(Stuart) I didn't say change is bad or that this change you describe may not even be the case. My only point is that, in this case, one has so changed the concept as to include what before was excluded in which case it is no longer about behavior alone. But what is "behaviorism" if it isn't about behavior alone? (Gerardo) When you say "it is no longer about behavior alone" you´re sticking to "behavior in the old sense" (overt action), so you think "private phenomena are not REALLY behavior, we´re just pretending they are". But I´m looking the same issue from the new conceptual usage, and I don´t see private events as "not really behaviors": they are legitimate behaviors in the sense I´m using. It´s like if you´ve never seen a PC in your whole life, and when you see the screen you say "that´s not REALLY a desktop", and you think that only a desk on which you put pencils and papers can be named as "desktop". Obviously, for a PC user, the PC´s desktop is no less legitimate as a referent of the word. (Stuart) Okay but note that I have given examples where mental phenomena occur without any behavioral aspects ever arising. I grant they could under the right circumstances. (Gerardo) You´re doing the same as before: you´re sticking to "behavior in the old sense" (overt action). You say "mental phenomena occur without any behavioral aspects ever arising", and by "behavioral aspects" you mean overt action. I don´t, so I´d say instead that "covert behaviors can occur without having any public aspects that can be observed by other persons". (Stuart) But merely because they could doesn't mean they ever will and yet the mental phenomena were real. (Gerardo) The covert phenomena are real, but from this conceptual usage they´re behavioral, not mental. Remember that there´s a new distinction (between private experiences and other kinds of mental concepts), and this case falls in the first side, not the second. (Stuart) This, it seems to me, obliges us to go beyond methodological behaviorism in giving any complete account of minds. But this is not to say there may not be real value in methodological behaviorism for psychological research. (Gerardo) I guess you´re right if you mean that we must go beyond the assumption that "private experience is mental and must be excluded from research because it´s not objective" (this is one of the senses of "methodological behaviorism"), but this is exactly what Skinner proposed (as I´ve told you in my previous message), but I guess you´re wrong if you mean that we must go beyond the assumption that "studying overt behaviors is the best method for studying covert phenomena" (this is other of the senses of "methodological behaviorism"), because of the same arguments that Dennett gave for defending his heterophenomenology (we need public replicability of behavioral relations). (Stuart) I didn't say it was wrong. I said it ceases to be strictly about behavior. (Gerardo) You´r sticking to the old sense. I´d say instead "it ceases to be strictly about overt action". (Stuart) In fact I think it's the correct move because it improves the behaviorist account. But I suspect that it is now something of a reach to continue to call it behaviorism. Certainly it is not the kind of behaviorism that was once popularized as Skinnerian. (Gerardo) You´re having in mind only "logical behaviorism", but there were many kinds of "behaviorisms" (e.g.: Watson, Kantor, Skinner, Hull, Spence, Tolman, Carnap, Quine, Ryle, Rachlin, Staddon, Hayes) with only a "family resemblance" between them. There´re some paradigmatic features that are more typical: psychology is a branch of natural science (against dichotomy between natural and human sciences), psychological evidence should be objective evidence, introspection of private phenomena is problematic as evidence (but not as topic of research) and must not be used as basic data, mental constructs (as volition, intention, purpose) are problematic and must not be considered as causes, theoretical concepts ought to be tied to empirical observations, strong concern on the study of learning (relations between environmental events and responses), strong concern on the study of adaptation of the organism to its environment (learning, evolution), intensional concepts must be avoided in the theoretical accounts because they divert attention away from the focus on relationships between behavior and environment, causes must be searched in the environment (against postulating internal causes of human agency), etc. But not all behaviorisms agree with all features, and each kind argues its own combination of features in a specific way. Don´t forget that we have two issues here: the usefulness of the conceptual framework that weakens the "overt-covert" distinction and strengthens the "observed activity-hypothetical concepts" distinction (against other possible conceptual frameworks), and the usefulness of the retention of the name "behaviorism" (against other possible names). If you have a better name, tell me your proposal and I´ll analyse it. But meanwhile, I guess that "skinnerian version of behaviorism" is possibly the more accurate and less confuse term to name such conceptual framework. Regards, Gerardo.