Pragmatic Reductionism: On the Relation between Contingency and Metacontingency

dc.contributor.authorZilio, Diego
dc.contributor.authorCarrara, Kester [UNESP]
dc.contributor.authorLeite, Felipe Lustosa
dc.contributor.institutionUniversidade Federal do Espírito Santo (UFES)
dc.contributor.institutionUniversidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP)
dc.contributor.institutionITC Imagine Behav Technol
dc.date.accessioned2022-11-30T15:19:45Z
dc.date.available2022-11-30T15:19:45Z
dc.date.issued2022-06-08
dc.description.abstractOne of the main arguments in favor of the metacontingency as a model for explaining social phenomena is that it embraces another kind of selection (cultural selection) beyond natural and operant selection. Despite being emergent on operant processes, it would not be reducible to operant selection. Consequently, cultural selection would demand a conceptual framework of its own, hence the metacontingency. Assuming the existence of another kind of selection is an ontological premise, and that this new process requires its own conceptual framework, because contingency analysis is insufficient to explain it, can be considered an epistemological premise. Our goal in this paper is to argue that the epistemological premise present in the metacontingency literature is wrong. To do so, we present pragmatic reductionism as a model to discuss the possibility of reductive explanations of selection and maintenance of cultural practices from metacontingency to contingency analysis. Based on this framework, we provide examples of pragmatic reductive interpretations, thought experiments, and an analysis of experimental data in which we try to explain away the metacontingency. We conclude that it is possible to pragmatically reduce metacontingency explanations to contingency explanations. That does not, however, invalidate the ontological premise about the existence of different processes related to cultural evolution and selection whatever those might be. It only shows that, if they exist at all, they are not the ones being studied in metacontingency research.en
dc.description.affiliationFed Univ Espirito Santo UFES, Dept Social & Dev Psychol, Fernando Ferrari Ave 514,CEMUNI 6, BR-29075910 Vitoria, ES, Brazil
dc.description.affiliationSao Paulo State Univ, UNESP, Sao Paulo, SP, Brazil
dc.description.affiliationITC Imagine Behav Technol, Fortaleza, Ceara, Brazil
dc.description.affiliationUnespSao Paulo State Univ, UNESP, Sao Paulo, SP, Brazil
dc.description.sponsorshipFundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)
dc.description.sponsorshipTutorial Education Program (PET) from the Ministry of Education (MEC)
dc.description.sponsorshipConselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)
dc.description.sponsorshipIdFAPESP: 2013/17950-1
dc.format.extent35
dc.identifierhttp://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s42822-022-00097-z
dc.identifier.citationBehavior And Social Issues. New York: Springer, 35 p., 2022.
dc.identifier.doi10.1007/s42822-022-00097-z
dc.identifier.issn1064-9506
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/11449/237925
dc.identifier.wosWOS:000807919900001
dc.language.isoeng
dc.publisherSpringer
dc.relation.ispartofBehavior And Social Issues
dc.sourceWeb of Science
dc.subjectContingency
dc.subjectCulture
dc.subjectEmergence
dc.subjectExplanation
dc.subjectMetacontingency
dc.subjectReductionism
dc.titlePragmatic Reductionism: On the Relation between Contingency and Metacontingencyen
dc.typeArtigo
dcterms.licensehttp://www.springer.com/open+access/authors+rights?SGWID=0-176704-12-683201-0
dcterms.rightsHolderSpringer

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