On defining behavior: Some notes

This paper attempts to suggest some conceptual preliminaries to a definition of behavior. I begin by distinguishing some different senses of the notion, with emphasis upon that of behavior as the occurrence of an organism's action or reaction. Subsequently, I provide a brief survey of different types of definition, and try to pick out those among them that can in principle be suitable for the notion of behavior taken in that sense as well as for theoretical concerns. Then, I offer a list of desiderata for a definition thereof framed in any of the types picked out. Finally, I illustrate how the distinctions here established can help the detection of conceptual difficulties in definitions of behavior (in that sense of the concept) found in the literature and, more generally, how they can help determine what behavior consists of and what it does not.