August 6, 2016

August 6, 2016

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Behavioral Engineer

Dear Reader,

This is my eight response to “Radical Behaviorism in Reconciliation with Phenomenology” by Willard Day (1969). Radical behaviorism is, as many opponents have written, “anti-ontological”, but non-behaviorists “resist such an anti-ontological outlook.” You could say they never learned the new language. They experienced “the formulation of a radical new epistemology” by the radical behaviorists as forceful and aversive. 

Non-behaviorists couldn’t feel comfortable with formulations which didn’t really address what they experience when they talk with each other. Skinner as well as other radical behaviorists didn’t know about the Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB)/Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB) distinction. This distinction addresses how the listener experiences the speaker. It also addresses how the reader experiences the writer. 

Yet, how the reader experiences the writer cannot address how the listener experiences the speaker. To analyze how the reader experiences the writer’s writing, the speaker must consider the feedback from the listener, who speaks with the speaker. In SVB the speaker and the listener take turns in an unstructured manner. This turn-taking is either completely absent or predetermined in NVB.

Without SVB “The analysis of the variables controlling the verbal behavior of whosoever uses the word knowledge” could not happen and is not ever going to happen. The strenuous focus on epistemology, on what they say, is merely an excuse for radical behaviorists not to pay any attention to how they say it. However, in SVB the speaker and the listener realize how they affect each other. In NVB, the speaker affects the listener with an aversive contingency. When such a listener speaks he or she is bound to respond with counter-control, with NVB.  

To teach radical behaviorism more emphasis must be placed on spoken rather than on textual verbal behavior. Moreover, as this is done, it is essential that radical behaviorism is taught by means of SVB. This can only be accomplished behaviorists differentiate between SVB and NVB.  

Radical behaviorism has been successfully taught only to the extent that SVB was used. As the SVB/NVB distinction was not yet known this couldn’t be the case. It is predicted this will be the case more often if radical behaviorists embrace this distinction. In the light of the SVB/NVB distinction Day’s writing attains new meaning. 

“Anyone is basically free to speak as he does. A man says what he can say; he says what he does say, and all this is in principle acceptable to the radical behaviorist, since whatever is said is as such a manifestation of complex human functioning and is consequently the object of behavioral investigation.” Interestingly, Day makes a distinction between what a man can and does say. As I just explained, although we may say a lot, we cannot say complex things in NVB. 

In SVB we don’t need to say much to say what we want to say. In SVB, we say more by saying less. Day states “In responding to professional language, the radical behaviorist has his own course to follow: he must attempt to discover the variables controlling what has been said.” Why didn’t the radical behaviorists discover the SVB/NVB distinction? Isn’t it important to know whether we respond because we are mutually reinforcing each other or we are affected by an aversive contingency? 

Behaviorists haven’t taken any notice of the difference between SVB and NVB and to my knowledge no papers have been written about how hierarchical ‘social structures’ are maintained by NVB. Day writes that “Even the most mentalistic language is understandable and valuable in this sense,” but he hasn’t made the difference between mentalistic and non-mentalistic talk, which is also the difference between SVB and NVB and between equality and inequality. One thing is for sure, without recognizing NVB first we are unable to recognize and engage in SVB.