Place, U. T. (1973-11-21). Lecture 8: Sentence frame analysis (21/11/1973). Section 2
[Abstract]The study of sentence frames. Psychological concepts as personal predicates. The tense structure of psychological verbs and the ontological categories. The objects of psychological verbs and the problem of intentionality
[References]  
Download: Amsterdam Lecture 08 - revised version.pdf

Place, U. T. (1974-02-13). Lecture 15: Mentalism and S-R behaviourism (13/2/1974). Section 4
[Abstract]The relationship between languages at the molar level: the mentalist language of ordinary discourse and the language of stimulus-response behaviourism.
[References]  
Download: Amsterdam lecture 15

Place, U. T. (1981a). Skinner's Verbal Behavior I - why we need it. Behaviorism, 9, 1-24. www.jstor.org/stable/27758970
[Abstract]To explain behaviour in terms of intension­al or mentalistic concepts is to explain the behaviour in question on the assump­tion of a consistent and rational connection between what the agent does and what he says or what is said to him and that therefore any general account of verbal or linguistic behaviour which employs such concepts is necessarily circular, since it explains the acquisition of linguistic skills on the assumption that the speaker already possesses such skills. It follows that this circularity can only be avoided by developing a theory of verbal or linguistic behaviour which is stated entirely in a nonintensional or extensional language. At the present time, the most developed conceptual system for description and explanation of the behav­iour of organisms at the molar level in purely extensional terms is that provided by the so-called ‘Radical Behaviorism’ of B. F. Skinner and his followers. Fur­thermore, in his book Verbal Behavior Skinner (1957) has used this conceptual framework to develop a theory of verbal or linguistic behaviour which repre­sents the most ambitious attempt made so far to formulate a theory of linguistic behaviour in nonintensional or extensional terms.
Note:
Revised version is from 1999.
[References]  [7 citing publications]  [11 referring publications by Place]  
Download: 1981a 1999 Skinner's Verbal Behavior I - Why We Need It - revised version.pdf

Place, U. T. (1981b). Skinner's Verbal Behavior II - what is wrong with it. Behaviorism, 9, 131-152. www.jstor.org/stable/27758982
[Abstract]Skinner's Verbal Behavior as it stands suffers from four major defects. (1) Skinner fails to do justice to the distinction between words which are the repeated and repeatable units of verbal behaviour, but which have a function only in so far as they contribute to the function of the sentences in which they occur, and the sentences themselves which are the functional units of verbal behaviour, but which are seldom repeated word for word either in the mouth of the speaker or in the hearing of the listener. (2) The account given by Skinner of the listener's response to the verbal operant and of the concept of "the discriminative stimulus" which he deploys in this connection is seriously inadequate. (3) Skinner's concept of "the tact" involves a confusion between tacts as words and tacts as sentences. Tacts as words, i.e. names and general terms, designate recurrent features of the common stimulus environment of speaker and listener, both general and particular and contrast with autoclitic words whose function is purely intra-sentential. Tacts as sentences on the other hand are functionally complete verbal operants corresponding to the grammatical concept of an assertion, which act for the benefit of the listener and contrast with mands, sentence utterances corresponding to the imperatives and interrogatives of grammar and logic, which typically act for the benefit of the speaker. (4) Skinner's account fails to do justice to the all-important logical distinction between those tact sentence utterances or assertions which are true and on which the listener can consequently rely and those which are false and therefore unreliable as a source of information from the standpoint of the listener.
[References]  [9 citing publications]  [10 referring publications by Place]  [Is replied by]  
Download: 1981b Skinner’s Verbal Behavior II – what is wrong with it.pdf

Place, U. T. (1984c). On the relation between intenTional-with-a-t and mental phenomena and intenSional-with-an-s, mentalistic and Oratio Obliqua locutions [Unpublished paper presented to the Senior Seminar, Department of Philosophy, University of Leeds, on Tuesday March 20th 1984; revised in 1987 or 1988].
[References]  [2 citing publications]  
Download: 1984c 1987 On the Relation between Intentional-with-a-T and Mental Phenomena and Intensional-with-an-S, Mentalistic and Oratio Obliqua Locutions.pdf

