June 18, 2016

June 18, 2016 

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Behavioral Engineer

Dear Reader,

This is my fourth response to “Epistemological Barriers to Radical Behaviorism” by Donohue et al. (1998). Although my writing may appear like more of the same to you, if you read it carefully, if you read it out loud and listen to the sound of your voice while you read it, you will find out that what I am saying is at the same time very similar, but also very different from the authors of this paper have been writing.

Donohue et al. (1998) write  “Although Bachelard did not make the distinction between overcoming epistemological barriers to understanding a position and overcoming barriers to accepting a position, we believe that this distinction is important.” In other words, they use Bachelard’s words to introduce the reader to their distinction between understanding and accepting. In my view this distinction doesn’t get us to the core of the issue. By splitting the concept of “epistemological barriers” in two, we are now dealing with two kinds of epistemological barriers. In other word, Donohue et al. (1998) have NOT decreased epistemological barriers, they have increased them.

This continues to be very common in science as our writing and reading is considered to be more important than our speaking and listening. My distinction between Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) and Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB), on the other hand, which makes us acknowledge that in SVB speaking and listening happen at the same response rate, while in NVB speaking and listening happen at very different response rates, reliably decreases epistemological barriers. However we need to talk.

I am not asking you to believe me. I want you to verify my distinction. If you do that, you find the results I am writing about. Interestingly, the difference between accepting and understanding maps perfect onto my SVB/NVB distinction.  If non-behaviorists accept behaviorism or if an autistic child accepts the behavior of the behavior analysts, who teaches it verbal behavior, this it is going succeed because of SVB.