In what sense do tolman's intervening variables intervene?

Abstract

Abstract Amundson (1983, 1986) made a number of claims about the behaviourist theorising of E.C. Tolman (1886,–1959) which are difficult to sustain if one looks moor closely at the epistemological assumptions of Tolman's thought. In his conception of intervening variables Tolman seems to have been influenced by his teacher. R.B. Perry (1876–1957), one of the New Realists. who opposed idealist or mentalist views of cognition. MacCorquodale and Meehl (1948) attempted to distinguish Tolman's intervening variables from Hull's hypothetical constructs, but Maze (1954) maintained that they failed in this attempt. The question is whether Tolman was making claims about real internal states of processes or whether he was speaking merely “as if”. He was forever shifting his terminology and to some extent his ground; despite an apparent concern with defining his terms he was often loose and equivocal in his use of them. It will be maintained here that he was Primarily an instrumentalist, although a somewhat whimsical...