Fraley - 'Foundations for a Natural Science of Philosophy

The Analysis of Verbal Behavior 1999, 16, 81-102

Foundations for a NaturalScience of Philosophy

Lawrence E. FraleyWest Virginia University

The functional relations among philosophy, science, technology, and intuition are examined.Those domains are each defined as behaviors, and each of them is then classified either asverbal, nonverbal, or both. Finally, those classes of behavior are organized into one integralbehavioral system. The concept of a science of philosophy is introduced. A science andtechnology of philosophy are not only possible but necessary. Such an approach to the dis-cipline of philosophy could lead to a new disciplinary structure for philosophy. Philosophycould be taught in academic departments as a verbal behavioral science. The discipline ofbehaviorology provides the foundations necessary to capacitate the traditional discipline ofphilosophy as a science and technology of verbal behavior commensurate with its potentialcultural mission.

DEFINING THE PROBLEM

How Scientists Regard Philosophy

Philosophy, as a product, is obvious-ly a record of verbal behavior, and phi-losophy, as an event, is verbal behaviorper se. Its potential form, to which werefer as a person's philosophical rep-ertoire, is the person's conditioned ca-pacity to exhibit philosophical verbalbehavior. Many people in our fieldhave doctor of philosophy degrees, andthe term philosophy appears in manycontexts, so inquiring into the natureand uses of philosophical verbal be-havior by scholars and scientists of be-havior seems relevant. Philosophy hasmany uses, but most of us were taughtearly in our careers that philosophybears on how data are interpreted. Thatseems easy to demonstrate: Given arock with a fossilized vertebrate animalexposed on its face, we present it re-spectively to a religious creationist andto a vertebrate paleontologist, and thencompare their interpretations of thatsame piece of evidence. Both mayclaim to be "scientific," but it soon be-comes clear that their respective sci-

Address correspondence to the author at theDepartment of Advanced Educational Studies,West Virginia University, Morgantown, WestVirginia 26506-6122 (E-mail: [email protected]).

entific activity exhibits very differentcharacteristics, which is usually attrib-uted in some way to their divergentphilosophies.When we inquire as to the nature of

philosophy, and how it functions, thequestions themselves imply the needfor a science of philosophy. Accordingto common wisdom, we need a naturalscience to conduct an effective studyof the rocks beneath our feet, butwhether a similar science can improveour study of philosophy remains moreproblematic. Yet, if philosophy is im-portant to science, then philosophy perse deserves scientific attention. Insofaras science is the key to improved con-trol over the production and applica-tion of anything, a science of philoso-phy should afford us more effectiveand efficient control over the produc-tion and application of philosophy.This conclusion is not altered by thefacts that philosophy happens to be be-havior, that it is verbal, or that such ascientific endeavor may involve inter-ventions among independent variablesmany of which themselves are verbalin nature. Hayes and Brownstein(1986) conducted a probe along similarlines in their assault on mentalism andits contrast with a naturalistic accountof so-called mental functions.

Regardless of the nature of philoso-phy and what it may do for a science,

81

82 LAWRENCE E. FRALEY

in the training curricula of most sci-entific fields the applicable philosophygets little explicit attention beyond afew remarks that may be included in atextbook preface. I have taught sciencethroughout my professional career. Myown history of formal training for ascience teaching career, which rangedbroadly across a variety of sciences, re-veals the typical place of philosophy:During my nine years and seven sum-mers of university training, in additionto studies in other fields, I amassedabout a hundred semester-hours of uni-versity credit distributed among math-ematics, chemistry, physics, biology,and geology. The philosophy of sci-ence was not formally included inthose curricula either as an aspect ofthose subject matters or for its potentialheuristic functions. Beyond an occa-sional mention of the principle of par-simony, any further knowing aboutphilosophy per se and its functionalrole with respect to the science beingtaught was typically left to emerge asprivate inductions.A discipline, in the sense of a par-

ticular epistemological approach to aparticular subject matter, may becomean organized discipline when thosewho exhibit that repertoire form pro-fessional organizations, band togetherin academic departments within uni-versities, and create a related body ofliterature. Members of the indepen-dently organized discipline of philos-ophy discern and describe a repertoirecalled the philosophy of science. How-ever, as my own broadly distributedand rather extensive science training il-lustrates, the independent and remotelyestablished discipline of philosophyhas been somewhat ineffective in fos-tering a general respect for the func-tional role of philosophy among prac-titioners in the various scientific fields.In the training programs for most fieldsof science, whatever philosophy under-lies the scientific activity may seem tooesoteric, and often too controversial,for all but the most advanced students.

How Philosophers Regard Scienceand Their Relation to It

The neglect of philosophy in sciencetraining programs did not trouble meuntil, in my postdoctoral science train-ing, I turned to the study of human be-havior from a natural science perspec-tive and began to study radical behav-iorism, which was said to be the phi-losophy of that science (Skinner,1980). But what, exactly, was its rela-tion to the science? I began to inquireinto the function of philosophy per se,and only then did I ask myself whyphilosophy had been largely absentfrom the training curricula of the phys-ical and biological sciences that I hadstudied earlier. As my investigationsled deeper into the study of verbal be-havior, a tentative answer to that ques-tion began to emerge.

Perhaps philosophy as a disciplinehas failed to support science proactive-ly because philosophy itself has notbeen established on a sufficient scien-tific foundation of its own. Most phi-losophers, including the philosophersof science, do not consider themselvesto be applied scientists. They are nottrained in a basic science that wouldsupport functional analyses of theirphilosophical statements when thosestatements appear in conjunction withother classes of statements upon whichthey presumably have some effect. Asa consequence, although certain philo-sophical methods and products aregenerally construed to be relevant toany of the scientific disciplines, philos-ophy per se remains unfounded as ascientific discipline. Few if any for-mally trained philosophers of scienceconstrue their subject matter as verbalbehavior in the functional behavioro-logical sense of that phrase. As a re-sult, the existing discipline of philoso-phy, including the branch organizedunder the "philosophy of science"heading and sometimes called "sciencestudies" by members of the Philoso-phy of Science Association (e.g., Gi-ere, 1994, p. 13), is largely deprived of

SCIENCE OF PHILOSOPHY 83

a functional perspective on its ownbusiness.

Unlike the natural scientists whostudy behavior-environment functionalrelations, most traditional natural sci-entists have studied nonbehavioral sub-ject matters and thus have not been ina position to rely on their own disci-plines for analytical treatments of theverbal behavior through which theirown professional activities are mani-fest. The members of the traditionalnatural sciences, although practicing anintuitive level of philosophy, havemore or less looked to the indepen-dently organized philosophy of sciencediscipline as a source for their philo-sophical needs. However, when a dis-cipline like science studies, which isfocused on a behavioral subject matter,forfeits the opportunity for a functionalperspective in conducting its own in-quiries, that portends a serious loss ofdisciplinary capability, and the ques-tion lingers as to whether those whohave been dependent on a remotelyand independently organized philoso-phy of science field could serve them-selves just as successfully. Scholarsand practitioners of an independentlyorganized discipline of philosophy canbe left ambivalent about the role oftheir own discipline. Ronald Giere,putting his best spin on it, revealed thatambivalence in his 1994 presidentialaddress to the Philosophy of ScienceAssociation (Giere, 1994):

In my picture, science studies cannot beautonomous. Its inquiries must draw onknowledge from many disciplines, includ-ing some of the sciences it studies. But isthere a special role for the philosopher ofscience in this enterprise? Yes and no.Current training in the philosophy of sci-ence prepares one to be a good synthesizerof scientific knowledge and to use thisknowledge in constructing theoreticalmodels of various aspects of science. Italso prepares one to raise normative is-sues, that is, to be critical of specific sci-entific projects in light of acquired empir-ical knowledge of how science typicallyworks. And it prepares one to take part indebates over the role of science in thelarger society. On the other hand, none ofthese activities are ones that could not alsobe carried out by historians or sociologists

of science, or even scientists themselves,should they be so inclined. Just as philos-ophy can no longer claim to be queen ofscientific studies, neither can philosophyof science claim to be queen of sciencestudies. But so long as we are willing toput aside our pretensions to possessing au-tonomous forms of knowledge, philoso-phers of science have much to contributeto the larger enterprise. (p. 13)

In this assessment by the presidentof their association, philosophers ofscience may be trained to make impor-tant contributions to science, but theycan do little beyond what potentialconsumers can do for themselves.Also, among the kinds of training thatGiere described as characteristic ofphilosophy of science programs, he didnot include training in a basic scienceof philosophy that would prepare thetrainees to pursue the mentioned phil-osophical tasks with the special effec-tiveness afforded by a scientific ap-proach. The price paid for that omis-sion is flagship status for the disciplineof philosophy. That scientificallyemasculated discipline must simplycruise among the science fleet as an-other somewhat indistinguishable andarguably expendable service vessel.Two years later, at the next biennial

meeting of the Philosophy of ScienceAssociation, the next presidential ad-dress, by Abner Shimony (1997), tout-ed a basic paradigm that he favored forthe philosophy of science discipline.He called it by its historically recog-nized name, "Enlightenment," and de-scribed it as a particular "mental out-look." Core commitments to this per-spective include (a) belief in "a uni-versal human nature (except forabnormalities) in all places and times,"and (b) "a universality of humangoals" as a corollary of the existenceof the universal human nature. Shi-mony also had this to say about ethics:

Another corollary is that a basis for ethicsis to be found in the constitution of everynormal human being, though there is dis-agreement concerning the exact characterof that basis; among the prescriptions ofthe naturally based ethics are universal be-nevolence toward human beings and con-demnation of punishment and constraint


beyond what is needed for the commongood. (p. S3)

Although theorists of the Enlight-enment posit a fixed and common hu-man nature to account for commonpatterns of behavior, that nature para-doxically includes a "protean mode offlexibility" (p. S7). Nevertheless, ac-cording to Shimony's view of the pre-sumably fixed aspects of human na-ture, the basic paradigm called Enlight-enment "allows for some cultural uni-versals, including the universalstructural principles which constrainthe diversity of languages" (p. S7), anallusion to the views popularized bycognitive linguist Noam Chomsky(Chomsky, 1975). In discussing ethics,Shimony exhibits explanatory relianceon "such things in the human psycheas moral imperatives, coexisting withdesires, aversions, and preferences" (p.S7).While touting the efficacy of natural

science methodology for the study ofhuman behavior, as do many traditionalpsychologists, Shimony, like thosepsychologists, resorted to inventedconstructs of the kind that seem com-pelling in the absence of a functionalanalysis of behavior-environment re-lations. Shimony posits human behav-ior driven by a human nature and hu-man goals. His account also includesan inherent endowment of ethics asdriving forces, and internal flexibilityas a trait that accounts for individualand situational differences in behavior.Also, language is driven by Chomskianstructures that putatively inhere in allnormal human beings and account forthe common characteristics of all hu-man languages. Explanations that relyon internal behavior-originating con-structs have been common since antiq-uity and represent the expedient classof explanation to which people quicklyretreat in the absence of functional an-alyses of the events of concern. Shi-mony, in alluding to Chomskian struc-tures, follows Chomsky's lead in ne-glecting universal contingencies of re-inforcement and the commonalities of

language that they produce (see Skin-ner, 1957, Appendix). That kind of ex-planatory approach carries the inquiryaway from the intellectual style of thenatural sciences, which relies on func-tional analyses for the study of anykind of phenomena and which avoidsthe substitution of invented constructsfor real if often elusive independentvariables.When objective independent vari-

ables are ignored, the effects definedby the dependent variables seem to ap-pear miraculously. If such miraclescannot be tolerated, then the analyst isleft to search among the mediatinglinkages between the independent anddependent variables for something thatcan be proffered as an origin for thoseeffects. It was there that Chomsky pos-ited his language-forming structures,traditional psychologists have putative-ly found body-driving self agents, andShimony, representing the organizeddiscipline of philosophy, has lodgedthe behavior-causing elements of theuniversal human nature in which hebelieves.One need only to listen to the pres-

idents of its professional organizationto conclude that the philosophy of sci-ence discipline is in scientific disarray.The discipline of philosophy, in gen-eral, has traditionally been built aroundthe sets of ideas recorded by its prom-inent thinkers (e.g., Edwards, 1967). Indefining their discipline, philosophershave focused on the nature or charac-teristics of philosophical works, plusthe classes of problems to which phi-losophers have addressed their efforts,rather than on the functional relationsbetween other human behavior andphilosophical verbal behavior. Ratherthan focusing on the functional rela-tions in which philosophy arises as ver-bal behavior as well as those in whichit subsequently shares control, the tra-ditional approach has remained largelydescriptive, of what are construed to beexamples of philosophy. More empha-sis is placed on the topographical char-acteristics of instances of philosophicalbehavior, which serve taxonomic pur-


poses, than on the functional relationsin which philosophical behavior maysubsequently play a role, which wouldserve scientific and technological pur-poses.

The Concept of a Science ofPhilosophy

Science of philosophy, as a concept,appeals to a level of analysis seldomentertained or recognized within theorganized discipline of philosophy.The well-established facet of philoso-phy called logic pertains to the internalconsistency within and among state-ments-relations of statements, or theirparts, to each other. But logic pertainsless to the functional relations betweenthose statements and the environmentsof the speakers. The conclusions fromlogical analyses lead to rules aboutwhat one may say in relation to whatone has said, but such logical analysespertain more to internal relations with-in the verbal stream and are thereforelimited in their capacity to strengthenand expand speakers' controls overtheir environments. Recall Skinner'soften-repeated admonitions that state-ments are important to behavioral sci-entists as verbal behavior (see Skinner,1993, for one of his later instances).Skinner implied that analyses of state-ments are more usefully focused on thecontingencies under which statementsare exhibited as verbal behavior and onthe functional effects of those state-ments on subsequent behavior. Logi-cians will occasionally speak likewiseof logical statements (see, e.g., the in-troduction in Quine, 1982), but that isnot the primary level of analysis pur-sued by the majority of philosophers.Therefore, the subdiscipline of logic,upon which philosophers have so longrelied, is too limited in what it can doto serve as the comprehensive scienceof philosophy.The point of such a science would

be to gain useful control over the phe-nomena of interest, and the direct con-trol of any phenomenon results fromchanges to the independent variables of

which it is a function. That kind of ac-tivity must be preceded by accuratefunctional analyses by which the rele-vant relations are clearly delineated,and the kind of science necessary tothat approach must lend itself to suchanalyses. However, efforts to explicatethe nature and role of philosophy maystray from these steps and be misdi-rected. For example, efforts to under-stand philosophical behavior by ex-amining the physiological structure ofthe brain feature the wrong level ofanalysis; efforts centering on hypothet-ical cognitive constructs tend to rely onthe agentive fallacy imported frommentalistic psychology; and efforts de-pendent on spiritual assumptions rep-resent continuing appeals to even moreexplicitly mystical postulates. None ofthese approaches reveal the necessarykind of behavior-environment func-tions that can support a practical nat-ural science of philosophical behavior.A natural science of behavior fea-

tures the particular kind of basic sci-ence necessary to capacitate the disci-pline of philosophy for scientific pro-duction rather than mere description,so that philosophers of science mayproactively generate new productsmore useful to scientific activity thandescriptive reflections of what is al-ready being done. When a powerfulscience of philosophy treats philoso-phy as verbal behavior with all of thefunctional implications connoted bythat phrase, the kinds of definitivefunctional relations that surround phil-osophical behavior can be analyzed,delineated, and taught to new students.The development of a science of

philosophy begins with a search forfunctional relations among philosophy,science, technology, and intuition, butwe must first define each of thoseterms as classes of behavior and denoteeach of them either as verbal, nonver-bal, or both. This raises the question ofhow they are now being regarded.

Current References to Philosophy,Science, and TechnologyThe importance of philosophy has

varied among natural scientists who


are concerned with behavior. In Skin-ner's approach, which focuses on func-tional relations, the behavioral practi-tioner's philosophy of science, radicalbehaviorism, shares closely in the con-trol of scientific activities (Skinner,1980). But in sharp contrast, the rele-vance of philosophy has also been de-nied (Epstein, 1984):

Where data and formal theory are rela-tively sparse ... philosophical argumentswill naturally be taken more seriously (af-ter all, they're all we've got), but once thescientific attack on some phenomenon issuccessful, philosophical arguments fallby the wayside. (p. 110)