Place, U. T. (1987a). Skinner re-skinned. In S. Modgil, & C. Modgil (Eds.), B. F. Skinner, Consensus and Controversy (Part XI, Skinner and the 'Virtus dormitiva' argument, pp. 235-243). Falmer Press.
[Abstract]In 'Skinner Skinned' Dennett (1978, chapter 4) discusses two arguments, the virtus dormitiva and intentionality arguments, which he sees as the only solid ground underlying the various arguments which Skinner gives for repudiating the use of mentalistic explanations in a scientific psychology; and of these he endorses only the intentionality argument. I argue (a) that what Skinner finds objectionable in mentalistic idioms is their dispositional character, (b) that both the virtus dormitiva and intentionality argument are arguments against the use of dispositional property ascriptions in scientific explanation, and (c) that, since dispositional property ascriptions are essential to any causal explanation, Dennett has failed to provide any good reason for endorsing Skinner's repudiation of mentalism. It is suggested that mentalism is objectionable only insofar it involves the use of idioms which presuppose what Skinner (1969) calls 'rule-governed' behaviour to explain behaviour that is 'contingency-shaped'.
[References]  [7 citing publications]  [3 referring publications by Place]  [Is replied by]  
Download: 1987a Skinner Re-skinned.pdf

Place, U. T. (1989g). Some thought on the work of the Würzburg School and the controversy it provoked, prompted by a visit to Würzburg 10-16 October 1989 [Unpublished presentation at the Departmental Seminar, Departement of Psychology, University College of North Wales, Bangor, 2nd November 1989].
[Abstract]The debate between the Würzburg School and E. B. Titchener which took place during the first decade of this century was not, as it is often portrayed, a debate about the existence or non-existence of imageless thought. It is better described as a conceptual and terminological issue about the nature of consciousness, the place of meaning in consciousness and the role of introspection (Selbstbeobachtung) in its empirical investigation. Titchener's contention that in introspection the trained psychologist strips away meaning in order to provide a description of raw uninterpreted experience is shown to be the absurdity that it is by Wittgenstein's (1953) 'private language argument'. There is, nevertheless, a useful distinction to be drawn between two ways of acquiring mental self-knowledge: (a) introspection (Selbstbeobachtung) which yields observational knowledge of the qualia of ongoing experience, and (b) inner perception (innere Wahrnehmung) which yields intuitive knowledge of the onset and content of dispositional mental states. In terms of this distinction, the Würzburg protocols are based on an inner perception of the content of the reported thoughts rather than on introspective observation of the qualia of experience. The paper concludes with an assessment of the significance of the Würzburg-Titchener controversy for the subsequent history of psychology and for contemporary issues in psychology and the philosophy of mind.
Note:
Poshumously published as Place (2002/3)
[References]  [Related]  [Talks]  
Download: 1989g Some Thought on the Work of the Wurzburg School and the Controversy it Provoked.pdf

Place, U. T. (1992a). Behavioral contingency semantics and the correspondence theory of truth. In S. C. Hayes,& L. J. Hayes (Eds.), Understanding verbal relations: The Second and Third International Institute on Verbal Relations (Chapter 9, pp. 135-151). Context Press.
Keywords: behaviour analysis, behavioural contingency semantics, correspondence theory of truth, picture theory of meaning, situation, three-term contingency
[References]  [Talks]  [2 citing publications]  [15 referring publications by Place]  
Download: 1992a Behavioral Contingency Semantics and the Correspondence Theory of Truth.pdf

