《乔姆斯基著《语言行为评述》A_Review_of_B._F._Skinner’s_Verbal_Behavior》.pdf

Bad News: Noam Chomsky http ://cogprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/archive00/chomsky.htm A Review of B. F. Skinner’s Verbal Behavior by Noam Chomsky A Review of B. F. Skinner’s Verbal Behavior in Language, 35, No. 1 (1959), 26-58. Preface Preface to the 1967 reprint of A Review of Skinner’s Verbal Behavior Appeared in Readings in the Psychology of Language, ed. Leon A. Jakobovits and Murray S. Miron (Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1967), pp.142-143 by Noam Chomsky Rereading this review after eight years, I find little of substance that I would change if I were to write it today. I am not aware of any theoretical or experimental work that challenges its conclusions; nor, so far as I know, has there been any attempt to meet the criticisms that are raised in the review or to show that they are erroneous or ill-founded. I had intended this review not specifically as a criticism of Skinner’s speculations regarding language, but rather as a more general critique of behaviorist (I would now prefer to say empiricist) speculation as to the nature of higher mental processes. My reason for discussing Skinner’s book in such detail was that it was the most careful and thoroughgoing presentation of such speculations, an evaluation that I feel is still accurate. Therefore, if the conclusions I attempted to substantiate in the review are correct, as I believe they are, then Skinner’s work can be regarded as, in effect, a reductio ad absurdum of behaviorist assumptions. My personal view is that it is a definite merit, not a defect, of Skinner’s work that it can be used for this purpose, and it was for this reason that I tried to deal with it fairly exhaustively. I do not see how his proposals can be improved upon,