🚀 go-pugleaf

On Sep 2, 6:06 am, Doug Morse <mo...@edoug.org> wrote:
> What is the difference between language and concept, or are they the
> same thing?  Does language build on a conceptual system?  Or perhaps
> concepts emerge from or are a byproduct of linguistic representation
> and processing?  Most of all, what is a good definition of "concept"
> or "conceptual representation and processing", especially from a
> psychological, neuroscience, and linguistic point of view?  I find
> that these research areas routinely invoke the notion of concepts and
> conceptual processing, but a decent definition of them -- let alone a
> solid one -- seems terribly elusive.  So, thoughts and sources on this
> would be great to hear about.

What do you mean by "concept"?

I don't think it occurs as a technical term in linguistics.

Language is a means of communication (with a number of enumerable
characteristics). "Concept" isn't a means of communication, so I don't
see where your confusion arises.

"Doug Morse" <morse@edoug.org> wrote in message 
news:slrnfdl2ou.3vl.morse@ikrg.com...
> What is the difference between language and concept, or are they the
> same thing?

What is "language"? This is not a rhetorical question.

>Does language build on a conceptual system?

Mainstream (lame) philosophy and psychology would, I think, say "yes." I 
would not.

>Or perhaps
> concepts emerge from or are a byproduct of linguistic representation
> and processing?

What is "linguistic representaion"? What is "processing"?

>Most of all, what is a good definition of "concept"
> or "conceptual representation and processing", especially from a
> psychological, neuroscience, and linguistic point of view?  I find
> that these research areas routinely invoke the notion of concepts and
> conceptual processing, but a decent definition of them -- let alone a
> solid one -- seems terribly elusive.  So, thoughts and sources on this
> would be great to hear about.

The notion of "concept" is generally invoked when the stimuli controlling 
behavior cannot be divided into cut-and-dried categories, and where an 
animal or person responds in a particular way to stimuli it has never seen 
before but which nevertheless are called "X" by people. So, when a person is 
shown a picture of, say, a tree, that the person has never seen before, we 
say "They have  concept of tree." This is simply a description of behavior. 
How do you "give someone (or animal) a "concept of tree"?




> 

Hi Doug,

My discussion will proceed first in a gen-
eralized way, and then I'll reduce it to
the specific nervous-system dynamics
in which "language" and "concepts"
derive.

"Doug Morse" <morse@edoug.org> wrote in message 
news:slrnfdl2ou.3vl.morse@ikrg.com...

| What is the difference between language
| and concept, or are they the same thing?

Oh Man! What a =Beautiful= Question!

No, they're not the same thing.

"Language" is =just= a communications
=interface=.

Think of this in terms of "Morse code".

"dit-dit-dit [--] dah-dah-dah [--] did-dit-dit"

"S-O-S"

The "dit"s and "dah"s are =only= symbols
that 'address' "characters" [symbols] of the
"alphabet" that, in-turn, 'address' [symbolize]
far-larger, integrated-meaning.

"Save our ship!"

Which, further, 'addresses' the =generalized=
meaning, "Oh, Please! I am in Peril. Come
rescue me!" [even the affect is integrated-with-
in the "S-O-S"], in which "ship" 'translates' =gen-
erally=, meaning "Save-Life", which happens
to be where the "peril" is.

As in Alexander Graham Bell's plea [when he
spilled acid on himself during a trial of the 'first'
telephone], "Watson, come here! I need you!"

Which is literally the same-stuff as "S-O-S"
and "dit-dit-dit [--] dah-dah-dah [--] did-dit-dit",
with Bell's location in his lab being the anal-
ogue of a "Life-containing"-ness "ship's" loc-
ation, and Bell's body being the "Life-that's-in-
'peril' ", which is to be " 'rescued' ".

The "concept" is much-deeper than the sym-
bols used to 'address' it, which includes infin-
itely-variable "shades" of meaning, as I indi-
cated in the A. G. Bell example by using 'fun-
ny'-quotes around " 'peril' " and " 'rescued' "
because Bell's Life was not in-Absolute-Per-
il, and he wouldn't've lost-it if he'd not've been
"rescued" by Mr. Watson [at least, not immed-
iately. If Bells' skin whas broached by the acid,
and infection had been allowed to instantiate
itself, it could've taken Bell's Life -- 'small'-
emergencies become 'big'-emergencies, over
'time', if they're not 'addressed', which is more
of the infinite-variability that I discuss below.]

The main feature of "language" is that it can
be comprised of symbols in infinitely-variable
ways [for those who have it, as is discussed
in AoK, Ap1.] The particular symbols that're
used in language-interface dynamics do not
matter. What matters is the =coherence= that's
inherent in their use, including infinitely-variable
"shades-of-meaning" in whatever infinitely-var-
iable, coherently-linked symbols that're used.
[Infinity is compounded, over and over again
'within' =all= human experience, including lang-
uage-interface dynamics [which is why nervous
systems', nevertheless, just-doing-what-they-do
is so Awesome!].

It's all of this inherent-variability that discloses
"language" to be ='only'= an =interface= between
"communication" and much-deeper, =Vastly=
-larger stuff.

It's the =coherence= that is what "concepts"
[physically] are. "Concepts" are [ideally] Invar-
iants, regardless of what infinitely-variable
"symbols" ["language"-interface dynamics] are
used to 'address' them, and how particular
symbols are 'instantaneously'-used to 'address'
"concepts".

Just as in the little "S-O-S" example, above.

Coherence-in-language is, itself, infinitely-
variable in a way that's extremely-Important
to understand with respect to human inter-
active dynamics, be-cause the infinitely-vari-
able use of "symbols" in "language' is =ex-
perientially= -Determined in an individually-
unique way.

Which is how and why, for instance, 'ferrol'
Children develop "languages" that cohere
'perfectly'-well for them, but are incoherent
with respect to general-populations in which
Individuals don't share the Children's iso-
lated experience.

This same-stuff occurs =routinely= within
general populations as a Consequence in-
herent in differential-experience, and, be-
cause folks-in-general don't [yet] understand
how and why "language" [behavior, and [even]
affect] are in-formed [verb] as a result of in-
dividually-unique experience, folks tend,
Strongly, to 'fight' over individually-unique,
and individually-correlated, coherence-dif-
ferentials [which're 'just' experience-differ-
entials.]

One guy sends an "S-O-S" in his individual-
ly-unique language-interface dynamics, and
gets-"angry" when nobody "rescues" him.

But, at least in-part, nobody "rescues" him
because nobody coherently-understands
the guy's individually-unique "language"-in-
terface dynamics.

It's an =across-Individuals= coherence-differ-
ential that 'blocks' communication in such
cases, and such cases are =routinely= -oc-
curring within human interactive dynamics.

Which is some of how and why "concept"
has the Illusion of being 'hard-to-address'.

It's 'hard'-to-communicate "concepts" that're
not generally-already-coherently-'held'-across-
populations, =NOT= be-cause the "concepts"
are "Hard", but be-cause the "concepts" are
just not already-coherently-'held' ['within' nerv-
ous systems] -across-populations.

So "the guy" who wants to be "rescued" 'must',
first, instantiate understanding that will be gen-
erally-'held'-across-populations, before he has
any hope of being 'rescued'.

Be-cause, before folks can "understand" that he
is in need of 'being-rescued', they 'have to' un-
derstand his "S-O-S".

It's the same-stuff with respect to the converse-
case, in which it's "the guy" who sees that every-
one else is in need of being 'rescued' [BTW :-] -------------------------

Either way, "the guy" is confronted with the task
of instantiating coherent understanding of a
"concept" across-populations.

["Whew!" :-]

| Does language build on a conceptual system?

Language-interface dynamics accumulate
'within' individually-unique experience, as a
consequence of the interactive 'sanctions'
that acrue during individually-unique exper-
ience.

Folks 'move toward', or 'move away from',
relative to another Individual's "utterances"
-- which is commonly connoted by "agree-
ment" or "disagreement" -- and ['ideally'] the
Individual 'adjusts' his subsequent usage
of the "utterance" within his language-inter-
face dynamics. ['funny'-quotes around
" 'ideally' ", above, because it's =not= "ideal",
in all Possible ways, to 'acquiesce'-to folks'
'movement' with respect to the contents of
one's language-interface dynamics.]

The first stuff, of the above paragraph, is
what Loving-Parents do with the all-over-
the-map "utterances' of their Infants, for
instance.

By Lovingly positively or negatively 'sanc-
tioning' Infants' utterances, Parents liter-
ally Direct the in-form-ing [verb] of their
Infants' language-interface dynamics.

Adults do the same-stuff with respect to
other Adults, but the "Love" is often ab-
sent in the Adult case -- which is not a
trivial circumstance, as I'll [hopefully :-] -------------------------
explain below.

| Or perhaps concepts emerge from or
| are a byproduct of linguistic representa-
| tion and processing?

=Everything= that happens 'within' human
nervous systems happens in a "by-produced"
way. I'll explain below.

| Most of all, what is a good definition of
| "concept" or "conceptual representation
| and processing", especially from a psych-
| ological, neuroscience, and linguistic
| point of view?

One 'problem' with how you've phrased this
specific question is that the "linguistic" part
is 'just' an =interface= with respect to the
Vastly-larger "concept" and "neuroscience"
stuff.

"Language" is to a "cake" as "icing" is to
the "cake". The "icing" is a "presentation-
interface", not the "cake". Part of the Problem
that's addressed in your question is that, in
language-interface dynamics "Cake-and-
icing" is ruotinely 'addressed' using the
symbol "cake". This happens be-cause
everything 'within' nervous systems tends,
Strongly, to be 'minimially'-represented.
Such 'minimimal'-representation is 'just'
'maximal'-efficiency 'within' the informa-
tion-processing work that nervous sys-
tems routinely do, but this 'minimial'-rep-
resentation-ness 'cloaks' what's actually
going-on 'within' nervous systems, which
is how and why questions like yours have
the illusion of 'being-difficult'. They're not
inherently-difficult. Routine nervous sys-
tem function 'just' 'cloaks' what's in-them,
which, on the one hand, is a 'good' thing,
because it renders routine behavioral
dynamics 'easy', but, on the other hand,
is a 'bad' thing, because the 'cloaking'
"sets-traps" that 'snap-shut' upon Human-
ity's Progress, 'preventing' it, by instantiat-
ing the circumstances in which Conflict
arises.

[That your question goes-right-to-the-'heart'
of this last stuff is why I called it "Beautiful!".]

I'll explain-further, below.

| I find that these research areas routinely
| invoke the notion of concepts and concep-
| tual processing, but a decent definition of
| them -- let alone a solid one -- seems
| terribly elusive.  So, thoughts and sources
| on this would be great to hear about.

