Holt’s Realism: New Reasons for Behavior Analysis

Abstract

This chapter argues that behavior analysis must be supported by a realist philosophy. The New Realism that E. B. Holt and his colleagues launched in 1910 enjoyed only a few years of existence, and behaviorism in any radical form has been claimed to be dead for a while. The chapter explains the direct perception approach to long-term remembering and from then to imagery, hallucinations, and dreams in human subjects. Behavior analysts are unlikely to be swayed by philosophical speculation, but to repeat, those who neglect the philosophical issue of direct realism do so to their own empirical peril. Psychophysics, long-term remembering, and perceptual plasticity are only a sample of connected issues that call neither for dissolution nor neglect but rather for integration with B. F. Skinner's operant concepts. Behavior analysts and ecological psychologists may be more aware than before of the commonalities between their respective approaches.

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