Behaviorism (footnote to a side note)

Iorwerth Thomas · 03 Feb 2005, 04:29 · from 2005-February.txt.gz

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From: iorweththomas at hotmail.com (Iorwerth Thomas)
Date: Thu Feb  3 04:29:05 2005
Subject: (urth) Behaviorism (footnote to a side note)
In-Reply-To: <1f7617370502020939286e70a5 at mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <BAY102-F33B55A483A6D23FC875C27B97F0 at phx.gbl>

>From: Dan'l Danehy-Oakes <danldo at gmail.com>
>
>Behaviorism[1] seems to-me a legitimate and scientific position.
>
>Behaviorism[2] seems to-me to have been concocted as a parody
>of behaviorism[1].
>
>However, some extreme behaviorists[1] often act and speak as if
>they actually believed in behaviorism[2].
>

Hmm, I think (going by conversations with a psychologist flatmate) that [1] 
is historically prior to [2]... That may be because one gets so used to a 
stance taken for the sake of scientific method that one starts to take it as 
reality (add in logical postivism, and [1] pretty much becomes equivalent to 
[2], since the only things we can talk about are scientifically provable 
things, if you're a logical positivist).   Which do you class Skinner as?

I keep coming across articles in the New Scientist that seem to be 
attempting to argue from [1] to [2].  That depresses me.

Iorwerth

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