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  • I wish to extend a personal welcome here tonight

  • to professor Skinner

  • that has been in general agreement among humanists on most of the main principles

  • of the humanist philosophy

  • now proffesor skinner raises

  • an important point of disagreement with me and other humanists on the question of free choice

  • and determinism

  • I'm very greatful to him for bringing to the front pages

  • one of my favorite

  • philosophic issues

  • and this is gonna be something that will enliven humanist gatherings

  • for the next 50 years or so.

  • (crowd's laughing)

  • we're gonna have a dialouge on determinism and free choice

  • and it's gonna be good for the american humanist association

  • and good for the humanist movement

  • in general. thank you.

  • (crowd clapping)

  • Burrhus Frederic Skinner

  • was born in 1904

  • in a small railroad town in pennsylvania

  • he lived in the same house

  • not far from both sets of grandparents

  • until he went to college

  • and he went through 12 grades in the same public school

  • his family sent him to sunday

  • school that taught him to

  • fear god, the police

  • and what people will think.

  • he studied the piano and saxophone and played for the jazz band.

  • in his spare time

  • he explored the countryside

  • built all kinds of gadgets and tried to design a Perpetual motion machine

  • he majored in english literature at Hamilton College in New York

  • his father wanted him to study law

  • but agreed to let him try writing for a while.

  • his efforts were not successful and left him dissapointed in literature

  • but undecided about any other career

  • in college

  • he'd studyied biology

  • and a friend had told him science is the art of the 20th century

  • while working at greenwich village bookstore he read Pavlov

  • he read Watson

  • he read Watson and Bertrand Russel on Watson and turned to behavioristic psychology

  • he went to harvard for his Ph.D.

  • after teaching nine years at minnesota in three years as chairman of the department

  • of psychology in indiana he turned to harvard permanently

  • he lives in campridge with his wife Eve

  • in 1938

  • he published the behavior of organisms

  • based upon the doctoral research

  • that began his life work in the experimental analysis of behavior

  • going beyond pavlov

  • he studied the so called voluntary behavior

  • emphasizing the

  • measurement

  • of rates of response

  • and the effects of contingencies of reinforcement

  • with his method

  • which he called operant conditioning

  • others could repeat

  • and extand his experiments, and they did.

  • thirty years later, hundreds of laboratories are studying operant behavior

  • operant conditioning is used in studying the effects of drugs

  • training the mentally retarded

  • retraining psychotics and convicts

  • designing instructional devices and meterials

  • and in behavior modification therapy

  • skinner is the inventor of a teaching machine

  • the skinner box for laboratory studies of animal learning

  • and the air crib used by his daughter Debra

  • and thousands of babies since, including his daughter Julie's two babies.

  • his many articles and books include two best-sellers

  • the utopian novel

  • "Walden two", in 1948

  • and "Beyond Freedom and Dignity" in 1971

  • both stirred up debates over the apparent conflict

  • between skinner's behaviorism

  • and traditional humanism. a question skinner will address tonight.

  • he's recieved many honoraries, degrees and awards

  • in 1971 two more were added.

  • the Joseph P. Kennedy Foundation for memory tardation gave him their international

  • award

  • and the american psychological foundation

  • awarded him their gold medal for a distinguished record of scientific and scholarly

  • achievement

  • critics like to point out

  • how hard it is just to see how simple laws of learning could account for skinner's own

  • remarkable behavior

  • (crowd's laughing)

  • (crowd's laughing)

  • in his scientific

  • memoire

  • skinner has helpfully tried to praise some of the factors in his development.

  • from a chance early exposure to

  • the writings of francis bacon

  • to some performing pigeons he happened to see in the county fair. he admits though

  • that it's impossible to identify with any certainty all relevant variables

  • in past events. in his own case

  • the sources of his achievements are still mysterious and up to arouse admiration

  • I'm happy to present proffesor skinner

  • the humanist of the year award for 1972

  • thank you very much

  • I'm very happy to recieve this and it came

  • just in the right time

  • it is very reinforcing (crowd's laughing)... but I'm always

  • bothered about the contingencies. however, as many of you know.

