Abstract
The selectionist meaning of C. S. Peirce and B. F Skinner, which has an empirical existence, is advanced against essentialist meaning, which does not. Against a tradition that advocates essentialist meanings, the development of selectionist meaning is traced from Darwin through Peirce and on to Skinner. The views of Peirce and Skinner on meaning are presented as sharing a compatible conceptual foundation with contrasting but complementary distinctions. Support for selectionist meaning comes from contemporary dictionary construction, pragmatist philosophers, and recent views of scientific verbal behavior. Some implications are discussed.
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I thank Julie S. Vargas and the B. F. Skinner Foundation for providing a copy of the manuscript of Skinner’s William James lectures. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the First International Association for Behavior Analysis Conference in Venice, 2001.
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Moxley, R.A. The Selectionist Meaning of C. S. Peirce and B. F. Skinner. Analysis Verbal Behav 18, 71–91 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03392972
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03392972