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34Epistemology, two types of functionalism, and first-person authorityBehavioral and Brain Sciences 18 (2): 395-398. 1995.My target article did not attribute a pervasive ontological significance to phenomenology, so it escapes Bogdan's “epistemological illusion.” Pust correctly pinpoints an ambiguity between content-inclusive and content-exclusive forms of folk functionalism. Contrary to Fodor, however, only the former is plausible, and hence my third argument against functionalism remains a threat. Van Brakel's charity approach to first-person authority cannot deal with authority vis-a-vis sensations, and it has s…Read more
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33Does one size fit all? Hurley on shared circuitsBehavioral and Brain Sciences 31 (1): 27-28. 2008.Hurley's high level of generality suggests that a control-theoretic framework underpins all of the phenomena in question, but this is problematic. In contrast to the action-perception domain, where the control-theoretic framework certainly applies, there is no evidence that this framework equally applies to feelings and emotions, such as pain, touch, and disgust, where mirroring and simulational mindreading are also found
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31CommentSocial Epistemology 7 (3). 1993.The paper by Susan Feigenbaum and David Levy, 'The market for (ir)reproducible econometrics', has several meritorious features. It offers an interesting model of how econometric researchers might decide whether to replicate a previously published article and how journal editors might decide whether to publish such a replication study. It offers data about error rates involved in original studies and about the willingness of original researchers to submit their data to potential replicators. Fina…Read more
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30Simulating Minds: The Philosophy, Psychology, and Neuroscience of MindreadingOxford University Press. 2006.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 s…Read more
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30Naturalizing metaphysics with the help of cognitive scienceIn Dean W. Zimmerman (ed.), Oxford Studies in Metaphysics, Oxford University Press. pp. 171-215. 2008.This chapter argues that empirical findings in cognitive science can play a significant evidential role in an optimal methodology for metaphysics. It does not propose any radical metaphysical methodology or any wholesale replacement of traditional methods. Rather, it offers a supplement to traditional methods. The chapter proposes a general template for metaphysical methodology under which cognitive scientific considerations might become routine or commonplace factors in realist metaphysics, not…Read more
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30Epistemic folkways and scientific epistemologyIn Guy Axtell (ed.), Knowledge, Belief, and Character: Readings in Virtue Epistemology, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. pp. 3-18. 2000.
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27Is less knowledge better than more?Behavioral and Brain Sciences 23 (5): 751-752. 2000.When a distinction is drawn between “total” knowledge and “problem-specific” knowledge, it is seen that successful users of the recognition heuristic have more problem-specific knowledge than people unable to exploit this heuristic. So it is not ignorance that makes them smart, but knowledge.
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27Social epistemologyStanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2006.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 shoul…Read more
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25Social epistemics and social psychologySocial Epistemology 5 (2). 1991.J. Angelo Corlett suggests a revision in the scope of social epistemics as I have depicted it. Specifically, he suggests that social epistemics should encompass questions about certain psychological processes – viz. social cognitive processes – whereas my original proposal assigned the task of evaluating psychological processes to individual epistemics only. How compelling is this suggestion, and how consonant is it with the general program of epistemics?
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24Reply to BraybrookePhilosophical Studies 30 (4): 273-275. 1976.A few comments may help set the record straight on the issues Braybrooke raises (or reraises). First, I concede that my treatment of the relation between resources and opportunity costs was inaccurate. Braybrooke is correct in saying that opportunity costs may rise while resources are also rising. By itself, however, this does not resolve the question of whether power is inversely related to opportunity cost. It may still be true that one's power goes down when opportunity cost rises, even if on…Read more
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23Episteme: A new self-definitionEpisteme 9 (1): 1-2. 2012.With this issue Episteme makes its debut with Cambridge University Press, after eight successful years of publication at Edinburgh University Press. The journal’s new subtitle reflects a significant expansion in scope and mission. Our previous subtitle, ‘A Journal of Social Epistemology’, reflected our earlier focus on the nascent field of social epistemology. The new subtitle, ‘A Journal of Individual and Social Epistemology’, reflects a new self-definition as a full-spectrum journal of epistem…Read more
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22Desire, intention, and the simulation theoryIn Bertram F. Malle, Louis J. Moses & Dare A. Baldwin (eds.), Intentions and Intentionality: Foundations of Social Cognition, Mit Press. pp. 207-225. 2001.