Epstein implied that philosophy issome sort of ineffective substitute forgood science. He further argued thatphilosophy is so irrelevant to an ex-perimental science that he would openthe behavioral scientific profession topersons "with no particular philosoph-ical bent, or with views that changeradically from time to time, or evenviews that are antithetical to behavior-ism" (p. 110). The implication is thata science of behavior can best matureunder the natural contingencies of thework place and neither gains supportnor suffers interference from what isconnoted by the term philosophy.The lack of agreement about the

function of philosophy may reflectsome vagueness about its nature, andsimilar confusion is associated with theterms science and technology. Theterm science is commonly evoked onoccasions of new and better machinesor more effectively designed proce-dures. But so is technology, and incommon parlance speakers often inter-change those terms. "Chinese spacetechnology has recently shown signif-icant advances" gets about the sameresponse as "Chinese space sciencehas recently shown significant advanc-es."The scientific community exhibits a

vague tendency to reserve science as adescriptor of practices for enhancingthe effectiveness of certain nonverbalrepertoires and technology as a labelfor tools and applied tool use as part

of those practices, a distinction implicitin the dictionary definitions of thoseterms. According to another commondistinction, science pertains to know-ing and to the practices that yield sys-tematized knowing, whereas technolo-gy pertains to practical applications;that is, to manipulating independentvariables in the environment to pro-duce useful effects, usually with theaid of equipment.A more functional contrast between

science and technology relies on im-plied differences in contingencies onthe practitioners. For example, in Be-yond Freedom and Dignity, Skinner(1971, p. 146) notes that "in an exper-iment we are interested in what hap-pens," whereas in designing a culturewe are interested in "whether it willwork." Skinner then observed that thisis the difference between science andtechnology. The implied differencepertains to differences in the prevailingcontingencies on the behavior of thepractitioners and to their different con-ditioning histories. Scientific experi-menting is reinforced by discoveringfunctional relations. Scientists will sys-tematically alter independent variablesto bring their own behavior under con-trol of the resulting changes in the de-pendent variables. The practice of sci-ence may thus be analogous to a kindof inductive probing for new relations.On the other hand, the contingenciesoperating on a technologist tend to fea-ture previously specified reinforcersacquired by manipulating previouslydescribed functional relations. Tech-nology could thus be likened to deduc-tive prompting. (For Skinner's defini-tions of prompting and probing, seeSkinner, 1953, pp. 213-216.)The term science occasionally de-

scribes verbally mediated proceduresto control certain classes of variablesduring searches for functional rela-tions, regardless of the subject matter.According to that distinction, properlyplanning an experiment to insure thatthe results will be valid and reliable isscience, whereas technology may im-ply the skilled manipulative operations


involved in conducting the experiment,including any necessary tools and theirusage. The term technology may thusimply some blend of behaviors andtools. Science-technology distinctionsat this level of analysis validly implythat scientific and technological reper-toires can predominate in the behaviorof different people and thus correctlyanticipate teams of scientists, technol-ogists, and technicians working coop-eratively.

A SCIENCE OFPHILOSOPHY

Natural Science

This section proceeds from a naturalscientific perspective: All real eventshave a natural history, meaning thatevents chain back through the time in-tervals that they share in defining, anddo so in a continuous functional (caus-al) sequence without discontinuitiessuch as spurious origins of the kind, forexample, that would be expected ifpersonal autonomy were possible. Psy-chology may tolerate an inner-dwellingself that autonomously generates ver-bal behavior, but behaviorology,l a nat-

' The term behaviorology denotes the compre-hensive and independently organized natural sci-entific discipline devoted to the study of the re-lations between behavior and the environmentalevents that functionally determine (i.e., control)that behavior. Behaviorology encompasses tech-nical, scientific, and philosophical domains. Thefoundation philosophy of behaviorology iscalled radical behaviorism ("radical" in thesense of fundamental or root), and the basic sci-ence is an experimental analysis of behavior.The principal professional organizations of thisdiscipline are the International BehaviorologySociety (IBS) and The International Behavior-ology Institute (TIBI) and its association, TIB-IA. A journal called Behaviorology is published.For a comprehensive history of the emergenceof the organized discipline of behaviorology, seeFraley and Ledoux (1997). For other brief dis-cussions about the origins of the term behavior-ology, see Fraley and Vargas (1986) and Co-munidad Los Horcones (1986). The name be-haviorology is potentially applicable to indepen-dent academic departments, within institutionsof higher education, in which training in thatdiscipline is to be provided. The cultural missionof this discipline is to provide basic scientific

ural science of behavior, does not en-tertain that possibility. From the per-spective of a natural science, no eventoccurs in the absence of strict func-tional relations with other events-thefundamental assumption of determin-istic philosophy. Confidence in thecontrol implicitly inhering in a func-tional relation is proportional to the ob-served reliability of that relation.

Concepts of randomness and chaosdo not contradict the deterministicpostulate (Fraley, 1994). Rather, theymerely shift the analysis away from animpractical analytical level at whichwe may futilely attempt, beyond therange of our capacity, to trace the im-plications of a deterministic worldacross sequences of events. The math-ematics by which concepts of random-ness and chaos are treated representpractices by which we manage our ig-norance of controlling factors oncethey have become too complex for thecapacity of our more direct measuringcapabilities. However, we have no rea-son to suppose that the functional re-lations that define nature are suspend-ed merely because we reach the limitsof our capacity to take into account asufficient number of the many con-trolling factors in complex situationsand are forced to shift to a differentlevel of analysis. The assumption ofdeterminism is a basic philosophicaltenet of all natural sciences and istherefore an element of radical behav-iorism, which is the particular philos-ophy of science that informs the dis-cipline of behaviorology (the moststringently "natural" of all extant dis-ciplines that focus on behavior and itscontrolling relations).

Because philosophy occurs as verbalbehavior, it follows that philosophy, as

foundations to support the behavior-related workof practitioners in scores of applied fields andprofessions. For more detail on the integrity andmission of the disciine of behaviorology, seeFraley (1987) and Vargas (1987). Extensive de-tail about the relation of behaviorology to otherbehavior-related disciplines is also included inFraley and Ledoux (1997).


a verbal behavioral phenomenon, istherefore at all times controlledthrough functional relations with otherevents. Without that fundamental as-sumption, an effective natural scienceof philosophy could not emerge, be-cause we could not rely on the exis-tence of contingent relations betweenphilosophical verbal behavior and oth-er events (antecedent or postcedent),which are precisely the kind of relationsthat afford the requisite opportunitiesfor intervention (see Vargas, 1984,about the terms antecedent and postce-dent). After all, the ultimate function-ality of any sample of scientific behav-ior (including those in a science of phi-losophy) involves that sample of sci-entific verbal behavior sharing in thecontrol of behaviors of intervention(that is what sciences does). Because ofthat scientific contribution to their an-tecedent controls, those behaviors of in-tervention (in the environment), in turn,yield more reinforcing (effective) out-comes among the environmental eventsof concern-or as the average citizenmight say, "the application of scienceyields more desirable results."

In a given instance of scientific in-tervention to improve effectiveness,the environmental events of concerncan be any phenomenon that is defin-able in terms of measurable variables(i.e., anything that is real). If philo-sophical behavior is the kind of envi-ronmental event about which we areconcerned (i.e., the subject matter uponwhich we are scientifically focused), adesirable result of a science of philos-ophy is a better or more effective phil-osophical repertoire-meaning betterin its functional capacity to share in thecontrol of other classes of events. Sci-entific control over dependent variablesthat consist of verbal behavior, includ-ing the philosophical kind, is gainedonly though practical interventionsamong the independent variables thatevoke the verbal behaviors in question,antecedent variables that could not befound if philosophical behavior simplyoriginated spontaneously, without afunctional (i.e., natural) history, as the

creative product of an autonomous,and thus, unnatural, self.To proceed on the basis of these

foundation principles, I will begin byrendering more precise and relevantdefinitions of some common termsand specifying the relations amongthem. Technology refers to the verbal-ly supported practices by which ef-fects are produced in the environment.That is, verbal events supplement theantecedent controls on technologicalbehaviors, which in turn affect the en-vironment. Science pertains to thosespecial antecedent verbal controls onthe behaviors that constitute a tech-nology. Thus, science consists entirelyof verbal behavior, and it functions an-tecedently. Technological behaviorsare identified as such precisely be-cause those supplementary scientificverbal controls are present amongtheir functional antecedents.

In that sense, if those supplemen-tary verbal controls are absent, leav-ing a behavior to occur only undercontingencies featuring nonverbal an-tecedent stimuli, the resulting behav-ior merely exhibits technique in thesense of occurring under entirely non-verbal controls. And, as may usefullybe emphasized, such technical behav-ior occurs unconsciously or intuitive-ly. A typical example is the tying of ashoelace by a preoccupied person whoremains unaware of the manipulationsbeing exhibited to accomplish the act.The lace gets tied, but the person isnot following ("thinking through")the steps in the ongoing process andmay not even know that he or she isdoing it. A person will often describesuch behaviors as "things I do natu-rally without thinking about them."Only with the addition of-and be-cause of-functionally related verbalbehavior among the controlling ante-cedents, including visual and otherforms of conscious awareness (Skin-ner, 1953, pp. 260-261), would thoseoperants change classification fromtechnical to technological.

