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Behavior, Purpose and Teleology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2022

Arturo Rosenblueth ,
Norbert Wiener  and
Julian Bigelow
Arturo Rosenblueth
Affiliation:
Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Norbert Wiener
Affiliation:
Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Julian Bigelow
Affiliation:
Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts Institute of Technology
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Extract

This essay has two goals. The first is to define the behavioristic study of natural events and to classify behavior. The second is to stress the importance of the concept of purpose.

Given any object, relatively abstracted from its surroundings for study, the behavioristic approach consists in the examination of the output of the object and of the relations of this output to the input. By output is meant any change produced in the surroundings by the object. By input, conversely, is meant any event external to the object that modifies this object in any manner.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 10 , Issue 1 , January 1943 , pp. 18 - 24
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association 1943

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