logical behaviorism

Logical behaviorism, on the other hand, makes a claim about the nature of our mental concepts.

Parallel to these developments in psychology, a philosophical behaviorism (sometimes called logical behaviorism) was developed.

Logical behaviorism was first stated by Oxford philosopher Gilbert Ryle in his book The Concept of Mind (1949).

Logical behaviorism (also known as philosophical behaviorism or analytical behaviorism) is a theory of mind that mental concepts can be explained in terms of behavioral concepts.

Ryle's brand of logical behaviorism is not to be confused with the radical behaviorism of B. F. Skinner, or the methodological behaviorism of John B. Watson.

Although he would later abandon logical behaviorism as a theory of the mind in favor of the type-identity theory, Place nevertheless continued to harbor sympathies toward the behavioristic approach to psychology in general.

The problem with logical behaviorism was that it failed to account for causation between mental states and such causation seems to be essential to psychological explanation, especially if one considers that behavior is not an effect of a single mental event/cause but is rather the effect of a chain of mental events/causes.

Logical behaviorism emerged as a serious contender to take the place of the Cartesian "ghost in the machine" and, although not lasting very long as a dominant position on the mind/body problem, its elimination of the whole realm of internal mental events was strongly influential in the formation and acceptance of the thesis of type identity.