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Originally published as:

Ellsworth Faris. "Review of The Religion Called Behaviorism by Louis Berman." American Journal of Sociology 34 (1929): 1207.

Review of The Religion Called Behaviorism by Louis Berman

Ellsworth Faris

This little book, while it contains thirty chapters, is hardly more than a bound pamphlet, since the chapters are very short. One of them has less than a hundred words. It seems to have been written to give notice that the author does not wish to be classed as a behaviorist, preferring to be a gestaltist. Behaviorism is called a religion because it consists of a self-conscious attitude toward life, appeals to invisible powers, and is mystic (sic). Polemic attacks on behaviorism are many, but this proposal to classify Dr. Watson's system in a theological pigeon-hole is an attempt to give the controversy a new twist. The argument is brief and fragmentary, and the appeal to religion seems irrelevant and unconvincing.

ELLSWORTH FARIS
UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO

Notes

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