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John Dewey and B.F. Skinner
I have been thinking more and re-reading Dewey’s paper on the reflex arc and wanted to add a second post with fuller thoughts. At the end of my last post I mentioned that Dewey’s conception of a continuous “circuit” between stimulus and response was similar to the ideas of B.F. Skinner and that seems even more the case to me after reading the comments of Carl – my friend and loyal reader which often add important clarifications and distinctions that I have missed. I recommend reading his posted comments along with others that you will find here.
In his paper on the reflex arc Dewey is stating that the idea of “stimulus and response” is overly simplistic. The classic stimulus/response scenario involves an object that when in the presence of a person results in an action. For instance a lion results in a person running. We can immediately see even in this example – one that seems pretty clear cut (who wouldn’t run in the presence of a lion) that the simple stimulus/response definitions are to general for every case. In a zoo for instance you have the same stimulus, a lion, but the environment in which you see it changes the response. Also if you are in the wild, but you are hunting for lions, again the same stimulus will create a different response. You can’t separate the stimulus from the environment and that means both the physical environment (ie. being in a zoo) and the mental environment (ie. the mental state of a hunter.)
In more general terms what Dewey recognized is that the term “stimulus” and the term “response” are both mental labels (what Peirce would call signs) for intricate sets of processes. The stimulus is not “the lion”. It is the intricate set of visual images, sights, sounds, mental images, thoughts, understandings, motivations, memories, emotional sensations, physical sensations, muscular movements etc. that make up the experience of that particular lion at that particular moment. The “response” is similarly a label for the intricate set of visual images, sights, sounds, mental images, thoughts, understandings, motivations, memories, emotional sensations, physical sensations, muscular movements etc. that are utilized in running.
The bottom line is that the so called stimulus and the so called response are actually made up of exactly the same stuff. (This notion – that reality is made up of one fundamental kind of stuff, weaves throughout American Philosophy from Emerson through James and Peirce to Dewey and today is part of the bedrock of Integral Theory and Evolutionary Enlightenment as I understand them.)
According to Dewey both stimulus and response are essentially made up of intricate sets of visual images, sights, sounds, mental images, thoughts, understandings, motivations, memories, emotional sensations, physical sensations, muscular movements etc. The boundary between them is an abstract distinction based on the perceived function that each appears to play when interpreted by a human observer. If we use the metaphor of currents in the ocean, the “current” and the “ocean” are abstract human interpretations of and labels for complex sets of qualities of water.
Dewey, following William James, used the word “experience” to label the intricate set of visual images, sights, sounds, mental images, thoughts, understandings, motivations, memories, emotional sensations, physical sensations, muscular movements etc. that make up any given moment. I believe that B.F. Skinner was using the word “behavior” to label the very same set of elements.
What we see here is continuity again. The universe is made up of one kind of stuff and the distinctions between perceived objects are abstract human interpretations. Now William James took this to its extreme claiming that the human experience of an object was the totality of the object. Dewey didn’t go that far. He insisted that there were real objects in a real world, but they were in a constant of dynamic equilibrium that made up the totality of experience.
It seems to me that where Skinner was exploring how human transformation could be catalized by manipulating the environment, Dewey (and James) were exploring how human transformation could be catalized by manipulating the way peoople relate to ideas.
Jeff, thanks for your kind comments.
There’s a lot in this post. A couple of things that it brings to mind for me are:
1. The distinction that Kant made between the “noumenon” and the “phenomenon” was similar to what you describe in your second to last paragraph with reference to Dewey’s position. The noumenon was the “real thing” behind the perception, and the phenomenon was the perception. The question, I guess, is whether there is really anything beyond the perception as far as we can tell. Does it even make sense to posit it? Is this kind of “ontology” helpful? It kind of makes sense because we think we see things objectively, and then we see that other people describe those things differently from what we do. So there seem to be things and our (or their) perceptions of them. But from the sole subject’s perspective, are there things and the perception of them? Or is this just a socially constructed concept based on experiences shared between individuals? (Maybe this is where Wilber’s AQAL becomes relevant.) Alan Watts used to say with his typical humor that everything we think we know is just “tingling in our nerve endings,” but even that suggests something behind the perception. Seems dualistic to say that there is our perception of what is arising and also what is REALLY arising. That, I think, is why Skinner said there is ONLY behavior. And behavior includes everything that is in awareness. That understanding seems pretty close to the enlightenment realization that “I am That” — there is only this single stream of arising.
