April 24, 2016

April 24, 2016

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader,

In “Human Behavior as Language: Some Thoughts on Wittgenstein” (2006)  Ribes-Iñesta writes “The term “language” is the only one that “refers” to itself, and it is a term included in and used in language. This may explain the particular elusiveness of the term and its extended meanings.” I disagree with him. He doesn’t explain why “the term “language” and its extended meanings” continues to be elusive. The reason that “language” has remained elusive is because we don’t realize the extent to which our written words take our attention away from our spoken words. Developmentally, our written words are a function of our spoken words. Our attempts to explain our spoken words with our written words would be more successful, if we first attempted to explain our spoken words with our spoken words. As this would have required a different way of talking, we choose to write about talking more than to talk about talking, because were unsuccessful in changing our way of talking.

Our writings have taken us further and further away from our talking and our technology has increased rather than decreased this process. Another way of describing this process is that our Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB), our negative way of talking, couldn’t address what can only be addressed by our Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB), our positive way of talking. There is nothing elusive about SVB, either we have it or we don’t. Once we have it, we are surprised that there is nothing to explain. Since we can directly experience what SVB is, there is no need to first understand or explain it.

Once we have SVB, we can understand and explain it without a problem. As we haven’t had SVB often enough we lose touch with our experience of it and are unable to accurately describe it. As a consequence, we keep having NVB without even realizing it. We often think that we have SVB when in fact we are having NVB. Moreover, our history with SVB is so limited that we even think that it is impossible to have ongoing SVB, conversation in which our positive emotions are reinforced and can continue. Stated differently, the multiple meanings of the term “language” is NOT the problem. Our way of talking is the problem and we can no longer cover this up with our writings.

In SVB we are able to talk about our talking. We experience an interaction in which our understanding continues to increase as we explore our interaction while we speak. As previously stated, both Wittgenstein and Skinner were on the path they were on because of their high rates of SVB. “Wittgenstein (1953) conceived language games as conventions forming part of social practices and relations: “Here the term ‘language game’ is meant to bring into prominence the fact that the speaking of language is part of an activity, or of a form of life (p. 23)” (Italics were not by me, but by Wittgenstein). He emphasizes the word speaking to remind himself as well as the reader that what he has written is really about spoken communication. Although Wittgenstein wrote about a very different kind of speaking than most other people, he didn’t and couldn't specify that he was writing about Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB).

Considering Wittgenstein’s reclusive life-style, it seems quite evident that most of his writing was his attempt to bring out his private speech into his public speech. Thus, it was Wittgenstein’s isolation which gave rise to his writing. “We’re used to a particular classification of things. With language, or languages, it has become second nature to us (1980, p. 678).”  Like many other thinkers, he seemed to have stumbled on SVB by ‘talking to himself’ through his writing. However, it is very clear from his writings that he didn’t find much SVB in his spoken conversations. Wittgenstein often complains that people don’t understand him. However, understanding was never really the problem. His analysis was in fact about SVB, but the blunt manner in which most people talk is NVB. Ribes-Iñesta writes “When people speak, their speech is not the overt manifestation of an abstract grammar that rules and regulates what can be said or not, or how to say things” (italics added by me). What a person says doesn’t depend on what has been written, but it definitely depends on who we are talking with, as we are, after all, each other’s environment. In SVB and NVB we are saying very different things.

What can be said in SVB cannot be said in NVB. The development of our verbal behavior was made possible by our SVB, but was always impaired or made impossible by our NVB. Once we engage in SVB, we realize how often we were involved in NVB.  It is therefore always retrospectively that we recognize NVB as NVB. Ribes-Iñesta comes as close as he can to ‘saying’ the same thing, as he writes: “As I have remarked previously (Ribes, 1991), language as actual behavior has no grammar. Grammar, as an ideal structure of language, is an a posteriori abstraction of products and vestiges of the actual behavior of speaking and writing.” Note that he mentions speaking first. It is also interesting that the definition of a posteriori is relating to what can be known by observation, that is, through listing experience, rather than through an understanding of how certain things work. This relates to how SVB works: experience of sound is primary and our understanding of language is secondary. Wittgenstein writes “Grammar does not tell us how language must be constructed in order to fulfill its purpose, in order to have such-and-such an effect on human beings. It only describes and in no way explains the use of signs (1953, p. 496).” I totally agree, but like to add that how we sound tells “us how language must be constructed in order to fulfill its purpose, in order to have such-and-such an effect on human beings.”

