death of the mind.

[David Longley]

In article <40F142CA.6010002 at xympatico.ca>, Joe Legris 
<jalegris at xympatico.ca> writes
>David Longley wrote:
>> In article <40F073BA.6080206 at xympatico.ca>, Joe Legris 
>><jalegris at xympatico.ca> writes
>>
>>> Glen M. Sizemore wrote:
>>>
>>>> JL: I agree that some aspects of behaviourism are useful. It does 
>>>>not  follow
>>>> that cognitive science is useless. In fact, this is an outright
>>>> contradiction because cognitive science includes the empirical 
>>>>results of
>>>> EAB even as it rejects the philosophical bluster that tags along.
>>>>    GS: No, behaviorism and cognitive "science" offer different, 
>>>>fundamentally
>>>> incompatible, views of the same phenomena. My guess is that you want to
>>>> argue that cognitive "science" accepts lawful "input-output" 
>>>>relations, but
>>>> goes beyond them in considering the "actual mechanisms." That is 
>>>>what  you
>>>> were going to say, isn't it, Joey? But radical behaviorism is not about
>>>> "input-output" relations, and your sophomoric view has no substance.
>>>>
>>>
>>> I said no such thing. Your straw-men are starting to take on lives 
>>>of  their own.
>>>
>>> Cognitive science accepts all of EAB's empirical results but 
>>>interprets them as it sees fit, computationally, neurologically, 
>>>evolutionarily, etc. Notwithstanding all the lofty philosophical 
>>>talk, behaviourism was just a tactical response to the numbing 
>>>challenge of  investigating animal behaviour without the benefit of 
>>>appropriate  theory, data or instrumentation. Times have changed. The 
>>>techniques  and conceptualizations of modern science are at our 
>>>fingertips. Why  should we pretend that time has stopped?
>>>
>>  What certainly seems to have stopped is your ability to listen and 
>>benefit form other peoples' experience. It's an odd experience reading 
>>someone who belongs to the same class of individuals which both Glen 
>>and  I have spent time teaching, telling *us* what "Cognitive Science" 
>>is,  when the latter formed an essential part of our early training. 
>>Have you  looked into chapter 6 of Quine's "Word and Object" yet? Have 
>>you spent  any time looking into why I have made so much of 
>>intensional or  referential opacity?
>>  As has been said a number of times now, we know what "Cognitive 
>>Science"  is, *and* we know what Radical Behaviourism is too. That's 
>>why we can  spot people such as yourself who don't understand the 
>>difference.
>>  You're writing naive nonsense.
>>
>
>Actually, Glen didn't know what cog sci is until a few days ago when I 
>straightened him out.

I'm afraid you've got that wrong (along with a lot else).

> What does that say about the class of individuals that both you and 
>Glen have spent time teaching? Have you spent
>any time looking into why a modern science of behaviour, equipped with 
>the tools and techniques that serve the rest of science so admirably, 
>has largely rendered moot issues of intensional or referential opacity?
>
>Although physicists and biologists are ultimately committed to the 
>extensional stance, they may speculate, hypothesize, employ fanciful 
>metaphors and even intensionality from time to time - anything that 
>helps. Cognitive scientists are no different, and that's how they 
>differ from behaviourists.
>

Do you understand what it means to say that intensional contexts or the 
idioms of propositional attitude are "not truth-functional"?

Do you not understand how devastating this criticism/explication is?

Of course you can ignore this. People ignore all sorts of things that 
it's irrational to ignore or argue against. Even well educated folk do 
that. That's why I wrote "Fragments" (and what followed), and that's why 
I'm posting here. Just how much have you actually looked into?

What was volume 2?
-- 
David Longley