The Explanatory Power of Skinner's Radical Behaviorism*

To assess the absolute explanatory power of Skinner’s radical behaviorism would require clearer conceptions than we now have of radical behaviorism, on the one hand, and what it means for a theory to have explanatory power, on the other. An easier task is to compare the explanatory power of radical behaviorism to that of other psychological viewpoints. Therefore, radical behaviorism will be discussed here along with three other viewpoints—mentalism, physiologism and cognitivism.