Back Walden 2 Catalan Walden Zwei German Walden dos Spanish والدن دو Persian Walden Two French Walden Two Galician 心理学的ユートピア Japanese Walden Two Polish Walden II Portuguese Walden två Swedish
 First edition | |
| Author | B. F. Skinner |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Genre | Science fiction, utopian novel |
| Publisher | Hackett Publishing Company |
Publication date | 1948 |
| Publication place | United States |
| Media type | |
| Pages | 301 |
| ISBN | 0-87220-779-X |
| OCLC | 75310838 |
Walden Two is a utopian novel written by behavioral psychologist B. F. Skinner, first published in 1948. At that time, it was considered as science fiction since science-based methods for altering human behavior were not widespread.[1][2] Such methods are now known as applied behavior analysis.
The book is controversial because its characters speak of a rejection of free will,[3] including a rejection of the proposition that human behavior is controlled by a non-corporeal entity, such as a spirit or a soul.[4] It embraces the proposition that the behavior of organisms, including humans, is determined by environmental variables,[5] and that systematically altering environmental variables can generate a sociocultural system that very closely approximates utopia.[6]
- ^ Skinner, B.F. (1986). "Some Thoughts About the Future". Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 45(2), p. 229. "What the protagonist in Walden Two called a behavioral technology was at the time still science fiction, but it soon moved into the real world."
- ^ Skinner, B.F. (1948). Walden Two. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company. Revised 1976 edition, page vi. ISBN 0-87220-779-X. "The 'behavioral engineering' I had so frequently mentioned in the book was, at the time, little more than science fiction".
- ^ Aschner, Mary Jane McCue (1965). "The Planned Man: Skinner". The Educated Man: Studies in the History of Educational Thought. Paul Nash, Andreas M. Kazamias, and Henry J. Perkinson (Editors). John Wiley & Sons, pp. 389–421. "Public reaction to Walden Two, with its proposal for planned man, was initially slow. But eventually Skinner found himself at the storm center of a controversy that has scarcely abated to this day. Philosophers and psychologists charged into the latest jousting match in the perennial tourney between proponents of determinism and defenders of free will". p. 402.
- ^ Ivie, Stanley D. (2006). "Models and Metaphors". Journal of Philosophy and History of Education 56, pp. 82–92. Retrieved August 23, 2012. "Skinner's system does not provide for a God or a human soul". p. 88.
- ^ Skinner, B.F. (1938). The Behavior of Organisms: An Experimental Analysis. Cambridge, Massachusetts: B.F. Skinner Foundation. ISBN 1-58390-007-1, ISBN 0-87411-487-X.
- ^ Skinner, B.F. (1971). Beyond Freedom and Dignity. Knopf. ISBN 0394425553, ISBN 978-0394425559.