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This book is an attempt to find a common language and meeting ground among the various schools of human behavior. Authorities in the fields of psychiatry, psychology, sociology, anthropology, biology, philosophy and history worked together for five years and this book is one outcome of their joint efforts. The book contains reports of four conferences with contributions from nineteen different individuals from the specialties noted above. The reader profits from this in looking at human behavior from the perspective of each discipline. What each authority tries to abstract is in keeping with his particular objective, but it becomes clear that the most significant kinds of concepts useful for each must contain certain basic, elemental principles. Only in this way will it be possible eventually to separate the various disciplines into articulated, operational, holistic divisions.
Usually, a textbook that has many contributors is difficult to review. Although the editor may make every effort to coordinate the various contributions, each will approach the subject with his own bias and frame of reference, so that confusion is often compounded. This book is a notable exception in that the contributors were in conference and questioned each other, and the inevitable confusion was minimized. The editor helped immeasurably with a short summary at the end of each session, a superb initial opening paper and an equally excellent concluding chapter. Much of the exchange among the participants is printed after each presentation and illustrates their groping toward mutual understanding in their search “toward a unified theory of behavior.” Besides clarifying issues