Skinner and Chomsky Thirty Years Later

Beyond mechanism and dualism: Rethinking the scientific foundations of psychology

“…In their critiques of traditional approaches to the study of visual perception and memory respectively, Costall (1984) and Watkins (1 990) note the correspondence between radical behaviourism's rejection of mechanistic theorizing and calls for a new framework in these areas. Furthermore, a number of scholars have pointed out affinities between radical behaviourism and positions that are traditionally viewed as antithetical to it; for example, poststructuralism (Andresen, 1990), feminism (Ruiz, 1995), existentialism (Fallon, 1992, humanism (Hunter, 1978 ;Newman, 1992) and social constructionism (Blackman, 1991).…”

Revise and Resubmit

“…Here, the paradigm crisis involves a move from structuralism to poststructuralism, which is a move away from universally fixed signs, meanings, and truths to something more contextual. These poststructuralist moves, by the way, have an affinity with radical behaviorism with respect to truth and universality (Andresen, 1990;Day, 1980Day, , 1988Dougher, 1993), yet your manuscript presents them as being antithetical to one another. Something seems amiss.…”

Verbal Behavior: The other reviews

“…When reactions to Verbal Behavior are discussed, disproportionate attention is given to the critical review by Noam Chomsky (1959). For example, one commentator suggested that only a few reviews of the work appeared, and that none of these were in psychology journals (Andreson, 1990). There were, however, more than a dozen reviews of Verbal Behavior in journals ranging in content from speech pathology to psychoanalysis, as well as reviews in the mainstream journals of American and British psychology.…”