Place, U. T. (1992j). Towards a reconciliation between the associationist and radical behaviorist traditions in the experimental analysis of behavior. [Unpublished paper. Presented under the title 'The three term contingency as a link between the associationist and radical behaviorist traditions in the experimental analysis of behavior' as Invited Address to the First International Congress on Behaviorism and the Sciences of Behavior, Guadalajara, Mexico, 6th October 1992].
[Abstract]It is an implication of the Law of Non-Contradiction that two incompatible descriptions of the same class of phenomena cannot both be true. This suggests that the future for radical behaviorism must lie in achieving a reconciliation with other disciplines and approaches studying the same or closely related phenomena. The approach known as "associative learning theory" shares a common data basis with radical behaviorism in the area of the experimental analysis of animal behavior. It is separated from radical behaviorism by a different view of the nature of what is learned. According to the radical behaviorist, under certain antecedent conditions (discriminative stimulus + establishing condition) an organism learns to emit a response. According to associative learning theory what is learned is an association between a pair of consecutive stimulus events. When presented with the first member of the pair, the organism learns to "predict" or "expect" the second member of the pair. Until recently, the principal application of this principle was Rescorla and Wagner's (1972) analysis of  Pavlovian (respondent) conditioning. More recently, Adams and Dickinson's (1981) reinforcer-devaluation experiment has led associationists to pay more attention to instrumental (operant) learning. It has also opened up an interesting divergence of views between Dickinson (1988; Heyes and Dickinson, 1991; Dickinson & Balleine, forthcoming) who takes it as evidence of a discontinuity between respondent conditioning, which he interprets in terms of the establishment of mechanical associations, and operant learning which he interprets in terms of the ‘beliefs’ and ‘desires’ of philosophical action theory, and Rescorla (1991) who uses it as evidence for an interpretation of operant learning based on the same principles of stimulus-stimulus association invoked by Rescorla and Wagner to account for respondent conditioning. Standing in the way of a reconciliation between radical behaviorism and associative learning theory are the misgivings of the former about the use made by the latter of ‘mentalistic’ concepts, such as ‘expect,’ ‘anticipate,’ and ‘predict.’ These misgivings may be allayed if attention is paid to the results of applying to such concepts the technique, known as ‘conceptual analysis,’ developed by Wittgenstein (1953; 1958) and the philosophers of the Oxford ‘ordinary language’ school. A recent application of this technique to the linguistic phenomenon known variously as ‘intentionality’ or ‘intensionality’ shows that it consists of two distinct varieties of ‘referential anomaly’ which ‘infect’ the grammatical objects of certain verbs. In one case, the grammatical object is used to indicate a range of possible events any one of which, if it were to occur, would constitute a manifestation or satisfaction of a disposition. In the other case, the grammatical object functions as a quotation of what the agent either has said or might be expected to say or have said. Referential anomaly of the dispositional kind is both unavoidable and benign, but the use of quotations to characterize behavioral dispositions is acceptable for scientific purposes only in those cases where the behavior in question is in fact subject to linguistic control. Since the grammatical object of the verbs ‘know,’ ‘believe’ and ‘think,’ as they occur in belief/desire explanations, takes the form of an embedded indicative sentence in oratio obliqua or indirect reported speech, Dickinson's explanation of instrumental/operant learning in animals involves the scientifically unacceptable metaphor of linguistic initiation and control. Rescorla's theory, on the other hand, requires nothing more than that the organism learn to ‘expect’ or ‘anticipate’ an event (the outcome), given the combination of an antecedent discriminative stimulus and the stimulus constituted by the incipient emission of the response which it evokes. In this case the anomaly of reference in the noun phrase which occurs as the grammatical object of the verb reflects its use as a device for indicating a range of possible outcomes any one of which, if it occurred, would fulfill and confirm the expectation which it specifies.
Note:
UTP made changes to the text of the presentation in 1995 and in 1999.
[References]  [Talks]  
Download: 1992j 1999 Towards a Reconciliation between the Ascociationist and Redical Behaviorist Traditions in the Experimental Analysis of Behavior.pdf

Place, U. T. (1996b). Summary of Dispositions: A Debate [Unpublished paper].
Note:
Unpublished summary of the positions adopted in the book Dispositions: A Debate. UTP hoped in vain that his co-authors would fill in their positions.
[References]  
Download: 1996b Summary of Dispositions A Debate.pdf

Place, U. T. (1996g). Intentionality as the mark of the dispositional. Dialectica, 50, 91-120. doi:10.1111/j.1746-8361.1996.tb00001.x
[Abstract]Martin and Pfeifer (1986) have claimed "that the most typical characterizations of intentionality . . . all fail to distinguish . . . mental states from . . . dispositional physical states." The evidence they present in support of this thesis is examined in the light of the possibility that what it shows is that intentionality is the mark, not of the mental, but of the dispositional. Of the five marks of intentionality they discuss a critical examination shows that three of them, Brentano's (1874) inexistence of the intentional object, Searle's (1983) directedness and Anscombe's (1965) indeterminacy, are features which distinguish T-intenTional/dispositional states, both mental and non-mental (physical), from non-dispositional "categorical" states. The other two are either, as in the case of Chisholm's (1957) permissible falsity of a propositional attitude ascription, a feature of linguistic utterances too restricted in its scope to be of interest, or, as in the case of Frege's (1892) indirect reference/Quine's (1953) referential opacity, evidence that the S-intenSional locution is a quotation either of what someone has said in the past or might be expected to say, if the question were to arise at some time in the future.
[References]  [Is reply to]  [Talks]  [38 citing publications]  [10 referring publications by Place]  [Is replied by]  
Download: 1996g Intentionality as the Mark of the Dispositional.pdf

