At 4:59 PM -0500 12/11/06, David Epstein wrote:
.......
Actually, even Skinner (to his credit) acknowledges throughout _Beyond
Freedom and Dignity_ that language adds a dimension to the control of
behavior that is otherwise not present--for example, the ability to
learn a new contingency without having directly experienced it.
Verbal Behavior (1957) is a much better source for Skinner on language.
Even though it was written a dozen years earlier (and based on
material developed in the mid '40's) it remains his state of the art.
He made it clear that no new processes were being introduced; simply
a description/taxonomy of specific types of
antecedent/behavior/consequent relationships (discriminated operants)
that he had already presented in the Behavior of Organisms (1938).
He did introduce the concept of rule governed behavior (see
http://krypton.mnsu.edu/~pkbrando/aba_2004.htm for a discussion) to
account for the acquisition of behavior without direct contact with
contingencies. In brief, rule-following can be regarded as a higher
order response class: when presented with a new rule (a new verbal
chain made up of existing language elements) a person with a history
of being reinforced for following rules will do so even if never
before experiencing that particular rule.
This has been a topic of considerable research in the past dozen
years in the behavioral field.
He stops short of admitting that this is a qualitative difference, but it
seems to stretch the boundaries of a merely quantitative one. Which
makes me wonder whether Skinner was being deliberately obscure in
_Beyond Freedom and Dignity_ about the extent to which his assertions
were based on data from nonhuman animals.
His assertions were based on his experimental data (rats and pigeons)
plus others' animal research, corroborated (as Bryan has noted) by a
considerable body of human applied research.
His Columban Simulation (the 'Jack and Jill' pigeon simulation of
human communication done with Robert Epstein) (Symbolic communication
between two pigeons. Science, 1980, 207, 543-45. (with R. Epstein &
R. P. Lanza) was meant as a demonstration that all of the functional
elements of human communication could be shown in animals.
He clearly viewed the difference between human and animal behavior as
a quantitative one.
This is less clear now in the field of behavior analysis.
There is some question whether processes such as stimulus equivalence
(Sidman) and relational framing (Hayes) can be demonstrated in
animals, or whether they are emergent processes shown only in humans.
Currently, both Sidman and Hayes take the point of view that these
processes can be derived from basic operant conditioning.
I'm currently agnostic on the subject.
With that, I'm going to re-re-reiterate my main point one more time
and then go away: I'd have no quarrel with _Beyond Freedom and
Dignity_ if Skinner had made any distinction between what can be
directly inferred from available data and what can only be argued at a
philosophical level. I'll see whether he cleared things up in _About
Behaviorism_.
--David Epstein
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
And I'll let this be my last shot.
--
The best argument against Intelligent Design is that fact that
people believe in it.
* PAUL K. BRANDON [EMAIL PROTECTED] *
* Psychology Dept Minnesota State University *
* 23 Armstrong Hall, Mankato, MN 56001 ph 507-389-6217 *
* http://krypton.mnsu.edu/~pkbrando/ *
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