Skinner ( 1904-1990 ) - 1746 Words

B.F. Skinner (1904-1990) was an American psychologist who was a leading proponent of behaviorism, which had significant influences on philosophy. He was an advocate of his own school of thought called radical behaviorism, and conducted experimental analysis of behavior. In About Behaviorism, B.F. Skinner expands on methodological behaviorism’s central tenet and its weaknesses. Skinner illustrated that in methodological behaviorism, the only admissible and relevant evidence in scientific psychology is behavioral data. To methodological behaviorists, introspection is not a form of evidence, since it is a private and personal way of knowing. There can be no public agreement on introspection, and thus it cannot be accepted as a scientific†¦show more content†¦The first premise of radical behaviorism is that psychology should concern itself with the observable behavior of organism, not the unobservable mental events. The second premise is that the study of behavior should be a natural science, much like biology, chemistry and physics, relying on hypotheses, controlled variables and evidence. Thus he concludes that radical behaviorism repairs the damages done by mentalism to scientific psychology because a scientific psychological theory will consist of laws directly relating controlled stimuli to behaviors. Radical behaviorism does not acknowledge mental events at all, in which behavior is restricted to an input-output relationship, thus allowing psychology to be a form of evidence driven science. Through the framework of radical behaviorism, Skinner discusses perception and imagination, which he calls â€Å"seeing in the absence of the thing seen.† Skinner claims that the act of imagining does not constitute a mental event, and thus does not threaten the premise of behaviorism. Skinner insists that imagery is not a thing, but rather the act of imagining and visualizing is a behavior. And the act of imagining is a response, which may be conditioned to occur in the absence of its normal stimuli. Though it may seem private, he gives examples of he public aspects of imagining. He gives the example of leading