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  1. The inference to the best explanation.Gilbert H. Harman - 1965 - Philosophical Review 74 (1):88-95.
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  • Intentional Systems Theory.Daniel Dennett - 2007 - In Brian McLaughlin, Ansgar Beckermann & Sven Walter (eds.), The Oxford handbook of philosophy of mind. New York: Oxford University Press.
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  • Environmental complexity and the evolution of cognition.Peter Godfrey-Smith - 2001 - In Robert J. Sternberg & James C. Kaufman (eds.), The Evolution of Intelligence. Lawrence Erlbaum. pp. 233--249.
    One problem faced in discussions of the evolution of intelligence is the need to get a precise fix on what is to be explained. Terms like "intelligence," "cognition" and "mind" do not have simple and agreed-upon meanings, and the differences between conceptions of intelligence have consequences for evolutionary explanation. I hope the papers in this volume will enable us to make progress on this problem. The present contribution is mostly focused on these basic and foundational issues, although the last section (...)
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  • Beyond intuition and instinct blindness: Toward an evolutionary rigorous cognitive science.Leda Cosmides & John Tooby - 1994 - Cognition 50 (1-3):41-77.
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  • On language and connectionism: Analysis of a parallel distributed processing model of language acquisition.Steven Pinker & Alan Prince - 1988 - Cognition 28 (1-2):73-193.
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  • The Shape of Thought: How Mental Adaptations Evolve.H. Clark Barrett - 2015 - Oxford University Press.
    The Shape of Thought: How Mental Adaptations Evolve presents a road map for an evolutionary psychology of the twenty-first century. It brings together theory from biology and cognitive science to show how the brain can be composed of specialized adaptations, and yet also an organ of plasticity. Although mental adaptations have typically been seen as monolithic, hard-wired components frozen in the evolutionary past, The Shape of Thought presents a new view of mental adaptations as diverse and variable, with distinct functions (...)
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  • Ethnomedical Specialists and their Supernatural Theories of Disease.Aaron D. Lightner, Cynthiann Heckelsmiller & Edward H. Hagen - 2023 - Review of Philosophy and Psychology 14 (2):611-646.
    Religious healing specialists such as shamans often use magic. Evolutionary theories that seek to explain why laypersons find these specialists convincing focus on the origins of magical cognition and belief in the supernatural. In two studies, we reframe the problem by investigating relationships among ethnomedical specialists, who possess extensive theories of disease that can often appear “supernatural,” and religious healing specialists. In study 1, we coded and analyzed cross-cultural descriptions of ethnomedical specialists in 47 cultures, finding 24% were also religious (...)
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  • When do we think that X caused Y?Tadeg Quillien - 2020 - Cognition 205:104410.
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  • Explaining Explanation.Robert A. Wilson & Frank C. Keil - 2000 - In Frank C. Keil & Robert Andrew Wilson (eds.), Explanation and Cognition. MIT Press. pp. 1-18.
    It is not a particularly hard thing to want or seek explanations. In fact, explanations seem to be a large and natural part of our cognitive lives. Children ask why and how questions very early in development and seem genuinely to want some sort of answer, despite our often being poorly equipped to provide them at the appropriate level of sophistication and detail. We seek and receive explanations in every sphere of our adult lives, whether it be to understand why (...)
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  • Does the chimpanzee have a theory of mind?David Premack & Guy Woodruff - 1978 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 1 (4):515-526.
    An individual has a theory of mind if he imputes mental states to himself and others. A system of inferences of this kind is properly viewed as a theory because such states are not directly observable, and the system can be used to make predictions about the behavior of others. As to the mental states the chimpanzee may infer, consider those inferred by our own species, for example, purpose or intention, as well as knowledge, belief, thinking, doubt, guessing, pretending, liking, (...)
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  • Anthropomorphism in Human–Animal Interactions: A Pragmatist View.Véronique Servais - 2018 - Frontiers in Psychology 9.
    This paper explores anthropomorphism in human-animal interactions from the theoretical perspectives of pragmatism and anthropology of communication. Its aim is to challenge the conception of anthropomorphism as the attribution/inference of human properties to a nonhuman animal, i.e. as a special case of the theory of mind, and to articulate and make plausible an alternative conception of anthropomorphism as a situated direct perception of human properties by someone who is engaged in a given situation, and let themselves be affected by the (...)
