Chelpanov is tempted to reduce the whole reform carried out by behaviorism to a play of words. He assumes that in Watson’s writings the word “sensation” or “idea” is replaced by the word “reaction.” In order to show the reader the difference between ordinary psychology and the psychology of the behaviorist, Chelpanov (1925) gives examples of the new way of expressing things:

In ordinary psychology it is said: ‘When someone’s optical nerve is stimulated by a mixture of complementary light waves, he will become conscious of the white color.’ According to Watson in this case we must say: ‘He reacts to it as if it were a white color.’

The triumphant conclusion of the author is that the matter is not changed by the words used. The whole difference is in the words. Is this really true? For a psychologist of Chelpanov’s kind it is definitively true. Who does not investigate nor discover anything new cannot understand why researchers introduce new terms for new phenomena. Who has no view of his own about the phenomena and accepts indifferently both Spinoza, Husserl, Marx, and Plato,32 for such a person a fundamental change of words is an empty pretension. Who eclectically—in the order of appearance—assimilates all Western European schools, currents and directions, is in need of a vague, undefined, levelling, everyday language—”as is spoken in ordinary psychology.” For a person who conceives of psychology only in the form of a textbook it is a matter of life and death to preserve everyday language, and as lots of empiricist psychologists belong to this type, they speak in this mixed and motley jargon, in which the consciousness of the white color is simply a fact which is in no need of any further critique.

For Chelpanov it is a caprice, an eccentricity. But why is this eccentricity so regular? Doesn’t it contain something essential? Watson, Pavlov, Bekhterev, Kornilov, Bethe and Von Uexkull (Chelpanov’s list may be continued ad libitum from any area of science), Kohler, Koffka and others and still others demonstrated this eccentricity. This means that there is some objective necessity in the tendency to introduce new terminology.

We can say in advance that the word that refrrs to a fact at the same time provides a philosophy of that fact, its theory, its system. When I say: “the consciousness of the color” I have scientific associations of a certain kind, the fact is included in a certain series of phenomena, I attach a certain meaning to the fact. When I say:

“the reaction to white” everything is wholly different. But Chelpanov is only pretending that it is a matter of words. For him the thesis “a reform of terminology is not needed” forms the conclusion from the thesis “a reform of psychology is not needed.” Never mind that Chelpanov gets caught in contradictions: on the one hand Watson is only changing words; on the other hand behaviorism is distorting psychology. It is one of two things: either Watson is playing with words—then behaviorism is a most innocent thing, an amusing joke, as Chelpanov likes to put it when he

reassures himself; or behind the change of words is concealed a change of the matter—then the change of words is not all that funny. A revolution always tears off the old names of things—both in politics and in science.

But let us proceed to other authors who do understand the importance of new words. It is clear to them that new facts and a new viewpoint necessitate new words. Such psychologists fall into two groups. Some are pure eclectics, who happily mix the old and new words and view this procedure as some eternal law. Others speak in a mixed language out of necessity. They do not coincide with any of the debating parties and strive for a unified language, for the creation of their own language.

We have seen that such outspoken eclectics as Thorndike equally apply the term “reaction” to temper, dexterity, action, to the objective and the subjective. As he. is not capable of solving the question of the nature of the studied facts and the