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B. F. Skinner: Gnostic Pneumopath or Educator Extraordinaire?

He knew in advance what O’Brien would say. That the Party did not seek power for its own ends, but only for the good of the majority. That it sought power because men in the mass were frail cowardly creatures who could not endure liberty or face the truth, and must be ruled over and systematically deceived by others who were stronger than themselves. That the choice for mankind lay between freedom and happiness, and that, for the great bulk of mankind, happiness was better.

-George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four

 

There is no knowledge that could supply them with bread as long as they remain free. So, in the end, they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us: “Enslave us, but feed us!” And they will finally understand that freedom and the assurance of daily bread for everyone are two incompatible notions that could never co-exist! They will also discover that men can never be free because they are weak, corrupt, worthless, and restless.

-Fyodor Dostoevsky, “The Grand Inquisitor,” in The Brothers Karamazov

 

Introduction

This study pursues the questions, “What conception of human nature is presented in B. F. Skinner’s educational theory of behaviorism? Is this understanding of human nature adequate, and what are the implications of such an understanding?” The use of incentives, disincentives, and punishments has always played an important role in education. Educational theorists have long recognized that human beings are motivated a great deal by goods for their consequences.[1] Naturally, teachers are attracted to Skinner’s theory of behaviorism, which attempts in a systematic way to demonstrate the power of positive and negative reinforcements, as well as punishment to assist in the education of students. However, Skinner’s theory of behaviorism, while recognizing that goods may be desired for their consequences, denies that goods may properly be desired for themselves apart from their consequences, or that goods may be desired both for themselves and for their consequences. These denials arise out of Skinner’s theory of human nature, which is deterministic and positivistic.

If it is found that Skinner’s behavioral theory misrepresents human nature, then what are the effects of this misrepresentation in practice? This article endeavors to render accurately Skinner’s theory of human nature, and to evaluate its content through philosophical inquiry. It is argued that the denial of freedom in favor of complete determinism that is made explicit in Skinner’s behaviorism, if it is practically applied by teachers in the classroom, could lead to an inability to distinguish between goods or appropriate courses of action among students. Skinner’s determinism focuses upon the results of actions and the benefits or consequences of goods, but dismisses inquiry into “the good” as a “mentalistic” error. Application of an educational ideology that does not recognize freedom of thought, but sees only determinism in action can result in students learning to judge matters merely by their effects: means may be made uncritically subordinate to ends, and inquiry into the “good” of any particular means, end, or subject of inquiry is effectively prohibited where all investigation of “substance” rather than “phenomena” is dismissed as mentalistic error.[2] This study is pertinent to the practice of teachers insofar as it examines to what extent Skinner’s theory helps us understand the nature of teaching and education, and to what extent his theory serves to deceive us about the nature of teaching and education.

The argumentation in this article follows a dialectical form. Having first rendered accurately Skinner’s theory of behaviorism, I proceed to evaluate this theory by drawing upon the insights of the political philosopher Eric Voegelin concerning gnosticism, positivism, and pneumopathology. Is Voegelin’s critique of positivism as a gnostic pneumopathology legitimately applied to Skinner’s behaviorism? Having applied Voegelin’s insights about positivism to Skinner’s behaviourism as an evaluative tool, I offer some critical judgements of Skinner’s theory and its implications for educational practice.

I. Skinner’s Behavioralism

1. Skinner’s Concerns

B.F. Skinner’s project of behaviorism arises from his concerns about our failure to deal with world problems such as overpopulation, environmental degradation, poverty, injustice, war, and the threat of nuclear annihilation. Skinner writes:

“In trying to solve the terrifying problems that face us in the world today, we naturally turn to the things we do best. We play from strength, and our strength is science and technology. To contain a population explosion we look for better methods of birth control. Threatened by nuclear holocaust, we build bigger deterrent forces and anti-ballistic-missile systems. We try to stave off world famine with new foods and better ways of growing them. Improved sanitation and medicine will, we hope, control disease, better housing and transportation will solve the problems of the ghettos, and new ways of reducing or disposing of waste will stop the pollution of the environment. We can point to remarkable achievements in all these fields, and it is not surprising that we should try to extend them. But things grow steadily worse, and it is disheartening to find that technology itself is increasingly at fault. Sanitation and medicine have made the problems of population more acute, war has acquired a new horror with the invention of nuclear weapons, and the affluent pursuit of happiness is largely responsible for pollution… every new source from which man has increased his power on the earth has been used to diminish the prospects of his successors. All his progress has been made at the expense of damage to his environment which he cannot repair and could not foresee.”[3]

Skinner’s proposal for a science and technology of human behavior stems from his conviction that human beings have failed properly to take responsibility for these problems because we have fundamentally misunderstood our own nature. “The major problems facing the world today can be solved only if we improve our understanding of human behavior.” In so doing, we must, claims Skinner, reject “traditional views” since “it is fair to say that they have proved to be inadequate.”[4] Moreover, the current state of science and technology will not suffice; “we need to make vast changes in human behaviour, and we cannot make them with the help of nothing more than physics or biology.” In order to address world problems, “[w]hat we need is a technology of behavior.”[5]

2. Skinner’s Attack on the Traditions of “Mentalism”

That Skinner’s criticism of philosophic, religious, and traditional understandings of human nature as “mentalism” is meant to provoke, challenge, and attack is clearly evinced by the title of his book, Beyond Freedom and Dignity. In his writings, Skinner seeks to undermine all our preconceptions and understanding about human freedom and what makes us dignified. He begins this work with a dismissal of two and a half millennia of reflection on human nature:

“Twenty-five hundred years ago it might have been said that man understood himself as well as any other part of his world. Today he is the thing he understands least. Physics and biology have come a long way, but there has been no comparable development of anything like a science of human behavior. Greek physics and biology are now of historical interest only . . .  but the dialogues of Plato are still assigned to students and cited as if they threw light on human behavior. Aristotle could not have understood a page of modern physics or biology, but Socrates and his friends would have little trouble in following most current discussions of human affairs. And as to technology, we have made immense strides in controlling the physical and biological worlds, but our practices in government, education, and much of economics, though adapted to very different conditions, have not greatly improved.”

“We can scarcely explain this by saying that the Greeks knew all there was to know about human behavior. Certainly they knew more than they knew about the physical world, but it was still not much. Moreover, their way of thinking about human behavior must have had some fatal flaw. Whereas Greek physics and biology, no matter how crude, led eventually to modern science, Greek theories of human behavior led nowhere. If they are with us today, it is not because they possessed some kind of eternal verity, but because they did not contain the seeds of anything better.”[6]

Skinner’s fundamental criticism of Greek thought, apart from what he considers its “pre-scientific” crudity and stagnancy, is that the Greeks ostensibly misunderstood causality and consequently developed an erroneous, “mentalistic” conception of human freedom.

Skinner attacks all previous psychology and philosophy as “mentalism” on the grounds that it posits the existence of a non-physical entity known as “mind” that freely causes behavior. He speculates briefly about the genesis of this “misconception” in Greek metaphysics and psychology, and he suggests that the Greeks drew their “daimonic” conception of causality from observations of their own behavior: they first noticed that things moved because they moved them. Next, they supposed that if other things moved it was because someone else was moving them, “and if the mover could not be seen, it was because he was invisible.”[7] Gods were invented as explanations for the causes of physical phenomena, as well as to explain situations of “possession” where something god-like appeared to move human or non-human nature. By extension, the human soul or psyche was also an invention of the Greeks, much akin to the invention of gods, insofar as the soul can be understood as an invisible animating principle. Comparing his own theory to all forerunners, Skinner writes:

It is often said that a science of behavior studies the human organism but neglects the person or self. What it neglects is a vestige of animism, a doctrine which in its crudest form held that the body was moved by one or more indwelling spirits. When the resulting behavior was disruptive, the spirit was probably a devil; when it was creative, it was a guiding genius or muse. Traces of the doctrine survive when we speak of a personality, of an ego in ego psychology, of an I who says he knows what he is going to do and uses his body to do it, or of the role a person plays as a persona in a drama, wearing his body as a costume.[8]

Having offered this articulation of mentalistic psychology as “animism,” Skinner emphatically states that “intelligent people no longer believe that men are possessed by demons,”[9] and that “we cannot take that line today.”[10] His dismissal of Greek science and psychology rests, in part, upon his judgement of its crudity, and in part upon his view that it falls prey to the problem of metaphysical dualism – “the problem of getting from one kind of stuff to another,” as he puts it.[11] The problem of dualism arises from the difficulty of understanding how a non-physical entity can affect a physical one, and vice-versa. In classic Cartesian terms, how can a “thinking substance” (res cogitans) affect an “extended substance” (res extensa)? How is it that the mind chooses what the body will do, and operates the body like a ghost in a machine? Skinner is familiar with the metaphysical conundrums associated with this dilemma; he decides that the problem of dualism is inherently fatal for all notions of mind and free will. “By attempting to move human behavior into a world of non-physical dimensions, mentalistic or cognitive psychologists have cast the basic issues in insoluble forms.”[12] In Skinner’s view, all mentalistic discussions of the soul, the mind, or the free will of human beings are dualistic folly. He writes, “The argonauts of the psyche have for centuries sailed the stormy seas of the mind, never in sight of their goal, revising their charts from time to time in the light of what seemed like new information, less and less sure of their way home, hopelessly lost. They have failed to find the Golden Fleece.”[13] The inventions of the mind and freedom of the will are understood by Skinner to be the primary misconceptions of the “mentalistic tradition.”

The mind and psyche are, in Skinner’s view, ill-conceived metaphors for a kind of behavior. “The psyche, like the mind, is a metaphor which is made plausible by the seeming relevance of what a person feels or introspectively observes but which is destined to remain forever in the depths.”[14] In this regard, mentalism leaves the true sources for behavior undiscovered by defining them in the false terms of the life of the mind. Mental life and the world in which it is lived are, in Skinner’s estimation, inventions: “They have been invented on the analogy of external behavior occurring under external contingencies.” If external phenomena are caused by external contingencies, therefore internal phenomena must occur under internal contingencies – mind is posited as such an internal cause. However, for Skinner, “thinking is behaving. The mistake is in allocating the behavior to the mind.”[15] Just as in the external world, where environmental contingencies affect phenomena, so too is thinking conditioned by such contingencies, not the mind. Thinking, according to this behavioral understanding, “is the product of contingencies of reinforcement; it is what happens when, in a given environmental setting, behavior has certain kinds of consequences.”[16] Thinking is, in this regard, as much a product of environmental contingencies as a tree falling in a windstorm; “it is always the environment which builds the behavior with which problems are solved, even when the problems are to be found in the private world inside the skin . . . the appeal to mind explains nothing at all.”[17]

In attacking mentalism, Skinner wants to eradicate the erroneous conception of the “autonomous man” who freely wills his choices and his behaviour. In Skinner’s view, this man – “the inner man, the homunculus, the possessing demon, the man defended by the literatures of freedom and dignity” – must be put to death:

“His abolition has long been overdue. Autonomous man is a device used to explain what we cannot explain in any other way. He has been constructed from our ignorance, and as our understanding increases, the very stuff of which he is composed vanishes. Science does not dehumanize man, it de-homunculizes him, and it must do so if it is to prevent the abolition of the human species. To man qua man we readily say good riddance. Only by dispossessing him can we turn to the real causes of human behaviour. Only then can we turn from the inferred to the observed, from the miraculous to the natural, from the inaccessible to the manipulable.”[18]

Quite clearly, Skinner seeks to replace “autonomous man” with “scientific man” – a new conception of human nature that is wholly within the range of human knowledge and malleable through the technological manipulations of a behavioral science.

