Functionalism versus Behaviorism
Quoting Pfhorrest
I think functionalism attempts to specifically explain the mental state by defining it as what it does, even if there may be multiple ways it could have come to be. So, for instance, if a computer responds to data in a way similar to the way a human does, then, from a functionalist standpoint, the computer and the human had similar mental states. Note the attempt to explain what the mental state is: it is what it does.
A behaviorist doesn't deny the existence of mental states, but he explicitly refuses to consider what they may be. His position is that the inner workings of the brain are unobservable and therefore not subject to measurement and are therefore scientifically irrelevant. The behaviorist would observe your pain to be caused by the pin prick and identify that as the scientific cause. That is not to say the behaviorist denies a complex mental process between the pin prick and your scream, but only that he proclaims those mental processes are unknowable and therefore scientifically irrelevant. Note the lack of attempt to explain what the mental state is: what it is is irrelevant.
Any position that outright denies mental states seems untenable. I see behaviorism as an attempt to make the field of psychology more scientific, but not an attempt to make an overriding metaphysical claim.
What then is the difference between behaviorism and functionalism? Since functionalism also looks only at behavior for data.
Maybe this conversation should be split into another thread so we don’t crowd this introduction thread.
I think functionalism attempts to specifically explain the mental state by defining it as what it does, even if there may be multiple ways it could have come to be. So, for instance, if a computer responds to data in a way similar to the way a human does, then, from a functionalist standpoint, the computer and the human had similar mental states. Note the attempt to explain what the mental state is: it is what it does.
A behaviorist doesn't deny the existence of mental states, but he explicitly refuses to consider what they may be. His position is that the inner workings of the brain are unobservable and therefore not subject to measurement and are therefore scientifically irrelevant. The behaviorist would observe your pain to be caused by the pin prick and identify that as the scientific cause. That is not to say the behaviorist denies a complex mental process between the pin prick and your scream, but only that he proclaims those mental processes are unknowable and therefore scientifically irrelevant. Note the lack of attempt to explain what the mental state is: what it is is irrelevant.
Any position that outright denies mental states seems untenable. I see behaviorism as an attempt to make the field of psychology more scientific, but not an attempt to make an overriding metaphysical claim.
Comments (4)
Functionalism = Pragmatism-esque view of psychology along the lines of form follows function? Without looking into either in any detail, seems to be a myopic philosophy of human psychology.with little effectual purpose. Kind of an anti-philosophy really. More suited for architecture or product design than something as complex as the human psyche if you ask me.
https://iep.utm.edu/functism/
But aside from these differences in ontology, I see the two as different primarily in their motivations and emphases. Functionalism was the basis for a lot of work in cognitive science and artificial intelligence, because computationalism is a kind of functionalism, or is based on it.
That is a view with a lot of truth. But the whole of Operant Conditioning could be taught in a half year class. It was so simple in terms of theory that there was very little more to learn.
Functionalism was a technological wet dream version of psychology. The shtick was that brain states were multirealisable because they were just “patterns of information”. So artificial intelligence was a DARPA research project with a 10 year payback. Sign my grant cheque please.
Cognitive science was great in its early days when computation was mostly a metaphor. Psychologist did real useful work in developing a more modular conception of how the brain could work. But then computer science took functionalism into fantasy land.
Yet cogsci still trumps behaviourism as it did create a rich landscape of thought. It branched in all directions as there is something right about understanding the mind as an informational process.
This is more or less what I was trying to get at with my post in the intro thread that spawned this one, which I assumed would be moved over here in the split:
Quoting Malcolm Lett
Quoting Pfhorrest
Quoting Hanover
Quoting Pfhorrest