This paper serves to introduce the papers from the symposium by the same title, by describing the sort of work done in philosophy of psychology conceived as a branch of the philosophy of science, distinguishing it from other discussions of psychology in philosophy, and criticizing the claims to set limits on scientific psychology in the largely psychologically uninformed literatures concerning "folk psychology' and "wide" and "narrow" content. Philosophy of psychology as (...) class='Hi'>philosophy of science takes seriously and analyzes the explanatory structures, conceptual problems, and evidentiary practices of extant scientific psychology. (shrink)

The received view in the history of the philosophy of psychology is that the logical positivists—Carnap and Hempel in particular—endorsed the position commonly known as “logical” or “analytical” behaviourism, according to which the relations between psychological statements and the physical-behavioural statements intended to give their meaning are analytic and knowable a priori. This chapter argues that this is sheer legend: most, if not all, such relations were viewed by the logical positivists as synthetic and knowable only a posteriori. (...) It then traces the origins of the legend to the logical positivists’ idiosyncratic extensional or at best weakly intensional use of what are now considered crucially strongly intensional semantic notions, such as “translation,” “meaning” and their cognates, focussing on a particular instance of this latter phenomenon, arguing that a conflation of explicit definition and analyticity may be the chief source of the legend. (shrink)

In the good old days, when general philosophy of science ruled the Earth, a simple division was often invoked to talk about philosophical issues specific to particular kinds of science: that between the natural sciences and the social sciences. Over the last 20 years, philosophical studies shaped around this dichotomy have given way to those organized by more fine-grained categories, corresponding to specific disciplines, as the literatures on the philosophy of physics, biology, economics and psychology--to take the (...) most prominent four examples--have blossomed. In general terms, work in each of these areas has become increasingly enmeshed with that in the corresponding science itself, increasingly naturalistic (in at least one sense of that term), and in my view, increasingly interesting. (shrink)

This paper provides an analysis of Franz Brentano’s thesis that psychology employs a distinctive method, which sets it apart from physiology. The aim of the paper is two-fold: First, I situate Brentano’s thesis (and the broader metaphysical system that underwrites it) within the context of specific debates about the nature and status of psychology, arguing that we regard him as engaging in a form of boundary work. Second, I explore the relevance of Brentano’s considerations to more recent debates (...) about autonomy on the one hand and theoretical and/or methodological integration on the other. I argue that Brentano puts his finger on the idea that an integrated research process presupposes the existence of distinct methods and approaches, and that he highlights the philosophical challenge of accounting for such distinct methods. I suggest that Brentano’s ideas offer unconventional perspectives on current debates, in particular regarding first-person methods and the investigative process in cognitive science. (shrink)

A superb effort but in my view Wittgenstein is not completely understood by anyone, so we can hardly expect Budd, writing in the mid 80’s, without the modern dual systems of thought view and no comprehensive logical structure of rationality to have grasped him completely. Like everyone, he does not get that W’s use of the word ‘grammar’ refers to our innate Evolutionary Psychology and the general framework of Wittgenstein’s and Searle’s work since laid out (e.g., in my recent (...) articles) was unavailable to him. Nevertheless he does a good job and nicely complements the work by Johnston (Wittgenstein: Rethinking the Inner) which I have also reviewed. Budd’s summary is a fitting end to the book(p165). “The repudiation of the model of ‘object and designation’ for everyday psychological words—the denial that the picture of the inner process provides a correct representation of the grammar of such words, is not the only reason for Wittgenstein’s hostility to the use of introspection in the philosophy of psychology. But it is its ultimate foundation.” An excellent study, but in my view, like them all, it falls short of a full appreciation of W as I explain here and in my other reviews. -/- Those wishing a comprehensive up to date framework for human behavior from the modern two systems view may consult my article The Logical Structure of Philosophy, Psychology, Mind and Language as Revealed in Wittgenstein and Searle 59p(2016). For all my articles on Wittgenstein and Searle see my e-book ‘The Logical Structure of Philosophy, Psychology, Mind and Language in Wittgenstein and Searle 367p (2016). Those interested in all my writings in their most recent versions may consult my e-book Philosophy, Human Nature and the Collapse of Civilization - Articles and Reviews 2006-2016’ 662p (2016). -/- All of my papers and books have now been published in revised versions both in ebooks and in printed books. -/- Talking Monkeys: Philosophy, Psychology, Science, Religion and Politics on a Doomed Planet - Articles and Reviews 2006-2017 (2017) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071HVC7YP. -/- The Logical Structure of Philosophy, Psychology, Mind and Language in Ludwig Wittgenstein and John Searle--Articles and Reviews 2006-2016 (2017) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071P1RP1B. -/- Suicidal Utopian Delusions in the 21st century: Philosophy, Human Nature and the Collapse of Civilization - Articles and Reviews 2006-2017 (2017) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0711R5LGX . (shrink)

A superb effort, but in my view Wittgenstein (i.e., philosophy or the descriptive psychology of higher order thought) is not completely understood by anyone, so we can hardly expect Budd, writing in the mid 80’s, without the modern dual systems of thought view, and no comprehensive logical structure of rationality, to have grasped him completely. Like everyone, he does not get that W’s use of the word ‘grammar’ refers to our innate Evolutionary Psychology and the general framework (...) of Wittgenstein’s and Searle’s work since laid out (e.g., in my recent articles) was unavailable to him. Nevertheless, he does a good job and nicely complements the work by Johnston (Wittgenstein: Rethinking the Inner) which I have also reviewed. Budd’s summary is a fitting end to the book (p165). “The repudiation of the model of ‘object and designation’ for everyday psychological words—the denial that the picture of the inner process provides a correct representation of the grammar of such words, is not the only reason for Wittgenstein’s hostility to the use of introspection in the philosophy of psychology. But it is its ultimate foundation.” -/- An excellent study, but in my view, like them all, it falls short of a full appreciation of W as I explain here and in my other reviews. -/- Those wishing a comprehensive up to date framework for human behavior from the modern two systems view may consult my book ‘The Logical Structure of Philosophy, Psychology, Mind and Language in Ludwig Wittgenstein and John Searle’ 2nd ed (2019). Those interested in more of my writings may see ‘Talking Monkeys--Philosophy, Psychology, Science, Religion and Politics on a Doomed Planet--Articles and Reviews 2006-2019 3rd ed (2019), The Logical Structure of Human Behavior (2019), and Suicidal Utopian Delusions in the 21st Century 4th ed (2019) . (shrink)

