Abstract
Skinner's Science and Human Behavior is in part an attempt to solve psychology's problem with mind-body dualism by revising our everyday mentalistic conceptual scheme. In the case of descriptive mentalism (the use of mentalistic terms to describe behavior), Skinner offers behavioral "translations." In contrast, Skinner rejects explanatory mentalism (the use of mental concepts to explain behavior) and suggests how to replace it with a behaviorist explanatory framework. For experiential mentalism, Skinner presents a theory of verbal behavior that integrates the use of mentalistic language in first-person reports of phenomenal experience into a scientific framework.
Full Text
The Full Text of this article is available as a PDF (86.4 KB).
Selected References
These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.
- HULL C. L. Behavior postulates and corollaries--1949. Psychol Rev. 1950 May;57(3):173–180. doi: 10.1037/h0062809. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- SKINNER B. F. Are theories of learning necessary? Psychol Rev. 1950 Jul;57(4):193–216. doi: 10.1037/h0054367. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]