The Jonesian myth and the language of mental episodes: are thoughts inner-speech analogues introduced as theoretical posits to explain behavior, and are sensations theoretical posits introduced to explain perceptual states?

Wilfrid Sellars, answered from the texts and cited to the page.

The position in brief

The Jonesian myth in EPM Part XII shows how the framework of inner episodes (thoughts and sensations) could have been acquired by people who started without it. The myth's hero Jones is a theoretical genius who introduces the categories of thoughts (as inner-speech analogues, introduced to explain behavior in cases where overt linguistic behavior is absent) and sensations (as theoretical posits, introduced to explain perceptual states and their characteristic features).123

The categories are then internalized by Jones's community — they learn to apply them to themselves through training, and the introspective awareness of one's own thoughts and sensations is the acquired result of this internalization rather than a Cartesian foundationalist starting point. Against the Cartesian tradition: thoughts are not self-intimating mental states whose epistemic credentials are foundationalist; they are theoretical- explanatory posits whose credentials are inferential.

Against behaviorist denial: thoughts and sensations are real inner episodes, not merely behavioral dispositions or ways-of-talking-about-behavior.4

Sources

  1. Thus, it should be noted that Jones's theory, as I have sketched it, is perfectly compatible with the idea that the ability to have thoughts is acquired in the process of acquiring overt speech and that only after overt speech is well established, can 'inner speech' occur without its overt culmination.
    Science Perception and Reality - includes Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind EPM, p. 194
  2. This brings me to the final chapter ofmy story. Let us suppose that as his final service to mankind before he vanishes without a trace, Jones teaches his theory of perception to his fellows. As before in the case of thoughts, they begin by using the language of impressions to draw theoretical conclusions from appropriate premises.
    Science Perception and Reality - includes Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind EPM, p. 200
  3. Remember Jones with something on the tip of his tongue: "Why it didn't stop?" When you think of a person's thinking it did not stop, your model for that thought is a candid speech event, viz., the saying "It didn't stop." But then, of course, every model will carry withitinto the theory a commentary explaining how unlike the items you are postulating in your theory are from the items that you take as your model.
    The Metaphysics of Epistemology - Lectures by Wilfrid Sellars, pp. 334–335
  4. Thus, when Tom, watching Dick, has behavioural evidence whch warrants the use of the sentence (in the language of the theory) 'Dick is thinking "p" ' (or 'Dick is thinking that p'), Dick, using the same behavioural evidence, can say, in the language of the theory, 'I am thinking "p" ' (or 'I am thinking that p').
    Science Perception and Reality - includes Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind EPM, p. 195

Where the argument is made

  • Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind (EPM, 1956) Parts XII-XVI — the Jonesian myth and the constructive account of inner episodes
  • "Notes on Intentionality" (NI, 1964)
  • "Mental Events" (MEV, 1981)
  • "Being and Being Known" (BBK, 1960)
  • "Some Reflections on Thoughts and Things" (SRTT, 1967)
  • "The Double-Knowledge Approach to the Mind-Body Problem" (DKMB, 1971)
  • "The Identity Approach to the Mind-Body Problem" (IAMB, 1965)
  • "Metaphysics and the Concept of a Person" (MP, 1969)
  • the late sensa work — "Actions and Events" (AAE, 1973), "The Adverbial Theory of the Objects of Sensation" (ATS, 1975), "Sensa or Sensings: Reflections on the Ontology of Perception" (SSOP, 1982)

How the argument was received

settled-as-articulated