Verbal Behavior - B.F. Skinner

Verbal behavior is a classic work and one the most neglected and underrated scientific texts of century, erroneously believed by many to have been conclusively demolished by Noam Chomsky (whose work in competition with Freud's is possibly the most overrated). Skinners analysis of verbal behavior differs from other accounts both in psychology and linguistics in being entirely naturalistic and free of the quite far-reaching metaphysical assumptions about 'meanings' and 'rules' inherent in traditional approaches. The latter focus on an idealized and abstract entity (grammatically correct language) which does not really exist, whereas Skinner analyses the verbal behavior actually performed by people. He demonstrates that a large amount of linguistic phenomena can be interpreted and explained by the principles of operant conditioning which have been demonstrated in laboratory experiments and he explores the consequences of this analysis for problems normally only addressed by philosophers, such as the nature of meaning, the social aspects of language, the possibility of a private language and the nature of thinking. Many philosophers will surprised to learn that some of the best ideas of the later Wittgenstein can be found more clearly and elegantly expressed by Skinner.