Analysis :: Essays Papers

Analysis In the beginning of this year, I had lots of difficulties with this class because I did not think that writing papers in college would be so different from writing papers in high school. It was not easy at all because I did not understand many of the procedures of writing papers. I come from Puerto Rico and one of my weaknesses is the language barrier. Sometimes I did not understand what the teacher wanted and this made it more difficult for me. Another big problem that had was that my grammar was not good at all; I made mistake every time I wrote a paper. My problem in grammar was mainly verbs, commas and organization. I remember very well that many times I confused â€Å"were† with â€Å"where† on my writing. Other times, I did not know where to put commas since the rules from English grammar are different from the Spanish ones. This was a hard start for me because I had to do more than of what I expected to do for a class seeing as language and grammar we re making problems in my writing. I order for me to get better I had to ask for help because I could not do this without someone’s help. I ask the teacher to help me and she was very nice in giving me a hand, but I knew that I had to do more than that in order to pass the class with a good grade. I also used some help from other people like my friend Patricia who went through the papers with me so that I could notice my errors. Every time I did this, I improved my writing little by little. I got better at it, every time I wrote something, I got better ideas of how to organize my papers in this class and in other classes. With all this work I got very good, but I have to say that it took a lot of time in order to organize end do this kind of work right. In the end, I got to get better on writing my papers because I dedicated more time to this kind of work and because, in time, I got to understand the grammar better.

