O'Hora, D., & Barnes-Holmes, D. (2001b). Stepping up to the challenge of complex human behavior: A response to Ribes-Iñesta's response. Behavior and Philosophy, 29, 59-60.
Ribes-Iñesta’s (2001) response does not clarify his (2000) position on how rules or instructions affect behavior. Ribes-Iñesta (2001) states that rules may be considered as “synonyms for behavioral and/or environmental consistencies,” as “prescriptions” (p. 27), as “verbal discriminative stimuli” (p. 28), and “contrary to what O'Hora and Barnes-Holmes advocate, . . . not descriptions” (p. 27). These statements appear to contradict, at least in part, his original (i.e., 2000) position that rules are “verbal descriptions of functional contingencies” (p. 46), “verbal descriptions of previously experienced contingencies” (p. 49), and that conceiving of rules as discriminative stimuli was evidence of “defective logic” (footnote, p. 43). Moreover, Ribes-Iñesta’s (2001) response does not address the central concern of our response with regard to rules or instructions. That is, he does not provide an account of the referential nature of such stimuli...