July 9, 2016

July 9, 2016 

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Behavioral Engineer

Dear Reader, 

This is my twenty-fourth response to “Epistemological Barriers to Radical Behaviorism” by Donohue et al. (1998). While I am writing this, I am listening to the heavenly music by Ottorino Respighi: Concerto Gregoriano.  It moves me to tears. Please listen to it as it will help you to understand what I mean by Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB). 

Not everything can be explained by a scientific paper. You miss out on so much if you think that music can be replaced. Have some faith in me. Respighi’s music can also help us overcome “Epistemological Barriers to Radical Behaviorism.”  People need this more than a paper spelling out the differences between folk psychology and radical behaviorism. 

We need beauty and new ways of thinking to be reinforced.  By writing Walden Two, Skinner aligned himself with Thoreau. Skinner did what he could to promote Radical Behaviorism. He used his entire behavioral repertoire as an author. He is like me. I do everything to promote SVB, which is an extension of Skinner’s Radical Behaviorism. 

I often sing songs and will let you listen to them so that you will realize that SVB has a lot in common with singing. In SVB it is all about the sound of the speaker’s voice. Only if the speaker has a sound which positively affects the listener can there be SVB. As this was not the case previously we were having a lot of Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB).

In NVB our appreciation for beauty and harmony was completely lost. All “Epistemological Barriers to Radical Behaviorism” are verbal, but once we listen to Respighi’s magnificent sounds, we appreciate the nonverbal. That is why SVB is the way out of all verbal entanglements.