  • I've

  • taken something of a beating from my critics for the past six or eight months

  • I have no doubt that

  • many eyebrows were raised when I

  • when this award was anounced and I dare to say

  • there were recent resignations from

  • the american humanist association

  • in consequence

  • but it's good for me

  • because I have I think felt

  • some of the criticism

  • and I take this to mean

  • that in general

  • the American Humanist Association is on my side.

  • Professor's Skinner's subject tonight is "Humanism and Behaviorism"

  • Professor Skinner (crowd's clapping)

  • there are 2 ways in which

  • one may try to know another person

  • one of them

  • is associated with existentialism,

  • phenomenology

  • and structuralism structuralism 130 00:07:52,360 --> 00:07:54,080 it's concerned with

  • what another person is

  • or if he's changing

  • what he is coming to be

  • or becoming

  • we try to know another person

  • in this sense

  • as we know ourselves

  • we

  • try through empathy or sympathy

  • to understand how another person feels

  • through intuition we try to discover

  • what he's thinking

  • we try to communicate with him in the

  • etymological sense

  • of making our feelings and ideas common

  • through both of us

  • we engage in a dialogue

  • we try to establish good interpersonal relations

  • this is a kind of passive

  • contemplative knowing about another person

  • if we're concerned with what he is going to do

  • we assume that

  • like ourselves

  • he will behave in a given way

  • because of what he is

  • his feelings or his states of mind will determine

  • his behavior

  • the other way is associated with

  • behaviorism

  • and it is a matter of

  • what another person

  • does

  • of this we can observe directly

  • without some special kind of

  • knowing

  • and what we try to explain

  • why a person behaves as he does

  • we look not at

  • his states of mind or feelings

  • but at what has happened

  • in the past

  • in 2 kinds of environments

  • the environment

  • in which the species evolved

  • over millions of years

  • which is

  • responsible for

  • the species as it now exist in what we call it genetic endowment

  • and in personal environment

  • of the individual

  • which modifies that personal

  • genetic endowment and converts

  • the biological organism

  • into a person

  • the organism with

  • the elaborate

  • behavioral reperoire

  • now you might ask whether

  • the behavioral account

  • is complete or whether

  • the existential account

  • isn't a necessarily supplement

  • after all

  • there are certain temporal and spatial gaps between

  • the environment

  • and the observed effects

  • on behavior

  • we recognize this when we talk about genetic endowment

  • the environment responsible for that has long since passed

  • and we take the current state of the individual

  • as a record of what happened at that time

  • why should we not do the same

  • for the history of the individual

  • we reinforce a person today

  • and we observe the change of his behavior tommorow

  • what has happened in between?

  • clearly we brought about a change in him when we reinforced his behavior

  • a change in what he is

  • we have modified that genetic endowment

  • and now call it something else

  • an omniscient physiologist will be able to tell us

  • all the details

  • he would see changes going on

  • in the organism when we reinforce

  • and he would be able to explain how that changed

  • organism

  • now behaves

  • in a different way

  • later

  • is not therefore the existentialist or the phenomenological account

  • a necessary

  • mediating

  • stage

  • in the

  • whole sequence

  • of environment

  • organism

  • and behavior?

  • a dualist would say no, because he would believe that states of mind and feelings exist in a different universe

  • but isn't it true

  • that when we have feelings

  • we are feeling conditions in our own bodies

  • and when we introspect

  • see our purposes, our intentions

  • our atitudes and so on...

