Alvin Goldman

(? - 2024)

This Festschrift seeks to honor three highly distinguished scholars in the Department of Philosophy, University of Michigan: William K. Frankena, Charles L. Stevenson, and Richard B. Brandt. Each has made significant con­tributions to the philosophic literature, particularly in the field of ethics. Michigan has been fortunate in having three such original and productive moral philosophers serving on its faculty simultaneously. Yet they stand in a long tradition of excellence, both within the Department and in the University. Let us trace that tradition briefly. The University of Michigan opened in 184l. lts Department of Literature, Science, and the Arts at first resembled a typical American college of that period, with religious and ethical indoctrination playing a central role in course offerings. But when Henry Tappan, a Presbyterian clergyman and Professor of philosophy, became President in 1852, he succeeded in shifting the emphasis from indoctrination to inquiry and scholarship. Though he was dismissed for his policies in 1863, Tappan's efforts to establish a broad and liberal curriculum prevailed. Michigan was to take its place among the leading educational institutions in this country, and to achieve an international reputation as a research center. Several past philosophers are worthy of mention here. George Sylvester Morris, an absolute idealist, joined the Department in 1881, having served from 1870 as Chairman of the Department of Modern Languages and Literature. He assumed the Chairmanship of Philosophy in 1884.

How can intuitions be used to validate or invalidate a philosophical theory? An intuition about a case seems to be a basic evidential source for the truth of that intuition, i.e., for the truth of the claim that a particular example is or isn’t an instance of a philosophically interesting kind, concept, or predicate. A mental‐state type is a basic evidential source only if its tokens reliably indicate the truth of their contents. The best way to account for intuitions being a basic evidential source is to interpret their subject matter in psychologistic terms. Intuitions provide evidence about the contents of the intuiter's concept, where “concept” is understood as a psychological structure.

The aim of this paper is to study interpretation, specifically, to work toward an account of interpretation that seems descriptively and explanatorily correct. No account of interpretation can be philosophically helpful, I submit, if it is incompatible with a correct account of what people actually do when they interpret others. My question, then, is: how does the (naive) interpreter arrive at his/her judgments about the mental attitudes of others? Philosophers who have addressed this question have not, in my view, been sufficiently psychological, or cognitivist, even those who are otherwise psychologically inclined. I shall defend some proposals about the activity of interpretation that are, I believe, psychologically more realistic than their chief competitors.

Within the analytic tradition—especially under the influence of Frege’s anti-psychologism—the thought of incorporating empirical psychology into epistemology was definitely out of bounds. This began to change with the advent of “naturalistic” epistemology, in which Epistemology and Cognition played a role. However, there is no settled consensus as to how, exactly, empirical psychology or cognitive science should contribute to the epistemological enterprise. This is the topic to which the present paper is addressed. The discussion explores four topics or issues in contemporary epistemology to which current research in psychology might make helpful contributions: the generality problem for reliabilism; algorithms and belief-forming processes; epistemology and the Bayesian theory of vision; and the rationality wars and dual-process systems.

This volume illustrates how the methodology of metaphysics can be enriched with the help of cognitive science. Few philosophers nowadays would dispute the relevance of cognitive science to the metaphysics of mind, but this volume mainly concerns the relevance of metaphysics to phenomena that are not themselves mental. The volume is thus a departure from standard analytical metaphysics. Among the issues to which results from cognitive science are brought to bear are the metaphysics of time, of morality, of meaning, of modality, of objects, and of natural kinds, as well as whether God exists. A number of chapters address the enterprise of metaphysics in general. In traditional analytical metaphysics, intuitions play a prominent role in the construction of, and assessment of theories. Cognitive science can be brought to bear on the issue of the reliability of intuitions. Some chapters point out how results from cognitive science can be deployed to debunk certain intuitions, and some point out how results can be deployed to help vindicate certain intuitions.

People are minded creatures; we have thoughts, feelings and emotions. More intriguingly, we grasp our own mental states, and conduct the business of ascribing them to ourselves and others without instruction in formal psychology. How do we do this? And what are the dimensions of our grasp of the mental realm? In this book, Alvin I. Goldman explores these questions with the tools of philosophy, developmental psychology, social psychology and cognitive neuroscience. He refines an approach called simulation theory, which starts from the familiar idea that we understand others by putting ourselves in their mental shoes. Can this intuitive idea be rendered precise in a philosophically respectable manner, without allowing simulation to collapse into theorizing? Given a suitable definition, do empirical results support the notion that minds literally create (or attempt to create) surrogates of other peoples mental states in the process of mindreading? Goldman amasses a surprising array of evidence from psychology and neuroscience that supports this hypothesis.

