Abstract

Foxall's incorrect claims about behavior analysis arise from a failure to understand the stance of behavior analysis. Behavior analysis is the science of behavior; it is about behavior and not about organisms. It views behavioral events as natural events to be explained by other natural events. This view extends to verbal behavior. First-person statements and third-person statements, intentional or otherwise, are instances of behavior to be explained. Behavior analysis explains them by relating them to the history of context and consequences that might have led to their occurrence. Believing in Satan is an extended activity, of which statements about Satan constitute less extended parts; it is an error to suggest that the belief could stand as the efficient cause of its parts. That behavior repeats from time to time is no more mysterious than that other natural events repeat. Even if we do not know the physiological mechanism, filling in the temporal gaps with phony storage and representation is no help. Likewise, control by complex contexts is in no way illuminated by imagining phony processes within the organism.