"WE HAVE NOT YET SEEN WHAT MAN CAN MAKE OF MAN": FIRST EDITION OF B.F. SKINNER'S BEYOND FREEDOM & DIGNITY
SKINNER, B.F. Beyond Freedom & Dignity. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1971. Octavo, original brown cloth, original dust jacket.
First edition of Skinner's most controversial work, that made him "a magnet of controversy" to religious leaders and critics such as Noam Chomsky.
Skinner "fathered the experimental analysis of behavior in which an organism's behavior was studied in a controlled laboratory environment. In his theory of operant conditioning, Skinner held that behavior could be controlled by the skillful, systematic use of rewards—or positive reinforcers—to encourage desired responses" (Los Angeles Times). "Besides Freud, Skinner was the most famous and perhaps the most influential psychologist of the 20th century. But his own 'radical behaviorism'—the idea that behavior is caused solely by environmental factors, never by thoughts or feelings—made him a magnet of controversy, which grew even more intense with the publication of his best-known book, Beyond Freedom & Dignity" (Association for Psychological Science). Influenced by behaviorism's John B. Watson, Skinner argued that the "future of humanity depended on abandoning the concepts of individual freedom and dignity and engineering the human environment" (Harvard). To Noam Chomsky, Skinner says "nothing about freedom and dignity… his science of human behavior, being quite vacuous, is as congenial to the libertarian as to the fascist" (New York Review of Books). To others, Skinner's vital "influence as the paradigmatic behaviorist remains intact" (Stanford Encyclopedia). "First edition" on copyright page with no statement of printings. Owner signature.
A fine copy.