I'll now begin the "2nd part" of my discussion,
which'll focus-upon nervous system dynamics
that're particularly-relevant to your "language"/
"concept" question. [For folks who have it, ev-
erything that I'll discuss has been in AoK all
along. I'll just be "translating" from the language-
interface dynamics that I used while writing AoK
to language-interface dynamics that use Doug's
more-conceptual [:-] language-interface 'per-
spective'. [I routinely do the same sort of "trans-
lation" stuff in everything I post here in b.n. It's
'all' been in AoK all along.]]

Given an "environment", what is necessary if
anything is to be "done" in that environment?

Directed-'movement' that occurs with specific-
respect to the "stuff" of the environment.

There's a lot in the above simple statement.

1. For instance, 'movement' that is Directed
in ways that're negatively-correlated to the
stuff of the environment will be 'negatively-
sanctioned' by the environment be-cause
the 'movement' will expend-energy without
actually accomplishing anything.

2. And vice versa, with respect to 'movement'
that is Directed in ways that're positively-
correlated to the stuff of the environment.
These 'movements' will be 'positively-sanc-
tioned' by the environment be-cause they
will actually accomplish something as an
effect of the energy that was expended in
the 'movement'.

3. 1 and 2 are completely-generalized, but
more than them is needed be-cause in-
stances of 2 which are Directed in exact-
ly opposite ways undo each other, being
'transformed' into instances in 1.

To handle the energy-wastefulness in-
herent in such 'movements'-that-undo-
each-other [3.], evolutionary dynamics
converged-upon instantiating "memory"
in organisms.

'all' that "memory" is is the instantiation
of environmentally-correlated-copies-of-
'environment' 'within' nervous systems
[which is what "biological mass", AoK,
Ap5, physically is.]

Be-cause of "memory" ["biological mass"],
the "undoings" of 3, themselves, become
'environment', which is what "concepts"
physically are -- combinations of extern-
al and internal 'environment' that 'contain'
experience, which 'containments' more or
less enable 'movement' to be Directed as
in 2.

"Concepts" are, in this way, "macroscopic
'atoms' " with respect to energy-expenditure.

What "language" is is the 'dance' that the
vocal apparatus does, or one's fingers do,
or one's body does, =while= one is gain-
ing experience [including the instantiation
of "memory" [biological mass] as one ex-
pends energy relative to 'environment' [both
'momentary'-external and internal.]

Language is as a "tool" through which "con-
cepts" are converged-upon, 'minimally-in-
stantiated, and 'contained'.

But see? This definition of "language" is
much-broader than that which is routinely
"conceptualized" as "constituting language".

It includes =everything= that a body does,
not 'just' "words" and their usage.

Because everything that a body does does,
in fact, instantiate "memory" as in 3.

Folks've [Falsely] 'separated language-in-
terface dynamics from "the rest" of what
organisms ["bodies"] do, mostly because
language-interface dynamics do enable
Human Beings to pool their energy-ex-
penditures, collectively, which greatly-
amplifies the Directed-force that can be
brought-to-bear as in 2.

This matters because "concepts" exist
at a much-lower 'level' 'within' nervous-
system function than do language-interface
dynamics.

Language-interface dynamics are like the
flapping-of-butterfly-wings relative to "con-
cepts' " 'concreteness'.

It's the deeper stuff of "concepts" that Dir-
ect behavior, not language-interface dyn-
amics.

It's =routine= in language-interface dyn-
amics that folks 'send S-O-S' stuff, but
folks just do not 'hear' -- be-cause it's
"concepts" that Direct behavior, and, as
above, "concepts" 'contain' ='everything'=
that Individuals have experienced.

In the form of 'minimal'-TD E/I.

Which is how and why folks get-together
to 'flap-their-lips' [:-], but 'nothing' ever
changes -- which is the mutual-undoing
of 3., above.

While "concepts" 'roll'-right-along, rel-
atively-never-changing, except to the
degrees that, as Charles Darwin lamented,
Youngsters grow-up experiencing the
edge-of-difference" that folks've tenuously-
instantiated 'within' the Youngsters' exper-
iential-'environments'.

The collective-"S-O-S" is 'heard' only by
the Young.

[I 'fear' that I've written at too-high-a-'level',
as usual, having written for folks who've
been reading all along. Everything I've dis-
cussed in this post is 'just' "TD E/I-minimiz-
ation as I've been discussing it all along.

'just' more energy-'containing'-energy stuff.

Be-cause I heard the generalized-"S-O-S"
of Humanity.

I understand that the OP [Doug] probably
doesn't, yet, understand what "TD E/I" and
"TD E/I-minimization" are, but that's the
"Battle" I've been 'fighting' all along -- so all
that's necessary cannot be reiterated in a
single post. Which is why I chose to write
'between-the-lines' as I have in this post.

[Which is an instance in the 'difficulty' at
the 'heart' of Doug's query, which I've,
hopefully, addressed adequately above.
This 'difficulty' exists across all of Humanity.]

"Concepts" are 'just' 'minimal'-TD E/I-en-
ergy-'containing'-energy-nesses [:-], and
they are 'just' =in= the =Abstract TD E/I.

"Words" occur at an extremely-higher
'level' 'within' language-interface dynamics,
as folks do the work that's inherent in "com-
munication", all of which has been explained,
at an introductory 'level', in AoK, all along, as
in, "Thus, the left ring finger depresses the 's'
key" [while typing the language-interface sym-
bol, of the "concept", "square" [AoK, Ap6, which
I chose, BTW, while writing AoK, because
"square" encapsulates Maths-Incommens-
urability, which is infinitely-Precise.]

[All theoried-up, with nowhere to go :-]

"Oh well."

k. p. collins

Cross-posts removed.

"Benjamin" <Benjamin@verizon.net> wrote in message 
news:8IHCi.1783$tY2.336@trndny01...
| [...]
|
| My discussion will proceed first in a gen-
| eralized way, and then I'll reduce it to
| the specific nervous-system dynamics
| in which "language" and "concepts"
| derive.
| [...]

I didn't complete the above because,
as I was writing, the thought, "Why
don't folks just read AoK?", kept rising-
up within me, until I desiced to just
leave-it at what I'd already written.

It's a battle-within-the-battle that's,
presently', getting the better of me,
because, "If AoK won't be allowed
Publication, how can folks read it?"

And, "Why, then, should I continue
to try?"

The answer always is, "For the folks
who've had no choice with respect
to reading AoK."

Anyway, I didn't finish my preceding
post because, why-don't-folks-just-
read-AoK? stuff 'dragged me into
the pit-of-boredon' and I've got to re-
scue myself from that.

The other part of it was that what I
wrote captured some stuff that ex-
ternalized some of what's been my
Sorrow a bit too-concisely [specific-
ally, the stuff of 'point'-3.]

Gotta 'lick-my-wounds', a bit.

Just wanted to acknowledge that
I left the post 'unfinished'. "-----------------------------"

:-]

k. p. collins 

Hi Peter,

OK, makes sense, and good to know -- thanks.  My experience has been
that the study of language comprehension (within psychology) makes
extensive use of the notion of concepts, but in that subfield they use
the terms "propositions" and "propositional representations".  I just
assumed that linguistics would also have some notion of concepts, but
given that the focus is on the structure and function of language I
can see where this would in fact not be necessary.  Again, good to
know, and thanks.

As far as what I think a concept is, well, that's in part what I'm
trying to figure out and refine with my questions here.  That said,
one way I think about concepts is that they subsume categorization,
which in term subsumes object recognition:

  +--------------------+
  | Conceptualization  |
  |   +--------------+ |
  |   |Categorization| |
  |   |   +-----+    | |  
  |   |   | O.R.|    | |
  |   |   +-----+    | |  
  |   +--------------+ |
  +--------------------+

In this view, one defining characteristic of concepts is that they
abstract over some space, time, or (set of) entities -- or quite often
they abstract over other abstractions.  This is in contrast to
categories, which also abstract, but predominately from just an
instance to a class.

Another way to define concepts is as the mental representation of
important invariants in the content domain.  Kirsh (1991) puts it
nicely: "....That is, to have a concept is, among other things, to
have a capacity to find an invariance across a range of contexts, and
to reify that invariance so that it can be combined with other
appropriate invariances."

It seems to me that there must be more complete/better/additional ways
of defining concepts and conceptual representation/processing, but
after much searching I'm surprised at how little I'm able to find.
And this in light of the fact that the notion of concepts is
ubiquitous in the fields of cognitive psychology, cognitive science,
neuoscience, computer science, and education.

Doug


On Sun, 02 Sep 2007 04:47:28 -0700, Peter T. Daniels 
<grammatim@verizon.net> wrote:
> 
>  What do you mean by "concept"?
> 
>  I don't think it occurs as a technical term in linguistics.
> 
>  Language is a means of communication (with a number of enumerable
>  characteristics). "Concept" isn't a means of communication, so I don't
>  see where your confusion arises.

Hi Glen,

>  What is "language"? This is not a rhetorical question.

A highly-symbolic system of representation, for the most part unique
to humans, that allows individual experiences to be classified,
stored, and shared (communicated).  It is my understanding that almost
all languages use NVO (noun-verb-objects) conjunctions to accomplish
this representation.  In a great many languages, the particular form
of the linguistic symbols is arbitrary.

> > Does language build on a conceptual system?
> 
>  Mainstream (lame) philosophy and psychology would, I think, say "yes." I 
>  would not.

Excellent!  I'm VERY curious as to why?

> > Or perhaps
> > concepts emerge from or are a byproduct of linguistic representation
> > and processing?
> 
>  What is "linguistic representaion"? What is "processing"?

1. Nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, and any other type of language
element as represented in the mind/brain.  2. Mental/cognitive
operations with these representation, such as parsing a text and/or
integrating a parsed text with one's prior knowledge.

> >Most of all, what is a good definition of "concept"
> > or "conceptual representation and processing", especially from a
> > psychological, neuroscience, and linguistic point of view?  I find
> > that these research areas routinely invoke the notion of concepts and
> > conceptual processing, but a decent definition of them -- let alone a
> > solid one -- seems terribly elusive.  So, thoughts and sources on this
> > would be great to hear about.
> 
>  The notion of "concept" is generally invoked when the stimuli controlling 
>  behavior cannot be divided into cut-and-dried categories, and where an 
>  animal or person responds in a particular way to stimuli it has never seen 
>  before but which nevertheless are called "X" by people. So, when a person is 
>  shown a picture of, say, a tree, that the person has never seen before, we 
>  say "They have  concept of tree." This is simply a description of behavior. 
>  How do you "give someone (or animal) a "concept of tree"?

