ABSTRACT
We shall turn now to what has been called Skinner’s ideology. It is, with some justification, the aspect of Skinner’s work in which the layreader is most interested, but the essence of Skinner’s ideology can be difficult to grasp, let alone appraise or criticise, without a clear prior knowledge of the methodological and theoretical concepts from which it is derived, or is claimed to be derived. For this reason I have devoted much of previous chapters to discussion of consciousness, verbal behaviour, creativity, education, psychotherapy, etc—this, I hope, will be sufficient to discard the classical argument against Skinner’s social philosophy, i.e. that man is neither a rat nor a pigeon. However, a number of questions remain to be asked concerning the sociopolitical writings of Skinner.
