Limitations of the Dispositional Analysis of Behavior

Abstract

The responses of Andersson and Radnitzky and of Rozeboom are interesting evidence of a “paradigm clash” that ramifies into both substantive psychological theory and also the methodology of scientific research. Seeing the world through the rose-colored spectacles of Popperian methodology, Andersson and Radnitzky applaud my article as an attack on Procrustean positivism and inductivism and are thus largely sympathetic. In contrast, Rozeboom sees (albeit rather darkly) through the lenses of spectacles ground for a never-say-die justificationist and be-haviorist, and attacks my position for not having taken into account his sophisticated, logical “isms” approach. Not surprisingly, both comments distort my position, the one slightly and the other badly. Thus it is worth stressing at the outset that my argument concerning the limitations of dispositional analysis is not dependent on acceptance of any meta-theoretical approach to science and its methodology—for expository purposes my presentation attempted to dichotomize two extreme views, an old line represented by classical logical empiricism and a new look composed variously of nonjustificational and a non “explanation is logical deduction” school and argued that at neither extreme could one consider dispositional analysis adequate for explanatory science.