3. Skinner’s Determinism as the Basis for a Science and Technology of Behaviour

“For twenty-five hundred years,” Skinner writes, “people have been preoccupied with feelings and mental life, but only recently has any interest been shown in a more precise analysis of the role of the environment.”[19] The stress on “environmental contingencies” in Skinner’s behaviorism stems from his particular understanding of the human being as a small universe, or microcosmos. In his view, “A small part of the universe is contained within the skin of each of us. There is no reason why it should have any special physical status because it lies within this boundary, and eventually we should have a complete account of it from anatomy and physiology.”[20] Skinner admits that “it would be foolish to deny the existence of a private world,” or an inner world within the skin. However, because human being and the make-up of the universe are essentially the same, “it is also foolish to assert that because it is private it is of a different nature from the world outside.”[21] By Skinner’s logic, if the universe external to human beings lacks free will or mind, then it is absurd to suppose that human beings, as microcosmoi, possess mind or freedom. By the same logic, if the rest of the universe operates according to physical laws that can be revealed through scientific investigation and manipulated by means of technology, then the microcosmic behaviour of human beings too should be understandable according to similar scientific laws, and manipulable according to a technology of behavior.

In its denial of freedom, Skinner’s theory of behaviorism becomes wholly deterministic. “Personal exemption from a complete determinism is revoked as a scientific analysis progresses, particularly in accounting for the behavior of the individual.”[22] A scientific analysis of behavior, in Skinner’s view, “must assume that a person is controlled by his genetic and environmental histories rather than by the person himself as an initiating, creative agent.”[23] According to such a theory, all things that occur – human thoughts and actions included – lack any intrinsic quality of freedom, but are rather the results of genetic and environmental contingencies that have arisen through the ages and have culminated in the present situation. In dramatic form, Skinner suggests that his determinism resembles older understandings of pre-destination. T.E. Frazier, the behavioral psychologist and founder of the utopian society depicted in Skinner’s book, Walden Two, discusses this similarity with his interlocutors:

Doesn’t he [the character named Castle] know he’s merely raising the old question of predestination and fee will? All that happens is contained in an original plan, yet at every stage the individual seems to be making choices and determining the outcome. The same is true of Walden Two [the name of their utopian community]. Our members are practically always doing what they want to do – what they “choose” to do – but we see to it that they will want to do precisely the things which are best for themselves and the community. Their behavior is determined, yet they’re free.[24] Charged with defending Skinner’s position on “personal freedom,” Frazier states emphatically, “My answer is simple enough . . .  I deny that freedom exists at all. I must deny it – or my program would be absurd.”[25]

4. The Connection between Evolutionary Theory and Skinner’s Behaviourism

Skinner renders this “program” of behaviorism as follows:

“A behavioristic analysis rests on the following assumptions: A person is first of all an organism, a member of a species and a subspecies, possessing a genetic endowment of anatomical and physiological characteristics, which are the product of the contingencies of survival to which the species has been exposed in the process of evolution. The organism becomes a person as it acquires a repertoire of behaviour under the contingencies of survival to which it is exposed during its lifetime. The behavior it exhibits at any moment is under the control of a current setting. It is able to acquire such a repertoire under such control because of processes of conditioning which are also part of its genetic endowment.”[26]

Human beings are not in this description distinguished from other organisms by their freedom. Indeed, as products of genetics, environmental contingencies, and evolution, they, like other organisms, entirely lack freedom. All of their behaviour results from a “repertoire” of responses that is determined according to a unique set of genetic and environmental contingencies.

According to Skinner’s behavioral theory, a personal “self,” human or otherwise, is “a repertoire of behavior appropriate to a given set of contingencies.”[27] The uniqueness of each “repertoire” constitutes the particular “self” that is peculiar to each person. However, not all “selves” respond appropriately to environmental contingencies; many individual human beings, as well as many societies, are divided by conflicting repertoires that do not generate strong or effective behavior. A “sick society,” like a sick person, is a set of contingencies which generate disparate or conflicting behaviors suggesting more than one self, which does not generate the strong behavior with which a feeling of competence is associated, which fails to generate successful social behavior and hence leads a person to call the behavior of others betrayal, and which, supplying only infrequent reinforcement, generates the condition felt as despair.[28]

When the repertoire of behaviors that composes either an individual or a society offers inappropriate or conflicting responses to environmental contingencies, such behaviors may fail to secure, or even threaten, the survival of the species. The fundamental problem at the heart of Skinner’s behavioral psychology is therefore how to generate an effective response to any given environmental contingency. Given the deterministic understanding of human and non-human nature that lies at the heart of Skinner’s behaviorism, it seems fruitless to discuss any course of action, since all courses of action inherently lack alternatives. Nevertheless, Skinner side-steps this difficulty in his wish to develop a science and technology that is firmly grounded in determinism; he hopes that these might improve the ability of human beings to respond effectively to the world concerns enumerated above which threaten the continued survival and propagation of the human race. He attempts to lend credence to his behavioral theory by associating it with Darwinian evolutionary theory. Because “survival may be said to be contingent upon certain kinds of behavior,” the “environmental contingencies” that determine all human behavior thereby become “contingencies of survival.”[29]

Skinner pursues his project of developing “repertoires of behavior” that respond more effectively to environmental contingencies as a form of social and cultural engineering that might foster the evolution of the species. Skinner writes:

“The social environment is what is called a culture. It shapes and maintains the behavior of those who live in it. A given culture evolves as new practices arise, possibly for irrelevant reasons, and are selected by their contribution to the strength of the culture as it ‘competes’ with the physical environment and with other cultures. A major step is the emergence of practices which induce members to work for the survival of their culture. Such practices cannot be traced to personal goods, even when used for the good of others, since the survival of a culture beyond the lifetime of the individual cannot serve as a source of conditioned reinforcers. Other people may survive the person they induce to act for their good, and the culture whose survival is at issue is often identified with them or their organizations, but the evolution of a culture introduces an additional kind of good or value. A culture which for any reason induces its members to work for its survival is more likely to survive. It is a matter of the good of the culture, not of the individual. Explicit design promotes that good by accelerating the evolutionary process, and since a science and a technology of behavior make for better design, they are important ‘mutations’ in the evolution of a culture. If there is any purpose or direction in the evolution of a culture, it has to do with bringing people under the control of more and more of the consequences of their behavior.”[30]

In Skinner’s view, his science and technology of behavior have appeared deterministically as evolutionary “mutations” that promote the future survival and propagation of the human species. The novelty of behavioral science and technology lies in their ability to “accelerate” the evolutionary process of a culture. As a new behavior in the repertoire of the human species, behaviorism is thought to bring environmental contingencies more under the control of the species itself; moreover, because the species is shaped by its environment, having control over the environment also enables the species to gain greater control over itself and its responses to these contingencies. In effect, Skinner attempts to free human beings from being at the mercy of contingencies for which they lack any effective repertoire of responses by bringing them more under the control of an environment where their responses may be molded and fashioned through behavioral science and technology.

5. Skinner’s Dual Conception of Freedom as Probability and Feeling

Despite Frazier’s claim in Walden Two that the existence of freedom must be denied, there remain two ways in which freedom may be said to exist that find accord with Skinnerian behaviorism. Indeed, without recognition of at least some modicum of freedom, the entire project of behavioral psychology – as a means of creating alternative (and so not strictly determined) forms of behavior – would entirely lack coherence. First, rather than understanding freedom as a lack of determinism, it may be articulated more narrowly as “the absence of restraint or coercion.”[31] In Skinner’s view, “to exercise a choice is simply to act, and the choice a person is capable of making is the act itself. The person requires freedom to make it simply in the sense that he can make it only if there are no restraints – either in the physical situation or in other conditions affecting his behavior.”[32]

For instance, if a wall is to my left, then I cannot go left; if I am genetically blind, then I will not be able to appreciate visual art. For Skinner, freedom is a very limited term that describes what is possible, or what is not prohibited by environmental and genetic contingencies. Following Skinnerian logic, by learning to manipulate genetic and environmental contingencies to increase possibilities, human beings can affect their modicum of freedom. Indeed, Skinner writes that, through time, technological manipulation, and social engineering, human beings have “freed” themselves from many impediments; they have been released from many of the “irritations and dangers” of the physical environment, as well as from a number of the “punitive and exploitative aspects” of the social environment.[33]

Skinner’s theory of behaviorism rests upon the presumption that freedom exists as a kind of control over probability and possibility; that is, if a given behavior is possible, then its likelihood of occurring may be “conditioned” through behavioral techniques and technology. Skinner insists that the manipulation of probabilities through psychological conditioning does not imply freedom:

“The illusion that freedom and dignity are respected when control seems incomplete arises in part from the probabilistic nature of operant behavior. Seldom does any environmental condition “elicit” behavior in the all-or-nothing fashion of a reflex; it simply makes a bit of behavior more likely to occur. A hint will not itself suffice to evoke a response, but it adds strength to a weak response which may then appear. The hint is conspicuous, but the other events responsible for the appearance of the response are not.”[34]

Skinner’s denial of freedom as anything more than probability remains firm. His experimental work on “operant” and “respondent conditioning” through “positive” and “negative reinforcement” attempts to explain all behavior in terms of probability.[35] “The contingencies under investigation have become steadily more complex, and one by one they are taking over the explanatory functions previously assigned to personalities, states of mind, feelings, traits of character, purposes, and intentions.”[36] Given the perceived strength of environmental factors in determining behavior, Skinner argues that by manipulating the environment, the behaviorist can control human behavior for better outcomes – that is, outcomes that deal more effectively with Skinner’s world concerns, and so are better suited for the survival and the propagation of the human species: “[T]he environment can be manipulated. It is true that man’s genetic endowment can be changed only very slowly, but changes in the environment of the individual have quick and dramatic effects. A technology of operant behavior is . . .  already well advanced, and it may prove to be commensurate with our problems.”[37]

The ability of human beings to manipulate probabilities through changing their environment, says Skinner, leads to the second manner in which “freedom” might be thought to remain a meaningful term. Freedom from restraints and coercion has left man “free to develop other kinds of behavior with highly reinforcing consequences – in the sciences, arts, and social relations. At the same time it has given him the feeling of freedom [my italics], and perhaps no feeling has caused him more trouble.”[38] Skinner calls this second sense of the term “freedom” – namely, the feeling of freedom – “dangerous” insofar as it has misled human beings to behave as though they were in fact free from the deterministic control of environmental contingencies. “Unfortunately,” warns Skinner, “the feeling of being free is not a reliable indication that we have reached such a world.”[39] When human beings act as though they are “free” in this sense, they lack a Skinnerian awareness of the various contingent factors that lead themselves and others to behave as they do.