Behaviorism and Its Critics

Behaviorism is the psychological application of logical positivism. Positivism, whose basis is in the 19th century, yet whose antecedents come much earlier, is designed to force epistemology into a purely scientific context. In so doing, it helped define the scientific method, as well as creating a stir in philosophical circles. This paper will do several things: it will define behaviorism and positivism, it will link the two together as one basic movement, it will detail some of the movement’s critics and finally, look at a possible application of behaviorism.Positivism and its daughter, behaviorism, derived as a critique of idealism, or, to define this somewhat eccentrically, the idea that mental states are, or can be, expressly determining of human behavior. Historically, such a view was held by such wildly diverse thinkers as Plato, Hume, Fichte, Nietzsche and Freud. While, at the same time, the more positivist and materialist vision of human behavior was held by Thomas Ho bbes and Karl Marx, both of whom held that material and external explanations of human behavior were wholly adequate to understand motives for action.In other words, for the behaviorist, external forces, forces that can be publically understood and witnessed, are fully proportionate to the acts that they cause. Behaviorism, as first defined in an explicitly scientific, psychological context by Watson (1912) is a reaction to idealism, loosely defined, that sought explanations for human action in internal mental states. Watson, at one fell swoop, eliminated consciousness from scientific explanation.Consciousness was something that could not be analyzed scientifically because it was a private affair, something experienced at an intimate and immediate level, and, hence, could not be the subject of a scientific experiment where all the relevant variables were available for all to see. In essence, Watson held that psychology can only be scientific by holding to the tenets of logical posit ivism. Psychology must use variables that are easily quantified, public and objective.Hence, mental states and consciousness as the basis of these mental states are not variables. In fact, Behaviorist Gustav Bergmann (1942) and B. F. Skinner (1978) held that such terms were meaningless, since they referred to nothing that can be quantified. Hence, if such terms were used in a scientific paper, they refer to nothing, and hence, create a question that cannot be solved, since the terms are not properly defined. For Watson and his followers, mankind was, in a psychological sense, no different from animals.Both humans and other animal species were fully determined by material causes acting on the human being, in terms of social forces and internal behavioral dispositions explainable in material terms. If this is true, then all personal and social behavior can be predicted and controlled (Harzem, 2004, 9). In summary, Watson and his followers were trying to create a form of psychology tha t could do away with all the ambiguities of the language of the philosophy of mind. Consciousness was not definable in quantifiable categories, and hence, was not scientific.Psychology then, could only proceed if it relied solely on quantifiable phenomenon and assumed that this was sufficient to give a full account of human behavior. This method of psychology was not without its critics. The main criticism of this approach is that it is simplistic. This criticism has been leveled many times against the logical positivists, not the least among such critics have been Nietzsche, Dostoyevskii and Sartre. For all three of these writers, the human subject is free, which means that physical causes and quantifiable categories do not suffice to complete account for specific human behaviors.For all of these famed writers, the human ego could detatch itself from its external surroundings and current mental states and hence direct itself. Dostoyevskii goes so far in his Notes From Underground a s to say that the deliberate believe that 2+2=5 is justified as a means of preserving one’s freedom of choice from the oppressive, materialistic straitjacket of scientific methods. From the point of view of pure psychology however, the first and most important of Watson’s critics was E. B. Titcherner (1917), who criticized Watson and his ideas on several areas.First, that the concept of science of the positivists was too narrow. It was an arbitrary Procrustean bed that eliminated some of the most important and intimate of human experience, which is the whole point of psychology in the first place. This has always been the existentialist criticism of positivism, that so much of what makes a human human is eliminated by the arbitrary demand that all relevant variables be quantifiable. It is almost as if the positivists demand to be the gate keepers of not only scientific answers, but also of the questions themselves.Nevertheless, Titcherner does hold that the positivist critique did some good for the discipline in that it did force psychology out of its older, purely internal methods. Prior to Watson, the discipline was concerned solely with internal mental states, and hence, lacked a certain scientific â€Å"rigor† to its conclusions. Furthermore, the clarification of language was also necessary and important. Hence, while he is willing to claim that the behaviorist is too doctrinaire in his views, that school was a necessary addition to the discipline.Secondly, Titcherner holds that it is arbitrary to say that consciousness cannot be a scientific object of study or explanation. And thirdly, that the positivists were holding that the concept of observation is also too narrow. Observation was somehow confused with quantification. If consciousness is a phenomenon, then science has something to say about it. Quantifiability is not the sine qua non of the scientific approach. The positivists, of whom Watson was an avid follower, eliminated thou ght, mind, and sensation from scientific study. This was unacceptable from both a scientific and specifically psychological point of view.Gustav Bergmann (1942), defends Watson’s basic theses a generation later on several counts. First, as a typical positivist, he is concerned wit the construction of a â€Å"meaningful† question or proposition. In order for this to be the case, the words in the proposition must be clearly defined and understood. X must mean x, and not x+y; connotation and denotation must be the same thing. Hence, the question is of clarity and public â€Å"observation† of the relative phenomena. In his (1942) essay, Bergmann holds that the most significant contribution to scientific discourse in his time was the positivist insistence on the clarification of language.For example, when one speaks of carbon, there is a very specific, definable and understandable entity involved. There are not two carbons, and there is no distinction between the con notation and denotation of carbon. The word â€Å"mind,† however, is very different. It can mean mental states, it can mean behavioral characteristics, it can mean personality, it can men general moral dispositions, as well as a host of other more nuanced ideas contained in the very general idea of mind,. Given this confusion, it cannot be meaningfully used in a sentence.Skinner (1978) went so far as to attempt to eliminated such words in psychological discourse (quoted in Addis, 1982). In other words, the positivist critique is not so much obsessed with quantification, but with clarity of language and scientific discourse. An important critic of the positivist/behaviorist approach is Peter Harzam. In his (2004) essay, he criticizes behaviorism on several grounds. Following Titcherner, Harzam holds that the assumption of materialism that undergirds behavioral methods is a non-scientific assumption.Materialism is one of those â€Å"nonsense† words that positivism must r eject, though it is almost always reluctant to do so. Materialism is not a scientific view, but rather a metaphysical one. Secondly, he is suspicious as to who the media and government establishment loved Watson so much. It seems that he opened up the door to later developments in psychotropic drugs, surveillance and an entire infrastructure of control that is based on behaviorist ideas, specifically, the idea that human beings can be manipulated like cattle, so long as the elite have adequate ideas as to what makes humans act.Though Harzam does not explicitly say this, it is a clear and uncomfortable conclusion of Watson’s teachings. And third Harzam holds that consciousness can be a scientific variable precisely on the grounds that it is experienced as the ground of experience, and therefore fits into the older, purely empirical scientific model of inquiry. Another critic of this regime is Laird Addis, who in his (1982) essay deals with the history and struggles of the beha viorist paradigm.Addis criticizes the behaviorist school in its large number of assumptions that it brings to psychology, namely that of materialism (again), and the basic notion, central to all who call themselves behaviorists, that all human actions whatever have an adequate cause that is quantifiable and material, that is, independent of consciousness or its objects. He wants to make a key clarification, however, and say that the positivist analysis holds that extra-physical ideas need not be taken into account to have a full understanding, but that such ideas can assist in clarifying the basis, physicalist account of action (Addis, 1982, 401-402).Like many others, Addis is uncomfortable with Watson’s early idea that control and prediction is the aim of science. Here, a rather social and political agenda has invaded the rarified air of positivist science. It is truth and adequacy that is at the center, not the eventual control over human behavior that Watson and Skinner se em to insist upon. A possible use for behaviorism has already developed substantially, that is, the development of chemical alterations of behavior.At best, this approach holds that mental states are wholly physical and hence, can be manipulated by physical means. If one reduced mental phenomenon to chemical causes, then one has reduced the mind to the interactions of chemicals and their synthesis in specific actions. If this is done, then certain drugs can be developed and administered that can alter the chemical interactions by adding new ones, and hence, affect the reaction of the person.The chemical approach to psychology is something purely positivist in that the language is clear so long as it retains the technical language of chemistry, it is publically understood since chemical interactions can be replicated in a laboratory, and the concepts of consciousness and thought are eliminated as causal variables. Hence, the development of drugs to deal with obsessive compulsive diso rder, depression and bi-polarity derive from the Watsonite approach.To conclude, it is clear that the Watsonite theory of human behavior is simply a positivist approach to the philosophy of mind. It approaches this discipline by negating it. Its basic ideas are that a) for any human act x, there is a completely adequate explanation y. b) y is always reducible to clear, quantifiable, and publically understood language. c) if not, then y is not completely adequate. Hence, there is an intersection of the clarity of language with that of quantifiability.Words in scientific discourse can only mean one thing, and cannot have the shades of meaning that make denotation different from connotation. Hence, many followers of Watson insist that their movement is based solely in the clarification of language rather than a elimination of concepts tout court. References: Addis, Laird. (1982). Behaviorism and the Philosophy of the Act. Nous, 16, 399-420 Bergmann, Gustav. (1942) An Empirical Schema o f the Psycho-physical Problem. The Philosophy of Science, 9, 72-91. Harzam, Peter.(2004). Behaviorism for the New Psychology: What was Wrong with Behaviorism and What is Wrong with it Now. Behaviorism and Philosophy, 32. 5-12. Watson, JB. (1913). Psychology as Behaviorism Views It. Psychology Review 20, 158-177. Titchener, EB (1917). On ‘Psychology as Behaviorism Views It. ’ The Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 53, 1-17. Skinner, BF. (1978). Reflections on Behaviorism and Society. Prentice Hall. Dostoyevskii, Fydor. (2006). Notes from Underground. Waking Lion Press.

