Keeping behavior in sight

Abstract

In The World Inside the Skin, Skinner revisits questions about subjective events that underlie the radical nature of his behaviorist proposal. However, he oscillates between two positions, referred to in this article as “materializing referentialization”, which emphasizes neurophysiological theories as a limit to the understanding of subjective events, and “material­ity of social life”, which highlights how so-called private events are nothing more than verbal behaviors, whose analysis should focus on the relationships established within the verbal com­munity. This article explores how these two perspectives, despite being contradictory, coexist in Skinner’s text and influence different approaches of behavior analysts in the treatment of subjective events. Finally, it proposes a critical assessment of the theory of private events as part of the reflections in commemoration of the fiftieth anniversary of About Behaviorism.