A Resolution Between Mentalism and Teleonomy, or Fodder for a Continuing Dialogue?

摘要

Scientists, including psychologists, are often disturbed by the psychological interpretation of animal behavior. Nick Thompson offered a teleonomic approach to the use of psychological terms to describe behavior that avoided the assumption that mental states (or other entities or processes) caused the behavior. I describe tensions between teleonomic and mentalistic conceptualizations of animals by some early comparative psychologists, and offer our skill at kinesthetic-visual matching as an explanation as to why humans so often assume that mental states cohere with behavior. My explanation elucidates why mentalistic interpretations of behavior remain after teleonomic description.