I will compare the Cartesian mind to the Skinnerian characterization of behavior. The Cartesian mind is an entity separate from body and it affects behavior while the Skinnerian characterization of behavior is exclusively contingent upon re-in forcers from the external environment. The Skinnerian being is behavior. Considering these differences, I will show that it seems if one view is accepted, the other is rendered incoherent. But I will attempt to explain an interaction between the two, an interaction influenced by both Skinner and Descartes that does not fully deny one or the other. I will show how this interaction can simultaneously appease Skinner and Descartes but ultimately, I will show that my proposed interaction fails.
[...] Skinner does not believe in a mind in the sense of a mind that is conscious of choices and chooses to act (Skinner, 14). He explains behavior as exclusively contingent upon reinforcers in the environment. Stimuli acts upon an agent who in turn responds with a particular behavior induced by the stimuli. That behavior is reinforced either positively, to promote its recurrence, or it is punished, which makes the behavior less likely to be repeated. An agent (not to connote “autonomy” or “rationality”) avoids aversive controls and repeats behavior that is rewarded (Skinner, 26). [...]
[...] For Skinner to deny the mind would be for him to dismiss the faculties Descartes thoroughly engaged and explained and Skinner does so without addressing Descartes in his own terms and methods of reconstructing from doubt, intellect, and perception. But Ryle explains that thinking about the mind in Descartes' way is simply a “categorical- mistake,” an incorrect, approach that assigns different explanations to things belonging to one unit (Rosenthal, 56). Ryle compares Descartes mistake to the man who sees the buildings, faculty, students of a university, all of which, together, make the university, but is confused about when he will see university, an elusive entity separate from its parts (Rosenthal, 53). [...]
[...] In light of a perfect God, one can clearly and distinctly perceive a matter of the intellect if it is properly scrutinized and willed to be true. The will is free to decide if something is true or false. Descartes characterizes the will as free and infinite (Descartes, 41). Descartes explains that perception is assented to and thus the mind, at first known only to be a thinking thing, can confirm the perceived body. The body interacts with the mind but mind and body are distinct. [...]
[...] Though science may use theoretical, unobservable entities like subatomic particles to solve complex problems, the unseen is inferior, is faith, compared to Skinner's application of specific cause and effect in experiments that can be extrapolated to different and more complex cases. Descartes explained non human animals to be automata, beings that are behavior with no conscious minds beyond stimulus-response functions. Skinner would agree but would further argue that humans are also automata, perhaps more complex versions (contingencies more intricate). Descartes believed humans were different in that humans are not mere products of stimuli. [...]
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