{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/wikisource_An_Outline_of_Philosophy_Chapter_3/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/wikisource_An_Outline_of_Philosophy_Chapter_3","id":"wikisource_An_Outline_of_Philosophy_Chapter_3","license":"Public Domain / CC-BY-SA (see source)","rights_basis":"wikisource_site_inclusion_policy","source":"wikisource","source_url":"https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/An_Outline_of_Philosophy/Chapter_3","summary":null,"tags":["Headers_applying_DefaultSort_key","Subpages"],"text":"Chapter III\n\nThe Process of Learning in Animals and Infants\n\nIn 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 set of habits as a result of events that happen to it. A dog learns to follow his master in preference to anyone else; a horse learns to know his own stall in the stable; a cow learns to come to the cow-shed at milking time. All these are acquired habits, not reflexes; they depend upon the circumstances of the animals concerned, not merely upon the congenital characteristics of the species. When I speak of an animal \"learning\" something, I shall include all cases of acquired habits, whether or not they are useful to the animal. I have known horses in Italy \"learn\" to drink wine, which I cannot believe to have been a desirable habit. A dog may \"learn\" to fly at a man who has ill-treated it, and may do so with such regularity and ferocity as to lead to its being killed. I do not use learning in any sense involving praise, but merely to denote modification of behaviour as the result of experience.\n\nThe manner in which animals learn has been much studied in recent years, with a great deal of patient observation and experiment. Certain results have been obtained as regards the kinds of problems that have been investigated, but on general principles there is still much controversy. One may say broadly that all the animals that have been carefully observed have behaved so as to confirm the philosophy in which the observer believed before his observations began. Nay, more, they have all displayed the national characteristics of the observer. Animals studied by Americans rush about frantically, with an incredible display of hustle and pep, and at last achieve the desired result by chance. Animals observed by Germans sit still and think, and at last evolve the solution out of their inner consciou ness. To the plain man, such as the present writer, this situation is discouraging. I observe, however, that the type of problem which a man naturally sets to an animal depends upon his own philosophy, and that this probably accounts for the differences in the results. The animal responds to one type of problem in one way and to another in another; therefore the results obtained by different investigators, though different, are not incompatible. But it remains necessary to remember that no one investigator is to be trusted to give a survey of the whole field.\n\nThe matters with which we shall be concerned in this chapter belong to behaviourist psychology, and in part to pure physiology. Nevertheless, they seem to me vital to a proper understanding of philosophy, since they are necessary for an objective study of knowledge and inference. I mean by an \"objective\" study one in which the observer and the observed need not be the same person; when they must be identical, I call the study \"subjective\". For the present we are concerned with what is required for understanding \"knowledge\" as an objective phenomenon. We shall take up the question of the subjective study of knowledge at a later stage.\n\nThe scientific study of learning in animals is a very recent growth; it may almost be regarded as beginning with Thorndike's Animal Intelligence, which was published in 1911. Thorndike invented the method which has been adopted by practically all subsequent American investigators. In this method an animal is separated from food, which he can see or smell, by an obstacle which he may overcome by chance. A cat, say, is put in a cage having a door with a handle which he may by chance push open with his nose. At first the cat makes entirely random movements, until he gets his result by a mere fluke. On the second occasion, in the same cage, he still makes some random movements, but not so many as on the first occasion. On the third occasion he does still better, and before long he makes no useless movements. Nowadays it has become customary to employ rats instead of cats, and to put them in a model of the Hampton Court maze rather than in a cage. They take all sorts of wrong turnings at first, but after a time they learn to run straight out without making any mistake. Dr. Watson gives averages for nineteen rats, each of which was put into the maze repeatedly, with