Russell's Analysis of Mind

I have started to read Bertrand Russell's lectures published in 1921. I picked up the book in India last February. He accepts Watson's behaviorism for desire, but not for belief. He claims his approach is a kind of neutral monism between materialsim and idealism, similar to William James' rejection of consciousness as an entity. He says mind and matter can affect each other, rejecting Descartes' dualism of independent substances. The common stuff seems to be "events" that modern physics refines into matter and objects, while psychology should show how common-sense mental concepts like desire and belief arise from events. So neither mind or matter are fundamental, both are derived from a common stuff (what James called pure experience). Matter and mind interact causally; however, Russell is open to the empirical possibility that physical laws don't depend on psychological laws, although psychological laws clearly depend on physical laws. The preface calls this a nomological dualism. This work was apparently in reaction to Wittgenstein's criticism of his earlier theory, which I have to read up on.