Antirealist Arguments in Behavior Analysis

Behavior and Philosophy 33:55 - 65 (2005)
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Abstract

Some operant theorists have argued that the most fundamental concepts of behavior analysis have antirealist implications: for example, that stimuli have no physical properties, that we have no epistemic access to a physical world, that the world exists only in behavior, and that we are locked in our behavior. In this article, I show that such beliefs do not derive from behavior analysis. In particular, the concepts of stimulus and response employed in behavior analysis have no antirealist implications. Putative proofs to the contrary are seriously confused.

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