ABSTRACT
For Lacey and Schwartz, as mentalists, an observer of another person sees only that person’s behavior and must infer the person’s hidden internal mental state which ‘mediates’ between the behavior and the environment. For me, as a behaviorist, an observer of another person may actually see that person’s mental state—the mental state is an observable pattern of behavior-environment interaction—and must infer the historical pattern of contingencies of reinforcement behind it. Thus, perhaps paradoxically, for the mentalist behavior is the only objectively and directly observable datum, while for the behaviorist a mental state is directly and objectively observable.
