Single Idea 3001

[catalogued under 17. Mind and Body / B. Behaviourism / 4. Behaviourism Critique]

Full Idea

Behaviourists had trouble providing a robust construal of mental causation (and hence had no logical space for a psychology of mental processes).

Clarification

A 'contrual' is an explanation

Gist of Idea

Behaviourism has no theory of mental causation

Source

Jerry A. Fodor (Psychosemantics [1987], p. 67)

Book Reference

Fodor,Jerry A.: 'Psychosemantics' [MIT 1993], p.67


A Reaction

If they could reduce all mental events to stimulus-response, that seems to fall within the normal procedures of physical causation. There is no problem of mental causation if your ontology is entirely physical.