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A Review of B. F. Skinner's Verbal Behavior

Chomsky, Noam (1959) A Review of B. F. Skinner's Verbal Behavior. [Journal (Paginated)]

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Abstract

I had intended this review not specifically as a criticism of Skinner's speculations regarding language, but rather as a more general critique of behaviorist (I would now prefer to say "empiricist") speculation as to the nature of higher mental processes. My reason for discussing Skinner's book in such detail was that it was the most careful and thoroughgoing presentation of such speculations, an evaluation that I feel is still accurate. Therefore, if the conclusions I attempted to substantiate in the review are correct, as I believe they are, then Skinner's work can be regarded as, in effect, a reductio ad absurdum of behaviorist assumptions. My personal view is that it is a definite merit, not a defect, of Skinner's work that it can be used for this purpose, and it was for this reason that I tried to deal with it fairly exhaustively. I do not see how his proposals can be improved upon, aside from occasional details and oversights, within the framework of the general assumptions that he accepts. I do not, in other words, see any way in which his proposals can be substantially improved within the general framework of behaviorist or neobehaviorist, or, more generally, empiricist ideas that has dominated much of modern linguistics, psychology, and philosophy. The conclusion that I hoped to establish in the review, by discussing these speculations in their most explicit and detailed form, was that the general point of view was largely mythology, and that its widespread acceptance is not the result of empirical support, persuasive reasoning, or the absence of a plausible alternative.

Item Type:Journal (Paginated)
Additional Information:This is one of the most influential articles in the history of the cognitive sciences. http://cogsci.umn.edu/millennium/final.html
Keywords:language, behaviorism, universal grammar, learning, Skinner, syntax, learnability, cognition
Subjects:Psychology > Cognitive Psychology
Psychology > Behavioral Analysis
Linguistics > Syntax
ID Code:1148
Deposited By: Harnad, Stevan
Deposited On:12 Dec 2000
Last Modified:11 Mar 2011 08:54

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