Although the piece by Skinner that we will discuss is a selection from a book that appeared after a couple of the other things you have read, it appeared late in Skinner’s career (when he was 70) and his thought was already well known at the time (20 years earlier) when Place was writing. I have located Skinner’s work at this point in the course partly for scheduling reasons and partly because it marks a slight change in emphasis. Although Skinner will touch on a number of issues that we have been discussing, his motivation is less concern about the relation between mind and body than in what is required in order to explain human action. That emphasis will appear also in the views of Dennett, who we will discuss in the following three classes.
The selections from Skinner’s book included here address two main issues:
• The first is the significance of introspection. Skinner introduces this issue by way of a distinction between “methodological” and “radical” behaviorism. In spite of what the terminology might suggest, the latter, which is Skinner’s position, is the more sympathetic to self-observation. It is radical, however, in its interpretation of the significance of this observation. Note in particular that, while Skinner suggests that internal states are involved, he does not speak of states of the brain (in the way an identity theorist might) but rather of things like stomach contractions.
• Skinner’s second topic suggests a connection with Brooks, for Skinner rejects internal representations. Much of this part of the selection is devoted to suggesting that our sense that we have internal representations is an illusion. (Carruthers referred in passing to a similar view in the earlier behaviorist Watson—LP 175, c. 2.)
This selection is very short, so you might also look back at discussions of behaviorism in other material we have discussed. You can find them in the introductory sections of Place (LP 25-26) and Armstrong (LP 31-32) and in one of sections of Putnam (LP 45-46). However, note that these people have in mind not only the psychology of Watson and Skinner but also the philosophical position of Gilbert Ryle.