Jacob Robert "J.R." Kantor (August 8, 1888,

Harrisburg, Pennsylvania Harrisburg ( ; ) is the capital city of the U.S. commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the seat of Dauphin County. With a population of 50,099 as of 2020, Harrisburg is the ninth-most populous city in Pennsylvania. It is the larger of the two pr ...

– 1984,

Chicago, Illinois Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...

) was a prominent American

psychologist A psychologist is a professional who practices psychology and studies mental states, perceptual, cognitive, emotional, and social processes and behavior. Their work often involves the experimentation, observation, and explanation, interpretatio ...

who pioneered a naturalistic system in

psychology Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Its subject matter includes the behavior of humans and nonhumans, both consciousness, conscious and Unconscious mind, unconscious phenomena, and mental processes such as thoughts, feel ...

called

interbehavioral psychology Jacob Robert "J.R." Kantor (August 8, 1888, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania – 1984, Chicago, Illinois) was a prominent American psychologist who pioneered a naturalistic system in psychology called interbehavioral psychology or interbehaviorism. He w ...

interbehaviorism Jacob Robert "J.R." Kantor (August 8, 1888, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania – 1984, Chicago, Illinois) was a prominent American psychologist who pioneered a naturalistic system in psychology called interbehavioral psychology or interbehaviorism. He ...

. He was the first to use the term "

psycholinguistics Psycholinguistics or psychology of language is the study of the interrelation between linguistic factors and psychological aspects. The discipline is mainly concerned with the mechanisms by which language is processed and represented in the mind ...

" in his book ''An Objective Psychology of Grammar'' in 1936.

Biography

Kantor was born in

Harrisburg Harrisburg ( ; ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the Commonwealth (U.S. state), U.S. commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat, seat of Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, Dauphin County. With a population of 50, ...

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania, officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a U.S. state, state spanning the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern United States, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes region, Great Lakes regions o ...

, the son of Julius Kantor, a German orthodox rabbi, and Mary, a Lithuanian, who immigrated to Pennsylvania some years before the birth of Kantor. Kantor had two brothers and four sisters. He entered the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, or UChi) is a Private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Its main campus is in the Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood on Chicago's South Side, Chic ...

with an interest in chemistry, but then discovered his love for psychology. In 1914, Kantor earned a Ph.B. He earned his Ph.D. in 1917 and was an instructor at the University of Chicago from 1917 to 1920. Kantor married Helen Rich in 1916. Their only child was Helene J. Kantor (1919-1993), archaeologist and professor at the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago. As Helene had been born with a progressive muscular dystrophy, Kantor accepted a position as a professor at

Indiana University Indiana University (IU) is a state university system, system of Public university, public universities in the U.S. state of Indiana. The system has two core campuses, five regional campuses, and two regional centers under the administration o ...

where he would remain for 39 years. This period overlapped for a brief time with

B. F. Skinner Burrhus Frederic Skinner (March 20, 1904 – August 18, 1990) was an American psychologist, behaviorist, inventor, and social philosopher. He was the Edgar Pierce Professor of Psychology at Harvard University from 1948 until his retirement in ...

's tenure there, to their mutual benefit. Kantor was also one of the founders of the journal '' The Psychological Record'' in 1937. Following the death of his wife in 1956, Kantor retired in 1959 but continued teaching as a visiting professor at

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private university, private research university in New York City, New York, United States. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded in 1832 by Albert Gallatin as a Nondenominational ...

and then at the

University of Maryland The University of Maryland, College Park (University of Maryland, UMD, or simply Maryland) is a public land-grant research university in College Park, Maryland, United States. Founded in 1856, UMD is the flagship institution of the Univ ...

. He was appointed to the position of research associate at the University of Chicago in 1964, and worked there until the time of his death twenty years later.

Interbehaviorism

Kantor originally named his system ''Organismic Psychology'', but around the time of the publication of the first volume of his ''Principles of Psychology'' (Kantor, 1924), he had already renamed it to interbehavioral psychology. Interbehaviorism as developed by Kantor was characterized as "field-theoretic, not lineal-mechanistic, self-actional, or mediational; a system that is naturalistic, not dualistic; and a system that is comprehensive, not narrowly focused." (Midgley & Morris, 2006). At the University of Chicago, Kantor was heavily influenced by the pragmatism and functionalism of Dewey (who had retired earlier from the University), Angell, and

Mead Mead (), also called honey wine, and hydromel (particularly when low in alcohol content), is an alcoholic beverage made by fermenting honey mixed with water, and sometimes with added ingredients such as fruits, spices, grains, or hops. The alco ...