Memory is studied across a bewildering range of disciplines and subdisciplines in the neural, cognitive, and social sciences, and the term covers a wide range of related phenomena. In an integrative spirit, this chapter examines two case studies in memory research in which empirically-informed philosophy and philosophically informed sciences of the mind can be mutually informative, such that the interaction between psychology and philosophy can open up new research problems—and set new challenges—for our understanding of certain aspects (...) of memory. In each case, there is already enough interdisciplinary interaction on specific issues to give some confidence in the potential productivity of mutual exchange: but in each case, residual gulfs in research style and background assumptions remain to be addressed. (shrink)

The chapter reconstructs and criticizes one of Anscombe's famous three these, namely the claim that a ‘philosophy of psychology’ is a preliminary task to the construction of any possible ethical theory, or that moral philosophy ‘should be laid aside at any rate until we have an adequate philosophy of psychology, in which we are conspicuously lacking’. The claim is that Anscombe’s idea of a philosophy of psychology cannot be simply identified with that of (...) moral psychology with which we are familiar now; that her main claim, namely that actions are analogous to language is quite promising; that among the implications there is not only a criticism to consequentialism but also acknowledgement of a central role for judgement, and accordingly not just a blunt refusal, but instead an unaware rediscovery of Kantian ethics; that her rediscovery of the idea of virtue is promising enough, albeit misunderstood by Anscombe herself when she presents it in terms of coming back to Aristotelian and Thomist ethics as contrasted with modern moral philosophy. (shrink)

The Gestalt psychologists adopted a set of positions on mind-body issues that seem like an odd mix. They sought to combine a version of naturalism and physiological reductionism with an insistence on the reality of the phenomenal and the attribution of meanings to objects as natural characteristics. After reviewing basic positions in contemporary philosophy of mind, we examine the Gestalt position, characterizing it m terms of phenomenal realism and programmatic reductionism. We then distinguish Gestalt philosophy of mind from (...) instrumentalism and computational functionalism, and examine Gestalt attributions of meaning and value to perceived objects. Finally, we consider a metatheoretical moral from Gestalt theory, which commends the search for commensurate description of mental phenomena and their physiological counterparts. (shrink)

Psychologists and philosophers use the term 'intuition' for a variety of different phenomena. In this paper, I try to provide a kind of a roadmap of the debates, point to some confusions and problems, and give a brief sketch of an empirically respectable philosophical approach.

The philosophical study of irrationality can yield interesting insights into the human mind. One provocative issue is self-defeating behaviours, i.e. behaviours that result in failure to achieve one’s apparent goals and ambitions. In this paper I consider a self-defeating behaviour called choking under pressure, explain why it should be considered irrational, and how it is best understood with reference to skills. Then I describe how choking can be explained without appeal to a purely Freudian subconscious or ‘sub-agents’ view of mind. (...) Finally, I will recommend an alternative way to understand self-defeating behaviour which comes from a synthesis of Peter Strawson’'s explanation of ‘self-reactive attitudes’, Mark Johnston’'s notion of ‘mental tropisms’, and revised Freudian descriptions of the causes of self-defeating behaviour. (shrink)

A critical review of Wittgenstein's 'On Certainty' which he wrote in 1950-51 and was first published in 1969. Most of the review is spent presenting a modern framework for philosophy (the descriptive psychology of higher order thought) and positioning the work of Wittgenstein and John Searle in this framework and relative to the work of others. It is suggested that this book can be regarded as the foundation stone of psychology and philosophy as it was the (...) first to describe the two systems of thought and shows how our unshakable grasp of the world derives from our innate axiomatic System 1, and how this interacts with System 2. It was a revolution in epistemology since it showed that our actions rest not on judgements but on innate undoubtable axioms leading directly to action. I situate the work of Wittgenstein and Searle in the framework of the two systems of thought prominent in thinking and decision research, employing a new table of intentionality and new dual systems nomenclature. -/- Those wishing a comprehensive up to date framework for human behavior from the modern two systems view may consult my book ‘The Logical Structure of Philosophy, Psychology, Mind and Language in Ludwig Wittgenstein and John Searle’ 2nd ed (2019). Those interested in more of my writings may see ‘Talking Monkeys--Philosophy, Psychology, Science, Religion and Politics on a Doomed Planet--Articles and Reviews 2006-2019 3rd ed (2019), The Logical Structure of Human Behavior (2019), and Suicidal Utopian Delusions in the 21st Century 4th ed (2019) . (shrink)

