Harzem gave in his article the review of behaviorism as it started from many important coincident in psychology and in related disciplines like when the western culture had turned purposely to science. Then the development led to the primacy of reasoned decision from the renaissance up to enlightenment age which means science in a collective approach was regarded as the vital undertaking if dependable solutions were to be found for the problems of human life.Then Victorians, the end part of the nineteenth century supported Behaviorism, and put trust and hope as they believe it was for the better future. The possibility of a science of psychology earliest was viewed in the early seventeenth century when Thomas Hobbes thought that successful methods in the natural sciences can also be a possible success in the study of human nature.
But there was no important impact until Wilhelm Wudnt, from his experimental investigation in 1870s that come up with the belief that Behaviorism is a good knowledge (i. . , dependable, useful knowledge) which comes from science and cannot be understood independently of it. Next in 1913, when John B. Watson published his paper "Psychology as the Behaviorist Views It" also known as "the behaviorist manifesto," did not asked whether or not psychology should be a science instead, he and his work explicitly opens the statement about what is, or more correctly, what will be, the science of psychology where its theoretical goal is the prediction and control of behavior.The claim of Watson on the experimental psychology that began with Wundt was not a science.
Watson failed to recognize ‘all that is experimental is not scientific’ which is similar to the old saying all that glitters is not gold, and so to speak all that is nonexperimental is not unscientific. Critics, including Watson failed to consider and give reasons with regards to the strengths and weaknesses of behaviorism. In 1914, Titchener carefully studied and addressed the strengths and weaknesses of Watson’s account. Titchener reasoned five things for Watson’s account.Titchener summarized the first two as psychology must be a science, and a fundamental principle of science is that its data must come from publicly observable phenomena.
Then he defined consciousness not as the subject matter of psychology because it does not satisfy the principle being observed publicly, and the introspection methods are not scientific methods. Lastly, based on the above, psychology of the time was not a science. So Watson considered the above and used it. He then resulted to what is for him in a "natural science" of psychology.Then for Watson, it was not consciousness as the object of study, and it should study only behavior where it can be observed publicly, and methods for observing behavior have to be developed.
Critics were raised as what counts as science were only assumed by Watson. Next was the question of Can psychology be a science alone given that Watson’s view of science is correct? And, given that psychology can be a science alone, should psychology entirely be a science? Then Titchener was clever to show that the question to be answered first was the question what counts as science and on what counts as scientific method?Our psychology will deal with perceptions, feelings, thoughts, or "in some sort with the whole experience," because in the subject matter of a given science indicated either by simple enumeration of objects, or by characterization of the point of view. Titchener raised two comments would have changed the ensuing course of psychology in general, (i)there is more to science than Watson seemed to believe, (ii)what would the "natural science of psychology," as envisaged by Watson, make of concepts and phenomena of consciousness?In that case, it implies that too limiting was the science and behaviorist concept of what counts as observable. And consciousness was not understood and applied in other sciences; the question will be ‘who would study it, if not the psychologists.
’ The positive side of Watson’s psychology according to Titchener as a branch of natural science, is a purely objective experimental. The negative side of it is, psychology for the behaviorist, disregarded the modes of human experience. Thus, it implies that it rejects introspection method.Watson’s outline for behaviorism has not explained what is to be made of the phenomena connected but, as Titchener noted, the issue has troubled psychology ever since and has declined the intellectual influence of behaviorism.
Then in the late 1930s and 1940s, Skinner took up the Watson‘s account for the principles of behaviorism. Skitiner interprets that the word “mind," "thought," "sensation," etc. was not names of phenomena agreeable to scientific study but curious reasoning. But these words should be studied because they are not yet concrete on its use.
But his recommendation for going even further by eliminating words related to consciousness had two irreversible flaws: (i) Skinner himself did not succeed in avoiding such words in some of his writings, and certainly not in his speech, and (ii) Skinner’s behaviorism is in an insoluble dilemma of denying a place to certain words but unable to avoid the need to consider what they mean (i. e. , what phenomena they involve). Then the "radical behaviorism.
" was popular and made my Skinners, and this term was used by Harzem & Miles (1978) to bring to attention the occurrence demonstrated here.The words tagged with the word “behavior” to make it make it easy and possible to accept the word behavior (e. g. , thinking-behavior, seeing-behavior, attachmentbehavior, and so on ad nauseam).
By ignoring such phenomena at first was the wrong turn of behaviorism and by making those terms unexamined was the mistake of nonbehaviorist. Psychologist absolved carefully the cognitive psychology practice by investigating how such terms work in language. And possibly, what kinds of observations might have given rise to them. This implied that the original behaviorism failed to deal effectively with its concrete concepts.
That in the case, behaviorism must have shown its singular, identifiable and observable counterpart. What is wrong with behaviorism? Wittgenstein, Ryle, Austin, and others are among who wholly resolved the problem on Watson’s writing that is to be done scientifically with terms that seem to be names of phenomena, and lease no ground for contemporary behaviorism to stay with the unsatisfactory solution. Today, though there has no major and distinct existence, behaviorism makes an importance as an essential ingredient of scientific-psychological thought.