It is ambiguous in Skinner’s writings whether or not human beings are served well or ill by the “dangers” of feeling free. On the one hand, the feeling of freedom preserves the status quo of “pre-scientific” society, wherein a falsified notion of freedom has given rise to institutions and mechanisms of control that offer only impotent responses to the world’s problems. These “weak measures” are substituted where stronger measures should rather be taken that accord with Skinner’s behavioral insights, and that might more effectively influence and direct human activity. Moreover, the feeling of freedom experienced under pre-scientific conditioning does not generate much resistance or measures of “counter-control.” In this regard, Skinner depicts the feeling of freedom as a kind of ignorant enslavement to hidden contingencies. In his view, “[f]eeling free is an important hallmark of a kind of control distinguished by the fact that it does not breed counter-control.”[40] Skinner writes:

“The fundamental mistake made by all those who choose weak methods of control is to assume that the balance of control is left to the individual, when in fact it is left to other conditions. The other conditions are often hard to see, but to continue to neglect them and to attribute their effects to autonomous man is to court disaster.”[41]

Quite simply, as long as the fact of control by remains undiscovered, revolt against such control does not arise.

On the other hand, Skinner does not suggest that, upon the technological creation of “scientific man,” the ignorant feeling of freedom will disappear and be replaced with the knowledge of complete determinism. The character of Frazier, touting the benefits of the utopian society described in Walden Two, lauds the feeling of freedom as a further means to control human behavior – as the establishment of an “inclination to behave”:

“‘Now that we know how positive reinforcement works and why negative doesn’t,’ he said at last, ‘we can be more deliberate, and hence more successful, in our cultural design. We can achieve a sort of control under which the controlled, though they are following a code much more scrupulously than was ever the case under the old system, nevertheless feel free. They are doing what they want to do, not what they are forced to do. That’s the source of the tremendous power of positive reinforcement – there’s no restraint and no revolt. By a careful cultural design, we control not the final behavior, but the inclination to behave – the motives, the desires, the wishes.'”[42]

Knowledge of Skinner’s cosmic truth – namely, that all things are determined and lack freedom – is not necessary for the establishment of a peaceful utopian society. Rather, human ignorance on the part of the controlled is itself a conditioned state of great utility. Such ignorance must be cultivated among the controlled in order that they have the “inclination” to behave as part of their repertoire. Without this ignorance, human beings would naturally feel the behavioral controls exerted upon themselves; they would offer resistance to Skinner’s program of psychological manipulations, and they would develop means of “counter-control” that would undermine and destroy his utopian vision:

“The question is: Can men live in freedom and peace? And the answer is: Yes, if we can build a social structure which will satisfy the needs of everyone and in which everyone will want to observe the supporting code. But so far this has been achieved only in Walden Two. Your ruthless accusations to the contrary… this is the freest place on earth. And it is free precisely because we make no use of force or the threat of force. Every bit of our research, from the nursery through the psychological management of our adult membership, is directed toward that end – to exploit every alternative to forcible control. By skillful planning, by a wise choice of techniques we increase the feeling of freedom.”[43]

In his utopian society, Skinner would have the feeling of freedom increase rather than decrease. Indeed, he warns his readers about the pitfalls of self-knowledge. “A person who has been ‘made aware of himself’ by the questions he has been asked is in a better position to predict and control his own behaviour.”[44] However, “one need not be aware of one’s behavior or the conditions controlling it in order to behave effectively – or ineffectively.” Rather, “the extent to which a man should be aware of himself depends upon the importance of self-observation for effective behavior. Self-knowledge is valuable only to the extent that it helps to meet the contingencies under which it has arisen.”[45] Knowledge, in Skinner’s estimation, is of no more consequence than ignorance: both are of only instrumental importance in achieving the desirable ends of survival and propagation.

6. Instrumental Education in Consequences: The Use of Incentives in Skinner’s Behaviorism

Educators take interest in Skinner’s behavioral theory mainly due to its stress upon the utility and effectiveness of environmental incentives for promoting learning among students. Indeed, Skinner’s findings suggest that “positive reinforcements” such as stickers and praise for good work are more successful at creating good school habits than are punishments.[46] In Skinner’s view, the effective teacher is simply a controller of external contingencies which, when carefully arranged, help to develop appropriate repertoires of behavior for students inside and outside of the classroom. “[T]he point of education can be stated in behavioral terms: a teacher arranges contingencies under which the student acquires behavior which will be useful to him under other contingencies later on.”[47] Skinner’s stress on the importance of environmental contingencies in education resonates with many teachers who have first-hand experience with the deficiencies of the current educational system:

“It is no doubt a serious problem . . . that students no longer respond in traditional ways to educational environments; they drop out of school, possibly for long periods of time, they take only courses which they enjoy or which seem to have relevance to their problems, they destroy school property and attack teachers and officials . . .  What is wrong is the educational environment. We need to design contingencies under which students acquire behavior useful to them and their culture – contingencies that do not have troublesome by-products and that generate the behavior said to “show respect for learning. It is not difficult to see what is wrong in most educational environments, and much has already been done to design materials which make learning as easy as possible and to construct contingencies, in the classroom and elsewhere, which give students powerful reasons for getting an education.”[48]

The point of education from a Skinnerian perspective is to bring the student under the control of those environmental contingencies that will train appropriate responses in future situations. The student “will acquire the most effective repertoire if his teachers recognize their role for what it is rather than assume that it is to leave him free to develop himself.”[49] Education, therefore, is not free inquiry into the truth, but rather the skillful arrangement of contingencies to produce an appropriate, and so effective, behavioral response from students.

There are many ways in which not only teachers, but also societal traditions, governments, and religious institutions educate and so engineer desirable behavior. These methods include the use of “commands, advice, and warnings,” “directions and instructions,” “folklore, maxims, and proverbs,” “governmental and religious laws,” “the laws of science,” as well as “reasons and reasoning.”[50] However, the educational value of all of these methods, claims Skinner, lies in their ability to “reinforce consequences.” “The consequences described or implied in advice, warning, instructions, and laws are the reasons why a person takes advice, heeds warnings, follows instructions, and obeys laws.”[51] Reasoning, as an account of the “reasons” for behavior, is thereby reduced to the analysis of contingencies or phenomena; for Skinner, it has no importance beyond its instrumental value in experimentation.

“Experimentation . . . not reason”[52] is required, in the sense that the rational investigation of anything other than the phenomenal world – such as the realm of substance, essence, or being – cannot be entertained. All non-mentalistic reasoning must be concerned with the technical and pragmatic manipulation of the phenomenal world. “Reasoning about behavior is a matter of analyzing the reasons for behavior, and reasoning about a problem is a matter of looking at the problematical contingencies rather than merely altering them through established problem-solving procedures.”[53] Experimentation, as the manipulation of contingencies, requires observation of the phenomenal realities of cause and effect; the analysis of reason is important only insofar as this analysis will enable us to pinpoint which techniques are most effective for augmenting human behavior. “A constantly experimental attitude toward everything – that’s what we need,” says Frazier.[54]

In discussing Skinner’s attitude towards reason and experimentation, it will be fruitful to focus briefly upon his “phenomenalistic” approach to “knowing behavior,” or behavioral science. In order to do so, we must first discuss the meanings of the philosophic terms “phenomenon” and “substance.” Our word “phenomenon” is derived from the Greek verb phainomai, meaning, “to appear.” Phenomenal reality is literally what “appears” or is observable to us. Phenomena are “transparent” for “substantive reality.” Substance, by contrast, is non-phenomenal reality; it is “reality experienced as being expressed through appearance.”[55] Given these definitions of substance and phenomenon, a phenomenalistic science is characterized by a “preoccupation with the phenomenal realities of the world and a corresponding atrophy of attention to the substantive realities of human beings, society, history, God, and the world.”[56]

Skinner’s behavioral science may rightly be viewed as a form of phenomenalism since, as we have seen, he dismisses all speculation about such substantive realities as mentalism. The difficulty with this dismissal is that it is grounded on the assumption that the scientific study of phenomena may rightly be equated with the study of substance; put another way, the study of the reality underlying appearances may justifiably be subsumed into the study of the appearances themselves. These appearances are, in fact, the only reality to be studied, predicted, and modified. Discussing the work of Pierre Duhem, Barry Cooper writes that the proper object of physical science is “to strip reality of the appearances covering it like a veil, in order to see the bare reality itself.” What the physicist observes is physical phenomena, but such observation “does not put us into relation with the reality hidden under the sensible appearances, but enables us to apprehend the sensible appearances in a particular and concrete form.”[57]

Due to the limitations of science in approaching a knowledge of substantial reality, scientists must abide by a “hermeneutic of suspicion”; that is, they must affirm that “the reality they seek is distinct from appearances that are revealed to our perceptions.”[58] Being suspicious, their scientific experimentation cannot properly be understood as approaching substantial reality, but simply as a means of obtaining sense experience that, if adequate, is transparent for a distinct reality to be explained. However, it is impossible to judge whether the sense experiences obtained experimentally actually correspond to any substantial reality without asking the question: “What is the nature of the elements that constitute material reality?”

As Cooper points out, “the means to answer that question transcends the methods of physics, as was also true of the affirmation of a reality distinct from appearance. The resolution of such questions is the aim or object not of physics but of a science beyond or after physics, literally of a metaphysics.”[59] The fundamental error of a phenomenalistic science such as Skinner’s, therefore, is that the “hermeneutic of suspicion” has been abandoned. Lacking the suspicion that is appropriate for a scientist, the Skinnerian behaviorist gains a degree of certainty about his scientific discoveries concerning human behavior. He is convinced that his own experimental observations, predictions, and manipulations of behavioral phenomena are an adequate means of inquiring into the nature of things. Knowledge of the consequences of goods is taken to be the same as knowledge of goods in and of themselves.

