The misbehaviorists : $b Pseudo-science and the modern temper

Description

"The saga of Silver Bend" by J. E. Grinstead is a treatise written in the late 1920s. It critiques the “modern temper” that elevates mechanistic science above poetry, religion, and human dignity, asking whether fashionable doctrines truly capture reality. The work probes behaviorism, psychoanalysis, and allied popular sciences, questioning what is lost when mind, will, and soul are dismissed. The opening of this work contrasts voices like Joseph Wood Krutch and Hilaire Belloc to frame a culture drifting from faith, then asks whether science offers a coherent and reliable picture of the world. It quickly targets behaviorism: outlining receptors, neurons, synapses, and reflex arcs; explaining conditioned reflexes (such as the “Little Albert” fear experiment); and arguing that denying consciousness while relying on ideas like purpose and meaning is self‑contradictory. The author challenges reductions of emotion to mere motions, critiques behaviorist claims about language (“sub‑vocal speech”), education, and child‑rearing (“Give me the baby”), and questions substituting earnings or output curves for moral standards. The section closes by pivoting to William McDougall’s instinct theory and the problem of free will under scientific laws, setting up a broader debate between materialist determinism and a vitalist view of mind. (This is an automatically generated summary.)

Subjects

• Psychology
• Science -- Philosophy
• Behaviorism (Psychology)
• BF