Association for Behavior Analysis International

Skinner and other behavior analysts appear to have conceded that the conceptual system of behavior analysis is 'merely descriptive,' perhaps to evade the disputes that might arise from claiming explanatory status for our unconventional approach to psychological science. In contrast, I propose that our approach is at least as explanatory as any other. My basic premise is that all explanations are descriptions, but that not all descriptions are acceptable as explanations. Technically, the descriptions arise as tacts with adduction of additional functions that have been identified with naming. Then: What are the characteristics that result in a description being viewed as an explanation? First, it must be generic, a criterion that often is conflated with that of familiarity. Carefully construed, however, generality includes the important characteristic of parsimony. Second, separate (or basic) descriptive concepts must be interrelated to comprise a network that, along with generality, breaks the constraints of circularity. These characteristics are most commonly achieved through reductionistic strategies, while behavior analysis is best implemented through a multi-scaled approach, whereby the same principles can apply irrespective of the size of the behavioral unit.

All who are interested in the nature of behavior-analytic theory and in its defense against alternative viewpoints. Academic Level: I shall try to supply something for beginners as well as advanced theorists: For example, beginners are likely to have been told in psychology lectures that the concept of reinforcement is circular and therefore trivial. I will document the point that most any scientific theory includes (indeed, is based upon) fundamental principles that are circularly defined. The reinforcement principle's circularity is not problematic, for that principle is interrelated in a network of additional concepts or principles. For the advanced theorist, we can dispense with determinism, and even with the conventional, almost moralistic defenses of parsimony (which have been successfully ignored by cognitivist theorists, at their ultimate peril), by adopting a conceptually clean exposition of behavior-analytic concepts, that is consistent with behavior-analytic terminology while still using mainly ordinary language.