Realism and Worldviews Lecture 2 • Formism A Bit on Truth, a Bit of History, – a priori organized into discreet events More on Contextualism, Kinds of • Mechanism Theories, Fields/Levels – a priori organized into parts, relations and forces • Organicism – a priori evolving whole • Science—”taking the cover off” Kelly G. Wilson, Ph.D. • History of the analyst may effect analysis, but does not effect that which is analyzed • Knowledge is important in and of itself, how things are is sufficient justification

Contextualism The Truth about Skinner • Truth is local and pragmatic • His pragmatism was not entirely – Local to the goal (to the extent the goal is shared, consistent the locale is shared) • Successful working/Effective action • Perhaps it was the lack of interest in • Direction, distance, metric is inherent articulating the underlying philosophy • The only foundation is the consequence • Perhaps success is heady brew • This differs from all others, since for the others • Skinner wavers on scientific knowledge the nature of the world is the foundation • Act in context assumes purpose • Also true of the act of analysis Skinner and Truth Cutting nature at It’s Joints • “a corpus of rules for effective action, and there is a special sense in which it could be • “…a system of behavior which has a ‘true’ if it yields the most effective action possible.” (1974, p. 235) structure determined by the nature of • “If he analyzes the world around him, and if, the subject matter itself.” (Skinner, 1938, p. as result, he states facts or laws which make 435) it possible for others to respond effectively without personal exposure to that world, then he produces something in which he is no longer involved. When many other scientists arrive at the same facts and laws, any personal contribution is reduced to a minimum.” (1974, p. 144-5)

Descriptive Contextualism Contextualism and Truth • Active appreciation of an event • If goals/values are historical – True understanding = sense of appreciation • And, approaching goals/values is the • Dx from Organicism truth criterion of contextualism – No ultimate analysis being approached • Then the situatedness of the analyst is – Problems—two-fold – Infinitely local (personal appreciation) fundamental (i.e., not a nuisance, • Progressivity necessary) • Progress implies goals, but if goal is appreciation, this appreciation cannot be further along than that • No person, no problem, no problem, no • Mounting practical goals problematic goal, no goal, no science – Infinitely expansive (mysticism) • Organicism tempts Functional Contextualism Two Threats to Contextualism • Prediction and influence of events – True understanding = ability to predict and influence • Mechanism – Engineering/physics – Saved by a recognition of the context – Applied/basic psychology dependence of theory, theorizing • Dx from mechanism – In particular, the context established by the – “Parts” are useful fiction (e.g., causes/effects) goal being pursued • Problems – Necessity of clear explication of goal and recognition of the limits of theory – Methods can threaten root metaphor • My theory does not in-principle apply given • Mechanism tempts different goals

Levels of analysis Front Perspective Drawing MY HOUSE:

Frontal perspective drawing of house

Blueprint of house, house represented

A square on map

*even levels is somewhat problematic, if widely used. Perhaps fields would be a better descriptor (see J. R. Kantor) Floor Plan 3 PURPOSES: On a Map RECOGNIZE BUILD FIND Lafeyette Co. High School

Highway 334 Highway 6 La Rhonda Drive 84

Levels and Primacy/Foundations 2nd Threat to Contextualism • Not opposed to any other level of analysis • No finding of physiology will ever contradict • Infinite expansion (see descriptive Cx) facts about the orderly relation between • Saved by the nature of the goals that context and behavior are selected • No finding of the behavior analysis will ever contradict facts about the orderly relations • Bottom line: clarity of purpose of between physiology and behavior or between scientific effort is the prophylactic context and physiology against both the tyranny of mechanism • Claims of the causal primacy and the abyss of endlessly dispersive • There is arrogance on all sides—beware!!! analyses Subjective/Objective ruth or Strategy • Interobserver agreement is not the be-all, T end-all—it is a tool • Evolutionary Continuity • Resolves to an issue of controlling variables • Some controlling variables are a problem for • Determinism a progressive science • Orderliness • Organize practices that minimize sources of • Environmentalist control that reduce progressivity • Anti-reductive—behavior as a subject – Interobserver agreement protects against some types of problematic controlling variables, but not matter worthy of study in it’s own right all (Paris in the Spring) • All adopted as strategies in service of – Replication and replicability the prediction and influence of behavior – Systematic documentation – Systematic evaluation procedures

Some Notes on Evolution and Operationism and The ’45 Paper Behavior • Psychology as part of biology • Skinner takes a wholly different position • Upward, but not downward continuity • “Meanings, contents, and references are – Tree metaphor for evolution to be found among the determiners, not • Blind Variation and Selective Retention (BV- the properties, of a response.” (1945) SR) (SR-based on survival value) • Determiners? • Role of variability – Stimulus (an inflamed tooth) • Role of adaptation – Response (ouch, my tooth hurts!) • Role of exaptation – Reinforcer (consolation, aspirin, quick – The half-a-wing problem appointment) The Role of Private Events Operationism and The ’45 Paper • 4 means of circumventing privacy • Operational analysis = explication of the context that establishes and maintains the response of interest – Well correlated public accompaniments • This is a psychological solution – Collateral responses • Skinner applies the same analysis to the behavior of the – Descriptions of one’s own behavior, trained in scientist as he does to the any other behavior public context • Operational analysis of verbal behavior of scientist is an • Behavior that recedes to private realm analysis of the conditions that establish and maintain – Metaphorical extension the response • Foot feels like soda pop • An explication of controlling variables establishes the • Depressed is a stretch (more at the end of the semester) contextual conditions necessary to generate and maintain talk of a certain sort

Behavior Analysis Myths Evidence of life • Declared dead on several occasions • Emerging behavior analysis certification – “Rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated.” Mark Twain • Court mandated behavioral approaches to • There is a functional/contextual/pragmatist treatment in some childhood behavior line of analysis that has survived the rise and problems, autism, developmental disabilities fall of structuralism, mechanistic behaviorism (don’t see that with cog, cog neuro, certainly (including S-R & S-O-R psychology), gestalt not with Hull, Tolman) psychology, and the rise of cognitive psychology and cognitive neuroscience • Dominance of contingency management and exposure procedures on EST list • Never large • Ever present Behavior Analysis Myths Behavior Analysis Myths • Anti-theoretical • Are theories of learning necessary? (1950) • Denies private events: thinking, feeling, • Contingencies of Reinforcement: A Theoretical imagining, consciousness Analysis (1969) • See primary sources for persistent • “…any explanation of an observed fact which interest appeals to events taking place somewhere else, • Difference from other areas is the role at some other level of observation, described in different terms, and measured, if at all, in of private events in an analysis of different dimensions.” (Skinner, 1950, p. 193, quoted in behavior the Leigland article) • Are cognitions causes? • Commitment is connected to influence of selective effects of observation and experimentation

Comments on Cognition as Cause Comments on Cognition as Cause • Hayes & Brownstein, 1986 • Properly speaking cognition is a • Cognition is often wholly superfluous to reification of thinking the goals of prediction and influence • Cognitions cannot be causes because • But not always they do not meet the requirements of – Dx between human and animal performance prediction and influence – Dx in human performance between instructed • Cognition can meet the prediction and shaped performance requirement, but not the influence • Human performances cannot be wholly requirement understood absent analyses of the role of • Influence requires IV’s to be in-principle cognition directly manipulable • Thinking is an entirely legitimate DV Behavior Analysis Myths • Empty organism • Denies role of physiology • (Sometimes associated with view of organism as empty of private events) • No denial of physiology, merely not the subject matter of this analysis • Is physiology “empty?” – What about electrons, protons, neutrons, quarks, charm?