In every case, the point of education is to reinforce behavior that achieves appropriate and so effective consequences. Education is, in this regard, not about the acquisition of knowledge (unless this knowledge involves knowing about consequences), nor is education properly concerned with understanding, virtue, or even the pursuit of truth; rather, education is about building “beliefs” that enhance our ability to manipulate phenomena. Indeed, opinion or belief (as opposed to knowledge) is the highest possibility where inquiry into substance is prohibited as a form of mentalism, and where the manipulation of phenomena is of paramount concern. Skinner writes that “[w]e build ‘belief’ when we increase the probability of action by reinforcing behavior.”[60] Any insight into the truth that we glean from our education is only relevant insofar as its consequences enhance our repertoires of behavior.

II. Eric Voegelin’s philosophical psychology

Having summarized Skinner’s behavioral understanding of human nature and psychology, I now turn to Eric Voegelin’s philosophical critique of positivism as a “gnostic pneumopathology.” If, as this article argues, Skinner’s theory of behaviorism is positivistic, then Voegelin’s work on the psychology underlying positivistic thinking will offer us a useful lens through which to analyze and critique Skinner’s work, both in its theoretical and practical implications.

1. Skinner’s Behaviourism as a Form of Positivism

Eric Voegelin does not specifically discuss Skinnerian behaviorism in his writings. He does, however, discuss the positivism that arose in the late nineteenth century and that held sway well into the twentieth century. In this article, I suggest that behaviorism is simply a late version of such positivistic thinking. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, positivism may be defined as a philosophical system “recognizing only positive facts and observable phenomena and rejecting metaphysics and theism.” Positivism entails “the belief that every intelligible proposition can be scientifically verified or falsified, and that philosophy can only be concerned with the analysis of the language used to express such propositions.”[61] This definition of positivism accurately describes what we have so far learned about behaviorism. In like fashion, Skinner seeks to understand everything in terms of the “positive facts” discernable through his behavioral science. Behaviorism, in its phenomenalistic emphasis on experimentation, is solely concerned with the observable – with phenomena rather than being, essence, or substance. Consequently, anything that cannot be either verified or falsified through scientific observations according to Skinner’s methodology – such as the realities discussed in metaphysics or theology – he dismisses as mentalism.

Voegelin argues that positivism is founded upon two assumptions. First, it arises from the belief that the methods used in the mathematizing sciences of the external world are “possessed of some inherent virtue and that all other sciences would achieve comparable success if they followed the example and accepted these methods as their model.”[62] Positivism combines this faith in the successes of scientific method with a second assumption; namely, that the methods of the natural sciences are a criterion for theoretical relevance in general. From the combination of these two assumptions follow the well-known assertions that  a study of reality could qualify as scientific only if it used the methods of the natural sciences, that problems couched in other terms were illusionary problems, that in particular metaphysical questions which do not admit of answers by the methods of the sciences of phenomena should not be asked, that realms of being which are not accessible to exploration by the model methods were irrelevant, and, in the extreme, that such realms of being did not exist.[63]

Skinner’s behaviorism clearly shares the two assumptions inherent in all positivistic thinking. The mathematizing sciences of the external world provide the experimental and observational methodology with which Skinner seeks to investigate and understand the world. Moreover, Skinner clearly adopts the view that the scientific method of his behaviorism is the criterion for “theoretical relevance.” All science prior to the “scientific method” is dismissed as mentalism; in a scientific age, “pre-scientific” lines of questioning are strictly prohibited and considered “dangerous.”

The problem, of course, with this positivistic faith in method is that if the adequacy of a method is not measured by its usefulness to the purpose of science, but rather that its use is made the criterion of science, then the meaning of science as a truthful account of the structure of reality is lost. In Voegelin’s view, “[t]he subordination of theoretical relevance to method perverts the meaning of science on principle.”[64] Voegelin writes:

“Science is a search for truth concerning the nature of the various realms of being. Relevant in science is whatever contributes to the success of this search. Facts are relevant in so far as their knowledge contributes to the study of essence, while methods are adequate in so far as they can be effectively used as a means for this end. Different objects require different methods. A political scientist who tries to understand the meaning of Plato’s Republic will not have much use for mathematics; a biologist who studies a cell structure will not have much use for methods of classical philology and principles of hermeneutics.”[65]

Just as Aristotle, in his Nicomachean Ethics, reminds us that the different arts (technōn) and sciences (epistēmōn) each aim at a different end (telos),[66] so too does Voegelin point out that the positivist errs supposing that scientific method is an adequate means to investigate all subject matters, including the truth of the soul.

Voegelin remarks that science starts from the “pre-scientific existence of man” – that is, from his participation in the world with his body, soul, intellect, and spirit. Skinner too argues that the human being is a microcosmic particle of the larger environment of the universe; however, where Skinner concludes that the fact of this participation suggests that human beings lack freedom and mind, and that their behavior, like the behavior of inert matter, occurs deterministically according to scientifically verifiable laws, Voegelin suggests that human beings, as microcosmoi, participate in all the “realms of being” of the universe, including mind and freedom. Skinner’s emphasis on the scientific method of behaviorism as the criterion for theoretical relevance prohibits any recognition of these various realms, and it dismisses the ancient science of these realms as “values.”[67]

It is noteworthy that the terms “value-judgement” and “value-free” science were not part of philosophical discourse before the second half of the nineteenth century. The notion of a “value-judgement” is meaningless in itself; “it gains its meaning from a situation in which it is opposed to judgements concerning facts.”[68] Voegelin argues that this situation was created through the “positivistic conceit” that only propositions concerning facts of the phenomenal world are “objective,” whereas judgements concerning the right order of the soul (e.g., religious) and society (e.g., ethical or political) are “subjective.” Only propositions of the former type could be considered “scientific,” whereas statements of the latter sort simply express personal preferences.

Voegelin demonstrates that the language of “values” makes sense only if the “positivistic dogma” is accepted on principle. Moreover, fact-value language is only acceptable to thinkers who have no understanding of the ancient science of human beings:

“Only when ontology as a science [of being] was lost, and when consequently ethics and politics could no longer be understood as sciences of the order in which human nature reaches its maximal actualization, was it possible for this realm of knowledge to become suspect as a field of subjective, uncritical opinion.”[69]

Our word “science” is derived from the Latin term scientia, meaning “knowing” or “knowledge.” The Greek word for science and knowledge is epistēmē (from which we derive our modern word, “epistemology,” meaning the “theory of knowledge”). The ancients understood science, knowledge, or epistēmē, much more broadly than we do today. Whereas our word “science” has come to connote a particular method of inquiry into the order of reality, the ancients understood by science any discipline that could discover and deduce from “first principles,” or archai. Moreover, this process of discovery and deduction need not proceed by following a specific method of inquiry. First principles are the basic things that the human mind or intellect (nous) immediately recognizes to be true. These principles are taught both in the theoretical sciences and by the practical arts. All of our reasoning, both practical and theoretical, begins with first principles. These archai vary according to their associated disciplines. For example, geometry, music, and carpentry all have different archai, and different first principles are taught within each discipline. Science and theorizing are what we do when we learn to deduce from first principles. Art (technē, or “making”) and practice (praxis, or “doing”) arise when we learn how to apply these first principles.

Whereas discovery of and deduction from the archai concerning their phenomenal manipulation and application is the prerogative of the arts and sciences, the examination of these archai themselves in order to determine how they are related to higher things (like the Good, the Ideas, and God) is not itself “science” – except in the sense that it is seeking “to know” the highest things. Unlike the sciences which examine the phenomenal nature of things (the way things appear, their effects, their characteristics, and properties), the ancient science or “knowing” related to philosophy, theology, and metaphysical speculation is ontological in character. Positivism, as a rejection of ontology and the sciences of order, participates in the destruction of science by subjugating all inquiry to method or technique.

2. Skinner’s Behaviourism as a Gnostic Pneumopathology

Voegelin diagnoses positivism as a form of spiritual sickness, or “pneumopathology,” that is specifically “gnostic” in character. Having demonstrated that behaviorism is positivistic in this article, I suggest that Voegelin’s work sheds much light upon Skinner’s behavioral theory. Voegelin identifies six general characteristics of gnosticism.[70] These may be rendered roughly as follows:

(1) Gnostics are typically dissatisfied with their situation of living.

(2) They believe that the drawbacks of the situation do not stem from human beings in general or themselves in particular, but are due to the world being intrinsically poorly organized.

(3) They hold the belief that salvation from the evil of the world is possible.

(4) They believe that the order of being – the very structure of things – will have to be changed in historical process.

(5) They believe that a change in the order of being lies within the realm of human action, and that this salvational act is possible through their own efforts.

(6) Gnostics seek salvation through knowledge (or gnosis) of a method of altering being. For this reason, pneumopaths, or those who are “spiritually sick” in this way, construct a formula for both self and world salvation. Typically, the implementation of this plan requires that a gnostic leader be ready to come forward as a prophet who will proclaim his knowledge about the salvation of mankind.

According to Voegelin, all gnostic movements are involved in the project of abolishing the constitution of being, with its origin in divine, transcendent being, and replacing it with a world-immanent order of being, the perfection of which lies in the realm of human action.[71] The attempt to create a new world is common to all gnostic movements. Underlying this desire is the assumption or belief that human beings can alter the constitution of being. However, the world remains as it is given to us, and human beings cannot change its ontic structure. The only results of such a project of transforming the order of things are, in fact, the disordering of the soul and society. Nevertheless, in order to make their desired program for revolution appear possible, gnostics must construct a world picture from which the features of the real world that would make their program look hopeless and foolish have been eliminated. In this way, the gnostic thinker suppresses an essential element of reality in order to be able to construct an image of human being, of society, and history that will suit his or her desires.

Given the six criteria of gnosticism outlined above, I argue that Skinner’s behaviorism, as a form of positivism, exhibits all the symptoms of a gnostic pneumopathology:

(1) That Skinner is dissatisfied with the situation of living in the world is not particularly illuminating of his gnosticism.

(2) However, Skinner does indeed abide in the belief that the problems he encounters in the world stem neither from a difficulty with human beings in general, nor from his own understanding of the world in particular; rather, the concerns voiced by Skinner are felt to be due to the world being intrinsically poorly organized. In particular, the consciousness of human beings has been captivated for twenty-five hundred years by the falsehood of mentalism.

(3) Skinner believes that salvation from the evil of the world is possible through the adoption of a science and technology of behavior.

(4) To achieve this salvation, the very structure of things – the organization of human behavior, thought, language, society, and the totality of environmental contingencies – will have to be changed in historical process by close attention to and implementation of Skinner’s behavioristic program.

