On Chomsky's Review of Skinner's “Verbal Behavior” (1970) [pdf]
ncbi.nlm.nih.govI could only finish two pages. What's so interesting about a response to a review of a linguistics book written by a psychologist? Normally I always read the entire article before commenting, but I feel like I'm missing something. Am I really the only one here who doesn't have the background for this? Am I expected to have read the book and review first? Am I expected to read the book and review now?
Well, I'm not a fountain of knowledge here, but here's what I know. Skinner is a psychologist, founder of the behaviorism approach in psychology. The chief idea if behaviorism is that it refuses to build any imaginary psychology models and sticks to what's really observable and measurable. For example, a behaviorist won't talk about Id or Ego, introverts or extroverts, inner child and such because these concepts are just that: imaginary concepts we have no proof of.
I'd say that behaviorism was very successful and came up with very useful results, such as teaching machines (note that it it was around 50s). Skinner even went further and wrote about cultural engineering, that is a way to change our culture to build a better future. You can read more about this in his books "Beyond Freedom and Dignity" and "Walden Two". The latter is a utopia; it describes an imaginary community built on these principles. What's interesting is that this took off somewhat and there were a few attempts to actually built such communities and some of them appear to still function; they started in 70s, so it's a very good result for an endeavor like that.
Now, Chomsky is a linguist and I don't know much about his works, except formal grammars and such and I know that he has some strong political views, although I cannot really describe them. When Skinner published his book "Verbal Behavior", Chomsky wrote a very critical review of it. The review became very popular, more than the book itself. Skinner never replied (he rarely did). My understanding is that this was one of major blows against behaviorism; nowadays many of its achievements are forgotten; the psychologists know about this, of course, but do you see any teaching machines around? Cultural engineering, anyone? (Also, check Skinner's air crib.)
Now this is a reply to Chomsky's review by MacCorquodale. Wikipedia says that it was endorsed by Skinner, so it probably summarizes Skinner's position on things. So yes, it must be an interesting piece. I think it's best to read Chomsky first. I myself haven't read neither "Verbal Behavior" nor Chomsky's review, but now I just might :)