2. From a behavior science perspective, a “concept” arises when one generalizes across many instances (behaves the same way in relation to them) and discriminates between those and other instances (behaves differently with respect to that class of instances and other non-instances of the concept). The most obvious example of this is when we name things (that is emit verbal responses, e.g., “chair” and “table”). That is how we break the stream of experience into chunks, how we respond differently to different classes of things, etc. And Skinner would say that the formation of such differential responding happens when different consequences follow the different classes of behavior in relation to the different stimulus classes. This is relevant because it provides a mechanism for explaining how our behavior (including especially our verbal behavior) differentiates itself in relation to different aspects/elements/dimensions of the stream of experience. That, I think, is the operational definition of what you describe as “abstract human interpretations.” And because such learning happens through a process of selection by consequences, it is analogous to the evolution of biological forms (species) and the evolution of cultural practices.
Please tell me if I’m taking up too much blog real estate, but another thing about Skinner came to me that I thought might be relevant.
Skinner did not like “theories.” He has a famous paper called, “Are Theories of Learning Necessary?” in which he argued that we do not need theories to understand, predict and be able to manage our behavior as a species.
Skinner’s defines “theory” as explanation of something at one level of observation by appealing to hypothetical constructs, intervening variables, or observations at another level of observation.
For example, he made fun of physiological accounts of behavior by calling the CNS the “conceptual nervous system” rather than the central nervous system. His objection was that physiological accounts of behavior use things at another level of observation (biochemical, anatomical) to explain things at the level of behavior and envirosnment. He preferred to understand the relationships between the person’s (“whole organism’s”) behavior and the environmental events that can be found to have functional relationships with the behavior (i.e., the behavior varies when they vary).
To some extent this kind of difference from his contemporary hypothetical-deductive behavior researchers could be thought of as a kind of philosophy of science “taste” or preference.
But in Skinner’s case I think there was a more “pragmatic” reason. He described the purpose of behavior science as being to “predict and control” behavior. He was not really interested in proving hypotheses. His experiments varied things such as schedules of rewards, physical aspects of the environment, and past histories to see what would happen to behavior — what it would do to behavior measured as “probability” or rate of response.
This is a very precise inductive science and founded on the big ideas that if we can understand the “interdependent causality” (my term) of behavior and environment; and put that analysis of interdependence in the context of biological and cultural evolution, then our DESCRIPTIONS of the relationships we observe between various types of events in the environment and in our behavior (our “experience/behavior”), will help us learn to do a better job predicting and controlling behavior — our OWN behavior, for the sake of better education, management, teaching and learning, therapy, dolphin training, taking care of the earth, you name it and Skinner wanted to help.
Skinner was deeply pragmatic, perhaps even Pragmatic with a big P. His science was aimed at understanding and taking control of our own behavior so we could survive and continue to evolve. This was very deep in his commitment.
Our experiences are multidimensional. And our perceptions are determined by our experiences i.e. intuition. However our perceptions are manufactured by media, religion, politics, etc. From my research I discovered that this cause/effect, stimulus/response, black/white causal type of thinking is rooted in Zoroastrianism, which originated in Media the capital of Persia. We know that to depend on one persons perception on anything is faulty. In physics 13 is the number for critical mass perfection each person adding their 07.6923076 to solving whatever problem. This is also practised in business as well.