J. R. Kantor's Contributions to Scientific Psychology

Dennis J. Delprato

Eastern Michigan University

After I discovered Kantor's work, I began attending to comments in the literature regarding his contributions, and unsystematically recorded them. The items below are direct quotations from some of this collection; I will provide others in a subsequent issue of the newsletter. These quotations may be useful in providing an indication of both the breadth of Kantor's influence and its impact on certain influential figures.

This material, of course, is not complete. For example, it does not include applications of the interbehavioral perspective to emotion by Brady (1975), general psychology by Pronko (1980), child behavior therapy by Wahler and Graves (1983), behavioral organization by Delprato (1986), behavioral medicine by Delprato and McGlynn (1986), and clinical psychology by various individuals (Ruben & Delprato, in press). At the very least, though, perusal of the following quotations suggests that Kantor's ideas have always been fresh and far-ranging, and remain fertile soil for today's students.

A. F. Bentley (1935)
We retain eleven systems for closer analysis [in Bentley's assessment of the science of psychology], the presentations of the following writers: Madison Bentley, J. F. Dashiell, John Dewey, Knight Dunlap, W. S. Hunter, J. R. Kantor, C. K. Ogden, Margaret Floy Washburn, John B. Watson, Albert P. Weiss, and R. S. Woodworth (p. 14).
Let us appraise the significance of Kantor's approach by removing ourselves, for the purpose of its inspection, as far as we can from the present-day psychological turmoil. Suppose that a Man from Mars should come along.... If our inquirer then wandered further and came across Kantor's construction, he might return to the behaviorist and say: "You started by telling me that organisms and non-organic things were all alike natural. Here, now, I have found a system that treats them that way. Where it finds 'seeing' or 'knowing' or 'remembering,' it takes both man and object into account in the common activity. Is not that just what you ought to be doing if they are both natural in the world?".
The behaviorist's answer I shall not attempt to guess. Too many evanescent sparks would probably fly. But the final remark which the Man from Mars would make is clear enough: "You seem to me pretty sentimental over your little fragments of 'man'; I think I prefer the tough-minded Kantor" (p. 94).
Recall the present status of confusion with respect to the term "environment" as we have seen it in chapters VII and XI. Dewey sets up a principle, but leaves it imperfectly developed. Hunter and Weiss attempt to section environments. Madison Bentley proposes their ejection from all psychological research. Kantor alone in the psychological field makes direct constructive study of the behavioral extension upon which the term "environment" insists. (p. 339)

Bijou (1976)
The analysis presented here... is theoretical in interpreting behavior in terms of the empirical concepts and functional laws that have been generated by laboratory and field experimental research in the last fifty years and organized into a system founded on the assumptions embodied in the philosophy of modern behaviorism presented by B. F. Skinner and J. R. Kantor. (p. xi)

Bijou and Baer (1978)
The theory presented here brings together the contributions of many psychologists. ...our most basic debts are to B. F. Skinner, J. R. Kantor, F. S. Keller, and W. N. Schoenfeld (p. xi).
This formulation can readily be identified with the philosophy of science and behavior theory of B. F. Skinner and J. R. Kantor. (p. 33)

Dewey and Bentley (1949/1973)
The other natural approach to logic to be considered is that of J. R. Kantor in his book Psychology and Logic.... He makes his development upon the basis of his interbehavior psychology which rates as one of the most important advances in psychological construction since William James. (p. 152)

Ekehammer (1974)
Although interactionist thought can be traced back to Aristotle..., probably one of the first attempts in psychology toward an interactionist conceptualization was made by Kantor (1924, 1926).... (p. 1027)

Fuller (1973)
Without the influence of Kantor, operant studies might have stayed exclusively in the animal laboratories a long, long time. (p. 324)

Goldstein (1940)
Certainly any reaction is understandable only if we consider the individual phenomenon in reference to the condition of the whole organism. In animal psychology, too, such a conception has of late gained more ground. I should like to mention especially the work of K. S. Lashley and Kantor. (p. 132)

Kanfer (1968)
A functional approach to verbal behavior was suggested by J. R. Kantor.... The functional approach was further developed by Skinner (1957).... (P. 255)

Kanfer and Karoly (1972)
Almost 50 years ago, Kantor (1924) argued eloquently against the use in psychology of metaphysical abstractions, which find extreme representations in the "bodyless mind" of the psychists and the "mindless body" of the mechanists. His analysis retains its timeliness. (p. 399)

Kanfer and Phillips (1970)
As must be true for a volume that reviews the experiments and theories of a large field, we have been influenced not only by personal contacts but by the many writers and colleagues whose efforts have created the field of behavior therapy. (p. viii)

Krasner (1982)
By the end of World War II, there was already in existence a historically long-established "behaviorism" stream, solidly based on a "scientific" psychology and influenced by the laboratory studies of Pavlov (1928); the Mowrers' conditioning approach to enuresis (1938); John B. Watson's research and theoretical formulations (1924); and a stream of research and theory produced by, among others, Thorndike, Kantor, Bain, J. S. Mill, Bentham, and Locke. (p. 23)
In the first article devoted to the topic of "behavior therapy" published in the Annual Review of Psychology, Krasner (1971) argued that 15 streams of development within the science of psychology came together during the 1950s and 1960s to form the approach to behavior change generally known as "behavior therapy." These streams may be briefly summarized as follows:
  1. The concept of behaviorism in experimental psychology, (e.g., Kantor, 1969). [Note: Krasner appears to be referring to Kantor's historical analysis here.] (p. 25)

Revusky and Garcia (1970)
Dedicated to J. R. Kantor because he gave Revusky an insight into the breadth of psychology. (p. 1)

Riegel (1978)
A few far-sighted psychologists, for example Jacob Kantor, have for many decades recognized the problem of interactive changes, but their voices have been drowned by the loudspeakers (and not the radicals) of modern psychology. (pp. 62-63)

Rotter (1954)
Three of these, with whom I have had the exceptionally rewarding experience of studying personally, should be mentioned for their specific contributions to the basic theoretical orientation of this book. They are J. R. Kantor, and the late Alfred Adler and Kurt Lewin. (p. viii-ix)

References

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