SVB speakers have a different effect on listeners than NVB speakers. Also, the SVB speaker’s “use of signs” is different from the NVB speaker. Although SVB and NVB speakers may use the same words, these words have different meanings because of how they sound. Moreover, the SVB speaker uses different signs than the NVB speaker. SVB speakers vocalize safety signs with the sound of their voice, while NVB speakers vocalize signs which indicate threat.  Thus, the SVB/NVB distinction explains our use of vocal signs.

Ribes-Iñesta comes closer to the SVB/NVB distinction as Wittgenstein as he writes “In fact, grammar is an invention of the language games being played by individuals according to their practical conventions. Grammar is a description—sometimes inaccurate and delayed—of the uses of language as activities articulated within a form of life.” Since he doesn’t know about the SVB/NVB distinction, Ribes-Iñesta is unable to pinpoint that the use of NVB language only makes sense within the NVB community and that the use of SVB language is only articulated within the SVB community.

The SVB community is a different “form of life” than the NVB community. Wittgenstein might have been thinking out loud as he wrote “The rules of grammar may be called “arbitrary,” if that is to mean that the aim of the grammar is nothing but that of the language. If someone says “If our language had not this grammar, it could not express these facts,” it should be asked what “could” means here (1953, p. 497)”. However, it should be stated emphatically: it is due to how we sound that we cannot express certain facts. The question: what “could” means here (?) shows that Wittgenstein was  fixating on the verbal, which is a characteristic of NVB.  Ribes-Iñesta’s explanation, on the other hand, leads to the verbal community.

Ribes-Iñesta’s comes close to describing the SVB community when he states that “Grammar is not the condition that makes language effective or sound. On the contrary, grammar is the consequence of language as a meaningful social practice.” It is only the NVB community which believes that “grammar is the condition that makes language effective or sound.” Although NVB communities are ubiquitous and, like SVB communities, also claim to experience “meaningful social practice”, they have less room for such practices in the same way that SVB communities have less room for the coercive behavioral control that is practiced by the members of the NVB communities. The language that is allowed, that can be produced, that is, what is said in NVB verbal communities, is a consequence of how they say it, of how they sound.

April 23, 2016

April 23, 2016

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader,

In “Human Behavior as Language: Some Thoughts on Wittgenstein” (2006) Emilio Ribes-Iñesta writes “Human behavior cannot be understood if we separate language and social practice. Language without social practice and social practice without language are senseless.” There is no question about it that “we separate language and social practice” all the time, and, that as a consequence, “our social practice” as well as our “language” are “senseless.” Why do we do this? Although he touches on this issue, Ribes-Iñesta cannot really ask and answer this question. He doesn’t know about the distinction between Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) and Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB).

The separation between language and social practice occurs and keeps occurring because of how we talk. It doesn’t occur in SVB, it only occurs in NVB. Ribes-Iñesta’s, and Wittgenstein’s and Skinner’s, insistence on  language is key to experiencing and understanding the SVB/NVB distinction. When  Ribes-Iñesta writes that “Human psychological phenomena, either identified as individual experience or as behavior, become meaningful only in the context of social life, always occurring as language and through language”, he refers to SVB, not NVB. 

And, when Wittgenstein asserts “to imagine a language means to imagine a form of life” (1953, pp. 8, 19), he too, unknowingly, refers to SVB. Also, Skinner was inadvertently referring to SVB, when he began his book Verbal Behavior (1957, p. 1) with the following sentences:  “Men act upon the world, and change it, and are changed in turn by the consequences of their action. Certain processes, which the human organism shares with other species, alter behavior so that it achieves safer and more useful interchange with a particular environment” (italics added by me).  Skinner was not referring to NVB, in which the speaker’s voice is experienced by the listener as an aversive stimulus, in which the speaker is forcing the listener to listen and coercing him or her to do as he or she is saying. Why do we need a “safer and more useful interchange with a particular environment” in the first place? We need it, because NVB deteriorates such a positive environment. Furthermore, we need SVB to experience safety and to make sense of the world. We will be changed by SVB speech actions. And, we will change our world by reducing our NVB.

