Abstract

A common assumption among both behavioral and cognitive psychologists is that behaviorism and cognitivism are alternative theoretical positions addressing a single set of phenomena. Were that so, then it would be reasonable to expect that at least one of these theoretical positions is dispensible. But it is false that behaviorism and cognitivism address the same thing. The object of behaviorism is to establish the relation between behavior and the context of its occurrence. The object of cognitivism is to establish the design of the internal machinery through whose functioning organisms are capable of behaving in context. Behaviorism and cognitivism are representative examples of more inclusive theoretical stances that might be called, alternatively, contextualism and organocentrism