Behaviorism and Eliminativism

Abstract Behaviorism and eliminativism represent significant challenges to the scientific legitimacy of folk psychological concepts and explanations. Both views emphasize the explanatory inadequacies of folk psychological explanations of human behavior, but they differ with respect to the theoretical framework that they hypothesize will take its place. B. F. Skinner's radical behaviorism maintained that folk psychological explanations would eventually be replaced by explanations in terms of reinforcement contingencies. In contrast, the eliminativism of Paul and Patricia Churchland contends that folk psychological explanations will eventually be replaced by neuroscientific explanations. The motivations and implications of each of these views are discussed.