A critical review of Wittgenstein's 'On Certainty' which he wrote in 1950-51 and was first published in 1969. Most of the review is spent presenting a modern framework for philosophy(the descriptive psychology of higher order thought) and positioning the work of Wittgenstein and John Searle in this framework and relative to the work of others. It is suggested that this book can be regarded as the foundation stone of psychology and philosophy as it was the first (...) to describe the two systems of thought and shows how our unshakable grasp of the world derives from our innate axiomatic System 1 and how this interacts with System 2. -/- Those wishing a comprehensive up to date framework for human behavior from the modern two systems view may consult my book ‘The Logical Structure of Philosophy, Psychology, Mind and Language in Ludwig Wittgenstein and John Searle’ 2nd ed (2019). Those interested in more of my writings may see ‘Talking Monkeys--Philosophy, Psychology, Science, Religion and Politics on a Doomed Planet--Articles and Reviews 2006-2019 3rd ed (2019), The Logical Structure of Human Behavior (2019), and Suicidal Utopian Delusions in the 21st Century 4th ed (2019). (shrink)

Since philosophical problems are the result of our innate psychology, or as Wittgenstein put it, due to the lack of perspicuity of language, they run throughout human discourse and behavior, so there is endless need for philosophical analysis, not only in the ‘human sciences’ of philosophy, sociology, anthropology, political science, psychology, history, literature, religion, etc., but in the ‘hard sciences’ of physics, mathematics, and biology. It is universal to mix the language game questions with the real scientific (...) ones as to what the empirical facts are. Scientism is ever-present and Wittgenstein, arguably the greatest intuitive psychologist of all time, has laid it before us long ago, beginning with the Blue and Brown Books in the early 1930’s. Language is programmed in our genes and is involved in nearly all our social behavior. Philosophy in the strict sense (i.e., academic philosophy), is as Wittgenstein showed us, the study of the way language is used (language games) and I regard it as the descriptive psychology of higher order thought (i.e., pretty much everything involving language which is often called System 2 or slow thinking). However, as I hope I have shown in my writings over the last decade, nonlinguistic behavior or System 1 or fast thinking is also described with language and this leads to endless confusion which I have tried to clarify here and which is summarized in the tables that I present. It is my contention that the table of intentionality (rationality, mind, thought, language, personality etc.) that features prominently here describes more or less accurately, or at least serves as an heuristic for, how we think and behave, and so it encompasses not merely philosophy and psychology, but everything else (history, literature, mathematics, politics etc.). Note especially that intentionality and rationality as I (along with Searle, Wittgenstein and others) view it, includes both conscious deliberative linguistic System 2 and unconscious automated prelinguistic System 1 actions or reflexes. I provide a critical survey of some of the major findings of two of the most eminent students of behavior of modern times, Ludwig Wittgenstein and John Searle, on the logical structure of intentionality (mind, language, behavior), taking as my starting point Wittgenstein’s fundamental discovery –that all truly ‘philosophical’ problems are the same—confusions about how to use language in a particular context, and so all solutions are the same—looking at how language can be used in the context at issue so that its truth conditions (Conditions of Satisfaction or COS) are clear. The basic problem is that one can say anything, but one cannot mean (state clear COS for) any arbitrary utterance and meaning is only possible in a very specific context. I analyze various writings by and about them from the modern perspective of the two systems of thought (popularized as ‘thinking fast, thinking slow’), employing a new table of intentionality and new dual systems nomenclature. I show that this is a powerful heuristic for describing behavior with critical reviews of the writings of a wide variety of behavioral scientists (i.e., everyone). The first group of articles attempt to give some insight into how we behave that is reasonably free of theoretical delusions. In the next three groups I comment on three of the principal delusions preventing a sustainable world— technology, religion and politics (cooperative groups). People believe that society can be saved by them, so I provide some suggestions in the rest of the book as to why this is unlikely via short articles and reviews of recent books by well-known writers. (shrink)

The present paper deals thus with some fundamental agreements and disagreements between Peirce and James, on crucial issues such as perception and consciousness. When Peirce first read the Principles, he was sketching his theory of the categories, testing its applications in many fields of knowledge, and many investigations were launched, concerning indexicals, diagrams, growth and development. James's utterances led Peirce to make his own views clearer on a wide range of topics that go to the heart of the foundations of (...) psychology and that involve the relationship between perception and logic, between consciousness and the categories, between abstraction and the 'stream of thought'. The idea is to show that Peirce detected important discoveries and insights in the Principles, but felt that James could not make proper use of them because of logical confusions, and also because of his "clandestine" metaphysics. The point in this essay is thus not to look for remains of psychologism in Peirce's writings,13 but to look at Peirce's comments about James's psychology in an attempt to identify where and why Peirce amended James's views. Since the project to provide some insight on Peirce's extensive reading ofJames's Principles of Psycho/.ogy would deserve a full volume, I shall focus here on three occasions where Peirce explicidy commented on Jarnes's Principles. In the first section, I shall consider bis assessment of James's chapter on space, which was published as a series of articles in 1887, in Mind. I shall then turn to the 1891 review of the Principles in The Nation for important complements on perception as inference. In the third section, I shall deal with Peirce's manuscript "Questions on James's Principles"(Rl099). These "Questions" reveal a deep interest in psychological problems and suggest different ways along which Peirce's new advances in the field of the categories, of continuity, and abstraction could provide a proper basis for the philosophy of mind. (shrink)

There is a long-standing debate in the philosophy of mind and philosophy of science regarding how best to interpret the relationship between neuroscience and psychology. It has traditionally been argued that either the two domains will evolve and change over time until they converge on a single unified account of human behaviour, or else that they will continue to work in isolation given that they identify properties and states that exist autonomously from one another (due to the (...) multiple-realizability of psychological states). In this paper, I argue that progress in psychology and neuroscience is contingent on the fact that both of these positions are false. Contra the convergence position, I argue that the theories of psychology and the theories of neuroscience are scientifically valuable as representational tools precisely because they cannot be integrated into a single account. However, contra the autonomy position, I propose that the theories of psychology and neuroscience are deeply dependent on one another for further refinement and improvement. In this respect, there is an irreconcilable codependence between psychology and neuroscience that is necessary for both domains to improve and progress. The two domains are forever linked while simultaneously being unable to integrate. (shrink)

