| Abstract: Logical Behaviorism, a psychological form of Logical Positivism, was proposed by Carnap, Hempel and others during the first part of the 20th century. Logical behaviorism is generally viewed as having been discredited in a classic paper by Putnam (1965). In that paper, Putnam attempted to break an apparent link between pain-related behavior (taking an aspirin, wincing) and the phenomenal experience of pain by positing alternative worlds where a race of superhumans could suppress all overt behavioral response to pain. Putnam’s analysis has often (wrongly) been applied to other forms of behaviorism, including Radical Behaviorism. The present paper shows that Putnam’s original arguments were ill-conceived. In particular, Putnam failed to consider the wide range of pain-related behavior, and completely ignores the functional properties of pain behavior. Putnam’s alternative universe also fails to conserve many important characteristics of “pain” in our universe. Like many critiques of behaviorism (in all of its forms), Putnam’s argument falls well short of validity. The issue should be of interest to Radical Behaviorists because Radical Behaviorism is often confused with Logical Behaviorism. In addition, certain aspects of Logical Behaviorism can, and perhaps should, be incorporated into Radical Behaviorism. |