Place, U. T. (1981a). Skinner's Verbal Behavior I - why we need it. Behaviorism, 9, 1-24. www.jstor.org/stable/27758970
[Abstract]To explain behaviour in terms of intension­al or mentalistic concepts is to explain the behaviour in question on the assump­tion of a consistent and rational connection between what the agent does and what he says or what is said to him and that therefore any general account of verbal or linguistic behaviour which employs such concepts is necessarily circular, since it explains the acquisition of linguistic skills on the assumption that the speaker already possesses such skills. It follows that this circularity can only be avoided by developing a theory of verbal or linguistic behaviour which is stated entirely in a nonintensional or extensional language. At the present time, the most developed conceptual system for description and explanation of the behav­iour of organisms at the molar level in purely extensional terms is that provided by the so-called ‘Radical Behaviorism’ of B. F. Skinner and his followers. Fur­thermore, in his book Verbal Behavior Skinner (1957) has used this conceptual framework to develop a theory of verbal or linguistic behaviour which repre­sents the most ambitious attempt made so far to formulate a theory of linguistic behaviour in nonintensional or extensional terms.
Note:
Revised version is from 1999.
[References]  [7 citing publications]  [11 referring publications by Place]  
Download: 1981a 1999 Skinner's Verbal Behavior I - Why We Need It - revised version.pdf

Place, U. T. (1983b). Behavioural contingency semantics [Conference presentation abstract]. In P. Simons (Ed.), Abstracts of the 7th International Congress of Logic, Methodology and Philosophy of Science, Vol. 2, Sections 5 and 12 (pp. 342-345). J. Huttegger OHG.
Keywords: behavioural contingency semantics
Note:
Presentation given at the 7th International Congress of Logic, Methodology and Philosophy of Science held in Salzburg, July 11th-16th 1983. In the downloads two documents are made available. One is an extended abstract, in actual fact a 4 pages summary as published in the proceedings of the conference and second is the text of the presentation. In the abstract Place tried to show how a later strand in Skinner's thinking represented by his 1969 book Contingencies Reinforcement, particularly the operant analysis of problem solving can be developed in such a way as to make good all the important deficiencies in the account given by Skinner in Verbal Behavior and what are mercilessly exposed by Chomsky in his 1959 Review. In the presentation Place discusses the reasons why a behavioural account of language acquisition and language use is to be preferred to the alternative theories belonging to the tradition that stems from Chomsky.
[References]  [Talks]  
Download: 1983b Behavioural Contingency Semantics. The Abstract.pdf  1983b Behavioural Contingency Semantics. The Presentation.pdf

Place, U. T. (1988e). The problem of mental content from the standpoint of linguistic empiricism [Presentation prepared for the Course on Functionalism and Content, Inter-university Post-graduate Centre, Dubrovnik, Yugoslavia (since 1991 Croatia), 7-15 September 1988] Inter-university Post-graduate Centre.
[References]  [Talks]  
Download: 1988e The Problem of Mental Content from the Standpoint of Linguistic Empiricism .pdf