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Re: Where are Behavior Patterns?
R. C. Alvarado (rca2t@FARADAY.CLAS.VIRGINIA.EDU)
Mon, 31 Jan 1994 13:29:27 -0500
>SS51000 has written:
>Explaining anything with reference to anything
>requires that they be >analytically separated! I was taking no position,
>therefore, on the extent to which human behavior is explicable without
>reference to symbolic interpretations. If anyone cares to discuss that,
>though, I am always ready with a whole gamut of important human
>behavioral patterns that recur either without reference to, or in
>outright defiance of, conscious symbolic intention, to wit: overeating,
>over- drinking, substance abuse/addiction of all kinds, domestic
>violence, traffic jams, auto accidents, wrong numbers, slips of all kinds
>. . . Need I go on? One example was not hard at all! --Bob Graber >
First, Bob, let's be serious: you want to "analytically separate" human
behavior from human interpretations of reality because you believe the
latter have no important bearing on the former. You know that and I know
that. Second, you confuse the issue by throwing in the word "conscious."
The issue is much more complicated than this. Third, not a single one of
your examples can be analyzed without reference to representations. Of
course they all involve physiological components, but who is arguing for
cartesian dualism here? You have yet to meet the challenge.
If you want to take up the challenge for real, explain any one of
your examples without recourse to any discussion of language, meaning,
the like. You might want to skip your last three examples--they don't
count, do they? Is a traffic jam a human behavior or the result of the
behavior of many humans, all of whom are driving for a *reason*?
R.C. Alvarado rca2t@Virginia.EDU
Department of Anthropology rca2t@Virginia.BITNET
University of Virginia uunet!virginia!rca2t
--
R.C. Alvarado rca2t@Virginia.EDU
Department of Anthropology rca2t@Virginia.BITNET
University of Virginia uunet!virginia!rca2t
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