Chapter 9 - Reference from a behaviorist point of view

Summary

This chapter sketches what a more sophisticated operant theory of meaning and reference would look like and examines the ways in which it would constitute a dissent both from the Fregean tradition in semantics and from the other dominant forms of semantic naturalism, such as the causal theory of reference. It deals with a primer on the basic ideas of Skinnerian operant theory before looking at how the framework is deployed by Skinner in the study of verbal behavior. The concept of contingencies is an important feature of most behavior. The model that Skinner proposes is that of the operant: a three-term functional relationship among stimulus, response, and contingencies of reinforcement. The class of verbal operants that Skinner labels tacts affords us the closest behavioral analogue of the semantic notion of reference, this because of the tact's distinguishing characteristic, namely, the control exerted by a prior, non-verbal stimulus.