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125Review: Epistemology and the Psychology of Human Judgement (review)Mind 115 (458): 390-393. 2006.
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374What is folk psychology?Cognition 50 447-68. 1994.For the last two decades a doctrine called ‘‘eliminative materialism’’ (or sometimes just ‘‘eliminativism’’) has been a major focus of discussion in the philosophy of mind. It is easy to understand why eliminativism has attracted so much attention, for it is hard to imagine a more radical and provocative doctrine. What eliminativism claims is that the intentional states and processes that are alluded to in our everyday descriptions and explanations of people’s mental lives and their actions are …Read more
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147Connectionism and three levels of nativismSynthese 82 (2): 177-205. 1990.Along with the increasing popularity of connectionist language models has come a number of provocative suggestions about the challenge these models present to Chomsky's arguments for nativism. The aim of this paper is to assess these claims. We begin by reconstructing Chomsky's argument from the poverty of the stimulus and arguing that it is best understood as three related arguments, with increasingly strong conclusions. Next, we provide a brief introduction to connectionism and give a quick …Read more
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105Two theories about the cognitive architecture underlying moralityIn Peter Carruthers, Stephen Laurence & Stephen P. Stich (eds.), The Innate Mind, Vol. III, Foundations and the Future, Oxford University Press. 2008.In this paper we compare two theories about the cognitive architecture underlying morality. One theory, proposed by Sripada and Stich (forthcoming), posits an interlocking set of innate mechanisms that internalize moral norms from the surrounding community and generate intrinsic motivation to comply with these norms and to punish violators. The other theory, which we call the M/C model was suggested by the widely discussed and influential work of Elliott Turiel, Larry Nucci and others on the “mo…Read more
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21Deconstructing the MindOup Usa. 1996.In this book, Stich unravels - or deconstructs - the doctrine called "eliminativism". Eliminativism claims that beliefs, desires, and many other mental states we use to describe the mind do not exist, but are fiction posits of a badly mistaken theory of "folk psychology". Stich makes a u-turn in his book, opening up new and controversial positions.
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64Naturalizing Epistemology: Quine, Simon and the Prospects for PragmatismRoyal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 34 1-17. 1993.In recent years there has been a great deal of discussion about the prospects of developing a ‘naturalized epistemology’, though different authors tend to interpret this label in quite different ways. One goal of this paper is to sketch three projects that might lay claim to the ‘naturalized epistemology’ label, and to argue that they are not all equally attractive. Indeed, I'll maintain that the first of the three—the one I'll attribute to Quine—is simply incoherent. There is no way we could ge…Read more
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48Logical truth revisitedJournal of Philosophy 65 (17): 495-500. 1968.Thirty-two years ago W. V. Quine proposed a definition of 'logical truth' that has been widely repeated and reprinted. Quine himself seems to have recognized that this definition is wrong in detail; in section 1 we eliminate this fault. What has perhaps been less widely observed is that, in abandoning the model-theoretic account of logical truth in favor of a "substitutional" account, Quine's definition swells the ranks of the logical truths and makes the classification of a sentence as a logica…Read more
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5The Innate Mind, Volume 3: Foundations and the Future (edited book)Oup Usa. 2008.This is the third of a three-volume set on The Innate Mind providing a comprehensive assessment of nativist thought and definitive reference point for future inquiry. Together these volumes point the way toward a synthesis that provides a powerful picture of our minds and their place in the natural order.
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444Do animals have beliefs?Australasian Journal of Philosophy 57 (1): 15-28. 1979.Do animals have beliefs? Many of the philosophers who have thought about this question have taken the answer to be obvious. Trouble is, some of them take the answer to be obviously yes, others take it to be obviously no. In this disagreement both sides are surely wrong. For whatever the answer may be, it is not obvious. Moreover, as I shall argue, both sides are wrong in a more serious way, for on my view the issue itself is moot. If I am right that the issue is moot, it is not for any lack of i…Read more
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81Logical form and natural languagePhilosophical Studies 28 (6): 397-418. 1975.The central thesis of the article is that there are two quite distinct concepts of logical form. Theories of logical form employing one of these concepts are different both in method of justification and in philosophical and psychological implications from theories employing the other concept
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14Some Questions About The Evolution of Morality1 (review)Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 77 (1): 228-236. 2008.
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49Causal holism and commonsense psychology: A reply to O'BrienPhilosophical Psychology 4 (2): 179-181. 1991.
