Causality and Contingency

Abstract

The logical features of causality (necessary connection, succession and contiguity) are examined in regard to respondent and operant behaviors. It is emphazied that operant behavior as emitted behavior breaks with any criterion of precedent causa­lity. It is examined how Skinner tried to approach causality as functional relation, without overcoming apure phenomenological analysis. The category of contingency is submitted to a conceptual analysis, and its application to superstition, respondent and operant conditioning is critically reviewed. A reinterpretation of contingency as conditionality is proposed, and the analysis of the organization of behavior is advo­cated in terms of interdependent functional and occurrence contingencies.