(5) Skinner’s behavioral project presupposes that a change in the order of being lies within the realm of human action, and that this salvational act is possible through his own efforts. He believes that it is possible to engineer human beings through a technology of behavior. In the words of Frazier in Walden Two:

“What remains to be done? . . . Well, what do you say to the design of personalities? Would that interest you? The control of temperament? Give me the specifications, and I’ll give you the man! What do you say to the control of motivation, building the interests which will make men most productive and most successful? Does that seem to you fantastic? Yet some of the techniques are available, and more can be worked out experimentally. Think of the possibilities! A society in which there is no failure, no boredom, no duplication of effort!”[72]

(6) Salvific knowledge (gnosis) of the methods of behavioral science and engineering will provide the means of altering being – of building the “Superorganism,” as Frazier says.[73] In order to do so, however, Skinner, as one who exhibits a gnostic pneumopathological sickness, constructs his behavioristic formula for both self and world salvation. Skinner comes forward as a leader and a prophet who proclaims this new technological knowledge about the salvation of mankind.

Skinner’s behaviourism, like all gnostic movements, is involved in the project of abolishing the constitution of being, with its origin in divine, transcendent being, and replacing it with a world-immanent order of being, the perfection of which lies in the realm of human action. In Walden Two, there is an illuminating discussion of how Walden-like utopian communities based on the principles of Skinner’s behaviorism will gradually spread across America, out-competing “pre-scientific” society, effectively destroying it and becoming the new world order. “In thirty years . . . we could absorb the whole country many times over.” By its efficiency in minimizing work and waste, by eradicating jealousy, freedom, competition, and other “pre-scientific values,” Skinner’s behaviorism offers “a full and happy life to all who go and do likewise.”[74] Speaking of the necessary destruction of the old order and its adherents who will refuse to join the behavioral revolution, Frazier states:

“In such a case we’ll simply have to do the best we can – for our conscience’ sake as well as to avoid bad public relations . . . The [pre-scientific] man has tied himself up with a moribund competitive society. All we can do is make his personal demise as painless as possible, unless he’s intelligent enough to adjust to the new order.”[75]

The establishment of behaviorism as a mode of social organization will appear on earth as the pinnacle of human history: “It’s the crowning achievement in the history of the human intellect to date, and make what you will of that! The splitting of the atom pales into insignificance beside it!”[76]

As in other gnostic projects, the divine ground of being is abolished and immanentized in Skinner’s project. Speculative theology, metaphysics, religion and philosophy are all dismissed as out-moded forms of mentalism. It is not coincidental that Frazier, Skinner’s spokesman for the possibility of the successes of behaviorism, is depicted as a Christ figure in Walden Two.[77] Recalling the scene of Christ’s third temptation in the desert,[78] Skinner depicts Frazier standing upon his “Throne,” located on the upper rim of the quarry on “Stone Hill” which overlooks the Walden community. Like Jesus standing atop the mountain with Satan, Frazier too surveys his kingdom; however, Frazier’s character is clearly a fusion of the tempted savior with the Tempter; unlike Jesus, he succumbs to temptation, and whole-heartedly accepts the dominion that is laid at his feet.

The Christ-like Frazier speaks to his companion Burris atop Stone Hill as though his gnostic awareness of the deterministic plan of behaviorism has made him omniscient. In this new world of his own creation, he jests that “Not a sparrow falleth” without his knowledge.[79] He lauds the world that he has created through behavioral gnosis as the “immanentization of the Christian eschaton”[80] – that is, as the true end of human happiness, as a Heaven on earth. Frazier compares his behavioristic creation with the work of God, saying, “I look upon my work and, behold, it is good.”[81]

Moreover, his work is not simply divine, since he claims that his gnosis has transfigured the old world generated by God. His behavioral utopia thereby proclaims the death of God by dismissing God’s work as imperfect and corrupt; the behaviourist’s own work, by default, becomes the work of a “godded man”; his entrance into human history is akin to the second coming of Christ: “He allowed his head to fall limply to one side, and I reflected that his beard made him look a little like Christ. Then, with a shock, I saw that he had assumed the position of crucifixion.”[82] In order to pursue his salvific enterprise, the gnostic himself must become God. Indeed, the gnostic improves upon the dead God’s work; for whereas “God’s children are always disappointing Him,”[83] the behavioral gnostic is always in control. Frazier’s utopian community is depicted as an improvement on human nature. Likewise, Skinner’s Walden Two, as an account of this community, is “rather an improvement on Genesis.”[84] Whereas “God is Love” in the Christian gospels (1 John 4.1-21), the gnostic gospel of the behaviorist proclaims, “What is love . . . except another name for the use of positive reinforcement?”[85]

3. The “Intellectual Swindle” of the Pneumopath

As Voegelin points out, the attempt to create a new world is common to all gnostic movements. Underlying this desire is the assumption that human beings can alter the constitution of being. However, the world remains as it is given to us, and human beings cannot change its ontic structure. The attempt to do so only results in the further disordering of the soul and society. Voegelin has portrayed this pneumopathological desire to construct a false representation of the world as an “intellectual swindle.”[86] As teachers and educators familiar with Voegelin’s work, we are therefore led to wonder what effects such a swindle might have upon the souls of our students. In Walden Two, Skinner provides his readers with an image of idyllic education at the hands of behavioral teachers. However, given the gnostic orientation of Skinner’s project, we are led to believe that Skinner’s depiction of a behavioral education is highly suspect.

That the disordering of the soul and society in the community depicted in Walden Two is inevitable is not entertained by its author. In order to make his desired program for a behavioral revolution appear possible, Skinner concocts an “intellectual swindle” in the sense outlined by Voegelin. Namely, he constructs a world picture from which the features of the real world that would make his program look hopeless and foolish have been eliminated; moreover, he prohibits any questions that concern the validity of this world picture. Writing about the gnostic “prohibition of questioning” in political science and philosophy, Voegelin remarks: “We are confronted here with persons who know that, and why, their opinions cannot stand up under critical analysis and who therefore make the prohibition of the examination of their premises part of their dogma.”[87] By eradicating the free choice of human beings to be discriminating in their loves, Skinner suppresses an essential element of reality in order to construct an image of human beings, society, and history that suits his desires. This falsified version of reality is quite obviously related to his prohibition against all theological, metaphysical, and philosophical speculation as mentalism, since without these forms of inquiry his misrepresentation of human nature cannot be questioned.

Skinner cannot help but be aware of the disorders that would affect the souls of those characters he depicts in his literary experiment, Walden Two. Of particular interest is Skinner’s portrayal of procreation and the family within the utopian community of his novel. This portrayal closely imitates the abolition of the family in Plato’s Republic without admitting similar results. In the Republic, Plato’s brother Glaucon seeks to create a utopian “city in speech” that is premised upon treating human sexuality and behavior as though it were manipulable according to the practices of animal husbandry.[88] Indeed, among animals the principle of anonymous sexual relations has some evolutionary logic; animals have a season of heat and must procreate with whatever mate is available during that season, whereas human beings do not suffer this exigency. Where animals may therefore be bred according to the principles of husbandry without infringing upon the character of their erotic lives, human beings may not, since the element of free choice in love is heightened when the urgencies of heat no longer apply. Freedom of choice and erotic desires are therefore much different among human beings than among other animals.

Glaucon’s program of social eugenics is similar to Skinner’s behavioral project in its pension for communal ideas; namely, that there should be no private property;[89] that there must be no division of labor between men and women, nor should there be any cohesive family structures since these can only promote division, selfishness, and the unequal valuing of one another in violation of the maxim of justice that “Friends have all things in common.”[90] In the Republic, Socrates states Glaucon’s vision of the just society: “All these women are to belong to all these men in common, and no woman is to live privately with any man. And the children, in their turn, will be in common, and neither will a parent know his own offspring, nor a child his parent.”[91] So also in Walden Two does Frazier demand that no woman should live privately with any man. Every community member must have his or her own living quarters. Nor must children be raised by their parents in Walden Two, but rather in a communal nursery. The ideal in both “cities in speech” is clearly stated by Frazier: “Our goal is to have every adult member . . . regard all our children as his own, and to have every child think of every adult as his parent.”[92] According to this communal principle, “no sensible person will suppose that love or affection has anything to do with blood.”[93]

In both Plato’s Republic and Skinner’s Walden Two, an “experiment” is carried out in speech to construct a utopian society. Both experiments suffer from the flaw of misrepresenting the order of being. For instance, there is no reason to believe that parents who share their children communally will love all the children of the community equally. The love of one’s own, and the corresponding articulation of justice as “minding one’s own business”[94] conflict in some respects with the love of the good and the aforementioned maxim that “friends have all things in common.” Neither definition of justice is complete, as is demonstrated through the failure of Glaucon’s “city in speech.”

Similarly, when children do not know their parents, they also have no knowledge of their siblings, and without the knowledge of bloodlines, it will be impossible to avoid sibling incest. In each literary experiment, it is assumed that “love of one’s own” is not properly a part of human erotics, but simply a by-product of poor social organization. Hence, the notion is put forth that in Walden Two there will be no jealousy or envy,[95] nor will the lust for honours and fame be motivators for human activity.[96] In the Republic, this portrayal of human nature is offered only to be exposed as an “error” on the part of Glaucon, whereas in Skinner’s work, it is a conscious deception. Where Plato portrays the “second wave” of this form of communal organization as the destruction of Glaucon’s “city in speech,”[97] Skinner, who is familiar with these self-same flaws in the experiment of the Republic,[98] passes over them in silence as he creates his own behavioristic “city in speech.”

In order to pursue his own gnostic aspirations to alter the constitution of being, Skinner must simultaneously affirm and deny the existence of that constitution. Simultaneously to affirm and deny the same reality is part of the spiritual sickness, or pneumopathology, of the gnostic thinker. We have already seen evidence of this pneumopathology in Skinner’s insistence upon the observation and technological manipulation of the “effects” of goods on the one hand, and his dismissal of any inquiry into the nature of goods in themselves, apart from their effects as “environmental contingencies” on the other hand. In this regard, Skinner simultaneously affirms and denies the existence of an order of being.

4. Types of Gnosticism

Voegelin distinguishes between three different types of gnosticism.[99] First, he discusses “teleological gnosticism.” This form of pneumopathology involves “the immanentization of the eschaton”; that is, the goal of perfection is perceived as achievable in this world. Progressivism takes this form of gnosticism. Second, Voegelin identifies “axiological gnosticism” in the focus upon the creation of a state of perfection in the world. This form of gnosticism underlies the construction of utopias, as well as ideals like the abolition of private property, and freedom from labour, sickness, and anxiety. The third form of gnosticism he refers to as “activistic mysticism.” This type combines the teleological and axiological components, which are immanentized together. Communism and positivism are examples of this third form of pneumopathology. Accordingly, Skinner’s behaviorism too must be examined in terms of its status as a form of activistic mysticism.

