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Updated: Jun 10, 2026

Perspectives on Neuroscience
Published on: July 31, 2007
A resolution between mentalism and teleonomy, or fodder for a continuing dialogue?
1Department of Psychology, Eastern Kentucky University, Richmond, KY 40475, USA. robert.mitchell@eku.edu
Abstract:
Scientists, including psychologists, are often disturbed by the psychological interpretation of animal behavior. Nick Thompson offered a teleonomic approach to the use of psychological terms to describe behavior that avoided the assumption that mental states (or other entities or processes) caused the behavior. I describe tensions between teleonomic and mentalistic conceptualizations of animals by some early comparative psychologists, and offer our skill at kinesthetic-visual matching as an explanation as to why humans so often assume that mental states cohere with behavior. My explanation elucidates why mentalistic interpretations of behavior remain after teleonomic description.
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