Meaning of Skinner's maxim | Babel Free

Definitions

The principle that any historical account of what someone meant by a certain action or statement must in some measure conform to that person’s own understanding of what they were saying or doing.

Examples

“When we respect Skinner’s maxim we shall give an account of the dead thinker ‘in his own terms’, ignoring the fact that we should think ill of anyone who still used those terms today. When we ignore Skinner’s maxim, we give an account ‘in our own terms’, ignoring the fact that the dead thinker, in his linguistic habits as he lived, would have repudiated these terms as foregn to his interests and intentions.”

“Historical reconstruction obeys Skinner’s Maxim: no agent can eventually be said to have said or meant something which he could never be brought to accept as a correct description of what he said or meant.”

“Historical reconstructions will follow ‘Skinner’s maxim’, and will constrain themselves to offering only descriptions that the writer in question could in principle endorse.”

CEFR level