Skinner (1984) - Coming To Terms With Private Events

THE BEHAVIORAL AND BRAIN SCIENCES (1984) 7, 547-581
Printed in the United States of America
The operational analysis of

psychological terms
B. F. Skinner
Department of Psychology and Social Relations, Harvard University,
Cambridge, Mass. 02138
Abstract: The major contributions of operationism have been negative, largely because operationists failed to distinguish logical
theories of reference from empirical accounts of language. Behaviorism never finished an adequate formulation of verbal reports and
therefore could not convincingly embrace subjective terms. But verbal responses to private stimuli can arise as social products
through the contingencies of reinforcement arranged by verbal communities.
In analyzing traditional psychological terms, we need to know their stimulus conditions ("finding the referent"), and why each
response is controlled by that condition. Consistent reinforcement of verbal responses in the presence of stimuli presupposes stimuli
acting upon both the speaker and the reinforcing community, but subjective terms, which apparently are responses to private
stimuli, lack this characteristic. Private stimuli are physical, but we cannot account for these verbal responses by pointing to
controlling stimuli, and we have not shown how verbal communities can establish and maintain the necessary consistency of
reinforcement contingencies.
Verbal responses to private stimuli may be maintained through appropriate reinforcement based on public accompaniments, or
through reinforcements accorded responses made to public stimuli, with private cases then occurring by generalization. These
contingencies help us understand why private terms have never formed a stable and uniform vocabulary: It is impossible to establish
rigorous vocabularies of private stimuli for public use, because differential reinforcement cannot be made contingent upon the
property of privacy. The language of private events is anchored in the public practices of the verbal community, which make
individuals aware only by differentially reinforcing their verbal responses with respect to their own bodies. The treatment of verbal
behavior in terms of such functional relations between verbal responses and stimuli provides a radical behaviorist alternative to the
operationism of methodological behaviorists.
Keywords: awareness; behavior, verbal; behaviorism, methodological; behaviorism, radical; operationism; philosophy of psychology;
private events; reference; semantics; subjectivity-objectivity; verbal community
Operationism may be defined as the practice of talking the corresponding set of operations" cannot be taken
about (1) one's observations, (2) the manipulative and literally, and no similarly explicit but satisfactory state-
calculational procedures involved in making them, (3) the ment of the relation is available. Instead, a few round-
logical and mathematical steps which intervene between about expressions recur with rather tiresome regularity
earlier and later statements, and (4) nothing else. So far, whenever this relation is mentioned: We are told that a
the major contribution has come from the fourth provi- concept is to be defined"in terms of certain operations,
sion and, like it, is negative. We have learned how to that propositions are to be "based upon" operations, that
avoid troublesome references by showing that they are a term denotes something only when there are "concrete
artifacts which may be variously traced to history, philos- criteria for its applicability," that operationism consists
ophy, linguistics, and so on. No very important positive in "referring any concept for its definition to . . . con-
advances have been made in connection with the first crete operations," and so on. We may accept expressions
three provisions because operationism has no good defi- of this sort as outlining a program, but they do not provide
nition of a definition, operational or otherwise. It has not a general scheme of definition, much less an explicit
developed a satisfactory formulation of the verbal behav- statement of the relation between concept and operation.
ior of the scientist. The weakness of current theories of language may be
Operationists, like most contemporary writers in the traced to the fact that an objective conception of human
field of linguistic and semantic analysis, are on the fence behavior is still incomplete. The doctrine that words are
between logical "correspondence" theories of reference used to express or convey meanings merely substitutes
and empirical formulations of language in use. They have "meaning" for "idea" (in the hope that meanings can then
not improved upon the mixture of logical and popular somehow be got outside the skin) and is incompatible
terms usually encountered in casual or even supposedly with modern psychological conceptions of the organism.
technical discussions of scientific method or the theory of Attempts to derive a symbolic function from the principle
knowledge (e.g. Bertrand Russell's An Inquiry into of conditioning (or association) have been characterized
Meaning and Truth, 1940). Definition is a key term but is by a very superficial analysis. It is simply not true that an
not rigorously defined. Bridgman's (1928; see also 1945) organism reacts to a sign "as it would to the object which
original contention that the "concept is synonymous with the sign supplants" (Stevens 1939). Only in a very limited
© 7984 Cambridge University Press O14O-525X/84IO4O547-35I$O6.OO 547

Skinner: Psychological terms
area (mainly that of autonomic responses) is it possible to language from society, but the reinforcing action of the
regard a sign as a simple substitute stimulus in the verbal community continues to play an important role in
Pavlovian sense. Modern logic, as a formalization of maintaining the specific relations between responses and
"real" languages, retains and extends this dualistic theory stimuli which are essential to the proper functioning of
of meaning and can scarcely be appealed to by the verbal behavior. How language is acquired is, therefore,
psychologist who recognizes his own responsibility in only part of a much broader problem.
giving an account of verbal behavior. We may generalize the conditions responsible for the
The operational attitude, in spite of its shortcomings, is standard "semantic" relation between a verbal response
a good thing in any science, but especially in psychology and a particular stimulus without going into reinforce-
because of the presence there of a vast vocabulary of ment theory in detail. There are three important terms: a
ancient and nonscientific origin. It is not surprising that stimulus, a response, and a reinforcement supplied by
the broad empirical movement in the philosophy of the verbal community. (All of these need more careful
science, which Stevens has shown to be the background definition than are implied by current usage, but the
of operationism, should have had a vigorous and early following argument may be made without digressing for
representation in the field of psychology - namely, be- that purpose.) The significant interrelations between
haviorism. In spite of the differences which Stevens these terms may be expressed by saying that the commu-
claimed to find, behaviorism has been (at least to most nity reinforces the response only when it is emitted in the
behaviorists) nothing more than a thoroughgoing opera- presence of the stimulus. The reinforcement of the re-
tional analysis of traditional mentalistic concepts. We sponse "red," for example, is contingent upon the pres-
may disagree with some of the answers (such as Watson's ence of a red object. (The contingency need not be
disposition of images), but the questions asked by behav- invariable.) A red object then becomes a discriminative
iorism were strictly operational in spirit. I also cannot stimulus, an "occasion" for the successful emission of the
agree with Stevens that American behaviorism was response "red."
"primitive." The early papers on the problem of con- This scheme presupposes that the stimulus act upon
sciousness by Watson, Weiss, Tolman, Hunter, Lashley, both the speaker and the reinforcing community; other-
and many others, were not only highly sophisticated wise the proper contingency cannot be maintained by the
examples of operational inquiry, they showed a willing- community. But this provision is lacking in the case of
ness to deal with a wider range of phenomena than do many "subjective" terms, which appear to be responses
current streamlined treatments, particularly those of- to private stimuli. The problem of subjective terms does
fered by logicians (e.g. Carnap 1934) interested in a not coincide exactly with that of private stimuli, but there
unified scientific vocabulary. But behaviorism, too, is a close connection. We must know the characteristics of
stopped short of a decisive positive contribution - and for verbal responses to private stimuli in order to approach
the same reason: It never finished an acceptable formula- the operational analysis of the subjective term.
tion of the "verbal report." The conception of behavior The response "My tooth aches" is partly under the
which it developed could not convincingly embrace the control of a state of affairs to which the speaker alone is
"use of subjective terms." able to react, since no one else can establish the required
A considerable advantage is gained from dealing with connection with the tooth in question. There is nothing
terms, concepts, constructs, and so on, quite frankly in mysterious or metaphysical about this; the simple fact is
the form in which they are observed - namely, as verbal that each speaker possesses a small but important private
responses. There is then no danger of including in the world of stimuli. So far as we know, responses to that
concept the aspect or part of nature which it singles out. world are like responses to external events. Nevertheless
One may often avoid that mistake by substituting term for the privacy gives rise to two problems. The first difficulty
concept or construct. Meanings, contents, and references is that we cannot, as in the case of public stimuli, account
are to be found among the determiners, not among the for the verbal response by pointing to a controlling
properties, of response. The question, What is length? stimulus. Our practice is to infer the private event, but
would appear to be satisfactorily answered by listing the this is opposed to the direction of inquiry in a science of
circumstances under which the response "length" is behavior in which we are to predict a response through,
emitted (or, better, by giving some general description of among other things, an independent knowledge of the
such circumstances). If two quite separate sets of circum- stimulus. It is often supposed that a solution is to be found
stances are revealed, then there are two responses having in improved physiological techniques. Whenever it be-
the form "length," since a verbal response class is not comes possible to say what conditions within the orga-
defined by phonetic form alone but by its functional nism control the response "I am depressed," for example,
relations. This is true even though the two sets are found and to produce these conditions at will, a degree of
to be intimately connected. The two responses are not control and prediction characteristic of responses to ex-
controlled by the same stimuli, no matter how clearly it is ternal stimuli will be made possible. Meanwhile, we must
shown that the different stimuli arise from the same be content with reasonable evidence for the belief that
"thing." responses to public and private stimuli are equally lawful
What we want to know in the case of many traditional and alike in kind.
psychological terms is, first, the specific stimulating con- But the problem of privacy cannot be wholly solved by
ditions under which they are emitted (this corresponds to instrumental invasion. No matter how clearly these inter-
"finding the referents") and, second (and this is a much nal events may be exposed in the laboratory, the fact
more important systematic question), why each response remains that in the normal verbal episode they are quite
is controlled by its corresponding condition. The latter is private. We have not solved the second problem of how
not entirely a genetic question. The individual acquires the community achieves the necessary contingency of
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Skinner:Psychological terms
reinforcement. How is the response "toothache" appro- again not an answer, for we are interested in how re-
priately reinforced if the reinforcing agent has no contact sponses to private stimuli are normally, and noninstru-
with the tooth? There is, of course, no question of mentally, set up.) There are two important possibilities.
whether responses to private stimuli are possible. They The surviving covert response may be regarded as an
occur commonly enough and must be accounted for. But accompaniment of the overt one (perhaps part of it), in
why do they occur, what is their relation to controlling which case the response to the private stimulus is im-
stimuli, and what, if any, are their distinguishing charac- parted on the basis of the public stimulus supplied by the
teristics? overt responses, as in (1). On the other hand, the covert
There are at least four ways in which a verbal communi- response may be similar to, though probably less intense
ty with no access to a private stimulus may generate than, the overt one and hence supply the same stimulus,
verbal behavior in response to it: albeit in a weakened form. We have, then, a third
1. It is not strictly true that the stimuli which control possibility: A response may be emitted in the presence of
the response must be available to the community. Any a private stimulus, which has no public accompaniments,
reasonably regular accompaniment will suffice. Consid- provided it is occasionally reinforced in the presence of
er, for example, a blind man who learns the names of a the same stimulus occurring with public manifestations.
trayful of objects from a teacher who identifies the objects Terms falling within this class are apparently descrip-
by sight. The reinforcements are supplied or withheld tive only of behavior, rather than of other internal states
according to the contingency between the blind man's or events, since the possibility that the same stimulus
responses and the teacher's visual stimuli, but the re- may be both public and private (or, better, may have or
sponses are controlled wholly by tactual stimuli. A satis- lack public accompaniments) seems to arise from the
factory verbal system results from the fact that the visual unique fact that behavior may be both covert and overt.
and tactual stimuli remain closely connected. 4. The principle of transfer or stimulus generalization
Similarly, in the case of private stimuli, one may teach a supplies a fourth explanation of how a response to private
child to say "That hurts" in agreement with the usage of stimuli may be maintained by public reinforcement. A
the community by making the reinforcement contingent response which is acquired and maintained in connection
upon public accompaniments of painful stimuli (a smart with public stimuli may be emitted, through generaliza-
blow, tissue damage, and so on). The connection between tion, in response to private events. The transfer is based
public and private stimuli need not be invariable; a not on identical stimuli, as in (3), but on coinciding
response may be conditioned with intermittent reinforce- properties. Thus, we describe internal states as "agi-
ment and even in spite of an occasional conflicting con- tated," "depressed," "ebullient," and so on, in a long list.
tingency. The possibility of such behavior is limited by Responses in this class are all metaphors (including spe-
the degree of association of public and private stimuli cial figures like metonymy). The term metaphor is not
which will supply a net reinforcement sufficient to estab- used pejoratively but merely to indicate that the differen-
lish and maintain a response. tial reinforcement cannot be accorded actual responses to
2. A commoner basis for the verbal reinforcement of a the private case. As the etymology suggests, the response
response to a private stimulus is provided by collateral is "carried over" from the public instance.
responses to the same stimulus. Although a dentist may In summary, a verbal response to a private stimulus
occasionally be able to identify the stimulus for a tooth- may be maintained in strength through appropriate rein-
ache from certain public accompaniments as in (1), the forcement based upon public accompaniments or conse-
response "toothache" is generally transmitted on the quences, as in (1) and (2), or through appropriate rein-
basis of responses which are elicited by the same stimulus forcement accorded the response when it is made to
but which do not need to be set up by an environmental public stimuli, the private case occurring by generaliza-
contingency. The community infers the private stimulus, tion when the stimuli are only partly similar. If these are
not from accompanying public stimuli, but from collat- the only possibilities (and the list is here offered as
eral, generally unconditioned, and at least nonverbal exhaustive), then we may understand why terms refer-
responses (hand to jaw, facial expressions, groans, and so ring to private events have never formed a stable and
on). The inference is not always correct, and the accuracy acceptable vocabulary of reasonably uniform usage. This
of the reference is again limited by the degree of associ- historical fact is puzzling to adherents of the "correspon-
ation. dence school" of meaning. Why is it not possible to assign
3. Some very important responses to private stimuli are names to the diverse elements of private experience and
descriptive of the speaker's own behavior. When this is then to proceed with consistent and effective discourse?
overt, the community bases its instructional reinforce- The answer lies in the process by which "terms are
ment upon the conspicuous manifestations, but the assigned to private events," a process we have just ana-
speaker presumably acquires the response in connection lyzed in a rough way in terms of the reinforcement of
with a wealth of additional proprioceptive stimuli. The verbal responses.
latter may assume practically complete control, as in None of the conditions which we have examined per-
describing one's own behavior in the dark. This is very mits the sharpening of reference which is achieved, in the
close to the example of the blind man; the speaker and the case of public stimuli, by a precise contingency of rein-
community react to different, though closely associated, forcement. In (1) and (2) the association of public and
stimuli. private events may be faulty; the stimuli embraced by (3)
Suppose, now, that a given response recedes to the are of limited scope; and the metaphorical nature of those
level of covert or merely incipient behavior. How shall we in (4) implies a lack of precision. It is, therefore, impossi-
explain the vocabulary which deals with this private ble to establish a rigorous scientific vocabulary for public
world? (The instrumental detection of covert behavior is use, nor can the speaker clearly "know himself" in the
THE BEHAVIORAL AND BRAIN SCIENCES (1984) 7:4 549

Skinner:Psychological terms
sense in which knowing is identified with behaving dis- fact is of extraordinary importance in evaluating tradi-
criminatively. In the absence of the "crisis" provided by tional psychological terms.
differential reinforcement (much of which is necessarily The response "red" is imparted and maintained (either
verbal), private stimuli cannot be analyzed. (This has casually or professionally) by reinforcement which is
little or nothing to do with the availability or capacity of contingent upon a certain property of stimuli. Both
receptors.) speaker and community (or psychologist) have access to
The contingencies we have reviewed also fail to pro- the stimulus, and the contingency can be made quite
vide an adequate check againstfictionaldistortion of the precise. There is nothing about the resulting response
relation of reference (e.g. as in rationalizing). Statements which should puzzle anyone. The greater part of psycho-
about private events may be under control of the depriva- physics rests upon this solid footing. The older psycholog-
tions associated with reinforcing consequences rather ical view, however, was that the speaker was reporting,
than antecedent stimuli. The community is skeptical of not a property of the stimulus, but a certain kind of
statements of this sort, and any attempt to talk about one's private event, the sensation of red. This was regarded as a
private world (as in psychological system making) is later stage in a series beginning with the red stimulus.
fraught with self-deception. The experimenter was supposed to manipulate the pri-
Much of the ambiguity of psychological terms arises vate event by manipulating the stimulus. This seems like
from the possibility of alternative or multiple modes of a gratuitous distinction, but in the case of some subjects a
reinforcement. Consider, for example, the response "I similar later stage could apparently be generated in other
am hungry." The community may reinforce this on the ways (by arousing an "image"), and hence the autonomy
basis of the history of ingestion, as in (1), or on the basis of of a private event capable of evoking the response "red"
collateral behavior associated with hunger, as in (2), or as in the absence of a controllable red stimulus seemed to be
a description of behavior with respect to food, or of proved. An adequate proof, of course, requires the elim-
stimuli previously correlated with food, as in (3). In ination of other possibilities (e.g. that the response is
addition the speaker has (in some instances) the powerful generated by the procedures which are intended to
stimulation of hunger pangs, which is private since the generate the image).
community has no suitable connection with the speaker's Verbal behavior which is "descriptive of images" must
stomach. "I am hungry" may therefore be variously be accounted for in any adequate science of behavior. The
translated as "I have not eaten for a long time" (1), or difficulties are the same for both behaviorist and subjec-
"That food makes my mouth water" (2), or "I am raven- tivist. If the private events are free, a scientific descrip-
ous" (3) (compare the expression "I was hungrier than I tion is impossible in either case. If laws can be dis-
thought" which describes the ingestion of an unexpected- covered, then a lawful description of the verbal behavior
ly large amount of food), or "I have hunger pangs. " While can be achieved, with or without references to images. So
all of these may be regarded as synonymous with "I am much for "finding the referents"; the remaining problem
hungry,' they are not synonymous with each other. It is of how such responses are maintained in relation to their
easy for conflicting psychological systematists to cite referents is also soluble. The description of an image
supporting instances or to train speakers to emit the appears to be an example of a response to a private
response "I am hungry" in conformity with a system. stimulus of class (1) above. That is to say, relevant terms
Using a stomach balloon, one might condition the verbal are established when the private event accompanies a
response exclusively to stimulation from stomach con- controllable external stimulus, but responses occur at
tractions. This would be an example of either (1) or (2) other times, perhaps in relation to the same private
above. Or speakers might be trained to make nice obser- event. The deficiencies of such a vocabulary have been
vations of the strength of their ingestive behavior, which pointed out.
might recede to the covert level as in (3). The response "I We can account for the response "red" (at least as well
am hungry" would then describe a tendency to eat, with as for the "experience" of red) by appeal to past conditions
little or no reference to stomach contractions. Everyday of reinforcement. But what about expanded expressions
usage reflects a mixed reinforcement. A similar analysis like "I see red " or "I am conscious of red"? Here "red"
could be made of all terms descriptive of motivation, may be a response to either a public or a private stimulus
emotion, and action in general, including (of special without prejudice to the rest of the expression, but "see"
interest here) the acts of seeing, hearing, and other kinds and "conscious" seem to refer to events which are by
of sensing. nature or by definition private. This violates the principle
When public manifestations survive, the extent to that reinforcement cannot be made contingent upon the
which the private stimulus takes over is never certain. In privacy of a stimulus. A reference cannot be narrowed
the case of a toothache, the private event is no doubt down to a specifically private event by any known method
dominant, but this is due to its relative intensity, not to of differential reinforcement.
any condition of differential reinforcement. In a descrip- The original behavioristic hypothesis was, of course,
tion of one's own behavior, the private component may be that terms of this sort were descriptions of one's own
much less important. A very strict external contingency (generally covert) behavior. The hypothesis explains the
may emphasize the public component, especially if the establishment and maintenance of the terms by supplying
association with private events is faulty. In a rigorous natural public counterparts in similar overt behavior. The
scientific vocabulary private effects are practically elimi- terms are in general of class (3). One consequence of the
nated. The converse does not hold. There is apparently hypothesis is that each term may be given a behavioral
no way of basing a response entirely upon the private part definition. We must, however, modify the argument
of a complex of stimuli. Differential reinforcement cannot slightly. To say "I see red" is to react, not to red (this is a
be made contingent upon the property of privacy. This trivial meaning of "see"), but to one's reaction to red.

Skinner: Psychological terms
"See" is a term acquired with respect to one's own Some afterthoughts on methodological and
behavior in the case of overt responses available to the radical behaviorism
community, but according to the present analysis it may
be evoked at other times by any private accompaniment In the summer of 1930, two years after the publication of
of overt seeing. Here is a point at which a nonbehavioral Bridgman's The Logic of Modern Physics, I wrote a paper
private seeing may be slipped in. Although the com- called "The Concept of the Reflex in the Description of
monest private accompaniment would appear to be the Behavior" (Skinner 1931), later offered as thefirsthalf of a
stimulation which survives in a similar covert act, as in (3), doctoral thesis. Although the general method, particu-
it might be some sort of state or condition which gains larly the historical approach, was derived from Mach's
control of the response as in (1) or (2). The Science of Mechanics (1893), my debt to Bridgman
The superiority of the behavioral hypothesis is not was acknowledged in the second paragraph. This was, I
merely methodological. That aspect of seeing which can think, the first psychological publication to contain a
be defined behaviorally is basic to the term as established reference to The Logic of Modern Physics (1928), and it
by the verbal community and hence most effective in was thefirstexplicitly operational analysis of a psychologi-
public discourse. A comparison of cases (1) and (3) will cal concept.
also show that terms which recede to the private level as Shortly after the paper was finished, I found myself
overt behavior becomes covert have an optimal accuracy contemplating a doctoral examination before a committee
of reference, as responses to private stimuli go. of whose sympathies I was none too sure. Not wishing to
The additional hypothesis follows quite naturally that wait until an unconditional surrender might be neces-
being conscious, as a form of reacting to one's own sary, I put out a peace feeler. Unmindful or ignorant of
behavior, is a social product. Verbal behavior can be the ethics of the academy, I suggested to a member of the
distinguished, and conveniently defined, by the fact that Harvard department that if I could be excused from
the contingencies of reinforcement are provided by other anything but the most perfunctory examination, the time
organisms rather than by a mechanical action upon the which I would otherwise spend in preparation would be
environment. The hypothesis is equivalent to saying that devoted to an operational analysis of half a dozen key
it is only because the behavior of the individual is impor- terms from subjective psychology. The suggestion was
tant to society that society in turn makes it important to received with such breathless amazement that my peace
the individual. One becomes aware of what one is doing feeler went no further.
only after society has reinforced verbal responses with The point I want to make is that at that time - 1930 - I
respect to one's behavior as the source of discriminative could regard an operational analysis of subjective terms as
stimuli. The behavior to be described (the behavior of a mere exercise in scientific method. It was just a bit of
which one is to be aware) may later recede to the covert hackwork, badly needed by traditional psychology, which
level, and (to add a crowning difficulty) so may the verbal I was willing to engage in as a public service or in return
response. It is an ironic twist, considering the history of for the remission of sins. It never occurred to me that the
the behavioristic revolution, that as we develop a more analysis could take any but a single course or have any
effective vocabulary for the analysis of behavior we also relation to my own prejudices. The result seemed as
enlarge the possibilities of awareness, so defined. The predetermined as that of a mathematical calculation.
psychology of the other one is, after all, a direct approach I am of this opinion still. I believe that the data of a
to "knowing thyself." science of psychology can be defined or denoted unequiv-
The main purpose of this discussion has been to define ocally, and that some one set of concepts can be shown to
a definition by considering an example. To be consistent, be the most expedient according to the usual standards in
psychologists must deal with their own verbal practices scientific practice. Nevertheless, these things have not
by developing an empirical science of verbal behavior. been done in thefieldwhich was dominated by subjective
They cannot, unfortunately, join logicians in defining a psychology, and the question is, Why not?
definition, for example, as a "rule for the use of a term" Psychology, alone among the biological and social sci-
(Feigl 1945); they must turn instead to the contingencies ences, passed through a revolution comparable in many
of reinforcement which account for the functional relation respects with that which was taking place at the same time
between a term, as a verbal response, and a given in physics. This was, of course, behaviorism. The first
stimulus. This is the "operational basis" for their use of step, like that in physics, was a reexamination of the
terms; and it is not logic but science. observational bases of certain important concepts. But by
Philosophers will call this circular. They will argue that the time Bridgman's book was published, most of the
we must adopt the rules of logic in order to make and early behaviorists, as well as those of us just coming along
interpret the experiments required in an empirical sci- who claimed some systematic continuity, had begun to
ence of verbal behavior. But talking about talking is no see that psychology actually did not require the redefini-
more circular than thinking about thinking or knowing tion of subjective concepts. The reinterpretation of an
about knowing. Whether or not we are lifting ourselves established set of explanatory fictions was not the way to
by our own bootstraps, the simple fact is that we can make secure the tools then needed for a scientific description of
progress in a scientific analysis of verbal behavior. behavior. Historical prestige was beside the point. There
E antually we shall be able to include, and perhaps to was no more reason to make a permanent place for terms
understand, our own verbal behavior as scientists. If it like "consciousness," "will," or "feeling" than for "phlo-
turns out that ourfinalview of verbal behavior invalidates giston" or "vis anima." On the contrary, redefined con-
our scientific structure from the point of view of logic and cepts proved to be awkward and inappropriate, and
truth value, then so much the worse for logic, which will Watsonianism was, in fact, practically wrecked in the
also have been embraced by our analysis. attempt to make them work.

