September 2021
Cumulative Record. Chapter 5: “Man”. Quote 3
Where a scientific analysis shows that we react in a given way because similar actions in our past have had particular consequences, the mentalist may insist that we act because we have stored memories of past actions and of their consequences, which we now scan in order to reach certain expectations leading to an act […]
Cumulative Record. Chapter 5: “Man”. Quote 1
. . . more and more of the behavior of organisms, including man, is being plausibly related to events in their genetic and environmental histories. If other sciences are any guide, human behavior may ultimately be accounted for entirely in such terms. (p. 51)
Cumulative Record. Chapter 4: The Design of Cultures. Quote 12
We cannot predict the success or failure of a cultural invention with the same accuracy as we do that of a physical invention. It is for this reason that we are said to resort to value judgements in the second case. What we resort to is guessing. (p. 49)
Cumulative Record. Chapter 4: The Design of Cultures. Quote 9
Our apparatus was designed by the organism we study, for it was the organism which led us to choose a particular manipulandum, particular categories of stimulation, particular modes of reinforcement, and so on, and to record particular aspects of its behavior. (p. 47)
Cumulative Record. Chapter 4: The Design of Cultures. Quote 1
Our present understanding of the so-called “contingencies of reinforcement” is undoubtedly incomplete, but it nevertheless permits us to construct new forms of behavior, to bring behavior under the control of new aspects of the environment, and to maintain it under such control for long periods of time—and all of this often with surprising ease. (p. […]