Re: OOOPS! (Was Re: help with learning class

[Christopher Green]

Mike Palij wrote: On Wed, 26 Oct 2005 07:51:53 -0700, Christopher Green wrote: The point is simply that what we, in the wake of behaviorism, see as the "normal" meaning for "learning" is a historical construction... I have a problem with calling it a "historical construction" in contrast to a theoretical or paradigmatic development. As you wish, but I see no reason to privilege Kuhn's view of science in this way, especially with respect to psychology, whch isn't among the "sciences" he was writing about, though psychologists have, by and large, missed this point in their eagerness to adopt Kuhn (See my American Psychologist letter about this issue:  http://www.yorku.ca/christo/papers/Kuhn.Driver-Linn.comment.htm If we consider behaviorism to be a paradigm, We shouldn't. It has few of the standard features of a paradigm. For one thing, it never dominated the field in the way that, say, the periodical table of elements did. In short, the meaning of the term "learning" had to change farily profoundly before behaviorism was possible. Danziger shows the course of that change, now forgotten but all by historians of the field. He provides one "story" of what happened. I reserve the right to withhold judgment on its utility. How about its truth? How about it providing one with context (and therefore  understanding) that one didn't have before. I think it would have been more helpful if you had directly addressed the questions I provided below. For example, it seems to me that Danziger is dismissing a "trans-species" view of learning processes when he reviews Thorndike's work -- the impression I got was that Danziger Thorndike was "overreaching" in attempting to develop such a broad theory of "learning". I am I wrong in this impression? Knowing Kurt, he probably does think that it was "overreaching." But, so what? You can make your own decision on whether it was a good bet or a bad one. That's not the important part of telling the history that most have forgotten. The point is that the history of the discipline did not have to follow the course that it did. There was no inevitability about behaviorism or the generalized notion of learning on which it depended. Certain decisions were made, contingently, by people, which made certain paths easier to follow and certain paths more difficult. We tend to forget about those decision points decades down the line. That is what historians do -- crack through the sense of inevitablility we have about where we stand now; show what historical figures were actually trying to do in their own time, rather than just blythely assuming that they were trying (and failing) to be us.  Second, wasn't it over-reaching? Didn't behaviorism ultimately founder (in the sense of ultaimtely failing to caputre all of psychology) because it couldn't cash in its promisory notes on things like language and complex decision making? Regards, -- Christopher D. Green Department of Psychology York University Toronto, ON M3J 1P3 [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.yorku.ca/christo Office: 416-736-5115 ext. 66164 Fax: 416-736-5814 --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: archive@jab.org To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]