So, this to me is what I would call categorization.  Let me ask, then:
How would you differentiate between concepts and categories?

Thanks!
Doug

On Sep 4, 7:38 am, "Glen M. Sizemore" <gmsizemo...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote in messagenews:1188872493.332157.31480@19g2000hsx.googlegroups.com...
> > On Sep 3, 9:17 pm, Doug Morse <mo...@edoug.org> wrote:

> >> >  The notion of "concept" is generally invoked when the stimuli
> >> > controlling
> >> >  behavior
>
> > Maybe the single most important contribution of Noam Chomsky to
> > linguistics happened in 1959 and had little or nothing to do with the
> > "transformational-generative grammar" he was just beginning to
> > develop. He showed that behaviorism -- specifically, Skinner's *Verbal
> > Behavior* -- was unable to explain anything about human language.
> > Language is _not_ an example of stimulus and response.
>
> Chomsky showed nothing of the sort, and Skinner's is not a
> "stimulus-response" position. Skinner's book remains cogent but only
> behaviorists read it since Chomsky's "review." BTW, Chomsky never read the
> book - ask Searle.

Yeah, Searle is a reliable witness to _anything_ regarding Chomsky.

Name some contributions of behaviorist psychology to the study and
understanding of language?

"Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim@verizon.net> wrote in message 
news:1188908467.409393.89540@57g2000hsv.googlegroups.com...
> On Sep 4, 7:38 am, "Glen M. Sizemore" <gmsizemo...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote in 
>> messagenews:1188872493.332157.31480@19g2000hsx.googlegroups.com...
>> > On Sep 3, 9:17 pm, Doug Morse <mo...@edoug.org> wrote:
>
>> >> >  The notion of "concept" is generally invoked when the stimuli
>> >> > controlling
>> >> >  behavior
>>
>> > Maybe the single most important contribution of Noam Chomsky to
>> > linguistics happened in 1959 and had little or nothing to do with the
>> > "transformational-generative grammar" he was just beginning to
>> > develop. He showed that behaviorism -- specifically, Skinner's *Verbal
>> > Behavior* -- was unable to explain anything about human language.
>> > Language is _not_ an example of stimulus and response.
>>
>> Chomsky showed nothing of the sort, and Skinner's is not a
>> "stimulus-response" position. Skinner's book remains cogent but only
>> behaviorists read it since Chomsky's "review." BTW, Chomsky never read 
>> the
>> book - ask Searle.
>
> Yeah, Searle is a reliable witness to _anything_ regarding Chomsky.

Even if you think that Searle was lying, it is painfully obvious to anyone 
that has read both VB and Chomsky's "review" that Chomsky was criticizing 
his vision of what some kinds of behaviorism suggested, not what Skinner 
wrote. Perhaps you would be interested in: MacQuorcodale, Kenneth. A reply 
to Chomsky's Review of Skinner's Verbal Behavior, but my guess is that you 
aren't interested in what behaviorists actually say. It is too easy and 
popular to simply misrepresent it. In any event, the paper can be accessed 
through the JEAB website. Just google "jeab."


>
> Name some contributions of behaviorist psychology to the study and
> understanding of language?



Well, you can do your own leg work, but like I said, I'm guessing that you 
are more interested in the simplistic misrepresentations that abound. One 
thing is clear, though, when there are special populations that do not 
"automatically acquire language," it is applied behavior analysts that are 
called in to establish whatever functional repertoire is possible. Further, 
I know of no finding that contradicts Skinner's analysis -certainly nothing 
you could come up with. Some would be orthogonal to it (behavior analysis is 
not about "brain stuff").



Finally, one might ask what proportion of the stuff said to contribute to 
the "understanding of language" is actually junk? I'm sure we would differ 
in our ideas in this regard. There is no question that what is perceived to 
be behavioristic is unpopular but this is largely due, it seems to me, to 
its widespread misrepresentation, and the fact that animism has never truly 
died out.


> 

On Sep 4, 1:48 pm, "Glen M. Sizemore" <gmsizemo...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote in messagenews:1188908467.409393.89540@57g2000hsv.googlegroups.com...
>
>
>
>
>
> > On Sep 4, 7:38 am, "Glen M. Sizemore" <gmsizemo...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> >> "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote in
> >> messagenews:1188872493.332157.31480@19g2000hsx.googlegroups.com...
> >> > On Sep 3, 9:17 pm, Doug Morse <mo...@edoug.org> wrote:
>
> >> >> >  The notion of "concept" is generally invoked when the stimuli
> >> >> > controlling
> >> >> >  behavior
>
> >> > Maybe the single most important contribution of Noam Chomsky to
> >> > linguistics happened in 1959 and had little or nothing to do with the
> >> > "transformational-generative grammar" he was just beginning to
> >> > develop. He showed that behaviorism -- specifically, Skinner's *Verbal
> >> > Behavior* -- was unable to explain anything about human language.
> >> > Language is _not_ an example of stimulus and response.
>
> >> Chomsky showed nothing of the sort, and Skinner's is not a
> >> "stimulus-response" position. Skinner's book remains cogent but only
> >> behaviorists read it since Chomsky's "review." BTW, Chomsky never read
> >> the
> >> book - ask Searle.
>
> > Yeah, Searle is a reliable witness to _anything_ regarding Chomsky.
>
> Even if you think that Searle was lying, it is painfully obvious to anyone
> that has read both VB and Chomsky's "review" that Chomsky was criticizing
> his vision of what some kinds of behaviorism suggested, not what Skinner
> wrote. Perhaps you would be interested in: MacQuorcodale, Kenneth. A reply
> to Chomsky's Review of Skinner's Verbal Behavior, but my guess is that you
> aren't interested in what behaviorists actually say. It is too easy and
> popular to simply misrepresent it. In any event, the paper can be accessed
> through the JEAB website. Just google "jeab."

What's JEAB? What's the actual reference? When was it written?

Some years ago, I copyedited a number of volumes for Academic Press in
the series Psychology of Learning and Motivation (I think it was --
they're the only publisher that ever didn't give me a copy of the
books I edited for them), which included several behaviorist
treatises, and in every case what little they had to say about
language was quite absurd.

> > Name some contributions of behaviorist psychology to the study and
> > understanding of language?
>
> Well, you can do your own leg work, but like I said, I'm guessing that you
> are more interested in the simplistic misrepresentations that abound. One
> thing is clear, though, when there are special populations that do not
> "automatically acquire language," it is applied behavior analysts that are
> called in to establish whatever functional repertoire is possible.

Something other than language, evidently.

> Further,
> I know of no finding that contradicts Skinner's analysis -certainly nothing
> you could come up with. Some would be orthogonal to it (behavior analysis is
> not about "brain stuff").

Well, language _is_ "brain stuff," so "behavior analysis" shouldn't
have anything to say about it at all.

> Finally, one might ask what proportion of the stuff said to contribute to
> the "understanding of language" is actually junk? I'm sure we would differ
> in our ideas in this regard. There is no question that what is perceived to
> be behavioristic is unpopular but this is largely due, it seems to me, to
> its widespread misrepresentation, and the fact that animism has never truly
> died out.

I don't know what you might mean by "stuff said to contribute to the
'understanding of language'."

"Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim@verizon.net> wrote in message 
news:1188931581.502395.126760@22g2000hsm.googlegroups.com...
> On Sep 4, 1:48 pm, "Glen M. Sizemore" <gmsizemo...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote in 
>> messagenews:1188908467.409393.89540@57g2000hsv.googlegroups.com...
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> > On Sep 4, 7:38 am, "Glen M. Sizemore" <gmsizemo...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> >> "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote in
>> >> messagenews:1188872493.332157.31480@19g2000hsx.googlegroups.com...
>> >> > On Sep 3, 9:17 pm, Doug Morse <mo...@edoug.org> wrote:
>>
>> >> >> >  The notion of "concept" is generally invoked when the stimuli
>> >> >> > controlling
>> >> >> >  behavior
>>
>> >> > Maybe the single most important contribution of Noam Chomsky to
>> >> > linguistics happened in 1959 and had little or nothing to do with 
>> >> > the
>> >> > "transformational-generative grammar" he was just beginning to
>> >> > develop. He showed that behaviorism -- specifically, Skinner's 
>> >> > *Verbal
>> >> > Behavior* -- was unable to explain anything about human language.
>> >> > Language is _not_ an example of stimulus and response.
>>
>> >> Chomsky showed nothing of the sort, and Skinner's is not a
>> >> "stimulus-response" position. Skinner's book remains cogent but only
>> >> behaviorists read it since Chomsky's "review." BTW, Chomsky never read
>> >> the
>> >> book - ask Searle.
>>
>> > Yeah, Searle is a reliable witness to _anything_ regarding Chomsky.
>>
>> Even if you think that Searle was lying, it is painfully obvious to 
>> anyone
>> that has read both VB and Chomsky's "review" that Chomsky was criticizing
>> his vision of what some kinds of behaviorism suggested, not what Skinner
>> wrote. Perhaps you would be interested in: MacQuorcodale, Kenneth. A 
>> reply
>> to Chomsky's Review of Skinner's Verbal Behavior, but my guess is that 
>> you
>> aren't interested in what behaviorists actually say. It is too easy and
>> popular to simply misrepresent it. In any event, the paper can be 
>> accessed
>> through the JEAB website. Just google "jeab."
>
> What's JEAB? What's the actual reference? When was it written?

Don't be obtuse. I told you how to find the paper.

>
> Some years ago, I copyedited a number of volumes for Academic Press in
> the series Psychology of Learning and Motivation (I think it was --
> they're the only publisher that ever didn't give me a copy of the
> books I edited for them), which included several behaviorist
> treatises, and in every case what little they had to say about
> language was quite absurd.

So say you.

>
>> > Name some contributions of behaviorist psychology to the study and
>> > understanding of language?
>>
>> Well, you can do your own leg work, but like I said, I'm guessing that 
>> you
>> are more interested in the simplistic misrepresentations that abound. One
>> thing is clear, though, when there are special populations that do not
>> "automatically acquire language," it is applied behavior analysts that 
>> are
>> called in to establish whatever functional repertoire is possible.
>
> Something other than language, evidently.

Now, this statement is absurd.

>
>> Further,
>> I know of no finding that contradicts Skinner's analysis -certainly 
>> nothing
>> you could come up with. Some would be orthogonal to it (behavior analysis 
>> is
>> not about "brain stuff").
>
> Well, language _is_ "brain stuff," so "behavior analysis" shouldn't
> have anything to say about it at all.

