Ep. 34- ABA in One Take- How knowledge of metaphysics can assist the practitioner

How the knowledge of metaphysics can improve your practice

In what is I think the strangest topic we have covered so far; we dive into the topic of metaphysics and its application to behavior analysis. One of the advantages of not having a JABA issue to review is that I get to pick and choose what articles I want to cover. I debated a while about this topic, but finally I just decided to go for it! I am no philosopher, but the topics covered in this analysis were fascinating and really changed my perspective on the debate between mentalism and behaviorism. It also helped clarify some assumptions that I always had but did not know where they came from. Why is that important? Every single day we are in the process of selling our worldview (determinism) to a caregiver, child, staff member, someone who most likely has grown up with an anti-deterministic worldview. By better understanding all the different views out there, we can better modify our language to promote a healthy and honest discussion about the topics that are truly giving pause to those we are trying to elicit buy-in from. Working through this article (and podcast) I hope will give you some of the same clarification that it gave me while having those discussions.

Citation

Leslie, J. C. (2021). The relevance of metaphysics to behavior analysis. Perspectives on Behavior Science, 44(1), 29–40. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40614-020-00277-5