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Materialism

In Psychological Explanation: An Introduction To The Philosophy Of Psychology. Ny: Random House (1968)

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  1. The multiple realizability argument against reductionism.Elliott Sober - 1999 - Philosophy of Science 66 (4):542-564.
    Reductionism is often understood to include two theses: (1) every singular occurrence that the special sciences can explain also can be explained by physics; (2) every law in a higher-level science can be explained by physics. These claims are widely supposed to have been refuted by the multiple realizability argument, formulated by Putnam (1967, 1975) and Fodor (1968, 1975). The present paper criticizes the argument and identifies a reductionistic thesis that follows from one of the argument's premises.
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  • The uses and abuses of the personal/subpersonal distinction.Zoe Drayson - 2012 - Philosophical Perspectives 26 (1):1-18.
    In this paper, I claim that the personal/subpersonal distinction is first and foremost a distinction between two kinds of psychological theory or explanation: it is only in this form that we can understand why the distinction was first introduced, and how it continues to earn its keep. I go on to examine the different ontological commitments that might lead us from the primary distinction between personal and subpersonal explanations to a derivative distinction between personal and subpersonal states. I argue that (...)
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  • On the demystification of mental imagery.Stephen M. Kosslyn, Steven Pinker, George E. Smith & Steven P. Shwartz - 1979 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 2 (4):535-548.
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  • The ontology of concepts: Abstract objects or mental representations?Eric Margolis & Stephen Laurence - 2007 - Noûs 41 (4):561-593.
    What is a concept? Philosophers have given many different answers to this question, reflecting a wide variety of approaches to the study of mind and language. Nonetheless, at the most general level, there are two dominant frameworks in contemporary philosophy. One proposes that concepts are mental representations, while the other proposes that they are abstract objects. This paper looks at the differences between these two approaches, the prospects for combining them, and the issues that are involved in the dispute. We (...)
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  • Neural Computation and the Computational Theory of Cognition.Gualtiero Piccinini & Sonya Bahar - 2013 - Cognitive Science 37 (3):453-488.
    We begin by distinguishing computationalism from a number of other theses that are sometimes conflated with it. We also distinguish between several important kinds of computation: computation in a generic sense, digital computation, and analog computation. Then, we defend a weak version of computationalism—neural processes are computations in the generic sense. After that, we reject on empirical grounds the common assimilation of neural computation to either analog or digital computation, concluding that neural computation is sui generis. Analog computation requires continuous (...)
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  • The (multiple) realization of psychological and other properties in the sciences.Kenneth Aizawa & Carl Gillett - 2009 - Mind and Language 24 (2):181-208.
    Abstract: There has recently been controversy over the existence of 'multiple realization' in addition to some confusion between different conceptions of its nature. To resolve these problems, we focus on concrete examples from the sciences to provide precise accounts of the scientific concepts of 'realization' and 'multiple realization' that have played key roles in recent debates in the philosophy of science and philosophy of psychology. We illustrate the advantages of our view over a prominent rival account ( Shapiro, 2000 and (...)
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  • In defense of convergent realism.Clyde L. Hardin & Alexander Rosenberg - 1982 - Philosophy of Science 49 (4):604-615.
    Many realists have maintained that the success of scientific theories can be explained only if they may be regarded as approximately true. Laurens Laudan has in turn contended that a necessary condition for a theory's being approximately true is that its central terms refer, and since many successful theories of the past have employed central terms which we now understand to be non-referential, realism cannot explain their success. The present paper argues that a realist can adopt a view of reference (...)
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  • The supervenience of biological concepts.Alexander Rosenberg - 1978 - Philosophy of Science 45 (3):368-386.
    In this paper the concept of supervenience is employed to explain the relationship between fitness as employed in the theory of natural selection and population biology and the physical, behavioral and ecological properties of organisms that are the subjects of lower level theories in the life sciences. The aim of this analysis is to account simultaneously for the fact that the theory of natural selection is a synthetic body of empirical claims, and for the fact that it continues to be (...)
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  • Functionalism about inference.Jared Warren - 2025 - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 68 (2):718-742.