SkinnenPsychological terms
Thus it came about that while the behaviorists might philosophy of "truth by agreement." The public, in fact,
have applied Bridgman's principle to representative turns out to be simply that which can be agreed upon
terms from a mentalistic psychology (and were most because it is common to two or more agreers. This is not
competent to do so), they had lost all interest in the an essential part of operationism; on the contrary, opera-
matter. They might as well have spent their time in tionism permits us to dispense with this most unsatisfy-
showing what an 18th-century chemist was talking about ing solution of the problem of truth. Disagreements can
when he said that the Metallic Substances consisted of a often be cleared up by asking for definitions, and opera-
vitrifiable earth united with phlogiston. There was no tional definitions are especially helpful, but opera-
doubt that such a statement could be analyzed operationism is not primarily concerned with communication
tionally or translated into modern terms, or that subjec- or disputation. It is one of the most hopeful of principles
tive terms could be operationally defined, but such mat- precisely because it is not. The solitary inhabitant of a
ters were of historical interest only. What was wanted was desert isle could arrive at operational definitions (pro-
a fresh set of concepts derived from a direct analysis of the vided he had previously been equipped with an ade-
newly emphasized data, and this was enough to absorb all quate verbal repertoire). The ultimate criterion for the
the available energies of the behaviorists. Besides, the goodness of a concept is not whether two people are
motivation of the enfant terrible had worn itself out. brought into agreement but whether the scientist who
I think the Harvard department would have been uses the concept can operate successfully upon his mate-
happier if my offer had been taken up. What happened rial - all by himself if need be. What matters to Robin-
instead was the operationism of Boring and Stevens. This son Crusoe is not whether he is agreeing with himself
has been described as an attempt to climb onto the but whether he is getting anywhere with his control over
behavioristic bandwagon unobserved. I cannot agree. It nature.
is an attempt to acknowledge some of the more powerful One can see why the subjective psychologist makes so
claims of behaviorism (which could no longer be denied) much of agreement. It was once a favorite sport to quiz
but at the same time to preserve the old explanatory him about intersubjective correspondences. "How do
fictions. It is agreed that the data of psychology must be you know that O's sensation of green is the same as E's?"
behavioral rather than mental if psychology is to be a And so on. But agreement alone means very little. Vari-
member of the Unified Sciences, but the position taken is ous epochs in the history of philosophy and psychology
merely that of "methodological" behaviorism. According have seen wholehearted agreement on the definition of
to this doctrine the world is divided into public and psychological terms. This makes for contentment but not
private events; and psychology, in order to meet the for progress. The agreement is likely to be shattered
requirements of a science, must confine itself to the when someone discovers that a set of terms will not really
former. This was never good behaviorism, but it was an work, perhaps in some hitherto neglected field, but this
easy position to expound and defend and was often does not make agreement the key to workability. On the
resorted to by the behaviorists themselves. It is least contrary, it is the other way round.
objectionable to the subjectivist because it permits him to 3. The distinction between public and private is by no
retain "experience" for purposes of "nonphysicalistic" means the same as that between physical and mental.
self-knowledge. That is why methodological behaviorism (which adopts
The position is not genuinely operational because it thefirst)is very different from radical behaviorism (which
shows an unwillingness to abandon fictions. It is like lops off the latter term in the second). The result is that
saying that although the physicist must admittedly con- whereas the radical behaviorist may in some cases consid-
fine himself to Einsteinian time, it is still true that er private events (inferentially, perhaps, but nonetheless
Newtonian absolute time flows "equably without relation meaningfully), the methodological operationist has ma-
to anything external." It is a sort of E pur si muove in neuvered himself into a position where he cannot. "Sci-
reverse. What is lacking is the bold and exciting behav- ence does not consider private data," says Boring (1945). I
ioristic hypothesis that what one observes and talks about contend, however, that my toothache is just as physical as
is always the "real" or "physical" world (or at least the my typewriter, though not public, and I see no reason
"one" world) and that "experience" is a derived construct why an objective and operational science cannot consider
to be understood only through an analysis of verbal (not, the processes through which a vocabulary descriptive of a
of course, merely vocal) processes. toothache is acquired and maintained. The irony of it is
It may be worthwhile to consider four of the principle that, whereas Boring must confine himself to an account
difficulties which arise from the public-private of my external behavior, I am still interested in what
distinction. might be called Boring-from-within.
1. The relation between the two sets of terms which are 4. The public-private distinction apparently leads to a
required has proved to be confusing. The pair most logical, as distinct from a psychological, analysis of the
frequently discussed is "discrimination" (public) and verbal behavior of the scientist, although I see no reason
"sensation" (private). Is one the same as the other, or why it should. Perhaps it is because the subjectivist is still
reducible to the other, and so on? A satisfactory resolu- not interested in terms but in what the terms used to
tion would seem to be that the terms belong to conceptual stand for. The only problem a science of behavior must
systems which are not necessarily related in a point-to- solve in connection with subjectivism is in the verbal
point correspondence. There is no question of equating field. How can we account for the behavior of talking
them or their referents, or reducing one to the other, but about mental events? The solution must be psychological,
only a question of translation - and a single term in one rather than logical, and I have tried to suggest one
set may require a paragraph in the other. approach in my present paper.
2. The public-private distinction emphasizes the arid The confusion which seems to have arisen from opera-

Commentary/ Skinner: Psychological terms
tionism - a principle which is supposed to eliminate "This is a chair" or "That is a Ming vase" - it does not happen
confusion - is discouraging. But upon second thought it often, and there is no reason to take it as paradigmatic of
appears that the possibility of a genuine operationism in linguistic behavior, or as central or basic in it.
psychology has not yet been fully explored. With a little Let us set that fact aside also, and attend to the tiny fragment
effort I can recapture my enthusiasm of some years ago/ of linguistic behavior that does fit this pattern. Still there is
trouble for Skinner's theory of meaning. I am confronted by
(This is, of course, a private event.) something red; it is a stimulus, to which I respond by saying
"(That is) red." In calling these items a "stimulus" and a
NOTE "response" respectively, Skinner is implying that the former
This article is slightly revised from the original, which ap- causes the latter: Like most stimulus-response meaning theo-
peared in Psychological Review 52: 270-277; 291-294, 1945. rists, he is apparently attracted by the idea that the meanings of
our utterances are determined by the very same items that
cause them. In his own words, the "referents" of what we say
"control" our saying it, and he ties control to prediction, speak-
ing of a "science of behavior in which we are to predict response
through, among other things, an independent knowledge of the
Open Peer Commentary stimulus."
The phrase "among other things" is needed in that sentence.
Without it, Skinner would be implying that linguistic behavior
Commentaries submitted by the qualified professional readership of is vastly more predictable than it really is, in the manner of the
this journal will be considered for publication in a later issue as stimulus-response meaning theorist who once wrote: "If you
Continuing Commentary on this article, lntegrative overviews and want a person to utter the word chair, one of the best ways is to
syntheses are especially encouraged.
let him see an unusual chair" (Miller 1951, p. 166). That is
plainly false, of course, and no one would write it who was not in
thrall to a bad theory. In a large range of situations we can
predict something about the world from a fact about what is said
Stimulus-response meaning theory - for example, someone's saying "This is a chair" is evidence
that he is probably in the presence of a chair - but predictions
Jonathan Bennett running the other way are nearly always quite hopeless (this
Department of Philosophy, Syracuse University, Syracuse, N.Y. 13210 point is made by Ziff 1970, p. 73; see also Ziff 1960, sees. 46 and
Skinner's account of how subjective psychological terminology 54). But Skinner says "among other things." We are to suppose
gets its meaning relies on his views about meaning in general. that the causally sufficient conditions for a person's uttering
Though not extensively laid out in "Terms," their general "(That is) red" consist in (i) a red stimulus in conjunction with (ii)
outline emerges clearly enough to show how radically mistaken a set of circumstances C which always mediates between a
they are. So there must be a lot wrong also with Skinner's stimulus and an utterance whose meaning is somehow given by
account of the meanings of psychological terms, but I shall not the stimulus. If the theory is not that there is a single value of C
follow out those consequences; my topic is the underlying such that someone who undergoes a red stimulus in C circum-
stimulus-response approach to meaning in general. stances says something like "That is red, " someone who sees a
To evaluate Skinner's views about meaning we must first chair in C circumstances says "That is a chair," and so on, then
cleanse them of their most unrealistic assumption, namely that there is no theory. The aim is to say something systematic about
the basic linguistic performance is the uttering of a single word. how the meanings of utterances relate to their causes, and that
requires a general rule enabling us to read off the meaning of an
When Skinner speaks of "the circumstances under which the
utterance from the facts about the causal chain that produced it.
response 'length' is emitted" he is not discussable. Apart from We shan't get that merely by learning that in each case the
certain highly specialized circumstances, such as helping with a causal chain includes, together with a lot of other stuff, some-
crossword puzzle or displaying reading skills, there are no thing constitutive of the meaning of the utterance. We need a
circumstances under which that one word is uttered in isolation. systematic way offilteringout the "other stuff' in order to isolate
And when he implicitly contrasts "I see red" with "red," calling the element that gives the meaning; and so, as I said, we need a
the former an "expanded expression," he puts the cart before single value of C that tells us in each case which part of the causal
the horse. Although we grasp sentences only through under- chain gives the meaning and which part belongs to the all-
standing their constituent words, the notion of meaning attaches purpose "other stuff." (For a fuller defense of this, see sec. 6 of
primarily to whole sentences and only derivatively to smaller Bennett 1975.)
units such as words. Our primary concept of meaning is that of
something's meaning that P, and the notion of word meaning That is the project of Skinner's kind of stimulus-response
must be understood through the idea of the effect on a sen- meaning theory. (There is another kind - no better but different
tence's meaning of replacing this word in it by that. Try to - according to which meaning is determined not by the stimuli
imagine a tribe that has a word for trees, a word for sand, a word to which an utterance is a response but rather by the responses
forfire,and so on, but that does not use these words in sentences to the utterance considered as stimulus. For more on this, and
to say anything about trees, sand, orfire.The supposition makes on relations between the two, see sees. 7 - 9 of Bennett 1975.)
no sense: If the noises in question are not used to say anything, As a project, it has no hope of success: There is no reason to think
to express whole "that-P" messages, there is nothing to make it there is anything remotely resembling a general truth of the
form "Whenever anyone encounters an F item in C circum-
the case that the noises are words at all.
stances he utters something meaning that the item is F." Let C
However, when Skinner and other stimulus-response mean- be somewhat vague and tattered around the edges; let it also be
ing theorists focus on the single word, perhaps they are really less than perfectly unitary, consisting perhaps of about 17
thinking not of the word "red," say, but rather of the one-word disjuncts; lower your sights by looking only for a rule that applies
sentence "Red!," meaning something like "That thing (in front about 20% of the time; help yourself to two or three further
of me) is red." Let us suppose this, and forget that it still makes indulgences as well. Still the project will have no chance of
no sense of "the response 'length.'" success. It assumes a world-to-meaning relationship that simply
The activity of labeling whatever public or private item one is doesn't exist.
presented with is a rare event. Even if we allow for it to be done
in normal sentences with several words each - for example, This is not to deny that when a person says something

Commentary /Skinner: Psychological terms
meaning "That is an F," the odds are that he is confronted by an on his taking that kind of utterance as paradigmatic, but it
F, that he has been in perceptual contact with it, and that this obviously isn't, and now we can break free from it. Instead of the
contact is part of the causal history of his making that utterance. restricted thesis "When someone utters something meaning
That much is true, and is presumably the launching pad from that some present thing x is F, it is fairly likely that the thing is F-
which Skinner and the other stimulus-response meaning theo- like and the speaker has recently had perceptual contact with
rists have embarked on their theory. But it is a truth that brings it," we have the much more widely applicable thesis "When
no comfort to stimulus-response meaning theory, as can be someone utters something meaning that P, it is fairly likely that
seen by seeing why it is true. The explanation is as follows. there is evidence that P and the speaker has recently had
When a person utters something that means that a certain perceptual contact with some of it." In this statement, of course,
thing x is F, he is likely to have some one of a certain cluster of we must understand "evidence" as "what would count as evi-
intentions (intending to get someone else to think that Fx, or dence for the person whose utterance is in question," and so the
intending to fix in his own memory his belief that Fx, or the like); notion of evidence we arc using here further involves the
if he has such an intention, he probably believes that Fx; and if concept of belief: what counts for a person as evidence that P is,
he believes that Fx then the odds are that x is F-like and that the roughly, what inclines him to believe that P. But that is not a
person has been caused to believe it is F by a perceptual further trouble for Skinner's program, because even within the
transaction with it. And so someone who says "That is red" has tiny area to which the program is confined it doesn't work -
probably been acted upon perceptually by something red. doesn't achieve the beginnings of an approximation to the truth
This involves several probabilities each falling short of cer- - except with help from the concepts of intention and belief.
tainty; multiply them all together and the upshot is a long way
below certainty. Still, it provides an inference from "He has just
uttered 'That is a chair' " to "He has recently encountered a
chair" which has some cogency: If I had to bet on whether Waiting for the world to make me talk and
someone had recently seen a chair, I would be interested to tell me what I meant
learn that he had recently said "That is a chair." But for obvious
reasons it provides a vastly less secure basis for inferring the Richard P. Brinkera and Julian Jaynesb
utterance from the perception. Granted that when the utter- "Educational Testing Service, Princeton, N.J. 08541 and" Department of
ance occurred it was partly as a result of the perception, there is Psychology, Princeton University, Princeton, N.J. 08544
no systematic and manageable way in which it could have been
predicted with as much as 1% probability, except in special Like so much of Professor Skinner's work, "Terms" separates
cases where the perception is accompanied by a threat or a him from the main thrust of operationism and from the main
bribe. Furthermore, there is good reason to think that it is not a body of behaviorism. Yet history rarely sees subtle differences.
strictly causal flow from the perception through the belief to the For example, Piaget and Inhelder (1969) miss such distinctions
utterance, and that the causal explanation of the utterance will when they brand Skinner a "copy theorist" indistinguishable
run along physiological channels and not psychological ones. from other behavioral associationists such as Pavlov or Hull.
For a lot of argument to this effect, see Fodor (1980). The best Why have such criticisms, or those of Chomsky (1959), been so
argument, in a nutshell, is as follows. It seems reasonable to lasting when in fact Skinner's use of terms such as operant,
think that (i) any item of linguistic behavior admits of a correct discriminative stimulus, and reinforcement could be used to
causal explanation in physiological terms, and that (ii) there is no refer to and "explain" many phenomena treated by cognitive
systematic mapping between facts about mental content and psychologists (Catania 1979)? Perhaps the reason that Skinner
associated facts about physiological states, and that (iii) there is a has been a focal target of criticism from cognitively oriented
systematic mapping between any two correct causal explana- psychologists is that the differentiation of himself from other
tions of the same phenomenon. Thus, my suggested route from behaviorists and other operationists has never culminated in the
the perceptual encounter through to the utterance, as well as promised program of research in human behavior that would
failing to support a prediction, also fails to be strictly causal. demonstrate the differences between the old and the new
How then can I offer it as a replacement for, or improvement on, operationism. That is the main point of this commentary, in
what Skinner is trying to get? which we are trying to stay within Skinner's purview, refraining
Well, useless as this relation between world and meaning is from discussion of that purview itself.
for Skinner's purposes, it is the nearest thing to his theory that is What are the distinctions whereby Skinner differentiates
anywhere near true. What is most striking about it is that it himself from previous operationists? He offers a "definition of
depends essentially upon two of the concepts - intention and definition" rather than mere correspondences between con-
belief- that belong to that "subjective psychology" that Skinner cepts and the operations by which they are defined or between
thinks he can safely disregard as being of merely antiquarian terms and the criteria for their application. The definition of
interest, like phlogiston and vis anima. Now, quite a lot of definition is a statement of the social community's contingency
philosophers of psychology these days are also inclined to drop of reinforcement for a term. Thus, psychologists must develop
the concepts of intention and belief or to look forward to the day an empirical science of verbal behavior. They cannot. . . join logi-
when we shall be able to do so (see Churchland 1981), and for all cians in defining a definition, for example as a "rule for the use of a
I know they are right. I am not contending that a good scientific term " (Feigl 1945); they must turn instead to contingencies of rein-
account of behavior must involve those concepts, but only that forcement which account for the functional relation between a term,
they are required for any semblance of a systematic link be- as a verbal response, and a given stimulus. This is the "operational
tween meaning and circumstance of utterance. Like some oth- basis"fortheir use of terms.
ers, I think that the very notion of meaning depends essentially Since it has previously been concluded that there is no basis for
on intention and belief, and cannot stand if they fall (see differential reinforcement of private events - no "inner" rein-
Armstrong 1971; Bennett 1976; Grice 1957; Schiffer 1972), but I forcing - public verbal responses are the only admissible data
do not insist on that either. All I need is the much securer thesis for operationism. The promise of this 1945 paper, then, is that
that any systematic bridge between meanings and circumstances an analysis of reinforcement contingencies from the verbal
of utterance must involve intention and belief. community for verbal behavior will lead to truly operational
Incidentally, once that fact has been faced we can liberate definitions of terms and therefore to a complete behaviorism.
ourselves from the restriction to utterances such as "That is a Twenty-four years later, Skinner seems to have rescinded this
chair" and "This is red" and "I feel a pain." Skinner's attempt to promise of operationism. In 1969, he insisted that an observer of
explain the meanings of psychological terms depends essentially contingencies, even the simple contingencies in an operant

Commentary/Skinner: Psychological terms
conditioning chamber, will not be able to describe the contin- study such contingencies from a standpoint quite removed from
gencies. either traditional or radical behaviorism (Bates 1976; Bruner
Over a substantial period of time he has seen various stimuli, re- 1975; Greenfield & Smith 1976). Skinner (1969a) seems to have
sponses, and reinforcers appear and disappear. The fact remains that moved away from his 1945 position and abandoned the pos-
direct observation, no matter how prolonged, tells him very little sibility of understanding any behavior, verbal or otherwise,
about what is going on . . . If he could not see what was happening in based on an analysis of natural contingencies. The later position
a relatively simple experimental space, how can we expect him to is that understanding is equivalent to experimental control. It is
understand the behavior he sees in the world around him? . . . It is this position, rather than the 1945 one, that is very poorly suited
only when we have analyzed behavior under known contingencies of to an analysis of verbal behavior. It is the requirement for
reinforcement that we can begin to see what is happening in daily life. experimental control of verbal behavior that has produced the
(Skinner 1969a, p. 9-10, italics in original). anti-Skinnerian position reviewed by Herrnstein (1977). Skin-
Thus, operationism really requires the demonstration of be- ner (1977) himself feels that such criticism does not apply to his
havioral control. But how and over what? Is the verbal behavior own verbal behavior.
that is to be "operationalized" the specific words spoken, the What all this shows perhaps is the power of derivative fashions
inflection, the intensity pattern, the temporal pattern, other over the best of 20th-century psychology. The fashion here is
features of how words are spoken, or the entire class of syn- operationism which, after the disillusionments of World War I
onymous ways that the same thing could be said, or all of these, and the ensuing fever for pure objectivity, had grown out of the
or something still more? And how, for example, would we logical positivism of the Vienna Circle into a promise of a "Unity
operationalize the term had in the sentence from a grammar of Science" for all who would accept its simple rules of initiation.
lesson "Mary, where Jane had had, had had had; had had had And psychology, weakened with the ineptness of its earlier
the teacher's approval." Such examples exert enough control (in misguided attempts at a science of consciousness (Fechner,
Skinner's terms) upon most of us out here in the language Wundt, Titchener, et al.), wearily climbed on the bandwagon
community that we express our acceptance of the grammatical and tried to behave like physics.
nature of the statement and acknowledge the independence of But operationism was soon cast off by physicists themselves.
the grammatical rule from the specific stimulus words. It contained logical contradictions (e.g. a "thing" measured or
Although Skinner did not seem to follow through on the observed in two ways is really two things) and regressions (e.g.
distinction between his use of operational definition and his how do we operationally define the operationally defining mea-
behaviorist predecessors' use of that term, others have explored suring instruments?), and was an insensitive bull in the china
with other vocabularies what Skinner knows as the verbal shop of psychology with nowhere to go (e.g. how do we opera-
community's contingencies for verbal and vocal behavior tionally define dreams?). As Skinner himself points out in
(Bruner 1975; Wells 1981). However, this endeavor has culmi- "Terms," Bridgman's (1928) formulation "cannot be taken liter-
nated in a framework that includes consideration of the active ally." We note also that in his last sentences some of Professor
"intentions" of both the language community and the speaker. Skinner's earlier enthusiasm for operationism seems to have
Words and word combinations have different meanings in the become attenuated. For the sake of his own important theoriz-
language community depending upon the conditions under ing, we wish he had never had any enthusiasm for it at all.
which they are emitted. The stimuli are not the sounds uttered
or even such utterances in the environmental context. Aspects
of both must be intentionally selected by an active language
community attempting to reconstruct messages from the en- Skinner on the verbal behavior of
vironmental context and the sounds uttered (Brinker 1982). This
active process occurs even when infants emit sounds that could verbal behaviorists
not possibly be words: Adults behave as if these sounds meant
something (Bruner 1975). Arthur C. Danto
Department of Philosophy, Columbia University, New York, N.Y. 10027
Even when research on the semantic and pragmatic develop-
ment of language contains the data that could be relevant to Skinner's scenario for fixing the reference of psychological
"Terms" (see Segal 1975), a successful analysis of this language terms has the structure of a Greek tragedy, in which the verbal
data from an operational point of view seems unlikely, given community acts as chorus, instructing the tragic subject in how
Skinner's 1969 rejection of the possibility of making sense of to name his agonies. The ancients left unexplained the manner
such observations. Moreover, although organisms freely emit in which choruses came by their knowledge, and it is no less a
behavior (Skinner 1938), the structure of behavioral repertoires puzzle how the verbal community in Skinner's semantical story
and the probabilities as to which of several behaviors would be comes by its cognitions, all the more so if the story is true. For
emitted - surely prolegomena for such an analysis - were never the question then is how anyone ascends from such basic ver-
seriously studied within the operant framework. Nor was the bal reports as "toothache" in the presence of toothache, or
impact of a history of learning upon an organism's performance "red" in the presence of red, as emitted by the well-condi-
in a new contingency ever seriously examined. tioned subject, to the rich, dense metalanguage of the story
The Skinnerian picture seems to be of a passive individual itself. The unwritten program of the paper is to show how so
who brings nothing to contingencies of reinforcement. He waits exiguous an input gets processed to yield an output as rich as
for referents to talk about. When a referent comes along he uses the paper that presupposes the program, if its author began the
terms that are or have been positively reinforced. Thus, he way its subject does. It is Skinner's belief that we shall, by
learns the appropriate verbal behavior to talk about public and procedures scarcely more complex than those through which
ultimately private things. It is this passive view of human nature the meaning of "toothache" gets transmitted to otherwise in-
in Skinner's later writings that was not necessary on the basis of choate agonizers, arrive at an understanding of the verbal be-
his early theoretical distinctions (1935a; 1938), but was neces- havior of scientists. Self-understanding must after all be an aim
sary to be consistent with Skinner's operationism. Moreover, of psychology, psychologists being human; and if "knowing
this passive view reduces the possibility of a serious and com- oneself' is limited even in the case of simple names of simple
plete contingency analysis of verbal behavior. pains, how likely is it that reflexive knowledge - knowledge de
Skinner's sense of operational definition in "Terms" then, se - can be attained of science at the level of science? The
promises a program of research in which natural contingencies question is whether Verbal Behavior would have been possible
of reinforcement by the verbal community for verbal behavior if verbal behavior at large is analyzable as it is said to be here.
provide the concept of definition. Yet it has fallen to others to This I shall show reason to doubt. But I must first applaud