Friedrich Nietzsche’s criticism towards the substance-concept „I“ plays an important role in his late thought, and can be properly understood by making reference to the 19th century debate on the scientific psychology. Friedrich Lange and Ernst Mach gave an important contribution to that debate. Both of them developed the ideas of Gustav Fechner, and thought about a „psychology without soul“, i.e. an investigation that gives up with the old metaphysics of substance in dealing with the mind-body problem. In (...) this paper I shall deal with both Lange and Mach (whose writings has been read by Nietzsche), in order to shed some light on Nietzsche’s rejection of the „I“ in philosophy. (shrink)

Why does Hegel change “Dreaming Soul” to “Feeling Soul” in the 1830 edition of the Philosophy of Subjective Spirit? By tracing the content of the Dreaming Soul section, through Hegel’s 1794 manuscript on psychology, to sources such as C.P. Moritz’s Magazin zur Erfahrungsseelenkunde, the paper shows how the section embraces a late Enlightenment mission: combating supposedly supernatural expressions of spiritual enthrallment by explaining them as pathological conditions of the soul. Responding to perceived attacks on the 1827 edition of (...) the Encyclopedia by Schleiermacher, Hegel alters the section and its heading, thereby including the pastor’s religion of feeling in the pathology of Schwärmerei. (shrink)

The influence of Kasimir Twardowski on modern Polish philosophy is all-pervasive. As is well known, almost all important 20th century Polish philosophers went through the hard training of his courses in Lvov. Twardowski instilled in his students an enduring concern for clarity and rigour. He taught them to regard philosophy as a collaborative effort, a matter of disciplined discussion and argument. And he encouraged them to work together with scientists from other disciplines — above all with psychologists, and (...) also with mathematicians — so that the Lvov school of philosophy would gradually evolve into the Warsaw school of logic. (shrink)

Solutions to ninety paradoxes, some old, some new.

Hallucination: Philosophy and Psychology is an edited MIT press collection that contributes to the philosophy of perception. This collection is a significant addition to the literature both for its excellent choice of texts, and its emphasis on the case of hallucinations. Dedicating a volume to hallucinatory phenomena may seem somewhat peculiar for those not entrenched in the analytic philosophy of perception, but it is easy enough to grasp their significance. Theories of perception aim to give a (...) fundamental characterization of perceptual experience, which are experiences with a sensory phenomenal character. Such perceptual experiences include cases of successfully perceiving something, but also some cases of merely seeming to perceive. This is because prima facie, some cases of seeming to perceive are more than merely thinking that one does ; they are cases of misperceiving. Hallucinations are .. (shrink)

Whilst much has been said about the implications of predictive processing for our scientific understanding of cognition, there has been comparatively little discussion of how this new paradigm fits with our everyday understanding of the mind, i.e. folk psychology. This paper aims to assess the relationship between folk psychology and predictive processing, which will first require making a distinction between two ways of understanding folk psychology: as propositional attitude psychology and as a broader folk psychological discourse. (...) It will be argued that folk psychology in this broader sense is compatible with predictive processing, despite the fact that there is an apparent incompatibility between predictive processing and a literalist interpretation of propositional attitude psychology. The distinction between these two kinds of folk psychology allows us to accept that our scientific usage of folk concepts requires revision, whilst rejecting the suggestion that we should eliminate folk psychology entirely. (shrink)

Psychology has been considered to have an autonomy from the other sciences (especially physical science) in at least two ways: in its subject-matter and in its methods. To say that the subject-matter of psychology is autonomous is to say that psychology deals with entities—properties, relations, states—which are not dealt with or not wholly explicable in terms of physical (or any other) science. Contrasted with this is the idea that psychology employs a characteristic method of explanation, which (...) is not shared by the other sciences. I shall label the two senses of autonomy ‘metaphysical autonomy’ and ‘explanatory autonomy’ The question of whether psychology as a science is autonomous in either sense is one of the philosophical questions surrounding the (somewhat vague) doctrine of ‘naturalism’: questions concerning the extent to which the human mind can be brought under the aegis of natural science. In their contemporary form, these questions had their origin in the ‘new science’ of the 17th century. Early materialists like Hobbes (1651) and La Mettrie (1748) rejected both explanatory and metaphysical autonomy: mind is matter in motion, and the mind can be studied by the mathematical methods of the new science just as any matter can. But while materialism (and therefore the denial of metaphysical autonomy) had to wait until the 19th century before starting to become widely accepted, the denial of explanatory autonomy remained a strong force in empiricist philosophy. Hume described his Treatise of Human Nature (1739-40) as an ‘attempt to introduce the experimental method of reasoning into moral subjects’—where ‘moral’ signifies ‘human’. And subsequent criticism of Hume’s views, notably by Kant and Reid, ensured that the question of naturalism—whether there can be a ‘science of man’—was one of the central questions of 19th century philosophy, and a question which hovered over the emergence of psychology as an independent discipline (see Reed 1994). In the 20th century, much of the philosophical discussion of the autonomy of psychology has been inspired by the Logical Positivists’ discussions of the UNITY OF.... (shrink)

