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A Philosophical Perspective

In this compelling lecture, S. Glenn presents a behaviorist perspective on philosophy and the scientific method. Emphasizing that philosophy itself is behavior shaped by biological properties and environment, Glenn articulates how learned behavior arises from operant processes and social interactions. He examines the evolution of scientific knowledge and the integration of social behavior into behavioral science. The discussion reveals how contemporary understanding challenges pre-scientific ontologies while asserting the permanence of knowledge derived through systematic empirical methods.

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A Philosophical Perspective

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  1. A Philosophical Perspective AILUN – Lecture 1 S. Glenn S. Glenn - AILUN 2008

  2. Philosophy from the Standpoint of a Behaviorist • Philosophy is behavior • Learned • Operant • Verbal • Learned behavior is the result of 1 • Biological properties of humans • Operant processes • Material and social environments of humans characterized by cumulative change over the lifetimes of individuals and of H.sapiens • Behaviorist epistemology in a nutshell: all knowledge is constrained by biology, personal history and characteristics of environment -- but science loosens the constraints S. Glenn - AILUN 2008

  3. Scientific Method • A systematic way to build empirically derived knowledge about the nature of the world • Via nonverbal operant behavior • Ex: Observing the world (discrimination and generalization) • Ex: Conducting experiments • Ex: Designing and building equipment to extend physical limits of humans: telescope, microscope, operant chamber, cumulative recorder, computer • Via verbal operant behavior • Ex: Classifying, describing, defining, relating • Ex: Deducing, formulating principles, mathematical operations, organizing verbal products of those activities into theories S. Glenn - AILUN 2008

  4. Origins of the Scientific Method in the Behavior of Organisms • Non verbal classifying • Involves stimulus generalization and stimulus discrimination • Seen in the behavior of humans and non-humans • Experiments on concept formation2, 3, 4 • Human verbal classifying • New forms of stimulus control made possible by contrived contingencies of reinforcement • Arbitrary response forms could come under control of subtle properties of antecedent conditions5 • Abstraction • Relational concepts continued S. Glenn - AILUN 2008

  5. Scientific Knowledge • Knowledge derived from implementing scientific method • Specialized vocabularies, formulae, graphs, schematics, statements of principles and laws, theories • Retained in human behavioral repertoires; and in culturo-behavioral lineages; and in ‘permanent’ products such as letters, journals, books, web sites • Each scientific domain incidentally introduces new ontologies S. Glenn - AILUN 2008

  6. Pre-scientific Ontologies • Animism6 • Universe is composed of the observed world and a world of spirits (often seen as controlling or “running” the observed world • An object’s spirit can survive the disappearance of the object itself: the spirit world exists outside of time/space • All spirit is equal so humans are part of nature, not superior to or separate from rest of nature • General Philosophy 7 • Systematic, reasoned speculation • Ancients’ ontologies addressed physical world, human existence and social world • Medieval ontology focused mainly on soul and relation of soul to a supreme being (relations in the spirit world) • Modern ontologies typically retained the notion of material and immaterial worlds S. Glenn - AILUN 2008

  7. Slicing Nature in New Ways • Scientific method is revealing nature’s joints in unexpected places: new ontologies • Ex: The periodic table (classification by atomic number) • Ex: Energy = mass x speed of light squared • Adding biological phenomena to domain of science • Understanding change over time in organic world in terms of scientific principles • Variation, selection, retention • Humans no longer set apart from nature: part of nature • More ontology claimed by science • Units of selection in biological evolution • Recovering animism’s wheat and dumping the chaff • Return to concept of humans as part of natural world • Rejection of a separate world of spirits (if there are such things, they have no causal efficacy) S. Glenn - AILUN 2008

  8. Adding Learned Behavior to Scientific Domain • Understanding change over time in behavior of individual organisms (learning) in terms of scientific principles • Operant learning: Variation, selection and retention on a different time scale8 • Operants as behavioral “atoms”9 or “cells”10 • Evolution of behavioral complexity in developing individual repertoires • Higher order units • Organized (ecological) relations among behavioral units in a repertoire • Explanation without reference to inferred non-physical events • More ontology claimed by science • Science stakes a claim to epistemology S. Glenn - AILUN 2008

  9. Adding Social Behavior and Emergent Cultural Level Units of Selection to the Scientific Domain • Operant behavior as the common component in all domains involving social behavior11 • A scientific language for behavior that is consistent with language of EAB and languages of social science12 • Approaching cultural complexity in terms of variation, selection, and retention • What accounts for the evolution of organizational complexity above the level of behavior of individual organism? • Is a unifying conceptual framework possible to explain the origin of biological complexity, behavioral complexity, and complexity of social organization? S. Glenn - AILUN 2008

  10. References 1 Skinner, B. F. (1981). Selection by consequences. Science, 213, 501-504. 2 Herrnstein R. J. (1979). Acquisition, generalization, and discrimination reversal of a natural concept.. Experimnental Psychology Animal Behavior Process,5, 116-29. 3 Lubow, R. E. (1974). High-order concept formation in the pigeon..Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior,.21, 475-483. 4 Watanabe, S. Sakamoto, J. & Wakita, M. (1995). Pigeons' discrimination of paintings by Monet and Picasso. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior,. 63, 165-174. 5 Skinner, B. F. (1957). Verbal Behavior. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts. Republished by B. F. Skinner Foundation. 6 Animism. (2008, July 21). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 16:51, July 25, 2008, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Animism&oldid=226896034 7 In Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved July 25, 2008, from Encyclopædia Britannica Online: http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/429409/ontology 8 Donahoe, J. W. & Palmer, D.C. (1994). Learning and Complex Behavior. Boston: Allyn and Bacon. 9 Skinner, B. F. (1938). The Behavior of Organisms, New York: Appleton Century Crofts. 10 Zeiler, M. D. (1986). Behavioral units: A historical introduction. In T. Thompson & M. D. Zeiler (Eds). Analysis and Integration of Behavioral Units. (pp. 1-12). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. 11 Skinner (1953). Science and Human Behavior, New York: Free Press 12 Bolacchi (2008). A new paradigm for the integration of the social sciences. In N. K. Innis (Ed). Reflections on Adaptive Behavior: Essays in Honor of J.E.R. Staddon (pp. 315-353). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. S. Glenn - AILUN 2008

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