Skinner's recognition that science itself cannot be left outside schedules of reinforcement will be no more stable here than
science, and that what he fears may look like circularity - they are with psychological terms. But if this means, in the
characterizing a practice in the language of the practice charac- latter case, that "it is . . . impossible to establish a rigorous
terized - is not an obstacle to but a condition for the validity of scientific vocabulary for public use, ' well, it should be so in the
any analysis that pretends to adequacy. Quis custodiet ipsos former case as well, which means it is impossible, unless one
custodes - Who shall guard the guardians? - a problem for the yields to one form or another of radicalism, to establish a
implementation of Skinner's Utopia, has its methodological rigorous scientific vocabulary at all!
counterpart here. If, in the case of private stimuli, the lack of precision in
The genius of tragedy is inseparable from the genius of com- referring terms makes it impossible for the speaker to know
edy, Socrates observed after a legendary night of drinking, and himself, in the case of null stimuli it must equally follow from
it is comic that the conditions for instructing in the reference of the correspondent lack of precision for theoretical terms, that
psychological predicates immediately gives rise to the Problem we cannot know the real world the terms refer to either. A
of Other Minds, as well as the lesser possibility of malingering theory of the semantics of scientific terms that makes it impos-
pretense on the subject's part. For the collateral accompanying sible for science to attain its cognitive aims had better be care-
stimuli - "hand to the jaw, facial expressions, groans, and the fully considered, and this certainly must hold for a theory of
like' - can be present in the absense of the pain. Logical verbal behavior that makes it impossible to understand the
behaviorism, which seeks to define psychological terms language of science. The symmetries suggest, however, that if
through what for Skinner are merely collateral accompani- we are to make knowledge possible by relaxing the demand for
ments, is a radical effort to abort skepticism by making it lin- sharpness of reference in the one case, we have no logical basis
guistically inexpressible. But Skinner's native radicalism is for not relaxing it in the other direction as well, enabling self-
tempered by a certain realism: it is "a simple fact" that private knowledge to arise together with the possibility of knowledge
stimuli occur and that a (humanly) important class of psycho- of the world. But as these demands are symmetrically
logical terms take them as their primary referenda. Besides, loosened, the picture of verbal behavior limned in "Terms"
logical behaviorism is dogged by the circumstance that at best seems decreasingly adequate to the language of science. In
disjunctive definientiae leave psychological terms ultimately compensation, I would propose that the relevance of immedi-
ate inner experience to self-understanding is probably as cir-
ambiguous, neat translations being hard to come by. If this is
cumscribed as the relevance of immediate outer experience to
so for toothaches, think how much more true it is as we rise to understanding the deep realities of the world. Our representa-
such civilized feelings as gratitude to M. Swann for his gift to tions of either must be considerably more complex than mere
the family of a case of Asti, which the narrator's aunts, in Du constellations of verbal reports. The creative individual, in sci-
coti de chez Swann, report with such obliquity that even those ence as in sensibility, will often have to teach the verbal com-
who know them best, let alone the intended beneficiary of munity a thing or two.
their thanks, are left unclear as to what is said and what is felt.
Teelings like gratitude, pride, jealousy, and love typically oc-
cur within networks of other feelings as well as beliefs and Wishful thinking
other propositional attitudes, and it may often take the omnis-
cient powers of a chorus to know what is really going on in alien Daniel C. Dennett
breasts, as readers of Proust know. And matters are compli- Department of Philosophy, Tufts University, Medford, Mass. 02155
cated by the intentional structure of many important feelings,
which enables them to occur in the absence of stimuli corre- Even bearing in mind that "Terms" is a "theoretical" paper, not
spondent with their contents - as when someone is grateful to a report of experimental work, I am struck by how totally
his god (when there is none) for his many blessings (when there ideology driven the claims in it are. There is no glimmer of brute
aren't any). Toothache is minimally intentional, but even empirical fact cited to motivate or support the claims expressed.
"toothache" requires the user to know something about teeth In particular, no puzzling or recalcitrant or otherwise inexplica-
and appreciate that pains have location. Yet even here, in this ble facts about human behavior are shown to succumb nicely to
minimal case, collateral reference is sufficiently dilating as to the theory proposed (always a persuasive theme in selling a way
foreclose, on Skinner's view, precision of reference. of doing science). Instead what we have here is the extrapolation
Now my problem is less with whether his account of the of a creed: working out the details of what the devout behaviorist
reference of psychological terms is adequate than with whether has to say,figuringout the kosher categories into which all facts
his analysis of the emission of "Red!" in the presence of red must be cast, no matter how the facts come out. Skinner's role in
gives an adequate model of the verbal behavior of scientists, "Terms" is thus analogous to the theologian's role in codifying,
though the two problems are deeply connected. The implicit extending, and proselytizing for a system of dogmas.
semiotics is this: A verbal report is reinforced only when it is Skinner, foe of ideology that he is, may take this observation
emitted in the presence of the stimulus that the emitted term as a particularly shrill criticism, but that is not how I intend it.
denotes when the emission is correct. The burden of the paper Every scientific "school" I know anything about has its the-
concerns those cases in which the stimulus, though real, is ologians, and they perform a singularly useful - perhaps even
inaccessible to the agents of reinforcement, in contrast to the indispensable - service. They clarify the "position," showing
standard case where it is accessible to emitter and reinforcer what one is committed to if one does science in that way, and this
equally. But the terms I regard as central to science are not of not only sharpens the edges of the theories so that they can
this latter sort, but denote things and events inaccessible to better be put to empirical test for confirmation and disconfirma-
anyone, and only loosely connected via definitional ties to tion, it also generates new questions and problems for the
"stimuli" themselves intepretable only against a background of theorists and experimentalists to explore.
typically complex theory. Now there are very familiar pro- There is good scientific theology and bad scientific theology,
grams of analysis that maintain programmatically that all such however; one of the benchmarks of excellence is forthrightness
theoretical terms may be defined without remainder in the and explicitness of claims - leading with one's chin and giving
idiom of terms that refer merely to what Skinner will call stim- the skeptics and critics an unmistakable target to challenge.
uli. Since Skinner has been realist enough to resist logical Skinner, however, feints and weaves. We get bold declarations
behaviorism, it is difficult to see how he can consistently yield, ("The significant interrelations between these terms may be
strongly tempted as his paper implies he is, to logical em- expressed by saying that the community reinforces the response
piricism. But once one admits into the language of science only when it is emitted in the presence of the stimulus"), but
terms as loosely tied to stimuli as theoretical terms are, the then discover that they don't mean what they seem at first to

Commentary I SVmner: Psychological terms
mean, since the host of obvious counterinstances one could cite Psychological Terms" in an effort to further distinguish Skin-
does not count against the claim, for one reason or another. ner's radical behaviorism from the logical or philosophical be-
It is an interesting exercise to go through the sentences of haviorism of Ludwig Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investiga-
"Terms" one at a time and ask oneself: What would it be, tions (1953). Wittgenstein rejects the notion that we refer to
exactly, to disagree with this claim? One of Skinner's favorite private stimulation (i.e. "sensations') or at least rejects the
auxiliaries is "may," which occurs with great frequency in notion that we do so in the very same way we refer to people or
"Terms." Here are just a few examples: "the surviving covert parades. I argue that, in a Skinnerian analysis, there is no
response may be regarded as," "a response may be emitted in essential difference between the way we "refer" to public things
the presence of," "we may understand why terms referring to and events and private stimulation.
private events have never formed a stable and acceptable Our elaboration of Skinner's analysis of reference may begin
vocabulary of reasonably uniform usage." "Statements about with Skinner's Verbal Behavior (1957), in which he discusses
private events may be under control of the deprivations associ- the reference of tacts. Tacts are, roughly, verbal operants
ated with reinforcing consequences rather than antecedent evoked by some particular object or event. Generally, their
stimuli." " 'I am hungry' may therefore be variously translated." referent is the object or event evoking them; for example, the
A further review of the text shows variations on the theme: referent of "That animal is a lion" might be a lion or (in the event
"Might" and "could" and "possible" are high-frequency items. of an error) some large dog whose presence prompted the
What is frustrating about these terms is that they have several remark. Sometimes, however, a tact may be evoked by an object
quite distinct dictionary meanings, and it is often not clear from or event that is not the referent itself, but only causally linked
context which way the reader is intended to go. Sometimes it with the referent in some way; for example, "That bear stole our
seems to be the "may" of doctrinal permission ("The communi- food again" in response to a bear track found near an empty
cant may take the wafer on the tongue or in the hand"), and since picnic table. Nonetheless, in these cases too, the referring
it's a free country, who could argue with that? Sometimes it response and the referent may be said to be causally linked; that
seems to be the "may" of mere logical possibility ("It may rain is, the bear referred to may be said to have caused the prompt-
tomorrow, and then again it may not"), and who in his right ing stimulus, the bear track. Generalizing, we may say that
mind would quarrel with that? Sometimes there is a hint that referents or objects or events causally linked with referents are
much more is being asserted: that what may be regarded as such responsible for the referring response.
and such may correctly be regarded as such and such; that when Although Skinner does not consider reference in contexts
a response may be under the control of x or y or z, it cannot have other than tacts, it is possible to do so. What Skinner calls
any other explanation, it must be under the control of exactly echoics is an example. Roughly, an echoic is a verbal operant
one of x, y, and z, and so on. But these stronger claims are not evoked by another verbal operant of the same form. Suppose a
forthrightly made. So who knows what doctrine is being as- wife says to her husband over the phone, "A skunk got in the
serted? There is a way of reading almost every sentence of basement" and the husband turns to his secretary and repeats,
"Terms" so that the staunchest, most radical "mentalist" could "A skunk got in the basement." The wife's response is a tact, the
agree with it. But we know that that would be a misreading; we husband's an echoic; yet husband and wife refer to the same
are meant to understand that this is a behaviorist manifesto, but thing, namely, to the skunk. This same analysis also applies to
exactly which manifesto it is has been left to the intuition of the what Skinner classifies as intraverbals or verbal operants
reader. evoked by other verbal responses having a different form. Thus,
There is a reason, I think, for the high frequency of what suppose instead of merely repeating the wife's report, "A skunk
Skinner would probably call the "may" response in "Terms." got in the basement," the husband had said, "There is a polecat
What Skinner was proposing at the time was a certain brand of in my cellar." In that case, his remark would have been an
wishful thinking that might have worked - but didn't. Every intraverbal. Nonetheless, it still would have referred to the
science must simplify, and even oversimplify, its phenomena in same skunk. Generalizing we may say that the referents of
search of tractable ways of manipulating, and conceiving of, the intraverbals and echoics are the same as the referents of the tacts
"basic" forces, processes, principles. As investigators in ar- to which they may be traced. Since the referent or some object
tificial intelligence would say, you have to find a "toy problem" or event causally linked with the referent is responsible for the
you can master first, and no one can give rules or "criteria" for a tact and the tact in turn is responsible for the echoic or the
"good" simplification. "Terms" is a paper about behaviorism's intraverbal, the referent or some object or event causally linked
proposed simplifications, and while in the cold light of retro- with it is ultimately responsible for the echoic or intraverbal,
spect we can see that they were not good choices, they were too.
probably well worth a try. "Maybe," Skinner is saying, "we can When we turn from public objects or events to private
get away with this crude version of 'translation,' this tractably stimulation, the same essential causal or functional relations
simple substitute for 'meaning,' this theoretically easy way with exist between referent and referring response. When I say,
reference and consciousness." It is not that Skinner and other "The pain is in my.neck," I am emitting a tact evoked by the
behaviorists were oblivious to the ravishing complexities of private stimulation in my neck and this is precisely what I am
human behavior, but that they hoped - not unreasonably - to referring to as well. Another person cannot be said to emit a tact
bootstrap their way to some manageably doable science of directly under the control of that very same stimulation for the
human behavior with the aid of a little wishful (or even willful) simple reason that the stimulation is only in my body and not in
thinking. There is probably no alternative to that basic strategy; the other person's body as well. For this reason, the stimulation
today's cognitive scientists just as willfully propose their own evoking the tact and the referent of the tact are distinct. Another
oversimplifications. One of these years those defenders of mys- may, nonetheless, emit a tact ("Richard is in pain") under the
terious complexity who hang around waiting to say "I told you control of an object or event causally linked with the painful
so" will be silenced by success. stimulation occurring in my body; he may, for example, see me
holding my neck and moaning and take that as "evidence" that
painful stimulation is occurring in my neck. In both cases
Private reference (whether I or another describes my pain), the referent (the
K. R. Garrett
painful stimulation) is what is ultimately responsible for the
verbal response. Had the other person's tact ("Richard is in
Department of Philosophy, Brandeis University, Waltham, Mass. 02254
pain") been emitted at the sight of blood, then we could still say
This commentary elaborates the theory of reference implicit in that the evoking stimulus is a condition (damaged tissue)
B. F. Skinner's canonical paper, "The Operational Analysis of causally linked with the referent (the painful stimulation). Thus,

the essential causal or functional relationships are no different there is a difference between one kind of sensation and another,
from cases in which the referent is a public object or event. Nor there is a difference in their causes and effects.
is there any cause to exaggerate the importance of the fact that Resemblance between Skinner's and the functionalist ac-
only I can directly tact the painful stimulation. There are parallel count is no accident. Skinner is a kind of functionalist, for he has
situations that can arise even when we are dealing with public always found it necessary to interpret behavior as standing in
objects or events. If, for example, I am the only one who functional relations with environmental and physiological
witnesses a certain event, say the eruption of a volcano, then I events. But his psychology tends to concentrate on three sorts of
alone am in a position to emit the relevant tacts (e.g. "The dust behavioral relata or effects: (1) movement of a joint or limb in
of the volcano went miles into the air") in a "direct" way. service of the creature as a whole such as kisses and key pecks;
Indeed, each of us is in a position to emit very few tacts of this (2) locomotor acts such as walking and jumping; and (3) speech
"direct" sort with respect to most of the things to which we acts (Skinner 1957) such as tacting (roughly, stating) and inand-
nonetheless refer. ing (roughly, commanding and requesting). What "Terms"
A great many of our statements referring to the private contains is atypical: a glimpse of Skinner's view of sensory
stimulation of others are emitted as intraverbals. That is, for the experience below the level of joint or limb movements, loco-
most part we rely upon the tacts of the person in whose body the motor acts, and speech. Here, I think, is where confusion in
stimulation occurs. (Obviously, this is not the case when we are interpreting Skinner arises. Malcolm (1964), in a widely read
establishing such tacts in the young. In those cases, we rely discussion, called attention to Skinner's view of sensation classi-
upon the measures noted by Skinner in "Terms.") In any case, fication. But he argued that the view implied that introspection
when intraverbals are emitted, the painful stimulation is re- does not occur, that reports of sensations by subjects of the
sponsible for both the tact of the person in pain and ultimately, sensations are based on observations of their movements and
therefore, for the intraverbal as well. And in these cases, locomotor acts.
moreover, that very same private stimulation is what both tact Contrary to Malcolm's interpretation, Skinner argues that
and intraverbal refer to. Thus, if someone says, "The discomfort classification by subjects is immediate, in the direct report of
is in Richard's neck" upon hearing my report, "The pain is in my sensations under the aspect of the stimuli that produce them and
neck," both responses refer to and are the result of the painful the responses they produce. Subjects do not observe move-
stimulation in my body. Similar consideration would apply ments and then classify. They immediately respond to their
when a parent echoes his child's pain report, "The pain is in sensations - both "feel" and report them - as typed according to
Margaret's tummy." Here, too, the parent's echoic and the their causes and effects. A person knows what it is like to have a
child's tact refer to and are the result of the very same painful sharp pain as a result of having conditioned responses of the
stimulation occurring in the child's body. sharp pain sort - where sharp pain sort is defined in terms of
In conclusion, then, it has been argued that there is no stimuli and responses associated with sharp pains.
essential difference between public and private reference in a "Terms" and sections of Verbal Behavior (pp. 130ff.) ex-
Skinnerian analysis. In both cases, the very same sort of func- plain, on my reading, how such conditioned responses are
tional relations may be seen to obtain between referent and possible. The key idea is that reinforcement by outside observ-
referring response. This is, I believe, a very great advance over ers fixes or pegs certain overt responses (introspective reports,
Wittgenstein's notion that there is some essential difference e.g.) and covert responses (introspections) to sensations by
between the two cases - a suggestion that only mystifies us, virtue of their associated stimuli and responses. Subjects learn
since it is never spelled out in a clear or detailed way. to "feel" or perceive what is distinctively sharp about sharp
pains. This is what their typical stimuli and responses consist
of. For example, a sharp pain is a pain felt to be the sort one
usually gets from knives and tacks. A burning pain is a pain
perceived to be like those produced by contact with fire or hot
surfaces. An adjective such as "blinding" reported of a sensa-
Sensation and classification tion suggests that the character of the sensation has something
about it that makes a subject close his eyes or shuts off his
George Graham vision. Each of these ways of characterizing sensations involves
Department of Philosophy, University of Alabama in Birmingham, reference to the typical stimuli-responses of the sensation. For
Birmingham, Ala. 35294 Skinner, subjects are taught to make such discriminations or
The aspect of Skinner's canonical target article on psychological classifications by the surrounding verbal community, which
terms on which I want to focus attention is that of the role of makes reinforcement for introspective reports (and by gener-
stimuli and responses in the classification of sensations. On alization for introspections) contingent upon whether the sub-
Skinner's view, when subjects report certain private stimuli, ject of the sensation classifies sensations by reference to their
sensation classification takes place. Something is called a pain typical stimuli-responses.
rather than an ache, and a sharp pain rather than a dull one. My reading welcomes Skinner as a contributor to current
These classifications involve as prime movers both the previous debate on sensations. There are several ways to make this point.
stimuli for the sensations and the consequent responses; that is, It seems promising, for example, to consider how Skinner would
the surrounding community operantly conditions subjects to respond to the inverted qualia objection to functionalism (e.g.
classify sensations in terms of the stimuli that produce them and Block 1978). The heart of the objection is that it is possible for
the responses that they produce. Stimuli and responses may sensations to remain the same (in kind) on introspection when
vary, and there may also be publicly unobservable stimuli and their roles change. But Skinner should retort that this is not
responses. Thus, classifications are pegged by conditioning to a possible. The operant conditioning of introspections to sensa-
tangled skein of stimuli and responses. tions as-classified-by-stimuli-responses means that if stimuli-
If we consider Skinner's view of sensation classification in the responses or roles change, introspections would change also.
light of the currently regnant philosophy of mind - func- What sort of sensation a person has - or what it is like to have a
tionalism or the causal theory of mind (e.g. Churchland & certain sensation - cannot be detached from the stimuli and
Churchland 1981; Lycan 1981) - we see immediately that responses associated with the sensation.
Skinner's account bears a striking resemblance to the func- Another point worth mentioning is that Skinner's account of
tionalist or causal account. On the functionalist or causal ac- sensation classification makes for symmetry between classifica-
count, sensations are classified in terms of their causal roles. If tions by subjects and outside observers. Both subjects in intro-

spection and observers through inference from associated stim- otherwise, and the word "mind" presents no difficulties when,
uli and responses classify sensations the same way for Skinner: in in Wittgenstein's terms, it is used in its "original home," namely
terms of their associated stimuli and responses. Introspective "everyday usage" (1953, sec. 116). Confusion occurs only when
classifications are pegged to stimuli and responses by the mech- the definition is sought for a word such as "mind."
anism of operant conditioning. A recurrent problem for func- Operationism has been the most influential attempt in psy-
tionalism is to explain the introspective classification of sensa- chology to deal with this difficulty. In essence it seeks to
tions without appeal to exclusively introspectible qualities or so- institute a single (operational) definition for a term that has
called intrinsic properties. The importation of the mechanism of numerous uses. These uses must be eliminated if a single
operant conditioning from Skinnerian psychology might be the definition is to stand. For this reason the nothing-else clause in
solution to this problem. Skinner's definition of operationism is crucially important. As
In summary, reflection on Terms should serve to locate Skinner notes, however, operationism has failed - though not
Skinner in the center of current debate on the classification of because the nothing-else clause is negative, but because it has
sensations. When he discusses certain private stimuli, he is not been observed.
discussing sensations. And his view, like that of the currently In the first place, it has proved impossible to eliminate the
regnant philosophy of mind, is that types of sensations are ordinary-language connotations of a word. For example, opera-
defined by their causal roles. The distinctive contribution of tionally defining "stress" as immobilizing a rat for 48 hours has
Skinner to the debate in question is the postulation of operant not prevented the same psychologist from making assertions
conditioning as the mechanism whereby subjects classify sensa- about job stress, marital stress, and the like. Indeed, operational
tions in terms of their causal roles. definitions have been used to smuggle into scientific statements
claims that are unwarranted by data. The confusion is made
worse by the impossibility of legislating a single operational
definition for a term. Different individuals have used different
Operationism, smuggled connotations, operational definitions for the same term, and the same indi-
and the nothing-else clause vidual has used different operational definitions from time to
time. Thus, the very purpose of operationism in psychology has
Peter Harzem been thwarted.
Department of Psychology, Auburn University, Auburn, Ala. 36849 Skinner offers an entirely different approach to the problem
Scientific language contains two types of words: those that are that operationism failed to resolve. I shall term this the "special
also used in the ordinary language of the scientist, and those that theory" of verbal behavior, as it is a specific application to the
have been specially developed for specific use in the science. issue at hand of his "general theory" of verbal behavior. This
The latter, that is the technical terms, are generally more theory is a monumental contribution to our understanding of
precise than ordinary words in the sense that there is little language. It is also a curiosity of the intellectual history of this
ambiguity about the phenomena to which they refer. This is century because, for various reasons - none of them sound - it
simply because an a priori agreement exists in the scientific has been neglected in favor of linguistic theories of no lasting
community as to exactly how a given technical term shall be value. Nevertheless the special theory does not effectively deal
used. Some technical terms are coined for the purpose: for with the problems of scientific discourse. This is because these
example, neutron, haemoglobin, trigonometry, and bacillus. In problems are conceptual whereas the theory is empirical. In fact
some sciences, notably psychology, however, a different prac- Skinner noted this distinction, some years after thefirstpublica-
tice is common. Selected words of ordinary language are used as tion of "Terms," as follows: "Behaviorism is not the science of
t/they were technical terms. This has resulted, as we shall see, human behavior; it is the philosophy of that science" (1974, p.
in considerable confusion. It is important, therefore, to note 3). By the same token, the special theory of verbal behavior is a
that the sort of terms discussed in "Terms," that is verbal scientific theory, whereas issues concerning the language of
responses to "private" stimuli, are not, as Skinner's title im- science are problems of philosophy of science. Only the theory
plies, psychological ones. They are words of ordinary language. of verbal behavior depends upon empirical evidence whereas
The characteristics of words in ordinary language are quite the philosophy of science entails conceptual analysis (cf.
different from those of technical terms. Ordinary words do not Harzem & Miles 1978).
have predetermined meanings because they do not come into Consider, for example, a child (or for that matter, an adult)
use as a result of prior deliberation. Moreover, as any good saying "Mama!" when in pain. Merely to assert that here
dictionary will show, there is no word that has only a single "Mama" is associated with pain stimuli does not render it any
meaning. Ordinary language functions perfectly well, however, the less correct that "Mama" refers to the individual's mother.
for two main reasons. First, the context in which a word is used Moreover, "Mama" may also be uttered under a variety of other
makes clear its meaning on that occasion. The word "reinforce- stimulus conditions; when one is unhappy, wistful, overjoyed,
ment," for example, has very different (but not unconnected) and so on. And this, of course, again entails the problem of
meanings when it is used in discussions of military strategy, ambiguity that operationism failed to remedy. For a different
architecture, and psychology. Second, the sort of accuracy example, consider the words used by Skinner in his definition of
generally necessary in science is not demanded in ordinary operationism: "observation," "procedure," "step," "inter-
discourse. The statement "Jane smiled," for example, does not vene," and so on. Knowing the stimulus conditions prevailing at
invite questions as to the extent and direction of Jane's facial the time he wrote them will help us to comprehend neither the
movements, or about the precise criteria by which the smile was words nor the definition. What is needed is a conceptual analy-
distinguished from a grimace or a laugh. sis. The techniques of conceptual analysis, mostly developed by
When a word is considered apart from context there is Wittgenstein (1953), Ryle (1949), Austin (1946), and other "lin-
nothing to indicate what meaning should be given to it. For guistic" philosophers, in the years following thefirstpublication
example, despite the fact that a false belief to the contrary is of "Terms," constitute a major support for behaviorism as the
common, the question, What is "mind"? is not answerable philosophy of the science of behavior (see Harzem & Miles 1978
because it does not make clear which of a multitude of usages is for a detailed discussion). These techniques provide significant
in question; for example, "my mind is on other things," "mind new insights concerning, for example, "mentalistic" terms. It is
that child," "have you lost your mind," "he has a good mind," high time that they were recognized and used in contemporary
and "my mind is made up." None of these statements calls for behaviorism. For without them many of the puzzles of the
the speaker to subscribe to any "theory" of mind, dualist or language of a science of behavior will remain unsolved.

