'One of the most dangerous of ideas for a philosopher is, oddly enough, that we think with our heads or in our heads.'
Wittgenstein.
_______________You have incorrectly assumed that behaviorism denies what you call the 'internal,' presumably thoughts, intentions, memories, dreams. While this is true of logical positivists and Watson's 'classical' behavioral stance, the very thing that made Skinner and radical behaviorism different was its accounting of the very 'internal' processes you mention. A cursory glance at Skinner's About Behaviorism should make this apparent.
Reducing matters a great deal, 'internal processes' such as 'feelings' are the collateral products of our behavior. Humans not only behave, but they have been conditioned by verbal communities to talk about their behavior, to speculate about their (and other's) behavior. These feelings were taught; not taught to be felt but taught to be expressed. For example, my toothache (accurate or not) becomes a comparison for yours, and vice versa. Your toothache is private; it becomes public relative to what the verbal community calls a toothache.
This is not to say that 'internal processes' emit behavior. To continue our (classic) example, a toothache is not what is felt, but is the result of tangible stimuli 'within the skin' (a tangible place); it is the result of inflamed gums, cavities, infection, etc. The feeling does not make the feeling---the very awkwardness of that phrase suggests how unlikely that would be! The feeling is what is felt, and that is not some mystical 'inner process.' When we have a cavity, we feel the cavity, not the feeling. The feeling is a concomitant of the cavity, it is not the cause...
: For instance, what if, following your matching law principle a person forgoes immediate material gratification of desire, for the greater gratification of assertion of self identity. This would mean that no matter how well planned and designed the system of re-enforcment or control or whatever, there may always be awkward buggers...
This statement fails to appreciate (or generalize, in behavioral terms) the implications of the matching law, the law that temporal relations affect each decision. 'Self-control' arises from long-term contingencies having more control over behavior than short-term ones. Inconspicuous reinforcers (even 'heavenly life after death') can control behavior. Are temporal decisions what you call 'self'?---or are these decisions simply a different set of contingencies each emitting different behavior? The 'self' is the decisions that get made, but these decisions do not originate within, they originate outside the deciding individual (although there are so many decisions each 'self' certainly is unique). They are what the individual chooses from. This distinction is important. As Skinner put it:
If I say that I came to this meeting because I felt like coming, I may seem to give some sort of explanation. But can I explain why I felt like coming? If I try to do so by pointing to what has happened in my life with respect to similar meetings, then I must ask whether that explains why I felt like coming or the fact that I actually came. Will not certain past circumstances explain both why I came and why I felt like coming?(1)
There are many different choices and what you call intention is the probability that a certain one will be made (a certain behavior will be emitted). The 'greater gratification of self identity,' as you so immodestly call it, is, like all emissions of behavior, a contingent variableof reinforcement---in this case most likely a long-term one that displays stronger probability over shorter-term reinforcing contingent variables. One contingent variable would be to do something, say, 'more predictable,' such as choose a conspicuous short-term reinforcer while another decision would eschew the immediate reward for, say, the 'greater gratification of self-identity.' This, too, is a reinforcer---and one that has been socially conditioned. (The very concept of 'self-identity' has been taught and those who promote it have reinforced it.)
But to say, as you seem to, that no one responds to reinforcement (or people 'create' their own) is merely superman talk...
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On Chomsky.
: His reticence to give policies is a principled stance of not wanting to become a leader, I think theres some credit to him for resisting the urge. His own actions show roughly where he lies, better than any manifesto would. thats his path though, there are others, and they are pretty equally valid...
Such lionization from a Marxist. I thought the point was not to interpret the world, but to change it...
: : Your mistake, I believe, is the one Chomsky makes throughout his review, namely that all behavior (and some is remarkably cruel) throughout history should be attributed to those who study behavior in order to permit people to live lives free of punishment.
: No, All I suggested was that such techniques of behavioural control are reminiscent of such activity, and such regimes, and that a scheme based upon it may be prone to
repeating their mistakes...
You're doing it again. You are insinuating that all behavioral control is and has been 'behavioral' control (as in the type of 'control' urged by behaviorists, i.e. positive reinforcement). This assumption is the cornerstone of Chomsky's erroneous and antagonistic thesis. It's like saying Hitler was a behaviorist because he controlled human behavior. For the nth time: Behaviorism repudiates all forms of punishment. (Can your Marxist doctrine claim as much?)
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: Take a school, prison, or factory. Make it circular in shape, with cells running around the circle, with windows facing inwards. Put a light at the back of the cells, so that the
occupant can always be seen from the outside. Stand a tower in the centre, with windows facing each of the windows in the outer circle.
: Put prisoner, child, worker in each cell, and set them to task. They know they can be seen at all times, potentially, but they cannot see when they are being seen, they cannot know if they get caught or not.
: Whats behaviourism got to say about this model?
Sounds like some ripe 1984 gulag (punitive society). Behaviorism is not, contrary to propaganda, about 'setting' anyone 'to task.' It's not about anyone 'getting caught.' It's about people being motivated to perform tasks for themselves. Who motivates? The community that employs a technology of incentive (various schedules that sustain high rates of responding). The designers of the culture, to be honest, submit to their own design (i.e. Los Horcones who 'live in their laboratory'...)
Your intimation that privacy would be 'invaded' by behaviorism resembles anti-communal sentiment. Communities do observe themselves closely---that's why they do not need police, armed forces, leaders, etc. Face-to-face control (public censure and commendation, requiring observation) obviates specialized 'controllers.' The notion that 'everyone should mind their own business' is simply bourgeois rhetoric.
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: ['Deep Structure' is] a set of switches, kinda like a run on boot programme 'Search for System disk, etc.' that looks to see what grammar structure is in operation in a language, and it will adapt to that grammar set of rules...
The computer analogy. Aren't you at least a little bit suspicious that the 'computer storage' model for cognition came into use...er...right about when computers were being marketed? Sorry, but I agree with Wittgenstein that the 'life' of language is to be found in its use.* Even if we do 'store' information in our brains like so many software disks, where does that information come from?
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* See Philosophical Investigations (Blackwell, 1958), § 432 or The Blue and Brown Books (Harper, 1965), p. 4.
Note:
1. Skinner, 'Answers For My Critics,' Beyond The Punitive Society, ed. Harvey Wheeler (W.H. Freeman & co., 1973), p. 260.
