[Week 9] REFUTATION & CONCESSION

1. What is My Thesis?
Psychologists cannot understand all mechanisms in the human mind with only behaviorism.


2. What is the Opposite Position?
Behaviorism can explain all of the human mind enough.


3. What Arguments can I Anticipate?
What is 'the human mind' in the psychology? the human mind is target to be studied by psychologists, so the human mind means only measurable and visible behavior, not abstract things which science cannot explain. So, behaviorism can explain all human's behavior.


4. How will I Counter Those Arguments?
At first, 'the human mind' doesn't mean only human's measurable behavior in psychology. According to Wilhelm Wundt considered as the father of Psychology, he defined psychology as the field which studies all kinds of human's behavior and emotion, cognitive process, memory, mental disease and so on. Second, if their topicality is right, behavior still can't explain their 'the human mind', because behaviorism can't show how certain stimuli can induce one's behavior. Behaviorism only can show us that it is possible to change human's behavior by giving different stimuli such as classical conditioning.


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My Refutation & Concession
People who over-believe the power of behaviorism think that they can understand all secrets of the human mind with behaviorism completely because many mysterious secrets of the human mind are proved by behaviorism. In their opinion, 'the human mind' in psychology is only measurable human behavior because psychology is one kind of science and the human mind is object of psychology. They consider the emotion, instinct and unconsciousness as the worthless things to research and except these things from the human mind. So, they argue that behaviorism can explain all of human mind. However, their topicality is wrong. According to Wilhelm Wundt, who was the pioneer of modern psychology, psychology is the field which study human's memory, emotion, desire, behavior, cognition, relationship and so on. Also, today's many psychologists study not only human's behavior, but also mechanism of emotions. Even if their topicality is right, behaviorism still cannot explain all mechanisms about the human mind because behaviorism can only show that it is possible to manipulate human's behavior by giving different stimuli. It cannot explain how that behavior can be lead from human's brain. So to speak, behaviorism can't reveal all secrets of the human mind in any case.