Recent work in moral philosophy has emphasized the foundational role played by interpersonal accountability in the analysis of moral concepts such as moral right and wrong, moral obligation and duty, blameworthiness, and moral responsibility (Darwall 2006; 2013a; 2013b). Extending this framework to the field of moral psychology, we hypothesize that our moral attitudes, emotions, and motives are also best understood as based in accountability. Drawing on a large body of empirical evidence, we argue that the implicit aim of (...) the central moral motives and emotions is to hold people - whether oneself or others - accountable for compliance with the demands of morality. Moral condemnation is based in a motive to get perpetrators to hold themselves accountable for their wrongdoing, not, as is commonly supposed, a mere retributive motive to make perpetrators suffer (�2). And moral conscience is based in a genuine motive to hold oneself accountable for behaving in accordance with moral demands, not, as is commonly supposed, a mere egoistic motive to appear moral to others (�3). The accountability-based theory of the moral motives and emotions we offer provides better explanations of the extant empirical data than any of the major alternative theories of moral motivation. Moreover, conceiving of moral psychology in this way gives us a new and illuminating perspective on what makes morality distinctive: its essential connection to our practice of holding one another accountable (�4). (shrink)

Psychology considered as a natural science began as Aristotelian "physics" or "natural philosophy" of the soul. C. Wolff placed psychology under metaphysics, coordinate with cosmology. Scottish thinkers placed it within moral philosophy, but distinguished its "physical" laws from properly moral laws (for guiding conduct). Several Germans sought to establish an autonomous empirical psychology as a branch of natural science. British and French visual theorists developed mathematically precise theories of size and distance perception; they created instruments (...) to test these theories and to measure visual phenomena such as the duration of visual impressions. These investigators typically were dualists who included mental phenomena within nature. (shrink)

During the period 1870-1914 the existing discipline of psychology was transformed. British thinkers including Spencer, Lewes, and Romanes allied psychology with biology and viewed mind as a function of the organism for adapting to the environment. British and German thinkers called attention to social and cultural factors in the development of individual human minds. In Germany and the United States a tradition of psychology as a laboratory science soon developed, which was called a 'new psychology' by (...) contrast with the old, metaphysical psychology. Methodological discussion intensified. New syntheses were framed. Chairs were established and Departments founded. Although the trend toward institutional autonomy was less rapid in Britain and France, significant work was done by the likes of Galton and Binet. Even in Germany and America the purposeful transformation of the old psychology into a new, experimental science was by no means complete in 1914. And while the increase in experimentation changed the body of psychological writing, there was considerable continuity in theoretical content and non-experimental methodology between the old and new psychologies. This chapter follows the emergence of the new psychology out of the old in the national traditions of Britain, Germany, and the United States, with some reference to French, Belgian, Austrian, and Italian thinkers. While the division into national traditions is useful, the psychological literature of the second half of the nineteenth century was generally a European literature, with numerous references across national and linguistic boundaries, and it became a North Atlantic literature as psychology developed in the United States and Canada. The order of treatment, Britain, Germany, and the US, follows the center of gravity of psychological activity. The final section considers some methodological and philosophical issues from these literatures. (shrink)

I discuss two types of evidential problems with the most widely touted experiments in evolutionary psychology, those performed by Leda Cosmides and interpreted by Cosmides and John Tooby. First, and despite Cosmides and Tooby's claims to the contrary, these experiments don't fulfil the standards of evidence of evolutionary biology. Second Cosmides and Tooby claim to have performed a crucial experiment, and to have eliminated rival approaches. Though they claim that their results are consistent with their theory but contradictory to (...) the leading non-evolutionary alternative, Pragmatic Reasoning Schemas theory, I argue that this claim is unsupported. In addition, some of Cosmides and Tooby's interpretations arise from misguided and simplistic understandings of evolutionary biology. While I endorse the incorporation of evolutionary approaches into psychology, I reject the claims of Cosmides and Tooby that a modular approach is the only one supported by evolutionary biology. Lewontin's critical examinations of the applications of adaptationist thinking provide a background of evidentiary standards against which to view the currently fashionable claims of evolutionary psychology. (shrink)

I argue that the traditional free will debate has focused too much on whether free will is compatible with determinism and not enough on whether free will is compatible with specific causal explanations for our actions, including those offered by empirical psychology. If free will is understood as a set of cognitive and volitional capacities, possessed and exercised to varying degrees, then psychology can inform us about the extent to which humans (as a species and as individuals) possess (...) those capacities and manage to exercise them across various situations. While recent work on the role of consciousness in action has been misinterpreted to suggest its role is illusory, recent work in social psychology presents a more viable challenge to our free will. The extent to which we can act on reasons we would accept or can know why we are doing what we do appears to be much less than we presume. Further work is necessary, of course, and it will need to involve both philosophical analysis and psychological investigation. Questions regarding the nature of human freedom and responsibility clearly require the conceptual resources of philosophy and the empirical resources of psychology. (This chapter was written in 2008 for the never published Oxford Handbook on Philosophy of Psychology.). (shrink)

I have therefore decided to venture out of the philosophical armchair in order to examine the empirical evidence, as gathered by psychologists aiming to prove or disprove motivational conjectures like mine. By and large, this evidence is indirect in relation to my account of agency, since it is drawn from cases in which the relevant motive has been forced into the open by the manipulations of an experimenter. The resulting evidence doesn’t tend to show the mechanism of agency humming along (...) in accordance with my specifications; it tends to show the knocks and shudders that such a mechanism emits when put under stress. But we often learn about the normal workings of things by subjecting them to abnormal conditions; and viewed in this light, various programs of psychological research offer indirect support to my account of agency. I’ll begin by reviewing the relevant research, leaving its relevance to my account of agency for the final section of the paper. (shrink)

