Skinner moved his behavior analysis into a selection-by-consequences tradition that largely if not completely replaced the mechanistic apparatus in the mechanistic tradition of early behaviorism. However, remnants of that apparatus have not been abandoned by some behavior analysts who have appealed to Skinner for support. For example, some behavior analysts have made claims in support of Newtonian mechanism, physical determinism, predominant similarities between the views of the mechanist Jacques Loeb and those of Skinner, and interpreting Skinner's operant as a two-term (...) contingency. These claims have been made with appeals to Skinner for their validity. Such claims support a realignment of Skinner's behavior analysis with the mechanistic tradition that served as a framework for many early behaviorists. But Skinner's account of his three-term contingency does not support such claims. The view presented here argues that Skinner's operant is integrated as a three-term unit within a selectionist tradition that has explanatory origins in probabilistic relations and random variation. This tradition is fundamentally opposed to a mechanistic tradition that has explanatory origins in determinism and its manifestations in paired connections of if-then necessity. (shrink)

The assumption that Skinner was a determinist requires some modification. Although Skinner may have favored determinism to varying degrees while he was advancing mechanistic accounts of behavior that were aligned with the views such as those of Loeb, Watson, and Russell, his advancement of determinism disappeared after his accounts became more closely aligned with selectionist views such as those of Mach, Peirce, and Dewey. This realignment entailed a switch from finding origins or sources for behavior in deterministic laws to finding (...) origins or sources for behavior in random variation. Some sense of the conflict between these views appears early on in Skinner's writing, and arguments in favor of both of these views can be found in sources that Skinner identified in his writings. Although there were good reasons for Skinner to accept determinism when he was advancing a mechanistic behaviorism, there were also good reasons for Skinner to abandon determinism when he was advancing a selectionist behaviorism. (shrink)