eliminative behaviourism

alternative eliminative behaviorism

1. uncountablehuman sciencesBritish standard spelling of eliminative behaviorism (“theory that mental states do not exist and therefore, statements of the mind are statements of physical behavior”)

   After the initial introspectionist period the controlling philosophy of psychology was precisely eliminative behaviourism— the total rejection of the ‘mentalism’ of commonsense psychology.

   1989, Colin McGinn, Mental Content, Oxford: Basil Blackwood, →ISBN, page 125

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   Suffice it to say that no account satisfying the strictures of eliminative behaviourism has ever approached the level of success of folk psychology in offering plausible explanations of human behavior, and that after a great deal of propaganda and sterile methodological debate, this movement has been laid to rest.

   1988, Matin Atkinson, edited by Michael McTear, Understanding Cognitive Science, Chichester: Ellis Horwood Limited, →ISBN, →LCCN, page 49

   If there is one intuition that seems to be central to taking psychology seriously, it's that desires cause behaviours. Our desire for ice cream causes our bodies to move towards it in certain conditions. Our pains cause us to flinch. To deny all of that is to eliminate psychology — which is why perhaps eliminative behaviourism could live with this consequence.

   2009, David Branddon-Mitchell, edited by John Symons and Paco Calvo, The Routledge Companion to Philosophy of Psychology, London; New York: Routledge, →ISBN, page 95