The Crisis in Psychology

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and symbol are semantic concepts, not experiential ones: a reflex is creative when

it stands in such a relation to a stimulus that it creates something new; it is symbolic

when it replaces another reflex. But we cannot see the symbolic or creative nature

of a reflex.

Pavlov distinguishes the reflexes of freedom and purpose, the food reflex and

the defense reflex. But neither freedom nor purpose can be seen, nor do they have

an organ like, for example, the organs for nutrition; nor are they functions. They

consist of the same movements as the other ones. Defense, freedom, and purpose—

they are the meanings of these reflexes.

Kornilov distinguishes emotional reactions, selective, associative reactions, the

reaction of recognition, etc. It is again a classification according to their meaning,

i.e., on the basis of the interpretation of the relation between stimulus and response.

Watson, accepting similar distinctions based on meaning, openly says that

nowadays the psychologist of behavior arrives by sheer logic at the conclusion that

there is a hidden process of thinking. By this he is becoming conscious of his method

and brilliantly refutes Titchener, who defended the thesis that the psychologist of

behavior, exactly because of being a psychologist of behavior, cannot accept the

existence of a process of thinking when he is not in the situation to observe it

immediately and must use introspection to reveal thinking. Watson demonstrated

that he in principle isolates the concept of thinking from its perception in intro-

spection, just like the thermometer emancipates us from sensation when we develop

the concept of heat. That is why he [1926, p. 301] emphasizes:

If we ever succeed in scientifically studying the intimate nature of thought. . .then we

will owe this to a considerable extent to the scientific apparatus.

However even now the psychologist

is not in such a deplorable situation: physiologists as well are often satisfied with the

observation of the end results and utilize logic. . .. The adherent of the psychology

of behavior feels that with respect to thinking he must keep to exactly the same position

[ibid., p. 302].

Meaning as well is for Watson an experimental problem. We find it in what is

given to us through thinking.

Thorndike (1925) distinguishes the reactions of feeling, conclusion, mood, and

cunning. Again [we are dealing with] interpretation.

The whole matter is simply how to interpret—by analogy with one’s introspec-

tion, biological functions, etc. That is why Koffka [1925, pp. 10/13] is right when

he states: There is no objective criterion for consciousness, we do not know whether

an action has consciousness or not, but this does not make us unhappy at all. How-

ever, behavior is such that the consciousness belonging to it, if it exists at all, must

have such and such a structure. Therefore behavior must be explained in the same

way as consciousness. Or in other words, put paradoxically: if everybody had only

those reactions which can be observed by all others, nobody could observe anything,

i.e., scientific observation is based upon transcending the boundaries of the visible

and upon a search for its meaning which cannot be observed. He is right. He was

right [Koffka, 1924, pp. 152/160] when he claimed that behaviorism is bound to be

fruitless when it will study only the observable, when its ideal is to know the di-

rection and speed of the movements of each limb, the secretion of each gland,

resulting from a fixed stimulation. Its area would then be restricted to the physiology

of the muscles and the glands. The description “this animal is running away from

some danger,” however insufficient it may be, is yet a thousand times more char-

acteristic for the animal’s behavior than a formula giving us the movements of all

its legs with their varying speeds, the curves of breath, pulse, and so forth.