Max Meyer proposed studying behavior from the Other-One’s external viewpoint

Evidence

Skinner reiterated Meyer’s definitive importance to the radical behaviorist point of view. See, for example, his 1967 debate with the philosopher Brand Blanshard, where he stated the following: “A special problem arises from the inescapable fact that a small part of the universe is enclosed within the skin of each of us. It is not different in kind from the rest of the universe, but because our contact with it is intimate and in some ways exclusive, it receives special consideration. It is said to be known in a special way, to contain the immediately given, to be the first thing a man knows and according to some the only thing he can really know. Philosophers, following Descartes, begin with it in their analysis of mind. Almost everyone seems to begin with it in explaining his own behavior. There is, however, another possible starting point—the behavior of what Max Meyer used to call the Other-One. As a scientific analysis grows more effective, we no longer explain that behavior in terms of inner events. The world within the skin of the Other-One loses its preferred status.” — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 2556

Categorization

• DEFINE: Captures the core behaviorist reorientation from first-person inner experience to the observable ‘Other-One’ as the legitimate starting point for science.
• XREF: This ‘observation viewpoint’ doctrine mirrors the operative theme in One Square Inch of Silence about scientific framing of subjective experience, and connects to the surveillance premise that external observation of behavior replaces inner states. — connects to: Radical behaviorism defines behavior only as what another organism observes — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1161; Max Planck’s phantom-problems paper supplied the external-viewpoint doctrine behind radical behaviorism — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 2559; Psychological variables must be inferred from observable behavior rather than measured directly

Broader Connections

• Max Planck’s phantom-problems paper supplied the external-viewpoint doctrine behind radical behaviorism #expands (0.85) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 2559
• Psychological variables must be inferred from observable behavior rather than measured directly #expands (0.75)