Taking hermeneutics to science: Prospects and tactics suggested by the work of B. F. Skinner.

Skinner's contributions to the understanding of behavior are typically viewed as being in sufficiently tight alignment with traditional science to prevent their amenability to alternative discourses such as hermeneutics. However, it is possible to identify several concepts at work in radical behaviorism that might constitute its common ground with hermeneutics. The coextensiveness of individual and environment, the emphasis on contingency, and the interminableness of conversation promised by technology are among the concepts considered here, together with issues that are potentially problematic for the effort to find a common ground.