Psychology without brains

Abstract

Rachlin's “teleological behaviorism” is a dubious melange. Of Aristotle's four basic “causes” – formal, efficient, material, and final – the scientists and philosophers of the modern era expelled the last, or teleology, from science. Adaptionist evolutionary biologists now sometimes sanction talk of the function or purpose of organisms' structures and behavioral repertoires as a first step because they believe evolution through natural selection makes natural organisms look as if they are purposively designed. But, as Aristotle himself insisted, humans are as much artificial as natural and so teleology is much less appropriate. To the degree that Rachlin's view makes sense it seems to amount to Daniel Dennett's intentional stance or the folk psychology talk of our everyday narrations of ourselves and others.