Comprehensive but can be ignorant
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I spent a few days browsing thru, to get a rough idea of what areas of philosophy I might do well to study more. For that purpose, this book seemed good.
I was alarmed, however, to find in the entry for "Skinner, Burrhus Frederick" this statement: "Both it [i.e. scientific behaviorism] and radical behaviorism have been obviated by the development of a computational theory of the mind." That's false. Radical behaviorism is the philosophy of behavior that informs the science of applied behavior analysis, of which there are thousands of practicing analysts and thousands of clients benefitting from those analysts. Computational theories of the mind are speculative, tend toward "mentalism" ( fictitous explanation) and, as yet, have yielded little if any practical benefit. Skinner expected that (physical) brain science would advance and welcomed that, but behaviorism is operating at a different level and is not invalidated by advances in brain science. Limitations in any theory of the mind, computational or otherwise, were precisely what led Skinner to a behaviorist approach. The emergence of computational theories of the mind presents nothing to lessen the problems Skinner recognizes were inherent in theories of the mind. On the contrary, study of Radical Behaviorism is all the more important so that the fictitous aspects of such theories be recognized. It was no accident that in the March 1994 issue of the American Psychological Society's magazine "Observer", president Roddy Roediger, a cognitive psychologist, in his article "What Happened to Behaviorism", suggested celebrating "the power of behavioristic analyses...even if you are one of the cognitive psychologists who believe behaviorism is irrelevant, passe and/or dead. It isn't".
Computational theories of the mind may seem intriguing, but they hardly obviate Radical Behaviorism. That such an ignorant statement was published makes me wonder about how many other similar false statements are in this book.
See if the following doesn't seem a more wise and professional way of handling the differences between the cognitive and behaviorist positions. It's from G.E. Zuriff's review of Lattal's and Chase's "Behavior Theory and Philosophy" and appeared in May 2005 issue The Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior:
"In principle, there are no decisive philosophical objections to a cognitive theory. Practically, however, there is ample disagreement over whether such a theory will, in fact, generate fruitful research progress. Cognitive psychology and cognitive neuroscience are betting that such a theory is feasible, whereas SIB [ Skinner Inspired Behaviorism ] seems committed to its unlikelihood."
An encyclopedia entry on the father of an active and fruitful philosophy and science is no place for ignorant or biased dismissal.
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excellent
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Plain and Simple. An excellent philosophy reference. It's got the lot, from Socrates, Godel, Marx...no Aleister Crowley though, mmmnnn. Recommended.
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