Conceptual Foundations of Radical Behaviorism by Jay Moore
This book is about the conceptual foundations of radical behaviorism. Radical behaviorism is the underlying philosophical perspective of behavior analysis, an approach to the science of behavior and its application associated with the thought and work of B. F. Skinner.
Each chapter in the book presents what radical behaviorism says about an important topic in a science of behavior, and then contrasts the radical behaviorist perspective with that of other forms of behaviorism, as well as other forms of psychology. The book is intended for advanced undergraduate or beginning graduate students, in courses within behavior analytic curricula dealing with conceptual foundations and radical behaviorism as a philosophy. Included for each chapter is a brief study guide to focus student attention on relevant issues. The book is not specifically concerned with the experimental analysis of behavior (e.g., research on schedules of reinforcement), applied behavior analysis (e.g., research on the best way to teach social skills and language to autistic children), or the delivery of behavior analytic professional services (e.g., descriptions of particular instances of application in education, developmental disabilities, or the world of business).
After an introductory chapter, the chapters in the first part are concerned with the foundations of behavior analysis. Chapters in this part deal with the history of behaviorism and behavior analysis, behavior as a subject matter in its own right (and as distinct from the subject matter of such other disciplines as neuroscience), the categories and concepts that are deployed in behavior analysis, and an examination of selection by consequences as a causal mode across the three levels of phylogeny, ontogeny, and culture.
Chapters in the second part are concerned with the realization of the radical behaviorist program in areas traditionally regarded as important in psychology. Chapters in this part deal with verbal behavior, private behavioral events, methods in a science of behavior, and the nature/origin/validity of scientific language, such as found in theories and explanations. Chapters in the third part compare and contrast radical behaviorism with alternative viewpoints. Chapters in this part deal with mentalism, cognitive psychology, psycholinguistics, and selected traditional issues in philosophy, including a position known generically as methodological behaviorism, which by some accounts is the orthodox position in contemporary psychology.
The concluding chapter is concerned with radical behaviorism as epistemology. This chapter reviews how the perspective of radical behaviorism allows one to profitably engage the question of knowledge in light of the concept of operant behavior and within human operant behavior, verbal behavior.
420 pages / paper / ISBN: 1-59738-011-3