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13Innate Mind: Volume 2: Culture and Cognition (edited book)Oup Usa. 2005.This book is the second of a three-volume set on the subject of innateness. The book is highly interdisciplinary, and addresses such question as: to what extent are mature cognitive capacities a reflection of particular cultures and to what extent are they a product of innate elements? How do innate elements interact with culture to achieve mature cognitive capacities? How do minds generate and shape cultures? How are cultures processed by minds?
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448Beliefs and subdoxastic statesPhilosophy of Science 45 (December): 499-518. 1978.It is argued that the intuitively sanctioned distinction between beliefs and non-belief states that play a role in the proximate causal history of beliefs is a distinction worth preserving in cognitive psychology. The intuitive distinction is argued to rest on a pair of features exhibited by beliefs but not by subdoxastic states. These are access to consciousness and inferential integration. Harman's view, which denies the distinction between beliefs and subdoxastic states, is discussed and crit…Read more
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11George Botterill and Peter Carruthers: The Philosophy Of Psychology (review)Philosophy of Science 69 (2): 392-394. 2002.
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89Philosophy and WEIRD intuitionBehavioral and Brain Sciences 33 (2-3): 110-111. 2010.From Plato to the present, philosophers have relied on intuitive judgments as evidence for or against philosophical theories. Most philosophers are WEIRD, highly educated, and male. The literature reviewed in the target article suggests that such people might have intuitions that differ from those of people in other groups. There is a growing body of evidence suggesting that they do.
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131Philosophy and Connectionist Theory (edited book)Lawrence Erlbaum. 1991.The philosophy of cognitive science has recently become one of the most exciting and fastest growing domains of philosophical inquiry and analysis. Until the early 1980s, nearly all of the models developed treated cognitive processes -- like problem solving, language comprehension, memory, and higher visual processing -- as rule-governed symbol manipulation. However, this situation has changed dramatically over the last half dozen years. In that period there has been an enormous shift of attenti…Read more
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74What every speaker knowsPhilosophical Review 80 (4): 476-496. 1971.The question I hope to answer is brief: What does every speaker of a natural language know? My answer is briefer still: Nothing, or at least nothing interesting. Explaining the question, and making the answer plausible, is a longer job.
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Bealer, G. (1998). “Intuition and the Autonomy of Philosophy,” in M. DePaul & W. Ramsey, eds., Rethinking Intuition: The Psychology of Intuition and Its Role in Philosophical Inquiry, Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
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156The Philosophy of psychologyIn Dermot Moran (ed.), The Routledge Companion to Twentieth-Century Philosophy, Routledge. 2008.The 20 sup > th /sup > century has been a tumultuous time in psychology -- a century in which the discipline struggled with basic questions about its intellectual identity, but nonetheless managed to achieve spectacular growth and maturation. It’s not surprising, then, that psychology has attracted sustained philosophical attention and stimulated rich philosophical debate. Some of this debate was aimed at understanding, and sometimes criticizing, the assumptions, concepts and explanatory strateg…Read more
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60The 20th century has been a tumultuous time in psychology – a century in which the discipline struggled with basic questions about its intellectual identity, but nonetheless managed to achieve spectacular growth and maturation. It’s not surprising, then, that psychology has attracted sustained philosophical attention and stimulated rich philosophical debate. Some of this debate was aimed at understanding, and sometimes criticizing, the assumptions, concepts and explanatory strategies prevailing …Read more
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357Dennett on intentional systemsPhilosophical Topics 12 (1): 39-62. 1981.During the last dozen years, Daniel Dennett has been elaborating an interconnected – and increasingly influential – set of views in the philosophy of mind, the philosophy of psychology, and those parts of moral philosophy that deal with the notions of freedom, responsibility, and personhood. The central unifying theme running through Dennett's writings on each of these topics is his concept of an intentional system. He invokes the concept to “legitimize” mentalistic predicates ("Brainstorms", p.…Read more
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1651As a matter of fact : Empirical perspectives on ethicsIn Frank Jackson & Michael Smith (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Contemporary Philosophy, Oxford University Press. 2005.
Areas of Specialization
Epistemology |
Philosophy of Mind |
Philosophy of Cognitive Science |
Areas of Interest
Epistemology |
Philosophy of Mind |
Meta-Ethics |
Cognitive Sciences |