What, then, is Skinner's operationism? of behavior are in the environment are read by his critics as
logical howlers, or even as claims to metaphysical truth. If one
Philip N. Hineline
clearly identifies such assertions as stating an assumption of a
Department of Psychology, Temple University, Philadelphia, Pa. 19122
theory - the key axiom in a "bold and exciting behavioristic
Although much of Professor Skinner's essay, "Terms," is a hypothesis, ' philosophically trained readers are obliged to en-
critique of ways in which operationist notions are commonly tertain the assumption while reading on, whether or not the
applied and understood, he clearly identifies his own work with statement violates commonly held assumptions.
an operationist position. What sort of operationism, then, is his? An additional issue is the place of logic within Skinner's
"Terms" offers no direct statement of this except through system. An explicit message of the essay is that logic is neither
example; it provides only clues as to the role of operationist the starting point in his approach nor the ultimate source of its
principles in behavioral analysis considered as a whole theory. validity. In elaborating the rubric of discriminandum, response,
Since those clues provide an indistinct and perhaps misleading and consequence, Skinner provides an interpretive account of
impression of Skinner's operationism, they bear examination in the scientist's working - and of what it means to be discriminat-
relation to some of his other work. ing and aware, as indeed a scientist may be. "It is not logic, but
A salient clue appears toward the end of the first section of science," in that these relationships efficiently characterize the
"Terms," when Skinner asserts that contingencies of reinforce- phenomena whereby scientific activity is effective, and thus
ment provide the proper operational basis for analyzing psychol- valid. The reader might conclude that for Skinner, "logic is out,"
ogists' use of terms. One might infer from this, as critics have for "Terms" gives no hint of the fact that the circumstances in
inferred from other of his writings, that for Skinner contingen- which we ordinarily speak of logic do have a place within his
cies of reinforcement are the only admissible operations in a system. The interpretation that handles them resembles the one
scientific accounting of behavior. Indeed, he places these he presents here, but the discriminanda are not mainly one's
among the most fundamental of interpretive principles. Howev- own behavior, as in the case of awareness, but rather are special
er, Skinner's approach to behavioral science also includes, at the products of behavior - rules and algorithms. Most of this
very least, elicitation as the defining relation of reflexive behav- elaboration came later than "Terms" and is worked out in "An
ior. After all, Skinner was the first to distinguish clearly control Operant Analysis of Problem Solving." (Skinner 1969b and this
of behavior by elicitation from control by consequences (1935b; issue q. v.). Thus, logic is still in, but not in a keystone position.
Onefindsit instead as a category under rule-governed behavior,
1937), and two of his early papers (1931; 1935a) provide some of
in an exposition that clarifies a basic fact that is obscured in
the most astute analyses of elicitation that are to be found everyday usage: Only part of the behavior described as logical is
anywhere. But these do not exhaust the range of behavioral functionally attributable to formal logic. So, contrary to a likely
processes that Skinner entertains. In "Selection by Conse- inference from "Terms," rules of formal logic do play a role in
quences" (1981 and this issue, q. v.), he asserts the validity of Skinner's system. Still, deemphasis of that role is appropriate to
selective consequences other than the reinforcement principle. Skinner's present article, for within behavior analysis the role of
And in a recent exchange with Herrnstein (Skinner 1977a), it what we commonly call logic is not a definitive one that justifies
became clear that Skinner is willing to entertain additional either theory or scientific practice.
formulations for dealing with "phylogenic behavior," which
seems to be maintained neither through elicitation nor through
reinforcement.
A key feature of Skinner's operationism, while implicit in his Skinner on sensations
many positive contributions, is explicitly identified mainly by
exclusion. Part of the exclusion is specified in "Terms" when he Max Hocutt
questions the usefulness of operationalizing mentalistie terms. Department of Philosophy, University of Alabama, University, Ala. 35486
He uses similar arguments to put aside less mentalistie terms
that are also derived from vernacular explanations of behavior. What does the word toothache mean? In the view of a mentalist,
In such cases, as illustrated here for "being conscious" and for it means a personal experience, a private sensation; in the view
"matters of reference or definition," Skinner accounts for do- of an operationist, it means the public moaning and grasping of
mains of phenomena in which vernacular or mentalistie terms the jaw containing an abscessed tooth. As his 1945 paper,
are commonly invoked, but he does not use such labels to shape "Terms," indicates, Professor Skinner is an operationist. For
his enterprise. Examining his rationale still further, one finds him, the word toothache means not the private stimulus that
him in a later paper, "Are Theories of Learning Necessary?" elicits its use but the public stimuli that control reinforcement of
(Skinner 1950), putting aside not only mentalistie and ver- its use. Furthermore, Skinner resists the moderate suggestion
nacular terms as useful foci for operational definition, but also that toothache means both private sensation and public accom-
rejecting certain technical terms - those that appeal to "events paniments. He prefers the more provocative thesis that its
taking place somewhere else, at some other level of observation, meaning is exhausted by talking about the latter. No fence
described in different terms, and measured, if at all, in different sitting for him. Radical behaviorism or none at all. Toothache is
dimensions" (Skinner 1950, p. 193). Thus his enterprise is not a to be defined solely in terms of its dental causes and behavioral
pursuit of engrams, or of the nature of an association, as could be manifestations.
said of other behaviorists. Nor is it an attempt to give scientific What, exactly, is Skinner saying here? Definitions properly so
legitimacy to psychological terms from ordinary language, as called are equations, assertions of identity. They have the form
could be said of much of the current fashion in psychology. "a = b," and they mean "a is the same thing as b." By saying that
Rather, Skinner's behavior analysis is a conceptual fabric in toothache is to be defined in terms not of private sensations but
which operations are themselves the very warp and weft. Fur- of public accompaniments, does Skinner mean either to deny
ther, it is a bona fide theory, monisticaily construed, of "the that there is such an experience as toothache or to assert that it
'real' or 'physical' world (or at least the 'one' world)." Skinner's consists in moaning and grasping of the jaw of an abscessed
specification of operations, then, is an attempted characteriza- tooth? Such is the usual interpretation of his views, but I do not
tion of features of the world as they affect behavior. The theory is think it will fit "Terms." As I read him, Skinner is saying here
an attempt to describe efficiently the effective environment in that toothache denotes neither a private sensation nor its public
interactions between behavior and environment. accompaniments but an unknown bodily condition normally
With hindsight, it seems unfortunate to have asserted this caused by an abscessed tooth and normally manifesting itself in
position was "nontheoretical," for this appears often to have led moaning and grasping of the jaw. To say that we can only define
to its being misunderstood. Skinner's assertions that the causes this condition by talking about its public causes and symptoms is

to say not that it is identical with these but that we know how to toothache just is abscess plus moaning and grasping of the jaw
identify it only by referring to these. but that, lacking ability to specify the physiological properties of
If Skinner is often taken as denying the very view that I have toothache, we are able to identify it only by talking about its
here attributed to him, part of the reason may be that he does usual causes and symptoms. Doing so may not provide us with
deny a superficially similar view. This view, which he attributes the best kind of identification, but for the moment it provides us
to such "methodological behaviorists" as E. G. Boring, is the with all the definition we have.
doctrine that toothache is that unobservable experience nor-
mally caused by an abscessed tooth and normally manifested in
moaning and grasping of the jaw. Skinner certainly rejects this
doctrine, which sounds very much like the one I have attributed Social traits, self-observations, and other
to him. However, there is a considerable difference between
the two. On Boring's view, nobody can know what another's hypothetical constructs
toothache feels like, or tell someone else what his own toothache
Douglas T. Kenrick and Richard C. Keefe
feels like. To know what a toothache feels like, one must have it;
Department of Psychology, Arizona State University, Tempe, Ariz. 85287
and no one can have anyone else's toothache. By contrast,
Skinner says that one can know what someone else's toothache is In returning to read Skinner's original writings, one is struck
like in two ways. First, one can know that it is the sort of with the contrast between the much maligned and simplistic
experience that people have under certain conditions; for it is "Skinnerian" position and Skinner's own work. Whatever one's
defined by reference to those conditions. Thus, one can know theoretical stance, it is hard to read more than a few pages of
that a piercing toothache is like the ache one feels when one's Skinner and not find a compelling logical argument. Likewise,
skin is pierced by a knife; for that is its definition. Second, one one is reminded in "Terms" of the characteristic that marks so
can learn what another person's toothache is like by discovering much of Skinner's work, and that is most responsible for his
its physiological properties; thus, we might one day discover position within and outside the discipline of psychology: Skin-
that someone's having a toothache consists in his brain being in a ner has never been content to apply his functional approach
certain state. exclusively to limited problems of the laboratory, but has,
The distinction just stated will be clearer if I explain it by throughout his career, grappled with crucial philosophical is-
means of an analogy. In front of a room two people are in clear sues. It is this great breadth that is, more than anything else, the
view. X says, "Behind the screen between those two people is a basis of Skinner's important contribution to contemporary
person whom you do not see but whose voice you hear. We do thought.
not know what he looks like, but we could find out if we could get In "Terms," Skinner introduces issues that continue to be of
behind the screen." By contrast, Y says, "Behind the screen great interest to those studying personality and social psychol-
between those two people is an invisible and intangible person. ogy. For instance, the abundant research on "self-perception"
We do not know what he looks like, and we never shall; but we owes much of its impetus to Bern's (1967) radical behaviorist
know he is there because we can hear him." X is Skinner; Y is analysis of "cognitive dissonance" research. In fact, 35 years
Boring (at least as Skinner sees him). What X and Y say will after Skinners paper appeared in the Psychological Review, one
sound identical to those who detect no important difference of us published a paper there dealing with the issue of self-
between an unseeable person and one that is merely unseen. observation of one's own "traits" (Kenrick & Stringfield 1980),
Similarly, those who uncritically and incoherently assume (as and the lines of reasoning there can be traced directly through
Boring apparently did) that an unobservable experience could Daryl Bern (Bern 1967; Bern & Allen 1974) to Skinner.
be identical with an observable state of the body will see no From the vantage point of the recent research on trait mea-
important difference between the doctrine I have attributed to
surement, we wish to make two points regarding Skinner's
Skinner and the doctrine he attributes to Boring and repudiates
as untenable. However, they are worlds apart. Boring has analysis. One is that Skinner may yet be making too much of the
postulated an unknowable; Skinner has not. distinction between public events and private events as they
occur in natural (nonlaboratory) settings. The other is that
It is true that, at the present moment, both Boring's and people can be taught to make the important and useful discrimi-
Skinner's toothache are unknown in the sense that we lack nation between those covert events with public concomitants
knowledge of their intrinsic properties. We know toothache and those without such accompaniments, and this distinction is
only as that organic condition, whatever it may be, typically a useful one for psychology.
caused by an abscessed tooth and typically causing moaning and With regard to the first point, public language may not be as
grasping of the jaw. We do not know whether toothache is a closely discriminating as Skinner implies, but may instead
brain state or a muscular condition or both. For this reason, approach the imprecision of describing private events. Nev-
Skinner often says that there is little profit in talking about this ertheless, both may still have a rough utility. In learning to
undetermined state. Doing so is rather like trying to say what apply terms to publicly available events, one is not usually
the person behind the screen looks like ("He is tall and has dealing with phenomena as stable and reliable as a "red" ball.
brown hair") before we have seen him. It would be better, Many of the interesting (and survival relevant) discriminations
thinks Skinner, to wait until we can have a look - especially have to do with applying social labels (e.g. "aggressive,"
since the thing making the sounds might be not a person but a "friendly," "seductive") to overt behavior. Unfortunately, such
record player or two persons talking alternately. Similarly, it behavior is often subtle and transient. Consider, for instance,
would be better, thinks Skinner, to wait until we have indepen- the case of aggressive behavior, which occurs infrequently,
dent information about the intrinsic properties of such states as briefly, and which is, except in rare instances, modified and
toothache - especially since, so far as we know, there may be not attenuated by situational constraints. In addition, a given in-
one but many different physiological conditions answering to stance of overt behavior may not look the same to (or even be
the one word toothache. Skinner's cautions against postulating processed by) observers at different vantage points. Behavior
unobserved states may be unjustified, but they do not amount to
that looks like a friendly pat on the back to one observer may
denials that such states exist.
appear to be an aggressive and competititive act to another, and
In summary, I read Skinner as arguing in "Terms" not that may not even be processed by a third observer. Thus, the
toothache just is its overt accompaniments, but that it is the "sharpening of reference that is achieved, in the case of public
physiological state or states that these usually accompany. His stimuli, by a precise contingency of reinforcement" may not be
claim that we can only define toothache in terms of abscess and possible in many important cases of overt social behavior. Even
moaning and grasping of the jaw, I take to mean not that so, recent research has demonstrated that our reports about the

"traits" of those we know well, for all the ambiguity and com- does not negate the use of approaches relying upon hypothetical
plexity of their basis, are well corroborated by other familiar constructs (provided that these are ultimately verifiable).
observers. These findings have gone contrary to the expecta-
tions of many social psychologists who, focusing on all the ACKNOWLEDGMENT
potential sources of unreliability in trait ascription, came to We wish to thank Peter R. Killeen for his very helpful editorial
believe that traits existed mainly in the "eye of the beholder" suggestions.
(see Kenrick & Dantchik 1983). With all their problems, social-
trait terms do nevertheless have utility, and the same case may
be extended to reports of private events. If we were to disregard
descriptions of private events solely because they are often
inexact or ambiguous to the outsider observer, we would by the The flight from human behavior
same reasoning have to discard descriptions of overt social C. Fergus Lowe
behavior. Rather than do this, however, we would argue that
Department of Psychology, University College of North Wales, Bangor,
the evidence from the social realm should encourage us to give Gwynedd LL57 2DG, Wales
more credibility to actors' reports about their internal states.
Not only are such statesfrequentlysalient and easily discrimina- "Terms" is undoubtedly one of the most important papers that
ble, but they may be no more subject to bias than reports about Skinner has written. It is also one of the most neglected.
overt behavior, and like such reports, they may nevertheless Thereon hangs a tale of misrepresentation, misunderstanding,
have an important utility. or simply confusion on the part of behaviorists and non-
A related point regards Skinner's contention that "differential behaviorists alike; a tale, moreover, that reveals a strange
reinforcement cannot be made contingent upon the property of reluctance by behaviorists to grapple with the central problems
privacy." This statement can be interpreted in two ways. If we of human psychology.
take it to mean that the community cannot differentially rein- In his book The Behavior of Organisms (1938) Skinner wrote
force two covert events, it is true, but rather obvious. If, that the importance of his science of behavior, then based upon
however, we interpret it in its literal sense, to imply that the research with animals, lay in the possibility of its eventual
community cannot provide feedback that will allow for a dis- extension to human affairs. He speculated that the only dif-
crimination between those internal events that have public ferences existing between the behavior of rat and man - apart
concomitants and those that do not, it is false. For instance, if I from differences of complexity - might be in the area of verbal
say "I feel anxious," an observer may respond, "Yes, you're behavior (p. 442). His paper on operationism pursues the
shaking like a leaf' or "That's funny, you look calm. ' The self- direction he had earlier signalled and is an attempt to extend his
observer's ability to make such a distinction is, in fact, of account of animal behavior to humans, and in particular to
practical utility to the personality researcher. Subjects in the verbal behavior. Implicit throughout "Terms" is the recognition
Kenrick and Stringfield (1980) study were able to provide such of something special about human behavior - the salient charac-
information successfully, and this proved useful in enhancing teristic being that not only can humans like rats "see objects,"
the strength of the correlations between self-reported trait but also that they can "see that they are seeing them." That is,
standing and criterion ratings (made by others). Neither parents humans become aware or conscious of their own behavior, and
norfriendscould accurately gauge the emotionality experienced in a way that is true of no other animal species. The great
by people who describe their emotion as private, while parents achievement of "Terms" is that it shows that "consciousness,"
and friends could reliably assess the emotionality of those who which has long been ignored or denied in both behavionst and
described their emotionality as public. This finding was recently nonbehaviorist sectors of psychology, is, after all, amenable to
corroborated in a more intensive investigation by Cheek (1982). scientific analysis. Far from being forever locked away in the
Afinalpoint we wish to make is that while there is some utility purely private domain of an individual's "mind," it has its origin
in dealing with constructs "in the form in which they are (and therefore its decipherment) in the most public of arenas -
observed," this analysis of overt verbal responses can take us the "verbal community." We learn from our parents and others
just so far. Skinner is to be lauded for showing the limitations of how to use words to describe the environment and our own
the earlier operationism, but he does not go far enough in overt behavior, and we also learn to describe stimuli and
making the case for inference-based approaches to science. behavior that are not directly observable by the verbal commu-
After all, the elements of the periodic table were placed by nity, such as our "having a toothache" and our "seeing red."
Dalton's inference, and Mendel established the existence of Over time, much of this verbal commentary on our own behav-
"genes" by inference. In the behavioral realm, there is some ior itself becomes covert and elliptical in form, but it remains
utility in performing a functional analysis of the verbalizations of behavior nonetheless, and as such is subject to a behavioral
schizophrenics, in the interest of modifying their utterances to analysis.
bring them into an acceptable range for social discourse. [See This analysis, dealing as it does with the role of covert stimuli
also Schwartz: "Is there a Schizophrenic Language?" BBS 5(4) and covert behavior, contrasts with the approach of meth-
1982.] However, no amount of such proximate functional analy- odological behaviorism which maintains that, since there can be
sis would by itself have led one to suspect a genetic involvement no public agreement about unobservable events, they cannot be
in the disorder, a discovery that could ultimately prove useful in included in a scientific account. Skinner, never one to balk at a
understanding and treating the disorder. Similarly, a functional lack of public agreement, cogently argues that this is an out-
analysis might be useful in understanding the circumstances moded view of science and that there should be no aspect of
surrounding the complaints of a conversion hysteric, but an human activity left out of account on the grounds that it is not
operant approach to modifying the verbal behavior of such an publicly observable or that it has to be inferred from other
individual might be misplaced indeed, given the research indi- events. It is this concern with the role of "private events" in
cating that the majority of individuals so diagnosed actually had human behavior that distinguishes his approach and is, indeed,
serious physical symptoms (Slater & Glithero 1965; Whitlock at the heart of his radical behaviorism (Skinner 1974, p. 212).
1967). Thus it is surely a strange irony of contemporary psychology
In summary: (1) Skinner's functional analysis of psychological that an approach which, as far back as 1945, established its
terms continues to have diverse ramifications throughout the identity on the basis of its recognition of the "inner life" of
field. (2) He may have overstated the differential accuracy with humans should so often be charged with the error of ruling it out
which words describing public and private events are used in of court. It is widely asserted, for example, that Skinner's is a
normal language. (3) The usefulness of a functional approach "black box" account of human behavior, that it does not deal

with consciousness and cognitive processes, that it eschews the in the sense that Skinner posits, and, finally, is it possible within
analysis and modification of private events, and that it shuns the context of an overall behavioral analysis to alter "con-
inferential accounts of behavior because they are unpar- sciousness, " thereby enabling humans to control more effective-
simonious (see Chomsky 1975; Harr6 & Secord 1972; Kendall & ly their own behavior and their conditions of existence? Radical
Hollon 1979; Koestler 1967; Ledgwidge 1978; Locke 1979; behaviorism offers a coherent conceptual system and meth-
Mahoney 1977; Wilson 1978). Recently, for example, a new odology which, as this paper of Skinner's demonstrates, can be
movement within clinical psychology, known as cognitive be- applied to human as well as to animal behavior. It would seem,
havior therapy has found it necessary to adopt the conceptual then, a particularly suitable approach to adopt in the investiga-
apparatus of cognitivism apparently out of a mistaken belief that tion of such questions, and it is issues such as these that should
the behavioral approach cannot deal with the modification of surely be central to any human psychology.
people's covert behavior (see Lowe & Higson 1981; Zettle &
Hayes 1982). It may be partly the responsibility of behaviorists
themselves that such misconceptions about radical behaviorism
are so widespread. For, unhappily, despite the clear theoretical
lead given by Skinner in this paper, radical behaviorists have Radical behaviorism and mental events:
been reluctant to investigate the role of language in human Four methodological queries
learning. Although Skinner's account of the development of
human "consciousness" is similar in many respects to that of Paul E. Meehl
Vygotsky (1962) and Luria (1961), it has not had anything like a Department of Psychiatry, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minn.
55455
comparable impact on psychological research. Whereas
Vygotsky s ideas inspired valuable research on the way in which This somewhat neglected paper, "Terms," is one of the most
self-descriptive verbal behavior develops and interacts with important theoretical articles that Skinner ever wrote, and his
other behavior (cf. Luria 1961; Sokolov 1972), there has been arguments are as worthy of attention today as they were in 1945.
little empirical investigation of the ideas that Skinner outlines in The paper is Skinner at his consistent best (or worst, for non-
"Terms" and goes on to elaborate in subsequent publications behaviorists) and this friendly critic puts four questions to the
(e.g. Skinner 1953; 1957; 1963; 1974). Instead, radical behav- author:
iorist research has been concerned almost exclusively with 1. In his initial definition, legitimate (cognitive) operations
animal behavior or with human behavior treated as if it did not are "the logical and mathematical steps that intervene between
differ significantly, in terms of controlling variables, from the earlier and later statements, and . . . nothing else." Are these
key peck of the pigeon or the lever press of the rat. confined to deductive (algorithmic) steps? And even if the
One can only speculate about the factors responsible for mathematics is like that, is its embedding interpretive text
behaviorists' neglect of the complexities of human behavior. reductive, all such "intervening" (theoretical) terms being ex-
From the start what was attractive for many about the Skin- plicitly defined by means of stimulus, response, and S-R dis-
nerian system was the new methodology and techniques that it positions? If a looser, conjectural relation - as in normal scien-
introduced for the prediction and control of animal behavior, tific theorizing about postulated entities - is allowed, just what
together with the basic conceptual apparatus within which the does this kind of behaviorism forbid?
effects of the environment on behavior could be expressed. On 2. Skinner's brilliant analysis of why verbal operants reporting
the other hand, "Terms," together with Skinner's other writings inner events are imprecise shows why the introspectionist
on the philosophy of science and on the development of human, program degenerated. If the discriminations and shapings had
as opposed to animal, consciousness, was perhaps not known, been precise, so that a high degree of reproducibility existed in
and certainly was not widely appreciated. Instead, earlier no- the domain of self-report about inner events, what then would
tions, dating from Watson, of what behaviorism was about and have been the thrust of the behaviorist thesis? If most verbal
the prevailing Zeitgeist of positivism overshadowed behav- accounts by naive subjects concerning inner events had the high
iorism's principal theoretical innovation. Thus, for many aspir- predictability and order of, say, a naive sophomore's lab report
ing behavior analysts, it became almost a matter of ideological on his negative afterimage, would behaviorism have been a
purity to deny the existence or efficacy of any event that could significant methodological proposal? Now of course it was the
not be publicly and directly observed and measured. Watson's way it was; but the contemporary cognitive psychologist,
(1913) ban on introspection, although no longer justified by whether experimental or clinical, will argue that certain sub-
Skinnerian theory, continued to hold sway and had particularly divisions of that subject matter do have the scientific re-
bad effects. If, as Skinner argues, what is unique about humans producibility of the negative afterimage, and that, given Skin-
is their capacity to reflect upon their own behavior, then not ner's analysis, there is no good methodological reason to exclude
allowing subjects to report such behavior served only to distance them. That puts us on a slippery slope, because reproducibility,
it from behavioral analysis. consistency, clarity, and the like are matters of degree. More
So it is that almost 40 years have elapsed since "Terms" was complicated properties of the visual field less replicable than,
written and yet its challenge to contemporary psychology re- say, shadow caster experiments, or "fuzzy" clinical events, like
mains. For example, Skinner's hypotheses that "being con- the Isakower phenomenon (Hinsie & Campbell 1970, p. 334) in
scious, as a form of reacting to one's own behavior, is a social psychoanalytic therapy (uncanny sensations of equilibrium and
product" and that "one becomes aware of what one is doing only space, unclear objects rotating or rhythmically approaching and
after society has reinforced verbal responses with respect to receding, crescendo-decrescendo sensations localized in
one's behavior as the source of discriminative stimuli" have not mouth, skin, and hands), might have enough consistency, as
yet been systematically investigated. Moreover, little is known rough but complex patterns, to be admissible. It is not clear
about the ways in which the rest of human behavior is affected what Skinner can say as a matter of principle rather than a matter
when this form of consciousness develops. Could it be the case, of varying degrees of reliability against such "subjective"
as recent evidence suggests, (i) that the effects of reinforcement reports. But does he want to? Intimately associated with that
are altered qualitatively when subjects acquire the skill of problem is the question of how much inner structure is to be
generating verbal descriptions (of whatever accuracy) of their attributed to such an entity as a visual image when it appears to
own behavior and its consequences, and (ii) that human perfor- play the same role that an external stimulus does with respect to
mance that is free of this "interfering" consciousness is indis- the verbal operant describing it. Consider the eidetiker who
tinguishable from that of animals? (see Lowe 1979; 1983; Lowe, cannot tell u: how many teeth the crocodile had in the picture
Beasty & Bentall 1983). How much of our behavior is conscious we showed him earlier but who can, on request, "call up the

