A detailed study of scientific theories of human nature and the possible ways in which human behavior can be predicted and controlled.

Originally published in Proceedings of the British Academy 60 (1974), 339-359.

This paper examines the strengths and weaknesses of one of science's most pervasive and flexible metaprinciples;optimalityis used to explain utility maximization in economics, least effort principles in physics, entropy in chemistry, and survival of the fittest in biology. Fermat's principle of least time involves both teleological and causal considerations, two distinct modes of explanation resting on poorly understood psychological primitives. The rationality heuristic in economics provides an example from social science of the potential biases arising from the extreme flexibility of (...) optimality considerations, including selective search for confirming vidence, ex post rationalization, and the confusion of prediction with explanation. Commentators are asked to reflect on the extent to which optimality is an organizing principle of nature, a set of relatively unconnected techniques of science, a normative principle for rational choice and social organization, a metaphysical way of looking at the world, or something else still. (shrink)

At the end of a thoughtful article on the future of nuclear war, Wiesner and York concluded that: "Both sides in the arms race are... confronted by the dilemma of steadily increasing military power and steadily decreasing national security. It is our considered professional judgment that this dilemma has no technical solution. If the great powers continue to look for solutions in the area of science and technology only, the result will be to worsen the situation.".

Intentional explanation and attributions of mentality -- International systems -- Reply to Arbib and Gunderson -- Brain writing and mind reading -- The nature of theory in psychology -- Skinner skinned -- Why the law of effect will not go away -- A cure for the common code? -- Artificial intelligence as philosophy and as psychology -- Objects of consciousness and the nature of experience -- Are dreams experiences? -- Toward a cognitive theory of consciousness -- Two approaches to mental (...) images -- Why you can't make a computer that feels pain -- Free will and personhood -- Mechanism and responsibility -- The abilities of men and machines -- Conditions of personhood -- On giving libertarians what they say they want -- How to change your mind -- Where am I? (shrink)

Linking the process of rational decision making to emotions, an award-winning scientist who has done extensive research with brain-damaged patients notes the dependence of thought processes on feelings and the body's survival-oriented regulators. 50,000 first printing.

This is a new release of the original 1949 edition.

This book presents an overview of these studies and attempts to clarify apparently disparate results by placing them in a coherent theoretical framework.

In this book, I make use of an idea from economics to suggest how noble human tendencies might not only have survived the ruthless pressures of the material world, but actually have been nurtured by them.

Four studies tested the hypothesis that a weaker belief in free will would be related to feeling less gratitude. In Studies 1a and 1b, a trait measure of free will belief was positively correlated with a measure of dispositional gratitude. In Study 2, participants whose free will belief was weakened (vs. unchanged or bolstered) reported feeling less grateful for events in their past. Study 3 used a laboratory induction of gratitude. Participants with an experimentally reduced (vs. increased) belief in free (...) will reported feeling less grateful for the favor. In Study 4, a reduced (vs. increased) belief in free will led to less gratitude in a hypothetical favor scenario. This effect was serially mediated by perceiving the benefactor as having less free will and therefore as being less sincerely motivated. These findings suggest that belief in free will is an important part of being able to feel gratitude. (shrink)

This series will include monographs and collections of studies devoted to the investigation and exploration of knowledge, information, and data-processing systems of all kinds, no matter whether human, (other) animal, or machine. Its scope is intended to span the full range of interests from classical problems in the philosophy of mind and philosophical psychology through issues in cognitive psychology and sociobiology (concerning the mental capabilities of other species) to ideas related to artificial intelligence and computer science. While primary emphasis will (...) be placed upon theoretical, conceptual, and epistemological aspects of these problems and domains, empirical, experimental, and methodological studies will also appear from time to time. While most philosophers and psychologists tend to believe that the rise of cognitive psychology has occurred concomitant with the decline of operant psychology, Terry L. Smith contends that nothing could be further from the truth. He maintains that operant psychology has discovered (and continues to discover) reasonably well-confirmed causal principles of intentional behavior, which go beyond what cognitive psychology can provide, while cognitive psychology, in tum, has the potential to supply analyses (and explanations) that account for them. Smith thus advances a surprising but nonetheless illuminating perspective for appreciating the place of operant conditioning within the discipline of psychology in this rich and fascinating work. J. H. F. (shrink)

An organism's individual act may apparently be placed in three kinds of context: overt behavior occurring before and after the act (Context OB); the internal mental state of the actor (Context M); the internal cognitive/physiological state of the actor (Context CP). But contexts OB and CP are sufficient to describe the organism's mental state (if any). Context M is superfluous. Contexts OB and CP are contrasted with respect to their views of pigeons' and people's concepts of probability, delay and rate (...) of environmental events. Focus on Context OB leads to theories of the long-term patterns of behavioral/environmental interaction while focus on Context CP leads to theories of internal mechanisms. This dichotomy of theoretical interest is extended from probability to other abstract and mentalistic concepts, to the function of language as an expander of context hence as an aid to self-control and to Ainslie's (1992) analogy between the relationship of a particular person to other people (social context) and the relationship of a person's particular act either to a pattern of acts by that person extended in time (Context OB) or to that person's internal state (Context CP). (shrink)

Dewey on the reflex arc concept--an important theme in William James.

The accidents at Three Mile Island and Chemobyl have slowed the development of commercial nuclear fission in most industrialized countries, although nuclear proponents are trying to develop smaller, allegedly “fail-safe” reactors. Regardless of whether or not they succeed, we will face the problem of radioactive wastes for the next million years. After a brief, “revisionist” history of the radwaste problem, Isurvey some of the major epistemological and ethical difficulties with storing nuclear wastes and outline four ethical dilemmas common to many (...) technological and environmental controversies. I suggest two solutions to these ethical dilemmas and show why they are also economical and realistic proposals. (shrink)

Critics have argued that behaviorism must necessarily be inadequate to account for complex human behavior whereas cognitive psychology is adequate to account for such behavior. Recently, Fodor has focused this criticism on certain situations in which humans choose among a set of alternatives. We argue that this criticism applies to forms of behaviorism that are reductionistic but not to non-reductionistic behaviorisms like that of Skinner. Non-reductionistic behaviorism can be used to interpret human choice situations of varying degrees of complexity. Such (...) interpretations run into difficulty in accounting for certain aspects of verbal behavior, but so do cognitive theories. Although nothing, in principle, prohibits either type of theory from accounting for complex human behavior, neither current behavioral theory nor current cognitive theory is developed enough at the present time to do so. (shrink)

There seem to be two kinds of pain: fundamental pain, the intensity of which is a direct function of the intensity of various pain stimuli, and pain, the intensity of which is highly modifiable by such factors as hypnotism, placebos, and the sociocultural setting in which the stimulus occurs.