. Kantor was also heavily impressed by the development of relativity theory in physics. It was from these two sources, as well as from his historical inquiry, that Kantor devoted himself to the creation of a naturalistic system in psychology. Kantor saw a similar goal in the recently developed school of

behaviorism Behaviorism is a systematic approach to understand the behavior of humans and other animals. It assumes that behavior is either a reflex elicited by the pairing of certain antecedent stimuli in the environment, or a consequence of that indivi ...

, although he saw it as reductionistic and simplistic, and not completely separated from mentalism. His conclusion was that in order to do so, behaviorism had to embrace a field orientation. For Kantor, because the interaction between

organism An organism is any life, living thing that functions as an individual. Such a definition raises more problems than it solves, not least because the concept of an individual is also difficult. Many criteria, few of them widely accepted, have be ...

and environment is continuous in time this event should be analyzed in terms of all of its interdependent components. This led to the proposal of the interbehavioral field as the unit of analysis. Kantor represented this field with the formula ''PE = C(k, sf, rf, hi, st, md)'' where ''PE'' is the psychological event, consisting of the ''interdependence (C)'' of the factors in the field, ''k'' stands for the specificity of every behavior segment, ''sf'' is the stimulus function, ''rf'' is the response function, ''hi'' stands for the history of interactions, ''st'' corresponds to the interactional setting, and ''md'' is the medium of contact. According to Kantor, this interbehavioral field is at the core of every psychological event, and this event is not reducible to any of the individual factors. Kantor used this conceptualization to analyze various sub-fields of

, as well as the relation of psychology with other disciplines. Among the major topics that he addressed in an interbehavioral manner can be found

social psychology Social psychology is the methodical study of how thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by the actual, imagined, or implied presence of others. Although studying many of the same substantive topics as its counterpart in the field ...

(a term he created and used for the first time in 1936, in his book ''An Objective Psychology of Grammar'', and was used much more frequently by his pupil

Nicholas Henry Pronko Nicholas is a male name, the Anglophone version of an ancient Greek name in use since antiquity, and cognate with the modern Greek , . It originally derived from a combination of two Greek words meaning 'victory' and 'people'. In turn, the name ...

where it was used for the first time to talk about an interdisciplinary science "that could be coherent".Levelt, W. J. M. (2013). ''A History of Psycholinguistics: the pre-Chomskyan era''. Part 1. Oxford: Oxford University Press; in 1946),

physiological psychology Physiological psychology is a subdivision of behavioral neuroscience (biological psychology) that studies the neural mechanisms of perception and behavior through direct manipulation of the brains of nonhuman animal subjects in controlled experime ...

, and logic.

Published books

* 1924. ''Principles of psychology'' (Vol. I). New York: Knopf. * 1926. ''Principles of psychology'' (Vol. II). New York: Knopf. * 1929. ''An outline of social psychology''. Chicago: Follett. * 1933. ''A survey of the science of psychology.'' Bloomington, IN: Principia Press. * 1936. ''An objective psychology of grammar.'' Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. * 1945. ''Psychology and logic (Vol. I).'' Bloomington, IN: Principia Press. * 1947. ''Problems of physiological psychology.'' Bloomington, IN: Principia Press. * 1950. ''Psychology and logic (Vol. II).'' Bloomington, IN: Principia Press. * 1953. ''The logic of modern science.'' Bloomington, IN: Principia Press. * 1958. ''Interbehavioral psychology.'' Bloomington, IN: Principia Press. (Rev. ed. 1959) * 1963. ''The scientific evolution of psychology'' (Vol. I). Chicago: Principia Press. * 1969. ''The scientific evolution of psychology'' (Vol. II). Chicago: Principia Press. * 1971. ''The aim and progress of psychology and other sciences: A selection of papers by J. R. Kantor.'' Chicago: Principia Press. * 1975. with Smith, N. W. ''The science of psychology: An interbehavioral survey''. Chicago: Principia Press. * 1977. ''Psychological linguistics''. Chicago: Principia Press. * 1981. ''Interbehavioral philosophy''. Chicago: Principia Press. * 1982. ''Cultural psychology''. Chicago: Principia Press. * 1983. ''Tragedy and the event continuum''. Chicago: Principia Press. * 1984. ''Psychological comments and queries''. Chicago: Principia Press. * 1984. ''Selected writings in philosophy, psychology and other sciences, 1929-1983''. Chicago: Principia Press

References

Sources

Midgley, B. D., & Morris, E. K. (Eds.) (2006). ''Modern Perspectives on J. R. Kantor and Interbehaviorism''. Reno, NV: Context Press.

External links