food outside where the rat could smell it. In all the experiments care was taken to make sure that the animal was very hungry. Dr. Watson says: \"The first trial required on the average over seventeen minutes. During this time the rat was running around the maze, into blind alleys, running back to the starting point, starting for the food again, biting at the wires around him, scratching himself, smelling this spot and that on the floor. Finally he got to the food. He was allowed only a bite. Again he was put back into the maze. The taste of the food made him almost frantic in his activity. He dashed about more rapidly. The average time for the group on the second trial is only a little over seven minutes; on the fourth trial not quite three minutes; from this point to the twenty-third trial the improvement is very gradual.\" On the thirtieth trial the time required, on the average, was about thirty seconds. This set of experiments may be taken as typical of the whole group of studies to which it belongs.\n\nThorndike, as a result of experiments with cages and mazes, formulated two \"provisional laws\", which are as follows:\n\n\"The Law of Effect is that: Of several responses made to the same situation, those which are accompanied or closely followed by satisfaction to the animal will, other things being equal, be more firmly connected with the situation, so that, when it recurs, they will be more likely to recur; those which are accompanied or closely followed by dis-\n\nsatisfaction to the animal will, other things being equal, have their connections with that situation weakened, so that, when it recurs, they will be less likely to recur. The greater the satisfaction or discomfort, the greater the strengthening or weakening of the bond.\n\"The Law of Exercise is that: Any response to a situation will, other things being equal, be more strongly connected with the situation in proportion to the number of times it has been connected with that situation and to the average vigour and duration of the connections.\"\n\nWe may sum up these two laws, roughly, in the two statements: First, an animal tends to repeat what has brought it pleasure; second, an animal tends to repeat what it has often done before. Neither of these laws is at all surprising, but, as we shall see, there are difficulties in the theory that they are adequate to account for the process of learning in animals.\n\nBefore going further there is a theoretical point to be cleared up. Thorndike, in his first law, speaks of satisfac tion and discomfort, which are terms belonging to subjective psychology. We cannot observe whether an animal feels satisfaction or feels discomfort; we can only observe that it behaves in ways that we have become accustomed to interpret as signs of these feelings. Thorndike's law, as it stands, does not belong to objective psychology, and is not capable of being experimentally tested. This, however, is not so serious an objection as it looks. Instead of speaking of a result that brings satisfaction, we can merely enumerate the results which, in fact, have the character which Thorndike mentions, namely, that the animal tends to behave so as to make them recur. The rat in the maze behaves so as to get the cheese, and when an act has led him to the cheese once, he tends to repeat it. We may say that this is what we mean when we say that the cheese \"gives satisfaction\", or that the rat \"desires\" the cheese. That is to say, we may use Thorndike's \"Law of Effect\" to give us an objective definition of desire, satisfaction, and discomfort. The law should then say: there are situations such that animals tend to repeat acts which have led to them; these are the situations which the animal is said to \"desire\" and in which it is said to \"find satisfaction\". This objection to Thorndike's first law is, therefore, not very serious, and need not further trouble us.\n\nDr. Watson considers one principle alone sufficient to account for all animal and human learning, namely, the principle of \"learned reactions\". This principle may be stated as follows:\n\nWhen the body of an animal or human being has been exposed sufficiently often to two roughly simultaneous stimuli, the earlier of them alone tends to call out the response previously called out by the other.\n\nAlthough I do not agree with Dr. Watson in thinking this principle alone sufficient, I do agree that it is a principle of very great importance. It is the modern form of the principle of \"association\". The \"association of ideas\" has played a great part in philosophy, particularly in British philosophy. But it now appears that this is a consequence of a wider and more primitive principle, namely, the associa tion of bodily processes. It is this wider principle that is asserted above. Let us see what is the nature of the evidence in its favour.