ABSTRACT
One need to understand more clearly the relations between the events described as 'muscle-movements of such-and-such a sort', 'arm rising', 'raising the arm' and 'signalling'. The muscle-movements cause that bodily happening described as 'the arm rising'. Overt behaviour' would seem to mean behaviour that is open to view, public, capable of being seen by an observer. The formula under examination proposes to define 'raising one's arm', for example, in terms of the rising of one's arm together with the presence of some mental occurrence labelled a 'motive'. The doctrine that 'overt behaviour' is something less than human action appears to be loaded with suggestions, epistemological overtones, that cry out for careful and detailed examination. Physical' would seem to be jargon for 'bodily' and suggests in any case a contrast with 'mental'. The formula then is best understood as saying that an action is a bodily movement plus an interior mental occurrence, a motive.
