Behaviorism
Behaviorism

Author: John B. Watson

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2017-09-29

Total Pages: 251

ISBN-13: 1351314319

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Watson was the father of behaviorism. His now-revered lectures on the subject defined behaviorism as a natural science that takes the whole field of human adjustment as its own. It is the business of behaviorist psychology to predict and control human activity. The field has as its aim to be able, given the stimulus, to predict the response, or seeing the reaction, to know the stimulus that produced it. Watson argued that psychology is as good as its observations: what the organism does or says in the general environment. Watson identified "laws" of learning, including frequency and recency. Kimble makes it perfectly clear that Watson's behaviorism, while deeply indebted to Ivan Pavlov, went beyond the Russian master in his treatment of cognition, language, and emotion. It becomes clear that Behaviorism is anything but the reductionist caricature it is often made out to be in the critical literature. For that reason alone, the work merits a wide reading. Behaviorism, as was typical of the psychology of the time, offered a wide array of applications all of which can be said to fall on the enlightened side of the ledger. At a time of mixed messages, Watson argued against child beating and abuse, for patterns of enlightened techniques of factory management, and for curing the sick and isolating the small cadre of criminals not subject to correction. And anticipating Thomas Szasz, he argued against a doctrine of strictly mental diseases, and for a close scrutiny of behavioral illness and disturbances. Kimble's brilliant introduction to Watson ends with a challenge to subjectivism to provide evidence that Watson's behaviorism cannot explain human actions without introspective notions of the mind. This genuine classic of social science hi our century remains relevant not just for the conduct of psychological research, but for studies in the philosophy of science and the sociology of knowledge.

The New Behaviorism
The New Behaviorism

Author: John Staddon

Publisher: Psychology Press

Published: 2014-03-05

Total Pages: 295

ISBN-13: 1317755758

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This groundbreaking book presents a brief history of behaviorism, the dominant movement in American psychology in the first half of the 20th Century. It then analyzes and criticizes radical behaviorism, as pioneered by B.F. Skinner, and its philosophy and applications to social issues. This second edition is a completely rewritten and much expanded version of the first edition, published nearly 15 years earlier. It surveys what changes have occurred within behaviorism and whether it has maintained its influence on experimental cognitive psychology or other fields. The mission of the book is to help steer experimental psychology away from its current undisciplined indulgence in "mental life" toward the core of science, which is an economical description of nature. The author argues that parsimony -- the elementary philosophical distinction between private and public events, even biology, evolution and animal psychology -- all are ignored by much contemporary cognitive psychology. The failings of radical behaviorism as well as a philosophically defective cognitive psychology point to the need for a new theoretical behaviorism, which can deal with problems such as "consciousness" that have been either ignored, evaded or muddled by existing approaches. This new behaviorism provides a unified framework for the science of behavior that can be applied both to the laboratory and to broader practical issues such as law and punishment, the health-care system, and teaching.

Behaviorism, Consciousness, and the Literary Mind
Behaviorism, Consciousness, and the Literary Mind

Author: Joshua Gang

Publisher: JHU Press

Published: 2021-11-16

Total Pages: 223

ISBN-13: 1421440865

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

What might behaviorism, that debunked school of psychology, tell us about literature? If inanimate objects such as novels or poems have no mental properties of their own, then why do we talk about them as if they do? Why do we perceive the minds of characters, narrators, and speakers as if they were comparable to our own? In Behaviorism, Consciousness, and the Literary Mind, Joshua Gang offers a radical new approach to these questions, which are among the most challenging philosophical problems faced by literary study today. Recent cognitive criticism has tried to answer these questions by looking for similarities and analogies between literary form and the processes of the brain. In contrast, Gang turns to one of the twentieth century's most infamous psychological doctrines: behaviorism. Beginning in 1913, a range of psychologists and philosophers—including John B. Watson, B. F. Skinner, and Gilbert Ryle—argued that many of the things we talk about as mental phenomena aren't at all interior but rather misunderstood behaviors and physiological processes. Today, behaviorism has relatively little scientific value, but Gang argues for its enormous critical value for thinking about why language is so good at creating illusions of mental life. Turning to behaviorism's own literary history, Gang offers the first sustained examination of the outmoded science's place in twentieth-century literature and criticism. Through innovative readings of figures such as I. A. Richards, the American New Critics, Samuel Beckett, Harold Pinter, and J. M. Coetzee, Behaviorism, Consciousness, and the Literary Mind reveals important convergences between modernist writers, experimental psychology, and analytic philosophy of mind—while also giving readers a new framework for thinking about some of literature's most fundamental and exciting questions.