  • we're also observing something about

  • about our bodies

  • which

  • are the things which are the product

  • of what has happened to us

  • the physiologist would be able then to give an account

  • of this

  • middle stage and

  • it could be argued that

  • through introspection or through ordinary feeling of our own bodies

  • we ourselves supply that missing link

  • but let's look at

  • how and why

  • we do

  • observe

  • our own bodies in this sense

  • there is no question that

  • each of us contains within his

  • skin, a part of the universe

  • it is not therefore different from any other part of the universe

  • but it is private

  • the person has direct

  • contact

  • with that part of the universe which is denied to anyone else

  • and the behaviorist never denies

  • that privacy

  • he simply raises questions

  • about how it can come

  • to be known

  • now we do have

  • nerves going to different parts of our

  • bodies

  • there are introseptive nervous systems which

  • are in contact with

  • conditions which arise in emotion

  • states of deprivation

  • which are very useful to the individual

  • there are other stimuli generated

  • by poscurent movement in the proprioceptive nervous system

  • without which

  • you can hardly behave

  • in a coordinated manner

  • and our exteroceptive nervous system the system that we use

  • with respect to the world around us

  • also figures in

  • self knowledge or awareness

  • but knowing

  • is more than simply responding to stimuli of that sort

  • a child responds to color

  • distinguishes between things

  • on the basis of color

  • before he knows his colors

  • he comes to know his colors

  • as verbal behavior

  • and that

  • and all of that come about

  • when

  • a social environment, a verbal community

  • reinforces some responses

  • and not others

  • and sets up the whole descriptive

  • repertoire with which the individual can

  • report the existence of a color

  • apart from

  • a practical

  • situation in which action is taken

  • now this

  • is true about

  • the conditions in our own bodies

  • and I had pointed out elsewhere

  • how difficult it is for

  • the verbal community community

  • to differentially reinforce correctly

  • the kinds of words we use in describing

  • what is going on when we have feelings

  • or states of mind

  • the community does not know

  • about these private conditions

  • and cannot

  • correctly reinforce

  • the behavior which is descriptive of them

  • so that we, all our

  • vocabulary in talking about ourselves

  • tends to be

  • imprecise, and of course

  • in trying to know about another person

  • our repertoire is even less

  • precise

  • but there is a much more important point

  • what can we know

  • about our bodies when we are *noise*

  • of what we are doing

  • we can

  • know

  • what we are in contact with

  • through

  • nervous systems which have arisen

  • for practical purposes

  • which have evolved in the evolution of the species for the sake of coordinated

  • action

  • and the

  • internal economy

  • of a person's body

  • but the kinds of reports

  • with the verbal environment

  • might want us to make

  • depend upon

  • or should depend upon systems which are actually

  • not available

  • the new contingencies, the social contingencies have existed for far too short

  • a period of time

  • to be

  • effective

  • in evolution. we have not had the time to evolve with the kinds of nervous

  • systems we would like

  • in order to answer the questions that people throw past

  • for they ask only those questions

  • for which they can get answers

  • such things as

  • "do you see that?", "can you hear that?", "did you see it?" , "did you hear it?" and so on...

  • and we answer those questions by reporting

  • on the activity of our sense organs with respect to the external environment

  • they ask "are you hungry?", "are you angry?" and so on, and we can

  • answer those questions

  • rather inaccurately

  • in terms of states of our bodies which are associated

  • with these conditions

  • they can ask

  • "do you want to go?", "shall we go?"

  • "do you like that?"

  • "are you interested in going?" and so on...

  • and these are questions concerned with the probability

  • of behavior

  • and we can answer that in terms of available

  • nervous systems

  • we can observe our own tendencies to behave

  • and we can report

  • a stimuli that we have received

  • but all such questions

  • are about stimuli and responses. they are not about

  • the mediating processes in the nervous system

  • which the omniscient physiologist

  • will eventually come into contact with

  • what we

  • observe when we have feelings

  • and introspect

  • are actually a rather miscellaneous set

  • of by-products

  • of

  • the environmental circumstances

  • to which our behavior is related

  • our feelings are not the causes of our behavior

  • our intentions, our intonations are not causes, our purposes are not causes

  • they are by-products

  • and rather

  • miscellaneous ones at that

  • they are certainly not the mediating stage between

  • the environment

  • and the behavior which is a function of it

  • or do I really mean to say

  • that plato's discovery of the mind didn't amount to much?

