[From Francisco Arocha, 920930;13:38]
(Dennis Delprato, 920925)
VIII. A. Reeducations:
The subject matter of psychology is reducible (at least to biology).VIII. B. Nonreductionism:
Behavior cannot be completely explained in terms of biology or any
other "lower-level" discipline.
and (920930)
His advocates liked this. What they did not like was his
conflicting statements on the reductionism-nonreductionism question.
I clearly exposed this striking incoherence (through his most recent
writing). Advocates were displeased--more with him than with me, for
the data were undeniable--he was inconsistent.
These two statements are not necessarily contradictory. This is simply
because there is more than one kind of reductionism. The most radical
being physicalism (everything is reducible to physics), but there are
more moderate forms, such as emergent reductionism, which involves
partial reduction, not total, because of the acknowledgement that
matter (at any given level) has properties that lower forms do not
posses. The way you phrased VIII.B: 'cannot be COMPLETELY
explained...' is coherent with this more moderate version of
reductionism. So you could always explain higher levels by using lower levels, w
properties. But, this may not be the way Skinner thought about it, in ich case
which case, as you said, he was inconsistent.
Salut,
Francisco