Ebook: Behavior and Its Causes: Philosophical Foundations of Operant Psychology

This series will include monographs and collections of studies devoted to the investigation and exploration of knowledge, information, and data-processing systems of all kinds, no matter whether human, (other) animal, or machine. Its scope is intended to span the full range of interests from classical problems in the philosophy of mind and philosophical psychology through issues in cognitive psychology and sociobiology (concerning the mental capabilities of other species) to ideas related to artificial intelligence and computer science. While primary emphasis will be placed upon theoretical, conceptual, and epistemological aspects of these problems and domains, empirical, experimental, and methodological studies will also appear from time to time. While most philosophers and psychologists tend to believe that the rise of cognitive psychology has occurred concomitant with the decline of operant psychology, Terry L. Smith contends that nothing could be further from the truth. He maintains that operant psychology has discovered (and continues to discover) reasonably well-confirmed causal principles of intentional behavior, which go beyond what cognitive psychology can provide, while cognitive psychology, in tum, has the potential to supply analyses (and explanations) that account for them. Smith thus advances a surprising but nonetheless illuminating perspective for appreciating the place of operant conditioning within the discipline of psychology in this rich and fascinating work. J. H. F.

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The rise of cognitive science in the 1960s was widely heralded as a scientific revolution -- an interpretation that implied the decline and eventual death of behavioral psychology. Although many forms of behavioral psychology did indeed disappear, there was a striking exception: the program of operant psychology founded by B.F. Skinner. This program actually grew at a rapid pace during the `cognitive revolution' and shows no signs of fading away.
What, then, is its place within psychology, and in particular, what is its relationship with cognitive psychology? This book attempts to answer that question.
Distinguishing between operant psychology and the philosophy of radical behaviorism, it concludes that even though radical behaviorism may have been a failure, the operant program of research has been a success. Furthermore, operant psychology and cognitive psychology complement one another, each having its own domain within which it contributes something valuable to, but beyond the reach of, the other.