  • or that Acquines (Thomas Aquinas)

  • or Lock (John Lock)

  • or Descartes (René Descartes)

  • or Kant (Immanuel Kant) had nothing much on the ball?

  • or that introspective psychology

  • was

  • not really concerned with the mind or that James (William James) or Freud (Sigmund Freud)

  • were not really talking about things that are important

  • with respect to

  • our mental life, our inclinations to behave? yes, I'm inclined to say,

  • all of that

  • is really a waste of time

  • but if that is the case

  • why have people spent so much time on it?

  • I think there are good answers to that

  • these are things we feel

  • in our own bodies when we are

  • behaving or about to behave

  • are quite salient

  • they're here and now

  • whereas our environmental histories

  • are past

  • history

  • they've happened

  • we could not observe much of them

  • we probably did not observe much

  • and we have forgotten

  • much of what we observed

  • so if someone asks you something about why you were going to do something

  • it's very easy for you to report on the current state of your body

  • it's very hard for you

  • to tell them what happened to you

  • which is related to

  • the behavior

  • moreover

  • these internal states occur in a time and place

  • which would be quite plausably thought of as the time and place

  • for causes

  • we often think of something to do before we do it

  • it looks as if our thinking

  • was a kind of cause of action

  • we are said to have

  • ideas before we express them

  • we are inclined to do something before we actually do it

  • now this is an actual

  • temporal connection

  • upon some occasion but not all

  • most the time when we're talking we don't actually

  • say it to ourselves before we say it aloud

  • the behavior just occurs to us

  • and when it

  • doesn't, and when it occurs to us silently first, it is still nothing but behavior.

  • it is not a prior cause of the behavior

  • moreover, this privacy plus

  • our neglect

  • of the causal circumstances in our past history

  • leads to the notion that there is somehow or other

  • a seperate, controlling, internal self

  • people would say "yes, but

  • there is an I. an I who knows what I'm going to do next"

  • and that is true, the I that knows what it's going to do next

  • is the organism up to that point

  • with all his

  • history up to that point

  • but that isn't enough for most people. they want the internal agent

  • to be making decisions

  • making choices, willing to act and so on...

  • now that is correct to say, I think

  • that we make choices in that sense

  • or decide to act, or act

  • if we are talking about the whole organism

  • I don't mean to imply that there is any freedom even so

  • but there is

  • an origination

  • something starts at a given point

  • so far as we are concerned, we see ourselves engaging in behavior

  • and we're likely to neglect

  • the reasons why we do so

  • there is no true inner direction

  • no true initiation

  • or origination

  • well, people will then point to

  • noble behavior, and say: "what about that?"

  • "how can you explain creative behavior?"

  • "how can you explain the fact that the child

  • begins to emit sentences

  • that he has never heard

  • and has never spoken before?"

  • and could not have been taught to say on any stimulus response model?"

  • well, the answer to that is

  • I'm not talking about a stimulus response model

  • I'm talking about

  • operant conditioning

  • which is a matter of

  • selection

  • by consequences

  • and the very same issue of creation or creativity

  • came up in the very similar

  • set of circumstances about a hundred and some years ago.

  • this was the theory of evolution.

