Ziggurat- Interconductismo

The first two of these stages, pertaining to fundamental assumptions and their logic, are illustrated in Kantor and Smith's (1975, p. 410) "Ziggurat of Science and Civilization. "Each tier of the ziggurat is built upon the tier below it. The bottom tier is cultural presupposition, upon which rests philosophical protopostulation, that is general, broad-based assumptions; then scientific metapostulation, that is, more specific assumptions about science ; ending in the top tier with the postulates of the individual sciences (Kantor & Smith, 1975). To put it another way, the disciplinary work of any individual scientist is rooted in a meta-system of scientific assumptions, which is rooted in a matrix of philosophical assumptions, which, in turn, is formulated in keeping with the cultural persuasions of the time (Kantor, 1958). Thus, from Kantor's perspective, scientific work always begins with an examination of the culture within which the scientist works (Kantor, 1953, pp. 46–48; 1958, pp. 4–6).

A. CULTURAL MATRIX

In formulating psychology as a natural science, Kantor (1938, p. 8) contended that one must be concerned with "the ratio of traditional assertion to description based upon actual contact with phenomena" When this ratio was to high, misdirection occurred in science. Evidence of scientific misdirection, perpetrated by an overproportional participation of biases from cultural sources, was examined in detail in his two-volume history of psychology (Kantor, 1963, 1969a). In this work, Kantor explored the development of western scientific views in a context of economic, political, religious, military, and other civilizational circumstances. At times, cultural conditions might be conducive to the development of naturalism in science; at other times, not. Particularly disserviceable to this development, he argued, were conditions of extreme hardship for large groups of people and the sense of powerlessness that accompanied it. "Spiritistic" thinking, Kantor (1958, pp. 6–8; 1963, p. 158) argued, arises under such conditions as a means of adaptation; it was sustained by the power over people it affords to smaller groups advantaged under such conditions as a result of other sets of cultural circumstances (1963, p . 158).

While civilizational circumstances, and the beliefs they engender, changed over time, particularly resistant to change was the assumption of a duality of existences. The resistance to change of supernatural or nonnatural constructions was partly due to the manner in which such entities become enmeshed in ordinary expression, whereby they were sustained in language itself. In addition to this facet of the problem, Kantor (1982a, pp. 199—201) outlined a number of other conditions favoring the durability and dispersion of dualism as well as other constructions disserviceable to the evolution of naturalism (Also see Hayes, Adams & Rydeen, 1994, for a discussion of these factors).

B. PROTOPOSTULATES OF SCIENTIFIC PHILOSOPHY

The second level of Kantor and Smith's (1975) ziggurat is philosophy. At this level of scientific system building, protopostulates, or assumptions at the level of the philosophy of science, are outlined. In addition to articulating these protopostulates, Kantor (1981, p. 85) provided a number of specifications for what he called "valid thinking" at this level, through which the influence of cultural institutions might be minimized. These specifications are summarized below.

1. Specifications for Valid Thinking

A number of these specifications for valid thinking in philosophy centered around the nature and use of language. Specifically, Kantor warned against conceptualizing language as a means of communicating ideas having their sources in internal, nonnatural entities. Instead, he argued, language was a prominent form of human adaptation to the environment, which occurred by way of its referential function (Kantor, 1977b). Its powerful role in this regard was subject to distortion, however. Because linguistic forms ordinarily referred to aspects of the nonverbal world, the existence of linguistic forms was assumed to implicate the existence of their referents, despite an absence of contact with the latter. Kantor (1969b) referred to such practices as autistic. By contrast, a proper orientation to language events, articulated as one in which references were made only to what is there to be confronted, prevented this form of reification and its implications for philosophy.

Kantor further warned that once nonnatural referents were constructed, they became the subject of pseudo problems or verbal puzzles into which scientists became entangled. As an example of this sort of entanglement, Kantor (1981) cites the question: "Can we be certain that there is an external world beyond ones own consciousness?" (p. 97). The antidote for this problem, he claimed, was to be alert to the imposition of transcendences in scientific work.

Proper postulation for the sciences was held to be assured, as well, if philosophers of science were able to escape from certain forms of intellectual bondage. Specifically, Kantor (1981, pp. 95—98) advocated a number of freedoms, including freedom from metaphysical institutions, freedom from universalism, and freedom from absolutes. In his view, the development of naturalistic views in science could not occur in the midst of struggles to find answers to metaphysical questions, among which he included how the existence of god might be proved or disproved. No science, in Kantor's view, was concerned with “existences or processes which transcend the boundaries of scientific enterprises… No scientific problem is concerned with a `Reality'

...