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Full Idea
There is a temptation to think that 'aboutness', and the 'contents' of thoughts, and the relation of 'reference', are single and unitary relationships, but behaviourism offers an alternative approach.
Gist of Idea
Behaviourism offers a good alternative to simplistic unitary accounts of mental relationships
Source
Robert Kirk (Mind and Body [2003], §5.5)
Book Ref
Kirk,Robert: 'Mind and Body' [Acumen 2003], p.106
A Reaction
Personally I wouldn't touch behaviourism with a barge-pole (as it ducks the question of WHY certain behaviour occurs), but a warning against simplistic accounts of intentional states is good. I am sure there cannot be a single neat theory of refererence.
| 7434 | Behaviourism is false, but mind is definable as the cause of behaviour [Armstrong] |
| 3369 | Logical behaviourism translates mental language to behavioural [Kim] |
| 3428 | Behaviourism reduces mind to behaviour via bridging principles [Kim] |
| 4991 | Behaviourism seems a good theory for intentional states, but bad for phenomenal ones [Kirk,R] |
| 4994 | Behaviourism offers a good alternative to simplistic unitary accounts of mental relationships [Kirk,R] |
| 3165 | Behaviourism is eliminative, or reductionist, or methodological [Rey] |
| 3180 | Maybe behaviourists should define mental states as a group [Rey] |