\n\nOur principle becomes verifiable over a much larger field than the older principle owing to the fact that it is movements, not \"ideas\", that are to be associated. Where animals are concerned, ideas are hypothetical, but movements can be observed; even with men, many movements are involuntary and unconscious. Yet animal movements and unconscious involuntary human movements are just as much subject to the law of association as the most conscious ideas. Take, e.g., the following example (Watson, p. 33). The pupil of the eye expands in darkness and contracts in bright light; this is\nan involuntary and unconscious action of which we only become aware by observing others. Now take some person and repeatedly expose him to bright light at the same moment that you ring an electric bell. After a time the electric bell alone will cause his pupils to contract. As far as can be discovered, all muscles behave in this way. So do glands where they can be tested. It is said that a brass band can be reduced to silence by sucking a lemon in front of it, owing to the effect upon the salivary glands of its members; I confess that I have never verified this statement. But you will find the exact scientific analogue for dogs in Watson, p. 26. You arrange a tube in a dog's mouth so that saliva drops out at a measurable rate. When you give the dog food it stimulates the flow of saliva. At the same moment you touch his left thigh. After a certain length of time the touch on the left thigh will produce just as much saliva without the food as with it. The same sort of thing applies to emotions, which depend upon the ductless glands. Children at birth are afraid of loud noises, but not of animals. Watson took a child eleven months old, who was fond of a certain white rat; twice at the moment when the child touched the rat, a sudden noise was made just behind the child's head. This was enough to cause fear of the rat on subsequent occasions, no doubt owing to the fact that the adrenal gland was now stimulated by the substitute stimulus, just like the salivary glands in the dog or the trumpet player. The above illustrations show that \"ideas\" are not the essential units in association. It seems that not merely is \"mind\" irrelevant, but even the brain is less important than was formerly supposed. At any rate, what is known experimentally is that the glands and muscles (both striped and unstriped) of the higher animals exhibit the law of transfer of response, i.e. when two stimuli have often been applied together, one will ultimately call out the response which formerly the other called out. This law is one of the chief bases of habit. It is also obviously essential to our understanding of language: the sight of a dog calls up the word \"dog\", and the word \"dog\" calls up some of the responses appropriate to a real dog.\n\nThere is, however, another element in learning, besides mere habit. This is the element dealt with by Thorndike's \"Law of Effect\". Animals tend to repeat acts which have pleasant consequences, and to avoid such as have unpleasant consequences. But, as we saw a moment ago, \"pleasant\" and \"unpleasant\" are words which we cannot verify by objective observation. What we can verify by observation is that an animal seeks situations which in fact have had certain results, and avoids situations which in fact have had certain other results. Moreover, broadly speaking, the animal seeks results which tend to survival of itself or its offspring, and avoids results which tend in the opposite direction. This, however, is not invariable. Moths seek flames and men seek drink, though neither is biologically useful. It is only approximately, in situations long common, that animals are so adjusted to their environment as to act in a way which is advantageous from a biological standpoint. In fact, biological utility must never be employed as an explanation, but only noticed as a frequent characteristic, of the ways in which animals behave.\n\nDr. Watson is of the opinion that Thorndike's \"Law of Effect\" is unnecessary. He first suggests that only two factors are called for in the explanation of habit, namely, frequency and recency. Frequency is covered by Thorndike's \"Law of Exercise\", but recency, which is almost certainly a genuine factor, is not covered by Thorndike's two laws. That is to say, when a number of random movements have finally resulted in success, the more recent of these movements are likely to be repeated earlier, on a second trial, than the earlier ones. But Dr. Watson finally abandons this method of dealing with habit-formation in favour of the one law of \"conditioned reflexes\" or \"learned reactions\". He says (Behaviourism, p. 166):\n\n\"Only a few psychologists have been interested in the problem. Most of the psychologists, it is to be regretted, have even failed to see that there is a problem. They believe habit formation is implanted by kind fairies. For example, Thorndike speaks of pleasure stamping in the successful movement and displeasure stamping out the unsuccessful movements. Most of the psychologists talk, too, quite volubly about the formation of new pathways in the brain, as though there were a group of tiny servants of Vulcan there who run through the nervous system with hammer\nand chisel digging new trenches and deepening old ones.