The ordinary-language concept of values has a complex history in psychology and in science generally. The traditional fact-value distinction commonly found in traditional scientific perspectives has been challenged by the varieties of philosophical pragmatism, which have similarities to Skinner's radical behaviorism. Skinner's challenge to the fact-value distinction maintained that the phenomena of both "facts" and "values" are a matter of contingencies of environment-behavior interaction, and both phenomena may be observed when a scientist does research or makes recommendations in applied settings based on that research. Some of the processes and variables relevant to an analysis of values as behavioral phenomena are described, and examples of both nonverbal and verbal contingencies are considered, along with implications for the values of an individual and a culture. If the various issues of methodology can be addressed successfully, then behavior analysis will be in the position to move beyond descriptive studies of values, such as those found in humanistic psychology, by providing analyses of the variables of which values are a function.

This paper, and the following paper by M.J. Dougher (1989), were originally given as part of a symposium presented at the 1984 meeting of the Association for Behavior Analysis (R. Schnaitter, Chair). The symposium included two other papers on the same theme by Diane Spooner and Diane Mercier, and the discussant was Willard Day. The concept of the symposium was to use the following paper (Leigland) as a basis for a demonstration of what has been termed the "Reno methodology," a method for the interpretation of verbal behavior developed by Willard Day and his students at the University of Nevada, Reno. Essentially, the project may be described in the following way: the controlled environment-behavior interactions of a pigeon in an operant chamber gave rise to explanatory verbal behavior on the part of observing human subjects, and the controlling relations with respect to the latter gave rise to the verbal behavior contained in Leigland's report. The controlling relations to be discriminated with respect to Leigland's verbal behavior were then the subject of Dougher's analysis in the report that follows. Dougher's report, then, uses Leigland's report as a source of verbal behavior to be interpreted, using the practices developed by the Reno group as a method.

In 1945, B. F. Skinner outlined a proposal that psychological or mentalistic terms found in natural language might be analyzed empirically in terms of the variables, conditions, and contingencies of which they may be observed to be a function. Such an analysis would enable discriminations to be made between different classes of variables that enter into the control of the term. In this way, the analysis would clarify what is traditionally called the "meanings" of such terms as they occur as properties of verbal behavior. Despite his expressed confidence in the success of such a program, Skinner largely abandoned the functional analysis of psychological terms in favor of the development of a promising new field; the experimental analysis of behavior. The present paper argues that the original program is of great importance as well, and for the following reasons: (a) to make full, immediate, and (most importantly) effective contact with the range of issues and terms of central importance to the traditionally and culturally important concepts of "mind" and "mental life" (and thereby demonstrating the relevance of radical behaviorism to the full range of human and verbal behavior); and (b) to extend the methodology of the functional analysis of verbal behavior more generally. Such a research program would demonstrate, through an empirically-based scientific analysis, that the philosophical problems concerning "mental life" may be productively analyzed as problems of verbal behavior. Issues of methodology are discussed, and possible methodological strategies are proposed regarding the confirmation of behavior analytic interpretations of mentalistic terms.

Richard Rorty's Objectivity, Relativism, and Truth: Philosophical Papers, Volume 1 is a collection of papers that explores the implications of philosophical pragmatism in several areas, including natural science, mind—body issues in philosophy, and perspectives on liberal democracy and social change. Similarities between Rorty's pragmatism and Skinner's radical behaviorism are explored in each of these three areas. Although some important and interesting differences are found regarding the role of science in social change, most areas show remarkable similarities between the two systematic perspectives.

A fully-developed "science of verbal behavior" may depend upon a recognition of the implications of Skinner's scientific system, radical behaviorism, particularly as it relates to the nature of scientific research. An examination of the system and Skinner's own research practices imply, for example, that samples of vocal or written verbal behavior collected under controlling conditions may be observed as directly for the effects of controlling contingencies as in the traditional practice involving cumulative response records. Such practices may be defended on the basis of the pragmatic epistemology which characterizes radical behaviorism. An example of one type of exploratory method is described.