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94Toward a functionalist theory of consciousnessBehavioral and Brain Sciences 14 (3): 438-439. 1991.
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418Animal BehaviorIn Michael Ruse (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Biology, Oxford University Press. pp. 327--348. 2008.Few areas of scientific investigation have spawned more alternative approaches than animal behavior: comparative psychology, ethology, behavioral ecology, sociobiology, behavioral endocrinology, behavioral neuroscience, neuroethology, behavioral genetics, cognitive ethology, developmental psychobiology---the list goes on. Add in the behavioral sciences focused on the human animal, and you can continue the list with ethnography, biological anthropology, political science, sociology, psychology (c…Read more
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16Nature’s Purposes: Analyses of Function and Design in Biology (edited book)The MIT Press. 1997.This volume provides a guide to the discussion among biologists and philosophersabout the role of concepts such as function and design in an evolutionary understanding oflife.
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95Framing robot arms controlEthics and Information Technology 15 (2): 125-135. 2013.The development of autonomous, robotic weaponry is progressing rapidly. Many observers agree that banning the initiation of lethal activity by autonomous weapons is a worthy goal. Some disagree with this goal, on the grounds that robots may equal and exceed the ethical conduct of human soldiers on the battlefield. Those who seek arms-control agreements limiting the use of military robots face practical difficulties. One such difficulty concerns defining the notion of an autonomous action by a ro…Read more
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16Logic primerMIT Press. 2022.Presents a self-contained introduction to logic suitable for majors and nonmajors, and can be covered entirely in a one-semester course. Natural deduction systems of sentential logic and of first-order logic, truth tables, and the basic ideas of model theory are presented without superfluous discussion.
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179From encyclopedia to ontology: toward dynamic representation of the discipline of philosophySynthese 182 (2): 205-233. 2011.The application of digital humanities techniques to philosophy is changing the way scholars approach the discipline. This paper seeks to open a discussion about the difficulties, methods, opportunities, and dangers of creating and utilizing a formal representation of the discipline of philosophy. We review our current project, the Indiana Philosophy Ontology (InPhO) project, which uses a combination of automated methods and expert feedback to create a dynamic computational ontology for the disci…Read more
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457A Tale of Two FroggiesCanadian Journal of Philosophy 31 (sup1): 104-115. 2001.In this paper I argue that selection of the best theory of content is not a matter for mere philosophical reflection on the consequences of each theory for our intuitive judgments about content. Rather, the theories must be judged in a different way that is based on the putative roles of content attribution in the behavioural sciences. The ultimate test of any theory of content will be the success of the sciences that adopt it. Furthermore, alternative semantic theories may be seen as complement…Read more
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5Transitive inference in animals: Reasoning or conditioned associations?In Susan Hurley & Matthew Nudds (eds.), Rational Animals?, Oxford University Press. 2006.
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119Animal cognition and animal mindsIn Martin Carrier & Peter K. Machamer (eds.), Mindscapes: Philosophy, Science, and the Mind, Pittsburgh University Press. 1997.Psychology, according to a standard dictionary definition, is the science of mind and behavior. For a major part of the twentieth century, (nonhuman) animal psychology was on a behavioristic track that explicitly denied the possibility of a science of animal mind. While many comparative psychologists remain wedded to behavioristic methods, they have more recently adopted a cognitive, information-processing approach that does not adhere to the strictures of stimulus-response explanations of anima…Read more
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522This is an incomplete entry that should be mapped to ALLTII on this site (see link below)
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91Models, Mechanisms, and Animal MindsSouthern Journal of Philosophy 52 (S1): 75-97. 2014.In this paper, I describe grounds for dissatisfaction with certain aspects of the sciences of animal cognition and argue that a turn toward mathematical modeling of animal cognition is warranted. I consider some objections to this call and argue that the implications of such a turn are not as drastic for ordinary, commonsense understanding of animal minds as they might seem
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135Recognizing group cognitionCognitive Systems Research 11 (4): 378-395. 2010.In this paper, we approach the idea of group cognition from the perspective of the “extended mind” thesis, as a special case of the more general claim that systems larger than the individual human, but containing that human, are capable of cognition (Clark, 2008; Clark & Chalmers, 1998). Instead of deliberating about “the mark of the cognitive” (Adams & Aizawa, 2008), our discussion of group cognition is tied to particular cognitive capacities. We review recent studies of group problem-solving a…Read more
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41Comparative cognitive studies, not folk phylogeny, pleaseBehavioral and Brain Sciences 19 (1): 122-123. 1996.Barresi & Moore (B&M) provide a useful tool for the comparative study of social cognition that could, however, be improved by more subtle analysis of first person information about intentional relations. Knowledge of misrepresentation also needs to be better handled within the theory. I urge skepticism about B&M's sweeping phylogenetic claims.
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68Cognitive ethology: Slayers, skeptics, and proponentsIn R. Mitchell, Nicholas S. Thompson & H. L. Miles (eds.), Anthropomorphism, Anecdotes, and Animals, Suny Press. pp. 313--334. 1997.
