Reply to Baars
| Abstract | My claim that Skinner believed in psychological atoms is actually strengthened by Baars' remark that Skinner's behaviorist atoms could take a variety of physical forms. ( "A rat in a box could depress the bar by sitting on it, by using its paws, or biting it: these physically different responses were functionally equivalent operant behaviors.") Baars is correct that Pavlov, unlike Skinner, thought that psychological atoms were identical to certain physiological items. But Skinner, as a non-reductive atomist, thought he could permit his psychological atoms to have a variety of physical forms. He still believed that even though each S-R connection was not really physical, it could nevertheless be understood as being independent of all other S-R connections ,and without reference to the laws of physics. It doesn't really make sense to speak of something as being both ontologically determined by its function, and ontologically independent, but philosophical clarity was not Skinner's strong point. | |||||||||
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