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| Beyond Realism and Anti-Realism: Metaphysical and Ontological Issues in Behaviorism and Interbehaviorism |
| Sunday, May 25, 2025 |
| 9:00 AM–10:50 AM |
| Convention Center, Street Level, 149 AB |
| Area: PCH/VBC; Domain: Theory |
| Chair: Andres H. Garcia-Penagos (California State University, Chico) |
| Discussant: Linda J. Parrott Hayes (University of Nevada, Reno) |
| Abstract: While often unrecognized, metaphysical and ontological issues are unavoidable in the conduct of science, both in the development of scientific theories and in the conduct of research. As such, these issues have important, though frequently overlooked, consequences on the behavior of theoreticians, scientists, and practitioners. Psychology is no exception; metaphysical and ontological issues have relevance in understanding critical current conceptual and methodological debates in the discipline. Drawing from the pragmatist tradition, both radical behaviorism and interbehaviorism have mostly adopted a skeptical attitude towards the notions like “reality” and “truth.” However, recent debates in the field over the nature and reality of psychological phenomena illuminate important discrepancies and unresolved issues not too separate from those that are the motive of debate in psychology and related sciences like biology. This symposium will discuss four perspectives on such issues. Reflecting on and critiquing the ontological and metaphysical stances in both radical behaviorism and interbehaviorism is essential for understanding the current status of these approaches within psychology and the broader natural sciences, and the promise that they hold as viable alternatives to the current psychological zeitgeist, particularly in light of their growing conceptual isolation. |
| Instruction Level: Intermediate |
| Keyword(s): behaviorism, metaphysics, ontology, reality |
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| Avoiding Dualism and Developing an Alternative Ontology |
| JULIAN C. LESLIE (Ulster University) |
| Abstract: In an earlier account of the philosophical and cultural difficulties that go along with behavior analysis’s rejection of the dualism that permeates Western culture as well as contemporary psychology (Leslie, J. C. [2021]. The relevance of metaphysics to behavior analysis. Perspectives on Behavior Science, 44, 29-40), I argued that it is important for us to address and resolve those difficulties, and that some version of neutral monism – an approach favored by William James, Bertrand Russell and other 20th century philosophers - may be the appropriate non-dualistic ontology for behavior analysis. This paper will briefly review some of the earlier account, provide a version of neutral monism and then examine its implications for some issues within the field of behavior analysis, and for the relation of behavior analysis both to approaches to human behavior with a broadly similar conceptual framework, such as ecological psychology and interbehaviorism, and to dualistic approaches, such as cognitive psychology and mainstream psychology more generally. |
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| Reality and Knowing – Reflecting on the Conceptual Journey of One Behavior Scientist |
| MITCH FRYLING (California State University, Los Angeles) |
| Abstract: This presentation considers the topics of reality, truth, mysticism, and the accumulation of knowledge in science and behavior analysis. In particular, the works of Linda Parrott-Hayes are reviewed, including book chapters (1993, 1997) and publications (1997) focused on these issues. Topics within this broad area include one and two-universe systems, non-verbal and verbal knowing, coherence, and more. The concept of truth is also reviewed, including how truth is assessed and valued within scientific communities (e.g., by way of relative utility). In considering mysticism, additional concepts are described, including their implications for the understanding and accumulation of scientific knowledge. Throughout the review of the work in this area, conventional ideas are highlighted and contrasted with alternative ways of thinking. Additional varieties of behavior-analytic conceptualizations of these issues are also briefly considered. It is argued that a consideration of these sorts of philosophical assumptions facilitates further progress and helps to focus the work of behavior scientists. |
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Dualism, Monism, Process, and Behavior |
| SARAH COWIE (University of Auckland, New Zealand), William Baum (University of California, Davis) |
| Abstract: Dualism proposes two categories of existence, often called material and immaterial. Dualism conflicts with natural science, due to two problems: specious explanations and incoherent subject matter. Realism presents the same problems, because realism is a form of dualism. The alternative, monism, leads to process ontology, which takes the universe as a process and all existences as sub-processes or process-parts. Every process is an integrated whole composed of parts that function together and are themselves processes. An organism is a process. Some of its parts are processes that interact with the environment. These constitute behavior. They are activities. As a process, an activity has temporal extent and function. The function of any activity is the wider activity of which it is a part. Process ontology holds the promise of a true natural science of behavior, based on evolutionary theory and replacing older concepts like the molecular view of behavior based on realism. |
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| You’re Both (Wrong) Right: A Deweyan Perspective on the Realism vs. Pragmatism Debate |
| ANDRES H. GARCIA-PENAGOS (California State University, Chico) |
| Abstract: John Dewey’s “The Reflex Arc Concept in Psychology “(1896) is often cited as one of the most influential papers in the history of psychology and as a precursor or even a manifesto of what would later be called the Chicago school of functionalism in psychology. Dewey’s work as a psychologist has often been overshadowed by his many contributions in philosophy and education. In doing so, his extensive theoretical contributions to the shaping of modern behaviorism have been mostly ignored or tend to refer almost exclusively to his famous article. As one of the most prominent academic figures of American philosophy and psychology, Dewey was one of the first academics to recognize the implications of evolutionary thinking in the understanding of animal and human action. Dewey developed a distinctive and particular version of pragmatism, both akin and different from that of Peirce and James, but rooted in the pragmatistic rejection of dualism, and in the centrality of action. Not surprisingly, Dewey’s points anticipated many ideas of later behaviorists, and have a large if unrecognized resemblance to some of the views espoused by B. F. Skinner and other modern behaviorists, interbehaviorists like J. R. Kantor, as well as those of many current enactivists in the philosophy of mind. Brown (2012) has likewise made the point that Dewey was fundamentally a philosopher of science. I will argue this aspect of his work (often ambiguously referred to by the name of ‘instrumentalism’) might be illuminating in discussing some of the tensions regarding metaphysic and ontological issues in contemporary behaviorism, strongly rejecting the “God’s-eye view” perspective often associated with realism, while simultaneously rejecting the skepticism often linked with strong anti-realist (instrumentalist) perspectives. Dewey’s views will be shown to be fully compatible with the tenets of modern behaviorism/interbehaviorism, particularly in emphasizing a thoroughly (inter)behavioral approach to science and scientific theorization and research. |
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