Recently added articles from Behavior and Philosophy:
NATURE, NURTURE, AND INDIVIDUAL CHANGE
Jan 01, 2006; ... ABSTRACT: Determining the degree to which persistent human behaviors and traits are the result of genetics or environment is important for a host of theoretical reasons in psychology. This article asks whether the results of such determinations are relevant to the practical tasks of individual ...
B. F. SKINNER'S OTHER POSITIVISTIC BOOK: WALDEN TWO
Jan 01, 2006; ... ABSTRACT: B. F. Skinner's The Behavior of Organisms (1938/1966) and Walden Two (1948) are both positivistic. Skinner explicitly stated his approach was positivistic in The Behavior of Organisms although he did not make an explicit statement about Walden Two. Three features of positivism are ...
WHY NEURAL SYNCHRONY FAILS TO EXPLAIN THE UNITY OF VISUAL CONSCIOUSNESS
Jan 01, 2006; ... ABSTRACT: A central issue in philosophy and neuroscience is the problem of unified visual consciousness. This problem has arisen because we now know that an object's stimulus features (e.g., its color, texture, shape, etc.) generate activity in separate areas of the visual cortex (Felleman & ...
ARE CURRENT PHILOSOPHICAL THEORIES OF CONSCIOUSNESS USEFUL TO NEUROSCIENTISTS?
Jan 01, 2006; ... ABSTRACT: Two radically different families of theory currently compete for acceptance among theorists of human consciousness. The majority of theorists believe that the human brain somehow causes consciousness, but a significant minority holds that how the brain would cause this property ...
OF WHAT VALUE IS PHILOSOPHY TO SCIENCE? A REVIEW OF MAX R. BENNETT AND P. M. S. HACKER'S PHILOSOPHICAL FOUNDATIONS OF NEUROSCIENCE
Jan 01, 2006; ... ABSTRACT: The book Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience (2003) is an engaging criticism of cognitive neuroscience from the perspective of a Wittgensteinian philosophy of ordinary language. The authors' main claim is that assertions like "the brain sees" and "the left hemisphere thinks" are ...
CLASSIC ETHOLOGY REAPPRAISED
Jan 01, 2006; ... ABSTRACT: I analyze the theoretical tenets of early ethology and the criticisms leveled against it from comparative psychology. Early ethology had a clear research object, the study of behavioral adaptedness. Adaptedness was explained by the functional rules and programs that underlie the ...
HUMAN BEHAVIOR AS LANGUAGE: SOME THOUGHTS ON WITTGENSTEIN
Jan 01, 2006; ... ABSTRACT: Language has been traditionally considered as a special psychological or behavioral phenomenon, with a logical status similar to other phenomena such as learning, memory, and thinking. Based on Wittgenstein's notion of language game, I argue that language is not limited to a ...
EDITORIAL
Jan 01, 2005; ... The history of science consists of the continual clarification through experiment and reason of the language of science. Concepts evolve by gaining properties and losing others, by becoming differentiated from other concepts, and by changing their domain of applicability. Each concept is always ...
THE FUNCTIONS OF INTENTIONAL EXPLANATIONS OF ACTIONS
Jan 01, 2005; ... ABSTRACT: This paper deals with the functions of intentional explanations of actions (IEAs), i.e., explanations that refer to intentional states (beliefs, desires, etc.) of the agent. IEAs can have different formats. We consider these different formats to be instruments that enable the explainer ...
THE REFLEXIVE THEORY OF PERCEPTION
Jan 01, 2005; ... ABSTRACT: The Reflexive Theory of Perception (RTP) claims that perception of an object or property X by an organism Z consists in Z being caused by X to acquire some disposition D toward X itself. This broadly behavioral perceptual theory explains perceptual intentionality and correct versus ...
WHAT MÜLLER'S LAW OF SPECIFIC NERVE ENERGIES SAYS ABOUT THE MIND
Jan 01, 2005; ... ABSTRACT: Johannes Müller's law of specific nerve energies (LOSNE) states that the mind has access not to objects in the world but only to our nerves. This law implies that the contents of the mind have no qualities in common with environmental objects but serve only as arbitrary signs or ...
ANTIREALIST ARGUMENTS IN BEHAVIOR ANALYSIS
Jan 01, 2005; ... ABSTRACT: Some operant theorists have argued that the most fundamental concepts of behavior analysis have antirealist implications: for example, that stimuli have no physical properties, that we have no epistemic access to a physical world, that the world exists only in behavior, and that we are ...
BEHAVIORAL PRAGMATISM IS A-ONTOLOGICAL, NOT ANTIREALIST: A REPLY TO TONNEAU
Jan 01, 2005; ... ABSTRACT: Tonneau attributes an antirealist position to my writing. In my reply I argue that my position is not antirealist, but a-ontological. I subsequently consider the implications of Tonneau's core arguments in light of my a-ontological position and find that his claims do not apply to my ...
BEHAVIOR ANALYSIS, COMMON SENSE, AND LOGIC: REPLY TO BARNES-HOLMES
Jan 01, 2005; ... ABSTRACT: Bames-Holmes characterizes his views as a-ontological, not antirealist. My criticisms still apply. Barries-Holmes has not given any good reason to accept antirealism, nor has he given any good reason to accept an a-ontological position. Because his views, a-ontological or otherwise, ...
A MAN OF MANY GARDENS
Jan 01, 2005; ... ABSTRACT: A brief, personalized biographical sketch of the late Paul E. Meehl by a longtime colleague and friend. Through it, the author pays tribute to Meehl and provides an historical context and general backdrop for the accompanying articles by Kurt Salzinger and Travis Thompson, also ...
CLINICAL, STATISTICAL, AND BROKEN-LEG PREDICTIONS
Jan 01, 2005; ... ABSTRACT: Accurate prediction of behavior is a critical task for the psychologist, particularly for the practitioner. Outstanding among those who have successfully wrestled with this complicated task is Paul Meehl. Yet, small has been the influence of his work on the everyday practice of ...
PAUL E. MEEHL AND B. F. SKINNER: AUTITAXIA, AUTITYPY, AND AUTISM
Jan 01, 2005; ... ABSTRACT: Paul E. Meehl and B. F. Skinner, two of the foremost psychological theorists of the 20th century, overlapped at the University of Minnesota in the early 1940s when Skinner was a faculty member and Meehl was a graduate student. Though Skinner was well aware of, and influenced by, early ...
INTRODUCTION
Jan 01, 2004; ... The Guadalajara Biannual Symposium on the Science of Behavior is a continuing effort to bring together specialists from various disciplines (e.g., psychology, philosophy, biology, anthropology) to discuss scientific, conceptual, philosophical, and theoretical issues that arise from the ...
BEHAVIORISM FOR NEW PSYCHOLOGY: WHAT WAS WRONG WITH BEHAVIORISM AND WHAT IS WRONG WITH IT NOW
Jan 01, 2004; ... ABSTRACT: The evolution of behaviorism from its explicit beginning with John B. Watson's declaration in 1913 to the behaviorisms of the present is considered briefly. Contributions of behaviorism to scientific psychology then and now are critically assessed, arriving at the conclusion that ...
BEHAVIOR IS ABSTRACTION, NOT OSTENSION: CONCEPTUAL AND HISTORICAL REMARKS ON THE NATURE OF PSYCHOLOGY
Jan 01, 2004; ... ABSTRACT:In this paper I discuss (1) the nontechnical nature of the term "behavior"; (2) the need to revisit the Aristotelian concept of soul as the prime naturalistic subject matter of psychology; (3) the incompleteness of meaning when behavior is identified with movements or actions; (4) the ...