Behaviourist Psychology Through Systemic Functional Linguistics

Edelman (1992: 67):

One reaction to this state of affairs was to declare the subject off limits and insist that science should concern itself only with behaviour that was observable in ways defined by the forms of successful scientific inquiry concerned with nonintentional objects. In an attempt to salvage the "scientific" posture without denying intentionality, and in contrast to this behaviourism, a different position was later taken by cognitive science.

Blogger Comments:

To be clear, the behaviourist approach to psychology is an attempt to model behaviour broadly within the mechanistic epistemological framework established by Galileo, focusing on measurable primary qualities, rather than secondary 'subjective' qualities. In Cartesian terms, this is modelling behaviour in terms of res extensa rather than res cogitans.

From the perspective of Systemic Functional Linguistic theory, behaviourism is concerned with the behavioural manifestations of consciousness rather than consciousness itself: mental and verbal processes, and their projections, ideas (meanings) and locutions (wordings).