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  • 11. Why Is Reasoning Biased?Dan Sperber & Hugo Mercier - 2017 - In Dan Sperber & Hugo Mercier (eds.), The Enigma of Reason. Cambridge, MA, USA: Harvard University Press. pp. 205-221.
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  • The cultural evolution of shamanism.Manvir Singh - 2018 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 41:e66.
    Shamans, including medicine men, mediums, and the prophets of religious movements, recur across human societies. Shamanism also existed among nearly all documented hunter-gatherers, likely characterized the religious lives of many ancestral humans, and is often proposed by anthropologists to be the “first profession,” representing the first institutionalized division of labor beyond age and sex. In this article, I propose a cultural evolutionary theory to explain why shamanism consistently develops and, in particular, (1) why shamanic traditions exhibit recurrent features around the (...)
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  • (2 other versions)A Treatise of Human Nature.David Hume & A. D. Lindsay - 1958 - Philosophical Quarterly 8 (33):379-380.
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  • Reactionary responses to the Bad Lot Objection.Finnur Dellsén - 2017 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 61:32-40.
    As it is standardly conceived, Inference to the Best Explanation (IBE) is a form of ampliative inference in which one infers a hypothesis because it provides a better potential explanation of one’s evidence than any other available, competing explanatory hypothesis. Bas van Fraassen famously objected to IBE thus formulated that we may have no reason to think that any of the available, competing explanatory hypotheses are true. While revisionary responses to the Bad Lot Objection concede that IBE needs to be (...)
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  • Concepts as Semantic Pointers: A Framework and Computational Model.Peter Blouw, Eugene Solodkin, Paul Thagard & Chris Eliasmith - 2016 - Cognitive Science 40 (5):1128-1162.
    The reconciliation of theories of concepts based on prototypes, exemplars, and theory-like structures is a longstanding problem in cognitive science. In response to this problem, researchers have recently tended to adopt either hybrid theories that combine various kinds of representational structure, or eliminative theories that replace concepts with a more finely grained taxonomy of mental representations. In this paper, we describe an alternative approach involving a single class of mental representations called “semantic pointers.” Semantic pointers are symbol-like representations that result (...)
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  • (1 other version)Eliminative Materialism and the Propositional Attitudes.Paul M. Churchland - 1981 - Journal of Philosophy 78 (2):67-90.
    Eliminative materialism is the thesis that our common-sense conception of psychological phenomena constitutes a radically false theory, a theory so fundamentally defective that both the principles and the ontology of that theory will eventually be displaced, rather than smoothly reduced, by completed neuroscience. Our mutual understanding and even our introspection may then be reconstituted within the conceptual framework of completed neuroscience, a theory we may expect to be more powerful by far than the common-sense psychology it displaces, and more substantially (...)
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  • Introduction: Evolutionary psychology and conceptual integration.Leda Cosmides, John Tooby & Jerome H. Barkow - 1992 - In Jerome H. Barkow, Leda Cosmides & John Tooby (eds.), The Adapted Mind: Evolutionary Psychology and the Generation of Culture. Oxford University Press. pp. 3--15.
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  • How biological is essentialism.Susan A. Gelman & Lawrence A. Hirschfeld - 1999 - In Douglas L. Medin & Scott Atran (eds.), Folkbiology. MIT Press. pp. 403--446.
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  • 'Superstition' in the pigeon.B. F. Skinner - 1948 - Journal of Experimental Psychology 38 (2):168.
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  • Systematicity and Surface Similarity in the Development of Analogy.Dedre Gentner & Cecile Toupin - 1986 - Cognitive Science 10 (3):277-300.
    This research investigates the development of analogy: In particular, we wish to study the development of systematicity in analogy. Systematicity refers to the mapping of systems of mutually constraining relations, such as causal chains or chains of implication. A preference for systematic mappings is a central aspect of analogical processing in adults (Gentner, 1980, 1983). This research asks two questions: Does systematicity make analogical mapping easier? And, if so, when, developmentally, do children become able to utilize systematicity?Children aged 5–7 and (...)
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  • Cognitive templates for religious concepts: cross‐cultural evidence for recall of counter‐intuitive representations.Pascal Boyer & Charles Ramble - 2001 - Cognitive Science 25 (4):535-564.