Clearly, both the teleological and axiological elements of gnosticism are apparent in Skinner’s behaviorism. Skinner boldly asserts that the goals of behavioral and scientific society are attainable in this world:

“It is hard to imagine a world in which people live together without quarreling, maintain themselves by producing the food, shelter, and clothing they need, enjoy themselves and contribute to the enjoyment of others in art, music, literature, and games, consume only a reasonable part of the resources of the world and add as little as possible to its pollution, bear no more children than can be raised decently, continue to explore the world around them and discover better ways of dealing with it, and come to know themselves accurately and, therefore, manage themselves effectively. Yet all this is possible.”[100]

The teleological component of Skinner’s behaviorism is apparent in his insistence that with behaviorism we are leaving behind us our “pre-scientific” sentiments and errors, and adopting instead a truly “scientific” mode of understanding. Through his behavioral project, Skinner believes that human beings may progress beyond their short-comings and imperfections to deal effectively with the problems threatening their survival; through the progress afforded by behavioral science and technology, human beings might live peacefully and happily in a world of their own engineering, where they are “freed” from the painful illusions of responsibility and freedom to choose between good and evil.

The axiological component of Skinner’s gnosticism is likewise easy to isolate. Skinner’s pension for the creation of a behavioristic utopia, for a state of perfection in the world, is evident not only in his literary enterprise of Walden Two, but also in his more scholastic writings. Citing the examples of Plato’s Republic, Augustine’s City of God, More’s Utopia, as well as Francis Bacon and the “Rousseauean utopists,” Skinner stresses the importance of utopian design in securing “the survival of a community” through “experimentation.” “A traditional culture has been examined and found wanting, and a new version has been set up to be tested and redesigned as circumstances dictate.”

The simplification involved in utopian writing, which Voegelin calls an “intellectual swindle,” is for Skinner “nothing more than the simplification characteristic of science.” [101] Because simplification is the essence of science for Skinner, he does not view it as the reason for the downfall of real utopian communities. Indeed, “the Good Life is waiting for us – here and now!” We need not wait faithfully for a God to transfigure or improve upon human nature at the end of things (eschaton). Faith, after all, “is a matter of the strength of behavior resulting from contingencies which have not been analyzed.”[102] Through the implementation of behaviorism, the eschaton that is known by faith may be immanentized: “At this very moment we have the necessary techniques, both material and psychological, to create a full and satisfying life for everyone.”[103] Of utopian communities, Skinner remarks:

“It is not surprising that, so far as the real world is concerned, the word utopian means unworkable. History seems to offer support; various utopian designs have been proposed for nearly twenty-five hundred years, and most attempts to set them up have been ignominious failures. But historical evidence is always against the probability of anything new; that is what is meant by history. Scientific discoveries and inventions are improbable; that is what is meant by discovery and invention. And if planned economies, benevolent dictatorships, perfectionistic societies, and other utopian ventures have failed, we must remember that unplanned, undictated, and unperfected cultures have failed too. A failure is not always a mistake; it may simply be the best one can do under the circumstances. The real mistake is to stop trying [my italics]. Perhaps we cannot now design a successful culture as a whole, but we can design better practices in a piecemeal fashion.”[104]

Not simplification, but poor experimental design and indoctrination in mentalistic error are touted as the reasons for the demise of utopian communities throughout history. Speaking about religious communes as “indoctrinated communities,” Frazier suggests that such social organizations fail to spread throughout society because of “overpropagandizing,” and by virtue of the fact that they are not sufficiently experimental: “What’s their most conspicuous characteristic? Isn’t it simply that they don’t change? They’ve been the way they are now for centuries.”[105] Being “pre-scientific,” such communities lack an experimental and so scientific attitude. Moreover, possessed of “pre-scientific” attitudes and competitive behavior, “some of them broke up because the members couldn’t resist the temptation to divide the loot.”

This eruption of the imperfections of human nature Skinner recognizes as the downfall of historical utopias. However, the eruption of human nature is not crucial for the utopian gnostic. Frazier confesses to have no faith in human nature at all: “We have no truck with philosophies of innate goodness . . . But we do have faith in our power to change human behavior. We can make men adequate for group living – to the satisfaction of everybody. That was our faith, but it’s now a fact.”[106] Faith, even in the scientifically established community, is an outmoded form of mentalism. Defending Walden Two from the charge of being a religious community, Frazier states “Our conception of man is not taken from theology but from a scientific examination of man himself.” In his view, “religious faith becomes irrelevant when the fears which nourish it are allayed and the hopes fulfilled – here on earth.”[107] If a utopian community is destroyed by the free eruption of competitive or selfish behavior, this fact is not enough to prove that the “simplification” of behaviorism is unscientific. For Skinner, it simply demonstrates that the eradication of mentalistic propensities among the community has not yet reached a state of perfection. Purges must continue to be enforced through behavioral manipulation. Awareness of human nature is not crucial for the axiological gnostic; rather “the crucial thing is the psychological management.”[108]

5. The Gnostic Symbols

Voegelin identifies four symbols that appear in all forms of gnosticism.[109] Each of these symbols is apparent in Skinner’s behavioral theory. They may be rendered as follows:

a. The Symbol of The Three Ages:

Voegelin discusses the symbol of the “Third Realm,” or a third historical phase that, as an age of fulfillment, is also the last “stage” of human history. He points out how this imagery has manifested throughout various gnostic interpretations of history. He finds it in Joachim of Fiore’s medieval speculations about the “intelligible increases of spiritual fulfillment” in the three ages of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, corresponding to the ages of the layman, the priest, and the monk.[110]

In academic circles, humanistic and encyclopaedist periodizations of history into ancient, medieval and modern history follow the gnostic pattern of speculation, as do Turgot’s and Comte’s theory of a sequence of theological, metaphysical, and scientific phases. Voegelin also speaks about “Hegel’s dialectic of the three stages of freedom and self-reflective spiritual fulfillment; the Marxian dialectic of the three stages of primitive communism, class society, and final communism; and finally, the National Socialist symbol of the Third Realm,” or Third Reich.[111]

The symbol of the three ages appears in Skinner’s categorization of human history into two “pre-scientific” periods – an earlier time of pre-mentalistic speculation, and a later stage of “pure mentalism”[112] beginning with the “discovery of the mind” by Plato – followed by a final “scientific age” of behaviorism. In this regard, Skinner’s behavioral program of history closely follows Comte’s positivistic categorizations of theological, metaphysical, and scientific phases. Of particular interest is Skinner’s insistence upon the “scientific age” as a “Golden Age” – as the culmination of all human history and effort.[113] Skinner’s third and final “Golden Age” of behavioral science and technology adequately corresponds to the first symbol of gnostic pneumopathology as detected by Voegelin.

b. The Leader or Dux

Voegelin finds that a second symbol of “the leader” or “dux” appears in all gnostic representations of reality. The leader is said to appear at the beginning of the final age to establish this age and to announce the way to salvation. Hitler and Mussolini, for instance, were announced as duces heralding in periods of National Socialism and fascism. Throughout medieval and Renaissance times, the leader and his followers were often said to be possessed by the spirit of God.[114] However, with the secularization of modern times, the new symbol of the “superman” replaced the old sectarian category of God-possessed paraclete.[115]

Outwardly, it may appear that Skinner’s project cannot be classified as gnostic since he rejects any “pre-scientific” faith in leaders: “In a pre-scientific society the best the common man can do is pin his faith on a leader and give him his support.” Skinner’s critique of faith in leaders is that faith, in his view, arises from the strength of contingencies that have not yet been scientifically analyzed. The leader or dux, therefore, “supplements a faulty science. That’s his first function – to use his head and heart where science fails.” Since a purely behavioristic society of the “Golden age” would be perfectly scientific, it would have no need for such a leader. Frazier states, “Our Planners act perfectly well in practically complete anonymity.”[116]

However, the superman symbol appropriately describes Skinner’s understanding of his own persona. Although Skinner rejects any “pre-scientific” faith in leaders, he does not reject scientific leaders, nor does he forsake the project of founding a gnostic society based upon Skinnerian principles. Skinner is indeed the founder, and therefore in some sense the leader, of Walden Two, a city in speech. Moreover, Skinner’s aspirations beyond mere fiction are clearly enough stated, and his theory of behaviorism has met with considerable success among educators. As we have demonstrated above, the gnostic ambition of the behavioral positivist to destroy the old order created by God and to replace it with a new order is tantamount to the murder of God.

With the death of God, the activist mystic takes on the substance of God as the standard for and source of the new order of creation; he becomes a “godded man.”[117] In Walden Two, Frazier is depicted as one such superman. That Skinner understands himself in this role is evinced by his insistence that his knowledge (gnosis) of the methods of behaviorism has the power to transform the world and to secure the future civilizational prosperity and perfect happiness of human beings. Skinner takes on the role of a “godded man” both in his denial of being (the murder of God) and in his subsequent project of engineering the total environment of human and non-human nature according to his own gnostic principles.

c. The Prophet

The third gnostic symbol delineated by Voegelin is that of the prophet. The leader of every age has a precursor, just as Christ had John the Baptist. Voegelin writes: “With the creation of the symbol of the precursor, a new type emerges in Western history: the intellectual who knows the formula for salvation from the misfortunes of the world and can predict how world history will take its course in the future.” This third symbol of the prophet, “sometimes blending into the second,”[118] becomes “the secularist intellectual who thinks he knows the meaning of history (understood as world-immanent) and can predict the future.”[119]

That the symbols of the prophet and the leader are combined in the persona of Skinner is evident from his deterministic understanding of history. It is important to note that the fictional character of Frazier attempts to defend Skinner’s behaviorism from this charge of false prophecy. As mentioned above, in Walden Two, Frazier suggests that Skinnerian determinism raises “the old question of predestination and free will.” Skinner is here implying that his determinism has its foundation in older ideas of Divine Providence. “All that happens is contained in an original plan, yet at every stage the individual seems to be making choices and determining the outcome.”[120] Through this comparison of his own determinism with the doctrine of Providence, Skinner hopes to make his understanding of freedom seem less unpalatable to his readers, ostensibly being grounded in a venerable tradition. However, the difference between the Christian doctrine of Providence and Skinnerian determinism betrays his hidden claim of gnostic prophecy. Whereas the Providential plan of God is inscrutable in classical Christian doctrine, this “original plan” is deemed by Skinner to be fully knowable through his behavioral gnosis.

