Behaviorism and belief Original Research Article

The examination of now-abandoned behaviorist analysis of the concept of belief can bring to light defects in perspectives such as functionalism and physicalism that are still considered viable. Most theories have in common that they identify the holding of the belief that p by a subject S with some matter of fact in or about S that is distinct from and independent of p. In the case of behaviorism it is easy to show that this feature of the theory generates incoherence in the first-person point of view since it gives footing to the possibility that S could correctly assert “I believe that p,” (that is, “I have the complex disposition the behaviorist theory identifies with holding the belief that p”) and at the same time deny that p is the case. Parallel incoherence can be developed in the context of other philosophically popular accounts of the nature of belief.