April 22, 2016

April 22, 2016

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader,

In “Human Behavior as Language: Some Thoughts on Wittgenstein” (2006) Emilio Ribes-Iñesta writes “Given the characteristics of Wittgenstein’s writings, I will quote him extensively in order not to distort his ideas.” He is trying stay as true to what Wittgenstein was actually saying as he could. Ribes-Iñesta carefully explains why he gives Wittgenstein so much room, so much context. “This expositive method has nothing to do with a doctrinary or exegetic attitude regarding Wittgenstein’s claims; it is only a safe method to transcribe his arguments properly.” Although Ribes-Iñesta does a great job transcribing Wittgenstein’s arguments, what was not mentioned was that Wittgenstein was attempting to describe Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB).

According to Malcolm, who wrote “A Memior” about Wittgenstein (2001), “his ideas were generally misunderstood and distorted even by those who professed to be his disciples. He doubted he would be better understood in the future. He once said he felt as though he was writing for people who would think in a different way, breathe a different air of life, from that of present-day men.” I think Wittgenstein was referring to SVB. Ribes-Iñesta makes use of Wittgenstein’s writings to illustrate important things about behaviorism.  SVB will once be understood as having that function as well.

Even if we have behaviorism it is still very much needed that we reflect on “improper interpretations of language expressions disconnected from the action and context in which they are used.” Ribes-Iñesta, who recognizes that Wittgenstein was essentially advocating a behavioral account, writes “Wittgenstein was concerned with the improper interpretations of language expressions disconnected from the action and context in which they are used. His questions and arguments were directed to show the confusions and distortions engendered by the improper interpretation of utterances and expressions. A correct analysis of expressions in context should allow us to “dissolve” the problems thus generated.” I don’t want the reader to miss out on what Ribes-Iñesta has written about Wittgenstein either because it shows how necessary it is that we are finally getting to the distinction between SVB and Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB) without which even behaviorists keep being stuck with “improper interpretations of language expression” which are “disconnected from the action and the context in which they are used.”

Wittgenstein’s “language games” were his attempt to provide a functional account.  The “psychological phenomena such as “seeing,” “remembering,” or “knowing” have several meanings” depending of what they are a function. As we explore, while we talk, the SVB/NVB distinction, it becomes clear why it has taken us such a long time to recognize that our own sound is needed to contextualize our language. “Wittgenstein’s remarks on psychological phenomena are not a psychological theory or a theory about language. They support arguments and reflections about the social nature of human life and how it is inevitably impregnated with language.” SVB enlightens us about the “the social nature of human life”, but NVB prevents us from acknowledging this “social nature.” Much of what we have called “social” is hierarchical.

The SVB/NVB distinction reveals that expression of our “social nature” requires equality and SVB, but is made impossible by NVB which maintains inequality and hierarchical relationships. As long as we don’t know how to continue SVB, our social nature will not blossom and mental health issues will emerge. SVB has the potential to dissolve all our social problems. It may sound unbelievable and idealistic, but this is a fact which can and must be verified. Social problems are called social problems, because of NVB. In SVB we don’t call it that. NVB communicators are anti-social and hierarchical. Inequality will either dissolve by how we talk or will be maintained by it.

“In order to avoid confusions and to dissolve false problems” SVB is absolutely “indispensable.” Malcolm (1971) “characterizes this approach to philosophy by saying that “Philosophical work of the right sort merely unties knots in our understanding. The result is not a theory but simply no knots! ”SVB is the way of talking which “merely unties knots in our understanding.” I rather call it a social approach than a philosophical approach. What we have called philosophy is called philosophy as we didn’t know how to talk about it. 