Commentaryi'Skinner: Psychological terms
image" and then proceed to count the teeth off his crocodile in psychology an intellectual position that Skinner terms "meth-
image and get it right. [See also Haber: "The Impending odological behaviorism." According to methodological behav-
Demise of the Icon" BBS 6(1) 1983.] I can imagine Skinner iorists, science should be restricted to publicly observable,
saying here, "Well, but we do not have to say that there is an intersubjectively verifiable phenomena. As Skinner acknowl-
image which . . . ." a locution recurring frequently in his writ- edges, this restriction was not without some virtue, but the
ings. That brings me back to my first question about operations, problem was that methodological behaviorists nearly always
because the fact that we do not have to speak a certain way about conceded the existence and importance of mental events as
an inner event, that the behavioral data do not coerce us to say distinct from physical or behavioral events at the same time that
that, is of course not equivalent to saying that it is unreasonable they ruled mental events out of scientific consideration. This
to say it, or that it wouldn't be good scientific strategy to allow practice was perhaps most conspicuous in the "science of sci-
ourselves to say such things. Inductive (ampliative) inference ence," when scientists analyzed their own scientific behavior.
about the empirical world is just not the same as strict deduc- Scientists simply took it for granted that mental events taking
tion, and it is not a fatal objection to a theoretical concept's place in "immediate experience" constituted the essential basis
introduction to point out that no observational datum compels for science; the issue was how to deal respectably with the
you to infer it. events from the mental dimension. In brief, operationism came
3. Can state variables like emotions and drives (postulation of to imply the symbolic representation of the scientist's mental
which was beautifully justified in Skinner's 1938 book despite events by means of a set of measurements, so that agreement
his subsequent distaste for them) play the role of private stimuli? could be reached about the concepts involved. Accordingly,
As I understand his position they cannot, but the model as operationism became the cornerstone of the new scientific
presented in "Terms" is that of discriminative stimulus, and the epistemology.
examples used (like toothache) make it easy to think of them as As certain passages in "Terms" indicate, Skinner had clearly
stimuli. Does that mean that we do not believe that people, had enough of this interpretation and the mentalism upon which
having acquired language, should be able to report on inner it was predicated. The symposium offered a formal opportunity
states if these lack the usual "stimulus" properties, such as a to challenge the conventional practices, and challenge them he
structure, reference to a sensory modality, or being "events" did. The article itself mixes Skinner's critical assessment of
rather than "states"? conventional practices with his revolutionary, constructive pro-
4. Why does Skinner want to reduce the logical and epis- posals derived from the behavioristic perspective. Running
temological concepts of truth and validity to behaviorese? It is throughout his critique is the attack upon the mentalistic, if not
not necessary for the coherency of his position, and it gets him dualistic, bifurcation of nature into physical and nonphysical
into trouble with the logicians. We do not reduce the concepts of (i.e. "mental") ontological realms. Thus, perhaps the most
geometry, analysis, or number theory to the behavior of mathe- central of his criticisms is that the conventional interpretation of
maticians, and in fact we could not operate in these disciplines if operationism implicitly assumes that the scientists' language is a
we did because our knowledge of mathematical behavior is too logical activity, taking place in some other dimension, which is
primitive, as I'm sure Skinner would agree. Why, then, is it related in some causal way to a nonphysical copy - imperfect,
necessary to behaviorize logic? Deducibility as norm - dis- transformed, or otherwise - of reality called immediate experi-
tinguished from inference as (psychological) fact, as an empirical ence. Why was it supposed that there were two dimensions? As
transition in discourse - is part of mathematics, and of logic. Skinner asked later, Who sees the copy in the other dimension?
Suppose no mathematician succeeds in proving Goldbach's Moreover, if meaning in language is essentially a referential or
Conjecture (every even number is a sum of two primes) before symbolic activity that links entities, concepts, or categories from
the sun burns out. Nobody will have been reinforced for emit- immediate experience with reality, what is the origin of the
ting such a valid chain of mathematical operants. Does Skinner entities, concepts, and categories in the first place? Where do
want to say that in that case the Goldbach Conjecture would be they come from? Do they come from the pineal gland, Broca's
neither true nor false? Logic and mathematics being more area, or an Apperceptive Mass? Are they learned? If so, what
advanced and rigorous than the science of behavior, isn't it an processes are involved in their acquisition? What terms apply to
undoable (and needless) task to reduce the former to the latter? the analysis of this activity, those from the presumed mental
Similarly, if a rat that is suddenly shifted from continuous dimension or those from the physical dimension?
reinforcement to afixedratio schedule requiring 192 responses
per food pellet starves, the truth of the matter is that the pellets A second criticism, following from the first, concerns the
are objectively available, whatever the rat knows or does. The general conception of human beings with regard to matters of
objective truth of the proposition "food available" does not epistemology. Given that behavioral matters are physical mat-
depend on the rat's behaving and being reinforced. Why should ters, and physical matters are observable, does it follow that
it depend on the psychologist's asserting it? As Skinner's radical something unobserved is something unobservable, that unob-
behaviorism differs from "methodological behaviorism" partly servable implies nonphysical, and nonphysical further implies
in its consistently physicalist ontology, his insistence on psy- mental, which in turn means that the whole business has to be
chologizing all concepts of logic and epistemology is puzzling dealt with in a different way by science, if science can deal with it
and, I suggest, not defensible. at all? Skinner's argument, in "Terms" and subsequently, is that
although private events aren't "observed" by more than one
person, they need not be construed as nonphysical, that is, as
mental, such that they need be dealt with in a special way. Thus,
they are indeed amenable to scientific analysis. Moreover,
On Skinner's radical operationism private events have no special causal status; in particular, they
do not produce knowledge. Rather, they are behavioral matters.
J. Moore From this perspective, truth follows from a consideration of
Department of Psychology, University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee,
pragmatic utility in behavior, rather than from a consideration of
Milwaukee, Wise. 53201
public status vis-a-vis private status.
Professor Skinner's contribution to the 1945 Symposium on A third criticism is that by failing to speak plausibly of private
Operationism is a landmark paper in the development of behav- events and embracing instead every variety of explanatory
ioristic epistemology and philosophy of science. During the fiction, one is in fact operating counterproductively. One is
decade immediately preceding the Second World War, logical insulating private events from analysis by assuming that they are
positivism and operationism as interpreted by Stevens (1939), actually ineffable and therefore not amenable to scientific analy-
Boring (1936), and Bergmann and Spence (1941) had established sis. Thus, most methodological operationists assume an ironic

posture: They implicitly acknowledge private events as causal, if tionism. In fact, it is to just that interpretation that Skinner has
only for themselves, but then they state their laws only in terms spent much of his professional life objecting.
of publicly observable variables. In effect, methodological oper- "Terms" is now over 35 years old, and its message is as timely
ationists regard introspective reports of their own immediate today as then. In a way, its continued timeliness is tragic,
experience as incorrigible, but at the same time mistrust intro- because it means that despite the availability of this remarkable
spective reports of their subjects' immediate experience, a article for those 35 years, we have failed to act upon its message
curious inconsistency at best. as we should and move forward. Perhaps the most appropriate
The major portion of "Terms" is in fact constructive and step to take at this point isfinallyto implement the operational
concerns how private events can be approached from the fresh program as Skinner envisioned it, on the basis of a functional
perspective provided by a behavioral viewpoint. Of course such analysis of verbal behavior. To do so requires in part the
private phenomena as descriptions of toothaches, images, and recognition that the explanatory verbal behavior of scientists be
thinking must be accommodated in any adequate science of dealt with at a single level of observation, rather than as an
behavior, but that assertion doesn't mean that some measure- indicant of things going on somewhere else, in some other
ment must be taken to symbolize what the scientist is talking dimension, to be described, if at all, in different terms. Whether
about. Rather, private events have to do with the discriminative scientists will see the mentalism inherent in their ways, given
control by private stimuli over subsequent operant behavior, that they have not done so for the preceding 35 years, is
generally verbal behavior. As is stated in another section of the questionable.
original symposium, Skinner was indeed filled with his unwrit-
ten book - Skinner's contribution was extracted from the work
that was to become Verbal Behavior (1957). Private events may
therefore be approached from that direction. How do private
stimuli gain control given the problem of privacy? Skinner notes Logic, reference, and mentalism
that they are present when the verbal community differentially
reinforces responses on the basis of public stimuli (ways 1 and 2, Ullin T. Place
and, through generalization, way 4), or that they supply a Department of Philosophy, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, England
weaker form of the same stimulation as does the public response While there is much in this paper that seems to me entirely
(way 3). Thus, Skinner was perfectly willing to talk about the right, I shall confine my discussion to three points where in my
relation between covert phenomena and verbal behavior, but view Skinner has got it wrong.
he was unwilling to grant the mentalistic premises (a) that Logic. Skinner draws a distinction between "logical theories of
anyone's language, including the scientist's, was essentially reference" on the one hand and an account of reference based on
descriptive of private, mental entities or logical relations among a "scientific analysis of verbal behavior" on the other, and
them, or (b) that the causal analysis of behavior essentially envisages that the latter will ultimately supersede the former.
involved specifying the nature of any affective or effective, Although it is difficult to be certain what Skinner is actually
prebehavioral neurophysiological activity that occurred when saying in these passages, he seems to think that the only
organisms came into contact with their environment. The sub- arguments recognised as valid by logicians are those that con-
jective verbal report and the process by which covert behavior form to the explicitly stated rules of an existing logical calculus.
exercises discriminative control over subsequent operant be- In fact logicians are well aware that human beings who have
havior must be dealt with, but these two processes are the ones never heard of logic or still less of a logical calculus have been
that need to be assessed in connection with the relation between giving valid agruments in support of their conclusions and
private phenomena and language. In particular, the whole detecting fallacies in the arguments of others long before the
business of language as logical symbols describing the contents first treatise on logic was ever written.
of immediate experience was simply the wrong way to go. Reasoning in accordance with the principles of logic, like all
Boring should have been frightened; Skinner was rejecting his verbal skills, is, as Skinner himself (1969a, chap. 6) puts it,
entire world view. "contingency shaped" rather than "rule governed" behaviour.
Now, both Skinner and a methodological behaviorist might The principles of logic formulated by the logician are an abstrac-
agree that one can't scientifically analyze a "mental event," but tion from the intuitive contingency-shaped inferential practice
the bases for their positions are entirely different. Skinner of thinkers, not a set of verbally formulated rules which the
would say that "mental events" are explanatory fictions - neu- thinker is obliged to follow if he is to reason correctly. [See also
ral, psychic, or conceptual creations empowered with precisely Cohen: "Can Human Irrationality Be Experimentally Demon-
the characteristics necessary to explain what needs to be ex- strated" BBS 4(3) 1981.]
plained. Skinner calls instead for some assessment of what the The logician's concern is to give formal expression to the
person is talking about when talking about images and the like, principles whereby we relate the truth value of one statement to
not so that some measurement can be taken, but so that the the truth value of another. It is therefore a reasonable criticism
controlling contingencies can be examined, if only by the single of the accounts of language and its meaning given by logicians
person involved. In contrast, the methodological behaviorist that they concentrate on those aspects of an indicative sentence
declines to comment on mental events, but for another reason: and its utterance that determine its truth value and ignore
They aren't intersubjectively verifiable. One can have a science imperatives and interrogatives (Skinner's "mands") where the
only about things that can be agreed upon, for example, by concept of "truth value" has no obvious application. However,
being measured. One must specify what measured behavior to talk, as Skinner does, as if questions of truth value are
serves as the index for and gives evidence of the operation of the irrelevant from the standpoint of an empirical science of verbal
underlying mental event. It follows that all sorts of nonsense can behaviour is equally unbalanced.
be pursued under such a program, and Skinner felt obliged to
As I have suggested elsewhere (Place 1981b) Skinner's cav-
repudiate the position. Thus, to call Skinner "a practising
alier attitude towards truth in his account of verbal behaviour
operationist," as does Boring, requires considerable clarifica-
(Skinner 1957) stems from his preoccupation with verbal be-
tion as to what kind of operationism Skinner was practising.
haviour from the standpoint of the speaker whose interest, qua
Skinner's repeated emphasis on the observability of behavioral
speaker, lies in the effectiveness of verbal behaviour as a device
processes should certainly not be taken to mean that he en-
for manipulating the behaviour of the listener. He ignores the
dorsed the practice of reifying the "mental" in terms of the
standpoint of the listener from whom the truth value and hence
"physical" through taking measurements, which is the all-too-
the reliability of what is communicated by others is of vital
frequent but erroneous interpretation of Skinner's opera-
concern.

Reference. The effect of Skinner's preoccupation with verbal An operant is a class of behavior defined by its consequences
behaviour viewed from the standpoint of the speaker to the rather than by its antecedents. Thus, a rat's bar press as an
exclusion of that of the listener is also apparent in the account of operant may be defined in terms of the closure of a microswitch
reference which he offers as an empirical scientific alternative to but not in terms of the neural events inside the rat that precede
"logical theories of reference." This leads him to concentrate on and, in a physiological sense, cause and control the bar press.
the case in which the speaker names an object when confronted Such internal physiological events undoubtedly occur, but they
by an instance of objects of that kind as his paradigm case of the are irrelevant to operant conditioning; the history of reinforce-
referring function of verbal behaviour, whereas the problem of ment of the bar press is both necessary and sufficient to explain
reference, when viewed from the standpoint of the listener, is (i.e. predict and control) bar presses.
the problem of how verbal behaviour emitted by the speaker can The other behavioral class in Skinner's science of behavior is
prepare a listener to encounter a situation that is not only not the class of respondents. A respondent is indeed defined accord-
impinging on his sense organs at the time, but never has done in ing to its antecedents. But these antecedents must be external.
that precise form in the past. Reference is not, as Skinner Otherwise, one could consider a rat's bar press, controlled as it
supposes, a matter of the stimulus control exercised by nonver- must be by internal physiological events, to be a respondent. If
bal stimuli over the verbal behaviour of the speaker. It is a no external stimuli are found that reliably elicit a response such
matter of the stimulus control exercised by verbal behaviour as a rat's bar press, Skinner does not ask you to look for stimuli
emitted by the speaker over the verbal and nonverbal behaviour inside the rat. It is always possible to discover or invent such
of the listener. stimuli. That is the path that Watson and Hull took (and on
Mentalism. As Skinner conceives it, the problem about our which they lost their way). To look inside the rat for the cause of
ordinary psychological vocabulary is that the controlling stimuli a bar press is to assume that the bar press is a respondent (and to
to which, on his account, these words refer are accessible only to abandon the search for the cause of the bar press in the con-
the individual to whom the words in question apply. For him tingencies of its reinforcement). Skinner, instead, considers a
"being in pain" is the paradigm case of a psychological ex- response with no apparent eliciting stimulus to be an operant
pression. What he fails to appreciate is that "being in pain" is which may be more or less manipulable by contingencies of
one of a very small number of expressions in our very extensive reinforcement.
psychological vocabulary whose primary use is indeed in the It is inconsistent with this notion of the operant to say, as
context of first-person sentences that report the occurrence of a Skinner does in "Terms," that a toothache is a private event. In a
private event of which the listener would not otherwise be (truly) Skinnerian science of psychology, a toothache must be a
aware. As Ryle (1949) points out, the majority of the psychologi-
respondent or an operant (or some combination of the two). If
cal terms we use in everyday life occur primarily in the context
of the third-person sentences that we use to describe, explain, the stimulus is considered to be the diseased tooth and the
and predict the public behaviour of other people, especially diseased tooth is supposed to be part of the person who has the
verbs like "knowing," "believing," "thinking," "wanting," and toothache, then the toothache is an operant and consists of the
"intending," which comprise what behaviourists like Skinner class of overt behavior to which the label "toothache" is given.
dismiss as "mentalistic" explanations. To say of someone that he Alternatively, for the sake of analysis, one may want to consider
knows, believes, or thinks that so and so is the case, that he the diseased tooth apart from the person with the toothache. In
wants or intends to do something is not to assert the occurrence that case the toothache may be a respondent consisting of
of a private event or indeed the existence of a private mental whatever behavior is elicited by that tooth (as determined by
state, it is simply to say something about what the individual in laws of the reflex). The operant toothache may well consist of a
question could or would publicly say and do if certain broadly different, even nonoverlapping, class of behavior from the
specifiable contingencies were to arise. More recent work (Place respondent toothache. In either case, however, the toothache is
1981a) on the intensionality of the grammatical objects of these overt, public behavior.
psychological verbs suggests that what we are dealing with here In the case of thoughts, feelings, and other mental events,
is a device whereby the individual's behavioural dispositions are there is usually no apparent objective cause like a tooth that may
specified in terms of how he would describe the situation and his be alternately considered inside or outside the organism. There
objectives with respect to it. This in turn suggests that the use of is (usually) no apparent external antecedent stimulus that can be
mentalistic terms in the explanation of behaviour involves the said (by the laws of the reflex) to elicit these mental events. Such
assumption that the behaviour in question is governed by a events are thus operants - overt actions controlled by their
verbal formula or "rule" that "specifies" the contingencies consequences. Nothing in "Terms," nothing Skinner has writ-
involved (Skinner 1969a, pp. 146-52) and hence that the use of ten, and nothing in nature contradicts this idea. The main
such explanations for scientific purposes is not, as Skinner difference between a rat's hope and a rat's bar press is not that
believes, objectionable in every case, but only insofar as this one is private and internal (even partially) and the other is public
assumption of a consistent rational and causal connection be- and external. Both are wholly external and (at least potentially)
tween what is said and what is otherwise done fails to hold. public, but one takes longer to occur than the other.
In "Terms" Skinner suggests that mental terms are used in
ordinary speech to refer to private events and that, because it is
so difficult for the verbal community to control such events, any
analysis of mental terms as operants and respondents would be
strained at best and ultimately futile. But Skinner gives unnec-
Mental, yes. Private, no. essary ground to his critics by this suggestion. As he indicates, in
teaching people to use the mentalistic vocabulary, it must be
Howard Rachlin overt behavior that society observes and then rewards or
Psychology Department, State University of New York, Stony Brook, N.Y. punishes. It would seem tofollowthat a person who uses that
11794
vocabulary to refer to private events must be using it incor-
Skinner's most valuable contribution to psychology (so far) is the rectly. Thus, a boy who says he is hungry just after he has eaten a
concept of the operant. This concept, pursued consistently, big meal is either ignored or punished. Hunger pangs are not
provides a psychology of the whole organism independent of relevant here. In general, the use of mental or emotional terms
physiology, neurology, endocrinology, and the like. There is no without (eventual) support by overt behavior ("I love you,"
room in such a psychology for consideration of private, internal being perhaps the most egregious example of such use) is
events. frowned upon. When we use those terms we are in much the

same position us the boy who cried wolf. People will respond In addition, the program provides principled reasons for behav-
only so many times without confirmation. And it is not to iorists' long-standing suspicion of scientific use of commonsense
private, but to public events that they look for confirmation. psychological terms and for the behaviorist conclusion that
It would seem to be an important task for psychology to introspection is an inappropriate method of investigation in
determine what the (overt behavioral) criteria are for the use of science.
mental terms, how they change with circumstances, how they Serious attempts to evaluate Skinner's program must begin
interact with one another. Before doing this job, it may be with a clear appreciation of how radical a program it is. Like his
necessary to widen the conception of the operant, as originally contemporary Quine (1960), Skinner rejects the use of the
advanced by Skinner, from a single discrete event (such as a "intentional idiom" in scientific descriptions and explanations of
lever press) to a complex pattern of events that may occur over verbal behavior. For example, verbal behavior ordinarily classi-
days or weeks and (consequently) to alter the notion of reinforce- fied as first-person reports of concurrent psychological states
ment from contiguity between a pair of discrete events (re- (e.g. "My tooth aches," "I am depressed.") are not to be treated
sponse and reward) to more complex correlations that have as reports or statements at all, much less as reports or statements
meaning only over an extended period (see Commons, Herrn- that are accurate, reliable, true, or correct. (For discussion of
stein & Rachlin 1982). When the important variables of such the difference this makes see Ringen 1977; 1981.) Explanations
molar behaviorism are discovered, the mentalistic vocabulary of these verbal responses are to be given in terms of the
will, I believe, come nicely to hand. contingencies of reinforcement by which they are shaped and
To the extent that mental terms refer to the overt behavioral maintained. Explanatory reference to meanings, intentions, or
context of immediate behavior it is possible to use them in a psychological states of the speaker is prohibited.
behavioral science. To the extent that mental terms refer to the Recent work in the history and philosophy of science (e.g.
covert or internal context of immediate behavior they have no Kuhn 1962) has emphasized that the more radically the commit-
place in behavioral science, because such use of mental terms ments embodied in a given research program diverge from
converts observable operants into hypothetical respondents. those of whoever attempts to assess it, the greater the difficulties
objective assessment presents. For all of us whose customary
ways of speaking and thinking embody western cultural tradi-
tions, considerable difficulty attends objective assessment of
Skinner's program. The intentional idiom, which Quine and
B. F. Skinner's operationism Skinner proscribe, constitutes an absolutely fundamental fea-
ture of our customary ways of describing and explaining all
Jon 0. Ringen human action, and especially action that involves language. It is
Philosophy Department, Indiana University at South Bend, South Bend, hard to imagine anything more radical or revolutionary than the
Ind. 46634
attempt to describe and explain human verbal behavior without
"Terms" represents a brilliant and powerful innovation in the the concepts the intentional idiom embodies. Indeed, without
development of behaviorism. The paper presents Skinner's this idiom it is difficult to find anything coherent to say about
conception of operationism and outlines a framework and set of verbal behavior. [See also Dennett: "Intentional Systems in
problems for a radical behaviorist analysis of verbal behavior. Cognitive Ethology" BBS 6(3) 1983.]
Skinner (1957) develops the program further. When faced with such difficulties, it is only prudent to ask
Skinner's operationism is quite different from the opera- whether there is any reason to pursue Skinner's program or
tionism of the logical positivists (Hempel 1965b; 1965c). Skinner even to make the considerable effort required to understand
rejects the aim of providing complete, explicit (behavioristic) what the program involves. It is instructive to reflect on the
definitions of (psychological) terms from ordinary language. He reasons Skinner suggests. Quite clearly his reasons do not
also rejects any form of operationism that requires a statement of include a commitment to the operationism logical positivists
logically necessary or sufficient conditions for the correct ap- recommend. Rather, Skinner's own statements (e.g. 1931; 1959)
plication of technical scientific terms. Like the positivists, Skin- suggest that his rejection of the intentional idiom derives from
ner does acknowledge the influence of Mach (1919) and two sources: an interpretation of the history of science according
Bridgman (1928), and he clearly draws the term operational to which scientific progress occurs only after anthropomorphic
definition from the latter. Unlike the positivists, Skinner limits conceptions have been rejected, and suspicion that reference to
himself to endorsing Mach's historical method and the pro- psychological states will be problematic in putative explanations
cedure Bridgman ascribes to himself, namely, observing what of behavior because these states are not identified independent-
people (e.g. scientists) do with the terms they use. As construed ly of the behavior or functional relations they are to explain.
by Skinner, Bridgman's procedure makes the task of the logician Evidence of successful development of the program aside,
and philosopher of science a task for psychology. The type of Skinner's commitment to operationism is linked to its promise
"psychological" investigation Skinner proposes is an experi- in eliminating anthropomorphism and explanatory vacuity from
mental analysis of the contingencies of reinforcement under a scientific study of behavior.
which those verbal responses ordinarily classified as verbal Chomsky (1959) and others provide considerable reason for
reports are acquired and maintained. Skinner's operationism is, Skinner to be concerned about explanatory vacuity in existing
thus, one part of the radical behaviorist program for the experi- radical behaviorist accounts of verbal behavior. (Majpr crit-
mental analysis of verbal behavior. icisms are directed at explanatory references to unobserved
Skinner explicitly requires that his operationism solve the covert behavior - "Terms" - as providing stimuli for verbal
problem of explaining how verbal responses are brought under responses - see point 3 in "Terms" - and to unspecified
the control of private stimuli (i.e. stimuli that only the responder dimensions of generalization in accounts of responses occurring
can discriminate and respond to). This requirement marks a under public stimulus conditions which differ from those under
distinction between radical behaviorism and methodological which the response has previously been conditioned - see point
behaviorism, since methodological behaviorism presupposes 4.) Hence, there is reason to conclude that Skinner's opera-
that private stimulation lies outside the realm of scientific tionism has not, in fact, served one of the functions it was
investigation. designed to serve. In addition, strong arguments have been
The program Skinner proposes escapes the standard objec- given (e.g. Hempel 1965a; Taylor 1964; Woodfield 1976; Wright
tions to methodological behaviorism and the operationism of the 1976) that explanatory use of concepts embodied in the inten-
logical positivists (contra Boden 1972; Koch 1964; Scriven 1956). tional idiom need not be vacuous in any sense that concerns