It is noteworthy that most behavioris technical; that is, most human be-


havior occurs in the absence of anythought or other verbal behaviorsamong its functional antecedents, oftenincluding even consciousness and vi-sual awareness. Such behavior occursunder direct stimulus control of thenonverbal environment. That mayseem strange to those people who as-sume that they are aware of most ofwhat they do, perhaps because thesmaller part of our total behavior thatis controlled in part by verbal behaviortends to be relatively important. Also,we can remember only those parts ofour total exhibited behavior that, intheir prime instance, evoked the con-comitant verbal behavior of awareness(see Skinner, 1974, pp. 220-222, fordetails about the concept of awarenessas verbal behavior). If awareness re-sponses are evoked only by the smallerpart of what we do, the larger part re-mains immune to recollection (mean-ing that verbal behavior that did notoccur initially cannot subsequently bereevoked).When we say that scientists practice

science, we usually mean that theevents under inquiry, and their rela-tions to those events, will evoke pre-conditioned scientific verbal behavior(e.g., the reiteration of a relevant prin-ciple or law of nature). But a completescientist is more broadly prepared thanmerely to respond scientifically in suchways. A well-trained scientist is alsoconditioned to produce new science.Skinner (1953) noted early in ScienceAnd Human Behavior that "sciencesupplies its own wisdom." "Science,"he said, "leads to a new way of think-ing about that part of the world towhich it has addressed itself" (p. 6).Discounting accident, science is need-ed to generate more science. To insurethat this will occur, a special condition-ing history is necessary, to which weoften refer as the shaping of a scientist.For example, the experimental tradi-tion in scientific disciplines serves thatfunction: Its products consist of newand more useful things to say (or think)on occasions of scientific reaction toevents of concern.

How Science Shares in theControl of Behavior

One commonly employed intellec-tual template for analyzing the controlof operant behavior is the three-or-more-term contingency of reinforce-ment-a set of relations among threeclasses of events: (a) a behavior, (b) theantecedent events that immediatelyprecede and evoke that behavior, and(c) the postcedent environmentalevents, immediately following the be-havior, that affect the behaving organ-ism in ways that render the organismmore or less behaviorally susceptibleto the same kind of behavior-evokingantecedent events on the occasion of afuture encounter (see Vargas, 1984, fora discussion of the relevant functionsand terms).

Contingencies that occur withouthuman contrivance and that do not in-clude verbal behavior either as the an-tecedent or consequent stimuli, are of-ten called natural contingencies.Worthwhile implications of this dis-tinction have often been pursued (e.g.,Skinner, 1974, pp. 125-127; Vargas &Fraley, 1984). In most cases, the termnonverbal is more precise than natural,because verbal events are natural too,and increasingly, references to "non-verbal contingencies" appear in the lit-erature. Such contingencies, occurringas relations between a behaving organ-ism and its environment, are withoutany verbal supplements among the an-tecedents. For example, as a conse-quence of approaching certain wild an-imals from downwind, the stalker getscloser before the prey bolts (given theprey animal and a detectable air flow).The hunter moves so as to keep facingthe wind as the prey is approached andis reinforced by increasing proximityto the prey-a formulation featuring(a) the prey as a function-altering stim-ulus that renders the wind evocative forthe behavior of advancing with wind inface, and (b) reductions in the distanceto the prey as a conditioned positivereinforcer. Such contingencies alone,without either antecedent verbal sup-


plements or verbal consequences, cancondition and refine skills. (For a text-book explication of function-alteringstimuli, see Fraley, 1999, chap. 15.)

Supplementary verbal behavioramong the antecedents accelerateswhat otherwise would be a natural con-ditioning process and can render theconditioning more efficient and effec-tive. However, the complex and refinedskills of nonverbal animals, especially,for example, those skills pertinent tosurvival, exemplify the effectivenessof natural contingencies without sup-plements of verbal behavior. Powerfulphylogenic endowments expedite thatkind of learning. That is, severe con-tingencies of survival have left a ge-netic residue, selected from vast his-torical gene pools, that yields individ-uals that are physically prepared forrapid operant learning in the relativelynarrow but often somewhat intrinsical-ly inconsistent settings that we calltheir niches. We may say that a partic-ularly successful predatory individual,having acquired many skills, is "cun-ning" or "clever," but significantly, ifit is a member of a nonverbal species,we tend not to say that it is "scientif-ic." Its skills are simply exhibited in-tuitively in response to situationalchanges.How then are we to label a human,

also skilled through nonverbal contin-gencies, whose activities remain large-ly intuitive? The nonverbal wisdom ofthe old and long-feral hermit has beenshaped by the nonverbal contingenciesin a lifetime of encounters with a de-manding environment. He copes effec-tively. In contrast, consider a verballyskilled newcomer to the old hermit'senvironment who, for whatever rea-sons, is under contingencies to beequally effective. Suppose that thenewcomer conducts experiments, for-mulates rules, and engages in variousverbally mediated self-managementpractices to acquire and maintain use-ful behavior-controlling relations be-tween himself and critical aspects ofthat environment. In a relatively shorttime the newcomer will have devel-

oped an extensive and relevant verbalrepertoire evoked under stimulus con-trol of his own behavior in relation tothat environment. That is, the personwill have developed a relevant science,a verbal repertoire that, in turn, sharesin the control of further contacts withthe environment. Eventually, the new-comer may operate at skill levels ap-proximating those of the feral old-tim-er, but does so in significantly less timethan the older counterpart had required.

If an observer, ignorant of their re-spective histories, then examines theeffective practices of these two per-sons, the observer could conclude thattwo practitioners of survival sciencewere operating successfully in thathostile environment and that their cop-ing technologies were comparable.Their essential difference may not beevident at that level of analysis. How-ever, their difference would becomemore obvious if each of these personswere hired for a complex new job inwhich only limited variations of thepresent skills were applicable. The dif-ferent quality of their respective sci-ences would then be revealed to ob-servers as differences in their respec-tive rates of adapting. Questions maythen arise about whether the old hermitis scientific to any extent.To distinguish between (a) a per-

son's behavior under direct stimuluscontrol of the nonverbal environmentand (b) behavior that occurs under theshared control of the nonverbal envi-ronment plus some verbal supplementsoccurring to that person, in this articlethe former is called technical behaviorand the latter is technological behavior.The hermit's technical behavior wouldnot become technological (or onlyslightly so), because it would remain,for the most part, verbally unsupple-mented. The behavior of the more ver-bal counterpart is technological insteadof technical, because a verbal reper-toire of science shares in its antecedentcontrol along with other environmentalevents, thereby bringing it under moreprecise control and rendering it notonly more effective but also more


quickly responsive to changes in theenvironment.Upon encounter with a putative

technologist at work, the immediatequestion is whether any descriptive orprescriptive verbal behavior is occur-ring to that person in the first place;that is, whether or not any verbal sci-entific behavior shares in the control ofwhat would otherwise be technical ac-tivity. Effective nonverbal controlsover human technical practice can beconditioned naturally, if slowly, by theoutcomes of practices that some wouldmistakenly call scientific, althoughtechnical would be correct. A practi-tioner of that sort is said to be intui-tively effective. But that is to be a goodtechnician for reasons mysterious evento the behaving individual, becausethat person's conditioning occurred un-der natural, or nonverbal, contingen-cies that that person is unable to de-scribe. Given an appropriately mand-ing2 verbal community, such a practi-

2Manding, the gerund form of the verb tomand (a Skinnerian coinage), is a technical verbfrom the science of verbal behavior meaning theact of imposing a contingency on another personto respond, after which the consequences of thatperson's responding are to be mediated by theparty arranging or imposing the contingency.The community of persons who arrange suchcontingencies is called a verbal community.Chapter 3 in Skinner's Verbal Behavior (1957)describes the mand, which in its noun form re-fers to the antecedent verbal stimulus in a three-term contingency of reinforcement being ar-ranged by the party who is manding a listenerto respond. The mand is exhibited as a verbaloperant under antecedent stimulus control of arelevant establishing operation such as a state ofdeprivation or other aversive stimulation. Themanding party may say, "Pass the salt" (amand). For the mand to prove effective, the lis-tener must have been conditioned such that un-resolved mands are aversive. The listener, uponcomplying, is subject to negative reinforcement,perhaps afforded by the speaker in some waythen removing any threat of punishment contin-gent on noncompliance (which provides relief tothe listener-complier). Also, in some cases, thelistener is subject to automatic negative rein-forcement if the mand has elicited conditionedaversive emotions in the listener from which thelistener has escaped by passing the salt. Themand presumably plays a major functional rolein shaping both the skills of introspection, which

tioner may be led to describe his or herown technical behavior and to abstractinductively the principles of its control,arriving eventually at what may be de-scribed as a self-generated repertoire ofprinciples and rules (i.e., the personwould thus be led by the verbal com-munity to acquire a science of his orher business). Elements of that verbalrepertoire would then share in the con-trol of subsequent technical practicesand thereby qualify those practices astechnological practices. The person,thus transformed from technician totechnologist, would probably be de-scribed as "self-taught" in science, al-though the "self" is unwarranted, be-cause the role of the verbal communityis obvious.

