Behaviorism: Dead or Alive?

Abstract

Behaviorism, both as a psychological research program and a philosophical doctrine, was once a very popular and promising theory, the extension of which had a great impact on various fields such as socio-political theory and education. Both behaviorist movements actually shared something in common, which is to bring the downfall of the Cartesian metaphysics, in which the mental is understood as something essentially private and subjective. In this work, first I will briefly go over the general circumstances before the rise of behaviorism and the challenge of behaviorism to the Cartesian metaphysics. Later on, I will provide some of the technical details of philosophical behaviorism. In the last section, I will summarize some of the famous criticisms of behaviorism. I will argue for the claim that despite what Putnam and others thought, behaviorism does not seem to be a weak theory at all. On the contrary, I think that Putnam’s criticisms could only show how badly behaviorism is misunderstood and caricaturized. Finally, I will talk about possible theoretical responses to Putnam’s criticisms, responses that could easily be launched from a Rylean or Wittgensteinian perspective.