We have never recognized that only in NVB things are difficult to talk about. Our inability to talk and engage in SVB has given rise to all sort constructs, which have no validity at all. Skinner correctly argued against all these unnecessary theories.  “Human behavior cannot be understood if we separate language and social practice. Language without social practice and social practice without language are senseless.” Here Ribes-Iñesta gives us a perfect characterization of NVB. All the so-called social practices, which involve the establishment and the maintenance of hierarchical, unequal relationships, were based on NVB. SVB, on the other hand, transcends this hierarchy and makes it look primitive and limiting.  The logic of language is neither grounded on fictitious hierarchical relationships nor on the “fictitious universal logic of a rational or formal syntax or grammar.”

April 21, 2016

April 21, 2016

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader,

An interesting event took place which can be used to illustrate the difference between Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) and Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB). I know a schizophrenic man, who rents a room from an older lady. He knows me and he wanted to introduce me to her, so when the occasion arose, he told her that I am a psychology instructor at Butte College and that I have developed a view of how we communicate with each other which is based on how we sound. Although he did a pretty good job explaining it to her, she interrupted him with a question. When he replied that he was not finished explaining what he was saying and was just about to explain to her what she was asking, he became upset with her for cutting him off. She justified this by saying that she didn’t want to be on the receiving end of his tangential explanations, which often are all over the map. He left us in frustration, indicating to me that this is what often happens between the two of them. 

It was clear that she wanted him to listen to her and he didn’t want to listen to her because he wanted her to listen to him.  They both of them engaged in NVB, in which other-listening is more important than self-listening. He was not listening to himself and she wasn’t listening to herself either, but each demanded to be listened by the other person. I explained this to the lady. She understood me. She acknowledged it was true and admitted she had no idea this was continuously happening. This example maps onto so many other of our problematic conversations. We are not stimulated to listen to ourselves as we were repeatedly told to listen to others.  We have been conditioned to listen to others. That is why we don’t listen to ourselves. Of course, we can and should listen to ourselves. As long as we don’t listen to ourselves, we cannot and will not be able to listen to each other. Although some of us may have been listened to a little more than others while growing up, nobody was ever taught that self-listening is the basis for other-listening.

April 20, 2016

April 20, 2016

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader,

In “Human Behavior as Language: Some Thoughts on Wittgenstein” (2006) Emilio Ribes-Iñesta writes that “language is a psychological phenomenon, and its morphology is central to any attempt to understand it.” With the word “morphology” linguists usually mean the form of language. Linguists haven’t paid any attention to how we sound while we speak, since they, like behaviorists, don’t distinguish between Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) and Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB).  Like all modern academics they are mainly busy with writing and reading papers and books, but they don’t spend much time on investigating and exploring language while they speak and listen. 

Interestingly, Ribes-Iñesta tries to argue against “the general conception of language as a psychological phenomenon,” by putting forward the notion of Wittgenstein’s “Language Game” (1953). While behaviorism only focuses on behavior, “Wittgenstein’s writings are not structured treatises dealing just with one issue.” However, it is clear from his writing that Wittgenstein was more into talking than writing. All his examples are based on “our language practices or usages in the form of expressions or episodes.” 

Wittgenstein, like Skinner and Ribes-Iñesta, tries to stay as close to the data as possible. He was able to “raise questions in order to show inconsistencies between what we actually mean (or do not mean) when saying something and the conceptual distortions that derive from unwarranted assumptions and arguments about the meaning of language” (underlining added). As these remarks about meaning refer to the relationship between the speaker and listener, that is, the speaker and the speaker-as-own-listener (Skinner, 1957), they would never arise from NVB, in which this connection is completely ignored.

The questions which were raised by Wittgenstein refer to SVB, interaction in which our speaking and listening behaviors are joined and in which the speaker and the listener so to speak become one. The “inconsistencies” he talks about are characteristic for NVB, in which the speaker coerces his or her meaning onto the listener.  In NVB the speaker talks AT the listener, but in SVB, the speaker talks WITH the listener. These “inconsistencies” never even occur to the speaker in NVB as he or she is used to forcing others to listen to him or to her. Stated differently, in NVB the speaker doesn’t need to listen to him or herself as others are made to listen to him or to her.