Corey W. Dyck presents a new account of Kant's criticism of the rational investigation of the soul in his monumental Critique of Pure Reason, in light of its eighteenth-century German context. When characterizing the rational psychology that is Kant's target in the Paralogisms of Pure Reason chapter of the Critique commentators typically only refer to an approach to, and an account of, the soul found principally in the thought of Descartes and Leibniz. But Dyck argues that to do so (...) is to overlook the distinctive rational psychology developed by Christian Wolff, which emphasized the empirical foundation of any rational cognition of the soul, and which was widely influential among eighteenth-century German philosophers, including Kant. In this book, Dyck reveals how the received conception of the aim and results of Kant's Paralogisms must be revised in light of a proper understanding of the rational psychology that is the most proximate target of Kant's attack. In particular, he contends that Kant's criticism hinges upon exposing the illusory basis of the rational psychologist's claims inasmuch as he falls prey to the appearance of the soul as being given in inner experience. Moreover, Dyck demonstrates that significant light can be shed on Kant's discussion of the soul's substantiality, simplicity, personality, and existence by considering the Paralogisms in this historical context.Readership: Scholars and advanced students in history of philosophy, especially those working on Kant. (shrink)

Physicalistic theories of psychology are a classic case of scientific imperialism: the explanatory capacity of physics, both with respect to its methods and to its domain, is taken to extend beyond the traditional realm of physics, and into that of psychology. I argue in this paper that this particular imperialistic venture has failed. Contemporary psychology uses methods not modelled on those of physics, embracing first-personal methodology where physics is strictly impersonal. I make the case that whether or (...) not scientific imperialism is in general harmful, in this instance naturalists who reject first philosophy should give up physicalist imperialism. Using only general principles from the philosophy of logic plus accepted physicalist criteria of identity, I show that first-personal psychology embodies a minor but fruitful increase in expressive strength compared to impersonal psychology: the ability to distinguish descriptively indiscriminable posits. (shrink)

The study of animal cognition raises profound questions about the minds of animals and philosophy of mind itself. Aristotle argued that humans are the only animal to laugh, but in recent experiments rats have also been shown to laugh. In other experiments, dogs have been shown to respond appropriately to over two hundred words in human language. In this introduction to the philosophy of animal minds Kristin Andrews introduces and assesses the essential topics, problems and debates as they (...) cut across animal cognition and philosophy of mind. She addresses the following key topics: what is cognition, and what is it to have a mind? What questions should we ask to determine whether behaviour has a cognitive basis? the science of animal minds explained: ethology, behaviourist psychology, and cognitive ethology rationality in animals animal consciousness: what does research into pain and the emotions reveal? What can empirical evidence about animal behaviour tell us about philosophical theories of consciousness? does animal cognition involve belief and concepts; do animals have a ‘Language of Thought’? animal communication other minds: do animals attribute ‘mindedness’ to other creatures? moral reasoning and ethical behaviour in animals animal cognition and memory. Extensive use of empirical examples and case studies is made throughout the book. These include Cheney and Seyfarth’s ververt monkey research, Thorndike’s cat puzzle boxes, Jensen’s research into humans and chimpanzees and the ultimatum game, Pankseep and Burgdorf’s research on rat laughter, and Clayton and Emery’s research on memory in scrub-jays. Additional features such as chapter summaries, annotated further reading and a glossary make this an indispensable introduction to those teaching philosophy of mind, animal cognition. It will also be an excellent resource for those in fields such as ethology, biology and psychology. (shrink)

Traditional views concerning musical meaning, in the field of philosophy, quite often oscillate around the discussion of whether music can transfer meaning (and if so if it happens by a means similar to language). Philosophers have provided a wide range of views – according to some, music has no meaning whatsoever, or if there is any meaning involved, it is only of a formal/structural significance. According to the opposing views, music can contain meaning similarly to language and what is (...) more, sometimes it can be even richer than language, as in music we are – arguably – able to encode “emotional meanings”. In recent years, several approaches – also speculative – to the old philosophical question have been proposed by evolutionary psychologists, one of the most controversial views being that of Stephen Pinker’s famous metaphor for music as “auditory cheesecake”. This anti-adaptationist view has been challenged f. ex. by Geoffrey Miller or Ian Cross. In this chapter, I enlist some main philosophical views on the titular problem and investigate some evolutionary-paradigm-based propositions for its solution, to examine whether – both from explanatory and methodological standpoints – the philosophy of music could gain something from recent developments in evolutionary psychology. (shrink)

Psychology considered as a natural science began as Aristotelian "physics" or "natural philosophy" of the soul, conceived as an animating power that included vital, sensory, and rational functions. C. Wolff restricted the term " psychology " to sensory, cognitive, and volitional functions and placed the science under metaphysics, coordinate with cosmology. Near the middle of the eighteenth century, Krueger, Godart, and Bonnet proposed approaching the mind with the techniques of the new natural science. At nearly the same (...) time, Scottish thinkers placed psychology within moral philosophy, but distinguished its "physical" laws from properly moral laws. British and French visual theorists developed mathematically precise theories of size and distance perception; they created instruments to test these theories and to measure visual phenomena such as the duration of visual impressions. By the end of the century there was a flourishing discipline of empirical psychology in Germany, with a professorship, textbooks, and journals. The practitioners of empirical psychology at this time typically were dualists who included mental phenomena within nature. Accordingly, psychology as a natural scientific disciplines was not invented in the 18th and 19th centuries, but *remade* from the extant empirical psychology. (shrink)

