Summarize Sechenov’s argument that thoughts cannot cause behavior.
Ivan M. Sechenov is one of the founders of objective psychology, hailing from Russia. He started his career in engineering, but later switched to medicine. He studied with great professors like Johannes Muller and Hermann von Helmholtz, in Berlin and was very much influenced by Spencer’s and Darwin’s theory.
Sechenov had great influence of Le Mettrie and had developed profound interest in the theory of positivism of Berlin’s physiologists. In fact, Sechenov penned down his thoughts and clearly explained the psychic phenomena based on associatism and materialism. He denied the perception that thoughts cause behavior. His focus of attention was on that external stimulation causes all behavior.
He did not deny of the consciousness concept and also of its importance. He simply insisted that there was nothing mysterious about this concept and gave an explanation for this in terms of physiological processes, which are triggered by external events.
According to him, overt behavior and the mental processes are both reflexive in the sense that they are both triggered by external stimulation filtered through physiological processes taking place in the brain.