9/6/22

2019: Re-read with my students for my radical behaviorism course. This book is so goddamn good. Skinner's writing is dense and lush and some of the most well-thought-out academic/technical prose I've ever read.

And, like most dense things, it is hard to digest. I can't imagine reading this without a mentor, or at least a reading buddy. (Which makes sense, it was written for use as a graduate textbook.) I'm still finding new things, or getting reminded, as I read.

The heavy theoretical bent to the book is probably its biggest stumbling block to wide adoption, however. I think a lot of classes/programs jump right to protocols and procedures and introduce actual radical behaviorism as a historical event rather than a modern philosophy. CHH is a good book, even great, but it doesn't give the concepts behind the procedures. You need texts like this to show how everything is connected.

10/10, will read again next year. ( )

In order to get Walden Two published, B.F. Skinner had to agree to write an introductory text as part of the deal, and the result was Science and Human Behavior. Since he wrote the text, an empirical science of human behavior has developed, supplementing Skinner's conceptual analysis in this book. Skinner's later chapters, in which he analyzes economic, social, religious, and governmental agencies remain illustrative of how his concepts can be applied to understand complex human behavior, leading to insights not forthcoming from conventional concepts and methods of analysis. ( )

Even thought this book is nearly 50 years old, the insights are still amazing. ( )