\nI am not sure that the problem when phrased in this way is\na soluble one. I feel that there must come some simpler\nway of envisaging the whole process of habit formation or\nelse it may remain insoluble. Since the advent of the\nconditioned reflex hypothesis in psychology with all of the\nsimplifications (and I am often fearful that it may be an\nover-simplification!) I have had my own laryngeal processes\n[i.e. what others call \"thoughts\"] stimulated to work upon\nthis problem from another angle.\"\n\nI agree with Dr. Watson that the explanations of habit-\nformation which are usually given are very inadequate, and\nthat few psychologists have realised either the importance\nor the difficulty of the problem. I agree also that a great\nmany cases are covered by his formula of the conditioned\nreflex. He relates a case of a child which once touched a\nhot radiator, and afterwards avoided it for two years. He\nadds: \"If we should keep our old habit terminology, we\nshould have in this example a habit formed by a single trial.\nThere can be then in this case no 'stamping in of the\nsuccessful movement' and 'no stamping out of the un-\nsuccessful movement.'\" On the basis of such examples, he\nbelieves that the whole of habit-formation can be derived\nfrom the principle of the conditioned reflex, which he\nformulates as follows (p. 168):\n\nStimulus X will not now call out reaction R; stimulus Y will call out reaction R (unconditioned reflex); but when stimulus X is presented first and then Y (which does call out R) shortly thereafter, X will thereafter call out R. In other words, stimulus X becomes ever thereafter substituted for Y.\n\nThis law is so simple, so important, and so widely true\nthat there is a danger lest its scope should be exaggerated,\njust as, in the eighteenth century, physicists tried to explain\neverything by means of gravitation. But when considered\nas covering all the ground, it seems to me to suffer from two\nopposite defects. In the first place, there are cases where\nno habit is set up, although by the law it should be. In the second place, there are habits which, so far as we can\nsee at present, have a different genesis.\n\nTo take the first point first: the word \"pepper\" does\nnot make people sneeze, though according to the law it\nshould. Words which describe succulent foods will make\nthe mouth water; voluptuous words will have some of the\neffect that would be produced by the situations they suggest;\nbut no words will produce sneezes or the reactions appropriate to tickling. In the diagram given by Dr. Watson\n(p. 106), there are four reflexes which appear to be not\nsources of conditioned reflexes, namely sneezing, hiccoughing, blinking, and the Babinski reflex; of these, however,\nblinking, it is suggested (p. 99), may be really itself a conditioned reflex. There may be some quite straightforward\nexplanation of the fact that some reactions can be produced\nby substitute stimuli while others cannot, but none is offered.\nTherefore the law of the conditioned reflex, as formulated,\nis too wide, and it is not clear what is the principle according\nto which its scope should be restricted.\n\nThe second objection to Dr. Watson's law of habit, if\nvalid, is more important than the first; but its validity is\nmore open to question. It is contended that the acts by\nwhich solutions of problems are obtained are, in cases of a\ncertain kind, not random acts leading to success by mere\nchance, but acts proceeding from \"insight\", involving a\n\"mental\" solution of the problem as a preliminary to the\nphysical solution. This is especially the view of those who\nadvocate Gestaltpsychologie or the psychology of configuration. We may take, as typical of their attitude on the\nsubject of learning, K\u00f6hler's Mentality of Apes. K\u00f6hler\nwent to Tenerife with certain chimpanzees in the year 1913;\nowing to the war he was compelled to remain with them\nuntil 1917, so that his opportunities for study were ex-\ntensive. He complains of the maze and cage problems set\nby American investigators that they are such as cannot be solved by intelligence. Sir Isaac