Epicurus and B. F. Skinner: In search of the good life

Neuringer, Allen; Englert, Walter

doi:10.1002/jeab.230

Cited by 5 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 25 publications

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“…On the contrary, Walden II has demonstrated very nicely that as soon as the simple necessities of life are obtained with little effort, there's an enormous welling up of artistic interest. (Skinner, 1948, p. 116) The accessibility of music in Walden II is similar to that of the Garden in Epicurean society, a parallel drawn by Neuringer and Englert (2017). As explained by Neuringer and Englert, the ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus was concerned with how to live the "good life" and defined "good" as caring for one's community.…”

Section: Implications For the Well-being Of Societymentioning

confidence: 99%

Music as a Cultural Inheritance System: A Contextual-Behavioral Model of Symbolism, Meaning, and the Value of Music

2021

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Music is a pervasive cultural practice that has been present in ancient civilizations through to the present, yet its evolutionary significance has not been unequivocally determined. One position suggests that evolution favored music-related behaviors because such behaviors were linked to sexual selection and reproduction. A more recent perspective that is consistent with today's evolutionary science framework suggests that music is a cultural-level adaptation because of the survival advantages it affords members of a community. This article explores the selection mechanisms responsible for the retention and transmission of music-related behaviors. Music is proposed to be a complex symbolic inheritance system, or an advanced form of relational responding, that required cooperation to develop and further facilitated unity and affinity among groups of people. The aggregate product of this cooperation is then assigned meaning and selected by the contingencies of a particular sociocultural community. Music may thus occasion similar values-consistent behavior (i.e., within the values system of the community) across groups of people. Implications for the role of music in promoting the well-being of a culture are examined.

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Section: Implications For the Well-being Of Societymentioning

confidence: 99%

Music as a Cultural Inheritance System: A Contextual-Behavioral Model of Symbolism, Meaning, and the Value of Music

2021

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“…The third is a molar analysis of behavior, for which I assign Billy Baum’s ( 1995 ) “Introduction to Molar Behavior Analysis” (see also Rachlin, 1994 ). The next two readings are Leahey’s ( 2013 ) Chapter 3—“Antiquity: 323 – to 1000 ce ” (e.g., Middle Ages; see Neuringer & Englert, 2017 )—and his Chapter 4—“The Premodern World: 1000 ce to 1600 ce ” (e.g., the Renaissance). The final assignment is Jeanne Goldberg’s ( 2017 ), “The Politicization of Scientific Issues: Looking through Galileo’s Lens or Through the Imaginary Looking Glass.” She introduces Lucretius’s (50 ce /2003) poem, On the Nature of Things , and Stephen Goldblatt’s ( 2011 ) related book, The Swerve: How the World Became Modern , that is, how the world became scientific up to post-modernism.…”

Section: Functional Considerationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The third is a molar analysis of behavior, for which I assign Billy Baum's (1995) "Introduction to Molar Behavior Analysis" (see also Rachlin, 1994). The next two readings are Leahey's (2013) Chapter 3-"Antiquity: 323 -to 1000 ce" (e.g., Middle Ages; see Neuringer & Englert, 2017)-and his Chapter 4-"The Premodern World: 1000 ce to 1600 ce" (e.g., the Renaissance). The final assignment is Jeanne Goldberg's (2017), "The Politicization of Scientific Issues: Looking through Galileo's Lens or Through the Imaginary Looking Glass."…”

Section: Topic 3: the Classical World Middle Ages And Renaissancementioning

confidence: 99%

Teaching a Course on the History of Behavior Analysis

Morris

2022

Perspect Behav Sci

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Teaching the history of behavior analysis can be approached in many ways. One is to embed history in courses on the field’s discipline and subdisciplines (e.g., its basic and applied sciences and their conceptual foundations) and practice. Another is to teach courses on the histories of the discipline and subdisciplines and practice. Still another is to teach a stand-alone course that includes these approaches and more (e.g., their integration, relations with other sciences, the influence of U.S. history and culture). The purpose of this article is to foster teaching the stand-alone course. It has four sections. The first addresses structural considerations: course titles, catalog descriptions, curricula, certification, and accreditation. The second addresses contextual considerations: purposes of teaching history; distinctions between history and historiography; and starting points in selecting textbooks. The third addresses functional considerations: course content organized by topics and their required and recommended readings. The fourth discusses how the course might be revised by eliminating topics (e.g., the Middle Ages), expanding topics and subtopics (e.g., the behaviorisms, philosophy of science) and adding topics and subtopics (e.g., institutional history; diversity, inclusion, and equity). Given the field’s continuing development as a science, system, and practice and the rapid growth in its number and variety of its members, its history is becoming its common core—and a means of teaching it. The course elucidates the field’s integrity; incorporates the entirety of its community of students, scientists, scholars, and practitioners; and advance its coherence as a cultural practice.