Well, behavioral function is mediated by physiology, but behavior analysis 
has shown, I think sufficiently, that behavior qua behavior can be studied 
as a subject matter in its own right.

>
>> Finally, one might ask what proportion of the stuff said to contribute to
>> the "understanding of language" is actually junk? I'm sure we would 
>> differ
>> in our ideas in this regard. There is no question that what is perceived 
>> to
>> be behavioristic is unpopular but this is largely due, it seems to me, to
>> its widespread misrepresentation, and the fact that animism has never 
>> truly
>> died out.
>
> I don't know what you might mean by "stuff said to contribute to the
> 'understanding of language'."

Really? What is wrong with you?




> 

"Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim@verizon.net> wrote in message
news:1188931581.502395.126760@22g2000hsm.googlegroups.com...
> On Sep 4, 1:48 pm, "Glen M. Sizemore" <gmsizemo...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote in
>> messagenews:1188908467.409393.89540@57g2000hsv.googlegroups.com...
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> > On Sep 4, 7:38 am, "Glen M. Sizemore" <gmsizemo...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> >> "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote in
>> >> messagenews:1188872493.332157.31480@19g2000hsx.googlegroups.com...
>> >> > On Sep 3, 9:17 pm, Doug Morse <mo...@edoug.org> wrote:
>>
>> >> >> >  The notion of "concept" is generally invoked when the stimuli
>> >> >> > controlling
>> >> >> >  behavior
>>
>> >> > Maybe the single most important contribution of Noam Chomsky to
>> >> > linguistics happened in 1959 and had little or nothing to do with
>> >> > the
>> >> > "transformational-generative grammar" he was just beginning to
>> >> > develop. He showed that behaviorism -- specifically, Skinner's
>> >> > *Verbal
>> >> > Behavior* -- was unable to explain anything about human language.
>> >> > Language is _not_ an example of stimulus and response.
>>
>> >> Chomsky showed nothing of the sort, and Skinner's is not a
>> >> "stimulus-response" position. Skinner's book remains cogent but only
>> >> behaviorists read it since Chomsky's "review." BTW, Chomsky never read
>> >> the
>> >> book - ask Searle.
>>
>> > Yeah, Searle is a reliable witness to _anything_ regarding Chomsky.
>>
>> Even if you think that Searle was lying, it is painfully obvious to
>> anyone
>> that has read both VB and Chomsky's "review" that Chomsky was criticizing
>> his vision of what some kinds of behaviorism suggested, not what Skinner
>> wrote. Perhaps you would be interested in: MacQuorcodale, Kenneth. A
>> reply
>> to Chomsky's Review of Skinner's Verbal Behavior, but my guess is that
>> you
>> aren't interested in what behaviorists actually say. It is too easy and
>> popular to simply misrepresent it. In any event, the paper can be
>> accessed
>> through the JEAB website. Just google "jeab."
>
> What's JEAB? What's the actual reference? When was it written?

Don't be obtuse. I told you how to find the paper.

>
> Some years ago, I copyedited a number of volumes for Academic Press in
> the series Psychology of Learning and Motivation (I think it was --
> they're the only publisher that ever didn't give me a copy of the
> books I edited for them), which included several behaviorist
> treatises, and in every case what little they had to say about
> language was quite absurd.

So say you.

>
>> > Name some contributions of behaviorist psychology to the study and
>> > understanding of language?
>>
>> Well, you can do your own leg work, but like I said, I'm guessing that
>> you
>> are more interested in the simplistic misrepresentations that abound. One
>> thing is clear, though, when there are special populations that do not
>> "automatically acquire language," it is applied behavior analysts that
>> are
>> called in to establish whatever functional repertoire is possible.
>
> Something other than language, evidently.

Now, this statement is absurd.

>
>> Further,
>> I know of no finding that contradicts Skinner's analysis -certainly
>> nothing
>> you could come up with. Some would be orthogonal to it (behavior analysis
>> is
>> not about "brain stuff").
>
> Well, language _is_ "brain stuff," so "behavior analysis" shouldn't
> have anything to say about it at all.

Well, behavioral function is mediated by physiology, but behavior analysis
has shown, I think sufficiently, that behavior qua behavior can be studied
as a subject matter in its own right.

>
>> Finally, one might ask what proportion of the stuff said to contribute to
>> the "understanding of language" is actually junk? I'm sure we would
>> differ
>> in our ideas in this regard. There is no question that what is perceived
>> to
>> be behavioristic is unpopular but this is largely due, it seems to me, to
>> its widespread misrepresentation, and the fact that animism has never
>> truly
>> died out.
>
> I don't know what you might mean by "stuff said to contribute to the
> 'understanding of language'."

Really? What is wrong with you?
> 

"Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim@verizon.net> wrote in message 
news:1188931581.502395.126760@22g2000hsm.googlegroups.com...
> On Sep 4, 1:48 pm, "Glen M. Sizemore" <gmsizemo...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote in 
>> messagenews:1188908467.409393.89540@57g2000hsv.googlegroups.com...
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> > On Sep 4, 7:38 am, "Glen M. Sizemore" <gmsizemo...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> >> "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote in
>> >> messagenews:1188872493.332157.31480@19g2000hsx.googlegroups.com...
>> >> > On Sep 3, 9:17 pm, Doug Morse <mo...@edoug.org> wrote:
>>
>> >> >> >  The notion of "concept" is generally invoked when the stimuli
>> >> >> > controlling
>> >> >> >  behavior
>>
>> >> > Maybe the single most important contribution of Noam Chomsky to
>> >> > linguistics happened in 1959 and had little or nothing to do with 
>> >> > the
>> >> > "transformational-generative grammar" he was just beginning to
>> >> > develop. He showed that behaviorism -- specifically, Skinner's 
>> >> > *Verbal
>> >> > Behavior* -- was unable to explain anything about human language.
>> >> > Language is _not_ an example of stimulus and response.
>>
>> >> Chomsky showed nothing of the sort, and Skinner's is not a
>> >> "stimulus-response" position. Skinner's book remains cogent but only
>> >> behaviorists read it since Chomsky's "review." BTW, Chomsky never read
>> >> the
>> >> book - ask Searle.
>>
>> > Yeah, Searle is a reliable witness to _anything_ regarding Chomsky.
>>
>> Even if you think that Searle was lying, it is painfully obvious to 
>> anyone
>> that has read both VB and Chomsky's "review" that Chomsky was criticizing
>> his vision of what some kinds of behaviorism suggested, not what Skinner
>> wrote. Perhaps you would be interested in: MacQuorcodale, Kenneth. A 
>> reply
>> to Chomsky's Review of Skinner's Verbal Behavior, but my guess is that 
>> you
>> aren't interested in what behaviorists actually say. It is too easy and
>> popular to simply misrepresent it. In any event, the paper can be 
>> accessed
>> through the JEAB website. Just google "jeab."
>
> What's JEAB? What's the actual reference? When was it written?
>
> Some years ago, I copyedited a number of volumes for Academic Press in
> the series Psychology of Learning and Motivation (I think it was --
> they're the only publisher that ever didn't give me a copy of the
> books I edited for them), which included several behaviorist
> treatises, and in every case what little they had to say about
> language was quite absurd.
>
>> > Name some contributions of behaviorist psychology to the study and
>> > understanding of language?
>>
>> Well, you can do your own leg work, but like I said, I'm guessing that 
>> you
>> are more interested in the simplistic misrepresentations that abound. One
>> thing is clear, though, when there are special populations that do not
>> "automatically acquire language," it is applied behavior analysts that 
>> are
>> called in to establish whatever functional repertoire is possible.
>
> Something other than language, evidently.
>
>> Further,
>> I know of no finding that contradicts Skinner's analysis -certainly 
>> nothing
>> you could come up with. Some would be orthogonal to it (behavior analysis 
>> is
>> not about "brain stuff").
>
> Well, language _is_ "brain stuff," so "behavior analysis" shouldn't
> have anything to say about it at all.\\


Actually, this is clearly the most absurd thing you have said. It is quite 
obvious that speech (and signing , writing etc.) is behavior.


>
>> Finally, one might ask what proportion of the stuff said to contribute to
>> the "understanding of language" is actually junk? I'm sure we would 
>> differ
>> in our ideas in this regard. There is no question that what is perceived 
>> to
>> be behavioristic is unpopular but this is largely due, it seems to me, to
>> its widespread misrepresentation, and the fact that animism has never 
>> truly
>> died out.
>
> I don't know what you might mean by "stuff said to contribute to the
> 'understanding of language'."
> 

On Sep 4, 12:29 pm, "Glen M. Sizemore" <gmsizemo...@yahoo.com> wrote:

> > I don't know what you might mean by "stuff said to contribute to the
> > 'understanding of language'."

Be careful - you are slipping into troll mode.

Nobody denies that speaking a language is a kind of behavior in the
broad everyday sense of behavior.

It is not clear to outsiders that speaking a language is a kind of
behavior in the technical sense of behavior used by behaviorist
psychologists.

If it is a behavior that a behaviorist might study has there been any
such studies that carry the matter as far as the interests of a
linguist?

If so - how about a reference?

If not - any thoughts about why the results of the behaviorists fail
to overlap with the interests of linguists?

"DKleinecke" <dkleinecke@gmail.com> wrote in message 
news:1188935616.753418.288780@d55g2000hsg.googlegroups.com...
> On Sep 4, 12:29 pm, "Glen M. Sizemore" <gmsizemo...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>> > I don't know what you might mean by "stuff said to contribute to the
>> > 'understanding of language'."
>
> Be careful - you are slipping into troll mode.

Well, the quote above was Peter's. But there is no question that I am 
critical much of what is said to contribute to an understanding of language.

>
> Nobody denies that speaking a language is a kind of behavior in the
> broad everyday sense of behavior.
>
> It is not clear to outsiders that speaking a language is a kind of
> behavior in the technical sense of behavior used by behaviorist
> psychologists.

The behavioral definition of "behavior" is meant to capture much of the 
ordinary meaning. Indeed, respecting "ordinary usage" is a hallmark of the 
version of behaviorism to which I adhere.

>
> If it is a behavior that a behaviorist might study has there been any
> such studies that carry the matter as far as the interests of a
> linguist?

Linguistics is a huge field, and I admit that I am not well-versed in what 
such people consider important. But, again, I am critical of the sorts of 
things proferred by Chomsky and, from a more modern viewpoint, Pinker.

>
> If so - how about a reference?

Well, obviously, Skinner's Verbal Behavior is such a reference. I am, at 
least, somewhat expert in that view, though my published work has not been 
about that. I also know a modest amount about efforts to establish 
functional verbal repertoires in the developmentally disabled and autistic 
populations. But, of course there has been a fair amount written on the 
subject. I guess I could do a search. I am also familiar with some of what 
cognitive psychologists have done, but I find it largely unimpressive.

