University of Virginia Library

Search this document 
Dictionary of the History of Ideas

Studies of Selected Pivotal Ideas
  
  
expand section 
  
expand section 
  
  

expand sectionVI. 
expand sectionV. 
expand sectionVI. 
expand sectionI. 
expand sectionVI. 
expand sectionV. 
expand sectionIII. 
expand sectionIII. 
expand sectionVI. 
expand sectionVI. 
expand sectionV. 
expand sectionV. 
expand sectionIII. 
expand sectionVII. 
expand sectionVI. 
expand sectionVI. 
expand sectionIII. 
expand sectionIII. 
expand sectionII. 
expand sectionI. 
expand sectionI. 
expand sectionI. 
expand sectionV. 
expand sectionVII. 
expand sectionVI. 
expand sectionV. 
expand sectionIII. 
expand sectionIII. 
expand sectionIII. 
expand sectionII. 
expand sectionI. 
expand sectionI. 
expand sectionI. 
expand sectionVI. 
expand sectionVII. 
expand sectionIII. 
expand sectionVII. 
expand sectionVII. 
expand sectionVII. 
expand sectionV. 
expand sectionVI. 
expand sectionVI. 
expand sectionVI. 
expand sectionVI. 
expand sectionVI. 
expand sectionVII. 
expand sectionIII. 
expand sectionIV. 
expand sectionVI. 
expand sectionVI. 
expand sectionVI. 
expand sectionV. 
expand sectionV. 
expand sectionV. 
expand sectionIII. 
expand sectionIII. 
expand sectionVII. 
expand sectionIII. 
expand sectionI. 
expand sectionV. 
expand sectionV. 
collapse sectionVII. 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
expand sectionVI. 
expand sectionI. 
expand sectionI. 
expand sectionI. 
expand sectionI. 
expand sectionVI. 
expand sectionIII. 
expand sectionIV. 
expand sectionIII. 
expand sectionIV. 
expand sectionIV. 
expand sectionIV. 
expand sectionVI. 
expand sectionVI. 
expand sectionVI. 
expand sectionV. 
expand sectionIII. 
expand sectionVI. 

3. Descartes. It would be more absurd to regard
Descartes as a behaviorist than Hobbes; for he was
notorious for the dualism of mind and matter which
he postulated. But, as a matter of fact, both his dualism
and his assumptions about scientific method did much
to create the climate of opinion which made behav-
iorism possible, if not almost inevitable.

Descartes held that there are two sorts of substances
in the world, mental and physical. If the behavior of
these substances was to be scientifically studied, as-
sumptions about them had to be made explicit and
exhaustively analyzed until clear and distinct ideas
were arrived at, which were simple in the sense that
no further analysis of them was possible. In the case
of ideas about material objects, for instance, the scien-
tist eventually arrived at the simple ideas of extension,
figure, and motion. If certain of these simple ideas were
combined, relationships could be grasped between
them which served as postulates for a deductive system,
as in geometry. Thus the understanding of bodies and
of minds respectively rested upon clear and distinct
ideas which had no features in common. Descartes'
problem about the relationship between mind and body
derived from the fact that, though in our confused
everyday experience we are aware of interaction, as
when our limbs move because of our intentions, no
clear and distinct idea can be formed of the manner
of this union. Such perspicuous ideas are only forth-
coming in the spheres of the mental and the physical
when they are proceeding independently of each
other—as in logical reasoning on the one hand or in
reflex movements on the other.

Descartes' dualism and his assumptions about scien
tific method thus gave rise to two traditions of enquiry
which came to be pursued more or less independently
of each other. On the one hand the human body, which
was regarded as functioning mechanically right up to
the level of instinctive behavior and simple habits, be-
comes a fit subject for objective study. Harvey had
made a splendid advance in this field with his mechan-
ical theory of the circulation of the blood. On the other
hand, the mind, by which Descartes meant mainly the
higher thought processes and the will, could only be
studied introspectively. The consequence of Descartes'
dualism was, therefore, the school of mechanistic biol-
ogy and reflexology on the one hand and the intro-
spective school of psychology on the other, which
reached its culmination about 250 years later in the
laborious experimental work of Wundt and Titchener.

It was against the assumptions of the introspective
school that Watson revolted—their assumptions about
both introspective method and the “stuff” of conscious-
ness which he claimed they were trying to study by
this method. And when he revolted he fell back on
the other tradition stemming from Descartes: mecha-
nistic biology and reflexology. All he did was to at-
tempt to extend its domain to the level of thought and
action which had previously been regarded as “mental”
and hence to be studied by introspective methods. And
when Watson theorized about behavior he was un-
wittingly Cartesian in his approach. He thought that
the complex phenomena of behavior could be ex-
plained by analysis into clear and distinct units of
behavior—simple reflexes.