[lbo-talk] Re: RIP, Dr. Fraud - Freud, Influential Yet Unloved

Jim Farmelant farmelantj at juno.com
Thu Feb 19 14:02:39 PST 2004


On Thu, 19 Feb 2004 12:12:53 -0800 (PST) Miles Jackson <cqmv at pdx.edu> writes:
>
>
> On Thu, 19 Feb 2004, Jim Farmelant wrote:
>
> > One person who was, perhaps surprisingly,
> > not a Freud-basher was the great
> > behavioral pychologist, B.F. Skinner.
> > In a review of Marc Richelle's book, *B.F. Skinner:
> > A Reappraisal*, (http://www.naturalism.org/reviews.htm#BFSkinner),
> > I noted:
> >
> > "Richelle devotes a chapter to Freud in Skinner's writings.
> > He notes that while Skinner was highly critical of Freud's
> > mentalism, he had many kind things to say about Freud's work.
> > Skinner admired Freud for being a determinist, for being an
> > astute observer of human behavior, and for having discarded
> > consciousness and introspection as tools for understanding
> > mental processes.
>
> Um, this leaves out the little detail that Skinner totally
> rejected the idea of the unconscious, which is the
> crucial core concept of Freud's theory. --It's a lot
> like saying "I like the idea of capitalism, except for the
> bit about private ownership of the means of production".

What makes you think that Skinner rejected the idea of the unconsious? True, he rejected mentalist formulations of that notion, just as he rejected mentalism in general as a strategy of psychological explanation. But take note of what I wrote before:

"Freud was praised by Skinner for having shown that mental activity does not require consciousness and that many of the most important aspects of mental activity occur beyond its ken." In other words for Skinner, behavior including the covert behaviors that we call thinking or mentation are not inherently conscious and do not require consciousness as such. Skinner believed that we develop consciousness about ourselves out of our participation in social interactions in which we are forced to provide accounts of our behaviors both to others and to ourselves. In other words we are not inherently conscious.

Jim F.


>
> Miles
>
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>

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