Leigland, S. (1996). The functional analysis of psychological terms: In defense of a research program. The Analysis of Verbal Behavior, 13(1), 105-122. doi:10.1007/BF03392909
[Abstract]In 1945, B. F. Skinner outlined a proposal that psychological or mentalistic terms found in natural language might be analyzed empirically in terms of the variables, conditions, and contingencies of which they may be observed to be a function. Such an analysis would enable discriminations to be made between different classes of variables that enter into the control of the term. In this way, the analysis would clarify what is traditionally called the "meanings" of such terms as they occur as properties of verbal behavior. Despite his expressed confidence in the success of such a program, Skinner largely abandoned the functional analysis of psychological terms in favor of the development of a promising new field; the experimental analysis of behavior. The present paper argues that the original program is of great importance as well, and for the following reasons: (a) to make full, immediate, and (most importantly) effective contact with the range of issues and terms of central importance to the traditionally and culturally important concepts of "mind" and "mental life" (and thereby demonstrating the relevance of radical behaviorism to the full range of human and verbal behavior); and (b) to extend the methodology of the functional analysis of verbal behavior more generally. Such a research program would demonstrate, through an empirically-based scientific analysis, that the philosophical problems concerning "mental life" may be productively analyzed as problems of verbal behavior. Issues of methodology are discussed, and possible methodological strategies are proposed regarding the confirmation of behavior analytic interpretations of mentalistic terms.
[Citing Place (1993c) in context]  

Leigland, S. (2003). Private Events and the Language of the Mental : Comments on Moore Behavior and Philosophy, 31, 159-164
[Citing Place (1993c) in context]  

Leigland, S. (2014). Contingency horizon: On private events and the analysis of behavior. The Behavior analyst, 37(1), 13-24 doi:10.1007/s40614-014-0002-5
[Abstract]Skinner’s radical behaviorism incorporates private events as biologically based phenomena that may play a functional role with respect to other (overt) behavioral phenomena. Skinner proposed four types of contingencies, here collectively termed the contingency horizon, which enable certain functional relations between private events and verbal behavior. The adequacy and necessity of this position has met renewed challenges from Rachlin’s teleological behaviorism and Baum’s molar behaviorism, both of which argue that all “mental” phenomena and terminology may be explained by overt behavior and environment–behavior contingencies extended in time. A number of lines of evidence are presented in making a case for the functional characteristics of private events, including published research from behavior analysis and general experimental psychology, as well as verbal behavior from a participant in the debate. An integrated perspective is offered that involves a multiscaled analysis of interacting public behaviors and private events.
[Citing Place (1993c) in context]  

Moore, J. (1995). Radical Behaviorism and the Subjective-Objective Distinction. The Behavior Analyst, 18, 33–49. doi:10.1007/BF03392690
[Abstract]The distinction between subjective and objective domains is central to traditional psychology, including the various forms of mediational stimulus-organism-response neobehaviorism that treat the elements of a subjective domain as hypothetical constructs. Radical behaviorism has its own unique perspective on the subjective-objective distinction. For radical behaviorism, dichotomies between subjective and objective, knower and known, or observer and agent imply at most unique access to a part of the world, rather than dichotomous ontologies. This perspective leads to unique treatments of such important philosophical matters as (a) dispositions and (b) the difference between first- and third-person psychological sentences.
[Citing Place (1993c)]  

Moore, J. (2001). On psychological terms that appeal to the mental. Behavior and Philosophy, 29, 167-186. [Ullin Place Special Issue]
[Abstract]A persistent challenge for nominally behavioral viewpoints in philosophical psychology is how to make sense of psychological terms that appeal to the mental. Two such viewpoints, logical behaviorism and conceptual analysis, hold that psychological terms appealing to the mental must be taken to mean (i.e., refer to) something that is publicly observable, such as underlying physiological states, publicly observable behavior, or dispositions to engage in publicly observable behavior, rather than mental events per se. However, they do so for slightly different reasons. A third viewpoint, behavior analysis, agrees that (a) some terms are functionally related to (i.e., occasioned by) the link between publicly observable behavior and publicly observable features of the environment, (b) some terms are dispositional, and (c) a purely private language could not arise. However, behavior analysis also recognizes that some psychological terms relate to private behavioral events, such as occur when speakers report internal sensations or engage in covert behavior.
[Citing Place (1956)]  [Citing Place (1992f)]  [Citing Place (1993c)]  [Citing Place (1999a)]  [Citing Chomsky, Place & Schoneberger (2000)]  
Download: Moore (2001) On Psychological Terms that Appeal to the Mental.pdf

Moore, J. (2001). On Distinguishing Methodological from Radical Behaviorism, European Journal of Behavior Analysis, 2(2), 221-244, doi:10.1080/15021149.2001.11434196
[Abstract]Methodological behaviorism may be understood as an umbrella term that subsumes a broad range of intellectual positions in psychology. The positions arose because of influences from both outside and inside psychology. Two influences from outside psychology are from philosophy: logical behaviorism and analytic philosophy. An influence from inside psychology is the conventional interpretation of operationism. Four principal methodological behaviorist positions may be characterized in terms of a combination of ontological and methodological assumptions. Skinner?s radical behaviorism may be distinguished from methodological behaviorist positions on the basis of (a) its conception of verbal behavior as ongoing operant activity, rather than logical, symbolic, or referential activity; and (b) its conception of private events as behavioral in character, rather than mental.
[Citing Place (1993c)]  [Citing Place (1999a)]  [Citing Chomsky, Place & Schoneberger (2000)]  

Moore, J. (2008). Conceptual foundations of radical behaviorism. Sloan.
[Abstract]Conceptual Foundations of Radical Behaviorism is intended for advanced undergraduate or beginning graduate students in courses within behavior analytic curricula dealing with conceptual foundations and radical behaviorism as a philosophy. Each chapter of the text presents what radical behaviorism says about an important topic in a science of behavior, and then contrasts the radical behaviorist perspective with that of other forms of behaviorism, as well as other forms of psychology.
[Citing Place (1993c) in context]  [Citing Place (1999a) in context]