(Bergmann Gustav) The Subject Matter of Psychology PDF
(Bergmann Gustav) The Subject Matter of Psychology PDF
(Bergmann Gustav) The Subject Matter of Psychology PDF
Gustav Bergmann
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Fri May 18 08:19:09 2007
T h e Subject Matter of
Psychology
GUSTAV BERGMANN
$1. INTRODUCTION
Specific problems arising from the fact that psychoanalytic theory is an M-language
must be distinguished from the general requirement of 'logical behaviorization' of psycho-
analysis. As to the latter, see the article quoted, footnote 4, 197-236.
Bernfeld, S., "Zur Revision der Bioanalyse," Imago, 23, 1937. Some psychoana-
lytical approaches to the social sciences raise similar problems. See Bergmann, G., "Zur
analytischen Theorie literarischer Wertmasstaebe," Imago, 21, 1935,498-506.
426 Subject Matter of Psychology
Freud's biological speculation, i.e., the hypothesis that
phylogenetically inherited patterns are equivalent to indi-
vidual experiences, is nothing but a set of syntactical rules
(in Carnap's terminology, P-rules). But there is, to be sure,
still a different methodological angle ($4) doing more justice
to the factual importance of this "biological" aspect of psy-
choanalytical M-language.
3. As it has been shown before ( $ 2 , 3), one of the main tasks
of a scientific, i.e., non-ontological study of the subject
matter of any science is to investigate the relations of its
system-language to those of other disciplines. In this
respect, M-languages show a peculiarity which is a t the root
of one of the most famous philosophical fallacies, the mind-
body problem.* M-languages contain only one coordinate
which allows for a formal and pragmatically successful
identification with the time axis out of the four-dimensional
spatio-temporal frame of reference used in theoretical
physics. Even apart from the snares of the material idiom,
the statement that the subject matter of psychology is non-
spatial is, therefore, somewhat incautious. M-languages do
not contain these dimensions, and the criticized formulation
is not at all so much comparable to a proposition like 'the
surface of a sphere has no third dimension', but rather of
the type 'gravitational fields have no citizenship rights'
(legal orders as system languages). Though, to avoid mis-
interpretation, it should be mentioned in this context that
the above criticism does not apply to the use of the mathe-
matical term 'space' and other geometric terms to represent
and manipulate structural properties of any system lan-
guage. That holds true also for 'dynamic' analogies.
Whether such an apparatus is applicable and whether its
use is economically justified is entirely puaestiofacti. Lewin
has always been careful to make this distinction in explain-
s See Feigl, H., "Logical analysis of the psychophysical problem," Philosophy of
Science, I, 1934, pp. 420-445; an integration and elaboration of the "contribution of the
new positivism" to this issue, anticipating most of the results of consistent language
analysis.
G. Bergmann
ing his 'mathematical method'. As far as psychoanalysis
is concerned, it is perfectly clear, that its 'mechanical'
models and occasional 'geometric' pictures are nothing but
analogies and visualizations.
Before turning to the two other psychological system languages
it shall be repeated that the preceding paragraphs do not pretend
to be more than a short and hardly adequate attempt to call
attention to one aspect which seems to suffer from neglect. That
is certainly not the case with the other two languages. Therefore,
as the purpose of this discussion does not allow one to omit them,
it will a t least limit itself to a few remarks. Many adequate
formulations have been presented recently.
B. The B-Language. Constructed upon the basis of primi-
tive predicates of the thing-language, there is a large class of
behavior-sentences, which of course also belong to the thing-
language. They speak of human and subhuman activities like
'running', 'VTE-ing', 'lever-pressing', 'eating', and 'speaking'.
They deal with what psychologists call 'behavior' and what they
try to define as "that part of the functioning of the organism
which is engaged in acting upon or having commerce with the
outside world" and regarding which "it is often desirable to deal
with an effect rather than with the movement itself, as in the
case of the production of sounds9' (Skinner). According to $2, I ,
there is no merit in efforts to circumscribe the class of these predi-
cates and relations syntactically. I t must be stressed, however,
that all these terms and sentences, so far, belong to the thing-
language and not to any system-language. I t is especially impor-
tant to keep this in mind, because in contrast to the procedure in
physics, most of the work on this 'subject matter' has been spent
in the sharpening of the thing-language. That is what is usually
called the well-developed operational side of behaviorism. In this
respect, standards of breathtaking rigorosity have been pro-
claimed only recently by workers in this field.9 Nevertheless,
theoretical systems, B-languages to fit this refined thing-language,
have been of the utmost scarcity. If some theorizing occurred, it
Skinner, B. F., "The behavior of organisms," (New York: D. Appleton-Century
Company, 1938), Chapters I, XIII.
