PSYCHOLOGY WITHOUT BRAINS

Rachlin's ''teleological behaviorism'' is a dubious melange. Of Aristo tle's four basic ''causes'' - formal, efficient, material, and final - the scientists and philosophers of the modern era expelled the last, or teleology, from science. Adaptionist evolutionary biologists now so metimes sanction talk of the function or purpose of organisms' structu res and behavioral repertoires as a first step because they believe ev olution through natural selection makes natural organisms look as if t hey are purposively designed. But, as Aristotle himself insisted, huma ns are as much artificial as natural and so teleology is much less app ropriate. To the degree that Rachlin's view makes sense it seems to am ount to Daniel Dennett's intentional stance or the folk psychology tal k of our everyday narrations of ourselves and others.