https://medium.com/@jimfarmelant/aleksandr-a-fedorov-russian-radical-behaviorist-ba5653c40fef
Aleksander A. Fedorov (from https://fp.nsu.ru/o-fakultete/prepodavateli-i-sotrudniki/fedorov-aleksandr-aleksandrovich.php ( https://fp.nsu.ru/o-fakultete/prepodavateli-i-sotrudniki/fedorov-aleksandr-aleksandrovich.php?utm_source=chatgpt.com ) ) Aleksandr A. Fedorov is a contemporary Russian psychologist, Associate Professor and Chair of Clinical Psychology at the Institute of Medicine and Psychology at Novosibirsk State University. He is also one of the extremely small number of committed *radical behaviorists* in Russia — a country in which B. F. Skinner’s work has been historically viewed with suspicion, only selectively adopted, and rarely translated in full. Much of Fedorov’s professional work has attempted to repair this gap, revive interest in the experimental analysis of behavior, and show that Skinner’s system is compatible with broader currents in Soviet and post-Soviet scientific thought. When Skinner visited the Soviet Union in 1961, he received a surprisingly warm reception from laboratory researchers, especially physiologists. Yet this did not translate into lasting institutional influence. Soviet psychology was deeply shaped by *Vygotsky* , *Leontiev* , and *Activity Theory* , and by a long-standing commitment to *Pavlovian physiology* as the official model of “materialism.” As a result, Skinner’s theoretical framework was generally rejected as “mechanistic,” “ahistorical,” or “bourgeois,” even while certain parts of his work — especially teaching machines and programmed instruction — were enthusiastically adopted and widely implemented in the Soviet Union. Tellingly, these were implemented *without* adopting radical behaviorism itself: they were reinterpreted through Vygotsky and Activity Theory. Even today, only a small portion of Skinner’s corpus has been translated into Russian. Fedorov has been working for decades to remedy that. Fedorov is, like the late American behaviorist Jerome Ulman, both a *Marxist* and a committed *Skinnerian*. But unlike Ulman, he is also an admirer of much of Vygotsky’s work. His central intellectual project has been to articulate a *three-way reconciliation* : showing how radical behaviorism, dialectical materialism, and Vygotskian psychology can be interpreted as *complementary rather than antagonistic* systems, once their philosophical assumptions are clarified and their domains properly distinguished. His key English-language paper outlining this approach is *“Behaviorology and Dialectical Materialism: On the Way to Dialogue.”* ( https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Behaviorology-and-Dialectical-Materialism%3A-On-the-Fedorov/02c2b272539adb673a5fe552883160c86603a16f ) ------------------------------------------ Fedorov on Radical Behaviorism and Marxism ------------------------------------------ Fedorov argues that the long-standing Soviet critique of Skinner was mistaken. Skinner’s thought was treated as crude “mechanical materialism,” ignoring internal processes, denying history, and reducing human action to stimulus–response chains. This was the standard Party-line interpretation from the 1950s through the 1980s. But Fedorov insists that this reading is *false*. Skinner rejected mechanistic physiology not because he was anti-materialist but because he rejected unnecessary theoretical entities. In Fedorov’s view, Skinner is better described as a *functional materialist* whose explanatory framework is fully compatible with the philosophical principles of Marxist materialism — especially its rejection of idealism, its insistence on environmental determination, and its emphasis on the causal role of social conditions. Where Marxism emphasizes *historical, social, and economic conditions* , Skinner emphasizes *behavioral contingencies* , but Fedorov argues these are simply different layers of a larger materialist system. Historical and class structures ultimately operate *through* behavioral contingencies; thus Marxism supplies the macro-determinants, while radical behaviorism provides the micro-mechanisms. For Fedorov, Marxism and Skinnerian science are therefore *complementary* , not contradictory. B. F. Skinner in his 1981 paper “Selection by Consequences” ( https://www.jstor.org/stable/1686399 ) had argued that the principle of selection by consequences operates on three different levels. On the first level — selection by contingencies of survival, as applied to living organisms, it is simply the principle of natural selection as described by Charles Darwin. The second level is the selection of operant responses in living organisms by contingencies of reinforcement. This is the level, which Skinner had devoted most of his research to. Then there is a third level, that of cultural evolution in which there is selection of socially transmitted practices, rules, and institutions by their consequences at the group or community level. For Fedorov, Marxist analysis helps to clarify what happens at the third level of selection by consequences Fedorov on Radical Behaviorism and Vygotskian Psychology Fedorov’s position regarding Vygotsky is similarly integrative. He agrees with radical behaviorists that Vygotsky introduced unnecessary mediating constructs — especially “internalization,” “sign mediation,” and “higher mental functions” — that are not experimentally defined. Yet unlike earlier Soviet behaviorists (or many American Skinnerians), he does not reject Vygotsky wholesale. Instead: * He treats Vygotsky’s insights into the *social origins* of psychological processes as empirically correct. * But he insists these processes can and must be reinterpreted *behaviorally*. * Internalization becomes, in behaviorist terms, the *transition from overt to covert operant behavior*. * Mediation by signs becomes a specialized case of *verbal behavior shaped by the verbal community*. * Developmental transformations can be described without invoking dialectical leaps — simply by analyzing how reinforcement contingencies shift across stages of learning. Thus Vygotsky’s descriptions are preserved while his theoretical entities are replaced with behavior-analytic mechanisms. This allows Vygotskian insights to be integrated without violating Skinner’s methodological commitments. ------------------------------------------ The Core of Fedorov’s Intellectual Project ------------------------------------------ Across his writings, Fedorov maintains three theses: -------------------------------------------------- 1. Skinner is compatible with Marxist materialism. -------------------------------------------------- Because both reject idealism, the soul, and metaphysical mentalism, and both view human behavior as shaped by environmental conditions. ---------------------------------------------- 2. Vygotsky can be reinterpreted behaviorally. ---------------------------------------------- Much of Vygotsky’s empirical insight can be preserved if stripped of its quasi-mentalistic framework. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3. Soviet critiques of Skinner were historically conditioned and often misinformed. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- They stemmed from institutional pressures to defend Pavlov and dialectical materialism, not from a close reading of Skinner’s work. Conclusion Fedorov stands at a unique intersection: a Russian radical behaviorist who is also a Marxist and a sympathetic reader of Vygotsky. His work attempts what few before him have ever tried — a systematic reconciliation of three traditions often assumed to be incompatible. His mission has been both scholarly and cultural: to bring Skinner into genuine dialogue with Soviet and post-Soviet thought, and to show that behavior analysis has a place within the broader history of materialist psychology. His project remains one of the most original contemporary attempts to rethink the philosophical foundations of behaviorism in a global and historical context. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#39535): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/39535 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/116527628/21656 -=-=- POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. #4 Do not exceed five posts a day. -=-=- Group Owner: [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/13617172/21656/1316126222/xyzzy [[email protected]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
