I wore a hooded sweatshirt today because I knew it was going to rain. The fact that my thoughts caused my behavior seems commonsensically true, and yet, the behaviorist has to deny that this is the case. At best, the behaviorist is going to cite other behaviors to explain my behavior, at which point we ask, what caused those other behaviors? More behaviors, apparently. And so on.
Fortunately, behaviorism as a whole is basically dead. But my point is that it's very much a child of logical positivism: it's searching for an empirical validity that just isn't there. And that's really what Austin's driving at. In any case, what I found most interesting was the fact that our first response to get empirical validity out of the statements/idioms we wrote on the board was to translate them into behaviors...which is exactly what the behaviorist movement tried to accomplish. Unfortunately, however, I think it's pretty clear that Austin wins out in the end; it seems to be just as hopeless an endeavor to try and find fixed empirical validity in language as it is to try and find fixed empirical validity in mental states.
Really good point. Although it's also a little depressing, in my opinion--and not just this point, but everything we've been talking about lately when it comes to the validity of language. It's frustrating to realize how arbitrary language is because we like to think of ourselves as logical, rational people, able to reason everything down into their exact places--subject, definition, measurement, label, etc. But then, what exactly is it to be logical or rational? It's the never-ending cycle of attempting to define something by using something that needs to be defined itself.
ReplyDeleteMorgan, I also think that's kind of cool though. Firstly, it's neat because it makes for infinite possibilities with word play, and it's the reason that we can write the same plots over and over and have them be new and interesting and exciting. But it's also cool because it makes those things which are "unprovable" (the way the earth began, whether there is a God, or a soul, whether astronauts really did land on the moon) as valid as those that "are provable" (microevolution, Newton's theories, calculus, Lady Gaga's brilliance). It allows for the mystery that Bridger praised in another post.
ReplyDeleteThat's an excellent point, Caitlin. I think as long as we accept the arbitrariness of language (which I think we do for the most part), then we are much more free to enjoy the cool, mysterious part of language. (And I have to say, this is yet another example of something that is both awesome and frustrating to me, like religion and mathematics).
ReplyDeleteBridger,
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure you're looking now at philosophical behaviorism. I don't think that Austin considered himself a philosopher, but a rhetorician whose work has philosophical import.
Interesting; I had always pegged him as a philosopher because Forrest always sticks him in his history of philosophy tests (e.g. Plato to Derrida). But then again, we also study him in communication theory, as well as in history and theory of rhetoric.
ReplyDeleteAdmittedly, Austin does come way before behaviorism, but he was responding to logical positivism in many ways, and behaviorism seemed to be the immediate (though flawed) response to Austin, as demonstrated both by our class exercise, as well as with the actual historical movement. Then again, if Austin thought of himself a a rhetorician, then maybe I was stretching in connecting him (or his intentions, at least) with a more localized philosophical movement.