Place, U. T. (1996j). Linguistic behaviorism as a philosophy of empirical science. In W. O'Donohue, & R. Kitchener (Eds.), The Philosophy of Psychology ( Chapter 9, pp. 126-140). Sage. doi:10.4135/9781446279168.n9
[Abstract]Linguistic behaviorism is a philosophy of science with application to every empirical science from physics to sociology. It holds that • philosophy, including the philosophy of science, uses conceptual analysis to study the interface between language and the 'reality' it depicts, • conceptual analysis is an empirical investigation of the conventions governing the construction of intelligible sentences in natural language and its technical derivatives, • conformity to linguistic convention is maintained by selective social reinforcement. It endorses the analytic/synthetic distinction, a picture theory of the meaning of sentences, a correspondence theory of synthetic truth and a counterfactual theory of causal necessity.
Keywords: correspondence theory of truth, picture theory of meaning
[References]  [Talks]  [3 citing publications]  [10 referring publications by Place]  [1 reprinting collections]  
Download: 1996j Linguistic Behaviorism as a Philosophy of Empirical Science.pdf

Place, U. T. (1997e). On the nature of conditionals and their truthmakers. Acta Analytica, 12(18), 73-88.
[Abstract]Standard propositional and predicate logic fails both as a model for natural language and, since it cannot handle causation, as a language for science. The failure to handle causation stems from a misconstrual of the causal conditional as a relation between the truth of two propositions (If p, then q). What the causal conditional in fact specifies is a 'relation' between the possible existence or non-existence of two situations made true by the existence of the dispositional properties of the concrete particulars involved.
[References]  [Talks]  [5 referring publications by Place]  
Download: 1997e On the Nature of Conditionals and Their Truthmakers.pdf

Place, U. T. (1997k). Two theories of meaning: The two-factor dispositional/relational and the single factor relational [Presented at the Twenty Third Philosophy of Science Course, Inter-University Centre, Dubrovnik, 8th April 1997].
[Abstract]Theories of meaning are of two kinds, two-factor dispositional/relational theories and single factor relational theories. A two-factor dispositional/relational theory of meaning holds that the word 'meaning' has two senses: a primary and fundamental sense in which meaning is a disposition and a secondary and derivative sense in which meaning is a relation. (a) In the primary or dispositional sense, the meaning of a linguistic expression, such as a phrase or sentence, is a disposition, shared by relevantly competent speakers and interpreters of a particular natural language or technical code, to apply certain criteria (which they need not be able to state) in deciding whether or not a particular they encounter is either an instance to which, in the case of a general term or universally quantified sentence, the expression applies or, in the case of a singular term or singularly quantified sentence, the individual to which it refers. (b) In the secondary or relational sense, the meaning of a linguistic expression is the actual individuals assigned, by the application of those criteria, to the extension of a general term or universally quantified sentence or the actual individual referred to by a singular term or singularly quantified sentence when uttered on a particular occasion, as determined by the criteria. Taking their cue from Quine's (1951/1980) repudiation of the analytic/synthetic distinction, many philosophers have defended a purely relational/extensional theory of meaning in which dispositional notions such as 'intension', 'Sinn' ('sense'), 'analytic' and 'necessary' (defined in terms of what it is self-contradictory to deny) play no part. Motivation for the single-factor relational theory comes from logic. That for the two-factor dispositional relational theory defended here comes from psychology. The application of the two-factor theory to scientific principles such as 'Water is H₂O' and Ohm's Law is described.
[References]  [Talks]  
Download: 1997k Two Theories of Meaning - The Two-Factor Dispositional Relational and the Single Factor Relational.pdf

Place, U. T. (1998f). Disposizione ('Dispositions' translated into Italian by Giacomo Gava). In G. Gava, Lessico Epistemologico (Epistemological Lexicon, 2nd edition, pp. 44-51). CLEUP (Cooperativa Libraria Editrice Università di Padova).
[References]  
Download: 1998f Dispositions.pdf the English original that is translated into Italian