    Inferences are familiar movements of thought, but despite important recent work on the topic, we do not yet have a fully satisfying theory of inference. Here I provide a functionalist theory of inference. I argue that the functionalist framework allows us the flexibility to meet various demands on a theory of inference that have been proposed (such as that it must explain inferential Moorean phenomena and epistemological ‘taking’). While also allowing us to compare, contrast, adapt, and combine features of extant (...)
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  • Preferences and Positivist Methodology in Economics.Christopher Clarke - 2016 - Philosophy of Science 83 (2):192-212.
    I distinguish several doctrines that economic methodologists have found attractive, all of which have a positivist flavour. One of these is the doctrine that preference assignments in economics are just shorthand descriptions of agents' choice behaviour. Although most of these doctrines are problematic, the latter doctrine about preference assignments is a respectable one, I argue. It doesn't entail any of the problematic doctrines, and indeed it is warranted independently of them.
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  • Computational modeling vs. computational explanation: Is everything a Turing machine, and does it matter to the philosophy of mind?Gualtiero Piccinini - 2007 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 85 (1):93 – 115.
    According to pancomputationalism, everything is a computing system. In this paper, I distinguish between different varieties of pancomputationalism. I find that although some varieties are more plausible than others, only the strongest variety is relevant to the philosophy of mind, but only the most trivial varieties are true. As a side effect of this exercise, I offer a clarified distinction between computational modelling and computational explanation.<br><br>.
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  • Functionalism and reductionism.Robert C. Richardson - 1979 - Philosophy of Science 46 (4):533-58.
    It is here argued that functionalist constraints on psychology do not preclude the applicability of classic forms of reduction and, therefore, do not support claims to a principled, or de jure, autonomy of psychology. In Part I, after isolating one minimal restriction any functionalist theory must impose on its categories, it is shown that any functionalism imposing an additional constraint of de facto autonomy must also be committed to a pure functionalist--that is, a computationalist--model for psychology. Using an extended parallel (...)
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  • Mechanistic Abstraction.Worth Boone & Gualtiero Piccinini - 2016 - Philosophy of Science 83 (5):686-697.
    We provide an explicit taxonomy of legitimate kinds of abstraction within constitutive explanation. We argue that abstraction is an inherent aspect of adequate mechanistic explanation. Mechanistic explanations—even ideally complete ones—typically involve many kinds of abstraction and therefore do not require maximal detail. Some kinds of abstraction play the ontic role of identifying the specific complex components, subsets of causal powers, and organizational relations that produce a suitably general phenomenon. Therefore, abstract constitutive explanations are both legitimate and mechanistic.
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  • Construct Stabilization and the Unity of the Mind-Brain Sciences.Jacqueline Anne Sullivan - 2016 - Philosophy of Science 83 (5):662-673.
    This paper offers a critique of an account of explanatory integration that claims that explanations of cognitive capacities by functional analyses and mechanistic explanations can be seamlessly integrated. It is shown that achieving such explanatory integration requires that the terms designating cognitive capacities in the two forms of explanation are stable but that experimental practice in the mind-brain sciences currently is not directed at achieving such stability. A positive proposal for changing experimental practice so as to promote such stability is (...)
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  • (1 other version)Functionalism, computationalism, and mental contents.Gualtiero Piccinini - 2004 - Canadian Journal of Philosophy 34 (3):375-410.
    Some philosophers have conflated functionalism and computationalism. I reconstruct how this came about and uncover two assumptions that made the conflation possible. They are the assumptions that (i) psychological functional analyses are computational descriptions and (ii) everything may be described as performing computations. I argue that, if we want to improve our understanding of both the metaphysics of mental states and the functional relations between them, we should reject these assumptions. # 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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  • Parallel computation and the mind-body problem.Paul Thagard - 1986 - Cognitive Science 10 (3):301-18.
    states are to be understood in terms of their functional relationships to other mental states, not in terms of their material instantiation in any particular kind of hardware. But the argument that material instantiation is irrelevant to functional..
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  • The Generality Problem, Statistical Relevance and the Tri-Level Hypothesis.James R. Beebe - 2004 - Noûs 38 (1):177 - 195.
