Mind: A Brief Introduction (John R. Searle) / quote 48 of 138
Mental states as dispositions to behave
According to a typical behaviorist analysis, to say that Jones believes it is going to rain just means the same as saying an indefinite number of statements such as the following: if the windows in Jones’s house are open, he will close them; if the garden tools are left outside, he will put them indoors; if he goes for a walk he will carry an umbrella or wear a raincoat or both; and so forth. The idea was that having a mental state was just being disposed to certain sorts of behavior; and the notion of a disposition was to be analyzed in terms of hypothetical statements, statements of the form “If p then q.” As applied to the problem of mental states, these statements would take the form, “If such-and-such conditions obtain, then such-and-such behavior will ensue.”