Skinner

[Joel Katz]

look, behaviorism is fantasy football for as long as consciousness (meaning: 
  reflective self-consciousness) is indeed a product of the human brain, 
since transcendality is a necessary element of this type of brain.  and this 
has nothing do with some animistic-derivative notion of soul:  it's as 
material as can be imagined, insofar as human beings are a natural issue 
and, hence, nature has a vested interest in our existence, or, more likely 
as of election 2004, our extinction.

just because people under duress start to act more like animals doesn't 
corroborate the findings of bestialist dorks like skinner.  in any case, 
both kant and william burroughs would agree:  it is possible to act upon a 
reality that does not exist.

kant (a proto-behaviorist if ever there was one, though under the rubric of 
self-governance) even has a little ol' chapter devoted to it, called 'on the 
amphibolies of the concept of reflection,' in the critique of pure reason, 
about the reception or generation of intuitions unattached to any object.  
he advises against it.  but mastering this impulse and having it excised 
with an electrified anal prod are two very different things.



>Philosophers, from Chomsky (and Chomsky is as about as near to Plato as any 
>20th cent. phil. comes) , to Ayn Rand to Searle have objected vehemently to 
>behaviorism:  Skinner's attacks on mentalism and metaphysics are not good 
>for the philosophy biz, nor for lit.. or "generational grammar" (whatever 
>that really is)--  Are the philosophers then arguing for a non-material 
>consciousness, a soul? It would seem so; and the soul of course will keep 
>the private theology schools and quasi -jesuistical metaphysical types in 
>biz.
>
>Searle though does admit that consciousness is a product of our brain, and 
>biologically determined, at least to some degree. He, like his associate 
>Dreyfus,  seems to be playing a sort of lightweight critic to real 
>cognitive scientists and psychologists by saying --"but wait you haven't 
>explained everything yet"--sort of like a luddite in 1800 uttering "your 
>leyden jars can't cook my food or  power my wagon can they?", only to be 
>disproven a  few decades later.
>
>Another thing: Skinner asserted in quite a few places  that genetic 
>material, rather than environment, might be controlled and manipulated; and 
>neo-behaviorists do take into account genetics and findings of cognitive 
>science.   When behaviorism is combined with a theory on genetic 
>preparedness, many key concepts about human action  are answered and the 
>applications still hold true.
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