>
> If not - any thoughts about why the results of the behaviorists fail
> to overlap with the interests of linguists?

Certainly Verbal Behavior is relevant to the interests of some linguists - 
witness Chomsky's vociferous misrepresentation of of VB, as well as 
Pinker's. Linguists like to cite Chomsky's "review" (still!) but almost none 
of them have read VB. This is usually justified by saying it is all 
nonsense. I would guess that virtually no linguists have ever read the book, 
and that includes Chomsky.

> 

On Tue, 4 Sep 2007 15:23:30 -0400, "Glen M. Sizemore"
<gmsizemore2@yahoo.com> wrote in
<news:46ddb0b2$0$17776$ed362ca5@nr2.newsreader.com> in
sci.cognitive,sci.lang,bionet.neuroscience:

> "Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim@verizon.net> wrote in message 
> news:1188931581.502395.126760@22g2000hsm.googlegroups.com...

>> On Sep 4, 1:48 pm, "Glen M. Sizemore" <gmsizemo...@yahoo.com> wrote:

[...]

>>> Perhaps you would be interested in: MacQuorcodale,
>>> Kenneth. A  reply to Chomsky's Review of Skinner's
>>> Verbal Behavior, but my guess is that  you aren't
>>> interested in what behaviorists actually say. It is too
>>> easy and popular to simply misrepresent it. In any
>>> event, the paper can be  accessed through the JEAB
>>> website. Just google "jeab."

>> What's JEAB? What's the actual reference? When was it
>> written?

> Don't be obtuse. I told you how to find the paper.

No, you didn't.  There is no reason to expect anyone to
recognize JEAB as the Journal of the Experimental Analysis
of Behavior, or to know that its web site is at
<http://seab.envmed.rochester.edu/jeab/index.html>.  You
gave just enough information that someone willing to spend
some time with Google could track it down.

The article is at
<http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&artid=1333660>
in the form of 17 scanned pages; there's also a link by
which one can download it as a 2.9M .pdf.

'On Chomsky's review of Skinner's _Verbal Behavior_'
Reviewed by Kenneth MacCorquodale
J Exp Anal Behav. 1970 January; 13(1): 83�V99.

[...]

Brian

On Sep 4, 5:19 pm, "Glen M. Sizemore" <gmsizemo...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> "DKleinecke" <dkleine...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1188935616.753418.288780@d55g2000hsg.googlegroups.com...
> > On Sep 4, 12:29 pm, "Glen M. Sizemore" <gmsizemo...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> >> > I don't know what you might mean by "stuff said to contribute to the
> >> > 'understanding of language'."
>
> > Be careful - you are slipping into troll mode.
>
> Well, the quote above was Peter's. But there is no question that I am
> critical much of what is said to contribute to an understanding of language.
>
> > Nobody denies that speaking a language is a kind of behavior in the
> > broad everyday sense of behavior.
>
> > It is not clear to outsiders that speaking a language is a kind of
> > behavior in the technical sense of behavior used by behaviorist
> > psychologists.
>
> The behavioral definition of "behavior" is meant to capture much of the
> ordinary meaning. Indeed, respecting "ordinary usage" is a hallmark of the
> version of behaviorism to which I adhere.
>
> > If it is a behavior that a behaviorist might study has there been any
> > such studies that carry the matter as far as the interests of a
> > linguist?
>
> Linguistics is a huge field, and I admit that I am not well-versed in what
> such people consider important. But, again, I am critical of the sorts of
> things proferred by Chomsky and, from a more modern viewpoint, Pinker.

So are most linguists. Try again.

> > If so - how about a reference?
>
> Well, obviously, Skinner's Verbal Behavior is such a reference. I am, at
> least, somewhat expert in that view, though my published work has not been
> about that. I also know a modest amount about efforts to establish
> functional verbal repertoires in the developmentally disabled and autistic
> populations. But, of course there has been a fair amount written on the
> subject. I guess I could do a search. I am also familiar with some of what
> cognitive psychologists have done, but I find it largely unimpressive.
>
> > If not - any thoughts about why the results of the behaviorists fail
> > to overlap with the interests of linguists?
>
> Certainly Verbal Behavior is relevant to the interests of some linguists -
> witness Chomsky's vociferous misrepresentation of of VB, as well as
> Pinker's. Linguists like to cite Chomsky's "review" (still!) but almost none
> of them have read VB. This is usually justified by saying it is all
> nonsense. I would guess that virtually no linguists have ever read the book,
> and that includes Chomsky.

You still haven't named any studies in which "behaviorism" had
anything interesting or useful to say about human language.

Has it accomplished anything even more significant that the "parallel
processing/connectionist" AI people, who have produced nothing?

"Doug Morse" <morse@edoug.org> wrote in message
news:slrnfdl2ou.3vl.morse@ikrg.com...
> What is the difference between language and concept, or are they the
> same thing?

I think that the definition and the study of the concept pertain to the
philosophy, and that the relatioship between language and concept is under
the heel of the philosophy of the language. Unfortunately there is no
newsgroup devoted to this science, so the answers you can expect from other
groups will be necessarily more generic or pragmatic.
Personally, I follow Hegel saying: "The forms of thought are, in the first
instance, displayed and stored as human language".

On Sep 4, 5:40 pm, "Brian M. Scott" <b.sc...@csuohio.edu> wrote:
> On Tue, 4 Sep 2007 15:23:30 -0400, "Glen M. Sizemore"
> <gmsizemo...@yahoo.com> wrote in
> <news:46ddb0b2$0$17776$ed362ca5@nr2.newsreader.com> in
> sci.cognitive,sci.lang,bionet.neuroscience:
>
> > "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote in message
> >news:1188931581.502395.126760@22g2000hsm.googlegroups.com...
> >> On Sep 4, 1:48 pm, "Glen M. Sizemore" <gmsizemo...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> [...]
>
> >>> Perhaps you would be interested in: MacQuorcodale,
> >>> Kenneth. A  reply to Chomsky's Review of Skinner's
> >>> Verbal Behavior, but my guess is that  you aren't
> >>> interested in what behaviorists actually say. It is too
> >>> easy and popular to simply misrepresent it. In any
> >>> event, the paper can be  accessed through the JEAB
> >>> website. Just google "jeab."
> >> What's JEAB? What's the actual reference? When was it
> >> written?
> > Don't be obtuse. I told you how to find the paper.
>
> No, you didn't.  There is no reason to expect anyone to
> recognize JEAB as the Journal of the Experimental Analysis
> of Behavior, or to know that its web site is at
> <http://seab.envmed.rochester.edu/jeab/index.html>.  You
> gave just enough information that someone willing to spend
> some time with Google could track it down.
>
> The article is at
> <http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&ar...>
> in the form of 17 scanned pages; there's also a link by
> which one can download it as a 2.9M .pdf.
>
> 'On Chomsky's review of Skinner's _Verbal Behavior_'
> Reviewed by Kenneth MacCorquodale
> J Exp Anal Behav. 1970 January; 13(1): 83-99.

Thank you. Did it look worth reading?

On Tue, 04 Sep 2007 20:27:54 -0700, "Peter T. Daniels"
<grammatim@verizon.net> wrote in
<news:1188962874.711693.93360@r29g2000hsg.googlegroups.com>
in sci.cognitive,sci.lang,bionet.neuroscience:

> On Sep 4, 5:40 pm, "Brian M. Scott" <b.sc...@csuohio.edu> wrote:

[...]

>> The article is at
>> <http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&ar...>
>> in the form of 17 scanned pages; there's also a link by
>> which one can download it as a 2.9M .pdf.

>> 'On Chomsky's review of Skinner's _Verbal Behavior_'
>> Reviewed by Kenneth MacCorquodale
>> J Exp Anal Behav. 1970 January; 13(1): 83-99.

> Thank you. Did it look worth reading?

I just skimmed the first few pages, so take anything I say
with a grain of salt, but it seemed to me that one would
have to be familiar with VB to get much out of the review: a
good chunk of MacC's argument appears to be that Chomsky
either didn't understand or misrepresented what Skinner was
actually saying.  I've not read VB (and know damn-all about
behaviorism anyway), so I'm not part of the intended
audience.

Brian

"Brian M. Scott" <b.scott@csuohio.edu> wrote in message 
news:18p60ktavb7jh.m6pv31je6a1g$.dlg@40tude.net...
> On Tue, 4 Sep 2007 15:23:30 -0400, "Glen M. Sizemore"
> <gmsizemore2@yahoo.com> wrote in
> <news:46ddb0b2$0$17776$ed362ca5@nr2.newsreader.com> in
> sci.cognitive,sci.lang,bionet.neuroscience:
>
>> "Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim@verizon.net> wrote in message
>> news:1188931581.502395.126760@22g2000hsm.googlegroups.com...
>
>>> On Sep 4, 1:48 pm, "Glen M. Sizemore" <gmsizemo...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> [...]
>
>>>> Perhaps you would be interested in: MacQuorcodale,
>>>> Kenneth. A  reply to Chomsky's Review of Skinner's
>>>> Verbal Behavior, but my guess is that  you aren't
>>>> interested in what behaviorists actually say. It is too
>>>> easy and popular to simply misrepresent it. In any
>>>> event, the paper can be  accessed through the JEAB
>>>> website. Just google "jeab."
>
>>> What's JEAB? What's the actual reference? When was it
>>> written?
>
>> Don't be obtuse. I told you how to find the paper.
>
> No, you didn't.  There is no reason to expect anyone to
> recognize JEAB as the Journal of the Experimental Analysis
> of Behavior, or to know that its web site is at
> <http://seab.envmed.rochester.edu/jeab/index.html>.  You
> gave just enough information that someone willing to spend
> some time with Google could track it down.

Track it down? I told him to Google "jeab." The first entry takes him to the 
website. For someone else I would have tracked it down, but I didn't care 
for Daniel's arrogant tone from the beginning.