    In this paper I critically examine the Generality Problem and argue that it does not succeed as an objection to reliabilism. Although those who urge the Generality Problem are correct in claiming that any process token can be given indefinitely many descriptions that pick out indefinitely many process types, they are mistaken in thinking that reliabilists have no principled way to distinguish between relevant and irrelevant process types.
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  • Memory as Triage: Facing Up to the Hard Question of Memory.Nikola Andonovski - 2020 - Review of Philosophy and Psychology 12 (2):227-256.
    The Hard Question of memory is the following: how are memory representations stored and organized so as to be made available for retrieval in the appropriate circumstances and format? In this essay, I argue that philosophical theories of memory should engage with the Hard Question directly and seriously. I propose that declarative memory is a faculty performing a kind of cognitive triage: management of information for a variety of uses under significant computational constraints. In such triage, memory representations are preferentially (...)
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  • Unification Strategies in Cognitive Science.Marcin Miłkowski - 2016 - Studies in Logic, Grammar and Rhetoric 48 (1):13–33.
    Cognitive science is an interdisciplinary conglomerate of various research fields and disciplines, which increases the risk of fragmentation of cognitive theories. However, while most previous work has focused on theoretical integration, some kinds of integration may turn out to be monstrous, or result in superficially lumped and unrelated bodies of knowledge. In this paper, I distinguish theoretical integration from theoretical unification, and propose some analyses of theoretical unification dimensions. Moreover, two research strategies that are supposed to lead to unification are (...)
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  • Multiple Realizability from a Causal Perspective.Lauren N. Ross - 2020 - Philosophy of Science 87 (4):640-662.
    This article examines the multiple realizability thesis within a causal framework. The beginnings of this framework are found in Elliott Sober’s “Multiple Realizability Argument against Reduction,”...
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  • Mechanism or Bust? Explanation in Psychology.Lawrence A. Shapiro - 2017 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 68 (4):1037-1059.
    ABSTRACT Proponents of mechanistic explanation have recently suggested that all explanation in the cognitive sciences is mechanistic, even functional explanation. This last claim is surprising, for functional explanation has traditionally been conceived as autonomous from the structural details that mechanistic explanations emphasize. I argue that functional explanation remains autonomous from mechanistic explanation, but not for reasons commonly associated with the phenomenon of multiple realizability. 1Introduction 2Mechanistic Explanation: A Quick Primer 3Functional Explanation: An Example 4Autonomy as Lack of Constraint 5The Price (...)
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  • Towards a General Theory of Reduction. Part III: Cross-Categorical Reduction.C. A. Hooker - 1981 - Dialogue 20 (3):496-529.
    Any theory of reduction that goes only so far as carried in Parts I and II does only half the job. Prima facie at least, there are cases of would-be reduction which seem torn between two conflicting intuitions. On the one side there is a strong intuition that reduction is involved, and a strongly retentive reduction at that. On the other side it seems that the concepts at one level cross-classify those at the other level, so that there is no (...)
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  • On mechanical recognition.R. J. Nelson - 1976 - Philosophy of Science 43 (1):24-52.
    In this paper I argue that human pattern recognition can be simulated by automata. In particular, I show that gestalt recognition and recognition of family resemblances are within the capabilities of sufficiently complex Turing machines. The argument rests on elementary facts of automata and computability theory which are used to explicate our preanalytic, informal concepts concerning gestalt patterns and recognition. The central idea is that of a machine which "knows" its own structure. Although the paper thus aims to support mechanism, (...)
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  • Multiple realizability.Eric Funkhouser - 2007 - Philosophy Compass 2 (2):303–315.
    b>: This article explains the concept of multiple realizability and its role in the philosophy of mind. In particular, I consider what is required for the multiple realizability of psychological kinds, the relevance of multiple realizability to the reducibility and autonomy of psychology, as well as further refinements of the concept that would prove helpful.
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  • When the Sound Becomes the Goal. 4E Cognition and Teleomusicality in Early Infancy.Andrea Schiavio, Dylan van der Schyff, Silke Kruse-Weber & Renee Timmers - 2017 - Frontiers in Psychology 8.
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  • Is T hinker a Natural Kind?Paul M. Churchland - 1982 - Dialogue 21 (2):223-38.