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“…An important presentation of Epicurean philosophy has survived by the Latin poem “De rerum natura” by Lucretius (96–55 B.C.E.). This poem is of particular interest to science historians because it is one of the few extended scientific texts which has come to us intact, and, although its fortunes have varied as the fortunes of physical science have fluctuated, and it represents an uninterrupted scientific tradition over a period of twenty centuries [ 31 , 32 ].…”

Section: Medicine From Atomism To Molecular Theorymentioning

confidence: 99%

Greek Medicine Practice at Ancient Rome: The Physician Molecularist Asclepiades

Santacroce

Bottalico

Charitos³

2017

Medicines

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Background: In the pre-Hellenistic period, the concept of medicine was not well-defined. Usually, a disease was considered as a divine punishment and its treatment was devolved to the priests who asked for healing from the divinities. The only job that could be compared to medical practice was a kind of itinerant medicine, derived from the Egyptian therapeutic tradition based only on practical experience and performed by people that knew a number of remedies, mostly vegetable, but without any theoretical bases about the possible mechanisms of action. Opinions about the human nature (naturalistic thinking) and the origin of the illness and heal were the basis of Greek medicine practiced by ancient priests of Asclepius. However, with the evolution of the thought for the continuous research of “κόσμος” (world) knowledge, philosophy woulld become an integral part of medicine and its evolution. This close relationship between philosophy and medicine is confirmed by the Greek physician Galen in the era of the Roman Empire. Methods: Philosophical thought looked for world knowledge starting from mathematics, physics, astronomy, chemistry, medicine, psychology, metaphysics, sociology, and ethics. We must keep in mind that, according to the ancient people, the physicians could not heal the patients without the aid of a “divine God” until medicine, thanks to the Hippocratic practice, became more independent from the supernatural, and contemporary, ethical, and professional. Many physicians were philosophers, as confirmed by their views of life, such as Hippocrates of Cos, Aristotle (hailed as the father of comparative anatomy and physiology), Pythagoras of Samos, Alcmaeon of Croton, Empedocles, Praxagoras, Erasistratus, Galen, and others, including Asclepiades of Bithynia (atomists affinity). Asclepiades, a Greek physician born in Prusa, studied in Athens and Alexandria. His thought was influenced by Democritus’ theories, refusing extensively the Hippocratic ideas that diseases are a result of mood imbalance. Results: Differing from the current Hippocratic idea, only in extreme cases he prescribed medications and bloodletting, two of the most-used therapies of that time. He usually prescribed therapies based on the Epicurean thought, then consisting of walks and music, massages, and thermal baths. He anticipated the modern idea of the body consisting of atoms, and believed that between the atoms exist empty spaces called pores. As the founder of the so called Methodist School, he was the first to divide acute and chronic diseases, and thought that body weakness was dependent on the excessive width of the pores, while their excessive shrinkage determines fever. According to his student Caelius Aurelianus he was the first to adopt tracheotomy as an emergency therapy for diphtheria. Conclusions: Although it is very difficult to reconstruct the theories of Asclepiades of Bithynia because of the lack of original texts, this paper attempts to focus his role and his thought in affirming the Greek medical practice in ancient Rome a...

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Epicurus and B. F. Skinner: In search of the good life

Cited by 5 publications

References 25 publications

Music as a Cultural Inheritance System: A Contextual-Behavioral Model of Symbolism, Meaning, and the Value of Music

Music as a Cultural Inheritance System: A Contextual-Behavioral Model of Symbolism, Meaning, and the Value of Music

Teaching a Course on the History of Behavior Analysis

Greek Medicine Practice at Ancient Rome: The Physician Molecularist Asclepiades

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