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201Animal play and the evolution of morality: An ethological approachTopoi 24 (2): 125-135. 2005.In this paper we argue that there is much to learn about “wild justice” and the evolutionary origins of morality – behaving fairly – by studying social play behavior in group-living mammals. Because of its relatively wide distribution among the mammals, ethological investigation of play, informed by interdisciplinary cooperation, can provide a comparative perspective on the evolution of ethical behavior that is broader than is provided by the usual focus on primate sociality. Careful analysis …Read more
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170The discovery of animal consciousness: An optimistic assessment (review)Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics 10 (3): 217-225. 1997.
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46Does evidence from ethology support bicoded cognitive maps?Behavioral and Brain Sciences 36 (5): 570-571. 2013.The presumption that navigation requires a cognitive map leads to its conception as an abstract computational problem. Instead of loading the question in favor of an inquiry into the metric structure and evolutionary origin of cognitive maps, the task should first be to establish that a map-like representation actually is operative in real animals navigating real environments
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164Mental contentBritish Journal for the Philosophy of Science 43 (4): 537-553. 1992.Daniel Dennett and Stephen Stich have independently, but similarly, argued that the contents of mental states cannot be specified precisely enough for the purposes of scientific prediction and explanation. Dennett takes this to support his view that the proper role for mentalistic terms in science is heuristic. Stich takes it to support his view that cognitive science should be done without reference to mental content at all. I defend a realist understanding of mental content against these attac…Read more
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806Animal painNoûs 38 (4): 617-643. 2004.Which nonhuman animals experience conscious pain?1 This question is central to the debate about animal welfare, as well as being of basic interest to scientists and philosophers of mind. Nociception—the capacity to sense noxious stimuli—is one of the most primitive sensory capacities. Neurons functionally specialized for nociception have been described in invertebrates such as the leech Hirudo medicinalis and the marine snail Aplysia californica (Walters 1996). Is all nociception accompanied by …Read more
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148Biological function, adaptation, and natural designPhilosophy of Science 62 (4): 609-622. 1995.Recently something close to a consensus about the best way to naturalize the notion of biological function appears to be emerging. Nonetheless, teleological notions in biology remain controversial. In this paper we provide a naturalistic analysis for the notion of natural design. Many authors assume that natural design should be assimilated directly to function. Others find the notion problematic because it suggests that evolution is a directed process. We argue that both of these views are mist…Read more
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186Teleological Notions in BiologyIn Peter Adamson (ed.), Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2012.Teleological terms such as "function" and "design" appear frequently in the biological sciences. Examples of teleological claims include: A (biological) function of stotting by antelopes is to communicate to predators that they have been detected. Eagles' wings are (naturally) designed for soaring. Teleological notions were commonly associated with the pre-Darwinian view that the biological realm provides evidence of conscious design by a supernatural creator. Even after creationist viewpoints w…Read more
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220Animal Concepts Revisited: the use of Self- Monitoring as an Empirical Approach (review)Erkenntnis 51 (1): 537-544. 1999.Many psychologists and philosophers believe that the close correlation between human language and human concepts makes the attribution of concepts to nonhuman animals highly questionable. I argue for a three-part approach to attributing concepts to animals. The approach goes beyond the usual discrimination tests by seeking evidence for self-monitoring of discrimination errors. Such evidence can be collected without relying on language and, I argue, the capacity for error-detection can only be …Read more
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159Species of Mind: The Philosophy and Biology of Cognitive Ethology (edited book)MIT Press. 1997.The heart of this book is the reciprocal relationship between philosophical theories of mind and empirical studies of animal cognition.
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824Mirror, Mirror in the Brain, What's the Monkey Stand to Gain?Noûs 44 (2). 2010.Primatologists generally agree that monkeys lack higher-order intentional capacities related to theory of mind. Yet the discovery of the so-called "mirror neurons" in monkeys suggests to many neuroscientists that they have the rudiments of intentional understanding. Given a standard philosophical view about intentional understanding, which requires higher-order intentionahty, a paradox arises. Different ways of resolving the paradox are assessed, using evidence from neural, cognitive, and behavi…Read more
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62How to reason without words: inference as categorizationCognitive Processing 10 77-88. 2009.The idea that reasoning is a singular accomplishment of the human species has an ancient pedigree.Yet this idea remains as controversial as it is ancient. Those who would deny reasoning to nonhuman animals typically hold a language-based conception of inference which places it beyond the reach of languageless creatures. Others reject such an anthropocentric conception of reasoning on the basis of similar performance by humans and animals in some reasoning tasks, such as transitive inference. Her…Read more
UCLA
Department Of Philosophy
Alumnus
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
Philosophy of Biology |
Philosophy of Cognitive Science |
Philosophy of Computing and Information |
PhilPapers Editorships
Animal Minds |
Animal Communication |
Animal Minds, Misc |