At 7:18 PM -0400 11/15/99, David Likely wrote:
>I think as a theorist of learning (and possibly of perception),
>D. O. Hebb was well known and respected from, say, 1949.
>The trouble was that his version of the Conceptual Nervous
>System was then unproductive in the matter of generating
>unique, testable hypotheses. (Skinner seems to have invented
>this "CNS," but building a theoretical structure out of it was a
>very un-Skinnerian thing to do.)
I think that Skinner and Hebb were making the same point (that the data
available at the time did not support any solid conclusions about the
mechanisms underlying behavior) but then went in two directions:
Skinner to a nonreductionist empirical analysis, Hebb to speculation about
what possible mechanisms might look like (as you say, he was a precursor to
current cognitive/neuro-scientific modelers of brain mechanisms).
* PAUL K. BRANDON [EMAIL PROTECTED] *
* Psychology Dept Minnesota State University, Mankato *
* 23 Armstrong Hall, Mankato, MN 56001 ph 507-389-6217 *
* http://www.mankato.msus.edu/dept/psych/welcome.html *