An Introduction to Masculinities
An Introduction to Masculinities

Author: Jack S. Kahn

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2009-03-30

Total Pages: 427

ISBN-13: 1405181796

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

In the last thirty years, there has been a tremendous growth in the academic inquiry to understand men in their experiences as men. This growth is largely due to growing awareness of the problems that people face in trying to understand what it means to be masculine. This text introduces students to the research, theories, and basic issues in the field of Men and Masculinities, highlighting debates about the definition, origin, and the crisis in masculinity. The author provides a framework for studying the field of masculinities incorporating feminist, social constructionist, and interdisciplinary perspectives. Written in an accessible style, An Introduction to Masculinities provides personal anecdotes and contemporary examples to make the theoretical concepts relevant to students’ lives. The text also introduces students to leading contributors and experts whose work have informed the field. The author gives the reader a context and structure by which they can critically understand and evaluate information about men and masculinities. An Instructor's Manual is available at www.wiley.com/go/kahn Click here for more discussion and debate on the author's website: http://jackkahn.com/ [Wiley disclaims all responsibility and liability for the content of any third-party websites that can be linked to from this website. Users assume sole responsibility for accessing third-party websites and the use of any content appearing on such websites. Any views expressed in such websites are the views of the authors of the content appearing on those websites and not the views of Wiley or its affiliates, nor do they in any way represent an endorsement by Wiley or its affiliates.]

1001 Ideas That Changed the Way We Think
1001 Ideas That Changed the Way We Think

Author: Robert Arp

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2022-06-07

Total Pages: 960

ISBN-13: 1667201743

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Trace the progress of humanity—from prehistoric times to the present day—through 1,001 ideas that changed how we connect to each other and the world around us. From the ability to control fire to augmented reality, the power of humanity’s ideas has revolutionized how we live and experience the world around us. 1001 Ideas That Changed the Way We Think looks at the innovations and concepts that have played a key role in our progress since before recorded history. Covering a wide range of topics—from political and religious ideas to modern innovations such as social media and clean energy—this captivating volume offers a comprehensive look at how human ideas have evolved over the millennia.

Embodiment, Enaction, and Culture
Embodiment, Enaction, and Culture

Author: Christoph Durt

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2023-09-19

Total Pages: 451

ISBN-13: 0262549255

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The first interdisciplinary investigation of the cultural context of enactive embodiment, offering perspectives that range from the neurophilosophical to the anthropological. Recent accounts of cognition attempt to overcome the limitations of traditional cognitive science by reconceiving cognition as enactive and the cognizer as an embodied being who is embedded in biological, psychological, and cultural contexts. Cultural forms of sense-making constitute the shared world, which in turn is the origin and place of cognition. This volume is the first interdisciplinary collection on the cultural context of embodiment, offering perspectives that range from the neurophilosophical to the anthropological. The book brings together new contributions by some of the most renowned scholars in the field and the latest results from up-and-coming researchers. The contributors explore conceptual foundations, drawing on work by Husserl, Merleau-Ponty, and Sartre, and respond to recent critiques. They consider whether there is something in the self that precedes intersubjectivity and inquire into the relation between culture and consciousness, the nature of shared meaning and social understanding, the social dimension of shame, and the nature of joint affordances. They apply the notion of radical enactive cognition to evolutionary anthropology, and examine the concept of the body in relation to culture in light of studies in such fields as phenomenology, cognitive neuroscience, psychology, and psychopathology. Through such investigations, the book breaks ground for the study of the interplay of embodiment, enaction, and culture. Contributors Mark Bickhard, Ingar Brinck, Anna Ciaunica, Hanne De Jaegher, Nicolas de Warren, Ezequiel Di Paolo, Christoph Durt, John Z. Elias, Joerg Fingerhut, Aikaterini Fotopoulou, Thomas Fuchs, Shaun Gallagher, Vittorio Gallese, Duilio Garofoli, Katrin Heimann, Peter Henningsen, Daniel D. Hutto, Laurence J. Kirmayer, Alba Montes Sánchez, Dermot Moran, Maxwell J. D. Ramstead, Matthew Ratcliffe, Vasudevi Reddy, Zuzanna Rucińska, Alessandro Salice, Glenda Satne, Heribert Sattel, Christian Tewes, Dan Zahavi