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360The Two Sources of Moral StandingReview of Philosophy and Psychology 3 (3): 303-324. 2012.There are two primary traditions in philosophical theorizing about moral standing—one emphasizing Experience (the capacity to feel pain and pleasure) and one emphasizing Agency (complexity of cognition and lifestyle). In this article we offer an explanation for this divide: Lay judgments about moral standing depend importantly on two independent cues (Experience and Agency), and the two philosophical traditions reflect this aspect of folk moral cognition. In support of this two-source hypothesis…Read more
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220Race and racial cognitionIn John Doris (ed.), Moral Psychology Handbook, Oxford University Press. 2010.A core question of contemporary social morality concerns how we ought to handle racial categorization. By this we mean, for instance, classifying or thinking of a person as Black, Korean, Latino, White, etc.² While it is widely FN:2 agreed that racial categorization played a crucial role in past racial oppression, there remains disagreement among philosophers and social theorists about the ideal role for racial categorization in future endeavors. At one extreme of this disagreement are short-ter…Read more
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10111 Philosophy of PsychologyIn Fritz Allhoff (ed.), Philosophies of the Sciences, Wiley‐blackwell. pp. 262. 2010.This chapter contains sections titled: The Scientific Legitimacy of Mentalism? Cognitive Architecture and Massive Modularity Embodied, Situated, and Extended Cognition Concepts Mindreading Conclusion and Future Directions References.
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276100 years of psychology of concepts: The theoretical notion of concept and its operationalizationStudies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 38 (1): 63-84. 2005.The operationalization of scienti?c notions is instrumental in enabling experimental evidence to bear on scienti?c propositions. Conceptual change should thus translate into operationalization change. This article describes some important experimental works in the psychology of concepts since the beginning of the twentieth century. It is argued that since the early days of this ?eld, psy- chologists
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78Arguing About Human Nature: Contemporary Debates (edited book)Routledge. 2013.Arguing About Human Nature covers recent debates--arising from biology, philosophy, psychology, and physical anthropology--that together systematically examine what it means to be human. Thirty-five essays--several of them appearing here for the first time in print--were carefully selected to offer competing perspectives on 12 different topics related to human nature. The context and main threads of the debates are highlighted and explained by the editors in a short, clear introduction to each o…Read more
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239Massive Modularity and the Flexibility of Human CognitionMind and Language 23 (3): 263-272. 2008.In The Architecture of the Mind, Carruthers proposes a new and detailed explanation for how human cognition could be both flexible and massively modular. The combinatorial nature of our linguistic faculty and our capacity to engage in inner speech are the cornerstones of this new explanation. Despite the ingenuity of this proposal, I argue that Carruthers has failed to explain how a massively modular mind could display the flexibility that is characteristic of human thought
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313The folk concept of intentional action: Philosophical and experimental issuesMind and Language 23 (2). 2008.Recent experimental fi ndings by Knobe and others ( Knobe, 2003; Nadelhoffer, 2006b; Nichols and Ulatowski, 2007 ) have been at the center of a controversy about the nature of the folk concept of intentional action. I argue that the signifi cance of these fi ndings has been overstated. My discussion is two-pronged. First, I contend that barring a consensual theory of conceptual competence, the signifi cance of these experimental fi ndings for the nature of the concept of intentional action canno…Read more
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112Explaining why experimental behavior varies across cultures: A missing step in “The weirdest people in the world?”Behavioral and Brain Sciences 33 (2-3): 101-102. 2010.In this commentary, I argue that to properly assess the significance of the cross-cultural findings reviewed by Henrich et al., one needs to understand better the causes of the variation in performance in experimental tasks across cultures
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57Developmental disorders and cognitive architectureIn Pieter R. Adriaens & Andreas De Block (eds.), Maladapting Minds: Philosophy, Psychiatry, and Evolutionary Theory, Oxford University Press. 2011.For the last thirty years, cognitive scientists have attempted to describe the cognitive architecture of typically developing human beings, using, among other sources of evidence, the dissociations that result from developmental psychopathologies such as autism spectrum disorders, Williams syndrome, and Down syndrome. Thus, in his recent defense of the massive modularity hypothesis, Steven Pinker insists on the importance of such dissociations to identify the components of the typical cognitive …Read more
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61A better philosophy for a better psychology: Comment on Slaney and Racine (2011)Journal of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology 31 (2): 90-95. 2011.In their thought-provoking article, Slaney and Racine put forth several criticisms of the traditional view that concepts are mental representations used in the cognitive processes that underlie human higher cognitive competences . Considerations of a broadly Wittgensteinian nature underlie their criticisms. In this article, I argue that the considerations advanced by Slaney and Racine do not undermine the clear account of the nature of mental states and psychological processes developed in the 1…Read more
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48Review of António Zilhão (ed.), Evolution, Rationality, and Cognition: A Cognitive Science for the Twenty-First Century (review)Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2006 (4). 2006.
