Philosophy

Perhaps it might be expected that I should begin with a definition of “philosophy”, but, rightly or wrongly, I do not propose to do so. The definition of “philosophy” will vary...

If our scientific knowledge were full and complete, we should understand ourselves and the world and our relation to the world. As it is, our understanding of all three is fragm...

In the present chapter I wish to consider the processes by which, and the laws according to which, an animal’s original repertoire of reflexes is changed into a quite different...

The subject of language is one which has not been studied with sufficient care in traditional philosophy. It was taken for granted that words exist to express “thoughts,” and ge...

It will be remembered that the task upon which we are at present engaged is the definition of “knowledge” as a phenomenon discoverable by an outside observer. When we have said...

We are concerned in these chapters with what we can know about other men by merely observing their behaviour. In this chapter, I propose to consider everything that would common...

In this chapter, we are concerned with inference as it can be observed when practised by some one else. Inference is supposed to be a mark of intelligence and to show the superi...

The situation, stated abstractly, is as follows. Originally, stimulus A produced reaction C; now stimulus B produces it, as a result of association. Thus B has become a “sign” o...

The word “knowledge”, like the word “memory”, is avoided by the behaviourist. Nevertheless there is a phenomenon commonly called “knowledge”, which is tested behaviouristically...

In all that we have said hitherto on the subject of man from without, we have taken a common-sense view of the material world. We have not asked ourselves: what _is_ matter? Is...

We have seen that the world of the atom is a world of revolution rather than evolution: the electron which has been moving in one orbit hops quite suddenly into another, so that...

In the last chapter we spoke about the substitution of space-time for space and time, and the effect which this has had in substituting strings of events for “things” conceived...

It will be remembered that we regarded perception, in Chapter V, as a species of “sensitivity”. Sensitivity to a given feature of the environment we defined as consisting in som...

Perhaps there is nothing so difficult for the imagination as to teach it to feel about space as modern science compels us to think. This is the task which must be attempted in t...

In an earlier chapter we saw the inadequacy of the traditional notion of cause, without adequately explaining the causal laws which are a substitute in the practice of science....

In this chapter, we shall seek an answer to two questions: First, _how_ do we know about the world dealt with in physics? Secondly, _what_ do we know about it, assuming the trut...

It will be remembered that throughout Part I, we agreed to consider only those facts about a man which can be discovered by external observation, and we postponed the question w...

In this chapter we shall consider the question of images. As the reader doubtless knows, one of the battle-cries of behaviourism is “death to images”. We cannot discuss this que...

In this chapter we have to consider the two topics of imagination and memory. The latter has already been considered in Chapter VI, but there we viewed it from outside. We want...

We have considered perception already from the behaviourist standpoint, and also from that of physics. In the present chapter we are to consider it from the standpoint of self-o...

Twenty-three years have elapsed since William James startled the world with his article entitled “Does ‘consciousness’ exist?” In this article, reprinted in the volume called _E...

Hitherto, in our investigation of man from within, we have considered only the cognitive aspect, which is, in fact, the most important to philosophy. But now we must turn our at...

Ethics is traditionally a department of philosophy, and that is my reason for discussing it. I hardly think myself that it ought to be included in the domain of philosophy, but...

Our discussions, hitherto, have been concerned very largely with Man, but Man on his own account is not the true subject-matter of philosophy. What concerns philosophy is the un...

The question of truth and falsehood has been wrapped in unnecessary mystery owing to a number of causes. In the first place, people wish to think that their beliefs are more apt...

It is customary in science to regard certain facts as “data”, from which laws and also other facts are “inferred”. We saw in Chapter VII that the _practice_ of inference is much...

Everything in the world is composed of “events”; that, at least, is the thesis I wish to maintain. An “event”, as I understand it, is something having a small finite duration an...

In this final chapter, I propose to recapitulate the main conclusions at which we have arrived, and then to say a few words on the subject of Man’s relation to the universe in s...