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

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.