  • prior to darwin

  • you could point to the

  • millions of different creatures alive on the surface of the earth

  • as evidence of a creative mind

  • someone

  • in advance

  • had a design, a plan

  • and constructed creatures accordingly

  • Darwin moved the creativity

  • to after the fact

  • through the selection of

  • mutations

  • an operant conditioning is a matter of a selection

  • of forms of behavior

  • through contingencies

  • of reinforcement

  • where Darwin was talking about contingencies of survival

  • and in the same way we can

  • demonstrate the

  • likelihood that original forms of behavior will occur and

  • we must therefore

  • displace once again

  • the notion of a creative

  • mind

  • I'm rather curious

  • that we allowed a creative Mind with a capital M

  • to go by the board

  • but we're still fighting desperately

  • to defend and maintain the doctrine

  • that each of us possesses

  • his own

  • creative mind

  • which is responsible for his behavior

  • the behavioral analysis

  • does handle the kinds of behavior which are attributed to the self

  • and it handles the behavior which is attributed to multiple selves

  • because what is involved here is simply the contingencies of reinforcement

  • which shape repertoires

  • of behavior

  • by shifting to the environment however, something happens to the notion of a self

  • and it is thought that the behavioristic analysis

  • is somehow or other

  • destroying

  • man qua man

  • or dehumanizing man

  • taking out of the individual

  • something that we have regarded as

  • essentially human

  • as I pointed out elsewhere

  • a scientific analysis does not dehumanize man

  • it de-homunculizes him. the homunculus was a medieval expression

  • where a little man

  • inside

  • could do all of this kind of thing

  • and ran the body

  • from a position of an internal director of some kind

  • it is true that a behavioristic analysis treats man as an

  • object, is an

  • object

  • a biological object, an organism. but,

  • an extraordinary complex one

  • which can aquire that extremely

  • subtle repertoire of behavior

  • which can put

  • an object, an organism into a person

  • now, when you say that

  • when you talk about man

  • as an object, is sounds as if

  • you are giving up

  • the whole question of values and there have been

  • criticisms

  • that behaviorism pretends to be

  • a value-free science

  • and yet the human situation today demands a science

  • which is full of values

  • which takes the human condition

  • today as it's important object, that there cannot be

  • value free

  • well I think that that situation is not too complex

  • an experimental analysis of behavior

  • can be value-free. you can

  • set up experiments, carry them up and get results

  • without making any judgement about what is good for

  • you as an experimenter or the organism or people in general or what use you will make with the results

  • but a technology of behavior

  • derived from

  • that laboratory work

  • must take

  • values into account. it must

  • look at what

  • is happening when

  • it is being applied

  • and unlike behavioral technologies it has built into it the very

  • means are taking that kind

  • of value judgements

  • Values can be studied

  • they are aspects of human behaviors

  • the things people call good

  • are not good because they feel good or taste good or look good

  • they are good because of the human genetic endowment

  • people call things good not because

  • they feel good

  • or look good but because it was important to the human race

  • that things be reinforcing during the evolution of the species. At one time it was extremely important

  • that man and women

  • be reinforced

  • by certain kinds of food stuffs in the mouth

  • because they were nutritious,

  • sweet, and salt and so on... and these things

  • were in short supply and it was important to remember where you found such a thing or how to catch such a thing

  • but these things under came extremely reinforcing

  • it was important that sexual contact be reinforcing because until fairly recently

  • when the human population were decimated with pests and famine, it was important

  • that people breed at every opportunity

  • and so we have an enormous capacity to be reinforced by sexual contact

  • sure, it feels good but it isn't

  • reinforcing because it feels good, it feels good because it's reinforcing

  • then people create

  • people create reinforcers

  • in order to induce others

  • to behave, to reinforce them. the social goods: approval, affection, attention and so on...

