Logical Behaviourism, as proposed by B. F. Skinner and Gilbert Ryle, is a theory which dictates that mental states are behavioural states as the mind can be explained in terms of behaviour; all mental phenomena (eg. emotion) can be understood as behavioural dispositions. Ryle simply states that applying a mental property to someone is the logical equivalent of saying that someone will act a certain way. The theory fills the holes of Identity Theory by giving an explanation for all mental states and rendering them behavioural dispositions. This theory explores the idea that only physical manifestations of emotions exist, emotions itself don’t. Our "mental life" is a set of learned behavioural responses to various stimuli from our environment. The idea of us being a sum total of our behavioural dispositions works in accordance with Aristotle’s famous quote of “We are what we repeatedly do.” As this quote points out that our dispositions to behave in a certain way creates our identity and our mental self. Logical Behaviourism is also supported by a few scientists as mental states can be proven scientifically through behaviour experiments and analysis of behaviour. An example of logical behaviourism being practical in real life would be when someone is crying, we can infer that they are feeling disconsolate as their mental state is their behavioural state. Logical Behaviourism is a rather economical theory of the mind as it solves the mind/body problem by explaining the mind in terms of behaviour and avoids the problem of interaction as the mind is simply a convoluted way to explain behaviour. All other mental phenomena, such as beliefs or sensations, can also be explained in terms of dispositions to behave in a certain way. This theory is also dubbed rather eliminative as it replaces terms like pain and belief without descriptions of behaviour.
Although the theory seems elegant and simple, it has serious objections which comes in the form of suppressed emotion. The idea of suppressed emotion can be determined to be plausible using Plato’s theory on human self which determines man as being rational. In Plato’s famous Chariot Analogy, he concluded that we have to overcome our impulses and our long-term desires (the horses Thumos and Epithumetikon) in order to make informed subjective decisions that are rational. This idea then validates this possibility of being able to suppress emotions as emotions are concealed in order to sustain relationships and to not upset other people. Emotions can be concealed through behaviour (person A may pretend to like person B but in reality may actually not) and no one would know about the true mental state as they would analyse only the behaviour of person A. This means that the perceived mental state of a person could be extremely different from the actual mental state that should be perceived as people are able to hide their true behavioural disposition by changing it to something else. Coming back to the idea of person A pretending to like person B, a behaviourist would be at a fault here as they would not be able to offer an adequate explanation of why a liking behaviour was even shown to person B. Mental states seem to be the cause of behaviour but they are not the same things as behaviour itself. Logical behaviourism seems to be too restrictive as it is problematic to reduce all mental states to dispositions to behave in certain ways.