The theory-ladenness of observation raises problems for theoretical and scientific progress (Peter and Olson 1983; Popper 1980). A theory ulti­ mately has meaning and explanatory significance only within the paradigm wherein it is derived and there is no consensus on how theories belonging to separate paradigms might be compared or how competing paradigms can be comparatively evaluated (Borger and Cioffi 1970). Neither the view that paradigms are successively established (Kuhn 1970) nor the suggestion that research programs can be systematically compared (Lakatos 1970) appears appropriate for the social sciences. The approach to scientific progress adopted here owes more to the ‘epistemological anarchy’ of Feyerabend (1975). He argues that scientific progress depends on the deliberate proli­ feration of competing explanations, engendering an ‘active interplay of tenaciously held views’, forcing into open articulation the taken-forgranted assumptions which underlie conventional wisdoms, and thus stimulating critical comparison and debate. Contradictory, even in­ commensurable perspectives are thus to be welcomed since the evidence required to test one may not be generated but for another. The alternative

approach, in which one paradigm assumes a preeminent status, encourages adherence to fixed viewpoints and methodologies; it is inimical to progress because it restricts the scope of intellectual enterprise. The resulting ‘anything goes’ approach involves the purposeful development of novel explanations and the resuscitation of those which appear outmoded and even irrational. Complete knowledge requires that nothing be excluded. This chapter is intended to contribute to the progress of consumer theory

by considering:

1 an analysis of choice which accords explanatory power exclusively to environmental consequences of behavior, denying causative signifi­ cance to intrapersonal events: radical behaviorism; and

2 the relationship between that analysis and the prevailing paradigm for consumer research which derives principally from the cognitive psy­ chology of human information processing.