  • we can study how this is done

  • how it arises and

  • we can also look at those social contingencies

  • which are used

  • to prevent people from mistreating others

  • there was a recent conference in new york

  • a confrontation between humanists and catholics in which the old issue of

  • of conscious was debated

  • and there was a tendency

  • to argue what the

  • that conscious begins as somekind of feeling of right

  • and wrong. and I, to my dismay I found

  • that people

  • in the

  • conference

  • were unwilling to look beyond these

  • feelings

  • that you start

  • with a feeling that said that things were right or wrong

  • I want to look at the

  • sanctions, the punitive sanctions that people

  • impose upon each other

  • to keep them behaving well with respect to each other

  • in a symposium at the Kennedy

  • Foundation I argued that

  • the five rate

  • classical examples of the misty-hood(?!) of people

  • can be analysed as one

  • small children

  • orphanages at the schools that charles dickens described

  • old people at homes,

  • prisoners

  • psychotics and the retarded

  • these have for hundreds of years

  • been

  • the archetypal patterns of mistreatment of human beings

  • and to say:

  • "well that must be because those in

  • these places lacked compassion or

  • benevolence or had no conscience"

  • you're quite wrong. they

  • were mistreated because they cannot fight back

  • it's as simple as that. children that are too small and old people are too weak

  • prisoners have to fight against guidance

  • psychotics and retarded can't organize and can't act skillfully if they did organize

  • the reason mistreatment occurs is not

  • a lack of conscience on anyone's part

  • it's a lack of counter-control, a lack of sanctions imposed by

  • other people

  • to make sure that they will not be mistreated. here again

  • here again, you are

  • trying to put into

  • the inner man, the sense of benevolence or conscience

  • something which can be taken out and analysed in terms of

  • external sanctions. now this

  • in particular in the case

  • whether on conflicting

  • values and these are reducible

  • to conflicting contingencies of reinforcement and punishment

  • the science of behavior

  • could almost be called the science of values

  • we're concerned with their affects

  • ethics and morals are mainly a matter of

  • of the conflicts which arise when

  • immediate consequences conflict with deferred consequences

  • how do you forego

  • that pleasure now for the sake of a greater good or to avoide ultimate

  • punishment

  • or how do you take that punishment now

  • for the sake of a remote good and so on... these are

  • characteristic patterns. they can all be studied experimentally

  • and they are fundemental issues with respect

  • to values. so the science of behavior

  • far from

  • neglecting values

  • is so far as I can see

  • the only direct approach to understanding what they're all about

  • now that's a special kind of value

  • which has nothing to do with the individual

  • or with the good of others in the sense of the greatest ??? and the greatest number

  • it has to do with the survival of the culture

  • or ultimately

  • with the survival

  • of the human race

  • a culture is nothing more than a social environment

  • and in it people acquire

  • much of their behavioral repertoires

  • the strength of a culture

  • in solving it's problems

  • will depend upon the behvior it encourages and sets up

  • in it's members

  • a culture which

  • induces it's members to behave

  • in effective ways

  • will be a stronger culture

  • and practices

  • then survive with the culture, with the people who practice them

  • this is a kind of evolution, very much like the darwinian

  • evolution,

  • very much like operant conditioning. it is a matter again

  • of selection by consequences

  • it does not require

  • a prior design

  • or intention or

  • purpose

  • purposes move to the consequences

  • until recently this was all a process

  • of evolution

  • under contingencies of survival

  • cultures would get upon

  • new ways of doing things, new ways of organizing families or raising children

  • or paying wages or collecting taxes and so on...

  • some of these work

  • and the culture would better all because of that and culture survived and the practice survived

  • some of them did not.

  • there is a kind of

  • evolution going on

  • at the present time. our practices

  • are being tested

  • and whether this culture is here

  • tomorrow

  • will depend on whether

  • we are actually now applying the best possible set

  • of practices

  • however we have also reached a point

  • in which we can design

  • a culture to make it more effective

  • the geneticists are already talking about redesigning the human genetic endowment

  • we can redesign

  • the behavior of an individual by changing

  • the contingencies of reinforcement out of which he lives

  • and we can to some extent

  • redesign a culture. so that we can set up new practices

  • decide that there are better ways of doing things than the way we're doing it now