But scientific self-management canalso be facilitated by more deliberatedesign. It is that planned production ofa good scientist that interests scienceeducators more than a slower course ofnatural conditioning or the promotionof a somewhat informal introspectivetrend among the members of a verbalcommunity that eventually may lead toacceptably effective practices. Delib-erately contrived arrangements to pro-duce a scientist in a more expeditiousway involve arranging to conditionverbal scientific self-management prac-tices; that is, arranging the kind oftraining that will produce verbal be-havior that supplements, to improvedeffect, the uncontrived, or "natural,"controlling antecedent and postcedentvariables that serve to focus the tech-nological behavior of scientists.The critical emergent distinction in

this section separates the following twoclasses of behavior: (a) the behaviorsby which a person effectively manip-ulates environmental variables througheffective technical practice-a personwhose technical practice lacks supple-mentary antecedent verbal controls andwith respect to whom assigning a label

feature effective self-probing, and the specialrepertoire of verbal operants that we call con-sciousness and awareness (see, e.g., Skinner'sdiscussions, 1953, pp. 260-261, 288-289).


of scientific would therefore be unwar-ranted, and (b) the verbal self-manage-ment behaviors (i.e., scientific behav-iors) that, if present, share in the stim-ulus control of those technical behav-iors to render them more effective (andchange their classification to techno-logical), and by their presence justifythe person being called a scientificpractitioner. Science is not the formertechnical activity, which the sciencehelps to bring under a better kind ofcontrol. Nor is science the improvedbehavior, which became technologicalinstead of merely technical when sci-entific verbal stimuli began to share inits control. Science, as behavior, is theverbal self-management behavior,which, upon occurring, functions as theverbal part of the antecedent stimuluscontrols that evoke technological be-havior. Science is thus defined as aclass of verbal behavior that has a cer-tain kind of supplemental, antecedent,behavior-controlling function.When an element of science shares

in the antecedent control of a techno-logical response, we may trace the re-cent history of that element of science.For example, the scientific verbal be-havior pertinent to a given scientificepisode may first appear as a functionalconsequent event, as when a previous-ly exhibited behavior such as pitchinga baseball evokes a consequential op-erant response such the observation as"the result of that move exemplifiedBernoulli's principle," a statement thatmay, along with other outcomes, func-tion as a reinforcer of the pitch, andwhich, once it is exhibited, can thenevoke additional and potentially usefulverbal behavior that can share in theantecedent control of further environ-mental interventions. For instance, giv-en a pitcher who has studied Bernoul-li's principle and has ready a repertoireof interpretative statements based onthat principle, the previous response,which merely related that principle toa curving baseball trajectory and thethrowing move that produced it, mayin turn evoke a self-instruction such as"'put even more spin on the ball next

time," a scientific response that, whensharing in the antecedent control of thenext pitch, results in a trajectory char-acterized by a more extreme curve.

According to the previous distinc-tion between technical and technolog-ical behavior, a bird building a com-plex nest is never a scientist (for lackof a verbal component in the controlson nest building, an activity that forbirds remains purely technical). Nor isa human being a scientist when he orshe performs effective technical actson the environment under verbally un-supplemented direct stimulus controls(e.g., a scribe who unconsciously dipsa quill pen in the inkwell when the linethat it leaves on the paper grows faintis not exhibiting the verbal self-man-agement behaviors called science). Thevariables definitive of science reside,not in the intervention practices that di-rectly affect the environmental vari-ables of concern, but in one of thekinds of events that share in controllingthose practices. A person can qualifyas scientific only if the person's ownverbal behaviors share in keeping thatperson in appropriate contact with thephenomena of concern.

The Addition of One QualitativeCriterion for the Science Category

This preliminary definition of sci-ence needs one further tweak. A sup-plementary verbal repertoire thatshares in the control of other kinds ofbehavior is not necessarily helpful inall instances. The technical practicespertinent to a particular subject mattermay not yield more effective behavingwith the addition of supplementaryverbal antecedents that some may, atfirst, want to call science. For example,consider the previous baseball pitcherwho needed to produce a sharply curv-ing trajectory. Suppose that instead ofthe statement about putting more spinon the ball, that pitcher had said "theball will curve more if it is severelypunished before being thrown. Uponits release, it will then curve in a moveto avoid recapture. Therefore, as a


form of punishment, squeeze the ballas hard as possible until the instant ofreleasing it." It is unlikely that such apitch would have resulted in the ballexhibiting a greater curve. The ques-tion is whether we should refer to theverbal antecedent supplement (aboutputting an aversive squeeze on theball) as science.A quality differential, across differ-

ing scientific verbal repertoires, is in-directly revealed by the correspondingranges of efficiency and effectivenessof the technological behaviors that oc-cur under partial control of those ver-bal antecedent supplements. Thus, itfollows that we can speak of worth-while science (in the sense of effec-tive), of worthless science (in the senseof ineffective), or of intermediategrades, depending on the improvementin efficiency and effectiveness of thetechnological activity that the scienceshares in controlling.

This conclusion leads to a previous-ly implicit and worthwhile refinementin the preceding definition of science.A scientific repertoire, sharing in thecontrol of technological behavior, mustresult in outcomes deemed better thanif no supplementary verbal repertoirewere involved. The descriptor scienceis thus made contingent on such a pos-itive quality difference in the behaviorof environmental intervention. Thisimposes on the definition of scienceone qualitative feature in addition tothe purely functional qualities. One iscompelled to determine whether theproducts of a technology are improvedor degraded by the controlling effectsof a verbal repertoire before that verbalrepertoire can be classified as sciencein the first place.The purely functional aspects of a

science can be detected and measuredthrough an experimental analysis of thecontrols on behaviors that affect theenvironment, and relative differencesin the efficiency and effectivenessamong sciences can serve as criteria bywhich to sort those antecedent controlsaccording to quality. But when the ef-ficiency and effectiveness of a given

technology are at or below the levelsthat would result without the contri-bution of the verbal antecedents inquestion, that controlling verbal reper-toire should not be called a science.Simply put, a scientific repertoire hasto help in gaining control over the en-vironment, or we do not call it science.So, although any verbal repertoiresmay function in a manner similar tohow science relates to technology, onlyif the technology is thereby renderedmore efficient or effective do we callthe supplementary antecedent verbalrepertoire a science. This closely ap-proximates current common practiceinsofar as most people intuitively with-hold the science label from the kindsof antecedent verbal supplements thatyield no demonstrable improvement inintervention behaviors (e.g., supersti-tious antecedent utterances of what areassumed to be lucky nonsense words).

This functional definition of sciencedoes not pertain to long-term effects.Here science is defined only in termsof the immediate effects of an anteced-ent stimulus on an immediately evokedbehavior in a single contingency of re-inforcement, although I would not besurprised were a metacontingent exten-sion (Glenn, 1988) of the concept toemerge eventually. True, cosmologistsand paleontologists have little techno-logical effect on their subject mattersin the sense that stars cannot yet bemoved and dinosaurs cannot be madeto redie in places that would make ex-cavation of their bones more conve-nient. Yet cosmology and paleontologyare both respectable natural sciencedisciplines. It is just that the practicesof science in those disciplines affordimproved interventions that pertainmore to the methods by which practi-tioners measure and describe ancienteffects than to any technologies bywhich such effects are produced. In abehavior science, where the phenome-na of concern tend to occur in the pres-ent, the contingencies in which scienceplays a functional role can often havean interventionist effect. Thus, behav-ior scientists can go beyond improving


their methods of study by also chang-ing what they are studying.

Nonscientific Verbal Controls

Behavior that would occur under so-cially arranged contingencies may notcomport with behavior that would oc-cur under the natural contingencies im-posed by nonsocial environments. Al-though such socially arranged contin-gencies can become intense, a nonso-cial environment can usually providenatural contingencies so strong thatnonconformance will prove lethal.Nevertheless, although featuring lethalimplications for neglect, the evocativestimuli in nonsocial contingencies mayremain less functional than the stronglyconditioned evocative stimuli in thecompeting social contingencies. In thatcase, the socially controlled behaviorcontinues until the individual dies fromneglected realities of the environment.For example, many people, behavingin ways that comport with previous so-cial conditioning, have starved to deathwith 150 pounds of edible meat nearby(e.g., the Antarctic explorer Robert EScott and his last two surviving com-panions), because their unscientificverbal behavior functioned to weakenthe capacity of that food to evoke ac-quiring and eating behaviors. The ul-timate demonstration of effectivenessis survival, and a verbal repertoire canweaken rather than strengthen the be-haviors necessary to pass such an en-vironmentally imposed test.

Consider another example: Supposethat a thirsty person, while crossing adesert, encounters a dried stream bed.Water may or may not have flowedthere recently. Perhaps moist sandcould be found beneath the dry bot-toms of former pools. This personcould potentially profit from a well-digging technology. If the person pro-ceeds at once to dig unconsciously, noquestion of science or technology aris-es. That person's technical practiceswould be occurring in a manner similarto those of desert-dwelling nonhumanspecies that respond directly to such

places with digging behaviors that oc-cur under direct stimulus control (i.e.,intuitively). However, if relevant ver-bal behavior is evoked concurrently-for example, the reiteration of princi-ples pertinent to ground water reservesbeneath stream beds-and acting underpartial control of those statements theperson precisely locates a dig in aplace that more quickly, and with rel-atively little effort, yields any waterpresent, that verbal repertoire of recitedprinciples constitutes a science.

