XV. THE LOGIC OF PRIVATE EPISODES: THOUGHTS

56. With these all too sketchy remarks on Methodological Behaviorism under our belts, let us return once again to our fictional ancestors. We are now in a position to characterize the original Rylean language in which they described themselves and their fellows as not only a behavioristic language, but a behavioristic language which is restricted to the non-theoretical vocabulary of a behavioristic psychology. Suppose, now, that in the attempt to account for the fact that his fellow men behave intelligently not only when their conduct is threaded on a string of overt verbal episodes -- that is to say, as we would put it when they "think out loud" -- but also when no detectable verbal output is present, Jones develops a theory according to which overt utterances are but the culmination of a process which begins with certain inner episodes. And let us suppose that his model for these episodes which initiate the events which culminate in overt verbal behavior is that of overt verbal behavior itself. In other words, using the language of the model, the theory is to the effect that overt verbal behavior is the culmination of a process which begins with "inner speech."

    It is essential to bear in mind that what Jones means by "inner speech" is not to be confused with verbal imagery. As a matter of fact, Jones, like his fellows, does not as yet even have the concept of an image.

    It is easy to see the general lines a Jonesean theory will take. According to it the true cause of intelligent nonhabitual behavior is "inner speech." Thus, even when a hungry person overtly says "Here is an edible object" and proceeds to eat it, the true -- theoretical -- cause of his eating, given his hunger, is not the overt utterance, but the "inner utterance of this sentence."

    57. The first thing to note about the Jonesean theory is that, as built on the model of speech episodes, it carries over to these inner episodes the applicability of semantical categories. Thus, just as Jones has, like his fellows, been speaking of overt utterances as meaning this or that, or being about this or that, so he now speaks of these inner episodes as meaning this or that, or being about this or that.

    The second point to remember is that although Jones' theory involves a model, it is not identical with it. Like all theories formulated in terms of a model, it also includes a commentary on the model; a commentary which places more or less sharply drawn restrictions on the analogy between the theoretical entities and the entities of the model. Thus, while his theory talks of "inner speech," the commentary hastens to add that, of course, the episodes in question are not the wagging of a hidden tongue, nor are any sounds produced by this "inner speech."

    58. The general drift of my story should now be clear. I shall therefore proceed to make the essential points quite briefly:

    (1) What we must suppose Jones to have developed is the germ of a theory which permits many different developments. We must not pin it down to any of the more sophisticated forms it takes in the hands of classical philosophers. Thus, the theory need not be given a Socratic or Cartesian form, according to which this "inner speech" is a function of a separate substance; though primitive peoples may have had good reason to suppose that humans consist of two separate things.

    (2) Let us suppose Jones to have called these discursive entities thoughts. We can admit at once that the framework of thoughts he has introduced is a framework of "unobserved," "nonempirical," "inner" episodes. For we can point out immediately that in these respects they are no worse off than the particles and episodes of physical theory. For these episodes are "in" language-using animals as molecular impacts are "in" gases, not as "ghosts" are in "machines." They are "nonempirical" in the simple sense that they are theoretical -- not definable in observational terms. Nor does the fact that they are, as introduced, unobserved entities imply that Jones could not have good reason for supposing them to exist. Their "purity" is not a metaphysical purity, but so to speak, a methodological purity. As we have seen, the fact that they are not introduced as physiological entities does not preclude the possibility that at a later methodological stage, they may, so to speak, "turn out" to be such. Thus, there are many who would say that it is already reasonable to suppose that these thoughts are to be "identified" with complex events in the cerebral cortex functioning along the lines of a calculating machine. Jones, of course, has no such idea.

    (3) Although the theory postulates that overt discourse is the culmination of a process which begins with "inner discourse," this should not be taken to mean that overt discourse stands to "inner discourse" as voluntary movements stand to intentions and motives. True, overt linguistic events can be produced as means to ends. But serious errors creep into the interpretation of both language and thought if one interprets the idea that overt linguistic episodes express thoughts, on the model of the use of an instrument. Thus, it should be noted that Jones' theory, as I have sketched it, is perfectly compatible with the idea that the ability to have thoughts is acquired in the process of acquiring overt speech and that only after overt speech is well established, can "inner speech" occur without its overt culmination.

    (4) Although the occurrence of overt speech episodes which are characterizable in semantical terms is explained by the theory in terms of thoughts which are also characterized in semantical terms, this does not mean that the idea that overt speech "has meaning" is being analyzed in terms of the intentionality of thoughts. It must not be forgotten that the semantical characterization of overt verbal episodes is the primary use of semantical terms, and that overt linguistic events as semantically characterized are the model for the inner episodes introduced by the theory.

    (5) One final point before we come to the dénouement of the first episode in the saga of Jones. It cannot be emphasized too much that although these theoretical discursive episodes or thoughts are introduced as inner episodes -- which is merely to repeat that they are introduced as theoretical episodes -- they are not introduced as immediate experiences. Let me remind the reader that Jones, like his Neo-Rylean contemporaries, does not as yet have this concept. And even when he, and they, acquire it, by a process which will be the second episode in my myth, it will only be the philosophers among them who will suppose that the inner episodes introduced for one theoretical purpose -- thoughts -- must be a subset of immediate experiences, inner episodes introduced for another theoretical purpose.

    59. Here, then, is the dénouement. I have suggested a number of times that although it would be most misleading to say that concepts pertaining to thinking are theoretical concepts, yet their status might be illuminated by means of the contrast between theoretical and non-theoretical discourse. We are now in a position to see exactly why this is so. For once our fictitious ancestor, Jones, has developed the theory that overt verbal behavior is the expression of thoughts, and taught his compatriots to make use of the theory in interpreting each other's behavior, it is but a short step to the use of this language in self-description. Thus, when Tom, watching Dick, has behavioral evidence which warrants the use of the sentence (in the language of the theory) "Dick is thinking 'p'" (or "Dick is thinking that p"), Dick, using the same behavioral evidence, can say, in the language of the theory, "I am thinking 'p' " (or "I am thinking that p.") And it now turns out -- need it have? -- that Dick can be trained to give reasonably reliable self-descriptions, using the language of the theory, without having to observe his overt behavior. Jones brings this about, roughly by applauding utterances by Dick of "I am thinking that p" when the behavioral evidence strongly supports the theoretical statement "Dick is thinking that p"; and by frowning on utterances of "I am thinking that p", when the evidence does not support this theoretical statement. Our ancestors begin to speak of the privileged access each of us has to his own thoughts. What began as a language with a purely theoretical use has gained a reporting role.

    As I see it, this story helps us understand that concepts pertaining to such inner episodes as thoughts are primarily and essentially intersubjective, as intersubjective as the concept of a positron, and that the reporting role of these concepts -- the fact that each of us has a privileged access to his thoughts -- constitutes a dimension of the use of these concepts which is built on and presupposes this intersubjective status. My myth has shown that the fact that language is essentially an intersubjective achievement, and is learned in intersubjective contexts -- a fact rightly stressed in modern psychologies of language, thus by B.F. Skinner,{23} and by certain philosophers, e.g. Carnap,{24} Wittgenstein{25} -- is compatible with the "privacy" of "inner episodes." It also makes clear that this privacy is not an "absolute privacy." For if it recognizes that these concepts have a reporting use in which one is not drawing inferences from behavioral evidence, it nevertheless insists that the fact that overt behavior is evidence for these episodes is built into the very logic of these concepts, just as the fact that the observable behavior of gases is evidence for molecular episodes is built into the very logic of molecule talk.


[Next]