Foxall's argument that behavioristic and intentional approaches should be hybridized rests on his views about the inability of a behavioristic position to deal with several features of behavior, including its continuity through time. My commentary suggests that Foxall's reservations about the inadequacies of a behavioristic position are overstated. A behavioristic approach can incorporate many of the features of behavior said to embody intention. However, the radical-behavioristic approach to the continuity of behavior through time is highly unconventional, permitting provisional temporal gaps (...) in cause–effect sequences. (shrink)

The rationale, scientific necessity, and character of intentionality ascriptions (assertions that attribute beliefs, expectations, wishes and such to certain systems) remain unresolved issues in the philosophy of mind and psychology. Foxall's proposed resolution (2007), which he calls "Intentional Behaviorism" (IB), is that intentionality ascriptions should be tied to the experimental analysis of behavior, nervous systems, and evolutionary considerations. Foxall's tone of scientific pluralism and attention to academic philosophy and psychology are steps in the right direction. However, I remain skeptical about (...) IB's adequacy as a philosophical underpinning of psychology. My skepticism stems from IB's a-ontological character (which ignores the nature of intentionality, a major issue in psychology), pragmatist inclination (which invites relativism), and adoption of the linguistic view of intentionality, where intensionality is the defining criterion of intentionality. The linguistic view forces us either to restrict intentionality to humans, a deal-breaker for animal cognition psychologists, of to talk of mental language, a deal-breaker for operant psychologists. Also, an emphasis on extensionality, which is about logical validity and not soundness, fails to capture the emphasis of scientific psychology on evidence as a rationality criterion. Finally, if IB presupposes or entails linguistic anti-nativism, it is unlikely to appeal to evolutionary psychologists. IB would thus be better off by abandoning the linguistic view of intentionality. (shrink)

Professor Foxall suggests the radical behaviorist language of contingencies is fine as far as it goes, and is quite suitable for matters of prediction and control. However, he argues that radical behaviorist language is extensional, and that it is necessary to formally incorporate the intentional idiom into the language of behavioral science to promote explanations and interpretations of behavior that are comprehensive in scope. Notwithstanding Professor Foxall's arguments, radical behaviorists hold that the circumstances identified by the use of the intentional (...) idiom are accommodated by the radical behaviorist language of contingencies, not only for prediction and control but also for explanations and interpretations. Of central importance is that individuals may have histories that lead them to generate descriptions of past and present behavior, as well as descriptions of prevailing circumstances that have caused that behavior or are likely to cause that behavior in the future. The resulting verbal behavior may then enter into contingencies influencing their behavior, although the extent to which it does so varies across individuals as a function of their histories. Overall, the way that the pragmatism of radical behaviorism conceives of the nature and contribution of covert events differs appreciably from the way Professor Foxall conceives of the nature and contribution of intentional phenomena. (shrink)

This commentary discusses critically the proposal of Foxall's intentional behaviorism that, when the use of intentional categories can be justifiably portrayed as heuristic overlay to theories incorporating radical behaviorist principles, intentionality may be part of behaviorist interpretations of behavior that occurs outside of the controlled conditions of the laboratory and practical behavioral interventions. I sketch an argument that typical uses of intentional categories for the explanation of human agency (e.g., its exercise in conducting scientific research) are not properly grasped as (...) being such heuristic overlay and so are not illuminated by behaviorist interpretations. (shrink)

According to Foxall (2007), simple acts may best be explained in terms of behavior of the organism as a whole, but complex behavioral patterns, usually described by mental terms, can only be explained by neurocognitive psychology, in which the mind is conceived as an internal mechanism. This proposed division of psychological labor is faulty, first because there is no distinct dividing line between simple (non-mental) and complex (mental) behavior, and second because behavioral psychology alone or neurocognitive psychology alone can describe (...) both simple and complex behavioral patterns. The neurocognitive approach to the mind is based on a science of efficient causes. A post-Skinnerian behavioral approach to the mind, "teleological behaviorism," is based on a science of final causes. Teleological behaviorism studies mental life itself while neurocognitivism studies its underlying mechanism. Both are required for a complete understanding of the mind. (shrink)