The Civil Rights Movement - 1466 Words

disadvantaged by class. By limiting its focus to Appalachia, the college also cuts out a large population of African Americans and other minorities, whose need for assistance is greater than that of white Appalachians. The needs of minorities being greater due to the compounded disadvantage of both race and class. By focusing on class Berea can meet the needs of poor Appalachians without excluding minorities. The college also shows its lack of focus on class and race in less pronounced ways throughout the programs it currently has. As I have mentioned before the only race focused program besides student clubs is the Carter G. Woodson center, which does not address the issues specific to race. Instead it tries to solve the problem in a†¦show more content†¦Only after all of that did the government start to implement laws to protect its minority citizens. If you want something to change you cannot do things passively and hope to get the results you want. If Berea College is serious about helping those disadvantaged by class and race, they must stop trying to do so through passive programs that make little to no difference. Berea College must take a more active role by setting up programs that directly and actively address the disadvantages caused by race and class, not just passive programs that have no risk to them. In order to accomplish this Berea College must utilize every resource it has. There is no doubt that Berea College has the ability and the resources to better serve its community when it comes to helping those disadvantaged by race and class. For starters, Berea College according to Business Insider, â€Å"has a massive $1 billion endowment.† Which it has accumulated from donors through fundraising and student craft work. Berea College also has the entire student body as a source of cheap labor. The money for work performed by Berea college students is, according to Berea College’s site, provided by the, â€Å"Federal Work-Study aid [which] is federal self-help assistance earned through part-time employment in the College Labor Program† it is Through this program that all students of Berea college are paid, which make theShow MoreRelatedThe Rise Of The Civil Rights Movement1179 Words   |  5 Pagessegregations. Out of the numerous elements that arose in the 1960s, there are three movements that truly affected the American society. Firstly, the rise of the civil rights movement was greatly influenced by racial discrimination of colored people in the South. Secondly, the women’s movement aimed to convince the society that women are capable of achieving and maintaining higher waged job like males. Lastly, the gay rights movement aimed to gain acceptance and stop discrimination of homosexuality. 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