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Les, If I understand Michael, he is only saying he is agnostic regarding mental activity, and he only largely rejects it as unobservable, unscientific mentalism. Is that not correct Michael? And?Michael, you do point out that the behaviorists actually do consider some "inners" but which only the subject is privy to. I'm guessing that presenting the Aristotelian distinction and taking cognitive psych as acceptable when about efficient causes (Rachlin), is a rational for substantiating the basic model of behaviorism, that the subject is a function of exogenous causes, stimuli, reinforcements, etc, (although behaviorist often do seem to speculate about possible endogenous factors involved in change). But developmental epistemology grasps far more specificity in its investigation and explanation of mental activity than the behaviorists seem to admit. That is, it does observe mental operations. The behaviorists seem to deny the reality of cognitive systems (the wholes). Is that a fair characterization, Michael? Hence, it makes little sense to study mental activity in its cycles of assimilation of reality (continuous with sensory motor activity) to examine how it regulates its forms in order to regain equilibrium against the perturbations and resistances it must overcome in maintaining its assimilatory activities. Les, I'm inferring from your analogies—from within Euclidean we can't deduce Riemannian theorems, etc?that you are suggesting there is no talking across paradigms between behaviorists and developmental epistemologist, what Zazzo in referring to Piaget and Wallon's discussion called a "dialogue of the deaf." I would agree it is largely true that behaviorism and developmental epistemology have anything in common in the sense that at least for myself, I haven't discovered any axiomatic principles held in common although Michael has stated he believes his HC has many commonalities with Piagetian theory. If so, I thought it might be useful to pursue exactly what those commonalities might be if they exist. But so far it is clear they do not lie with the use of a number of commons words that are used with two different meaning between the two perspectives. As a result of the differences in meaning, it seems clear that the two perspectives do not share the concepts of assimilation, accommodation, behavior, development, stage, observable, in common. My attempt to ask Michael's help in clarify the distinct meanings behaviorism has given these terms seems to confirm the fundamental differences. (And I thank you, Michael, for?being patient with all my questions to that end.) It does seem to me that the basic lack of commonality rests in asserting that research based on the sort of external Platonic idealism implied by behaviorist tests using levels of hierarchical complexity to determine a stage of development by a subject's responses is the only possible scientific method for understanding the human subject since that forecloses almost all of the findings of developmental epistemology. I would also note that behaviorism does seem enamored with the psychological subject and seems to ignore an acting epistemic subject who after all is the seat of the constructive activities of these increasingly complex forms of knowledge in the first place. It is this process of constructive activity that it seems to me is of primary importance if we want to understand how knowledge arises in the human species. Hence, as yet I haven't uncovered what the commonalities might be between behaviorism and developmental epistemology.