Functional Contextualism and Contextual Behavioral Science 1

AUTHOR:
Roger Vilardaga, M.A.

Clinical Psychology Doctoral Program

University of Nevada, Reno
United States
E: vilardaga@unr.edu
C: +1 (775) 303-2103

DATE AND LOCATION: MAY 2009, PHOENIX, UNITED STATES

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FUNCTIONAL CONTEXTUALISM AND ITS ROOTS

Functional contextualism is the philosophical core of what we have

recently come to name as contextual behavioral science. It is a philosophical

view for which the differentiation and analysis of the world is best justified not by

static and permanent epistemological and ontological claims, but by the utility

of the verbal actions of the researcher with respect to his pre-analytical goals and

values.

PAUSE

The term functional contextualism has been controversial within the

behavioral analytic tradition from its inception. It’s been argued that it

emphasizes personal values versus community values and that it adds nothing

to that tradition, since it’s no more than a way to refer to radical behaviorism.

In other words, it is like old wine in new bottle.

PAUSE

What was new and radical from radical behaviorism was the reflection

of behavioral thinking onto the actions of scientists. But other aspects of that

tradition had been there for a long time, such as attention to the organism as a

whole, an emphasis on function rather than topography, and the critical role given
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to history and current environment. Those aspects were part of previous traditions

and were not necessarily advanced by Skinner.

For example, look at the following quote:

SHOW NIETZSCHE’S QUOTE (don’t read it)

This reference could have been written by any enthusiastic behaviorist.

However and surprisingly,

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this is who wrote it.

PAUSE

Given the large impact and dissemination of behaviorism, it is easy to

think that this movement completely changed psychology, and that 80 years ago,

before behaviorism as a field, nothing really existed. But this is clearly not

the case. Behaviorism is not really about behaviorism, behaviorism was about a

naturalistic approach to psychological phenomena, and we owe that to other

traditions, not only the American pragmatists.

We believe that the term functional contextualism orients our work

towards the building of a more progressive science and links back our field to its
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original roots, which are a naturalistic and environmental analysis of the world

reinitiated by western science during the XVIIth century.

It might be true then, that functional contextualism is like old wine in new

bottle, but so it is radical behaviorism, and pragmatism…, and

environmentalism…, and western science…, and Greek science, and so forth…

PAUSE

Functional Contextualism has been criticized for other reasons too.

Ruiz and Roche (2007) have argued against our contextualistic view on

the grounds that scientific work must be guided by the overall values of a

community, and not by the personal values of the researcher. We agree that

it is desirable within a scientific community to seek consensus about values, but

we think that a researcher, as an individual within a community, cannot possibly

hold personal values that are not the result of the history and circumstances of his

verbal/social community. Indeed, in a behavioral sense, there is no distinction

between the personal values of a researcher and the values of a community, since

any values of any single individual must be the result of one or many social

communities. More than that, whoever claims that personal values cannot

be the metric of scientific analysis either does not speak from a behavioral

standpoint, or implicitly aims to impose the values of an “abstracted” and

fictional community into those of other researchers and individuals.

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PAUSE Functional contextualism solves this problem in a way

other than dictating values to others: We publicly state our scientific goals a

priori so that others may decide whether their interests align with the form of

science being pursued.

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METHODOLOGICAL DIVERSITY AND FRONTS OF EXPLORATION

The second aspect that I would like to address in this paper is the value of

functional contextualism for the development of science.

As mentioned earlier, Functional Contextualism assumes that the world

remains undifferentiated or undistinguished if not because of the actions of

individuals impinging upon it.

This leads to one of the most important aspects of functional

contextualism, which is that this philosophical system embraces the use of any

sort of division of the world, and not as a way of “capturing” its structure, but as a

way to accomplish the local and situated goals of the researcher. A functional

contextualist standpoint also implies that the results of those divisions must be

held lightly, because the products of those divisions do not manifest any inherent

structure or reality of the world and they can only be judged in terms of their

utility.
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This position opens the door to methodological approaches and analyses

other than those of traditional behavior analysis. Methodological strategies in

research are not owned by particular traditions; they are sets of sophisticated

interactions with the world that provide us with powerful forms of experience

(such as experimentation). Contextual behavioral science sustains that the

world, as a unified and undifferentiated whole is broken down into parts by virtue

of being interacted with.

For that reason, methodological diversity can supply important and useful

partitions of the world, and in the same way that the strength of a particular

ecosystem depends on the diversity of species to be found, a diverse set of

methods and strategies in our scientific endeavors can be an indicator of the

likelihood to find useful divisions to meet our purposes.

For example, direct observation of the organism as a whole in a free

environment is a useful strategy for the purpose of finding out appropriate rules of

generalization. But likewise, inferences about the parameters of a

population based on group averages are also legit strategies of partitioning the

world that can bring to bear different uses when applying behavioral principles to

the behavior of groups.

The different ways of partitioning and dividing the world are like fronts of

exploration in which the experimenter interacts with the phenomena of interest.

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None of those fronts has priority over any other in any way. Together these

fronts inform each other. Variety of methods of exploration is key.

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THE DIVORCE OF PHILOSOPHY FROM SCIENCE

By definition, the overall criterion to judge the value or relevance of

Functional Contextualism is its impact relative to its own verbally stated goals.

Philosophical assumptions and formulations should not be divorced from science

and judged alone based on their logic, coherence, or soundness. They are part

of any overall pattern of investigation, and as such, they should be held

accountable for what they do in terms of allowing the scientist to achieve his

goals. In the same way that it would be nonsense to analyze the role of the

behavior of hitting a ball without the ball, it makes no sense to discuss the logic or

internal consistency of philosophical assumptions without examining their role in

the development of useful science.

Skinner was a master in juxtaposing methodological and empirical issues

with philosophical matters. Skinner viewed behaviorism as the philosophy of a

science of behavior and in his hands, philosophy was not just a way to make his

arguments sounder, but a way to create a science that made a difference.

Philosophy was projected into all aspects of the scientific enterprise: its scope,

purpose, and methods. Skinner was loyal and consistent with a naturalistic
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analysis of behavior, but by rejecting the use of group design methods, he

limited the reach and scope of the field to the extent that still today we are paying

the consequences.

An additional problem that can arise from the divorce of philosophy from

science is the one of ascribing intrinsic value to methodological soundness aside

from their use or utility, AND to suspend evaluations of progress almost

indefinitely. This approach can justify facts for facts’ sake, and that can only

occur to the detriment of science. Facts alone do not make a science.

Otherwise it would be like claiming that precision alone is important, without

seeking scope and depth. Arguing this way flies in the face of the history of

science itself and it contradicts the purpose of our field.

Methodological rigidity violates the core assumptions of functional

contextualism. Science is a way to orient people to successful ways of interacting

with the world. A variety of methodological approaches and analyses can

contribute to that, provided they are always held accountable to the goals of the

analysis.

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CONCLUSIONS

Summarizing. We believe that the term functional contextualism is a

better term than radical behaviorism to describe the core of our tradition, and that

the philosophical assumptions ingrained in functional contextualism allow greater

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methodological diversity and consequently increased chances to strengthen our

body of knowledge in the field.

Contrary to others, we would argue that “isms” in science are not the

enemy. For decades, one “ism” that worked very well indeed was the one

attached to the word “behavior”. In our view, our field can be made more

relevant to its challenges when approached from the point of view of

contextualism and when linked to a refinement of its underlying philosophy.

The term functional contextualism does precisely that. It strengthens

the connection of our field to its original roots, and orients our work towards the

building of a more progressive science.