philosophy behaviourists

 

C.) Some light on the behaviorists.

 

 

We can also regard positivism and behaviorism as protests against the possibility of asserting:"I know myself.". Introspection was not part of the ideal of Auguste Comte´s Cour de la philosophie Positive -(1830 -42).

Behaviorism arouse out of functionalism, a branch of transatlantic pragmatism, where William James and John Dewey played the central roles in connection with the brilliant Ch. S. Peierce. W. James´ The Principles of Psychology ( 1890 ) was mostly centered around showing that behavior and mental processes were possible to alter. The mental process was still , according to J. , a possible object for study, - J.s book The variety of religious experience (1902) was important. Functionalism arouse explicitly with John B. Watson and his Behaviorism ( 1925 ).The perhaps most famous and forthright among the behaviorist, B.F. Skinner expresses himself thus: "Without the help from the verbal collective, all behavior would be unconscious. Consciousness is a social product. It is not enough to be aware of that consciousness not is a field for the autonomous Man; consciousness is completely out of reach for the lonely individual... ( from B.F. Skinner, Beyond freedom and dignity, - chapt. What is a human being? ). He continues: "It is neither within reach for any, the exact knowledge of any human being." ( Ib. ) With S. there is very little of the belief in the future. the openness to ideas and belief in human progress, which is so strong with and important to Peirce.

 

 

D.) Some light on Self and on the analytical philosophers.

 

 

"I can never catch myself at any time without a perception, and never can I observe anything but the perception." ( D. Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature.) "The word " I " does not denote a possessor." ( L. Wittgenstein.) ".I could never know it was myself I had found." (Shomaker. ) .... But it would be extraordinary to find somebody else...!

 

"It is relatively seldom that we observe ourselves in the ways in which we observe others." (Shomaker p. 80. )

 

Sidney Shomaker has written ( influenced by Austin and Wittgenstein ) a fine essay in 1970, important to us, entitled : Self-Reference and Self-Awareness: "Philosophers who have reflected on the "use as subject"....". Shomaker thus refers to Wittgenstein and others in the stating of "I" as "non denoting" and thus some kind of "pseudosubject", and furthermore he claims, and it seems rightly so, that the predicate in an assertion about my inner state and myself, I am also using a "pseudopredikate" since I - or "It" ( Cf. Nietzsche, who thought about the more accurate expression "It thinks." and R.D. Laing´s famous expression in his small classic book Knots:" I am the It that thinks It." ... ) knows that something is - for instance "honest" inside, but "It" cannot really percieve that which is honest, i.e. my conscience,consciousness or my soul.... ( all this in accordance with the epistemology of Hume and Kant, who both denied knowledge of actual things, but only knowledge of perceptions of them.)

 

Hume was in a certain despair, and Kant set out to bring order to the problem: What can we accuire knowledge about in this mess of sensations ? And 1891 he gave an answer in his Kritik der reinen Vernunft. Maybe this book is the most important book ever written on philosophical matters.

He tried to prove that we are able to have an synthetic apriori knowledge. ( And thus, that we were not limited to analytical apriori .) The crucial point here is within what "forms" we can put knowledge. ( Are "time" and "space" accurate "forms".). ( The discussion on the "apriori" has been deepened , and sceptical, within the analytical philosophy through Quine and others.). Kant´s criticism had a tremendous impact on future philosophy, including his own upcoming production, where he discussed ethics and religion.

One could say that the one who has no opinion on Immanuel Kant has no opinion on philosophy.

Private docent Immanuel Kant 1755-69, when he studied Emm. Swedenborg ( .... and exchanged a couple of letters with him .... before crushing him ), but essentially Hume and Leibniz. he became prof. of Mathemathics ( where he did not achieved his rume ...) 1770 in Königsberg .

The famous Kritik der reinen Vernunft appeared in it´s first edition in 1781 and shortly afterwards he wrote Prolegomena zu einer jeden kunftigen Metaphysik die als Wissenschaft wird auftreten können. Kants dictum against the extreme empirists ( by whom Kierkegaard never read a line, - he could not read English - or French - in contrast to Kant.-who was of Scottish decent; - his ancestors spelled the name "Cant"- ... The German educational system was more extensive than the Danish. And Swedish. It still is.....) The romantics are sometimes put as a reaction against the British empirists, Locke, Berkeley and Hume. ( Cf. B. Russell ! ) This is not the whole truth.

Kant: "Of course we reach all our knowledge about "reality" through experience, but it is not sprung from this experience."----- He thus took on the almost impossible task: to once and for all investigate the presuppositions and possibilities of human knowledge (mind), in a sort of mediating between two opposites A. pure rationalism ( f.ex. Bacon ) and pure empirism ( Locke ). His own view is a criticism. ( Behind much of Kant´s work lies - of course - the question about religion and the place of religious belief, since this was important at the time ... We know that Kant was not religious himself. And that he feared to say so.)

 

He divides knowledge into two kinds; the empiric ( a posteriori ), which is founded on the perceptical skills ( Ger. "Sinnlichkeit") ,expressed in the syntethic assertation: "My cat is blue." and the a priori knowledge, which can be accuired independent by the perception. "Either it is raining or it is not." The later kind of assertations are by Kant called analytical. Almost others are syntethical. The value of the analytical assertations can be discovered through logical analysis. Now is the question: What is the difference between an a priori knowledge and an analytical assertation? ( Because we have no a priori assertations. But knowledge.).To begin with: Is "2 plus 2 equals 4" a priori knowledge, and is the assertation analytical. Is mathematics a giant analytical tautology?

The question posed by Kant in Cr.o.p.R. is whether there are syntethic assertations a priori or not. This question is important to the development of his entire ethics, . He answers this question assertingly, by a "yes", - but many philosophers nowadays regards the question as not very clearly posed. ( Cf.Wedberg. W. Quine et al. )

Kant also says - in another of his books (edited in the year of ...... ) - ( Kant died in the year of 1804, ten years before the birth of S.K. ), that one can build a religious faith on reason ( only ). Against this rose many a soul, among others S. Kierkegaard, who in many aspects - though - was influenced by Kant´s criticism..

 ( It is a quite astonishing thing, if Otto knew how much Kant himself had been occupied with the realm of the mystical, crizicing Swedenborg and so on ...., writing about the connection of knowledge and religion in several publications. We will return briefly later - maybe - to the content of the book of Otto´s.

 

Interestingly enough – of all people – Freud claimed he would like to add another cathegory to the row presented by Kant. It would not, to Freud , be Das Heilige, but Das Unheimliche ( the terrible, the SCARRY ). I am fascinated by this. And- if Cornell Woolrich – master of Fright had known this – he would have been DELIGHTED.

 

The problem of "Das Ding an sich", on the Lennonian really real, came to be astarting point for much of recent philosophy. As well as the atheism, and the notion of .. Self-knowledge. Kant has much on his conscience.