    Presents results of free‐recall experiments conducted in France, Gabon and Nepal, to test predictions of a cognitive model of religious concepts. The world over, these concepts include violations of conceptual expectations at the level of domain knowledge (e.g., about ‘animal’ or ‘artifact’ or ‘person’) rather than at the basic level. In five studies we used narratives to test the hypothesis that domain‐level violations are recalled better than other conceptual associations. These studies used material constructed in the same way as religious (...)
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  • The evolution of misbelief.Ryan McKay & Daniel Dennett - 2009 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 32 (6):493–510; discussion 510–61.
    From an evolutionary standpoint, a default presumption is that true beliefs are adaptive and misbeliefs maladaptive. But if humans are biologically engineered to appraise the world accurately and to form true beliefs, how are we to explain the routine exceptions to this rule? How can we account for mistaken beliefs, bizarre delusions, and instances of self-deception? We explore this question in some detail. We begin by articulating a distinction between two general types of misbelief: those resulting from a breakdown in (...)
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  • Précis of the origin of concepts.Susan Carey - 2011 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 34 (3):113-124.
    A theory of conceptual development must specify the innate representational primitives, must characterize the ways in which the initial state differs from the adult state, and must characterize the processes through which one is transformed into the other. The Origin of Concepts (henceforth TOOC) defends three theses. With respect to the initial state, the innate stock of primitives is not limited to sensory, perceptual, or sensorimotor representations; rather, there are also innate conceptual representations. With respect to developmental change, conceptual development (...)
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  • What is a complex system?James Ladyman, James Lambert & Karoline Wiesner - 2013 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 3 (1):33-67.
    Complex systems research is becoming ever more important in both the natural and social sciences. It is commonly implied that there is such a thing as a complex system, different examples of which are studied across many disciplines. However, there is no concise definition of a complex system, let alone a definition on which all scientists agree. We review various attempts to characterize a complex system, and consider a core set of features that are widely associated with complex systems in (...)
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  • Cultural Transmission of Social Essentialism.Marjorie Rhodes, Sarah-Jane Leslie & Christina Tworek - 2012 - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 109 (34):13526-13531.
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  • The Modern Philosophical Resurrection of Teleology.Mark Perlman - 2004 - The Monist 87 (1):3-51.
    Many objects in the world have functions. Typewriters are for typing. Can-openers are for opening cans. Lawnmowers are for cutting grass. That is what these things are for. Every day around the world people attribute functions to objects. Some of the objects with functions are organs or parts of living organisms. Hearts are for pumping blood. Eyes are for seeing. Countless works in biology explain the “Form, Function, and Evolution of... ” everything from bee dances to elephant tusks to pandas’ (...)
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  • Structural realism: The best of both worlds?John Worrall - 1989 - Dialectica 43 (1-2):99-124.
    The no-miracles argument for realism and the pessimistic meta-induction for anti-realism pull in opposite directions. Structural Realism---the position that the mathematical structure of mature science reflects reality---relieves this tension.
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  • (1 other version)On the functional origins of essentialism.H. Clark Barrett - 2001 - [Journal (Paginated)] (in Press) 2 (1):1-30.
    This essay examines the proposal that psychological essentialism results from a history of natural selection acting on human representation and inference systems. It has been argued that the features that distinguish essentialist representational systems are especially well suited for representing natural kinds. If the evolved function of essentialism is to exploit the rich inductive potential of such kinds, then it must be subserved by cognitive mechanisms that carry out at least three distinct functions: identifying these kinds in the environment, constructing (...)
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  • Sensitive and insensitive causation.James Woodward - 2006 - Philosophical Review 115 (1):1-50.
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  • (1 other version)African Traditional Thought and Western Science.Robin Horton - 1967 - Africa 37 (1-2):50--71.
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  • Metaphors We Live By.George Lakoff & Mark Johnson - 1980 - Ethics 93 (3):619-621.
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  • Folk biology and the anthropology of science: Cognitive universals and cultural particulars.Scott Atran - 1998 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 21 (4):547-569.
    This essay in the "anthropology of science" is about how cognition constrains culture in producing science. The example is folk biology, whose cultural recurrence issues from the very same domain-specific cognitive universals that provide the historical backbone of systematic biology. Humans everywhere think about plants and animals in highly structured ways. People have similar folk-biological taxonomies composed of essence-based species-like groups and the ranking of species into lower- and higher-order groups. Such taxonomies are not as arbitrary in structure and content, (...)
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  • Cognitive science and neuroscience of religious thought and behavior.Pascal Boyer - 2003 - Trends in Cognitive Sciences 7 (3):119-24.