Commentary I Skinner: Psychological terms
Skinner. Thus, we are free to wonder whether anthropomor- be the same. For one moment, let's accept Skinner's opera-
phism really is misplaced in a scientific study of human (verbal) tionalism and analyze the history of reinforcement contingen-
behavior. Whether it is misplaced or not can be determined cies for saying "red" and of reinforcement contingencies for
only by comparing the results of serious attempts to provide a pressing keys. It is probable that the two histories would be very
scientific analysis of behavior without the use of concepts em- different (except by the greatest coincidence), yet it is clear that
bodied in the intentional idiom with the results of attempts in the responses have the same referent. It is not the functional
which those concepts occur essentially. The radical behaviorism analysis of key pressing and verbally saying "red" that will reveal
of Skinner and the contemporary cognitivism inspired by how the same referent can result in two diverse responses
Chomsky provide an opportunity for such a comparison. Both (responses that have different reinforcementhistories). Rather,
programs have been defended and elaborated in work subse- the question is how reorganization (an internal process) occurs
quent to Chomsky's (1959) well-known critique of Skinner to form a new relationship between a referent and a response.
(1957). Quine (1970), MacCorquodale (1970), Fodor, Bever, Knowing how verbal reports to private stimuli are shaped does
and Garrett (1974), and Winokur (1976) provide a place to begin not answer this question.
comparing the results of pursuing the programs. Lacey (1974) A second, somewhat related, problem is that parametric
provides some useful guidance. variations in the response seem to be of little importance in
"Terms." The verbal response "red" may be said with greater
intensity and more rapidly when a traffic signal turns red than
when one is asked the color of a dress. Contingencies of rein-
forcement could presumably explain a part of the differences in
There is more than one way to access an intensity, since the effect of ignoring a red light may be much
image greater than that of ignoring the color of clothing. Reinforce-
ment contingencies, however, are not sufficient to explain all
Lynn C. Robertson the factors contributing to parametric variations in response
Veterans Administration Medical Center, Martinez, Calif. 94553 patterns.
When Shepard and Metzler (1971) presented two figures in
For Professor Skinner, science depends on operationalism. He
different orientations and found that reaction time increased
argues that private stimuli cannot be operationally defined; only
linearly with the degree of difference, the contingencies of
the verbal response to a private stimulus can be so defined. One
reinforcement that contribute to faster and slower responses are
could dismiss this argument as outdated, since mainstream
not obviously relevant. Shepard interpreted these data in terms
psychology abandoned its obsession with operationalism in the
of images and internal referents, and his subjects verbally
1940s and has since migrated toward the philosophy of critical
reported the experience of "seeing" a rotating image. It is true
realism. However, to disregard "Terms" on this basis would be
that Shepard may be wrong about the nature of the private
to miss some of the compelling differences between modern
event, just as a behaviorist could be wrong about the contingen-
behaviorism and cognitive psychology that are relevant today.
cies of reinforcement that contribute to the response. Yet, as I
The most important issue that Skinner addresses is the ques- understand Skinner's view, we would have to regard the dif-
tion of how and why people respond to private stimuli. This is ferences in reaction time in Shepard and Metzler's study as
indeed one of the current concerns of experimental psychology. responses that must be analyzed in themselves. It appears that
There is a search for the nature of internal representations Skinner would deemphasize the reaction-time data and analyze
(private stimuli) and cognitive processes (private events). Skin- the contingencies of reinforcement that "control" reporting the
ner predates, and is in agreement with, some contemporary experience of having an image, including the reference to
arguments that it is impossible to know the nature of an internal images by Shepard and Metzler and the rest of the scientific
representation (Anderson 1978; Palmer 1978). However, cur- community.
rent controversy is based on mathematical analyses and pertains This approach leads Skinner to argue that the verbal reports of
only to internal representations in isolation and not to the scientists should be analyzed in the same way as their subjects'
processes (one could call them behaviors) that operate upon verbal responses. It is an interesting question how words func-
them. tion in the thinking and behavior of scientists. Skinner's orienta-
Skinner believes that "internal representations" and "mental tion, however, leads to an infinite regress.
processes" arefictions,yet private stimuli and private events are Suppose we decide to define operationally the concept "red"
not. He agrees that there are "images" but disagrees that they according to Skinner's recipe of operationalism. We seek the
can be studied. His basic premise is that we can only study a contingencies of reinforcement that have shaped the verbal
verbal response like "red" in the context of a history of verbal report "red," and we look at the contingencies in the present use
responses to some public red. We cannot study the private of the word "red." As noted above, a person may yell "red"
stimulus to which it may refer. In other words, we cannot find when the driver of a car is about to run a traffic signal, and say
the reference to "red" in the internal event (except physiologi- "red" more softly when commenting on the color of a dress.
cally, which is not relevant to the issue), so we mustfindit in the Privately, the two verbal reports of "red" refer to two very
contingencies of reinforcement that correlate with, or, as Skin- different meanings. So we must operationalize two instances of
ner would say, control the verbal response. "red," the intense verbal report of red and the less intense
This line of thought can be extended to any response that is verbal report of red. Now we have a new task - to define
symbolic of the private stimulus red. If subjects were asked to intensity operationally. According to Skinner, "intensity" con-
press a key whenever they imagined the word red, the evalua- sists of the conditions under which the word "intensity" is used.
tion of the response would not lie in inferences of processing Thus, the use of the phrase "intense red" now is the verbal
strategies and comparative analyses of internal representations. report of the person who defines intensity. We have louder
It would, rather, be possible to examine only the contingencies "red" and softer "red" referring to the contingencies of rein-
of reinforcement that lead to the key response. In this case the forcement surrounding the response "intense" combined with
key response and the verbal report "red" presumably refer to the contingencies of reinforcement surrounding the response
the same stimulus - the color red. If we compared the verbal "red." We now need a verbal report of the person who is
report "red" to the manual key response in the same experi- reporting the difference between these two responses. This
ment, I suspect we would find that the conditions under which verbal report, in turn, needs analysis in the form of another
the key response and the verbal response were emitted would verbal report. Something is surely amiss.

Commentary/'Skinner: Psychological terms
B. F. Skinner's theorizing between psychological phlogiston and the daydreams of cog-

nitive psychologists. He gestures and promises and displays
high ideals, which serves merely to turn behaviorism into a
Douglas Stalker and Paul Ziff posture - defiant and quixotic.
Department of Philosophy, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Some will wonder at Skinner's "operational" definitions. We
Chapel Hill, N.C. 27514
wonder at the attempt. Why did he feel the need?
In 1938 (the year of The Behavior of Organisms) B. F. Skinner Even a genius can be seduced by philosophy.
began developing a technology of behavior. He has worked at it
over the years. His achievement has been awesome, inspiring:
It has yet to be rivaled.
But even the best of technologists, and the best of engineers,
can succumb to a lust for philosophic theorizing, and Skinner A behavioral theory of mind?
has been no exception.
By 1945 ("Terms") Skinner had other things in mind beside H. S. Terrace
technology. Though he would talk (albeit in passing) about this Department of Psychology, Columbia University, New York, N.Y. 10027
technology and our need for it, Skinner had become more and How timely it is to reread "The Operational Analysis of Psycho-
more concerned with theorizing. He proceeded from describing logical Terms, ' a remarkable gem of Skinner's prodigious out-
operant behavior and how to shape it all the way to theorizing put of seminal publications. Especially during this age of
about every feature of human life willy nilly, behavioral or not. cognitive psychology, many readers may be surprised to dis-
By 1974 (About Behaviorism) Skinner was openly pursuing an cover Skinner's idiosyncratic but carefully reasoned analysis of
elusive Weltanschauung: Philosophy had replaced technology. "private events. ' They may be equally surprised by the unusual
With fast talk from a strategic armchair, Skinner extended his metaphysical and epistemological positions that Skinner as-
theory of behavior by definition and redefinition, rather than by sumed in his first detailed treatment of mentalism.
experiment. The uninviting and misleading title of this important article
Consider, for example, what has happened to Skinner's con- has undoubtedly contributed to its neglect. Instead of revealing
ception of behavior over the years. In 1938 it was clear and in Skinner's distaste for operationism, it suggests yet another arid
line with his practical aim: immediate, overt, and observable exercise in deriving operational definitions of psychological
behavior was the relevant datum to describe and control. There phenomena. It also seems likely that the more alluring titles of
was no need to explain or deny the existence of other forms of some of Skinner's other well known articles, such as "Are
behavior, let alone mental states, events, or processes. But by Theories of Learning Necessary?" and "Why I Am Not a Cog-
1974 that conception had been expanded beyond all belief: Any nitive Psychologist," have led many psychologists to conclude
sort of matter became behavioral in all sorts of ways; so knowing that Skinner is antitheoretical and that he denies the existence of
that something is so became a form of behavior, and so did mental events.
thinking a thought. How could these count as immediate, overt,
The truth of the matter is that Skinner has a theory of
and observable? A new label was created: "covert behavior."
Covert behavior is minuscule and after the fact; in truth, is it behavior, that he acknowledges the existence of an inner mental
behavior at all? And scurrying along with covert behavior, in life, but that he also argues forcefully against the Cartesian
About Behaviorism, came current behavior, probable behavior, dualism implied by traditional (operational) definitions of cog-
perceptual behavior, past behavior, future behavior, and, cer- nitive phenomena (see Terrace 1970). In short, Skinner's 1945
tainly, whatever behavior was needed to fill the bill of a tech- classic is an appeal to psychologists to regard thoughts, beliefs,
nological bird fishing for philosophic frissons in Plato's wordy perceptions, memories, feelings, and soon, as bonafide subject
meander. matter for psychology, a subject matter that, from Skinner's
point of view, obeys the same laws as those that govern overt
When reading Skinner, one must ask oneself, Is this the behavior.
technologist or a philosopher speaking? Early on he is almost It is important to recognize that Skinner's penetrating analy-
exclusively the first; by 1974 he is the second. The first is more sis of private events occurred well in advance of the rise of
intriguing than the second, and so are his position and its value. modern cognitive psychology. It is widely recognized that the
It is a technology, and its value is that of a technology - a way of metaphor of the computer revolutionized the study of cognition
changing the ways in which humans (and nonhumans) behave;
by showing how complex processes can be conceptualized as
to have these means available, Skinner needed only modest
means - his unvarnished definition of behavior and his notions material phenomena that obey mechanical laws and how cog-
of operant and respondent conditioning. If these means were to nitive phenomena can be studied meaningfully without reduc-
need supplementation, the reasons would be technological: The ing them to the electrical activity of the computer's hardware.
results, being unsatisfactory, could only be aberrant. In Solely on the basis of his careful analysis of behavior, Skinner
"Terms" Skinner, perhaps in passing, says the only criterion for provided his own monistic alternative to the dualistic mentalism
the utility of a notion is whether it helps one get anywhere in inherent in traditional definitions of cognitive events. He also
controlling things. That is the great technological Skinner argued convincingly that psychologists need not concern them-
speaking, and espousing the criterion of a technology. What selves about the locus of private events in the nervous system
replaces it, or supplants it, when the philosopher king speaks? (Skinner 1950). Thus, long before the paradigms of modern
Large gestures about science and what is prescientific; there are cognitive psychology began to take root, Skinner insisted on a
motions made to scientific revolutions in physics, break- materialistic and nonreductionistic approach to its subject
throughs here and there, and how all the dross - the phlogiston matter.
and ether and 6lan vital - has gone by the boards. Somewhere in Skinner parts company with most other psychologists con-
all this there is supposed to be a lesson for psychology, but the cerned with private events by his unwillingness to regard them
lesson is lost at the level of slogans we can all agree to: Do we all as introspective givens. Statements such as "I feel or think X"
agree to accept no explanatory fictions? How do we now tell a prompt Skinner to ask what variables are responsible for the
fiction from a fact, a decoy from a duck? When Skinner was a occurrence of a particular feeling or thought. That question is
behavioral engineer, he knew what his criterion was: utility. In seldom asked because, by their very nature, private events
his philosophic period, which seems to have afflicted him even seem to be insulated from external influences. Skinner nev-
as early as 1945, Skinner lacked a criterion for discriminating ertheless maintains that the experience of a private event
presupposes public intervention, at some earlier time, by other

CommentaryI'Skinner: Psychological terms
members of the "verbal community." According to Skinner, we situations, (i.e. situations in which the cause of the problem is
"know ourselves" only because others direct our attention to behavior of which we are unaware) is a promising start. I doubt,
what we think, feel, or do. Children, for example, learn when it however, that Skinner would argue that such situations are the
is appropriate to say "I think," or "My stomach aches," or "I had only cause of consciousness.
a bad dream" only after listening to innumerable comments or A moment's thought should reveal why the basic objection to
queries such as, "You look deep in thought. Are you thinking Skinner's explanation of consciousness is one of those he raised
about X?" or "Are you upset because you have a stomach ache?" against mentalistic explanations in general. Skinner notes that to
or "What were you dreaming about when you woke up crying?" say that John did X because he thought Z is to beg the question,
Skinner's view of the ontogeny of private events is consistent Why did John think Z? To answer that question by asserting that
with a wide range of psychological theorizing. Skinner himself John thought Z because he applies verbal response Z to internal
reminds us of Freud's belief that it is our natural condition to be stimulus z' is to beg the question, Why the occurrence of verbal
unconscious of our actions, thoughts, feelings, and so on, and response Z?
that mental activity does not presuppose consciousness (see Skinner's insistence that all mental activity be characterized
Skinner 1969a, p. 225). Piaget commented extensively about as private (conscious) events, under the control of particular
the kinds of training that his daughter needed to understand internal stimuli, would seem to deny the existence of uncon-
when she was thinking and that her head was the locus of her scious private events. So extreme a position is understandable in
thoughts (e.g. Piaget 1929, p. 44). At least one social psychol- a Zeitgeist in which reference to mental processes of any sort
ogist (Bern 1967) has noted the similarity between the logic of implied a dualistic view of psychology's subject matter (in
Skinner's analysis of how we come to know about private events "Terms" Skinner writes that "the distinction between public
and the logic of attribution theory, a theory that claims that and private is by no means the same as that between physical
particular kinds of social interactions determine how we de- and mental)." However, Skinner's more recent publications
scribe our thoughts and feelings. It is also of interest to note that (1974; 1977b) suggest that he has yet to acknowledge that the
Jaynes's review of early history led him to conclude that con- study of cognitive phenomena does not presuppose dualism.
sciousness is a relatively recent development, a development Skinner also doesn't appear to recognize that much of human
that Jaynes claims occurred after the invention of writing (Jaynes and animal behavior can no longer be explained by reference to
1976). Jaynes hypothesized that, prior to the appearance of the three-term contingency (a discriminative stimulus, a re-
mans sense of consciousness, his language made reference only sponse, and a reinforcer) that he applied so imaginatively to a
to objects and events of the external environment and that man large variety of examples of human and animal behavior. A basic
had no vocabulary with which to refer to his mental life - or, for problem arises when organisms respond appropriately in the
that matter, to himself. When, on occasion, he heard "inner absence of any relevant environmental stimulus (see Hunter
voices," they were interpreted as the voices of gods or as 1913; Terrace 1983a). This state of affairs has motivated the
hallucinations. Only as a result of violent upheavals did early study of representations of environmental stimuli, in both
societies develop the cultural practice of teaching their mem- human and animal subjects (e.g. Bousfield & Bousfield 1966;
bers to identify their inner thoughts and feelings and to attribute Bower 1972; Mandler 1967; Olton & Samuelson 1976; Roitblat
those thoughts and feelings to themselves. 1980; Shepard 1975; Shimp 1976; Terrace 1983b). The study of
Skinner's counterintuitive hypothesis about private events representations in animals is of especial interest because of their
(that they owe their existence to the public efforts of others who nonverbal nature (Terrace 1982). [See also Roitblat: "The Mean-
teach us how to respond verbally to internal stimuli) was an ing of Representation in Animal Memory" BBS 5(3) 1982.]
effective reply to Boring, Stevens, and other like-minded opera- What separates Skinner from the modern study of cognitive
tionists who argued that the study of private (and, therefore, processes is his reluctance to acknowledge that the study of
scientifically inaccessible) events should be limited to their representations does not imply a regression to mentalism.
public manifestations. Skinner not only revealed the dualistic Indeed, the study of representations can be regarded profitably
flaw of such operational definitions but also defined a radically as an extension of the study of stimulus control (Terrace 1983a).
new view of private events. Asking about the nature of a representation is simply to pose the
For a variety of reasons that view has not received the questions, What features of an environmental stimulus are
attention it deserves. One problem stems from some unex- coded by the organism and how does the organism represent
plored ramifications of Skinner's analysis of private events. those features to itself when it must respond in the absence of
Another is Skinner's reluctance to consider private events other the environmental stimulus?
than those he so insightfully defined. Ironically, Skinner does An instructive example of the need to include representations
not appear to have recognized that the struggle against men- of environmental stimuli in the experimental analysis of behav-
talism or, more specifically, dualism, has been won. Thanks, in ior can be seen in a pigeon's performance on a matching-to-
large part, to his own efforts, modern studies of human and sample task (Skinner 1950). In the original version of this
animal cognition need not concern themselves with the ghost in paradigm, the pigeon was shown a sample stimulus (either red
the machine. or green). A few seconds later, two choice stimuli (red and
Before reviewing the import of recent developments in cogni- green) were added, one on each side of the sample. The subject
tion, let us consider the following implications of Skinner's was rewarded if and only if it selected a choice stimulus that
hypothesis about private events: (1) Private events are con- matched the color of the sample stimulus.
scious, (2) consciousness presupposes language, and (3) only Subsequent research showed that Skinner's description of the
human beings experience consciousness. pigeon's behavior as "matching" was a misnomer. When con-
Since so much of Skinner's view of consciousness hinges on fronted with novel samples (in conjunction with appropriate
the verbal labels we have been taught to apply to internal novel choices), performance fell to chance (Cumming & Ber-
stimuli, it is important to ask whether a verbal label is a ryman 1965). What the pigeons seemed to have learned was to
necessary or sufficient condition for consciousness. That we are respond to the left choice when confronted with stimulus config-
conscious of unlabeled images suggests that verbal labeling is uration 1 and to the right choice when confronted with stimulus
neither necessary nor sufficient (see Skinner's examples of configuration 2, and so on.
"operant seeing," 1953, pp. 270ff.). Even if one wanted to argue A variety of recent studies has shown that it is possible to
that verbal labels were a necessary or a sufficient condition for obtain generalization of matching-to-sample (Premack 1976;
consciousness, we would still need to know why we label certain Zentall 1983). Accordingly, it is necessary to ask how one might
internal stimuli and not others. Skinner's suggestion (1969a, pp. characterize the stimulus that results in matching. It cannot be
157ff.) that consciousness functions to help us cope with difficult the physical identity that exists between the sample and the

