O'Hora, D., & Barnes-Holmes, D. (2001). The referential nature of rules and instructions: A response to instructions, rules, and abstraction: A misconstrued relation by Emilio Ribes-Iñesta. Behavior and Philosophy, 29, 21-25.
Rules have been defined, within behavior analysis and without, as stimuli that “refer to” or “specify” contingencies or environmental events (e.g., “Hold the base firmly and turn the top to the right,” Skinner, 1969, p. 139). Ribes-Iñesta1 (2000) suggests that the approach to rules and rule-governed behavior that developed from Skinner’s (1969) work leads to conceptual confusion. Specifically, he proposes that confusion results from the lack of a distinction between rules as stimuli and rules as outcomes. Although such a distinction may be necessary, Ribes-Iñesta does not address the referential or specifying nature of rules and, consequently, fails to provide useful definitions of rules as either verbal stimuli or responses. In the first part of this response, we will outline the approach to rules and instructions provided by Ribes-Iñesta’s article. In the latter half, we will point out the limitations of the definitions of rules and instructions that Ribes-Iñesta proposes and, more specifically, how the inadequate definitions of rules and instructions result from the failure to address the referential nature of rules as verbal stimuli or responses. Finally, we suggest that a consideration of Ribes-Iñesta’s article draws attention to reference as a critical property of rules and rulegoverned behavior.