Behavior And Philosopy

Behavior and Philosophy, 32, 55-68 (2004). © 2004 Cambridge Center for Behavioral Studies

BEHAVIOR IS ABSTRACTION, NOT OSTENSION: CONCEPTUAL AND HISTORICAL REMARKS ON THE NATURE OF PSYCHOLOGY
Emilio Ribes-Iñesta University of Guadalajara

ABSTRACT: In this paper I discuss (1) the nontechnical nature of the term “behavior”; (2) the need to revisit the Aristotelian concept of soul as theprime naturalistic subject matter of psychology; (3) the incompleteness of meaning when behavior is identified with movements or actions; (4) the implication of behavior in episodic and dispositional words and statements including mental terms; (5) that mental concepts are not learned by inner or outer ostension to physical properties of the speaker or of others; and (6) the concept of behaviorinvolves a two-fold abstraction, involving speaking with terms about doing and saying, on the one hand, and speaking about those terms with which we speak, on the other. Key words: soul, behavior, dispositional categories, episodic categories, abstraction, ostension

The present status of psychology as a scientific discipline was described, quite acutely, by Wittgenstein’s assertion that
Theconfusion and barrenness of psychology is not explained by calling it a “young science”; its state is not comparable with that of physics, for instance, in its beginnings. (Rather with that of certain branches of mathematics, e.g. Set theory.) For in psychology there are experimental methods and conceptual confusion. (As in the other case conceptual confusion and methods of proof.) (1953, Part II, xvi)Where does this conceptual confusion come from and of what does it consist?

Aristotle and the Soul as Behavior
Psychology is not a young science. In fact, it is a discipline with a long and tortuous history. Psychology as a natural science can be traced back to the foundational writings of Aristotle in De Anima (1908-1952, English translation). Aristotle included psychology in his biologicaltreatises. Biology and psychology dealt with the study of the soul. The soul, according to Aristotle, was not a distinctive substance. It was always the soul of a particular body and could not be separated from it. There was no soul without body. The soul was a predicate of a special kind of body—living bodies, capable of self-nutrition, growth, and
AUTHOR’S NOTE: Please address allcorrespondence to Emilio Ribes-Iñesta, Centro de Estudios e Investigaciones en Comportamiento, Universidad de Guadalajara, 12 de Diciembre 204, Chapalita, Guadalajara, Jalisco 45030 (A.P. 5-374), México. Email: ribes@cencar.udg.mx. CEIC’s website: http://udgserv.cencar.udg.mx/~ceip/

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RIBES-IÑESTA corruption. The faculties of the soul were conceived as the potencies of a living organism, given itsorganization or form, and the soul was nothing other than these potencies becoming act, given certain objects affecting the organism. The soul consisted of the acting functions of a living body in relation to another body. Because of this the soul was said to be the entelechy (or definition and essence) of such a body. In Aristotelian thinking, the relation between matter and form defined anyparticular body. The form of the candle could not be separated from the wax, as the form of the body could not be separated from its functions. Nutrition was a faculty exclusively related to the domain of what we call today biology, but sensibility, desire, want and need, and the intellect of discourse were obviously psychological functions. Aristotle thought of these functions as being progressivelyinclusive, so the intellective soul always included the “simpler” desiring, sensitive, and nutritive functions or faculties of the soul. Although the domain of psychology seems to be defined clearly in Aristotle’s writings as potencies becoming act, the term “soul” suffered from a variety of changes due to the pervasive and strong influence of the Judeo-Christian tradition (see, e.g., Kantor, 1963)....