Kritische Bemerkungen zur gegenwärtigen Verhaltenstheorie / Critical remarks on contemporary behaviorism

Abstract

Abstract This paper deals with three problems of contemporary behaviorism: the problem of the triviality of the Law of Effect; the problem of formalisation; and the problem of axiomatisation. As to the first problem a nontrivial version of the Law of Effect dating back to the early 1950s is reproduced and used to show that the versions offered today, besides being tautological (or methodologically unacceptable on other grounds), do not even answer a standard allowing them to compete with what was achieved already 25 years ago. The second and the third problem arise in connection with attempts to render the hypotheses of behaviourism more precise and to clarify their interrelations. Up to now efforts in this field have not produced much but pseudoprecision. What has been achieved by formalisation hardly exceeds mere translation from vague ordinary into vague formal statements. And in axiomatisation assertions rather than proofs of deducibility relations prevail. Since these defects are hidden behind a pretentious technical apparatus, however, it is to be feared that they will be neglected. And behaviourism thus risks to overestimate by far its level of theory formulation.