Noam Chomsky’s well-known claim that linguistics is a “branch of cognitive psychology” has generated a great deal of dissent—not from linguists or psychologists, but from philosophers. Jerrold Katz, Scott Soames, Michael Devitt, and Kim Sterelny have presented a number of arguments, intended to show that this Chomskian hypothesis is incorrect. On both sides of this debate, two distinct issues are often conflated: (1) the ontological status of language and (2) the relation between psychology and linguistics. The ontological issue (...) is, I will argue, not the relevant issue in the debate. Even if this Chomskian position on the ontology of language is false, linguistics may still be a subfield of psychology if the relevant methods in linguistic theory construction are psychological. Two options are open to the philosopher who denies Chomskian conceptualism: linguistic nominalism or linguistic platonism. The former position holds that syntactic, semantic, and phonological properties are primarily properties, not of mental representations, but rather of public languagesentence tokens; The latter position holds that the linguistic properties are properties of public language sentence types. I will argue that both of these positions are compatible with Chomsky’s claim that linguistics is a branch of psychology, and the arguments that have been given for nominalism and platonism do not establish that linguistics and psychology are distinct disciplines. (shrink)

The new paradigm in the psychology of reasoning draws on Bayesian formal frameworks, and some advocates of the new paradigm think of these formal frameworks as providing a computational-level theory of rational human inference. I argue that Bayesian theories should not be seen as providing a computational-level theory of rational human inference, where by “Bayesian theories” I mean theories that claim that all rational credal states are probabilistically coherent and that rational adjustments of degrees of belief in the light (...) of new evidence must be in accordance with some sort of conditionalization. The problems with the view I am criticizing can best be seen when we look at chains of inferences, rather than single-step inferences. Chains of inferences have been neglected almost entirely within the new paradigm. (shrink)

[This download contains the introductory chapter.] People confabulate when they make an ill-grounded claim that they honestly believe is true, for example in claiming to recall an event from their childhood that never actually happened. This interdisciplinary book brings together some of the leading thinkers on confabulation in neuroscience, psychiatry, psychology, and philosophy.

Creativity pervades human life. It is the mark of individuality, the vehicle of self-expression, and the engine of progress in every human endeavor. It also raises a wealth of neglected and yet evocative philosophical questions: What is the role of consciousness in the creative process? How does the audience for a work for art influence its creation? How can creativity emerge through childhood pretending? Do great works of literature give us insight into human nature? Can a computer program really be (...) creative? How do we define creativity in the first place? Is it a virtue? What is the difference between creativity in science and art? Can creativity be taught? -/- The new essays that comprise The Philosophy of Creativity take up these and other key questions and, in doing so, illustrate the value of interdisciplinary exchange. Written by leading philosophers and psychologists involved in studying creativity, the essays integrate philosophical insights with empirical research. -/- CONTENTS -/- I. Introduction Introducing The Philosophy of Creativity Elliot Samuel Paul and Scott Barry Kaufman -/- II. The Concept of Creativity 1. An Experiential Account of Creativity Bence Nanay -/- III. Aesthetics & Philosophy of Art 2. Creativity and Insight Gregory Currie 3. The Creative Audience: Some Ways in which Readers, Viewers and/or Listeners Use their Imaginations to Engage Fictional Artworks Noël Carroll 4. The Products of Musical Creativity Christopher Peacocke -/- IV. Ethics & Value Theory 5. Performing Oneself Owen Flanagan 6. Creativity as a Virtue of Character Matthew Kieran -/- V. Philosophy of Mind & Cognitive Science 7. Creativity and Not So Dumb Luck Simon Blackburn 8. The Role of Imagination in Creativity Dustin Stokes 9. Creativity, Consciousness, and Free Will: Evidence from Psychology Experiments Roy F. Baumeister, Brandon J. Schmeichel, and C. Nathan DeWall 10. The Origins of Creativity Elizabeth Picciuto and Peter Carruthers 11. Creativity and Artificial Intelligence: a Contradiction in Terms? Margaret Boden -/- VI. Philosophy of Science 12. Hierarchies of Creative Domains: Disciplinary Constraints on Blind-Variation and Selective-Retention Dean Keith Simonton -/- VII. Philosophy of Education (& Education of Philosophy) 13. Educating for Creativity Berys Gaut 14. Philosophical Heuristics Alan Hájek. (shrink)

This paper aims to expand the range of empirical work relevant to the extended cognition debates. First, I trace the historical development of the person-situation debate in social and personality psychology and the extended cognition debate in the philosophy of mind. Next, I highlight some instructive similarities between the two and consider possible objections to my comparison. I then argue that the resolution of the person-situation debate in terms of interactionism lends support for an analogously interactionist conception of (...) extended cognition. I argue that this interactionism might necessitate a shift away from the dominant agent-artifact paradigm toward an agent–agent paradigm. If this is right, then social and personality psychology—the discipline(s) that developed from the person-situation debate—opens a whole new range of empirical considerations for extended cognition theorists which align with Clark & Chalmers original vision of agents themselves as spread into the world. (shrink)

I survey the previous 20 years work on the nature of folk psychology, with particular emphasis on the original debate between theory theorists and simulation theorists, and the positions that have emerged from this debate.

This essay develops a new conceptual framework of science and engineering ethics education based on virtue ethics and positive psychology. Virtue ethicists and positive psychologists have argued that current rule-based moral philosophy, psychology, and education cannot effectively promote students’ moral motivation for actual moral behavior and may even lead to negative outcomes, such as moral schizophrenia. They have suggested that their own theoretical framework of virtue ethics and positive psychology can contribute to the effective promotion of (...) motivation for self-improvement by connecting the notion of morality and eudaimonic happiness. Thus this essay attempts to apply virtue ethics and positive psychology to science and engineering ethics education and to develop a new conceptual framework for more effective education. In addition to the conceptual-level work, this essay suggests two possible educational methods: moral modeling and involvement in actual moral activity in science and engineering ethics classes, based on the conceptual framework. (shrink)

