Language and knowledge in B. F. Skinner and J. L. Austin

Abstract

The problems of human knowledge and its relationship with language, both traditional matters of philosophical analysis, have received by the end of the 19th century and along the 20th century, an original treatment in the modem thought, as result of the so-called linguistic tum (also named pragmatic linguistic tum), which highlighted the linguistic dimensions of the problems to which epistemology turned. Language has been assigned a fundamental role by philosophers, scientists and so on. This turn represents the theoretical context of this paper, which aims to analyze the conceptions of B. F. Skinner and J. L. Austin about human knowledge, in particular: (a) the concepts and principles involved; (b) their relation to language; and (c) the compatibilities between these authors. The paper was guided by two sets of conceptual references. The first one was B. F. Skinner's radical behaviorism, and the second one was the analytic philosophy, from the standpoint of Wittgenstein's work and Austin's speech acts theory, The first point discussed is Skinner's and Austin's commitment to an anti-representationist tradition in philosophy. In addition, the paper discusses the relation between language and reality, knowledge, and the relation between subject and object of knowledge.