In contrast, suppose that while theperson's loss of body fluids approachescritical limits, those circumstancesevoke sitting down cross-legged in thehot sun and meditating about thatplight. Perhaps the person cyclicallyrepeats a water-related mantra or moredirectly exhorts a deity either to impartsome useful wisdom or to intervene di-rectly to produce water. That person'smeditative verbal repertoire would notexemplify science if subsequent behav-ior that it shared in controlling provedto be ineffective and perhaps harmful.Verbal antecedents that do not contrib-ute functionally to effective practicalaction (in this case, locating drinkablewater) would not be called science.Ambiguous cases, usually unimpor-

tant, can arise if the obvious effects ofverbal supplementary controls aresmall and any help or hindrance re-sulting from those controls is not clear.

Philosophy and How It Shares inthe Control of Behavior

A verbal repertoire of the kind calledscience, once conditioned, is not fixed.It is subject to further conditioning.But there is no guarantee that furtherconditioning is going to improve thatscientific repertoire. In many cases, aperson's science has been observed to"drift." To maintain science in a max-imally effective form requires specialattention. It is possible to become sci-entific about science per se so that deg-radation in effectiveness is preventedand continued improvement in effec-


tiveness is probable. That requires thedevelopment of a somewhat abstractverbal behavioral repertoire that solvesproblems in behaving scientifically.Such second-order science has beencalled philosophy of science, and theparticular philosophy being addressedhere is called radical behaviorism.

In his elegant statement, "The Valid-ity of the Author's Verbal Behavior,"3Skinner (1957) addressed the questionof validity in his own verbal behavior.Here, the scientist, who over the yearshad exhibited his own verbal behaviorwith enhancing effect on his otherwisedirect responses to complex sets of en-vironmental variables, was addressingthe quality control of those verbal en-hancements. This was an examinationof his philosophical practices and theireffects on his scientific repertoire. Hereviewed the practices of his science asfollows:

I exposed myself to a great deal of ma-terial in the field of verbal behavior....Hundreds of books and articles which Iread were not a direct exposure to the sub-ject matter of verbal behavior itself, butthey generated verbal tendencies with re-spect to it which showed an enormous va-riety and a fabulous inconsistency. I havealso read books, not for what they saidabout verbal behavior, but as records ofverbal behavior. I have done my share ofcomma-counting. I have listened to peoplespeaking and jotted down slips, curiousphrases, or interesting intraverbal se-quences, and I have watched subjects inthe laboratory responding to the faint pat-terns of the verbal summator, filling outword-association blanks, and so on.The notes which I made of all this were

my first reaction-both to verbal behavioritself and to verbal behavior about verbalbehavior. In the course of time I arrangedand rearranged this material many times,using several sorts of mechanical filingsystems and an elaborate decimal nota-tion, so that similarities and differencesmight be detected and respected. I dis-carded many classifications and arrived atwhat seemed to be useful and productive

3One of the two personal epilogues at theconclusion of Verbal Behavior (Skinner, 1957)reported by the author to be drawn essentiallyunaltered from the closing material of his Wil-liam James Lectures at Harvard in 1947.

properties of verbal behavior-propertieswhich proved to be worth talking about.

Gradually I settled upon a minimal rep-ertoire which singled out those aspects ofverbal behavior which appeared to be use-ful as dependent variables, and identifiedand classified various kind of circumstanc-es in the present and past environments ofthe speaker which seemed to be relevantindependent variables. So far as possible,I have tried to conform to the special re-inforcing contingencies of the scientificcommunity in the representation and anal-ysis of these relationships. (Skinner, 1957,pp. 454-455)

Here Skinner's activities are reminis-cent of a similar period in the work ofthe naturalist Charles Darwin. Natural-ists have been especially quick to re-affirm that the kinds of scientific prac-tices reported in the preceding quotefrom Skinner produce maximally ef-fective outcomes. In the quoted pas-sage, three important levels of behav-ior, discriminable on the basis of theircontrols and effects, can be noted: (a)The implication about the appropriate-ness of such activities plus the verbalactivities for presenting the delineatedevidence (in this context about how todevelop a science) exemplify exercisesin the philosophy of science. (b) Anyone of the described verbal practices,each of which involved, in some fash-ion, bringing the author's behaviormore effectively under control both ofthe author's textual records and the nat-ural environmental events that hadcontrolled the author's behavior, con-stituted scientific exercises. (c) The di-rect interventions among the environ-mental variables to produce his finalproducts (apparatus, books, new be-haviors, etc.), interventions renderedmore effective by a philosophically in-fluenced set of scientific practices,were technological exercises.To extract a microexample, consider

Skinner's practice of rearranging notesusing a filing system so that similaritiesand differences could be detected andrespected. (a) Philosophy: A relevantphilosophical event was reassuringhimself that it was worthwhile to incurthe cost of exploiting his voluminousnotes in order to acquire any potential-


ly valuable behavior that those recordsmay then have evoked. (b) Science:Thoughts about the nature and opera-tion of a particular filing system and itsrelevance to the task of reorderingnotes are examples of the verbal be-havior of science-responses that oc-cur under partial stimulus control ofthe philosophical verbal behavior. (c)Technology: Physically using the filingsystem to rearrange the notes is a tech-nological activity, which is classifiedas such because it occurs under therequisitely shared antecedent stimuluscontrols-mainly control exerted bythe notes, the filing system equipment,and the scientific verbal behavior.When Skinner then confronted thosenew arrangements of his notes, he was,in effect, confronting new antecedentstimulus controls. New responses werethen probable. In some cases new prin-ciples, rules, or descriptions, not pre-viously in his repertoire, were then in-duced. (For technical detail on howthis functions, see Sidman, 1987.) Be-cause, in this particular example, thefinal product was itself some new sci-entific verbal behavior, Skinner couldbe said to have enlarged or improvedhis science.

In this example, the part of the en-vironment being affected was the be-haviorally defined person (Fraley,1998), that is, Skinner himself, so herethe particular technology was the be-havioral technology of self-condition-ing. The environmental events to bechanged by that technology were Skin-ner (at the microscopic neural structur-al level) and subsequently his own be-havior toward his subject matter.4 That

4Conditioning does not change behavior di-rectly, but has only an indirect effect on behav-ior. A conditioning procedure can only result di-rectly in a change to the structure of the body,apparently at the neural molecular level. Thediscovery and description of the precise natureof those changes remain tasks for the neuralphysiologists. When such an altered body nextcomes under contingencies to behave in someway for which those structural changes have im-plications, that changed body behaves different-ly than it would have behaved with its precon-

is, his own science was the targeted en-vironmental phenomenon. He was notthen attacking the outside world, butwas instead bolstering his own initiallyinadequate verbal responses to the ex-ternal variables defining his subjectmatter. Sometimes, when one's scienceis not capable of helping evoke effec-tive interventions with respect to whatone is investigating, one's science isnevertheless capable of evoking somebehavior by which one changes oneselfso that one can behave differently, andhopefully more effectively, towardwhat one is studying. That is, we canfind our science inadequate for sharingin the control of behavior that can pro-duce desired environmental effects yetadequate to produce some additionalscience that, once it can be exhibited,will afford us the necessary behavior-controlling capacity for effective actiontoward the external challenge. The ap-plication of our science is shifted to thepartial control of a new kind of tech-nological activity (called self-condi-tioning) that produces some new sci-entific verbal behavior-new verbalbehavior that, when functioning incombination with the external environ-mental events of ultimate concern, willevoke effective interventions amongthose external environmental variables.

