Is talking to yourself thinking?

Rachlin (2018) asks a simple question: is talking to yourself the same as thinking?

He compares two camps inside behaviorism. Radical behaviorists treat silent self-talk as real thinking. Teleological behaviorists say no—thinking is the long pattern of what you do, not the whisper in your head.

The paper is pure theory. No new data, just a careful map of where the two sides part ways.

The split boils down to privacy. If you allow private events as behavior, self-talk can be thinking. If you only count visible action over time, thinking lives in the pattern, not the whisper.

Your choice decides how you talk about mind in therapy and in research.

Rachlin (2013) and Okouchi (1999) set the stage. They use stories and reviews to show that teleological talk about mind is allowed—so long as it points to extended, overt patterns. Rachlin (2018) sharpens that point by pinning it against the radical view.

Simon (2023) extends the same line in a fresh interview. Rachlin repeats the rule: mind is what you do across time, not a ghost in the head. The 2023 piece adds no contradiction; it just gives the idea new air.

Lazzeri et al. (2025) move the lens to operant science. They argue that goal talk is fine when grounded in selection by consequences. This successor paper keeps the teleological side but widens the field from self-talk to all operant action.

When you write reports or explain private events to parents, your words shape what people think behaviorism is. If you side with teleology, you track long-term patterns and skip guessing about inner speech. If you side with radical, you can treat self-talk as a behavior to measure. Pick one, know why, and stay consistent. Your choice keeps the field coherent—and keeps you out of mentalistic quicksand.