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Scientists’ Concepts of Innateness: Evolution or Attraction?In Richard Samuels & Daniel A. Wilkenfeld (eds.), Advances in Experimental Philosophy of Science, Bloomsbury. pp. 172-201. 2019.
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178Editorial: Formal Epistemology Meets Experimental Philosophy (review)Synthese 190 (8): 1333-1335. 2013.
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109Précis of Doing without ConceptsMind and Language 25 (5): 602-611. 2010.In this précis, I review the main points and arguments developed at greater length in Doing without Concepts, and I explain why eliminating the notion of concept would contribute to the progress of the psychology of higher cognition.
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66What is the significance of The Origin of Concepts for philosophers' and psychologists' theories of concepts?Behavioral and Brain Sciences 34 (3): 137-138. 2011.Carey holds that the study of conceptual development bears on the theories of concepts developed by philosophers and psychologists. In this commentary, I scrutinize her claims about the significance of the study of conceptual development
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Essay Review-Adapting Minds: Evolutionary Psychology and the Persistent Quest for Human NatureIn Borchert (ed.), Philosophy of Science, Macmillan. pp. 73--2. 2006.
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405In Defense of Reverse InferenceBritish Journal for the Philosophy of Science 65 (2): 251-267. 2014.Reverse inference is the most commonly used inferential strategy for bringing images of brain activation to bear on psychological hypotheses, but its inductive validity has recently been questioned. In this article, I show that, when it is analyzed in likelihoodist terms, reverse inference does not suffer from the problems highlighted in the recent literature, and I defend the appropriateness of treating reverse inference in these terms. 1 Introduction2 Reverse Inference3 Reverse Inference Defen…Read more
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27Evolution of moralityIn John Doris (ed.), Moral Psychology Handbook, Oxford University Press. pp. 3. 2010.
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403 Please specify whether it is Meaney (2001a or 2001b) throughout the article. 4 Please provide location of the publisher for reference Ariew (2006). 5 Please update the following reference: Griffiths et al. (submitted); Jones..
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Review of Words and Thoughts: Subsentences, Ellipsis and the Philosophy of Language (review)Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews. forthcoming.
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141The role of psychology in the study of cultureBehavioral and Brain Sciences 29 (4): 355-355. 2006.Although we are enthusiastic about a Darwinian approach to culture, we argue that the overview presented in the target article does not sufficiently emphasize the crucial explanatory role that psychology plays in the study of culture. We use a number of examples to illustrate the variety of ways by which appeal to psychological factors can help explain cultural phenomena
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26This article maybe used for research, teaching and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, re-distribution, re-selling, loan or sub-licensing, systematic supply or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden.
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427Racism: Against Jorge Garcia's moral and psychological monismPhilosophy of the Social Sciences 39 (1): 41-62. 2009.In this article, we argue that it can be fruitful for philosophers interested in the nature and moral significance of racism to pay more attention to psychology. We do this by showing that psychology provides new arguments against Garcia's views about the nature and moral significance of racism. We contend that some scientific studies of racial cognition undermine Garcia's moral and psychological monism about racism: Garcia disregards (1) the rich affective texture of racism and (2) the diversit…Read more
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One hundred years of psychology of concepts: Theoretical notions and their operationalizationStudies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A. forthcoming.
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116The heterogeneity of knowledge representation and the elimination of conceptBehavioral and Brain Sciences 33 (2-3): 231-244. 2010.In this response, I begin by defending and clarifying the notion of concept proposed in Doing without Concepts (Machery 2009) against the alternatives proposed by several commentators. I then discuss whether psychologists and philosophers who theorize about concepts are talking about distinct phenomena or about different aspects of the same phenomenon, as argued in some commentaries. Next, I criticize the idea that the cognitive-scientific findings about induction, categorization, concept combin…Read more
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University of PittsburghHistory and Philosophy of Science
Center for Philosophy of ScienceDistinguished Professor
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
| Philosophy of Mind |
| Philosophy of Cognitive Science |
| General Philosophy of Science |