Social epistemology is the study of the social dimensions of knowledge or information. There is little consensus, however, on what the term "knowledge" comprehends, what is the scope of the "social", or what the style or purpose of the study should be. According to some writers, social epistemology should retain the same general mission as classical epistemology, revamped in the recognition that classical epistemology was too individualistic. According to other writers, social epistemology should be a more radical departure from classical epistemology, a successor discipline that would replace epistemology as traditionally conceived. The classical approach could be realized in at least two forms. One would emphasize the traditional epistemic goal of acquiring true beliefs. It would study social practices in terms of their impact on the truth-values of agents' beliefs. A second version of the classical approach would focus on the epistemic goal of having justified or rational beliefs. Applied to the social realm, it might concentrate, for example, on when a cognitive agent is justified or warranted in accepting the statements and opinions of others. Proponents of the anti-classical approach have little or no use for concepts like truth and justification. In addressing the social dimensions of knowledge, they understand "knowledge" as simply what is believed, or what beliefs are "institutionalized" in this or that community, culture, or context. They seek to identify the social forces and influences responsible for knowledge production so conceived. Social epistemology is theoretically significant because of the central role of society in the knowledge-forming process. It also has practical importance because of its possible role in the redesign of information-related social institutions.

A traditional view is that scientific evidence can be produced only by intersubjective methods that can be used by different investigators and will produce agreement. This intersubjectivity, or publicity, constraint ostensibly excludes introspection. But contemporary cognitive scientists regularly rely on their subjects' introspective reports in many areas, especially in the study of consciousness. So there is a tension between actual scientific practice and the publicity requirement. Which should give way? This paper argues against the publicity requirement and against a fallback version of it, viz. that evidence-conferring methods must at least have their reliability publicly validated

Consciousness researchers standardly rely on their subjects’ verbal reports to ascertain which conscious states they are in. What justifies this reliance on verbal reports? Does it comport with the third-person approach characteristic of science, or does it ultimately appeal to first-person knowledge of consciousness? If first-person knowledge is required, does this pass scientific muster? Several attempts to rationalize the reliance on verbal reports are considered, beginning with attempts to define consciousness via the higher-order thought approach and functionalism. These approaches are either problematic in their own right, or ultimately based on a first-person access to consciousness. A third approach assumes that scientists can trust verbal reports because subjects reliably monitor or ‘introspect’ their conscious states. This raises the question of whether the reliability of introspection can be validated by independent criteria. Merikle's attempts to validate this reliability are shown to involve some unavoidable circularity. It is conjectured that scientists’ reliance on their subjects’ verbal reports tacitly appeals to their own introspective reliability, which is not independently validatable. Some epistemologists might conclude that this renders scientists’ conclusions about conscious states unjustified, but I argue that this does not contravene the constraints of a proper epistemology

Social epistemology is the study of the social dimensions of knowledge or information. There is little consensus, however, on what the term "knowledge" comprehends, what is the scope of the "social", or what the style or purpose of the study should be. According to some writers, social epistemology should retain the same general mission as classical epistemology, revamped in the recognition that classical epistemology was too individualistic. According to other writers, social epistemology should be a more radical departure from classical epistemology, a successor discipline that would replace epistemology as traditionally conceived. The classical approach could be realized in at least two forms. One would emphasize the traditional epistemic goal of acquiring true beliefs. It would study social practices in terms of their impact on the truth-values of agents’ beliefs. A second version of the classical approach would focus on the epistemic goal of having justified or rational beliefs. Applied to the social realm, it might concentrate, for example, on when a cognitive agent is justified or warranted in accepting the statements and opinions of others. Proponents of the anti-classical approach have little or no use for concepts like truth and justification. In addressing the social dimensions of knowledge, they understand "knowledge" as simply what is believed, or what beliefs are "institutionalized" in this or that community, culture, or context. They seek to identify the social forces and influences responsible for knowledge production so conceived. Social epistemology is theoretically significant because of the central role of society in the knowledge-forming process. It also has practical importance because of its possible role in the redesign of information-related social institutions.

Consciousness researchers standardly rely on their subjects’ verbal reports to ascertain which conscious states they are in. What justifies this reliance on verbal reports? Does it comport with the third-person approach characteristic of science, or does it ultimately appeal to first-person knowledge of consciousness? If first-person knowledge is required, does this pass scientific muster? Several attempts to rationalize the reliance on verbal reports are considered, beginning with attempts to define consciousness via the higher-order thought approach and functionalism. These approaches are either problematic in their own right, or ultimately based on a first-person access to consciousness. A third approach assumes that scientists can trust verbal reports because subjects reliably monitor or ‘introspect’ their conscious states. This raises the question of whether the reliability of introspection can be validated by independent criteria. Merikle's attempts to validate this reliability are shown to involve some unavoidable circularity. It is conjectured that scientists’ reliance on their subjects’ verbal reports tacitly appeals to their own introspective reliability, which is not independently validatable. Some epistemologists might conclude that this renders scientists’ conclusions about conscious states unjustified, but I argue that this does not contravene the constraints of a proper epistemology.