  • and try them out

  • so that

  • it is possible, not simply to allow

  • the evolution of culture to proceed

  • but to interfere, do something about it and accelerate the process

  • and that will be done

  • by those people whom the culture has induced

  • to take an interest in it's future

  • we're not all born interested in whether our culture survives or not

  • it has to be done by specific devices, ways in which the culture

  • induces it's members

  • to take it's future into account

  • it's usually done with rather jingoistic devices

  • Rome convinced romans that it was sweet and better to die for Rome

  • it was great for Rome but not very good for the Romans

  • the church made martyrdom

  • a great

  • heaven was

  • contingent upon martyrdom, people were seeking martyrdom at one stage

  • then it was great for the church but not so good for the martyrs

  • and those are techniques which have been

  • worked out from time to time. how

  • are we

  • to get

  • the individual

  • to take an interest

  • not only in his own culture

  • in a jingoistic sense

  • but in the ultimate good of

  • mankind

  • as a whole?

  • this is a problem which calls for a very careful analysis

  • of reasons why people behave as they do

  • and ways in which

  • cultures can induce people to behave

  • in different way

  • so it has to be

  • done by any

  • prior design. it can be an accidental process.

  • once the stage has been reached in which we can begin to design then

  • something else

  • arises and I think this is

  • a natural place

  • for a humanistic activity

  • a humanist seems to me to be one of those

  • who the culture has

  • made him interested

  • in his future

  • and I don't mean a jingoistic future

  • of a given culture, I mean

  • the future of mankind. To take

  • mankind

  • into account

  • only if you are induced to do so

  • we've just

  • reached that stage

  • in cultures where people do this

  • we are very bad at doing it now. We do not induce

  • very many people to take the future

  • their own way of life into account, let alone the future

  • of the human race

  • but it is something which can be done. It will not be done by changing people

  • that is a genetic problem and the geneticists are not yet up to it

  • it is done by changing the world in which people live

  • to produce a better culture in a sense of a better environment which will generate much more

  • effective behavior

  • in those living in

  • the culture

  • now there is here a strong contrast between this

  • kind of contribution which I believe a behavioral analysis

  • can make

  • and another movement which has turned up

  • recently in psychology in America

  • called Humanistic psychology

  • I resent this appropriation of the word Humanistic and I want to tell you

  • why

  • this is often referred to as a third

  • force

  • meaning something in addition to behaviorism

  • and psychoanalysis

  • but third must not be

  • supposed to mean advanced

  • nor to force

  • be supposed to mean power

  • ...

  • Behaviorism and Psychoanalysis are both deterministic systems, Freud was a determinist

  • a Humanistic Psychology therefore emphasizes autonomous man

  • man is going to transcend

  • his environment, transcend the genetic endowment

  • man is going to determine what stimuli will get through to him and what

  • he's going to leave out and all of this

  • the word Autonomy sums it up

  • the humanist is interested in autonomous man

  • now

  • the movement is of course

  • most

  • intimately at home

  • with existentialism, phenomenology and structuralism

  • what a person is, is

  • what the humanistic psychologist is concerned with

  • actually, it seems to me this is a throwback

  • it's returning to a very early attitude toward human behavior

  • before anything was known

  • about the role of the environment

  • in a determination of

  • conduct.

  • moreover, since

  • it doesn't neglect the environment, I think it poses a real threat

  • Maslow's term which is the

  • dominating principle

  • in humanistic psychology

  • is self actualization

  • self fulfillment

  • the individual is to

  • grow

  • to develop

  • and to achieve all that he's capable of achieving

  • but why is this emphasis on self?

  • isn't that really the selfish view?

  • you can seek

  • political

  • religious

  • economic freedom as your goal

  • and you will if

  • you are wise, strengthen the individual

  • against

  • the despotic

  • control in those areas

  • that has been the history of the struggle for freedom

  • you convince the individual

  • that he is the

  • source of the power used to

  • govern him

  • that he's being governed by his consent

  • you convince the worker that he is producing the very wealth that you use

  • to pay him wages and so on...

