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 commonly be called “memory”, in so
far as it can be made a matter of external observation. And perhaps it
may be as well, at this point, to state my own view of the question
of “behaviourism”. This philosophy, of which the chief protagonist is
Dr. John B. Watson, holds that everything that can be known about man
is discoverable by the method of external observation, _i.e._ that
none of our knowledge depends, essentially and necessarily, upon data
in which the observer and the observed are the same person. I do not
fundamentally agree with this view, but I think it contains much more
truth than most people suppose, and I regard it as desirable to develop
the behaviourist method to the fullest possible extent. I believe that
the knowledge to be obtained by this method, so long as we take physics
for granted, is self-contained, and need not, at any point, appeal
to data derived from introspection, _i.e._ from observations which a
man can make upon himself but not upon any one else. Nevertheless,
I hold that there are such observations and that there is knowledge
which depends upon introspection. What is more, I hold that data of
this kind are required for a critical exposition of physics, which
behaviourism takes for granted. I shall, therefore, after setting forth
the behaviourist view of man, proceed to a scrutiny of our knowledge of
physics, returning thence to man, but now as viewed from within. Then,
finally, I shall attempt to draw conclusions as to what we know of the
universe in general.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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