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  • Teleological reasoning about nature: intentional design or relational perspectives?Sandra R. Waxman & Douglas L. Medin - 2013 - Trends in Cognitive Sciences 17 (4):166-171.
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  • Causal-explanatory pluralism: how intentions, functions, and mechanisms influence causal ascriptions.Tania Lombrozo - 2010 - Cognitive Psychology 61 (4):303-332.
    Both philosophers and psychologists have argued for the existence of distinct kinds of explanations, including teleological explanations that cite functions or goals, and mechanistic explanations that cite causal mechanisms. Theories of causation, in contrast, have generally been unitary, with dominant theories focusing either on counterfactual dependence or on physical connections. This paper argues that both approaches to causation are psychologically real, with different modes of explanation promoting judgments more or less consistent with each approach. Two sets of experiments isolate the (...)
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  • Why do humans reason? Arguments for an argumentative theory.Dan Sperber - 2011 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 34 (2):57.
    Short abstract (98 words). Reasoning is generally seen as a means to improve knowledge and make better decisions. However, much evidence shows that reasoning often leads to epistemic distortions and poor decisions. This suggests that the function of reasoning should be rethought. Our hypothesis is that the function of reasoning is argumentative. It is to devise and evaluate arguments intended to persuade. Reasoning so conceived is adaptive given humans’ exceptional dependence on communication and vulnerability to misinformation. A wide range of (...)
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  • Play in predictive minds: A cognitive theory of play.Marc Malmdorf Andersen, Julian Kiverstein, Mark Miller & Andreas Roepstorff - 2023 - Psychological Review 130 (2):462-479.
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  • Deriving Features of Religions in the Wild.Pascal Boyer - 2021 - Human Nature 32 (3):557-581.
    Religions “in the wild” are the varied set of religious activities that occurred before the emergence of organized religions with doctrines, or that persist at the margins of those organized traditions. These religious activities mostly focus on misfortune; on how to remedy specific cases of illness, accidents, failures; and on how to prevent them. I present a general model to account for the cross-cultural recurrence of these particular themes. The model is based on features of human psychology—namely, epistemic vigilance, the (...)
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  • (1 other version)Core knowledge.Elizabeth S. Spelke & Katherine D. Kinzler - 2007 - Developmental Science 10 (1):89-96.
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  • The Natural History of Religion.David Hume, A. Wayne Colver & John Valdimir Price - 1956 - Religious Studies 14 (1):125-126.
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  • Reconciling intuitive physics and Newtonian mechanics for colliding objects.Adam N. Sanborn, Vikash K. Mansinghka & Thomas L. Griffiths - 2013 - Psychological Review 120 (2):411-437.
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  • Children and adults as intuitive scientists.Deanna Kuhn - 1989 - Psychological Review 96 (4):674-689.
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  • Divine intuition: Cognitive style influences belief in God.Amitai Shenhav, David G. Rand & Joshua D. Greene - 2012 - Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 141 (3):423.
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  • The Perception of Causality.A. Michotte, T. R. Miles & Elaine Miles - 1964 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 15 (59):254-259.
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  • The origin and evolution of everyday concepts.Susan Carey - 1992 - In R. Giere & H. Feigl (eds.), Cognitive Models of Science. University of Minnesota Press. pp. 15--89.
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  • Functional explanation and the function of explanation.Tania Lombrozo & Susan Carey - 2006 - Cognition 99 (2):167-204.
    Teleological explanations (TEs) account for the existence or properties of an entity in terms of a function: we have hearts because they pump blood, and telephones for communication. While many teleological explanations seem appropriate, others are clearly not warranted-for example, that rain exists for plants to grow. Five experiments explore the theoretical commitments that underlie teleological explanations. With the analysis of [Wright, L. (1976). Teleological Explanations. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press] from philosophy as a point of departure, we examine (...)
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  • Core Folkbiological Concepts: New Evidence from Wichí Children and Adults.Andrea S. Tavernaa, Douglas L. Medin, Sandra R. Waxman & Olga A. Peralta - 2012 - Journal of Cognition and Culture 12 (3-4):339-358.
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  • The Language of Thought.J. A. Fodor - 1978 - Critica 10 (28):140-143.
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  • Re-Engineering Philosophy for Limited Beings. Piecewise Approximations to Reality.William C. Wimsatt - 2010 - Critica 42 (124):108-117.
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