I wish to advance a certain program for doing metaphysics, a program in which cognitive science would play an important role.1 This proposed ingredient is absent from most contemporary metaphysics. There are one or two local parts of metaphysics where a role for cognitive science is commonly accepted, but I advocate a wider range of application. I begin by laying out the general program and its rationale, with selected illustrations. Then I explore in some detail a single application: the ontology of events. I do not push hard for any particular ontological conclusion, about either events or any other topic. The focus is methodology, not a particular output of the methodology. Here is a recently published characterization of the metaphysical enterprise, one that probably captures orthodox practice pretty well and to which I take no exception

A weak unity thesis about epistemic virtues holds that there is a core epistemic value – true belief – and that processes, traits, or actions are epistemic virtues by virtue of their relations with this core value. According to veritistic unitarianism, justification is a distinct epistemic value from truth but derives its value from that of true belief. This is explicit in reliabilism and implicit in many varieties of foundationalism and coherentism. Deontological evidentialism rejects veritistic consequentialism but has trouble accounting for evidence‐gathering virtues. The claim that “pragmatic” epistemic virtues are unrelated to truth is examined but found unpersuasive or readily accommodated with minor tweakings of the veritistic perspective.

In recent decades, epistemology has witnessed the development and growth of externalist theories of knowledge and justification. Critics of externalism have focused a bright spotlight on this approach and judged it unsuitable for realizing the true and original goals of epistemology. Their own favored approach, internalism, is defended as a preferable approach to the traditional concept of epistemic justification. I shall turn the spotlight toward internalism and its most prominent rationale, revealing fundamental problems at the core of internalism and challenging the viability of its most popular rationale. Although particular internalist theories such as (internalist) foundationalism and coherentism will occasionally be discussed, those specific theories are not my primary concern. The principal concern is rather the general architecture of internalism, and the attempt to justify this architecture by appeal to a certain conception of what justification consists in.

Reliabilism is a general approach to epistemology that emphasizes the truth conduciveness of a belief forming process, method, or other epistemologically relevant factor. The reliability theme appears both in theories of knowledge and theories of justification. ‘Reliabilism’ is sometimes used broadly to refer to any theory of knowledge or justification that emphasizes truth getting or truth indicating properties. These include theories originally proposed under different labels, such as ‘tracking’ theories. More commonly, ‘reliabilism’ is used narrowly to refer to process reliabilism about justification. This entry discusses reliabilism in both broad and narrow senses but concentrates on reliability theories of justified belief, especially process reliabilism

The central mission of cognitive science is to reveal the real nature of the mind, however familiar or foreign that nature may be to naive preconceptions. The existence of naive conceptions is also important, however. Prescientific thought and language contain concepts of the mental, and these concepts deserve attention from cognitive science. Just as scientific psychology studies folk physics (McCloskey 1983, Hayes 1985), viz., the common understanding (or misunderstanding) of physical phenomena, so it must study folk psychology, the common understanding of mental states. This subfield of scientific psychology is what I mean by the phrase 'the psychology of folk psychology'.

Mainstream epistemology is a highly theoretical and abstract enterprise. Traditional epistemologists rarely present their deliberations as critical to the practical problems of life, unless one supposes—as Hume, for example, did not—that skeptical worries should trouble us in our everyday affairs. But some issues in epistemology are both theoretically interesting and practically quite pressing. That holds of the problem to be discussed here: how laypersons should evaluate the testimony of experts and decide which of two or more rival experts is most credible. It is of practical importance because in a complex, highly specialized world people are constantly confronted with situations in which, as comparative novices, they must turn to putative experts for intellectual guidance or assistance. It is of theoretical interest because the appropriate epistemic considerations are far from transparent; and it is not clear how far the problems lead to insurmountable skeptical quandaries. This paper does not argue for flat-out skepticism in this domain; nor, on the other hand, does it purport to resolve all pressures in the direction of skepticism. It is an exploratory paper, which tries to identify problems and examine some possible solutions, not to establish those solutions definitively.

Problem solving has recently become a central topic both in the philosophy of science and in cognitive science. This paper integrates approaches to problem solving from these two disciplines and discusses the epistemological consequences of such an integration. The paper first analyzes problem solving as getting a true answer to a question. It then explores some stages of cognitive activity relevant to question answering that have been delineated by historians and philosophers of science and by cognitive psychologists and artificial intelligencers. The traditional opposition between discovery and justification is challenged. It is suggested that epistemology may be conceptualized, in part, as the critical assessment of problem-solving strategies.

What is the connection between mirror processes and mindreading? The paper begins with definitions of mindreading and of mirroring processes. It then advances four theses: (T1) mirroring processes in themselves do not constitute mindreading; (T2) some types of mindreading (“low-level” mindreading) are based on mirroring processes; (T3) not all types of mindreading are based on mirroring (“high-level” mindreading); and (T4) simulation-based mindreading includes but is broader than mirroring-based mindreading. Evidence for the causal role of mirroring in mindreading is drawn from intention attribution, emotion attribution, and pain attribution. Arguments for the limits of mirroring-based mindreading are drawn from neuroanatomy, from the lesser liability to error of mirror-based mindreading, from the role of imagination in some types of mindreading, and from the restricted range of mental states involved in mirroring. “High-level” simulational mindreading is based on enactment imagination, perspective shifts, or self-projection, which are found in activities like prospection and memory as well as theory of mind. The role of cortical midline structures in executing these activities is examined.