Chapter 3: Theoretical Recursion in Radical Empiricism: The Universal Philosophical Acid

Recursion plays a crucial role in many theoretical approaches to psychology. This occurs most obviously in the “radical” approaches to psychology, which attempt to apply very simple and straightforward principles to understanding psychological phenomenon. We might count pragmatism, radical empiricism, and some forms of radical behaviorism among these approaches. The principles at the center of these systems tend to be uninterestingly mundane and intuitively acceptable when they are first put into use. However, when the principles are allowed to recurse—that is, when the principle is reapplied to the output of previous applications—very unintuitive results can arise very quickly. These unintuitive results are often the ones purported to have the greatest consequence for the field of psychology. Here we will try to explain how the recursion in William James’s radical empiricism has consequences for psychology, and show how the same recursion is rephrased in E. B. Holt’s brand of radical behaviorism.¹