Newton himself could not\nhave got out of the Hampton Court maze by any method\nexcept trial and error. K\u00f6hler, on the other hand, set his\napes problems which could be solved by what he calls\ninsight\". He would hang up a banana out of reach,\nand leave boxes in the neighbourhood so that by standing\non the boxes the chimpanzees could reach the fruit. Sometimes they had to pile three or even four boxes on top of\neach other before they could achieve success. Then he\nwould put the banana outside the bars of the cage, leaving\na stick inside, and the ape would get the banana by reaching\nfor it with the stick. On one occasion, one of them, named\nSultan, had two bamboo sticks, each too short to reach the\nbanana; after vain efforts followed by a period of silent\nthought, he fitted the smaller into the hollow of the other,\nand so manufactured one stick which was long enough. It\nseems, however, from the account, that he first fitted the\ntwo together more or less accidently, and only then realised\nthat he had found a solution. Nevertheless, his behaviour\nwhen he had once realised that one stick could be made by\njoining the two was scarcely Watsonian: there was no\nlonger anything tentative, but a definite triumph, first in\nanticipation and then in action. He was so pleased with\nhis new trick that he drew a number of bananas into his\ncage before eating any of them. He behaved, in fact, as\ncapitalists have behaved with machinery.\n\nK\u00f6hler says: \"We can, from our own experience, distinguish sharply between the kind of conduct which, from\nthe very beginning, arises out of a consideration of the\ncharacteristics of a situation, and one that does not. Only\nin the former case do we speak of insight, and only that\nbehaviour of animals definitely appears to us intelligent\nwhich takes account from the beginning of the lie of the\nland, and proceeds to deal with it in a smooth continuous\ncourse. Hence follows this characteristic: to set up as the criterion of insight, the appearance of a complete solution with reference to the whole lay-out of the field.\"\n\nGenuine solutions of problems, K\u00f6hler says, do not\nimprove by repetition; they are perfect on the first occasion,\nand, if anything, grow worse by repetition, when the excite-\nment of discovery has worn off. The whole account that\nK\u00f6hler gives of the efforts of his chimpanzees makes a\ntotally different impression from that of the rats in mazes,\nand one is forced to conclude that the American work is\nsomewhat vitiated by confining itself to one type of problem, and drawing from that one type conclusions which it\nbelieves to be applicable to all problems of animal learning.\nIt seems that there are two ways of learning, one by experience, and the other by what K\u00f6hler calls \"insight\".\nLearning by experience is possible to most vertebrates,\nthough rarely, so far as is known, to invertebrates. Learning\nby \"insight\", on the contrary, is not known to exist in any\nanimals lower than the anthropoid apes, though it would be\nextremely rash to assert that it will not be revealed by\nfurther observations on dogs or rats. Unfortunately, some\nanimals\u2014for instance, elephants\u2014may be extremely intelligent, but the practical difficulty and expense of experimentation with them is so great that we are not likely\nto know much about them for some time to come. However,\nthe real problem is already sufficiently definite in K\u00f6hler's\nbook it is the analysis of \"insight\" as opposed to the\nmethod of the conditioned reflex.\n\nLet us first be clear as to the nature of the problem,\nwhen described solely in terms of behaviour. A hungry\nmonkey, if sufficiently near to a banana, will perform acts\nsuch as, in circumstances to which it has been accustomed,\nhave previously enabled it to obtain bananas. This fits well\nwith either Watson or Thorndike, so far. But if these\nfamiliar acts fail, the animal will, if it has been long without\nfood, is in good health, and is not too tired, proceed to\nother acts which have never hitherto produced bananas.\nOne may suppose, if one wishes to follow Watson, that\nthese new acts are composed of a number of parts, each of which, on some former occasion, has occurred in a series\nwhich ended with the obtaining of the banana. Or one may\nsuppose\u2014as I think Thorndike does\u2014that the acts of the\nbaffled animal are random acts, so that the solution emerges\nby pure chance. But even in the first hypothesis, the\nelement of chance is considerable. Let us suppose that the\nacts A, B, C, D, E have each, on a former occasion, been\npart of a series ending with success, but that now for the\nfirst time it is necessary to perform them all, and in the\nright order. It is obvious that, if they are only combined\nby chance, the animal will be lucky if it performs them all\nin the right order before dying of hunger.