ON MENTALISM, METHODOLOGICAL BEHAVIORISM, AND RADICAL BEHAVIORISM

Abstract

The present paper is verbal behavior concerned with other verbal behavior. More technically, it can be said that the present paper is verbal behavior that has been occasioned in large measure by the verbal behavior of other scientists as well as by the variables that have occasioned such verbal behavior. The paper is divided into four sections. The first section of the paper considers the topic of operationism in psychology. The objective in this section is to draw some broad distinctions between the way most psychologists interpret operationism and the way that radical behaviorists interpret operationism. The topic of mentalism is considered in the second section. The objective in this section is to examine what radical behaviorists mean when they talk about mentalism in psychology. The third section of the paper considers the collection of experimental practices called methodological behaviorism. The objective in this section is to examine the nature of these practices, the variables responsible for them, and the relation between mentalism and methodological behaviorism. The fourth section of the paper considers scientific verbal behavior. The objective in this section is to examine certain classes of scientific statements in an effort to assess the nature of the controlling relations for those statements. In the sense that the present paper is verbal behavior critically concerned with other verbal behavior, the use of language is understandably very important. It is potentially inconsistent, of course, to criticize some explanation of behavior as mentalistic, e.g., by indicating that it appeals to inner causes, and then say that the person offering this kind of explanation does so because of certain mentalistic regarding the causes of the behavior in question (see also Day, 1976, p. 90; Skinner, 1969, pp. 103-4). If assumptions are taken to be mental, logical, or subjective entities that are possessed and that have the ability to cause certain explanatory practices, i.e., if they are taken as inner causes themselves, then there is little question that the criticism itself is mental istic and that the critic is being inconsistent. On the other hand, if the term assumptions means a particular kind of stimulus control exerted by a partic ular kind of stimulus, such as that exerted by a particular verbal rule in cases of rule governed behavior, then there is presumably no mentalism or inconsistency. The central issue in the analysis of verbal behavior is the source of control over that verbal behavior, rather than its form. What appear to be inconsistencies in

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