ABSTRACT
This chapter develops the alternative position that psychological units are often transdermal. It also explores some of the consequences of this position for distinguishing psychology from physiology. Reductionism is a methodological norm of traditional psychology. Psychologists seldom use the term movement in its technical sense of the motion of the body segments around the joints. Acts are more than movements, whether of body segments moving around joints or of the body as a whole moving through space. The principle of levels clarifies the distinction between movements and acts. The principle of levels enables people to see a human being as a physical system, a biological organism, and as a person. The concept of equifinality casts more light on the concept of the organism as a whole. Fascination with the organism blocks acceptance of an autonomous science of psychology. Radical behaviorism departs from the majority view in offering a contextualist account of psychology's subject matter.
