product of a locomotive), and that conscious events have no causal efficacy, neither with regard to bodily events
nor to other mental events, i.e., one's thoughts do not have the power to affect either one's actions or one's
subsequent thoughts. Thus, epiphenomenalism commits its advocates to the position that the history of the human
race would be exactly the same if no one had ever been conscious of anything, if no one had any perceptions or
thoughts. As a philosophical position, epiphenomenalism is scarcely more defensible than reductive materialism;
neither is very impressive in the light of even a cursory logical analysis.
The difference between these two variations of behaviorism is, for any practical purpose, nonexistent. Both agree
that consciousness is irrelevant to psychology and to behavior; this is the essence of their position.
The behaviorist has been conspicuously reluctant to enunciate the conclusions to which his theory leads. He has
not, for instance, felt obliged to declare: "Since phenomena of consciousness are illusory or irrelevant to
explanations of behavior, and since this includes my behavior, nothing that I may think, understand or perceive
(whatever these terms mean) bears any causal relation to the things I do or the theories I advocate."
When a person puts forth a doctrine which amounts to the assertion either that he is not conscious or that it makes
no difference to him (and should make no difference to others) whether he is conscious or not—the irresistible
temptation is to agree with him.
Many writers, of the most varied and divergent viewpoints, have exposed the arbitrariness, the contradictions, and
the epistemological barbarism of the behaviorist theory.^6 It is unnecessary to review their criticisms here.
Behaviorists, in line with their general policy of dismissing those aspects of reality which they find it inconvenient
to consider, have not attempted, for the most part, to answer these criticisms; they have ignored them.
The chief focus of the behaviorists' attack is on the psychologist's use of introspection. Their argument is as
follows: Psychology has failed to establish itself as a science or to produce any genuine knowledge; the fault lies in
the psychologist's reliance on introspection; the physical sciences, which are far more advanced, do not employ
introspection; therefore, psychology should abandon introspection and emulate the methods of the physical