4 28 Subject Matter of Psychology
was fortunate usually to escape discovery, because the homoph-
ony of its terms with those of the elaborate new thing-language
was mistaken for identity. I t is not so long ago that the labeling
of some structures and persistent sequences of such terms in the
experimental or observational protocols with new terms intro-
duced by this very procedure, as 'purpose', 'demand', 'goal',
'learning', and the cautious and sober statement of a minimum
of laws obtaining between these terms of the next linguistic levels,
required the intrepidity of scientific pioneers. Today Tolman,
Hull, Lewin, to mention only three representative theoretical
programs most widely discussed among psychologists, engage
openly in the construction of what I believe to be B-languages.
But it might still be worth while calling attention to the fact that
by this very procedure, the behavioral predicates from which
such constructions start become the basic terms of a theory, how-
ever tentative and rudimentary such a construction might be.
Example. Basic terms: being starved, running, entering blind alleys,
VTE-ing, eating. Introduced terms of the next levels: hunger, learning.
Basic law$ (postulated P-rules generalized from the thing-language
data): increasingly steep negative slope of the error curve with increas-
ing hunger; the configurational connection between the VTEcurve
and the error curve (Tolman's hypothesis).
VTE is an abbreviation for 'vicarious trial and error'; VTE-ing a
very characteristic behavior of maze-learning rats. The number of
VTE's displayed increases steeply and shows a maximum shortly before
the error curve (number of entries into blind alleys of the maze) shows
a marked and persistent decline.
T h e following two remarks go back to the relation between M-lan-
guages and B-languages ($3 A ~ a ) .
I . Quite obviously linguistic behavior is also behavior and thus
part of the material of behavioristic theories. Possibly no
somewhat satisfactory M-language can be constructed with-
out some unverbalized behavior-material, and certainly no
meaningfullo behavioristic approach to human behavior can
lo Of course the expression 'meaningful' must not be understood here as a methodologi-
cal term. Also in some other respects the diction has been loosened in this and later
paragraphs. Where no danger of confusion exists, the material idiom has been used for
convenience.
G. Bergmann 429
disregard the linguistic material. It is clear, moreover, and
has been pointed out (93 A b) that linguistic behavior gets
its psychological meaning, scientifically as well as geneti-
cally, only within the broader texture of human behavior of
all types. The point is that after what can be gleaned from
the present state of affairs, M- and B- languages seem to be
of very markedly different intrinsic structures. T o use a
suggestive analogy for illustration of this difference: A sen-
tence in a play may have an important place in the develop-
ment of the plot, and a t the same time serve as a cue for
some actor.
2. T o explain what is meant by the vague expression 'different
intrinsic structure', let us, for instance, consider psycho-
analysis. Assume that in an elaborate psychoanalytic
M-language, terms as 'libido', 'Id', 'cathexis', will be the
basic ones, while the postulated laws obtaining between
them and the introduced terms as, e.g., 'anxiety' 'uncon-
scious wish', 'complex', will be shaped after mechanisms like
'sublimation', 'repression', 'displacement'. In a B-lan-
guage, on the other hand, these terms and laws will probably
only be found in the way of isomorphism (94) and on a very
high level of introduced terms and derived laws. At the
beginning of the chains introducing these highly com-
pounded terms one will probably find terms corresponding
to certain very elementary behavioral units, both verbalized
and unverbalized, but probably predominantly or exclu-
sively unverbalized.11 And with the same degree of prob-
ability the laws postulated between these basic terms and
their more immediate derivatives (e.g., laws of the Condi-
tioned Reflex type) are unlikely to show any structural simi-
larity with the 'introspectionistic', M-shaped laws of psycho-
analysis.
C. The P-language. I n contradistinction to M- and B-lan-
guages, the P-language is not especially devised for psychology.
11 There is no contradiction between this expectation and the previous statement that
legitimate heir of the great German tradition of natural philosophy, brought to the stand-
ards of present time empirical science. As to its linguistic and physicalistic interpretation,
see also a previous paper, "On physicalistic models of non-physical terms." Philosophy
of Science, 7 (19~01,151-158.
l4 Boring, E. G., Psychophysiological Systems and Isomorphic Relations. Psycholog-
ical Review, 43 (1~36), 565-587.
G. Bergmann 433
($3 B I, 2), there is much more hope for a factual isomorphism in
the direction B -t M. Finally, if one considers the pattern thus
anticipated,
P+B, P-M, B-tM
one sees: No arrow points towards "P", no arrow issues from
"M", and if one arranges the three levels in the order "P", "B",
"M", the arrows point all to the right. That reflects the tend-
ency of our scientific thought usually called naturalism.
The State CTniversityof Iowa.