"This book records almost 50 years' worth of developing and explaining a new way of thinking about behavior. It represents a journey more than a goal. I came to see that the science of behavior needed a new paradigm, and two sorts of changes were required. First, the old molecular view inherited from the nineteenth century, based on discrete responses and contiguity, had to be replaced by a view based on the dynamics of behavior. Behavior is manifestly process and cannot be contained in little momentary packets. Behavior is flow and requires measures and theories that acknowledge its temporal extendedness. Such a new ("molar") view offers plausible and elegant explanations both of laboratory results and of phenomena in the everyday world. The molecular view falls short on both counts"--

This volume provides a broad overview of issues in the philosophy of behavioral biology, covering four main themes: genetic, developmental, evolutionary, and neurobiological explanations of behavior. It is both interdisciplinary and empirically informed in its approach, addressing philosophical issues that arise from recent scientific findings in biological research on human and non-human animal behavior. Accordingly, it includes papers by professional philosophers and philosophers of science, as well as practicing scientists. Much of the work in this volume builds on presentations given at the international conference, “Biological Explanations of Behavior: Philosophical Perspectives”, held in 2008 at the Leibniz Universität Hannover in Germany. The volume is intended to be of interest to a broad range of audiences, which includes philosophers (e.g., philosophers of mind, philosophers of biology, and metaethicists), as well as practicing scientists, such as biologists or psychologists whose interests relate to biological explanations of behavior.

This volume has three goals with respect to the interplay between philosophy and behavioral psychology's experimental, applied, and interpretive levels of knowing. It aims to examine core principles in the philosophy of science, as they are interpreted by and relate to behavioral psychology; how these core principles interact with different problem areas in the study of human behavior; and how experimental, applied, and interpretive analyses complement one another to advance the understanding of behavior and, in so doing, also the philosophy of science.

Soviet philosophy of science - dialectical materialism - is an area of intellectual endeavor that engages thousands of specialists in the Soviet Union but passes almost entirely unnoticed in the West. It is true that a few Western authors have examined Soviet discussions of individual problems in philosophy of science, such as philosophical issues of biology, or psychology; nonetheless, no one else in the last twenty-five years has tried to study in detail the relationship of dialectical materialism to Soviet science as a whole. It is an unusual experience, rewarding yet worrisome, to be the only scholar making this endeavor.

Understanding Behaviorism is a classic textbook that explains the basis of behavior analysis and its application to human problems in a scholarly but accessible manner. Now in its third edition, the text has been substantially updated to include the latest developments over the last decade in behaviour analysis, evolutionary theory, and cultural evolution theory The only book available that explains behavior analysis and applies it to philosophical and practical problems, written by one of today’s best-known and most highly respected behaviorists Explores ancient concepts such as purpose, language, knowledge, and thought, as well as applying behavioural thinking to contemporary social issues like freedom, democracy, and culture Part of the new evolutionary perspective for understanding individual behavior in general and culture in particular – culminates with practical approaches to improving the lives of all humanity

In this volume, Longino enters into the complexities of human behavioural research, a domain still dominated by the age-old debate of 'nature versus nurture'. Longino focuses on how scientists study it, specifically sexual behaviour and aggression, and asks what can be known about human behaviour through empirical investigation.