Against the trivialization of Skinner’s critique of democracy

Abstract

Does having been critical of democracy make B.F. Skinner undemocratic? This is a question to which different interpreters of his work would give equally different answers. An examination of the Skinnerian perspective on democracy was provided by J. A. D. Abib in a 2015 essay entitled “Skinner, democracy and anarchy”. In this piece, I situate the problem of the vagueness of Skinner’s position on democracy, I briefly describe the way in which Abib examines and specifies this position, and, finally, I comment on his challenge to imagine a “postmodern” democracy. Highlighting ambiguities, exploring the polysemy of terms and undoing sources of conceptual confusion, Abib’s essay works as an antidote to the trivialization of Skinner’s critique of democracy, rendering obsolete accusations by some of his opponents, and paving the way for an update and complexification of the philosophical discussions on the relationship between democracy and Skinnerian thought.