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32Naturalizing 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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139Richard Rorty, Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature (review)Philosophical Review 90 (3): 424-429. 1981.
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54D. M. Armstrong, A Materialist Theory of the Mind (review)Journal of Philosophy 66 (22): 812-818. 1969.
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Values and Morals: Essays in Honor of William Frankena, Charles Stevenson, and Richard Brandt (edited book)Springer. 1978.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 Dep…Read more
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323Philosophical Theory and Intuitional EvidenceIn Michael Raymond DePaul & William M. Ramsey (eds.), Rethinking Intuition: The Psychology of Intuition and its Role in Philosophical Inquiry, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. 1998.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 so…Read more
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A Causal Theory of KnowingIn Sven Bernecker & Fred I. Dretske (eds.), Knowledge: readings in contemporary epistemology, Oxford University Press. pp. 18-30. 2000.
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2Discrimination and Perceptual KnowledgeIn Sven Bernecker & Fred I. Dretske (eds.), Knowledge: readings in contemporary epistemology, Oxford University Press. pp. 86-102. 2000.
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392Interpretation psychologizedMind and Language 4 (3): 161-85. 1989.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 h…Read more
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73What Can Psychology Do for Epistemology?: Revisiting Epistemology and CognitionPhilosophical Topics 45 (1): 17-32. 2017.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…Read more
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62Metaphysics and Cognitive Science (edited book)Oxford University Press. 2019.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 mo…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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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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29Social 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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The sciences and epistemologyIn Paul K. Moser (ed.), The Oxford handbook of epistemology, Oxford University Press. pp. 144--176. 2002.
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164Science, publicity, and consciousnessPhilosophy of Science 64 (4): 525-45. 1997.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 shou…Read more
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142Simulating Minds: The Philosophy, Psychology, and Neuroscience of MindreadingOxford University Press USA. 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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90Can science know when you're conscious?Epistemological Foundations of Consciousness Research. Journal Of Consciousness Studies 7 (5): 3-22. 2000.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 d…Read more
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422Epistemics: The regulative theory of cognitionJournal of Philosophy 75 (10): 509-523. 1978.I wish to advocate a reorientation of epistemology. Lest anyone maintain that the enterprise I urge is not epistemology at all (even part of epistemology), I call this enterprise by a slightly different name: epistemics. Despite this terminological concession, I believe that the inquiry I advocate is significantly continuous with traditional epistemology. Like much of past epistemology, it would seek to regulate or guide our intellectual activities. It would try to lay down principles or suggest…Read more
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34Power, time, and costPhilosophical Studies 26 (3-4): 263-270. 1974.David Braybrooke makes two criticisms of my theory of social power, one that deals with the time of power and one that concerns the relation between power and cost. In his first criticism he points out that, according to my analysis, Richard Nixon had the power, in 1940, to nominate Burger for Chief Justice in 1970, and a certain twelve-year old boy may today have the power to hit the first home run of the 1990 season. Braybrooke finds these consequences of the theory unacceptable. These agents …Read more
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69Action, causation, and unityNoûs 13 (2): 261-270. 1979."Contingent Identity in Human Action and Philosophical Method", Castañeda's study of _A Theory of Human Action_, covers a great deal of territory and contains many diverse criticisms. In the space allotted here I cannot do justice to the range of Castañeda's detailed and careful discussion. Instead of replying to his critique point by point, let me use it as an occasion to explore a few selected topics which he broaches.
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40The Bodily Formats Approach to Embodied CognitionIn Uriah Kriegel (ed.), Current Controversies in Philosophy of Mind, Routledge. pp. 91-108. 2013.
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53Stephen P. Stich: The Fragmentation of ReasonPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 51 (1): 189-193. 1991.
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24Episteme: 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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216Williamson on Knowledge and EvidenceIn Duncan Pritchard & Patrick Greenough (eds.), Williamson on Knowledge, Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 73-91. 2009.
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59Mindreading by simulation: The roles of imagination and mirroringIn Simon Baron-Cohen, Michael Lombardo & Helen Tager-Flusberg (eds.), Understanding Other Minds: Perspectives From Developmental Social Neuroscience, Oxford University Press. pp. 448-466. 2013.
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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.
Areas of Specialization
Epistemology |
Metaphysics |
Philosophy of Mind |
Social and Political Philosophy |
Philosophy of Cognitive Science |