    Functionalism in the philosophy of mind is here criticized from the perspective of a more naturalistic and less compromising form of materialism. Parallels are explored between the problem of cognitive activity and the somewhat more settled problem of vital activity. The lessons drawn suggest that functionalism in the philosophy of mind may be both counterproductive as a research strategy, and false as a substantive position.
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  • Supervenience and Reduction in Biological Hierarchies.John Collier - 1988 - Canadian Journal of Philosophy, Supplementary Volume 14:209-234.
    Supervenience is a relationship which has been used recently to explain the physical determination of biological phenomena despite resistance to reduction. Supervenience, however, is plagued by ambiguities which weaken its explanatory value and obscure some interesting aspects of reduction in biology. Although I suspect that similar considerations affect the use of supervenience in ethics and the philosophy of mind, I don’t intend anything I have to say here to apply outside of the physical and biological cases I consider.The main point (...)
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  • Phenomenology and functional analysis. A functionalist reading of Husserlian phenomenology.Marek Pokropski - 2020 - Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 19 (5):869-889.
    In the article I discuss functionalist interpretations of Husserlian phenomenology. The first one was coined in the discussion between Hubert Dreyfus and Ronald McIntyre. They argue that Husserl’s phenomenology shares similarities with computational functionalism, and the key similarity is between the concept of noema and the concept of mental representation. I show the weaknesses of that reading and argue that there is another available functionalist reading of Husserlian phenomenology. I propose to shift perspective and approach the relation between phenomenology and (...)
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  • Meta-scientific Eliminativism: A Reconsideration of Chomsky's Review of Skinner's Verbal Behavior.John Collins - 2007 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 58 (4):625-658.
    The paper considers our ordinary mentalistic discourse in relation to what we should expect from any genuine science of the mind. A meta-scientific eliminativism is commended and distinguished from the more familiar eliminativism of Skinner and the Churchlands. Meta-scientific eliminativism views folk psychology qua folksy as unsuited to offer insight into the structure of cognition, although it might otherwise be indispensable for our social commerce and self-understanding. This position flows from a general thesis that scientific advance is marked by an (...)
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  • Function attributions and functional explanations.Berent Enç - 1979 - Philosophy of Science 46 (3):343-365.
    A series of explanatory hypotheses are examined under the assumption that the logical structure of function attributions is dependent on the methodological constraints which these hypotheses conform to. Two theses are argued for: (1) Given these methodological constraints, if something has the function of doing Y, then normally it is the only kind of thing that can do Y in that kind of system. (2) What distinguishes function attributions from causal attribution is not that function attributions explain the etiology of (...)
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  • The uncertain reasoner: Bayes, logic, and rationality.Mike Oaksford & Nick Chater - 2009 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 32 (1):105-120.
    Human cognition requires coping with a complex and uncertain world. This suggests that dealing with uncertainty may be the central challenge for human reasoning. In Bayesian Rationality we argue that probability theory, the calculus of uncertainty, is the right framework in which to understand everyday reasoning. We also argue that probability theory explains behavior, even on experimental tasks that have been designed to probe people's logical reasoning abilities. Most commentators agree on the centrality of uncertainty; some suggest that there is (...)
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  • Introduction: Philosophy in and Philosophy of Cognitive Science.Andrew Brook - 2009 - Topics in Cognitive Science 1 (2):216-230.
    Despite being there from the beginning, philosophical approaches have never had a settled place in cognitive research and few cognitive researchers not trained in philosophy have a clear sense of what its role has been or should be. We distinguish philosophy in cognitive research and philosophy of cognitive research. Concerning philosophy in cognitive research, after exploring some standard reactions to this work by nonphilosophers, we will pay particular attention to the methods that philosophers use. Being neither experimental nor computational, they (...)
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  • The grain of domains: The evolutionary-psychological case against domain-general cognition.Anthony P. Atkinson & Michael Wheeler - 2004 - Mind and Language 19 (2):147-76.
    Prominent evolutionary psychologists have argued that our innate psychological endowment consists of numerous domainspecific cognitive resources, rather than a few domaingeneral ones. In the light of some conceptual clarification, we examine the central inprinciple arguments that evolutionary psychologists mount against domaingeneral cognition. We conclude (a) that the fundamental logic of Darwinism, as advanced within evolutionary psychology, does not entail that the innate mind consists exclusively, or even massively, of domainspecific features, and (b) that a mixed innate cognitive economy of domainspecific (...)