All of human history – past, present and future – is discernable according to Skinner’s determinism. As the fictitious founder of a city in speech, Frazier claims to exert power over the future of humanity. He says to Castle, “I’ve exerted an influence and in one sense will continue to exert it forever.” Indeed, “Walden Two is predetermined” like everything else, such that an event like the discovery of a science and technology of behavior will exert an eternal deterministic influence over all things in the future.[121] Once everything is understood as predetermined, and the predestination of all things is scrutable according to behavioral gnosis, the gnostic leader becomes also the gnostic prophet of the new world to come. Hence, when Castle exclaims, “You are implying that T.E. Frazier, looking at the world from the middle of the twentieth century, understands the best course for mankind forever,” Frazier retorts, “Yes, I suppose I do.”[122] As the author of Walden Two and the founder of behaviorism, Skinner seeks to exert total control over the rest of human history through his behavioral gnosis. Skinner’s knowledge of the determinism affecting all things gives him prophetic powers. His pension for probability and prediction is a testament to his pneumopathology in this regard.

d. The Community of Spiritual Beings

The fourth and final gnostic symbol analyzed by Voegelin is that of the “community of spiritually autonomous persons.” In the Third Realm, the leader and prophet will rule over a “spiritualized mankind existing in community without the mediation and support of institutions.”[123] This “free community” will arise after the extinction of the state and other institutions,[124] and it will be marked by traits such as free love, no private property, freedom from work, the lack of rules, the presence of communism, or perhaps extreme forms of democracy. As we have previously demonstrated, Skinner’s utopianism exhibits all of these qualities. Indeed, the scientific community in Walden Two is described as overcoming the need for “pre-scientific” institutions of law and the state. Compulsion is no longer required where the “feeling of freedom” is experienced by beings whose every action is engineered and behaviorally determined.

Conclusion: Practical Implications of the Gnostic Desire for Certainty for the Education of Students

Having carefully marshaled evidence of Skinner’s gnosticism, we are left to ask why anyone would pursue a project so pneumopathologically insane. What is the attraction of the gnostic attitude? What pathological desire underlies this program of behavioural education? What might be the effects of this pneumopathology if it were allowed to take hold in our educational system? In the concluding portion of this article, I endeavour to offer some answers to these difficult questions.

Clearly, the distortions of reality that arise from Skinner’s diagnosed pneumopathology have not resulted in his desired attainment of dominion over being; rather, Voegelin points out that the spiritual sickness of gnosis – which Skinner’s writings clearly exhibit – affords him a kind of fantasy satisfaction. In his deluded state, the gnostic pneumopath gains the satisfaction of a sense of certainty where he would otherwise suffer the tensions of uncertainty and faith:

“The nature of this [gnostic] drive cannot be discovered by submitting the structure of the fallacy to an even closer analysis. The attention must rather concentrate on what the thinkers achieved by their fallacious construction. On this point there is no doubt. They achieved a certainty about the meaning of history, and about their own place in it, which otherwise they would not have had. Certainties, now, are in demand for the purpose of overcoming uncertainties with their accompaniment of anxiety.”[125]

Gnostic fantasies such as Skinner’s serve to feed the desires of leaders and their masses of followers for certainty about the meaning of their existence through offering them a new and total knowledge of the future. Faith is articulated in Christian thought as “the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”[126] In this respect, it is the very essence of uncertainty. Ontologically, the substance of things hoped for is nowhere to be found but in faith itself; and epistemologically, there is no proof for things unseen but again this very faith.

Education, as inquiry into the truth, requires that the soul remain open towards the truth, including the truth of the highest, unseen things. Hence, a kind of tension must be suffered in the uncertainty and faith that form the basis for education. However, the intensity of suffering this uncertainty is too great for the gnostic, who seeks release from it in false certainty:

“The life of the soul in openness toward God, the waiting, the periods of aridity and dullness, guilt and despondency, contrition and repentance, forsakenness and hope against hope, the silent stirrings of love and grace, trembling on the verge of certainty which if gained is loss – the very lightness of this fabric may prove too heavy a burden for men who lust for massively possessive experience.”[127]

A considerable amount of “spiritual stamina” is required for the “heroic adventure of the soul” that is education. Not everyone is capable of suffering this tension, and when life is extremely difficult and rife with suffering, many become susceptible to gnostic attitudes that offer greater certainty about the meaning of existence than does faith. Skinner himself admits the allure of gnosis in its ability to engender greater certainty than pre-scientific mentalism through its usefulness in the control and prediction of behaviour:

“No one has ever directly modified any of the mental activities or traits [listed as the causes of behaviour in mentalistic formulations]. There is no way in which one can make contact with them. The bodily conditions felt as such can be changed surgically, electrically, or with drugs, but for most practical purposes they are changed only through the environment. When a devotee of mentalism confesses that “we have not learned much about these problems in somewhat over two thousand years of reflective thought,” we may ask why reflective thought has not sooner come under suspicion. Behaviour modification, although still in its infancy, has been successful, whereas mentalistic approaches continue to fail, and once the role of the environment has been made clear, its accessibility is often surprising.”[128]

“Devotees of mentalism” have not made progress in over two thousand years because the movement from uncertainty to certainty would destroy the tension necessary in the relation between the open human mind and unseen realities. Skinner is not willing to suffer this tension, and he impatiently dismisses it as the result of an error in understanding. He opts, rather, for the certainty afforded by his behavioural gnosis.

Having examined the reasons underlying Skinner’s project of gnostic education, we can see the practical effects of this form of education all around us. Indeed, the essence of modernity is the growth of gnosticism. By receding from transcendence and claiming to endow human beings with the ability to save themselves, this gnostic form of education has promoted the terrestrial project of designing a technological paradise on earth. In Voegelin’s view:

“Gnosticism . . . most effectively released human forces for the building of a civilization because on their fervent application to intramundane activity was put the premium of salvation. The historical result was stupendous. The resources of man that came to light under such pressure were in themselves a revelation, and their application to civilizational work produced the truly magnificent spectacle of Western progressive society. However fatuous the surface arguments may be, the widespread belief that modern civilization is Civilization in a pre-eminent sense is experientially justified; the endowment with the meaning of salvation has made the rise of the West, indeed, an apocalypse of civilization.”[129]

A gnostic education like that offered by Skinner is not just a pipe dream of a fictitious community like Walden Two. Rather, real gnostic educational practices have delivered us progress at the price of the death of the spirit. Nietzsche revealed this mystery when he announced in the Gay Science, “God is dead. God remains dead, and we have killed him.”[130] The gnostic murder is constantly committed by those who sacrifice God to civilization through what Voegelin calls “world-immanent action” or “the immanentization of the Christian eschaton”; the further human beings pursue their own self-salvation through gnosis, the further they move away from the life of the spirit that is the heart of philosophy, religion, and at the apex of education. The practical dangers of such an education spring from its consequences as a pneumopathology: “since the life of the spirit is the source of order in man and society, the very success of a Gnostic civilization is the cause of its decline.”[131]

The difficulty of understanding the simultaneous progress and decline that is fostered by the pneumopathological education can be understood more clearly through a brief analysis of two aspects of rationality: namely, calculative, technical, or pragmatic reason, on the one hand, and noetic reason on the other.[132] Skinner’s behavioural education focuses on the development of the former while denying any credence to the latter. Cooper explains the pertinence of these two forms of rationality in understanding human nature and society:

Technical-pragmatic reason guides rational action in the sciences of the external world of nature, in technological developments, and, in general, in the efficient and calculative coordination of means and ends. Noetic reason guides rational action in the sciences of human, society, and history, and in the formation or development of the psyche and of social order. Technical-pragmatic rationality is an absolute minimal requirement for the existence of a social or political order, however defective it might be by the criteria of noetic rationality. More specifically, an ideological sectarian government that has effectively destroyed the public visibility of noetic reason is entirely capable of constructing an industrial, technological society. On the other hand, a highly developed sense of noetic rationality within a community does not necessarily entail the growth of technological activity. The Soviet Union might serve as an example of the first kind of emphasis and the Athens of Plato the second.[133]

Cooper argues that although this distinction between technical and noetic reasoning is valid, the separation of these two forms of reasoning is not absolute, and the realm of technical-pragmatic reason is not autonomous. The belief in such autonomy is a major assumption of technology, and it amounts to a desire to suppress noetic reasoning. This desire to suppress noetic reasoning is clearly evident in Skinner’s attack on all such rational activity as mentalism. However, as Cooper points out:

“[N]oetic reason is what orders the psyche; if it is suppressed, as we know from classical political philosophy, the soul becomes governed by the irrationality of the passions. Because noetic and technical-pragmatic reason are not autonomous, the efficiency of the latter, which coordinates ends and means, will invariably be impaired as the passions (or will) choose ends that cannot be realized, that are self-defeating, and so on. The pursuit of impossible goals does not lend itself to the rational coordination of means. The means will therefore appear inefficient. The usual response to such a situation is not to question the impossibility of the goals but to become even more emphatic about the means, which in turn makes matters worse.”[134]

The self-destructiveness of an educational theory that dismisses noetic reason and that proclaims the autonomy of technical reasoning has been fully actualized only in totalitarian regimes. In our own technological society, it has resulted in the lesser, yet still very serious deformations that concern Skinner, such as the threat of nuclear annihilation, and the problem of ever-increasing environmental degradation. However, Skinner’s own behaviouristic educational project is incapable of dealing effectively with world problems that have arisen due to the gnosticism of our modern Western education. It too is gnostic, and his goal of world transformation through a revolutionary behavioural science and technology is an impossible one. Skinner, in a manner predicted by scholars such as Cooper and Voegelin, is not open to questioning concerning the impossibility of his goal, but very emphatic about the behavioural science and methods of achieving it. Premised upon the denial of noetic rationality, such progress in behavioural technology and education can only make matters much worse.

 

Notes

[1] See, for instance, Plato’s Republic 357b. Bloom translation.

[2] I am here following the distinction between “phenomena” and “substance” as discussed by Pierre Duhem, The Aim and Structure of Physical Theory (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1954), and related by Barry Cooper, Action into Nature (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1991) Chapter 3, “Phenomenalism” 71-98.

[3] B.F. Skinner. Beyond Freedom and Dignity (Alfred A. Knopf: New York, 1972) 3-4; cf. 151-152. Also see B.F. Skinner, About Behaviourism (Alfred A. Knopf: New York, 1974) 31-32, 201-202, 240.

[4] Skinner, About Behaviourism 8.

[5] Skinner, Beyond Freedom and Dignity 4, 5.

[6] Skinner, Beyond Freedom and Dignity 5-6.

[7] Skinner, Beyond Freedom and Dignity 7.

[8] Skinner, About Behaviourism 167.

[9] Skinner, Beyond Freedom and Dignity 7.

[10] Skinner, Beyond Freedom and Dignity 11.

[11] Skinner, Beyond Freedom and Dignity 11.

[12] Skinner, About Behaviourism 118.