>
> The article is at
> <http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&artid=1333660>
> in the form of 17 scanned pages; there's also a link by
> which one can download it as a 2.9M .pdf.
>
> 'On Chomsky's review of Skinner's _Verbal Behavior_'
> Reviewed by Kenneth MacCorquodale
> J Exp Anal Behav. 1970 January; 13(1): 83�V99.
>
> [...]
>
> Brian 

"Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim@verizon.net> wrote in message 
news:1188945724.237713.155490@50g2000hsm.googlegroups.com...
> On Sep 4, 5:19 pm, "Glen M. Sizemore" <gmsizemo...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> "DKleinecke" <dkleine...@gmail.com> wrote in message
> news:1188935616.753418.288780@d55g2000hsg.googlegroups.com...
>> > On Sep 4, 12:29 pm, "Glen M. Sizemore" <gmsizemo...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>
>> >> > I don't know what you might mean by "stuff said to contribute to the
>> >> > 'understanding of language'."
>>
>> > Be careful - you are slipping into troll mode.
>>
>> Well, the quote above was Peter's. But there is no question that I am
>> critical much of what is said to contribute to an understanding of 
>> language.
>>
>> > Nobody denies that speaking a language is a kind of behavior in the
>> > broad everyday sense of behavior.
>>
>> > It is not clear to outsiders that speaking a language is a kind of
>> > behavior in the technical sense of behavior used by behaviorist
>> > psychologists.
>>
>> The behavioral definition of "behavior" is meant to capture much of the
>> ordinary meaning. Indeed, respecting "ordinary usage" is a hallmark of 
>> the
>> version of behaviorism to which I adhere.
>>
>> > If it is a behavior that a behaviorist might study has there been any
>> > such studies that carry the matter as far as the interests of a
>> > linguist?
>>
>> Linguistics is a huge field, and I admit that I am not well-versed in 
>> what
>> such people consider important. But, again, I am critical of the sorts of
>> things proferred by Chomsky and, from a more modern viewpoint, Pinker.
>
> So are most linguists. Try again.
>
>> > If so - how about a reference?
>>
>> Well, obviously, Skinner's Verbal Behavior is such a reference. I am, at
>> least, somewhat expert in that view, though my published work has not 
>> been
>> about that. I also know a modest amount about efforts to establish
>> functional verbal repertoires in the developmentally disabled and 
>> autistic
>> populations. But, of course there has been a fair amount written on the
>> subject. I guess I could do a search. I am also familiar with some of 
>> what
>> cognitive psychologists have done, but I find it largely unimpressive.
>>
>> > If not - any thoughts about why the results of the behaviorists fail
>> > to overlap with the interests of linguists?
>>
>> Certainly Verbal Behavior is relevant to the interests of some 
>> linguists -
>> witness Chomsky's vociferous misrepresentation of of VB, as well as
>> Pinker's. Linguists like to cite Chomsky's "review" (still!) but almost 
>> none
>> of them have read VB. This is usually justified by saying it is all
>> nonsense. I would guess that virtually no linguists have ever read the 
>> book,
>> and that includes Chomsky.
>
> You still haven't named any studies in which "behaviorism" had
> anything interesting or useful to say about human language.
>
> Has it accomplished anything even more significant that the "parallel
> processing/connectionist" AI people, who have produced nothing?

Horne, P.J. Lowe, C.F. & Harris, F.D.A. (2007) Naming and categorization in 
young children: V. Manual sign training. Journal of the Experimental 
Analysis of Behavior, 87, 367-381.



Luciano, C. Gomez Becerra, I. & Rodriguez Valverde, M. (2007) The role of 
multiple-exemplar training and naming in establishing derived equivalence in 
an infant. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 87, 349-365.



Randell, T. & Remington, B. (2006) Equivalence relations, contextual 
control, and naming. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 86, 
337-354.



Palmer, D. C. (2004). Data in search of a principle: A review of Relational 
frame theory: A post-Skinnerian account of human language and cognition. 
Journal of Experimental Analysis of Behavior,. 81, 189-204



The second paper listed is concerned with stimulus equivalence research 
which many people think has a lot to do with "language." The 4th is Palmer's 
reply to a group of  behaviorists that take issue with some aspects of 
Skinner's position on verbal behavior. You can obtain the reference for the 
people Palmer is responding to from his paper, but Palmer is always a 
level-headed guy, and it might give you some of the flavor of the current 
debate in an area that you are unfamiliar with. And, of course, there is 
always Verbal Behavior itself, the book that you  began this discussion by 
trashing. There are many other references, of course, and I mentioned the 
applied literature as well.



You still haven't said what it is that you think "had anything interesting 
or useful to say about human language" other than Chomsky's review. Perhaps 
you'd like to debate some of that.




> 

"Brian M. Scott" <b.scott@csuohio.edu> wrote in message 
news:7onlzv12ejod$.21q9et8hy7e5$.dlg@40tude.net...
> On Tue, 04 Sep 2007 20:27:54 -0700, "Peter T. Daniels"
> <grammatim@verizon.net> wrote in
> <news:1188962874.711693.93360@r29g2000hsg.googlegroups.com>
> in sci.cognitive,sci.lang,bionet.neuroscience:
>
>> On Sep 4, 5:40 pm, "Brian M. Scott" <b.sc...@csuohio.edu> wrote:
>
> [...]
>
>>> The article is at
>>> <http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&ar...>
>>> in the form of 17 scanned pages; there's also a link by
>>> which one can download it as a 2.9M .pdf.
>
>>> 'On Chomsky's review of Skinner's _Verbal Behavior_'
>>> Reviewed by Kenneth MacCorquodale
>>> J Exp Anal Behav. 1970 January; 13(1): 83-99.
>
>> Thank you. Did it look worth reading?
>
> I just skimmed the first few pages, so take anything I say
> with a grain of salt, but it seemed to me that one would
> have to be familiar with VB to get much out of the review: a
> good chunk of MacC's argument appears to be that Chomsky
> either didn't understand or misrepresented what Skinner was
> actually saying.  I've not read VB (and know damn-all about
> behaviorism anyway), so I'm not part of the intended
> audience.

But have you ever told students that Chomsky demolished Skinner's position 
etc.? The intended audience was anyone interested, well, verbal behavior - 
what many people would call "language acquisition" and "language" etc. It 
didn't work out that way of course, and now we have cognitive "science."

>
> Brian 

On Sep 5, 7:20 am, "Glen M. Sizemore" <gmsizemo...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote in messagenews:1188945724.237713.155490@50g2000hsm.googlegroups.com...
>
>
>
>
>
> > On Sep 4, 5:19 pm, "Glen M. Sizemore" <gmsizemo...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> >> "DKleinecke" <dkleine...@gmail.com> wrote in message
> >news:1188935616.753418.288780@d55g2000hsg.googlegroups.com...
> >> > On Sep 4, 12:29 pm, "Glen M. Sizemore" <gmsizemo...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> >> >> > I don't know what you might mean by "stuff said to contribute to the
> >> >> > 'understanding of language'."
>
> >> > Be careful - you are slipping into troll mode.
>
> >> Well, the quote above was Peter's. But there is no question that I am
> >> critical much of what is said to contribute to an understanding of
> >> language.
>
> >> > Nobody denies that speaking a language is a kind of behavior in the
> >> > broad everyday sense of behavior.
>
> >> > It is not clear to outsiders that speaking a language is a kind of
> >> > behavior in the technical sense of behavior used by behaviorist
> >> > psychologists.
>
> >> The behavioral definition of "behavior" is meant to capture much of the
> >> ordinary meaning. Indeed, respecting "ordinary usage" is a hallmark of
> >> the
> >> version of behaviorism to which I adhere.
>
> >> > If it is a behavior that a behaviorist might study has there been any
> >> > such studies that carry the matter as far as the interests of a
> >> > linguist?
>
> >> Linguistics is a huge field, and I admit that I am not well-versed in
> >> what
> >> such people consider important. But, again, I am critical of the sorts of
> >> things proferred by Chomsky and, from a more modern viewpoint, Pinker.
>
> > So are most linguists. Try again.
>
> >> > If so - how about a reference?
>
> >> Well, obviously, Skinner's Verbal Behavior is such a reference. I am, at
> >> least, somewhat expert in that view, though my published work has not
> >> been
> >> about that. I also know a modest amount about efforts to establish
> >> functional verbal repertoires in the developmentally disabled and
> >> autistic
> >> populations. But, of course there has been a fair amount written on the
> >> subject. I guess I could do a search. I am also familiar with some of
> >> what
> >> cognitive psychologists have done, but I find it largely unimpressive.
>
> >> > If not - any thoughts about why the results of the behaviorists fail
> >> > to overlap with the interests of linguists?
>
> >> Certainly Verbal Behavior is relevant to the interests of some
> >> linguists -
> >> witness Chomsky's vociferous misrepresentation of of VB, as well as
> >> Pinker's. Linguists like to cite Chomsky's "review" (still!) but almost
> >> none
> >> of them have read VB. This is usually justified by saying it is all
> >> nonsense. I would guess that virtually no linguists have ever read the
> >> book,
> >> and that includes Chomsky.
>
> > You still haven't named any studies in which "behaviorism" had
> > anything interesting or useful to say about human language.
>
> > Has it accomplished anything even more significant that the "parallel
> > processing/connectionist" AI people, who have produced nothing?
>
> Horne, P.J. Lowe, C.F. & Harris, F.D.A. (2007) Naming and categorization in
> young children: V. Manual sign training. Journal of the Experimental
> Analysis of Behavior, 87, 367-381.
>
> Luciano, C. Gomez Becerra, I. & Rodriguez Valverde, M. (2007) The role of
> multiple-exemplar training and naming in establishing derived equivalence in
> an infant. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 87, 349-365.
>
> Randell, T. & Remington, B. (2006) Equivalence relations, contextual
> control, and naming. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 86,
> 337-354.
>
> Palmer, D. C. (2004). Data in search of a principle: A review of Relational
> frame theory: A post-Skinnerian account of human language and cognition.
> Journal of Experimental Analysis of Behavior,. 81, 189-204

Thank you.

> The second paper listed is concerned with stimulus equivalence research
> which many people think has a lot to do with "language." The 4th is Palmer's
> reply to a group of  behaviorists that take issue with some aspects of
> Skinner's position on verbal behavior. You can obtain the reference for the
> people Palmer is responding to from his paper, but Palmer is always a
> level-headed guy, and it might give you some of the flavor of the current
> debate in an area that you are unfamiliar with. And, of course, there is
> always Verbal Behavior itself, the book that you  began this discussion by
> trashing. There are many other references, of course, and I mentioned the
> applied literature as well.

VB is now 50 years old. Has there been no progress since then?

> You still haven't said what it is that you think "had anything interesting
> or useful to say about human language" other than Chomsky's review. Perhaps
> you'd like to debate some of that.

That was your phrase, not mine, and it was you who refused to
elucidate it.

Offhand I'd say that the most insight into language over the past
fifty years has come from the school of linguistics founded by Uriel
Weinreich and William Labov -- "sociolinguistics." There is also
"functional grammar," where importnat names are Andre Martinet and H.
A. K. Halliday.

