Abstract

In this paper several reformulations of William Ross Ashby and Norbert Wiener’s classical claims on purposive behavior are examined. Next restatements of this issue are then discussed, particularly as regards the following question: is it possible to extend the concepts and methods of mechanical (physical) explanation to psychological explanation, in order to explain human (and animal) purposive behavior? This question was restated in the 1950s as follows: are negative feedback and homeostatic mechanisms really explanatory of adaptive and purposive behavior, or are they tautological re-formulations of older notions? Another notion of adaptive and purposive behavior is also examined in this paper, which was developed in that very period by Herbert A. Simon.