BEHAVIORAL AND BRAIN SCIENCES (1986) 9, 687-724 Printed in the United States of America Precis of Behaviorism: A conceptual reconstruction G. E. Zuriff Department of Psychology, Wheaton College, Norton, Mass. 02766 Abstract: The conceptual framework of behaviorism is reconstructed in a logical scheme rather than along chronological lines. The resulting reconstruction is faithful to the history of behaviorism and yet meets the contemporary challenges arising from cognitive science, psycholinguistics, and philosophy. In this reconstruction, the fundamental premise is that psychology is to be a natural science, and the major corollaries are that psychology is to be objective and empirical. To a great extent, the reconstruction of behaviorism is an elaboration of behaviorist views of what it is for a science to be objective and empirical. The reconstruction examines and evaluates behaviorist positions on observation and the rejection of introspection, the behavioral data language, theory construction, stimulus-response psychology, the organization of behavior, complex processes, agency, and the interpretation of mentalistic language. The resulting reconstruction shows behaviorism to be a pragmatic psychological version of positivism based on a behavioral epistemology. Keywords: behaviorism; cognitivism; conditioning; epistemology; history of science; introspection; mind; philosophy of science; theory-construction General overview. After dominating American psychol- Because there is no set of necessary and sufficient ogy for nearly a half century, behaviorism today finds conditions that identify behaviorist ideas, a more fruitful itself on the defensive. New and competing approaches to approach is to view the various behaviorist positions as psychology have arisen in psycholinguistics, cognitive sharing a family resemblance: A set of overlapping fea- science, and philosophy. A reformulation of behaviorism tures, some related by ties of similarity and some by is called for, one that takes into account these challenges. historical association. Behaviorism is not the science of behavior developed The first premise in the conceptual reconstruction of by behaviorists. It is, rather, the conceptual framework behaviorism is that psychology is a natural science. Two underlying that science. First, it is a philosophy of science important corollaries are: (1) Science, and psychology in dictating standards for posing psychological questions particular, must be empirically based; (2) science, and and for the methodology, explanations, and psychological psychology in particular, must be objective. The meaning theory involved in answering them. Second, behaviorism of "objective," and "empirical," for behaviorism, as well is a philosophy of mind that makes certain assumptions as the meaning of "science," is apparent only in the about human nature and the working of the mind. Third, context of the full reconstruction of behaviorism. there are several very general empirical hypotheses that constitute a background theory for all behavioral theo- Observation: The case against introspection. The first ries. Fourth, behaviorism is an ideology, recommending node in the behaviorist tree diagram is the rejection of goals for behavioral science and its application. introspection, the internal observation of one's own con- In this conceptual reconstruction, the entire scope of sciousness, as a method of observation for psychology. behaviorism, from roughly 1910 to the present, is consid- The branches leading from this node represent the rea- ered. The reconstruction is organized around conceptual sons for this rejection. One behaviorist objection to intro- issues rather than historical periods. The conceptual spection is that it is especially prone to error. However, framework of behaviorism is elaborated as a logical rather proponents of introspection reply that it can be as objec- than a chronological development. The reconstruction tive as any other kind of observation when carried out begins with a few fundamental premises, but because properly. A second objection is that introspection's sub- their implications can be developed in more than one ject matter, consciousness, is not objective. This crit- way, the framework is organized like a branching tree icism, however, either begs the question or is based on diagram. Each node of the tree represents a conceptual unsupported metaphysical notions of objectivity. choice point, often generated by a criticism of behav- A third objection is that introspective evidence and iorism or by the application of behaviorist analysis to a observations are private, that is, available to only one new question. Each branch growing from a node sym- observer. For evidence and observations to be objective, bolizes a different conceptual decision. A major purpose they should be available to, and verifiable by, any of this reconstruction is to prune the behaviorist tree number of observers. Thus, "private" is equated with diagram of weak positions and to note or, when necessary, "subjective," and "public" is identified with "objective." create critically sound paths through it. Proponents of introspection offer two replies. First, © 1986 Cambridge University Press 0J40-525X/86/040687-38/J05.00 687 Zuriff: Reconstructing behaviorism they argue that although introspective reports cannot be verbal community cannot ensure a rigid discriminative verified by shared observation, they can be verified relationship between the verbal response and the private indirectly. For example, although Smith might have been stimuli. Therefore, the link between introspective re- the only person to observe a meteor strike earth, his ports and internal stimuli is not a reliable one, and report can be indirectly verified by, for example, finding introspection is not an objective method of observation. ash at the site. By analogy, Smith's introspective observa- tions can be verified indirectly from evidence about The behavioral data language. The next major node in the Smith's prior and subsequent behavior, his accuracy in behaviorist conceptual tree diagram is the selection of a reporting other kinds of observations, and the reports of domain for psychology. Behaviorists generally support other introspectors. molar behaviorism, the position that an autonomous This reply by the introspectionist, however, is based on science of behavior independent of physiology is both a false analogy between indirect confirmation in cases of possible and desirable. Behaviorists differ, however, in observations which can in principle be public but happen distinguishing between behavior and physiological not to have been (e.g., Smith's observation of the meteor) events. Despite numerous behaviorist attempts to define and observations which cannot in principle be public this boundary, it remains elusive. A more promising (e.g., Smith's introspection of his feelings ofhunger). The approach is to abandon such a priori distinctions and to two differ fundamentally with regard to the relationship seek definitions dependent on actual developments with- between the evidence and the report it supports. With in a science of behavior. With advances in behavioral public observations this relationship is based on em- research, laws are discovered that govern not only the pirically determined regularities that are themselves es- original paradigms of behavior, but a wider range of tablished by public observations (e.g., ash and meteors). phenomena as well. This range, then, determines a With private introspections, however, this is not the case. scientific domain, with "behavior" defined as whatever For Smith's publicly observed eating behavior to serve as conforms to these laws. At a more advanced stage, laws an indirect verification of his report of feeling hunger, it is are organized by comprehensive psychological theories, necessary to establish a correlation between the two. and the terms of the science are extended to whatever Hunger, rather than mere reports of hunger, must be phenomena are covered by a theory. observed and correlated with behavior. However, by Behaviorist advocacy of an autonomous science of be- hypothesis, hunger can be observed only by private havior independent of physiology rests on a behaviorist observation, and the validity of such observation is pre- family trait: the belief that the goals of scientific psychol- cisely the question at issue. ogy are the prediction and control of behavior. Autono- A second reply to the behaviorist objection that intro- mous behavioral laws achieve these purposes because the spection is private and therefore subjective is to argue variables entering them are both relatively easily observ- that all observation is private. An introspectionist can able and manipulable, as compared with physiological claim that knowledge of the external world is really an events. Furthermore, many behaviorists fear that a con- inference from the immediate but private percept. Ver- cern with physiology tends to divert attention away from ification is not achieved through shared public experience behavior and its environmental causes. Others argue that but rather through the congruence of private experi- physiological psychology often finds a proximate cause for ences. behavior but then leaves this cause unexplained, giving Some behaviorists grant this introspectionist claim but the impression that it is brought about by an agent or act substitute a methodological distinction for the original of will hidden within the central nervous