ARGUING WITH THE COGNITIVISTS

A number of cognitivists have claimed that it is somehow illegitimate for those people who do not accept that cognitions are the only cause of human behavior to enter into debate on the issue. Their argument ap pears to be that it is not possible to develop an argument without mak ing use of the sort of cognition described by Bandura [Bandura (1995) Comments on the crusade against the causal efficacy of human thought, Journal of Behavior Therapy ann Experimental Psychiatry, 26, 179-190] and others, nor is it possible to influence other people without attem pting to change their cognitive model of the topic, and therefore the mere fact of arguing is enough to disprove the non-cognitivists' posit ion. This paper argues that argument is not dependent on an inner mono logue but is a behavioral process; and attempting to persuade others d oes not necessitate a belief in a central causal role for cognitions. It is quite possible to engage in academic debate without adopting a d ualist model of the human being, and, by extension, it is quite possib le to explain a wide range of complex human activities without recours e to the limiting models of contemporary cognitive psychology. Copyrig ht (C) 1996 Elsevier Science Ltd