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22Philosophical Applications of Cognitive ScienceRoutledge. 1993.One of the most fruitful interdisciplinary boundaries in contemporary scholarship is that between philosophy and cognitive science. Now that solid empirical results about the activities of the human mind are available, it is no longer necessary for philosophers to practice armchair psychology. In this short, accessible, and entertaining book, Alvin Goldman presents a masterly survey of recent work in cognitive science that has particular relevance to philosophy. Besides providing a valuable revi…Read more
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18Simulation and the evolution of mindreadingIn Antonio Zilhao (ed.), Evolution, Rationality, and Cognition: A Cognitive Science for the Twenty-First Century, Routledge. pp. 148-161. 2005.
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16Simulation theory and cognitive neuroscienceIn Dominic Murphy & Michael A. Bishop (eds.), Stich and His Critics, Wiley-blackwell. pp. 137-151. 2009.
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15The Psychology of Folk PsychologyIn Alvin Goldman (ed.), Readings in Philosophy and Cognitive Science, Mit Press. pp. 347-380. 1993.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 phenomen…Read more
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11Pathways to Knowledge: Private and PublicOxford University Press USA. 2002.Alvin Goldman examines public and private methods or "pathways" to knowledge, arguing for the epistemic legitimacy of private and introspective methods of gaining knowledge, yet acknowledging the equal importance of social and public mechanisms in the quest for truth.
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10Simulation Theory and Cognitive NeuroscienceIn Dominic Murphy & Michael Bishop (eds.), Stich, Wiley‐blackwell. 2009-03-20.This chapter contains sections titled: Is Simulation a Natural Category? Simulation and Respects of Similarity Simulation and Motor Cognition Simulation and Face‐based Emotion Attribution Simulation is a Robust and Theoretically Interesting Category References.
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10Social EpistemologyCritica 31 (93): 3-19. 1999.Epistemology has historically focused on individual inquirers conducting their private intellectual affairs independently of one another. As a descriptive matter, however, what people believe and know is largely a function of their community and culture, narrowly or broadly construed. Most of what we believe is influenced, directly or indirectly, by the utterances and writings of others. So social epistemology deserves at least equal standing alongside the individual sector of epistemology.
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9The Unity of the Epistemic VirtuesIn Pathways to knowledge: private and public, Oxford University Press. pp. 51-72. 2002.
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8Innate knowledgeIn Stephen P. Stich (ed.), Innate Ideas, University of California Press. pp. 111-120. 1975.
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7A guide to social epistemologyIn Alvin I. Goldman & Dennis Whitcomb (eds.), Social Epistemology: Essential Readings, Oxford University Press. pp. 11-37. 2011.
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6Imagination and Simulation in Audience Responses to FictionIn Shaun Nichols (ed.), The Architecture of the Imagination: New Essays on Pretence, Possibility, and Fiction, Clarendon Press. pp. 41-56. 2006.This chapter considers how imagination generates emotion. ‘Supposition-imagination’ (S-imagination) is distinguished from ‘enactment-imagination’ (E-imagination). The former kind of imagination involves entertaining or supposing various hypothetical scenarios; with the latter kind of imagination, one tries to create a kind of facsimile of a mental state. Thus, one might try to create a perception-like state as in visual imagination or motoric imagination. It is argued that this much richer form …Read more
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5On Epistemology and cognition: A response to the review by S.W. SmoliarArtificial Intelligence 34 (2): 265-267. 1988.
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5Sosa on Reflective Knowledge and Virtue PerspectivismIn John Greco (ed.), Ernest Sosa and His Critics, Blackwell. 2004.This chapter contains section titled: Reflective versus Animal Knowledge Virtue Perspectivism.
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5What is justified belief?In Steven Luper (ed.), Essential Knowledge: Readings in Epistemology, Longman. pp. 178. 1979.
Areas of Specialization
Epistemology |
Metaphysics |
Philosophy of Mind |
Social and Political Philosophy |
Philosophy of Cognitive Science |