Most interesting in the generation before Chomsky -- those whom he
thought he was superseding, but whose work in fact he was continuing,
as has been shown by historians of linguistics -- are C. F. Hockett
(Leonard Bloomfield's most significant disciple, though no one was
untouched by Bloomfield's work), Martin Joos, and Fred Householder.
Attempts are made to claim there was a great divide between
Bloomfieldians and Sapirians, but there wasn't.

On Sep 4, 11:51 pm, "Brian M. Scott" <b.sc...@csuohio.edu> wrote:
> On Tue, 04 Sep 2007 20:27:54 -0700, "Peter T. Daniels"
> <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote in
> <news:1188962874.711693.93360@r29g2000hsg.googlegroups.com>
> in sci.cognitive,sci.lang,bionet.neuroscience:
>
> > On Sep 4, 5:40 pm, "Brian M. Scott" <b.sc...@csuohio.edu> wrote:
>
> [...]
>
> >> The article is at
> >> <http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&ar...>
> >> in the form of 17 scanned pages; there's also a link by
> >> which one can download it as a 2.9M .pdf.
> >> 'On Chomsky's review of Skinner's _Verbal Behavior_'
> >> Reviewed by Kenneth MacCorquodale
> >> J Exp Anal Behav. 1970 January; 13(1): 83-99.
> > Thank you. Did it look worth reading?
>
> I just skimmed the first few pages, so take anything I say
> with a grain of salt, but it seemed to me that one would
> have to be familiar with VB to get much out of the review: a
> good chunk of MacC's argument appears to be that Chomsky
> either didn't understand or misrepresented what Skinner was
> actually saying.  I've not read VB (and know damn-all about
> behaviorism anyway), so I'm not part of the intended
> audience.

A first glance yields the rather telling sentence "Although his thesis
is experimental, Skinner's book has no experimental data involving the
laboratory manipulation of verbal responses which definitively
demonstrate that the processes he invokes to explain verbal behavior
are in fact involved in its production" (p. 84a)

On Sep 5, 7:23 am, "Glen M. Sizemore" <gmsizemo...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> "Brian M. Scott" <b.sc...@csuohio.edu> wrote in messagenews:7onlzv12ejod$.21q9et8hy7e5$.dlg@40tude.net...
>
>
>
>
>
> > On Tue, 04 Sep 2007 20:27:54 -0700, "Peter T. Daniels"
> > <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote in
> > <news:1188962874.711693.93360@r29g2000hsg.googlegroups.com>
> > in sci.cognitive,sci.lang,bionet.neuroscience:
>
> >> On Sep 4, 5:40 pm, "Brian M. Scott" <b.sc...@csuohio.edu> wrote:
>
> > [...]
>
> >>> The article is at
> >>> <http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&ar...>
> >>> in the form of 17 scanned pages; there's also a link by
> >>> which one can download it as a 2.9M .pdf.
>
> >>> 'On Chomsky's review of Skinner's _Verbal Behavior_'
> >>> Reviewed by Kenneth MacCorquodale
> >>> J Exp Anal Behav. 1970 January; 13(1): 83-99.
>
> >> Thank you. Did it look worth reading?
>
> > I just skimmed the first few pages, so take anything I say
> > with a grain of salt, but it seemed to me that one would
> > have to be familiar with VB to get much out of the review: a
> > good chunk of MacC's argument appears to be that Chomsky
> > either didn't understand or misrepresented what Skinner was
> > actually saying.  I've not read VB (and know damn-all about
> > behaviorism anyway), so I'm not part of the intended
> > audience.
>
> But have you ever told students that Chomsky demolished Skinner's position
> etc.? The intended audience was anyone interested, well, verbal behavior -
> what many people would call "language acquisition" and "language" etc. It
> didn't work out that way of course, and now we have cognitive "science."

Why would a professor of mathematics tell "students" _anything_ about
these matters?

You seem to be unaware of psycholinguistics, which long predates and
vastly outperforms "cognitive science."

"Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim@verizon.net> wrote in message 
news:1188993040.304358.76210@50g2000hsm.googlegroups.com...
> On Sep 4, 11:51 pm, "Brian M. Scott" <b.sc...@csuohio.edu> wrote:
>> On Tue, 04 Sep 2007 20:27:54 -0700, "Peter T. Daniels"
>> <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote in
>> <news:1188962874.711693.93360@r29g2000hsg.googlegroups.com>
>> in sci.cognitive,sci.lang,bionet.neuroscience:
>>
>> > On Sep 4, 5:40 pm, "Brian M. Scott" <b.sc...@csuohio.edu> wrote:
>>
>> [...]
>>
>> >> The article is at
>> >> <http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&ar...>
>> >> in the form of 17 scanned pages; there's also a link by
>> >> which one can download it as a 2.9M .pdf.
>> >> 'On Chomsky's review of Skinner's _Verbal Behavior_'
>> >> Reviewed by Kenneth MacCorquodale
>> >> J Exp Anal Behav. 1970 January; 13(1): 83-99.
>> > Thank you. Did it look worth reading?
>>
>> I just skimmed the first few pages, so take anything I say
>> with a grain of salt, but it seemed to me that one would
>> have to be familiar with VB to get much out of the review: a
>> good chunk of MacC's argument appears to be that Chomsky
>> either didn't understand or misrepresented what Skinner was
>> actually saying.  I've not read VB (and know damn-all about
>> behaviorism anyway), so I'm not part of the intended
>> audience.
>
> A first glance yields the rather telling sentence "Although his thesis
> is experimental, Skinner's book has no experimental data involving the
> laboratory manipulation of verbal responses which definitively
> demonstrate that the processes he invokes to explain verbal behavior
> are in fact involved in its production" (p. 84a)

Yet when I mentioned the establishment of a verbal repertoire in special 
populations your response was that this was something other than language or 
something like that. Right? Part of the problem with "proving Skinner's 
thesis" is that the critical experiments would all be unethical. The study 
of operant behavior has, of course, proceeded and in a fashion that we 
expect from science. There are, further, some data using non-humans that 
suggest the cogency of some of Skinner's interesting propositions as in:

Lubinski, D., & Thompson, T. (1987). An animal model of the interpersonal 
communication of interoceptive (private) states. Journal of the Experimental 
Analysis of Behavior, 48, 1-15.
Pigeons were taught to interact communicatively (i.e., exchange 
discriminative stimuli) based on 1 pigeon's internal state, which varied as 
a function of cocaine, pentobarbital, and saline administration. These 
performances generalized to untrained pharmacological agents (d-amphetamine 
and chlordiazepoxide) and were observed in the absence of aversive 
stimulation, deprivation, and unconditioned reinforcement. The training 
procedure used in this study appears similar to that by which humans learn 
to report on (tact) their internal environments and may be construed as a 
rudimentary animal model of the interpersonal communication of private 
events.


Further, the sampling of papers I posted involving humans were just that, a 
sampling. I think there are two important things to consider in evaluating 
Skinner's book: first is it internally consistent and cogent - this is where 
it is usually attacked through misrepresentation (i.e., Chomsky's arguments 
that it can't account for this o that observation). The second is more 
difficult - can it be experimentally demonstrated? I already mentioned the 
ethical issues - one cannot eliminate critical aspects of the environment to 
see if they are really important in a child's acquisition of "language." 
But, then, one can establish "functional language" to a greater or lesser 
extent in special populations - Oh, I forgot, you already dismissed that.

> 

On Sep 5, 8:46 am, "Glen M. Sizemore" <gmsizemo...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote in messagenews:1188993040.304358.76210@50g2000hsm.googlegroups.com...
> > On Sep 4, 11:51 pm, "Brian M. Scott" <b.sc...@csuohio.edu> wrote:
> >> On Tue, 04 Sep 2007 20:27:54 -0700, "Peter T. Daniels"
> >> <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote in
> >> <news:1188962874.711693.93360@r29g2000hsg.googlegroups.com>
> >> in sci.cognitive,sci.lang,bionet.neuroscience:
> >> > On Sep 4, 5:40 pm, "Brian M. Scott" <b.sc...@csuohio.edu> wrote:
>
> >> [...]
>
> >> >> The article is at
> >> >> <http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&ar...>
> >> >> in the form of 17 scanned pages; there's also a link by
> >> >> which one can download it as a 2.9M .pdf.
> >> >> 'On Chomsky's review of Skinner's _Verbal Behavior_'
> >> >> Reviewed by Kenneth MacCorquodale
> >> >> J Exp Anal Behav. 1970 January; 13(1): 83-99.
> >> > Thank you. Did it look worth reading?
>
> >> I just skimmed the first few pages, so take anything I say
> >> with a grain of salt, but it seemed to me that one would
> >> have to be familiar with VB to get much out of the review: a
> >> good chunk of MacC's argument appears to be that Chomsky
> >> either didn't understand or misrepresented what Skinner was
> >> actually saying.  I've not read VB (and know damn-all about
> >> behaviorism anyway), so I'm not part of the intended
> >> audience.
>
> > A first glance yields the rather telling sentence "Although his thesis
> > is experimental, Skinner's book has no experimental data involving the
> > laboratory manipulation of verbal responses which definitively
> > demonstrate that the processes he invokes to explain verbal behavior
> > are in fact involved in its production" (p. 84a)
>
> Yet when I mentioned the establishment of a verbal repertoire in special
> populations your response was that this was something other than language or
> something like that. Right? Part of the problem with "proving Skinner's
> thesis" is that the critical experiments would all be unethical. The study
> of operant behavior has, of course, proceeded and in a fashion that we
> expect from science. There are, further, some data using non-humans that
> suggest the cogency of some of Skinner's interesting propositions as in:
>
> Lubinski, D., & Thompson, T. (1987). An animal model of the interpersonal
> communication of interoceptive (private) states. Journal of the Experimental
> Analysis of Behavior, 48, 1-15.
> Pigeons were taught to interact communicatively (i.e., exchange
> discriminative stimuli) based on 1 pigeon's internal state, which varied as
> a function of cocaine, pentobarbital, and saline administration. These
> performances generalized to untrained pharmacological agents (d-amphetamine
> and chlordiazepoxide) and were observed in the absence of aversive
> stimulation, deprivation, and unconditioned reinforcement. The training
> procedure used in this study appears similar to that by which humans learn
> to report on (tact) their internal environments and may be construed as a
> rudimentary animal model of the interpersonal communication of private
> events.
>
> Further, the sampling of papers I posted involving humans were just that, a
> sampling. I think there are two important things to consider in evaluating
> Skinner's book: first is it internally consistent and cogent - this is where
> it is usually attacked through misrepresentation (i.e., Chomsky's arguments
> that it can't account for this o that observation). The second is more
> difficult - can it be experimentally demonstrated? I already mentioned the
> ethical issues - one cannot eliminate critical aspects of the environment to
> see if they are really important in a child's acquisition of "language."
> But, then, one can establish "functional language" to a greater or lesser
> extent in special populations - Oh, I forgot, you already dismissed that.