choice stimuli. The experimental literature indicates that phys- perhaps to understand, our own verbal behavior as scientists."
ical similarity per se fails as often as it succeeds in producing To do this, of course, we would have to treat our own verbal
generalization of matching. The only alternative is to postulate behavior as meaningful in order to prove that it wasn't. In fact,
some internal response, generated by the organism, which there would be nothing to explain. There is nothing to explain
yields an internal "same" stimulus. That stimulus, in turn, leads insofar as people think rationally, and since science is supposed
to the correct choice. In short, successful generalization of to be, par excellence, a rational activity, there shouldn't be
matching must mean that the subject makes a judgment of much to explain in it; and if it wasn't very largely rational there
"sameness" before responding to the correct choice. Specifical- wouldn't be much point in listening to its explanations as to why
ly, the subject must transform the environmental stimuli pro- it wasn't! Psychology must, on pain of otherwise cutting off its
vided by the experimenter into an intermediate cue that indi- own head, presuppose that human discourse is very iargely
cates which choice it should select. [See also Premack: "The rational - that it isn't caused by stimuli. [See also Cohen: "Can
Codes of Man and Beasts" BBS 6(1) 1983.] Human Irrationality Be Experimentally Demonstrated" BBS
The importance of taking into account the subjects contribu- 4(3) 1981 and Kyburg: "Rational Belief" BBS 6(2) 1983.]
tion to the stimulus complex that results in accurate matching- One had supposed that the methodological and radical behav-
to-sample performance is especially apparent when a delay is iorists agreed that science was, by definition, concerned with
interposed between the presentation of the sample and the the publicly observable and publicly testable world, and that the
presentation of the choices (Grant 1983; Roberts & Kraemer real difference between them was that the former accepted and
1982; Roitblat 1980). Accurate responding under those circum- the latter denied that there was a private mental world - a
stances suggests that the subject has access to a representation of difference that would appear to be of no material consequence.
the sample when the choice stimuli are made available. Skinner, however, denies this. It meant for a start that the
Skinner should be heartened by these and other demonstra- methodological behaviorists were soft on those old explanatory
tions of the feasibility of studying complex processes in humans fictions, consciousness, feeling, and the will, and looked for
and animals from a monistic and a materialistic point of view. behavioral manifestations that could be given operational defini-
Rather than regard such developments as contrary to the tenets tions. Of course, our intuitive concepts will not do for scientific -
of radical behaviorism, Skinner should welcome them as signifi- or indeed for philosophical - purposes. Our intuitive concepts
cant extensions of the approach to cognitive events that he. of truth and knowledge, as Carnap (1962) pointed out, need
introduced in "Terms." explication. But that does not mean that they should be aban-
doned. Some scientific concepts have not proved very fruitful:
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The medieval concept of impetus (which, until it was finally
The preparation of this commentary was supported in part by an NSF dissipated like the heat in a poker, was supposed to keep a
grant (BNS-82-02423). projectile in motion) was abandoned in favour of the concept of
momentum; and the concept of phlogiston, one of Skinner's
examples, was abandoned in favour of that of oxygen. But the
concepts of electricity, heat, velocity, and so on, have simply
On the operational definition of a toothache been modified. And it was empirical science that was the judge
in each case.
Colin Wright
But Skinner is still right in rejecting the program of meth-
Department of Philosophy, University of Exeter, Exeter EX4 4QH, England
odological behaviorism. Suppose for the moment that con-
Psychology was in its most formative stage in the 1930s, when sciousness, feelings, and the will are real. Surely the manifesta-
the philosophy of science was in its heyday. Many of its elements tions in behavior of these intentional states can only be
are to be found in Professor Skinner's paper "Terms": the intelligibly described in terms of the intentional states them-
fictionalism of Mach, the physicalism and the problems of the selves. If so, the program is self-defeating. The solution might
public and the private of the Vienna Circle, and the opera- be to abandon the notion that psychology cannot be a science
tionism of Einstein and Bridgman. The psychologists wanted to unless it restricts its subject matter to what is publicly observ-
know how a science of man was possible, and they turned to the able, and so to abandon behaviorism with it. Skinner, of course,
philosophers as the only authorities they knew for guidance; for does not abandon behaviorism; indeed he reaffirms his credo.
the acknowledged scientists, qua scientists, of course did not But, incredibly, he drops the requirement of publicity. Or does
understand the principles of their own subject, no matter how he? He, too, he says, has a toothache, and a toothache is a
skillfully they might use them. But the philosophers of science private event. But it is private only in the sense that the only
did not understand them either, and they led the psychologists system that is directly "wired up" to the tooth in question is the
up the garden path. physical system called "Skinner": the toothache is a purely
In "Terms" Skinner tells us that experience is "a derived physical event, just like the radioactive event that is manifested
construct to be understood only through an analysis of ver- in the click in the Geiger counter. Skinner, it seems, does not
bal . . . processes." But one always supposed that verbal pro- suffer from toothache like ordinary mortals; he just displays the
cesses reported experience, whether "inner" or "outer," or at kinds of behavior one usually associates with a toothache - play
least reported the content of experience, what was experienced; acting, some would call it. [See also Searle: "Minds, Brains and
and if so, experience can hardly be a construct out of verbal Programs" BBS 3(3) 1980.]
behavior. Words themselves, we are told, are not signs or What is wrong with operationism is not that no explicit
symbols used to express or convey meanings. Words are re- statement of the relation between concept and operation has
sponses to stimuli resulting from reinforcement by the verbal been provided. It is that the very character of the relation has
community. In other words, all words are meaningless physical been misconceived. One's actions are not defined by one's
effects caused by specific kinds of physical stimuli - including bodily movements but the reverse - in order to know what sort
this paper by Skinner, what I am writing now, and the various of operation a person is performing one must know what he is
verbal effects, caused in you, the reader. If this is so, there is no trying to achieve - one must know what velocity is before one
meaning, no understanding, no judgment - and no science. Or can set out to measure it. Newton was well aware that there was
shall we suppose that we are in some God-given privileged no operation by which he could measure velocity as he under-
position in our investigations, possessing in ourselves faculties stood it, that is, motion relative to God's Sensorium (I ignore his
that we deny in those we study, like the spiritually enlightened bucket experiment), and he used the "fixed" stars as a surrogate
in Plato's allegory of the cave? Well, apparently we are, right up framework instead. The concept determines the operation, the
to the end: Then, however, "we shall be able to include, and operation does not define the concept. There may, of course, be

Response /Skinner: Psychological terms
something wrong with the concept, something that a considera- science, must be said to infer the private event. Second, Skin-
tion of the operation determined by it may reveal. Philosophical ner's statement that private events are discriminative stimuli for
analysis is required to reveal such deficiencies and decide where certain verbal responses is, at present, no more than a plausible
the fault lies. Unfortunately the scientist rarely has the philo- hypothesis. No evidence is currently available to show that
sophical training for the job - or the philosopher the necessary verbal responses enter into causal relationships with private
conceptual background. events as required by the hypothesis, or that these private
events are stimuli in the sense of conforming to the same laws as
their overt counterparts. Therefore, the existence of private
stimuli controlling verbal behavior is an inference. Even the
subject's verbal reports provide no observational evidence for
Radical behaviorism and theoretical entities the hypothesis since they are in the form "I have a toothache"
rather than "Private stimulus X is controlling my verbal behav-
G. E. Zuriff ior." It must be concluded that the scientific status of private
Department of Psychology, Wheaton College, Norton, Mass. 02766 stimuli is that of a hypothetical construct.
After nearly four decades, "Terms" retains its significance and
its brilliance. But along with its liberating impact on behaviorist
thought, it is also the source of certain ambiguities and confu-
sions persisting to the present. I address two of these.
1. Ironically, commentators on the history of behaviorism
commonly ignore the historical context of this article. "Terms"
was presented as part of a symposium on operationism in Author's Response
psychology. Skinner was concerned with distinguishing his
approach from the operationism of his Harvard colleagues S. S.
Stevens and E. G. Boring. The latter was not a behaviorist, and
the former only marginally so. Certainly neither was part of the Coming to terms with private events
behaviorist mainstream devoted to the study of conditioning
and learning and to the development of a science of behavior. B. F. Skinner
Yet over the next 40 years, the distinction between the position Department of Psychology and Social Relations, Harvard University,
of Skinner on the one hand and the operationism of Boring and Cambridge, Mass. 02138
Stevens on the other hand came to be regarded as a major When I was asked to participate in the symposium for
distinction between Skinner's "radical" behaviorism and all which "terms " was written, I was at work on a manuscript
other forms of behaviorism. It is commonly thought that only that would be published 12 years later under the title
radical behaviorism admits private events into the science of
Verbal Behavior (Skinner 1957). It was an interpretation
behavior, while all forms of methodological behaviorism are
restricted to publicly observable entities and events. While this of the field of language which avoided "ideas," "mean-
distinction may differentiate Skinner from Boring and Stevens, ings," "information," and all the other things said to be
it does not distinguish him from nearly any other major behav- expressed by a speaker or communicated to a listener.
iorist. Watson, Weiss, Tolman, Guthrie, Hull, and Spence all Although I had lost interest in the operationism of the
included private events, such as "implicit," "covert," and "in- thirties, I still called myself an operationist and thought
cipient" responses, in their behavioral systems. Furthermore, that certain parts of the manuscript were suitable for the
they suggested that these unobserved events can serve as symposium. They concerned the place of private events
stimuli for verbal responses, including reports of emotions, in the analysis of verbal behavior, in particular the privacy
pains, and images. What distinguishes Skinner from these other
behaviorists is not his legitimization of private events but the of "sensations" and "feelings," which were still important
fact that he provides the most coherent account of how these to psychologists of the time, particularly E. G. Boring,
events come to function as stimuli for verbal behavior. Thus, who had organized the symposium.
contrary to common opinion, the admission of private events In traditional terms the question I addressed was this:
into a behavioral science does not distinguish radical behav- How is it possible to learn to refer to or describe (and I
iorism from other forms. In sophisticated methodological be- would say hence know) things or events within our own
haviorism, scientific data are derived by observation, and pri- bodies to which our teachers do not have access? How can
vate events are postulated as hypothetical constructs. This they tell us that we are right or wrong when we describe
hypothetical nature of private events leads to my second point. them?
2. In "Terms" Skinner states: "Our practice is to infer the
private event." Similarly, he speaks of considering private I used as an example a special type of verbal response
events "inferentially." This implies that private stimuli, as called (in my manuscript) the tact. It will be important in
inferred events, are theoretical entities as opposed to observ- what follows to define this term here as clearly as possi-
ables. On the other hand, Skinner (1969a, p. 242; 1974, p. 17) at ble. It refers to the probability of occurrence of a verbal
times writes as if private events are observed rather than response (say, chair) as it is affected by a stimulus (say, a
inferred because they are observed by the person in whose body chair or chairlike object). At any given moment a native
they occur and whose verbal behavior they control. Contempo- speaker of English possesses the response chair in some
rary researchers in behavior therapy have extrapolated this strength (where "in strength" means "with a given proba-
position to an extreme in some cases. Ignoring Skinner's cau-
bility of emission"). During a quiet walk in the woods it is
tionary attitude toward the reliability of reports of private
events, they treat the patient'sfirst-personreports about covert weak. In a furniture store, it is strong, even though not
events as genuine data reports observed by a "public of one." being actually emitted.
I believe that private events must be considered inferred The response chair in its relation to a chair as a
entities (i.e. theoretical) for two reasons. First, if psychology is controlling stimulus is a tact (and the chair is then said to
to be the "psychology of the other one" in Meyer's (1921) be tacted); it is not a "reference to a chair," or a "state-
felicitous phrase, then even if a subject may be said to be ment about chairs," nor does it "express the idea of a
observing a private event, the experimenter, representing the chair," or "denote a chair," or "name a chair." It is simply

Response/Skinner: Psychological terms
a probability of emission of chair as a function of a the tact red, to the probability of which the size and shape
particular kind of stimulus. Tacts sometimes occur alone, of red objects contribute very little.
but they are usually parts of larger samples of verbal
behavior. They can be, but need not be, explicitly taught, I do not think that Bennett is right in saying that by
as when a child is taught to name objects. calling one thing a stimulus and another a response I am
(The response chair is not always a tact. If it occurs "implying that the former causes the latter" or that "like
because it has often been followed by the appearance of a most stimulus-response meaning theorists, [I am] appar-
chair as a reinforcing consequence, it is a mand, a "re- ently attracted by the idea that the meanings of our
quest for a chair." If, because it often occurs in ex- utterances are determined by the very same items that
pressions like table and chair or sitting in a chair, it is cause them." That is precisely what I am not saying. I am
strengthened when table and or sitting in a is read or saying that the presence of an object (call it a stimulus)
heard, it is an intraverbal response. If it is strong because increases the probability that a response will be emitted.
someone else has just said chair, it is an echoic response. This can be fairly easily demonstrated and can indeed be
If the speaker is simply reading the word, it is a textual used in predicting a speaker's behavior. Of course, "other
response. These kinds of verbal responses are not impor- things" enter into the actual speaking of a word, and I
tant for the present Response.) have dealt with them in detail in Verbal Behavior. I
Speakers acquire and emit tacts under many different cannot agree with Bennett that the statement "If you
states of deprivation and aversive stimulation and when want a person to utter the word 'chair,' one of the best
many different kinds of reinforcing consequences follow. ways is to let him see an unusual chair" (Miller 1951, p.
Such reinforcements are mediated by other people. 166) is "plainly false." Let someone scaling Mt. Everest
There are no important nonsocial consequences of saying arrive at the summit and find a chair, and the word
chair, at least until the speaker himself becomes a lis- "chair" will be pronounced with alacrity. (Incidentally,
tener. The question I raised in "Terms" was this: How can the reader should not infer that George Miller, from
we tact private stimuli inaccessible to the verbal commu- whose book the sentence is taken, is in thrall to a stim-
nity which arranges the necessary contingencies of rein- ulus-response theory of meaning; he is one of its sharpest
forcement? For chair, substitute pain, and one reaches critics.)
the problem of "the operational definition of a psychologi- It would be unfair of me to refer to my book, published
cal term." 12 years after "Terms," if Bennett were devoting his
"Terms" argues that there are only four ways in which commentary to my paper. But a critic of my theory of
we can learn to tact private stimuli: (1) The verbal com- meaning must look at my book, where I appeal to much
munity can base its reinforcements on associated public more than a stimulus in accounting for a verbal response.
stimuli. (2) It can use public responses made to the same I do not suggest "that the causally sufficient conditions for
stimuli. (3) Some private stimuli are generated by covert a person's uttering '(That is) red' consist in (i) a red
behavior to which responses can be learned when the stimulus in conjunction with (ii) a set of circumstances C
same behavior is overt. (4) The tact can be metaphorical which always mediates between a stimulus and an utter-
and acquired when made to similar public stimuli. Now, ance whose meaning is somehow given by the stimulus."
nearly 40 years later, I do not see any other possibilities. What must be taken into account "among other things" is
Before taking up specific commentaries I list some (1) a setting which includes a listener and (2) a long history
common misunderstandings: in which speaking in similar settings has been followed by
1. I was not trying to bring sensations back into behav- the reactions of similar listeners. The listeners have
iorism. By toothache, I mean only the stimulation arising supplied the reinforcers which built the functional con-
from a damaged tooth. We must wait for physiology to trol exercised by the stimulus.
supply further details. Typical of modern philosophers, Bennett replaces a
2. Although private stimuli are often salient, the public history of reinforcing consequences with a currently felt
accompaniments used by the verbal community often or at least active "intention." His expression "intending
continue to contribute to the strength of a tact. I may say, to get someone else to think that Fx, or intending tofixin
"I am hungry" mainly because I see myself eating vo- his own memory his belief that Fx, or the like" is an effort
raciously, a public stimulus. tofinda current entity to replace the speaker's relation to
3. A tact, once established or in the process of being the listener and the kinds of effects he has had on
established, usually figures in larger samples of verbal listeners, especially the effects described in detail in
behavior to which terms like reference, denotation, and Verbal Behavior.
description are often applied, but the term is not itself (Far from disregarding intention and belief as "of
correctly thus used. merely antiquarian interest" I am at the moment involved
4. A tact may have the form of a sentence if it is acquired with a colleague, Dr. Pere Julia, a linguist, in reviewing
as such. The whole expression "I'm hungry as a bear" may the use of those words in current philosophy. Bennett's
be a single response and useful as such upon a given best effort to supply an alternative theory depends, he
occasion. On a different occasion it may be composed as a says, essentially upon intention and belief. From my
sentence of which the tact hungry is only a part. point of view, it depends upon the personal histories
5. Verbal contingencies bring responses under the which lead to verbal behavior, histories for which inten-
control of single properties of stimuli. Only by looking at a tion and belief stand as current surrogates.
number of instances can we identify the property that is In "Terms" I compare those who teach the meanings of
functioning in a tact. Chair is, in this sense, an abstract words referring to private events which they themselves
response, but the issue is clearer when the defining cannot see to a blind man teaching someone the names of
property is more often found with other properties, as in colors. Obviously the blind man must have collateral

information before he can do so successfully. A solution of trees and take their appointed places in leaves and
by Bennett of the problem of the blind man with the flowers and fruit. Nor has philosophy or religion offered
concepts of belief and intention would be a useful contri- alternative accounts of any of this that satisfy the critical
bution to this discussion. thinker. Let us be content with beginnings.
An experiment might be helpful. Let us undertake to Danto summarizes the point of my paper quite accu-
explain to a bright 10-year-old boy what intentions and rately, and I agree that the "terms. . .central to science
beliefs are. When we have finished, the boy must be able are not of this . . . sort." I would also be interested in a
to tell us when he has an intention and when he holds a further analysis of those terms which are "as loosely tied
belief. What things shall we point to as we tell him what to stimuli as theoretical terms are." I have had something
those words mean? What things must he know about more to say about that in "Problem-Solving." I do not
himself to report correctly that he has an intention or believe that we must in any sense relax a demand for
holds a belief? I think we shall find that we have taught sharpness of reference.
him to mention actions and to mention or imply their
consequences. These are parts of the contingencies of If I have neglected brute facts, as Dennett claims, it is
reinforcement of which his behavior is a function. As only because I have no reason to rehearse them. The role
states of mind, intentions and beliefs are current surro- of the discriminative stimulus in controlling the proba-
gates of the contingencies. As a behaviorist, I dispense bility of emission of a response was already well estab-
with the surrogates but take the contingencies quite lished when I wrote "Terms" and has since been abun-
seriously. dantly confirmed. The point of my paper concerned a
procedure through which a private stimulus could play
Brinker & Jaynes seem to misunderstand my saying the usual role in spite of its inaccessibility to the verbal
that a casual observer can tell very little about what is community which maintains the necessary contingen-
going on in an operant experiment in spite of its supposed cies. There were no "puzzling or recalcitrant or otherwise
oversimplification. The experimenter sees what is going inexplicable facts" to be accounted for. The facts were
on in the experimental space much more clearly than the well known to everyone.
casual observer because he has additional information My paper was not theoretical. It was an interpretation.
about the history of the organism - its deprivational state, Through what fairly obvious ways could the verbal com-
its history of reinforcement, possibly something about its munity circumvent privacy? I cannot see any theory in
genetics, and so on. To understand behavior, one must my exposition of four ways in which it could be done or
know the history of the organism as well as the present the conclusion that none of these ways leads to a very
"structure" of the behavior. I do not see how admitting precise control by private stimuli.
that necessity "rescind[s] [the] promise of operationism." Dennett, along with other commentators, accuses me
It simply recognizes the need for a closer study of control- of dogmatism. I am "extrapolat[ing] a creed: working out
ling variables. the details of what the devout behaviorist has to say,
I think the same thing can be said about casual encoun- figuring out the kosher categories into which all facts must
ters between people. If the listener "makes sense of what be cast, no matter how the facts come out." And yet he
the speaker is saying," both must be members of the same complains at length of my use of "may" and "might,"
language community (i.e. have had much the same verbal terms which, in all the "dictionary meanings" he cites,
history) and sense will be made more effectively if this suggest far from a dogmatic stance. In order to have it
particular speaker and listener have shared other verbal both ways, Dennett says that I am feinting and weaving
experiences. (It often takes a certain amount of time to be and that when I say "may" I really mean "must." (The
clear about what a stranger is saying.) only "bold declaration" that he offers as a sample of my
I agree in general with Brinker & Jaynes's dismissal of dogmatism occurs in a paragraph in which I say that "we
operationism as that term is most often used, but behav- may generalize the conditions responsible for the stan-
iorism, when applied to the definition of psychological dard semantic' relation between a verbal response and a
terms, the subject of the symposium to which "Terms" particular stimulus without going into reinforcement the-
was contributed, is very close to the spirit of opera- ory in detail." The paragraph is little more than a defini-
tionism, and I submitted the paper on that understand- tion of "contingency of reinforcement" - a key term
ing. I, too, regret that more work has not been done in borrowed from the experimental analysis of behavior.
line with my analysis in Verbal Behavior, particularly in Dennett gives no example of the "host of obvious coun-
the behavior of young children. The field is only slowly terinstances" that he could cite, but if he means instances
recovering from the developmentalism of Piaget and in which the community reinforces a response under
others, in which the appearance of verbal behavior is other circumstances, they are instances I was excluding
followed with little or no attention paid to the contingen- from the present discussion.)
cies of reinforcement responsible for it. "Terms" makes a fairly simple point about a kind of
verbal behavior - behavior that Dennett would perhaps
I agree with Danto that an analysis ofmy toothache will say "refers to" events inaccessible to those who teach us
not get us very far toward explaining a Greek tragedy or to speak. I believe the technical terms it uses are con-
the works of Marcel Proust. Physics is a much more sistent with each other and with other terms in the work
advanced science, but it has not got very far toward in progress to which I repeatedly referred. The point was
explaining the present condition of the universe. Biology relevant to the symposium because it shows how difficult
and biochemistry are advanced sciences, but they have it is to validate a system of mentalistic psychology which
not got very far toward explaining that rite of spring in calls for introspection by trained observers. The the-
which molecules work their way up through the branches ological violence of Dennett's commentary suggests that

it must raise particularly troublesome difficulties for his that I must deny that introspection is possible. I agree
own discipline. with Graham in saying that Malcolm is wrong, and so are
all those who take the operation to be identical with the
Garrett's paper is a useful interpretation of the relation thing it is said to define. So far as I am concerned,
called reference, particularly with respect to Wittgen- whatever happens when we inspect a public stimulus is in
stein's insistence that we do not refer to private events. As every respect similar to what happens when we intro-
Garrett points out, such references are no more "direct" spect a private one. "Terms" is concerned only with the
than references to other kinds of events. Private events problems which arise in learning to do so. What people
are exclusive, but so are other events with which we alone eventually " 'feel' [as] distinctively sharp about sharp
are in contact. Privacy raises a problem only for those who pains " may contain no vestige of the stimuli which were
teach us how to refer. Garrett's analysis of the reference needed when they were taught to call them sharp.
function of intraverbal and echoic behavior is also useful.
I have only one criticism to make of his analysis of the tact. There is nothing in Harzem's commentary to which I
Saying "bear" in response to a bear track found near an can seriously object. It summarizes a philosophy of
empty picnic table is a metonymical tact. Saying "A bear human behavior which, as Harzem points out, was shared
has been here" is much more. In a normal occurrence by Wittgenstein, Ryle, and Austin. (It is often forgotten
"That animal is a lion" is also more than a tact. The that Wittgenstein called for animal research to answer
expression contains two tacts: animal and lion. It also some of the questions he raised.) I wish, however, that
contains additional material serving a function that I call Harzem had spent more time on the problem of privacy,
in my book "autoclitic." It includes what linguists call which is not quite identical with that of mentalism. It is
syntax or grammar. If we are to stick closely to demon- worth emphasizing that an analysis of verbal behavior and
strated behavioral processes, only the increased proba- of "how words become attached to their meanings" raises
bility of saying lion in the presence of a lion is the relation what seems to me an insuperable obstacle in the path of
called a tact. The sentence as a whole is controlled by any kind of rigorous science of mental life.
other features of the situation, especially the presence of a
listener who is likely to reinforce behavior that proves Hineline's commentary is a better reply than my own
useful to him in the setting to which the speaker is to some of the points made in the other commentaries.
responding. Short sentences are sometimes learned as His references to my analysis and use of logic are particu-
units under the control of stimuli in connection with larly helpful. I am always surprised, however, when it is
which they can be called tacts, but sentences are usually said that I have only very recently acknowledged the role
to some extent composed. Primordial verbal material of natural selection in the shaping and maintaining of
(tacts, intraverbals, echoics, etc.) are put together with behavior, although the fact that I am willing to yield some
the help of autoclitic devices so that the listener reacts in a of the place of operant conditioning to its rival is worth
more effective way. repeating (see "Consequences" and "Phylogeny"). I am
also glad that Hineline clarifies my objection to theory. I
do not object to mentalistic theories of behavior so much
I am not familiar enough with "functionalism or the
because of the mentalism as because of the irrelevance,
causal theory of mind" to do justice to Graham's com- an irrelevance which also applies at the present time to
mentary, but if for "sensation classification" we may read neurological theories. In the paper on theory to which
"stimulus classification" then so far as I can see the Hineline refers (Skinner 1950; here, part of "Methods"), I
comparison is correct. I am not sure, however, that questioned the use of theories that appeal to "events
Graham would accept that substitution of terms. One taking place somewhere else, at some other level of
may speak of the cause of a stimulus by distinguishing observation, described in different terms, and measured,
between the object (for example, a red light) and its if at all, in different dimensions," but I called for a theory
stimulating effect (the arousal of nerve impulses in the of behavior of a different kind.
retina), but I think it is the latter that Graham would want
to call the cause of a sensation.
There are different kinds of "painful" stimuli. We Hocutt raises the question of meaning. The colloquial
classify them with terms like sharp and dull which we take statement that a person "uses a word to express a mean-
from the objects which cause the pain. As a behaviorist I ing" appears to be an explanation of the occurrence of the
can say that a sharp object causes the kind of stimulation word, but what and where is the meaning? To the
that evokes the response sharp pain, but Graham, I mentalist, as Hocutt says, toothache means a personal
suppose, would want to say that it is the sensation which, experience. To a methodological behaviorist it means the
in turn, is reported as a sharp pain. setting which is said to give rise to such an experience. To
I allowed for that possibility in a passage in "Terms" the crude operationist it means the operation from which
that I am surprised has gone unnoticed by those who are the experience is inferred. I do not accept any of those
critical of behaviorism. The passage reads as follows: views. As a radical behaviorist I would say that if the term
"See" is a term acquired with respect to one's own "meaning" has any meaning at all, it is the setting which
behavior in the case of overt responses available to the gives rise to the response of the speaker or the subse-
community, but according to the present analysis it quent action of the listener with respect to that setting.
may be evoked at other times by any private accom- I am glad to accept Hocutt's paraphrase that "toothache
paniment of overt seeing. Here is a point at which a denotes neither a private sensation nor its public accom-
nonbehavioral private seeing may be slipped in. paniments but an unknown bodily condition normally
The point is relevant to Malcolm's (1964) contention caused by an abscessed tooth and normally manifesting