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  • Integrating neuroscience, psychology, and evolutionary biology through a teleological conception of function.Jennifer Mundale & William Bechtel - 1996 - Minds and Machines 6 (4):481-505.
    The idea of integrating evolutionary biology and psychology has great promise, but one that will be compromised if psychological functions are conceived too abstractly and neuroscience is not allowed to play a contructive role. We argue that the proper integration of neuroscience, psychology, and evolutionary biology requires a telelogical as opposed to a merely componential analysis of function. A teleological analysis is required in neuroscience itself; we point to traditional and curent research methods in neuroscience, which make critical use of (...)
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  • Information and explanation: an inconsistent triad and solution.Mark Povich - 2021 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 11 (2):1-17.
    An important strand in philosophy of science takes scientific explanation to consist in the conveyance of some kind of information. Here I argue that this idea is also implicit in some core arguments of mechanists, some of whom are proponents of an ontic conception of explanation that might be thought inconsistent with it. However, informational accounts seem to conflict with some lay and scientific commonsense judgments and a central goal of the theory of explanation, because information is relative to the (...)
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  • Hypothetical identities and ontological economizing: Comments on Causey's program for the unity of science.Robert N. McCauley - 1981 - Philosophy of Science 48 (2):218-227.
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  • Against neuroclassicism: On the perils of armchair neuroscience.Alex Morgan - 2022 - Mind and Language 37 (3):329-355.
    Neuroclassicism is the view that cognition is explained by “classical” computing mechanisms in the nervous system that exhibit a clear demarcation between processing machinery and read–write memory. The psychologist C. R. Gallistel has mounted a sophisticated defense of neuroclassicism by drawing from ethology and computability theory to argue that animal brains necessarily contain read–write memory mechanisms. This argument threatens to undermine the “connectionist” orthodoxy in contemporary neuroscience, which does not seem to recognize any such mechanisms. In this paper I argue (...)
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  • Remembering Jerry Fodor and his work.Georges Rey - 2018 - Mind and Language 33 (4):321-341.
    This is a reminiscence and short biographical sketch of the late philosopher and cognitive scientist Jerry Fodor. It includes a summary of his main proposals about the mind: his “Language of Thought” hypothesis; his rejection of analyticity and conceptual role semantics; his “mad dog nativism”; his proposal of mental modules and—by contrast—his skepticism about a computational theory of central cognition; his anti‐reductionist, but still physicalist, views about psychology; and, lastly, his attacks on selectionism. I conclude with some discussion of his (...)
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  • How computation explains.Andrew Richmond - 2025 - Mind and Language 40 (1):2-20.
    Cognitive science gives computational explanations of the brain. Philosophers have treated these explanations as if they simply claim that the brain computes. We have therefore assumed that to understand how and why computational explanation works, we must understand what it is to compute. In contrast, I argue that we can understand computational explanation by describing the resources it brings to bear on the study of the brain. Specifically, I argue that it introduces concepts and formalisms that complement cognitive science's modeling (...)
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  • Junk, Numerosity, and the Demands of Epistemic Consequentialism.Michal Masny - forthcoming - Erkenntnis:1-20.
    Epistemic consequentialism has been challenged on the grounds that it is overly demanding. According to the Epistemic Junk Problem, this view implies that we are often required to believe junk propositions such as ‘the Great Bear Lake is the largest lake entirely in Canada’ and long disjunctions of things we already believe. According to the Numerosity Problem, this view implies that we are frequently required to have an enormous number of beliefs. This paper puts forward a novel version of epistemic (...)
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  • Between scientific and empathetic understanding: The case of auditory verbal hallucination.Shivam Patel - forthcoming - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science.
    A common but overlooked form of explanation in psychiatry is what I label ‘empathetic explanation’. Empathetic explanations invoke empathetic variables, which, in addition to providing an explanation of the target phenomenon, also afford an empathetic understanding of it. Focusing on the case of auditory verbal hallucination (AVH), I argue that empathetic explanation fails to provide an adequate account of the phenomenon, perniciously shapes empirical research, and confuses empathetic understanding with scientific understanding. I close by providing a general condition on the (...)