  • this is all really good

  • but it can go too far

  • it can lead to

  • the aggrandizement of the individual which in turn then breeds a new kind of despotism

  • for example

  • the American right of the individual to acquire vast sums of money which he can then use

  • entirely in his own interests

  • is a type

  • of tyranny

  • arising from

  • the notion of the rights of the individual and individual freedom

  • and the Hindu's concern for personal growth is

  • a struggle for

  • of the spirit to approach some

  • remote

  • goal

  • this has lead to

  • a social chaos which is evident enough to anyone who visits india

  • these are exaggerations of the importance of the individual

  • which in the long run

  • do not solve the original problem for which the individual was strengthened

  • but indeed

  • work against him

  • behaviorism and I believe humanism,

  • should be concerned with the aggrandizement of mankind

  • not for any individual member

  • behaviorism had already demonstrated power

  • to do the kinds of things that we all know should be done

  • is has made important contributions

  • in psychotherapy, in the care of the retarded

  • as Dr. Bridgman(??)

  • said

  • it had made differences in child care and

  • education

  • the incentive systems

  • in ??? reform and so on...

  • these are genuine achievements at the present time

  • they're not

  • all I would like to see and that's my complaint

  • think there are reasons why these things are not developing more rapidly and the

  • reasons are just of the kinds I'm talking about tonight.

  • but there's no doubt that behavioral analysis

  • is working.

  • it is taking mankind

  • ??? by ???

  • group by group

  • into account

  • and doing something about it

  • this is not a concern for

  • individual gratification

  • or even just for the good of others in the sense of the greatest ??? or the

  • greatest number

  • is the concern

  • with

  • mankind as a whole

  • to the design of the most effective environment

  • to bring out all that man is capable of

  • it emphasizes the environment of course

  • and throw new light on it

  • and on the evolution of cultures

  • it is a new technology

  • for doing something about the human condition

  • not to aggrandize any individual

  • but to build a kind of world

  • in which every individual

  • can develop

  • to the fullest extent of

  • his

  • genetic endowment

  • which at present time

  • never realized

  • into a very small fraction of it's actual worth

  • none of one looks at the world today knows a great deal of these to be done

  • we are threatened

  • by problems which

  • are no longer

  • a concern to any one group

  • any one nation, any one social system, any one culture

  • anyone economic system

  • a nuclear holocaust

  • the exhaustion of resources in the world

  • pollution of the environment. All of this

  • going back to

  • overpopulation

  • these are the things which

  • need to be done

  • they're not going to be done by philosophers which merely speak

  • of the actualization of the individual. They are going to

  • be concerned

  • not with the kind of knowing

  • which comes about

  • in a face to face effort, sympathize with, empathize with

  • intuitive

  • feelings of another person

  • they will be

  • these problems will be met

  • and I think they're best to be solved

  • by the second way of knowing

  • by emphasis on what

  • people do

  • and the reasons why they do that

  • there's a great deal to be done

  • it seems to me

  • that man is the major of all things

  • we are all concerned for man

  • an this means

  • man in general, mankind

  • other than any individual. And if we

  • hope to make the kinds of changes which need to be made

  • a notion ???? now. We need all

  • can possibly learn about

  • human behavior

  • and that has

  • a background of behaviors of other species but eventually of course, no one is interested

  • in pigeons or rats

  • the human organism which is important and it is that organism

  • which is

  • going to be changed by

  • constructing

  • of a different kind of world

  • this seems to me to be

  • a program

  • which is at the very heart of humanism

  • it seems to me to be a

  • actually

  • a program of a behavioristic analysis

  • and I

  • welcome this opportunity

  • to quite demonstrate to you

  • that behaviorism is

  • a humanistic psychology

  • Thank you very much

  • this program was produced by KPFA. Pacific radio in northern 00:47:20,069 --> 00:47:24,339 California and distributed by pacific program service in Berkeley

  • all rights are reserved

I wish to extend a personal welcome here tonight

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