What does any of that tell us of the nature of human language?

If "behaviorism" treats an organism (such as a human) as a black box,
with input and output but no interest in what's _inside_ the box, how
can it tell us anything about what's inside the box?

Are "behaviorists" interested in neurolinguistics? in society?

On 2007-09-05, Peter T. Daniels wrote:

> Are "behaviorists" interested in neurolinguistics? in society?

Well, Skinner was interested in "society", but not as we know it!
(_Beyond Freedom and Dignity_)

"Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim@verizon.net> wrote in message 
news:1188997353.596408.308130@g4g2000hsf.googlegroups.com...
> On Sep 5, 8:46 am, "Glen M. Sizemore" <gmsizemo...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote in 
>> messagenews:1188993040.304358.76210@50g2000hsm.googlegroups.com...
>> > On Sep 4, 11:51 pm, "Brian M. Scott" <b.sc...@csuohio.edu> wrote:
>> >> On Tue, 04 Sep 2007 20:27:54 -0700, "Peter T. Daniels"
>> >> <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote in
>> >> <news:1188962874.711693.93360@r29g2000hsg.googlegroups.com>
>> >> in sci.cognitive,sci.lang,bionet.neuroscience:
>> >> > On Sep 4, 5:40 pm, "Brian M. Scott" <b.sc...@csuohio.edu> wrote:
>>
>> >> [...]
>>
>> >> >> The article is at
>> >> >> <http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&ar...>
>> >> >> in the form of 17 scanned pages; there's also a link by
>> >> >> which one can download it as a 2.9M .pdf.
>> >> >> 'On Chomsky's review of Skinner's _Verbal Behavior_'
>> >> >> Reviewed by Kenneth MacCorquodale
>> >> >> J Exp Anal Behav. 1970 January; 13(1): 83-99.
>> >> > Thank you. Did it look worth reading?
>>
>> >> I just skimmed the first few pages, so take anything I say
>> >> with a grain of salt, but it seemed to me that one would
>> >> have to be familiar with VB to get much out of the review: a
>> >> good chunk of MacC's argument appears to be that Chomsky
>> >> either didn't understand or misrepresented what Skinner was
>> >> actually saying.  I've not read VB (and know damn-all about
>> >> behaviorism anyway), so I'm not part of the intended
>> >> audience.
>>
>> > A first glance yields the rather telling sentence "Although his thesis
>> > is experimental, Skinner's book has no experimental data involving the
>> > laboratory manipulation of verbal responses which definitively
>> > demonstrate that the processes he invokes to explain verbal behavior
>> > are in fact involved in its production" (p. 84a)
>>
>> Yet when I mentioned the establishment of a verbal repertoire in special
>> populations your response was that this was something other than language 
>> or
>> something like that. Right? Part of the problem with "proving Skinner's
>> thesis" is that the critical experiments would all be unethical. The 
>> study
>> of operant behavior has, of course, proceeded and in a fashion that we
>> expect from science. There are, further, some data using non-humans that
>> suggest the cogency of some of Skinner's interesting propositions as in:
>>
>> Lubinski, D., & Thompson, T. (1987). An animal model of the interpersonal
>> communication of interoceptive (private) states. Journal of the 
>> Experimental
>> Analysis of Behavior, 48, 1-15.
>> Pigeons were taught to interact communicatively (i.e., exchange
>> discriminative stimuli) based on 1 pigeon's internal state, which varied 
>> as
>> a function of cocaine, pentobarbital, and saline administration. These
>> performances generalized to untrained pharmacological agents 
>> (d-amphetamine
>> and chlordiazepoxide) and were observed in the absence of aversive
>> stimulation, deprivation, and unconditioned reinforcement. The training
>> procedure used in this study appears similar to that by which humans 
>> learn
>> to report on (tact) their internal environments and may be construed as a
>> rudimentary animal model of the interpersonal communication of private
>> events.
>>
>> Further, the sampling of papers I posted involving humans were just that, 
>> a
>> sampling. I think there are two important things to consider in 
>> evaluating
>> Skinner's book: first is it internally consistent and cogent - this is 
>> where
>> it is usually attacked through misrepresentation (i.e., Chomsky's 
>> arguments
>> that it can't account for this o that observation). The second is more
>> difficult - can it be experimentally demonstrated? I already mentioned 
>> the
>> ethical issues - one cannot eliminate critical aspects of the environment 
>> to
>> see if they are really important in a child's acquisition of "language."
>> But, then, one can establish "functional language" to a greater or lesser
>> extent in special populations - Oh, I forgot, you already dismissed that.
>
> What does any of that tell us of the nature of human language?

Well, since Skinner's thesis is that it is exposure to contingencies of 
reinforcement that produce verbal behavior (i.e., "human language") then the 
ability to produce it via these means in populations of humans that don't 
acquire it in the "normal fashion" suggests that he might be correct. 
Similarly, when one establishes verbal reports of "private states" in 
non-humans via the arrangement of contingencies, it suggests that Skinner's 
analysis is also correct.

>
> If "behaviorism" treats an organism (such as a human) as a black box,
> with input and output but no interest in what's _inside_ the box, how
> can it tell us anything about what's inside the box?

The answer that Skinner used to give, and it seems obviously the correct 
one, it cannot. But what it can tell one is what must be explained. That is, 
the facts uncovered by behavior analysis (and are misrepresented by the 
phrase "input and output") ARE what must be explained in terms of 
physiology.

>
> Are "behaviorists" interested in neurolinguistics?

Some are, sort of. They are more interested in the functional relation 
between contingencies of reinforcement and verbal operants. Since this is 
what verbal behavior really is, perhaps "neurolinguistics" should take some 
interest in it, rather than the other way around. Many behaviorists (and 
others) think that much of neurobiology in general is a conceptual muddle. 
For a scathing rebuke of it by two nonbehaviorists see:

M.R. Bennett, P.M.S. Hacker
Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience
Bennett, M.R. and Hacker, P.M.S., Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience, 
2003, Blackwell Publishing, 480pp, $39.95 (pbk), ISBN 140510838X.

in society?

Skinner was. Though, obviously, not from within the usual framework of 
explanation via explanatory fiction.
> 

On Wed, 5 Sep 2007 07:23:59 -0400, "Glen M. Sizemore"
<gmsizemore2@yahoo.com> wrote in
sci.cognitive,sci.lang,bionet.neuroscience:

[...]

> But have you ever told students that Chomsky demolished Skinner's
> position etc.?  [...]

Not bloody likely: I'm a mathematician.  If I mention Chomsky at all, it's
in connection with his hierarchy of formal languages.

Brian

On Sep 5, 10:34 am, "Glen M. Sizemore" <gmsizemo...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote in messagenews:1188997353.596408.308130@g4g2000hsf.googlegroups.com...

> > What does any of that tell us of the nature of human language?
>
> Well, since Skinner's thesis is that it is exposure to contingencies of
> reinforcement that produce verbal behavior (i.e., "human language") then the
> ability to produce it via these means in populations of humans that don't
> acquire it in the "normal fashion" suggests that he might be correct.
> Similarly, when one establishes verbal reports of "private states" in
> non-humans via the arrangement of contingencies, it suggests that Skinner's
> analysis is also correct.

This paragraph is chock-full of technical terminology that I do not
have the slightest ability to comprehend. But human language is far,
far more than "verbal behavior."

> > If "behaviorism" treats an organism (such as a human) as a black box,
> > with input and output but no interest in what's _inside_ the box, how
> > can it tell us anything about what's inside the box?
>
> The answer that Skinner used to give, and it seems obviously the correct
> one, it cannot.

Then it is of no more value than Chomsky's mathematical models that
generate grammatical sentences but are not even claimed to have
anything to do with what actually goes on in brains.

> But what it can tell one is what must be explained. That is,
> the facts uncovered by behavior analysis (and are misrepresented by the
> phrase "input and output") ARE what must be explained in terms of
> physiology.

Except for your last four words, that is of course what linguistics
has been up to for about two centuries now -- long before and long
after Skinner's kindly attempt to tell us "what must be explained."

But to suggest that brain function is nothing but physiology is
laughably naive.

> > Are "behaviorists" interested in neurolinguistics?
>
> Some are, sort of. They are more interested in the functional relation
> between contingencies of reinforcement and verbal operants. Since this is
> what verbal behavior really is,

Linguists aren't interested in "verbal behavior," they're interested
in language.

> perhaps "neurolinguistics" should take some
> interest in it, rather than the other way around. Many behaviorists (and
> others) think that much of neurobiology in general is a conceptual muddle.

I didn't ask about neurobiology.

> For a scathing rebuke of it by two nonbehaviorists see:
>
> M.R. Bennett, P.M.S. Hacker
> Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience
> Bennett, M.R. and Hacker, P.M.S., Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience,
> 2003, Blackwell Publishing, 480pp, $39.95 (pbk), ISBN 140510838X.

No, I really don't have time for a 500-page book on philosophy.

> in society?
>
> Skinner was. Though, obviously, not from within the usual framework of
> explanation via explanatory fiction.

Wow, a Giwer in academic's vocabulary!

Since language is "the social art," the study of the use of language
in society is a rather important part of the study of language.

Hi Glen,

Actually, no, I'm not making the Whorfian claim.  I am of the opinion
that natural language is probably the most predominate from of adult
cognition, but it is far from being the only form.  Indeed, that's
part of what's motivating my question re: concept vs. language.  Can
people form and use concepts *without* language?  If so, how so?

Doug


> > >  What is "language"? This is not a rhetorical question.
> >
> > A highly-symbolic system of representation, for the most part unique
> > to humans, that allows individual experiences to be classified,
> > stored, and shared (communicated).  
> 
>  So your position is that thought cannot occur without language. I
>  don't think linguists or psychologists would agree.

On Sep 5, 3:34 pm, Doug Morse <mo...@edoug.org> wrote:
> Hi Glen,
>
> Actually, no, I'm not making the Whorfian claim.  I am of the opinion
> that natural language is probably the most predominate from of adult
> cognition, but it is far from being the only form.  Indeed, that's
> part of what's motivating my question re: concept vs. language.  Can
> people form and use concepts *without* language?  If so, how so?
>
> Doug

Why not? I have conceptions of things for which there is no veridical
linguisitic equivalent, such as the appearance of the colour blue. If
they are anything at all, concepts are prior to language.

--
Joe