In his chapter called "Logical andScientific Verbal Behavior," Skinnermentioned several verbal practices ofthe scientific community that exempli-fy the functional classes described inthis article (Skinner, 1957, pp. 419-420). He began by saying explicitlythat the verbal practices of a scientificcommunity encourage "the precisestimulus control under which an object

ditioning structure. Thus, operant or respondentconditioning changes the structure of the body,and new forms of behavior are subsequently ex-hibited by that altered body if and when it isnext subjected to certain contingencies of rein-forcement. These facts are seldom relevant dur-ing practical operations to change behavior, sobehaviorists typically ignore them when describ-ing conditioning procedures and speak of suchprocedures as if they directly change the formor frequency of behavior.


or property of an object is identified orcharacterized in such a way that prac-tical action will be more effective" (p.419). Here are some verbal practices ofa scientific community that Skinnerdiscussed:

1. The discriminative control of ver-bal responses is sharpened with clas-sificatory schemes. With appropriateconditioning, one responds differentlyunder antecedent control of a morefinely discriminated object. For in-stance, the initial tact5 "insect," underthe additional control of such a classi-fication scheme and its rules, can bereiterated through categorical reduc-tions to the level of "wasp," "ant,"and "bee." "Bee," upon further re-duction, can become "genus Apis" or"genus Bombus," and beyond that lev-el comes species differentiation. A per-son under contingencies to follow acreature home and get its honey couldfollow anything identifiable as "in-sect" or, alternatively, anything iden-tifiable as species "Apis mellificia."But when those forms of verbal behav-ior serve as a functional antecedent (re-

5The tact is a class of verbal responses,shaped by a verbal community that reinforcesthose responses. Tacts are exhibited in the pres-ence of specific environmental events, whichevoke those responses. Once the person is con-ditioned through such reinforcement providedby a verbal community, the resultant tact willsubsequently occur under stimulus control ofthose environmental events. When a person con-tacts an environmental event-for example, atree-and under current stimulus control of thatevent emits the vocal response "tree," that re-sponse is defined as a tact. The consequencesfor emitting tacts are supplied by the speaker'sverbal community, which not only conditionsthose relations but maintains them in the reper-toires of the community members. If the mem-bers of the verbal community in the above ex-ample stop reinforcing speakers for saying"tree" upon encountering that particular envi-ronmental event and instead begin to reinforcespeakers only for emitting "bush" on occasionsof encounter, then the tact, as emitted by mem-bers of that verbal community, will change from"tree" to "bush." Tacts are often names or iden-tities of things. Chapter 5 in Skinner's VerbalBehavior (1957), entitled "The Tact," providesa 63-page introduction to the concept.

cast in the form of an autoclitically6contextualized tact), the general form"there goes an insect" and the specificform "there goes an Apis mellificia"evoke similar behaviors (pursuing thecreature to its home) that are then ad-vantageously subject to differentialconditioning. One pursuit class gets re-inforced and the other does not. Theformerly indiscriminate and hence in-ept honey harvester who used to followanything having six legs, with the con-

6 The autoclitic is a class of verbal behavior,described by Skinner in chapter 12 of VerbalBehavior (1957), by which speakers incorporate,into their statements about other events, ele-ments that indicate to listeners something aboutthe circumstances or controls that evoke thespeakers' statements. Through autoclitic verbalbehavior, other sorts of controls, not immediate-ly apparent or accessible to the listener, are in-dicated to the listener or are made more explicit,so that, from the perspective of the speaker, thelistener responds more effectively or appropri-ately. Even if the audience simply ignores thespeaker, the speaker is thereby deprived of a re-inforcing response, and that can be aversive forthe speaker. Speakers produce the tact-supple-menting autoclitics because in the past audienceshave reacted in more reinforcing ways whensuch autocitics have been included in thosekinds of statements. Here is an example: Al-though a cow is the most common occasion onwhich a speaker is likely to emit the simple tact"cow," that one-word response, produced in vo-cal isolation, is seldom sufficient for an audience(which probably will reinforce, punish, and ex-tinguish as appropriate to produce a more sat-isfying elaboration by the speaker). Some ex-amples of autoclitics of potential relevance tothis example are italicized in the following state-ments: I see a cow. I think that is a cow. I said"cow." I infer that it's a cow. I'm reminded ofa cow. I doubt that it's a cow. I'm expecting acow. In general, speakers are likely to go unre-inforced until some autocitics are added to theirsimple tacts. When the audience responds in areinforcing way to the autoclitically elaboratedstatement, it is also necessarily reinforcing thoseincluded relevant autoclitics that suggest thecontrols on the speaker's "cow" remark. In ev-eryday language, the audience "wants" to knowwhy the speaker said that and perhaps also iscurious about other circumstances such as thetime of its emission (if the time is not alreadyknown). Autocitics let the audience take intoaccount some of the important relations betweenspeakers' verbal responses and the environmen-tal events that have evoked those responses.Members of the audience can then respond moreappropriately to what speakers say.


ditioning of some better science, willnow pursue only an Apis mellificia.

2. Prescriptions are maintained forthe punishment or extinction of meta-phorical, metonymical, and solecisticextensions. The chemist who, in an ar-ticle for publication, would report thatthe color change told him that the ti-tration was coming to an end may berequired by the editor to say "the colorchange indicated that," because colorchanges do not actually talk.

3. Rules limiting audience variablesare maintained so that exaggeration orunderstatement, misrepresentation, ly-ing, and fiction are punished or extin-guished. Scientific verbal behavior isthus kept relatively free of humor, wit,style, poetic devices, and other formsthat reflect irrelevant or potentiallymisleading sources of strength.

4. Rules for scientific compositionprescribe that the speaker include ap-propriate autoclitics that describe (of-ten in an implicit way) the speaker'sbehavior-perhaps to qualify, quantify,or indicate frequency, and, as appro-priate, to suggest the strength of thecontrols on the speaker's own behaviorand somehow inform the listener ofhow best to interpret interrelationsamong separate parts of the speaker'sverbal behavior.Among the above-described verbal

practices of a scientific community canbe found both scientific and philosoph-ical activities. Consider first a responsethat affects the environment and is ex-hibited under shared antecedent con-trols that consist of both a verbal clas-sificatory scheme and certain environ-mental events. That response is classi-fied as technological (a technologicallinguistic response). For example, con-fronted with an outdoor audience try-ing to identify a confusing cloud pass-ing overhead, you announce "lenticu-lar cloud" in response to the followingset of antecedent stimuli: (a) that par-ticular cloud in the sky, (b) gestures ofconfusion being exhibited by audiencemembers, and (c) a handheld printedchart of cloud shapes, with labels.

Suppose that one is to develop such

a classificatory scheme by delineatingthe respective criteria to be featured inits categories. One's incipient steps areoften the outcome of a philosophicalintervention, insofar as doing so ispartly controlled by antecedent philo-sophical statements that increase theprobability of actually beginning theproduction of the new classificationscheme. An example of such a philo-sophical intervention may be the reit-eration of the assumption that it is use-ful to have procedures and categoriesby which to sort events. That philo-sophical verbal behavior would sharein the control of verbal activities con-ducive to the production of the newscience (the new classificationscheme). Producing that new science,in the form of descriptions of proper-ties, procedures, and rules, may sub-sequently require elements of a scienceand technology of science. But whenthose descriptions of properties, pro-cedures, and rules are finally condi-tioned and can subsequently occur asresponses in the repertoire of individ-uals, they are regarded as elements ofthose persons' specific sciences (e.g.,geology or meteorology). If asked toteach their sciences, those individualswould teach those sets of descriptions,rules, and procedures. When the de-scriptions of, or thoughts about, thosesame properties, procedures, and rulesare exhibited as responses that functionas antecedent stimuli sharing in thecontrol of other responses directed atthe environment, we can refer to themas scientific stimuli sharing in the con-trol of some behavior that, because oftheir contributions to its controls, areclassed as technological. That sort ofoperation is often described simply asthe "application of science," althoughtechnically, of course, science is notsomething that a scientific person-agent does, but rather something ver-bally behavioral that is made to happento the body of the scientist by its cur-rent environment.

Philosophy, then, like science, hasbeen identified as a special verbal rep-ertoire-in the case of philosophy,


consisting of criteria, principles, andrules for interpreting data in certainways. Note that the term interpretingimplies the exhibition of scientific ver-bal behavior that presumably, in turn,is under partial control by philosophi-cal verbal behavior, which imposes aquality control upon the science.A theory, prima facie, may be clas-

sified as science, but that classificationmay or may not withstand the qualitytest. Consider, for example, the theorythat the moon is made of green cheese.Given the rising moon and that theory,an observer may report that "the ce-lestial cheese ball has just come up."Philosophy may come into play if sucha technological statement, by its in-credible nature, evokes the philosoph-ical proposition that all events have anatural history. Then, under partialcontrol of that philosophical assump-tion, a self-challenge may emerge inthe form of a scientific probe: "Whatsequence of natural history could pro-duce a green cheese moon?" Given themoon and that unanswerable philo-sophically stimulated question, the sci-entific theory about green cheesewould be unlikely to emerge and thuswould no longer be available to sharein the control of one's reactions to themoon. Note that a theory with no evi-dence behind it is subject to a philo-sophically supported culling and isthereby disqualified as science underthe "no help" criterion that was dis-cussed earlier. A more plausible theo-ry-that is, one that is a response tosupporting evidence-retains its clas-sification as science even though it toomay be subject to eventual eliminationfrom one's scientific repertoire. In thatcase the elimination results from dis-placement by a more strongly condi-tioned but incompatible theory or de-scription.

Unlike science, in which the verbalpractices supplement natural environ-mental stimuli to yield more effectivebehavior acting on the nonverbal en-vironment, philosophy consists of ver-bal practices that affect other verbalpractices, namely, those of the science.