[13] Skinner, About Behaviourism 165-166.

[14] Skinner, About Behaviourism 165.

[15] Skinner, About Behaviourism 104.

[16] Skinner, About Behaviourism 118.

[17] Skinner, Beyond Freedom and Dignity 195.

[18] Skinner, Beyond Freedom and Dignity 200-201.

[19] Skinner, About Behaviourism 18.

[20] Skinner, About Behaviourism 21.

[21] Skinner, Beyond Freedom and Dignity 191.

[22] Skinner, Beyond Freedom and Dignity 20.

[23] Skinner, About Behaviourism 189.

[24] B.F. Skinner, Walden Two (MacMillan Paperbacks: New York, 1948) 296.

[25] Skinner, Walden Two 257.

[26] Skinner, About Behaviourism 207.

[27] Skinner, Beyond Freedom and Dignity 199; cf. Skinner, About Behaviourism 225.

[28] Skinner, About Behaviourism 204.

[29] Skinner, About Behaviour 36-37.

[30] Skinner, Beyond Freedom and Dignity 144.

[31] Skinner, About Behaviourism 54. Cf. Skinner, Beyond Freedom and Dignity 61: “Freedom is sometimes defined as a lack of resistance or restraint.”

[32] Skinner, About Behaviourism 113.

[33] Skinner, About Behaviourism 196.

[34] Skinner, Beyond Freedom and Dignity 97.

[35] “Operant” and “respondent conditioning” serve as the two basic laws of Skinnerian behaviorism. The famous tale of Pavlov’s dog will suffice as an explanatory example. Pavlov knew his dog’s mouth watered whenever he brought it a piece of meat. He decided that he would ring a bell each time just before the dog received its food. After he had proceeded with this experiment for a while, he noticed that whenever he rang the bell, his dog would salivate, even before the meat was presented to it. In technical terms, the dog’s salivation at the sight of meat was a natural, “unconditioned,” or “unlearned response” to an equally “unconditioned” or “unlearned” stimulus. The bell, on the other hand, presented the dog with a “conditioned” or “learned” stimulus, thus eliciting the response of salivation. This sort of learning is called “respondent conditioning,” or “respondent learning.” Behaviors affected by this training are called “respondent behaviors.”

“Operant conditioning” differs from “respondent conditioning.” Whereas “respondent conditioning” elicits naturally occurring behaviur (Pavlov’s dog salivates because he knows the bell means his food will soon follow), “operant conditioning” elicits responses that are not clearly natural. “Operant conditioning” proceeds by use of “positive” and “negative” consequences, known as “reinforcements,” as well as through the use of punishment. The activity of “shaking a paw” is not natural behavior for a dog; however, by rewarding a dog with treats over time for such behaviour (i.e., by providing “positive reinforcement”), such behaviours may be conditioned. Likewise, if a trainer seeks to teach a horse to turn to the right, he will pull the reins in that direction and perchance apply his right boot spurs to the horse’s abdomen. The discomfort felt by the horse should it resist these manipulations is decreased when the horse learns to obey the rider; hence, certain “operant behavior” is learned by the horse through “negative reinforcement.” Finally, punishment differs from positive and negative reinforcement in that it does not precede but follows the prescribed behavior. For instance, if a dog constantly digs holes in the flower beds, often the owner will smack the dog’s behind as a consequence for such behavior, in the hopes that this negative consequence will dissuade the dog from acting similarly in the future. One of Skinner’s insights in this regard is that the use of reinforcements (particularly positive ones) is more effective than punishments at controlling behavior. For Skinner’s explanation of “respondent” and “operant conditioning,” see Skinner, About Behaviourism 38-40.

[36] Skinner, Beyond Freedom and Dignity 18-19.

[37] Skinner, Beyond Freedom and Dignity 18-19.

[38] Skinner, About Behaviourism 197.

[39] Skinner, About Behaviourism 198.

[40] Skinner, About Behaviourism 197.

[41] Skinner, Beyond Freedom and Dignity 99.

[42] Skinner, Walden Two 262.

[43] Skinner, Walden Two 263.

[44] Skinner, About Behaviourism 31.

[45] Skinner, Beyond Freedom and Dignity 193.

[46] For Skinner’s analysis of the deficiencies of punishment and the relative merits of “positive reinforcement,” see Skinner, Beyond Freedom and Dignity, chapter 4 entitled, “Punishment,” pp 60-82, and Chapter 5, “Alternatives to Punishment,” pp. 83-100.

[47] Skinner, About Behaviourism 184.

[48] Skinner, Beyond Freedom and Dignity 156.

[49] Skinner, About Behaviourism 201.

[50] Skinner lists the “Causes and Reasons” for behavior in chapter eight of About Behaviourism, pp. 119-136.

[51] Skinner, About Behaviourism 129.

[52] Skinner, Walden Two 175.

[53] Skinner, About Behaviourism 130.

[54] Skinner, Walden Two 30.

[55] Cooper, Action into Nature 71.

[56] Cooper, Action into Nature 72.

[57] Cooper, Action into Nature 72-73.

[58] Cooper, Action into Nature 73.

[59] Cooper, Action into Nature 73.

[60] Skinner, Beyond Freedom and Dignity 94.

[61] New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993).

[62] Eric Voegelin, The New Science of Politics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987) 4.

[63] Voegelin, The New Science of Politics 4.

[64] Voegelin, The New Science of Politics 6.

[65] Voegelin, The New Science of Politics 4-5.

[66] Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics I.i.3

[67] For Skinner’s analysis of “values,” see chapter six of Beyond Freedom and Dignity, entitled “Values” (pp. 101-126).

[68] Voegelin, The New Science of Politics 11.

[69] Voegelin, The New Science of Politics 12.

[70] Eric Voegelin, Science, Politics and Gnosticism (Washington: Regnery Publishing, 1968) 59-60.

[71] Voegelin, Science, Politics and Gnosticism 68.

[72] Skinner, Walden Two 292.

[73] Skinner, Walden Two 293.

[74] Skinner, Walden Two 228.

[75] Skinner, Walden Two 231.

[76] Skinner, Walden Two 288.

[77] See Burris the narrator’s comments, Skinner, Walden Two 295.

[78] Matthew 4.8-11.

[79] Skinner, Walden Two 295.

[80] Voegelin, The New Science of Politics 121.

[81] Skinner, Walden Two 295.

[82] Skinner, Walden Two 295.

[83] Skinner, Walden Two 296.

[84] Skinner, Walden Two 297.

[85] Skinner, Walden Two 300.

[86] See Voegelin, Science, Politics and Gnosticism 14 ff.

[87] Voegelin, Science, Politics and Gnosticism 15.

[88] cf. Plato, Republic 424a, 459a.

[89] See Skinner, Walden Two 51, 65 for prohibitions against money and private property.

[90] Plato, Republic 423e-424a, 449c.

[91] Plato, Republic 457cd. Bloom translation.

[92] Skinner, Walden Two 142.

[93] Skinner, Walden Two 143.

[94] Plato, Republic 433ab.

[95] Skinner, Walden Two 101.

[96] Skinner, Walden Two 169.

[97] The “first wave” is introduced at 453d; the “second wave” is described from 457c to 471e. After the destruction of Glaucon’s city, the “third wave” is discussed wherein philosophy is introduced into the city in order to save it. See 472a-474 ff.   For a more involved discussion of the three waves, see Zdravko Planinc, Plato Through Homer: Poetry and Philosophy in the Cosmological Dialogues (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2003) 39. Also see especially the concluding chapter to Zdravko Planinc, Plato’s Political Philosophy: Prudence in the Republic and The Laws (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1991).

[98] See Skinner’s discussions of utopias in Skinner; Walden Two 14, 157, 193, 208; Beyond Freedom and Dignity 153.

[99] Voegelin, The New Science of Politics 120-122. Cf. Science, Politics and Gnosticism 61-63.

[100] Skinner, Beyond Freedom and Dignity 214.

[101] See Skinner, Beyond Freedom and Dignity 153-154; cf. 182.

[102] Skinner, About Behaviourism 133.

[103] Skinner, Walden Two 193.

[104] Skinner, Beyond Freedom and Dignity 155-156.

[105] Skinner, Walden Two 208.

[106] Skinner, Walden Two 196.

[107] Skinner, Walden Two 199.

[108] Skinner, Walden Two 157.

[109] Voegelin, Science, Politics and Gnosticism 64-68.

[110] Voegelin, The New Science of Politics 110-111.

[111] Voegelin, The New Science of Politics 11-112. Cf. Science, Politics and Gnosticism 64-65.

[112] Skinner, About Behaviourism 31-32.

[113] Skinner, Walden Two 76, 89, 91.

[114] For an excellent analysis of millenarian gnostic movements throughout the middle ages, see Norman Cohn, The Pursuit of the Millenium (New York: Oxford University Press, 1957).

[115] The term “superman” was coined by Goethe and taken up by Marx and Nietzsche to characterize the new man of the Third Realm.

[116] Skinner, Walden Two 236.

[117] For further discussion, see Voegelin, Science, Politics and Gnosticism 66.

[118] Voegelin, The New Science of Politics 112.

[119] Voegelin, Science, Politics and Gnosticism 67.

[120] Skinner, Walden Two 296.

[121] Skinner, Walden Two 254.

[122] Skinner, Walden Two 255.

[123] Voegelin, Science, Politics and Gnosticism 67-68.

[124] Voegelin remarks in Science, Politics and Gnosticism: “The symbolism is most clearly recognizable in communism, but the idea of democracy also thrives not inconsiderably on the symbolism of a community of autonomous men” (68).

[125] Voegelin, The New Science of Politics 122.

[126] Hebrews 11.1.

[127] Voegelin, The New Science of Politics 123.

[128] Skinner, About Behaviourism 208-209.

[129] Voegelin, The New Science of Politics 130.

[130] Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science (New York: Vintage, 1974) aphorism 125.

[131] Voegelin, The New Science of Politics 131.

[132] See the discussion of dianoia (thought) and noēsis (intellection) in the “divided line” image of Plato’s Republic 509d-511e. Dianoia includes geometric and deductive thinking; it involves the discovery and use of axioms and hypotheses without testing them. Noesis, by contrast, involves the dialectical investigation of axioms and hypotheses. It is through noēsis that we aspire to know the highest things, and it is this form of thinking that orders the psyche.

[133] Cooper, Action into Nature 68-69.

[134] Cooper, Action into Nature 69.

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Sean Steel is an Associate Editor of VoegelinView and a Sessional Instructor at the University of Calgary and a public school teacher. He is author of The Pursuit of Wisdom and Happiness in Education (SUNY, 2015) and Teacher Education and the Pursuit of Wisdom (Peter Lang, 2017).

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