Place, U. T. (1999a). Ryle's behaviorism. In W. O'Donohue, & R. Kitchener (Eds.), Handbook of Behaviorism (Chapter 13, pp. 361-398). Academic Press. doi:10.1016/B978-012524190-8/50014-0
[Abstract]A distinction is drawn between the OR-behaviorism of the Americans which wants to make psychology more scientific and the OUR-behaviourism of Wittgenstein and Ryle which comes from the philosophy of language. Ryle's doctrines are classified into those that derive from Wittgenstein and those that are peculiar to Ryle. The latter are sub-classified into failures and successes. Criticisms of Ryle's position by Place, Geach, Medlin, Armstrong and Martin are examined and, where possible, rebutted. I conclude that, with some important exceptions, the dispositional analysis of mental concepts survives, as does, more controversially, the hypothetical analysis of dispositional statements.
Note:
'Brian Medlin challenges Ullin Place on the question of probity in Place's paper "Ryle's Behaviorism" and holds him accountable for defaming him. Medlin wants this rectified. In further correspondence Medlin wants the passage withdrawn from the paper. As the book had already been published, Ullin requested from the publisher that a corrigendum slip be printed and inserted into unsold copies of the book, and sewn in if any further copies of the book were printed.' Note on Box 1, Folder 025 (letters exchanged between Jack Smart, Ullin T. Place, Brian Medlin, Jim Franklin, David Armstrong) held in the Brian Medlin Collection at the Library of Flinders University, Adelaide, South Australia.
[References]  [11 citing publications]  [4 referring publications by Place]  
Download: 1999a Ryle's Behaviorism.pdf

Place, U. T. (1999f). Vagueness as a mark of dispositional intentionality. Acta Analytica, 14(23), 91-109.
[Abstract]Vagueness (within rather than at the boundaries of a concept) is one of the "three salient things about intention" listed by Elizabeth Anscombe (1965) in her paper ‘The intentionality of sensation’. In an unpublished paper John Burnheim has claimed that "physical causal dispositions" satisfy these "three marks of intentionality given by Anscombe." Subsequent discussion by C. B. Martin and K. Pfeifer (1986) and Place (1996) shows that if the various marks of intentionality proposed by Brentano, Chisholm, Anscombe, Lycan and Searle are sorted according to Kneale's (1968) distinction between intenTional states and intenSional locutions it turns out that all of the former (Anscombe's three marks plus Searle's/Brentano's directedness) are found in physical dispositions, while the latter (Chisholm's second and third marks) are marks of a quotation.
[References]  [Talks]  [4 citing publications]  [1 referring publications by Place]  
Download: 1999f Vagueness as a Mark of Dispositional Intentionality.pdf

Place, U. T. (1999g). Intentionality naturalized: dispositions and quotations [Unpublished paper].
[Abstract]Martin and Pfeifer have argued that physical dispositions satisfy all the accepted marks of intentionality. My own researches suggest the following conclusions: 1. ‘Intentionality’ means whatever the accepted marks make it mean. 2. Hence, if Martin and Pfeifer are right, intentionality is the mark, not of the mental, but of the dispositional. 3. We need to distinguish intentionality, as described by Brentano, Anscombe and Searle's “intentionality-with-a-t” which is the mark of the dispositional from Frege's “indirect reference", Quine’s “referential opacity”, Geach's “non-Shakespearianity” and Searle’s “intensionality-with-an-s” which is the mark of a quotation.
[References]  [1 citing publications]  
Download: 1999g Intentionality Naturalized - Dispositions and Quotations.pdf

Place, U. T. (1999h). The picture theory of meaning: A rehabilation [Conference presentation; presented to the IUC Conference on Epistemology, Bled, Slovenia, 31st May - June 5th 1999].
[Abstract]I argue the case for a rehabilitation of the "picture theory" of the meaning of sentences expounded by Wittgenstein (1921/1971) in the Tractatus, but abandoned by him in moving from his earlier to his later philosophy. This rehabilitation requires the replacement of 'facts' as the objects which sentences depict by 'situations' (Barwise and Perry 1983) and the recognition that the situation depicted by a sentence is an "intentional object" (Brentano 1871/1995). It also implies a different view of the way his sense (Sinn)/reference (Bedeutung) distinction should be applied to the meaning of sentences from that maintained by Frege (1892/1960) himself. Such a theory opens the door to a thorough-going empiricist theory of the acquisition of both concepts and sentence structure.
Keywords: picture theory of meaning
[References]  [Talks]  
Download: 1999h The Picture Theory of Meaning - A Rehabilitation.pdf