The Selection of Behavior: The Operant Behaviorism of B. F. Skinner: Comments and Consequences

Burrhus Frederic Skinner

CUP Archive, Jun 24, 1988 - Psychology - 563 pages

This book was first published in 1988. B. F. Skinner was arguably the most important and influential psychologist of the last century. Yet in his long and distinguished career he consistently declined to be engaged by his critics. In his ninth decade, he elected to confront them all: cognitivists, ethologists, brain scientists, biologists, linguists, and philosophers - close to one hundred and fifty scientists and scholars from the entire spectrum of behavior-related disciplines around the world. Skinner's views on consciousness, language, problem solving, evolution, biology, brain function, computers, theory and explanation, presented in six seminal papers, are analyzed, criticized and explained in the 'open peer commentary' format of the Behavioral and Brain Sciences journal. The result is a remarkably lucid and revealing historical record of Skinnerian thinking and its impact on psychology and its allied disciplines. General readers, students, professionals and historians will find this unique intellectual exchange an invaluable resource.

Contents

• The operant behaviorism of B F Skinner: 3
• Selection by consequences: 11
• On the status of causal modes ROBERT C BOLLES: 23
• Skinner selection and selfcontrol Bo DAHLBOM: 29
• The Darwin of ontogeny? JOHN W DONAHOE: 36
• The emancipation of thought and culture from their original material substrates: 40
• Group and individual effects in selection MARVIN HARRIS: 46
• A onesided view of evolution J MAYNARD SMITH: 52
• Perspectives by consequences DUANE M RUMBAUGH: 60
• Selection misconstrued STEPHEN C STEARNS: 67
• Giving up the ghost WILLIAM VAUGHAN JR: 73
• Methods and theories in the experimental analysis of behavior: 77
• Real people ordinary language and natural measurement SAMUEL M DIETZ: 105
• The challenge to Skinners theory of behavior BRIAN MACKENZIE: 111
• Should we return to the laboratory to find out about learning? J M E MORAVCSIK: 118
• Are Skinners warnings still relevant to current psychology? Marc N RICHELLE: 125
• The dark side of Skinnerian epistemology WILLIAM W ROZEBOOM: 131
• Not shall it be but which shall it be? CHARLES P SHIMP: 138
• Toward the mathematical inner man JAMES T TOWNSEND: 145
• The operational analysis of psychological terms: 150
• Waiting for the world to make me talk and tell me what I meant: 168
• Wishful thinking DANIEL C DENNETT: 174
• Operationism smuggled connotations and the nothingelse clause Peter HARZEM: 183
• The flight from human behavior C FERGUS LOWE: 189
• On Skinners radical operationalism J MOORE: 200
• B F Skinners theorizing Douglas STALKER AND PAUL ZIFF: 206
• On the operational definition of a toothache COLIN WRIGHT: 213
• An operant analysis of problem solving: 218
• Learning from instruction JEROME A FELDMAN: 242
• On choosing the right stimulus and rule ROBIN M HOGARTH: 248
• Can Skinner define a problem? GEIR KAUFMANN: 255
• Questions raised by the reinforcement paradigm Anatol RAPOPORT: 261
• Rulegoverned behavior in computational psychology EDWARD P STABLER JR: 268
• Behaviorism at fifty: 278
• The fruitful metaphor but a metaphor nonetheless MARC BELTH: 295
• Undifferentiated and motebeam percepts in WatsonianSkinnerian: 302
• A causal role for conscious seeing ROBERT M GORDON: 309
• B F Skinners confused philosophy of science LAURENCE HITTERDALE: 316
• Artificially intelligent mental models MICHAEL LEBOWITZ: 323
• Philosophy and the future of behaviorism M JACKSON MARR: 331
• The phylogeny and ontogeny of behavior: 382
• Ontogenetic or phylogenetic another afterpain of the fallacious: 404
• Costbenefit models and the evolution of behavior JERRAM L BROWN: 413
• Consequence contingencies and provenance partitions Juan D DELIUS: 419
• Ethology ignored Skinner to its detriment Jack P HAILMAN: 431
• A moral perspective STEPHEN KAPLAN: 438
• Nature and nurture revisited H C PLOTKIN: 445
• Variation and selection of behavior: 452
• What are the scope and limits of radical behaviorist theory?: 465
• Problems of selection and phylogeny terms and methods: 474
• Skinners reply to Catania: 483
• Biographical sketch and bibliography of works: 489
• Acknowledgments and notes: 496
• Narne index: 527
• Subject index: 535

Bibliographic information

• Title: The Selection of Behavior: The Operant Behaviorism of B. F. Skinner: Comments and Consequences
• Author: Burrhus Frederic Skinner
• Editors: A. Charles Catania, Stevan Robert Harnad, Stevan Harnad
• Edition: illustrated, reprint
• Publisher: CUP Archive, 1988
• ISBN: 0521348617, 9780521348614
• Length: 563 pages
• Subjects: Psychology / Applied Psychology; Psychology / Cognitive Psychology & Cognition