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  • The Specter of Revealed Preference Theory.Lukas Beck - 2024 - Ergo: An Open Access Journal of Philosophy 11.
    My aim in this paper is to argue that the recent philosophical defenses of revealed preference theory do not withstand scrutiny. Towards this aim, I will first outline revealed preference theory. I will then briefly present the two most common arguments that the received view offers against it. Afterwards, I will outline three argumentative strategies for rehabilitating revealed preference theory, and successively rebut each of them.
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  • Functionalism and tacit knowledge of grammar.David Balcarras - 2023 - Philosophical Perspectives 37 (1):18-48.
    In this article, I argue that if tacit knowledge of grammar is analyzable in functional‐computational terms, then it cannot ground linguistic meaning, structure, or sound. If to know or cognize a grammar is to be in a certain computational state playing a certain functional role, there can be no unique grammar cognized. Satisfying the functional conditions for cognizing a grammar G entails satisfying those for cognizing many grammars disagreeing with G about expressions' semantic, phonetic, and syntactic values. This threatens the (...)
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  • Computing in the nick of time.J. Brendan Ritchie & Colin Klein - 2023 - Ratio 36 (3):169-179.
    The medium‐independence of computational descriptions has shaped common conceptions of computational explanation. So long as our goal is to explain how a system successfully carries out its computations, then we only need to describe the abstract series of operations that achieve the desired input–output mapping, however they may be implemented. It is argued that this abstract conception of computational explanation cannot be applied to so‐called real‐time computing systems, in which meeting temporal deadlines imposed by the systems with which a device (...)
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  • A reply to Jerry Fodor on how the mind works.Steven Pinker - 2005 - Mind and Language 20 (1):33-38.
    In my book How the Mind Works, I defended the theory that the human mind is a naturally selected system of organs of computation. Jerry Fodor claims that ‘the mind doesn’t work that way’(in a book with that title) because (1) Turing Machines cannot duplicate humans’ ability to perform abduction (inference to the best explanation); (2) though a massively modular system could succeed at abduction, such a system is implausible on other grounds; and (3) evolution adds nothing to our understanding (...)
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  • Psychology and Neuroscience: The Distinctness Question.Brice Bantegnie - 2022 - Erkenntnis 87 (4):1753-1772.
    In a recent paper, Gualtiero Piccinini and Carl Craver have argued that psychology is not distinct from neuroscience. Many have argued that Piccinini and Craver’s argument is unsuccessful. However, none of these authors have questioned the appropriateness of Piccinini and Craver’s argument for their key premise—that functional analyses are mechanism sketches. My first and main goal in this paper is to show that Piccinini and Craver offer normative considerations in support of what is a descriptive premise and to provide some (...)
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  • Frankenstein's children: Artificial intelligence and human value.Dan Lloyd - 1985 - Metaphilosophy 16 (4):307-318.
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  • Language and psychological reality: A discussion of Rudolf Botha's study.Peter Slezak - 1981 - Synthese 49 (December):427-439.
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  • Theoretical problems of cognitive science.Jeff Coulter - 1982 - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 25 (1):3 – 26.
    Aspects of the controversy concerning the theoretical status of some recent thinking on human cognition are discussed; in particular, the concept of ?unconscious knowledge?, the ?functionalist? analysis of the mental; the problem of the domains of explananda, given the recalcitrant difficulty in providing warrantable and generalizable criteria for individuating components of an organism's ?behavior'; the problem of the polymorphous character of various mental predicates and their misconceived treatment as ?state? or ?process? descriptors; the possible ?over?intellectualizing? of central?nervous?system processes, and the (...)
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  • Reduction revisited.Emma Ruttkamp - 2006 - South African Journal of Philosophy 25 (2):102-112.
    This is a first tentative examination of the possibility of reinstating reduction as a valid candidate for presenting relations between mental and physical properties. Classical Nagelian reduction is undoubtedly contaminated in many ways, but here I investigate the possibility of adapting to problems concerning mental properties an alternative definition for theory reduction in philosophy of science. The definition I offer is formulated with the aid of non-monotonic logic, which I suspect might be a very interesting realm for testing notions concerning (...)
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