\n\nBut K\u00f6hler maintains that to anyone watching his\nchimpanzees it was obvious they did not obtain \"a composition of the solutions out of chance parts\". He says (pp. 199-200):\n\n\"It is certainly not a characteristic of the chimpanzee,\nwhen he is brought into an experimental situation, to make\nany chance movements, out of which, among other things, a\nnon-genuine solution could arise. He is very seldom seen\nto attempt anything which would have to be considered\naccidental in relation to the situation (excepting, of course, if\nhis interest is turned away from the objective to other\nthings). As long as his efforts are directed to the objective,\nall distinguishable stages of his behaviour (as with human\nbeings in similar situations) tend to appear as complete\nattempts at solutions, none of which appears as the produce\nof accidentally arrayed parts. This is true, most of all, of\nthe solution which is finally successful. Certainly it often\nfollows upon a period of perplexity or quiet (often a period\nof survey), but in real and convincing cases the solution\nnever appears in a disorder of blind impulses. It is one\ncontinuous smooth action, which can be resolved into its\nparts only by the imagination of the onlooker; in reality they\ndo not appear independently. But that in so many 'genuine'\ncases as have been described, these solutions as wholes\nshould have arisen from mere chance, is an entirely inadmissible supposition.\"\n\nThus we may take it as an observed fact that, so far as\novert behaviour is concerned, there are two objections to\nthe type of theory with which we began, when considered\nas covering the whole field. The first objection is that in\ncases of a certain kind, the solution appears sooner than it\nshould according to the doctrine of chances; the second is\nthat it appears as a whole, i.e. that the animal, after a period\nof quiescence, suddenly goes through the right series of\nactions smoothly, and without hesitation.\n\nWhere human beings are concerned, it is difficult to\nobtain such good data as in the case of animals. Human\nmothers will not allow their children to be starved, and then\nshut up in a room containing a banana which can only be\nreached by putting a chair on the table and a footstool on\nthe chair, and then climbing up without breaking any bones.\nNor will they permit them to be put into the middle of a\nHampton Court maze, with their dinner getting cold outside.\nPerhaps in time the State will perform these experiments\nwith the children of political prisoners, but as yet, perhaps\nfortunately, the authorities are not sufficiently interested in\nscience. One can observe, however, that human learning\nseems to be of both sorts, namely, that described by Watson\nand that described by K\u00f6hler. I am persuaded that speech\nis learnt by the Watsonian method, so long as it is confined\nto single words: often the trial and error, in later stages,\nproceeds sotto voce, but it takes place overtly at first, and in\nsome children until their speech is quite correct. The\nspeaking of sentences, however, is already more difficult to\nexplain without bringing in the apprehension of wholes\nwhich is the thing upon which Gestaltpsychologie lays stress.\nIn the later stages of learning, the sort of sudden illumination\nwhich came to K\u00f6hler's chimpanzees is a phenomenon with\nwhich every serious student must be familiar. One day,\nafter a period of groping bewilderment, the schoolboy\nknows what algebra is all about. In writing a book, my own\nexperience\u2014which I know is fairly common, though by no\nmeans universal\u2014is that for a time I fumble and hesitate,\nand then suddenly I see the book as a whole, and have only to write it down as if I were copying a completed\nmanuscript.\n\nIf these phenomena are to be brought within the scope of\nbehaviourist psychology, it must be by means of \"implicit\"\nbehaviour. Watson makes much use of this in the form of\ntalking to oneself, but in apes it cannot take quite this form.\nAnd it is necessary to have some theory to explain the\nsuccess of \"implicit\" behaviour, whether we call it \"thought\"\nor not. Perhaps such a theory can be constructed on\nWatson's lines, but it has certainly not yet been constructed.\nUntil the behaviourists have satisfactorily explained the\nkind of discovery which appears in K\u00f6hler's observations, we\ncannot say that their thesis is proved. This is a matter\nwhich will occupy us again at a later stage; for the present\nlet us preserve an open mind.","title":"An Outline of Philosophy/Chapter 3","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":4818}