The present essay discusses the relationship between moral philosophy, psychology and education based on virtue ethics, contemporary neuroscience, and how neuroscientific methods can contribute to studies of moral virtue and character. First, the present essay considers whether the mechanism of moral motivation and developmental model of virtue and character are well supported by neuroscientific evidence. Particularly, it examines whether the evidence provided by neuroscientific studies can support the core argument of virtue ethics, that is, motivational externalism. Second, it (...) discusses how experimental methods of neuroscience can be applied to studies in human morality. Particularly, the present essay examines how functional and structural neuroimaging methods can contribute to the development of the fields by reviewing the findings of recent social and developmental neuroimaging experiments. Meanwhile, the present essay also considers some limitations embedded in such discussions regarding the relationship between the fields and suggests directions for future studies to address these limitations. (shrink)

Suppose we grant that evolutionary forces have had a profound effect on the contours of our normative judgments and intuitions. Can we conclude anything from this about the correct metaethical theory? I argue that, for the most part, we cannot. Focusing my attention on Sharon Street’s justly famous argument that the evolutionary origins of our normative judgments and intuitions cause insuperable epistemological difficulties for a metaethical view she calls "normative realism," I argue that there are two largely independent lines of (...) argument in Street’s work which need to be teased apart. The first of these involves a genuine appeal to evolutionary considerations, but it can fairly easily be met by her opponents. The second line of argument is more troubling; it raises a significant problem, one of the most difficult in all of philosophy, namely how to justify our reliance on our most basic cognitive faculties without relying on those same faculties in a question-begging manner. However, evolutionary considerations add little to this old problem, and rejecting normative realism is not a way to solve it. (shrink)

This book combines ideas from two separate sources. The first of these is the total body of research which comes under the head of operant psychology and which owes its origin primarily to B. F. Skinner. The second is the set of techniques which have been developed in philosophy in the last 50 years and which are associated in particular with the names of Ludwig Wittgenstein, J. L. Austin, and Gilbert Ryle. Our main task will be to make (...) use of these techniques in modifying and advancing the programme of operant psychology. (shrink)

Two stories have dominated the historiography of early modern philosophy: one in which a seventeenth century Age of Reason spawned the Enlightenment, and another in which a skeptical crisis cast a shadow over subsequent philosophy, resulting in ever narrower "limits to knowledge." I combine certain elements common to both into a third narrative, one that begins by taking seriously seventeenth-century conceptions of the topics and methods central to the rise of a "new" philosophy. In this revisionist story, (...) differing approaches to the central subject matter of early modern metaphysics--knowledge of substances through their essences and causal powers--arise as a result of disagreements about the powers of the human cognitive faculties. Methodological writings are seen as attempts to direct readers in the proper use of their cognitive faculties. The early modern rejection of the Aristotelian theory of cognition ranks equally in importance with rejection of Aristotelian doctrines about nature. Skepticism is more often than not a tool to be used in teaching the reader the proper use of the cognitive faculties, or indeed in convincing the reader of the existence or inexistence of certain cognitive faculties or powers. Instead of early modern "epistemology" or "theory of knowledge," one speaks, with seventeenth century writers, of theories of the cognitive faculties and their implications for the possibility of human knowledge. The early modern rejection of Aristotelian logic can then be seen as reflecting a negative assessment about the fit between syllogistic reasoning and logic as an art of reasoning or thinking which refines the use of the cognitive faculties. -/- Central to this new historiography is the story of the relation between the intellect and senses as cognitive faculties or powers. The development of philosophy from Descartes to Kant can be portrayed as a series of claims about the power of the intellect to know the essences of things, with resulting consequences for ontology and the foundations of natural philosophy. I illustrate this revised narrative by comparing three conceptions of the intellect in three philosophical settings, provided by several late scholastic Aristotelians, Descartes, and Locke. I have two aims: first, to exhibit the central role played by the conception of intellect or understanding in these authors, and, second, to locate their discussions of the cognitive faculties in relation to recent understandings of psychology, epistemology, logic, mind, and their relations. Early modern writings do not easily fit into the modern categories of epistemology and psychology; more generally, the early modern concern with the workings of mind does not coincide with recent conceptions of naturalism. These findings can help us to see problems with our current categories. (shrink)

Social psychologists often describe “implicit” racial biases as entirely unconscious, and as mere associations between groups and traits, which lack intentional content, e.g., we associate “black” and “athletic” in much the same way we associate “salt” and “pepper.” However, recent empirical evidence consistently suggests that individuals are aware of their implicit biases, albeit in partial, inarticulate, or even distorted ways. Moreover, evidence suggests that implicit biases are not “dumb” semantic associations, but instead reflect our skillful, norm-sensitive, and embodied engagement with (...) social reality. This essay draws on phenomenological and hermeneutic methods and concepts to better understand what social-psychological research has begun to reveal about the conscious access individuals have to their own racial attitudes, as well as the intentional contents of the attitudes themselves. -/- First, I argue that implicit racial biases form part of the “background” of social experience. That is, while they exert a pervasive influence on our perceptions, judgments, and actions, they are frequently felt but not noticed, or noticed but misinterpreted. Second, I argue that our unreflective racial attitudes are neither mere associations nor fully articulated, propositionally structured beliefs or emotions. Their intentional contents are fundamentally indeterminate. For example, when a white person experiences a “gut feeling” of discomfort during an interaction with a black person, there is a question about the meaning or nature of that discomfort. Is it a fear of black people? Is it anxiety about appearing racist? There is, I argue, no general, determinate answer to such questions. The contents of our unreflective racial attitudes are fundamentally vague and open-ended, although I explain how they nevertheless take on particular shapes and implications—that is, their content can become determinate—depending on context, social meaning, and structural power relations. (If, for example, a perceived authority figure, such as a politician, parent, or scientist, encourages you to believe that your uncomfortable gut feeling is a justified fear of other social groups, then that is what your gut feeling is likely to become.). (shrink)