Behaviorism in the History of Psychology: A Critique of the Radical Behaviorism Philosophy

Abstract

This paper aims, firstly, to detect and characterize the argument strategy of radical behaviorism that we understand is noticeably different from the strategy followed by the rest of behaviorisms. It is argued that the specificity of radical behaviorism consists in keeping to verifying the effectiveness of pragmatic circularity between operant behavior under control and the control of the conduct, which the functional analysis of such conduct consists of. In addition, having to recognize, from such finding, the unnecessary character of all theoretical and methodological claims of methodological neobehaviorists. Secondly, a critical discussion of what is considered the fundamental error of the argument strategy of radical behaviorism. Having kept to verifying the mentioned pragmatic circularity, it would make an abstraction of what we believe is the crucial problem of behavioral biology, which is the conjugate relationship between behavior and physiology, and between behavior and evolution. Thus, radical behaviorism would have distorted and blocked the right approach to this problem, and therefore ultimately would have acted as a character (ideological) authentication of the mere behavioral training technique in which behavioral functional analysis consists of as is detached from the field of behavioral biology. Finally, it also points out how all historical behaviorisms, each in its own way, have converged on the (ideological) authentication of the condition of mere behavioral training technique in which psychological knowledge is detached from the field of behavioral biology, assuming that such knowledge would be a natural or objective science equipped with its own cognitive field.