Whereas the verbal repertoire of sci-ence reveals its effects in improvedtechnological interventions in the usu-ally, though not necessarily, externalenvironment, the verbal repertoire ofphilosophy has its effects in improvingthe organization and effectiveness ofscientific verbal behavior. The philos-ophy-science functional relation isthus a behavior-behavior relation(Hayes & Brownstein, 1986) in whichboth kinds of behavior are verbal.

Consider the following example ofthis quality control function in whichphilosophical verbal behavior con-strains scientific verbal behavior. Skin-ner (1953) observed that "scientistshave also discovered the value of re-maining without an answer until a sat-isfactory one can be found" (p. 13).When prescribed in the form of a rule,this statement functions to restrict theclasses of stimulus controls that are toevoke the descriptive or explanatoryverbal behavior of the scientist. Thisrule implies that when explanations oc-cur, the antecedent stimuli pertaining tothe phenomena of concern must consistof scientifically adduced evidence. Thefunction of this rule is therefore phil-osophical, because it exerts a form ofquality control over the kind of sciencethat the prevailing circumstances canevoke. The substantial reinforcersgained through effective scientificpractices have in the past diminishedwhen scientists have proffered solu-tions invented as expedient escapesfrom negatively reinforcing socialpressures to provide premature an-swers. The rule leads to two kinds ofoutcomes. First, it acts to preserve jus-tified ignorance by increasing the prob-ability of contact with whatever socialreinforcers are contingent on such rulefollowing per se (a kind of social re-inforcement typically described as "re-spect for the scientific integrity of aperson"). Second, it acts to sharpen theoccasion for disapproving reactionscontingent on faulty premature expla-nations. The reiteration of the ruleagainst fallacious explanations impliesthat subsequent potential costs can fol-


low from expedient spurious explana-tions and exemplifies a philosophicalself-management practice by whichscientists avoid compromising the truthor validity of their own work in re-sponse to aversive social demands forpremature explanations. The scientificintegrity of the community is thus pro-tected through the functioning of an el-ement of the philosophy of science.(For descriptions of contemporary nat-ural scientists whose behavior seems toviolate this rule, see Begley, 1998.)A further example of the functional

role of philosophy was of historical im-portance in the evolution of the naturalscience of behavior. Working with oldscience, early experimental analysts ofbehavior were developing new science.Like other scientists, they often foundthemselves under contingencies to es-tablish reliability. One element of thescience that they had inherited was arule that two independent observersmust be affected in the same way be-fore a stimulus can be "taken forgranted." This rule had substantial im-plications about how behavior could bemeasured validly. The reiteration of therule calling for confirmation by a sec-ond observer provided a kind of safe-guard. However, when that rule wasapplied in studies of private behavioralevents, it proved troublesome, becausethe internal location of the relevantvariables precluded a second observ-er's access. Thus, the scientific explo-ration of private events was being hin-dered by the very science then avail-able with which to pursue such studies.

TIhe philosophical verbal practices ofthe newly evolving discipline eventu-ally yielded a potential circumventionof that obstructing rule. The key to cir-cumvention was the fundamental phil-osophical assumption, characteristic ofradical behaviorism, that, in theory, abehavior need not be confirmed if asufficient description of the currentcontrols along with a sufficient behav-ioral and genetic history of the behav-ing organism are available, becauseunder those circumstances the eminentbehavior is inevitable and, in theory,

confidently predictable. In the case ofpublic behavior, trainers have often be-come familiar with a trainee's geneti-cally determined propensities andknow well the results of the recent con-ditioning that in many cases they them-selves arranged for the trainee. On thatbasis, those trainers will often feel con-fident that the trainee will behave pre-dictably in future situations in whichthe trainers cannot accompany thetrainee. In fact, that is often preciselythe point of a training program.

Similarly, confidence in the occur-rence of an unobserved private behav-ior need not be based on observationsby multiple observers if (a) one canvalidly anticipate the subject's contactwith antecedent controls that couldproduce the private behavior, and (b)one can describe a conditioning historythat would have rendered those ante-cedents appropriately functional. Forexample, if we know the details of aparticular history of punishment towhich a person has been subjected andwe are satisfied that that person's bodyfunctions systemically within normalranges, we can then be relatively sureof the occurrence within that person,on certain specifiable occasions, of re-spondent behaviors (detectable fromtheir subsequent systemic effects in theform of private feelings of guilt, sin, orshame) even in the absence of otherconfirming evidence.7 That is the na-ture of training that is typically if fal-laciously described as "instilling aconscience." No such trainers haveever contacted the private behaviorsthat they are nevertheless confidentwill occur in their trainees under theappropriate circumstances.When analysis revealed that the es-

7The respondent behavior, of the kind fea-tured in this example, is the automatically elic-ited behavior of a gland such that it dumpschemicals into the bloodstream of the organism.The subsequent effects of those chemicals on thebody are sensed as the feelings that are men-tioned. The respondent behaviors are the actionsof those glands, not the feelings, although thosefeelings are inevitable though indirect sensoryeffects of those respondent glandular behaviors.


sence of the two-observer rule per-tained only to increasing the reliabilityof private events for a remote audi-ence, it was an appeal to some relevantphilosophy that allowed the adjustmentof what would otherwise have beenfixated science practices. The appeal todeterminism and its implicationsopened the possibility of substitutinganother scientific approach to reliabil-ity, such as a delineation of (a) the cur-rent events that may function as ante-cedent controls, (b) the genetic pre-paredness to behave in certain ways,and (c) the relevant conditioning his-tory. The practices of the science werethen reorganized-a change made pos-sible by a shift from dependence on asafeguard-type rule (that had gotten inthe way) to some analytical alternativescience of a generically different na-ture-free of the attached disadvantageand potentially even more effective formeasuring reliability.8 Without the

8 Using two or more observers to establish thereliability of reports is of the statistical genre.Under that approach, the assumption of validitybecomes more confident as the reports of moreobservers agree (i.e., the assumption of validityis based on interobserver reliability). A radicalbehavioral altemative approach follows from thedeterministic implication that, because all be-havior is precisely controlled, any variability inbehavioral data not attributable to instrumentalvariations in measurement must reflect variationin the control on the described behavior or onthe behavior of the describer. Thus an analysisof the controls on both the observer and the sub-ject can account for critical kinds of variation indata on the subject's behavior. Such a contin-gency analysis is essentially the analysis of va-lidity per se. The statistical approach can showagreement among various observers and therebyestablish a degree of reliability, but, unlike atight investigation of the contingencies, it cannotanalytically penetrate directly to the question ofvalidity. If a set of contingencies and a commonhistory affect all members of a universe of ob-servers, then, as a result of that sharing, all ob-servers may agree, but all may be agreeing onan invalid report. A contingency analysis of thecontrols on any one of them would theoreticallybe sufficient to detect that invalidity. Thus, be-haviorologically, the validity of the report of asingle observer is established through the studyof the controls governing that report, and sucha generically different approach theoretically cir-cumvents a requirement for multiple observers.

availability of the new radical behav-iorist philosophy with which to inter-vene among the controlling variablesof the science to open that new scien-tific approach, practitioners wouldhave been stuck with a kind of sciencethat precluded their scientific investi-gation of a whole domain of interestingand important phenomena and hin-dered their gaining control over thatclass of events.

CONCLUSION

The traditional meaning of the termphilosophy, though vague, usually im-plied either something endowed withintrinsic importance or something thatleads to important outcomes, whichimplies its capacity to share in the con-trol of behavior that is strongly con-sequated. However, the functional def-inition advanced in this article requiresonly that philosophical verbal behaviorfunction in a certain way. True, to bemaintained it must be reinforced, butthe strength of the reinforcer is irrele-vant to the classification. Philosophycan therefore function in the requisitelydefinitive manner yet enter into func-tions with other behavior that remainsrelatively unimportant, as some of theexamples in this section may have il-lustrated.

Although the work of Skinner, whowas frequently cited as the world'sforemost behavioral scientist, implicit-ly suggested that philosophy func-tioned as quality-controlling verbalstimuli for science-a position explic-itly advanced in this article-WillardVan Orman Quine, perhaps the mostimportant American philosopher of thepast half century, approached the sameconclusion by way of his discipline. Inthe scientific enterprise, Quine assignsto philosophy a role characterized asscience taking a scientific look at itsown methods-science gone self-re-flective (Shebar, 1987). The thesis of

In any given case, that theoretical circumventioncan then become as practical as the effectivenessof the contingency analysis will permit.


this article is that modem behaviorol-ogy serves as the science of scienceand as the science of philosophy, notonly to explain the relation betweenscience and philosophy, but to developthe verbal technology for producingmore effective philosophical reper-toires.

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Fraley - 'Foundations for a Natural Science of Philosophy