07 a Note on Ontological, Methodological and Philosophical Behaviorism

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A Note on Ontological, Methodological and Philosophical BehaviorismAuthor(s): Michael MartinSource: Behaviorism, Vol. 9, No. 2 (Fall, 1981), pp. 241-242Published by: Cambridge Center for Behavioral StudiesStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/27758987.

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A NOTE ON ONTOLOGICAL,METHODOLOGICAL ANDPHILOSOPHICAL BEHAVIORISM

Michael MartinBoston University

In a recent paper Owen J. Flanagan,1 argued that Skinner is an ontologicalbehaviorist and a philosophical behaviorist. Flanagan's paper is an importantcontribution to our understanding of Skinner. However, for reasons that are unclear, Flanagan seems to believe that what he says in the paper is in conflict withwhat I say in an earlier paper.2 In this note Iwill show that Flanagan's interpretation of Skinner is compatible with mine.First, Flanagan argues contra my position that Skinner's behaviorism is notmethodological, but ontological. 3 Flanagan fails to realize that as I characterize

methodological behaviorism one can be a methodological behaviorist and anontological behaviorist at the same time. I argue that someone who advocatescertain maxims, e.g., Formulate explanations only in terms of behavior and external environmental factors, is a methodological behaviorist if he or she advocates them on methodological grounds. However, as I go on to point out:Someone might advocate one or both of these maxims not on methodological grounds but on ontological grounds. One might advocate[maxim] M, for example, because one believes that behavioral and enenvironmental factors are the only real things there are to study by a psychologist. To be sure, someone might advocate one or more of the abovemaxims on both methodological and other grounds. But so long as partof the ground ismethodological I will refer to this person as amethodo

logical behaviorist.4So, in my view, Skinner is a methodological behaviorist as long as he givesmethodological reasons for advocating certain behavioristic maxims. That hemay also give ontological reasons does not refute my thesis that Skinner is amethodological behaviorist. Indeed, even if Flanagan is correct that Skinner'sbehaviorism is motivated primarily by what there is, my position remainsuntouched. In fact, the only way to refute my interpretation would be to showthat Skinner never gives methodological reasons for his behavioristic view. Flana

^wen J. Flanagan Skinnerian Metaphysics and the Problem of Operationism, Behaviorism 8, 19801-13Michael Martin Interpreting Skinner, Behaviorism 6, 1978, 129-138.3Flanagan, p. 14Martin, pp. 130-131.

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Michael Martingan does not even try to do this in his paper and, in any case, it iswell knownthat Skinner does sometimes give methodological reasons for his behaviorism.5In the conclusion of his paper, Flanagan maintains that Skinner is, to beprecise, a philosophical behaviorist in the sense recently explicated but deniedhim by Martin. 6 But I did not deny Skinner is a philosophical behaviorist. Infact, I distinguished several different senses in which Skinner might be a philosophical behaviorist, and I argued that he is a philosophical behaviorist in one ofthese senses.7 In particular, I argued that Skinner attempts to provide what Icalled behavioral pragmatic linguistic substitutions for mentalistic language andthat a philosophical behaviorist in one sense is simply someone who does attempt to provide such a pragmatic linguistic substitution. Consequently, insome sense Skinner is a philosophical behaviorist. Presumably it is this sense thatFlanagan is referring to when he mistakenly says that I have explicated a sense ofphilosophical behaviorism but denied that Skinner is a philosophical behavioristin this sense.

5See Skinner Behaviorism at Fifty, Contingencies of Reinforcement (New York: Appleton-CenturyCrofts, 1969), p. 240.

6Flanagan, p. 10.7See Martin, p. 132, p. 135.

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07 a Note on Ontological, Methodological and Philosophical Behaviorism