itself in moaning and grasping of the jaw." But that is not are exposed. Their analyses (whether or not they are
what he says when he writes "for [Skinner], the word correct) enter into the control of their behavior as self-
toothache means not the private stimulus that elicits its generated rules (see "Problem Solving"). Research on
use but the public stimuli that control reinforcement of its human behavior which compares favorably with animal
use." The trouble arises from the words "denote" and research is most successful in small children and retarded
"mean." When a person says, "My tooth aches," stimula- persons or when the contingencies are concealed. My
tion from the tooth is in control, but it does not "elicit" the answer to Lowe's second question (Is "human perfor-
response as in a reflex. It makes a contribution to its mance that is free of this 'interfering' conscious-
strength. "Public accompaniments," such as a cry of pain ness . . . indistinguishable from that of animals") is yes,
or a hand to the jaw, play no part at the time. They were although the data Lowe (1983) cites may prove me wrong.
important to the verbal community in setting up the
response at some earlier date, but this instance of the
response is now under the control of private stimulation. Meehl poses four hard questions. My tentative replies:
With the rest of Hocutt's commentary I generally agree. 1. The first question concerns my opening definition of
operationism, which was not very relevant to the rest of
the paper. How we formulate rules as descriptions of the
I am glad that Kenrick & Keefe bring up the relevance contingencies of reinforcement encountered in nature
of "Terms" to self-perception and Bern's (1967) analysis of and society, and how logicians manipulate those rules and
cognitive dissonance, and I agree that there are problems derive from them other rules descriptive of contingencies
of reference with respect to public stimuli as well as not yet experienced by anyone (and, possibly, never to be
private. That, indeed, was the principal contention of experienced by anyone) form too big afieldto be charac-
physical operationism. What are time, length, force, and terized accurately with terms as general as deduction,
so on? I should want to see the same kinds of answers induction, reduction, and so on. I pass.
given with respect to psychological traits. Should we try 2. If an accurate introspective vocabulary were avail-
to discover exactly what a trait is, or should we look at the able, I should be an ardent introspectionist (as I am,
facts from which the trait is, as Kenrick & Keefe put it, personally, with a far from accurate one). But I regard
inferred. The operational answer to Newton's time and introspection, like all other forms of "spection," as
space was not to solve the problem by improving the behavior.
process of inference but to question whether the things 3. I think clinicians sometimes get useful information,
Newton thought he was talking about existed. Is there from which they can infer something of their clients'
any point in trying to "sharpen the reference" of the word histories, from answers to the question "How do you feel
"aggression"? It seems to me much more useful to exam- about that?" But I am not sure what private stimuli are
ine the many instances to which the term has been involved or how many of the stimuli are public. In
applied and see whether any single term will prove useful general, I have said that we cannot introspect cognitive
with respect to all of them. It is true that terms from the processes because we do not have nerves going to the
vernacular can often be redefined scientifically, but they right places. Such nerves would be useful, but verbal
are usually found to acquire different definitions under behavior and hence introspection arose too late in the
different circumstances. history of the species to have made the evolution of such
It seems to me that Kenrick & Keefe have misun- nerves possible.
derstood my contention that "differential reinforcement 4. I should not want logicians to use behaviorese, but if
cannot be made contingent upon the property of pri- I am to analyze the behavior of logicians, I must use my
vacy." I did not mean that a person cannot distinguish terms, not theirs. Theirs appear among the subject mat-
between the public and private attributes which underlie ter. I am willing to use "true" and "false" in logic and
the use of a term. I can understand why self-description of
mathematics, where they can be defined reasonably well.
the wholly private aspects of an emotion is probably less
If the sun burns out before Goldbach's Conjecture has
useful than self-descriptions of their public accompani-
ments. I was referring to the problem of psychological been proved, no one will have been able to say that the
entities which were by definition exclusively private. The conjecture is true or false. In what sense could its truth or
essence of consciousness was once said to be its privacy. falsity exist prior to a proof? If Goldbach had conjectured
But I do not think that is a useful definiens if it means that where there is smoke there is fire, a very different
there are no public accompaniments. account of the "truth or falsity" of the behavior would be
needed, and those terms would have a very different
meaning.
Lowe has, predictably, summarized my position cor-
rectly, and I am happy to join him in calling for the next
step: research on self-knowledge and self-management Moore's commentary is useful because it summarizes
and their possible effects on human behavior in general. I the argument of my paper in fresh terms and brings it into
would formulate his questions in a rather different way, line with some of the other things that were being said
however. I doubt whether "the effects of reinforcement about the operational definition of psychological terms at
are altered qualitatively when subjects acquire the skill of the time. It also calls attention to an important related
generating verbal descriptions" of their own behavior and problem. Privacy has caused trouble to psychologists and
its consequences. When they do so, they generate other philosophers struggling to exchange views about their
controlling variables which play a part in controlling mental life. It has also caused trouble, unnecessarily it
subsequent behavior. That is why it is fio hard to do would seem, to the physical scientist who insists that
research on operant behavior in human subjects who science is personal knowledge. Polanyi (1960) argued
have learned to analyze the contingencies to which they that, and I spent many hours, to no avail, discussing the

point with P. W. Bridgman, whose operationism failed stimuli generated by a carious tooth. I chose some such
him when it came to his own behavior. The scientist first response as "My tooth aches" as a simple example, not as
interacts with the world, like everyone else, in contingen- a "paradigm case of a psychological expression." I do not
cy-shaped behavior. He becomes a scientist when he agree that "it is one of a very small number of expressions
begins to describe the contingencies and to design experi- in our very extensive psychological vocabulary." I agree
ments which make them clearer. The ultimate product, with Ryle that we are usually talking about behavior when
the "laws" of science, governs scientific behavior as a we speak of knowing, believing, thinking, wanting, and
corpus of rules to be followed. The behavior of the intending (I would not be much of a behaviorist if I did
scientist in following them is reinforced by the same not!), but that is not what the psychologists of 1945 were
consequences as the original contingency-shaped behav- saying. The editor of the symposium (E. G. Boring), a
ior, but the controlling stimuli are different (see "Prob- student of Titchener and, through Titchener, Wundt,
lem Solving"). I take it that Moore is saying that they are believed in a world of mental life in which mental events
free of private stimuli and that those science philosophers obeyed mental laws observed by "trained observers."
who insist that science is personal knowledge only create These were the things of which I was offering an opera-
problems for themselves by returning to contingency- tional definition.
shaped behavior.
I found Rachlin's paper puzzling. He evidently uses
I have not said, as Place claims, that reasoning in the term "toothache" for all the behavior elicited or
accordance with the rules of logic is " 'contingency evoked by a carious tooth, where I was using it to mean
shaped' rather than 'rule governed' behaviour" (italics only the stimulation arising from such a tooth. He also
added). All behavior is, I believe, contingency shaped. speaks of thoughts, feelings, and other mental events and
We take advice and follow rules because of reinforcing argues that they must be operants because they have "no
consequences which have followed when we have done so apparent external antecedent stimulus." But one point of
in the past. But the behavior referred to by the advice or "Terms" was that a substantial amount of behavior that
the rules has other consequences. Thus, if a friend advises would be called operant was indeed under the control of
me to take one route rather than another on a journey I do private stimuli; that was the problem I was discussing. I
so because of what has happened in the past when I have can't imagine what Rachlin means by a rat's hope or how
taken advice from him or others like him. In addition, I he knows that it takes longer than a bar press.
enjoy a shorter, smoother, or pleasanter journey - the I do not see why it follows from the fact that "in
consequences specified in the advice. I obey the laws of teaching people to use the mentalistic vocabulary, it must
government not because I have disobeyed them and been be overt behavior that society observes and then rewards
punished but because I was taught to obey them. In or punishes" that "a person who uses that vocabulary to
addition, I avoid the contingent punishments specified in refer to private events must be using it incorrectly." To
the laws. One behaves logically by following rules which the extent that the private event correlates with the
describe contingencies; at other times one might behave public evidence, terms will be used correctly. Rachlin
in the same way after having been exposed to the con- later makes that point by saying that "to the extent that
tingencies. The business of the logician is deriving new mental terms refer to the overt behavioral context of
roles from old and arriving at descriptions of contingen- immediate behavior it is possible to use them in a behav-
cies to which no one has necessarily yet been exposed. ioral science. ' But since we do not know the extent to
I don't believe my attitude toward "truth " is cavalier. I which they do so, any such use is questionable.
accept the tautological truth of logic, but I do not think
that science, including behavioral science, can be true or It would be ungrateful of me to complain of Ringen's
false in the same sense - or in any useful sense. Some excellent summary of my position, and the only remark I
verbal responses are controlled by sharply defined stim- have to make is not a complaint. Ringen extends the
uli which have acquired their power from the part they argument of my paper to cover the behavioristic conten-
play in very consistent contingencies. They are as close as tion that anthropomorphism, in particular "the cog-
one can come to being true. Beyond that I do not think we nitivism inspired by Chomsky," is "misplaced in the
can go. scientific study of human (verbal) behavior." I would have
Place's concern for the listener seems to me irrelevant. been willing to make the extension at the time I wrote
My book Verbal Behavior was different from most lin- "Terms" (and indeed was making it in the manuscript
guistic material of the time in emphasizing the behavior of from which the paper was essentially taken), but I would
the speaker. I did not think that the behavior of the put it rather differently today. The explanatory terms
listener called for any special treatment beyond the role which have been used for more than 2,000 years to
played in reinforcing the behavior of speakers. The be- explain human behavior are troublesome not because
havioral processes involved when a person responds to they raise questions about dimensions but because they
"It is raining" do not differ significantly from those in- assign the initiation of behavior to the person rather than
volved in responding to a few drops of rain on the skin or a to that persons genetic and personal history. The prob-
particular noise on the roof. All three "mean' rain. The lem is centrism rather than anthropomorphism. The
"meaning" of a verbal response for the speaker is not the terms I hoped to dispense with in my analysis of verbal
same as its "meaning" for the listener. That is what is behavior (terms like meaning, idea, information, and
wrong with "communication" as making something com- knowledge) represent supposed possessions of the speak-
mon to both parties. er. So far as I am concerned they are inconvenient
Place speaks of "being in pain" when I speak of the surrogates of the speaker's history. Their dimensions

(physical, mental, conceptual?) are not really at issue. have proved to be possible. It is true that I was in contact
What causes trouble is the usurpation of the initiating role with philosophers in the thirties and forties and I believe
of the environment. to my benefit. In particular, I discussed the point of
"Terms" with Herbert Feigl, a distinguished member of
Robertson raises the question of sensations and images the Vienna Circle. But I was not "pursuing an elusive
as representations of stimuli. Do we see red as a property Weltanschauung." I have not "succumb[ed] to a lust for
of an object, as a retinal response to a given frequency of philosophic theorizing."
radiation, as nerve impulses in the optic tract, or as My book Verbal Behavior was an interpretation of the
activity in the occipital cortex? As a behaviorist, I must field. Early on I had removed a few sections that could be
reply that what is happening in retina, optic tract, and said to present facts (about word associations, alliteration,
occipital cortex are part of seeing red. As a behaviorist, I guessing, and so on) just in order to make the nature of the
leave that to the physiologist, who has more appropriate book clearer. The book differed from what might have
instruments and methods. As a behaviorist, I am con- been called the philosophy of language that was then
cerned only with the way in which a discriminative current in linguistics, semantics, and books like The
response (whether it be key press, saying "red," or Meaning of Meaning (Ogden & Richards 1938). In turn-
stepping on the brake of a car) is brought under the ing to the history of the speaker rather than to the
control of red objects. presumed current endowments of speech, I could avoid
Also as a behaviorist, I am concerned with how a person saying that a speaker uses words to refer to things, to
learns to say "I see red" in both the presence and absence express ideas, or to communicate meanings. I questioned
of red objects. It is the word "see" that causes trouble. the existence of these things in their traditional sense. I
We teach a child to answer questions like, "Do you see could, however, have defined them behaviorally, al-
that animal?" or, "Can you see the clock?," but we do so though the resulting expressions would not have been
successfully only if we have evidence that the child's convenient.
responses are correct. The evidence we use usually con- Stalker & Ziff had some difficulty in finding the new
sists of subsequent behavior, as in answering the ques- kinds of behavior I am said to have used to "fill the bill of a
tion, "What is it?" or, "What time is it?" Certain private technological bird fishing for philosophic frissons in Pla-
events are part of that behavior, and the private events to's wordy meander." The essential dependent variable
take over control when the child is eventually told to in the behavioral analysis is the probability of behavior,
"think of an elephant" or "imagine a clock." We have no rather than the behavior itself, and why should I not refer
evidence that copies of elephants or clocks exist inside the to past, current, and future behavior? I agree that percep-
child at any time. Whatever is happening when we see an tual behavior is difficult, but philosophers have found it
elephant or a clock does not require a representation. so, too. The term is not to be dismissed as a slogan. The
expression "covert behavior" was current long before my
Stalker & Ziff have assumed that beyond science and time, and its referent is familiar to anyone who has talked
technology there lies only philosophy. I have found silently to himself.
something else: interpretation. I would define it as the
use of scientific terms and principles in talking about facts Although while I do not, as Terrace points out, deny
about which too little is known to make prediction and "the existence of mental events," I do not believe they
control possible. The theory of evolution is an example. It exist. There is an inner behavioral life including private
is not philosophy; it is an interpretation of a vast number stimuli and private responding. Traditional expressions
of facts about species using terms and principles taken referring to mental events I regard as surrogates of
from .. science of biology based upon much more accessi- histories of reinforcement. Thus, for me, the bona fide
ble material and upon experimental analyses and their subject matters are
technological applications. The basic principle, re-
production with variation, can be studied under con- not thoughts, but what is happening as one thinks and the
trolled conditions, but its role in the evolution of existing history of reinforcement responsible for it;
species is a mere interpretation. not beliefs, but behavior with respect to controlling stimuli
Plate tectonics is another example. It is not philosophy and the histories responsible for that control;
but an interpretation of the present state of the crust of not perceptions, but the current control exercised by stimuli
the earth, using physical principles governing the behav- as the result of earlier contingencies of reinforcement;
ior of material under high temperatures and pressures and so on.
established under the conditions of the laboratory, where
prediction and control are possible. \ It is true that "modern studies of human and animal
Laboratory analyses of the behavior of organisms have cognition need not concern themselves with the ghost in
yielded a good deal of successful prediction and control, the machine," but it is equally important that they dis-
and to extend the terms and principles found effective pense with the internal origination of behavior.
under such circumstances to the interpretation of behav- Terrace begins a review of "recent developments in
ior where laboratory conditions are impossible is feasible cognition" with three supposed implications of my hy-
and useful. I do not think that is properly called philoso- pothesis about private events. I should want to state them
phy. The human behavior we observe from day to day is in a very different form:
unfortunately too complex, occurs too sporadically, and is 1. "Private events are conscious." The percentage of
a function of variables too far out of reach to permit a which we are conscious must be very small. We seldom
rigorous analysis. It is nevertheless useful to talk about it say we are conscious of interoceptive or proprioceptive
in the light of instances in which prediction and control stimulation or of much of the exteroceptive stimulation

Response/ Skinner: Psychological terms
which can be shown to have an effect on our behavior. tain rules, where I would say rather that rules are descrip-
"Terms" dealt with responses which are brought under tions of such contingencies, but something else happened
the control of private events by a verbal community. when descriptions became possible and rules could be
2. "Consciousness presupposes language." Self-knowl- formulated. A different kind of behavior then emerged
edge requires verbal contingencies. which needed to be distinguished (see "Problem Solv-
3. "Only human beings experience consciousness." ing"). Once people could talk about their behavior and
The verbal communities which generate such responses the circumstances under which it occurred, they could
have until very recently generated them for human begin to give each other reasons for acting in given ways.
beings only. An early form must have been the command, describing
With these translations, I do not see the import of the an action and at least implying a consequence of failure to
paragraphs whichfollowin Terrace's commentary. A few act. Advice and warnings presumably followed in turn.
remarks: I would certainly not say that "all [the behavior They described behavior and at least implied conse-
contributing to] mental activity [should] be characterized quences. The laws of religion and government more
as private (conscious) events, under the control of particu- explicitly specified behavior and consequences. Behavior
lar internal stimuli." We "think" about public stimuli and that is called taking advice, heeding a warning, or obeying
talk about private ones. a law, or behavior that follows rules composed upon
I agree that "the study of cognitive phenomena does occasion by an immediate analysis of contingencies can be
not presuppose dualism," but I insist it presupposes inner called rational. The behaver can be said to have "knowl-
determination, which is the heart of the matter when one edge of the consequences." Nevertheless I doubt that it is
says that one acts because one feels like acting or takes a true that human behavior is "very largely rational" in that
particular course because one thinks it will succeed. sense. Would that it were!
This is not the place to argue with Terrace about The point of my paper could have been made in
"representations" (but see "Behaviorism-50"). It is the traditional terms. How do we learn the meanings of
essence of behaviorism to argue that one does not take in words? And how do we do so when the things the words
the world or make copies of it in any form and that mean are not accessible to those who teach us? Why did I
behavior which appears to require an internal representa- not make the point that way? Because I was composing a
tion must be explained in other ways. A complete account different account of verbal behavior in which meanings in
of an alternative explanation in neurological terms is, so some Platonic sense did not exist in words but were to be
far as I know, still out of reach, but that is also out of my sought among the variables of which verbal behavior was
reach as a behaviorist. a function (colloquially, the situations in which words are
used). For the purpose of "Terms," I chose a very simple
functional relation, the discriminative control exercised
Wright goes far beyond the scope of "Terms" to a by a private stimulus.
criticism of what is essentially the argument of the book
(Verbal Behavior) from which it was in a sense taken. It is
true that I was attempting to account for verbal behavior ZurifFs first point is very important. Methodological
without formulating it as a "report of experience," as "the behaviorists also talked about private events that serve as
expression or communication of meaning," or as neces- stimuli and also about private (covert) behavior. The part
sarily involving "understanding" or "judgment," as those of methodological behaviorism I rejected was the argu-
terms were traditionally defined. The account worked in ment that science must confine itself to events accessible
a very different way, and if successful it should have to at least two observers (the position of logical positivism)
included the behavior of scientists if not some essence of and that behaviorism was therefore destined to ignore
"science" as knowledge. I could answer Wright only by private events. (Hence the still current popular view that
reviewing the whole book, and that would be irrelevant behaviorists confine themselves only to the behavior they
here. I may point out, however, that he is wrong in can see.) It was Stevens and Boring, not Watson, Weiss,
characterizing my position as that "all words are mean- Tolman, Guthrie, or Hull who then continued to believe
ingless physical effects caused by specific kinds of phys- in the existence of mental life.
ical stimuli." The selective action of operant conditioning But Zuriff misreads my view of the role of the private
establishes a controlling relation among three things - stimulus. It is true that the practice of the verbal commu-
stimuli (the setting), behavior (in this case, verbal), and nity is to infer the private event in arranging instructional
the reinforcing consequences (in this case, arranged by a contingencies, but the person who thereby learns to
verbal community). describe the event is responding to it directly, not by
The argument that "psychology must, on pain of other- inference. It is no doubt wrong of behavior therapists to
wise cutting off its own head, presuppose that human assume that self-descriptive statements are correct (as it is
discourse is very largely rational - that it isn't caused by wrong of Freudian or other kinds of therapists to do the
stimuli" - raises a different point. Apart from the last same thing), but within the limits of accuracy of such
phrase, with which of course I agree, I make a very reports, something can be learned about a person's histo-
different point about rationality. Prior to the advent of ry by asking how he feels.
verbal behavior (which required the evolution of physio- The listener who responds to "I am depressed," by
logical changes bringing the vocal musculature under acting henceforth as he usually reacts to a depressed
operant control), all behavior must have been shaped and person is using inference only to the extent that a person
maintained by natural selection or operant conditioning. who hears someone say "It is raining" then takes an
It is true that some linguists and cognitive psychologists umbrella. If doing either of these things is using a hypo-
have asserted that contingencies of reinforcement con- thetical construct, so be it.

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Journal of the
Experimental Analysis
/
i
of Behavior
A SAMPLING OF RECENT ARTICLES
B. F. Skinner. The evolution of behavior. C. P. Shimp. The local organization of behavior: Dissocia-
E. Sue Savage-Rumbaugh. Verbal behavior at a procedural tion between a pigeon's behavior and self-reports of that
level in the chimpanzee. behavior.
Travis Thompson. The examining magistrate for nature. A Donald M. Thompson, Joseph M. Moerschbaecher, &
retrospective review of Claude Bernard's An Introduc- Peter J. Winsauer. Drug effects on repeated acquisition:
tion to the Study of Experimental Medicine. Comparison of cumulative and noncumulative dosing.
William Timberiake. Behavior regulation and learned Nancy K. Innis, Virginia L. Simmelhag-Grant, & J. E. R.
performance: Some misapprehensions and Staddon. Behavior induced by periodic food delivery:
disagreements. The effects of interfood interval.
Alliston K. Reid & J. E. R. Sladdon. Schedule-induced Ben A. Williams. On the failure and facilitation of condi-
drinking: Elicitation, anticipation, or behavioral interac- tional discrimination.
tion? Jay Moore. On the tactful specification of meaning: A
Ronald M. Lazar, Deborah Davis-Lang, & Lisette Sanchez. review of Harre' and Lamb's The Encyclopedic Dic-
The formation of visual stimulus equivalences in tionary of Psychology.
children. A. Charles Catania, Byron A. Matthews, & Eliot Shimoff.
A. P. Cos tell. Are theories of perception necessary?. A Instructed versus shaped human verbal behavior: In-
review of Gibson's The Ecological Approach to Visual teractions with nonverbal responding.
Perception. James A. Dinsmoor, Kay L. Mueller, Louise T. Martin, &
Eric F. Ward. Teaching sign language to a chimpanzee: Craig A. Bo we. The acquisition of observing.
Some historical references. Stephen P. Kramer. Memory for recent behavior in the
Tom L. Schmid & Don F. Hake. Fast acquisition of pigeon.
cooperation and trust: A two-stage view of trusting Nureya Abarca & Edmund Fantino. Choice and foraging.
behavior. Robert Slromer & J. Grayson Osborne. Control of
Alan Baron, Stephen R. Menich, & Michael Perone. Reac- adolescents' arbitrary matching-to-sample by positive
tion times of younger and older men and temporal con- and negative stimulus relations.
tingencies of reinforcement. Murray Sidman, Rick Rauzin, Ronald Lazar, Sharon
Kazuo Fujita. Formation of the sameness-difference con- Cunningham, William Tailby, & Philip Carrigan. A
cept of Japanese monkeys from a small number of color search for symmetry in the conditional discrimination of
stimuli. rhesus monkeys, baboons, and children.
D. E. McMillan & G. R. Wenger. Effects of barbiturates John A. Nevin, Peter Jenkins, Stephen Whittaker, & Peter
and other sedative hypnotics in pigeons trained to Yarensky. Reinforcement contingencies and signal
discriminate phencyclidine from saline. detection.
Edmund Fantino & David A. Case. Human observing: Jack Michael. Distinguishing between discriminative and
Maintained by stimuli correlated with reinforcement but motivational functions of stimuli.
not extinction. Andrew S. Bondy. Effects of prompting and reinforcement
William Blum. Matching, statistics, and common sense. of one response pattern upon imitation of a different
C. F. Lowe, A. Beasty, & R. P. Benlall. The role of verbal modeled pattern.
behavior in human learning: Infant performance on Philip N. Hineline. Aversive control: A separate domain?
fixed-interval schedules. Allen J. Neuringer. Melioration and self-experimentation.
Steven R. Hursh. Behavioral economics.
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THE BEHAVIORAL AND BRAIN SCIENCES (1984) 7, 547-581

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