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284Vorlesungsverzeichnisse der Universität Königsberg (review)Isis 93 (4): 693-694. 2002.Review of Michael Oberhausen; Riccardo Pozzo (Editors). Vorlesungsverzeichnisse der Universitaet Koenigsberg (1720–1804). (Forschungen und Materialen zur Universitaetsgeschichte, 1.) 2 volumes. lxviii, 778 pp., illus., indexes. Stuttgart: Frommann-Holzboog, 1999.
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384Descartes: A Biography; Cogito, Ergo Sum: The Life of René Descartes (review)Isis 99 (1): 177-178. 2008.Review of Desmond M. Clarke. Descartes: A Biography. xi + 507 pp., apps., figs., bibl., index. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006. $40 (cloth).; Richard Watson, Cogito, Ergo Sum: The Life of René Descartes. viii + 375 pp., figs., bibl., index. Boston: David R. Godine, 2002. $35 (cloth).
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15Il dualismo da Cartesio a Leibniz: Cartesio, Cordemoy, La Forge, Malebranche, Leibniz by Salvatore Nicolosi (review)Isis 82 (1): 136-137. 1991.
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116Descartes's Meditations as Cognitive ExercisesPhilosophy and Literature 9 (1): 41-58. 1985.According to the reading offered here, Descartes' use of the meditative mode of writing was not a mere rhetorical device to win an audience accustomed to the spiritual retreat. His choice of the literary form of the spiritual exercise was consonant with, if not determined by, his theory of the mind and of the basis of human knowledge. Since Descartes' conception of knowledge implied the priority of the intellect over the senses, and indeed the priority of an intellect operating independently of …Read more
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966Science, Certainty, and DescartesPSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association 1988. 1988.During the 1630s Descartes recognized that he could not expect all legitimate claims in natural science to meet the standard of absolute certainty. The realization resulted from a change in his physics, which itself arose not through methodological reflections, but through developments in his substantive metaphysical doctrines. Descartes discovered the metaphysical foundations of his physics in 1629-30; as a consequence, the style of explanation employed in his physical writings changed. His ear…Read more
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29Force (God) in Descartes' PhysicsIn John Cottingham (ed.), Descartes, Oxford University Press. pp. 281-310. 1986.Reprint of: Gary Hatfield, Force (God) in Descartes' physics, Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 10 (2):113-140 (1979) Abstract. It is difficult to evaluate the role of activity - of force or of that which has causal efficacy - in Descartes’ natural philosophy. On the one hand, Descartes claims to include in his natural philosophy only that which can be described geometrically, which amounts to matter (extended substance) in motion (where this motion is described kinematically)…Read more
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38The Locus of Masking Shape-at-a-SlantPerception and Psychophysics 24 (6): 501-504. 1978.Twelve subjects provided shape and orientation judgments for a set of projectively equivalent, variously rotated rectangles under three viewing conditions—monoptic, dichoptic, and binocular—with and without the presence of a pattern mask. In the absence of the mask, partial constancy was exhibited under the first two conditions and near perfect constancy under the binocular condition. Orientation was discriminated. Presence of the mask produced projective shape matching and diminished orientatio…Read more
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18Functional Equivalence of Masking and Cue Reduction in Perception of Shape at a SlantPerception and Psychophysics 23 (2): 137-144. 1978.In a backward masking paradigm Epstein, Hatfield, and Muise (1977) found that presentation of a frontoparallel pattern mask caused the perceived shape of elliptical figures which were rotated in depth to conform to a projective shape function. The current study extended the masking function by examining the effect of a mask which was partially or wholly cotemporal with the target. The study also assessed the functional equivalence of the masking treatment and the conventional treatment for minim…Read more
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77Psicologia, Filosofia e Ciencia Cognitiva: Reflexões Sobre a História e a Filosofia da Psicologia ExperimentalIn Araujo Saulo de Freitas (ed.), História e Filosofia da Psicologia: Perspectivas Contemporâneas, Editora Ufjf. pp. 223-258. 2012.This article critically examines the views that psychology first came into existence as a discipline ca. 1879, that philosophy and psychology were estranged in the ensuing decades, that psychology finally became scientific through the influence of logical empiricism, and that it should now disappear in favor of cognitive science and neuroscience. It argues that psychology had a natural philosophical phase (from antiquity) that waxed in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, that this psycholo…Read more
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524Die Philosophie des 17. Jahrhunderts. Volume 3: England by Jean-Pierre Schobinger (review)Isis 83 (1): 126-128. 1992.Review of: Jean-Pierre Schobinger (Editor). Die Philosophie des 17. Jahrhunderts. Volume 3: England. 2 half-volumes. xxxiv + 874 pp., bibls., index. Basel: Schwabe, 1988. SFr 160, DM 195.
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81Representation and content in some (actual) theories of perceptionStudies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 19 (2): 175-214. 1988.Recent discussions in the philosophy of psychology have examined the use and legitimacy of such notions as “representation”, “content”, “computation”, and “inference” within a scientific psychology. While the resulting assessments have varied widely, ranging from outright rejection of some or all of these notions to full vindication of their use, there has been notable agreement on the considerations deemed relevant for making an assessment. The answer to the question of whether the notion of, s…Read more
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88Objectifying the phenomenal in experimental psychology: Titchener and beyondPhilosophia Scientiae 19 (3): 73-94. 2015.This paper examines the origins and legacy of Titchener’s notion of stimulus error in the experimental study of sensory experience. It places Titchener’s introspective methods into the intellectual world of early experimental psychology. It follows the subsequent development of perceptual experimentation primarily in the American literature, with notice to British and German studies as needed. Subsequent investigators transformed the specific notion of a “stimulus error” into experimental questi…Read more
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503Cognition and Epistemic Reliability: Comments on GoldmanPSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association 1987. 1986.The paper provisionally accepts the goal of Goldman's primary epistemics, which is to seek reliability values for basic cognitive processes, and questions whether such values may plausibly be expected. The reliability of such processes as perception and memory is dependent on other aspects of cognitive structure, and especially on one's "conceptual scheme," the evaluation of which goes beyond primary epistemics (and its dependence on cognitive science) to social epistemics, or indeed to traditio…Read more
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386Perception as Unconscious InferenceIn D. Heyer (ed.), Perception and the Physical World: Psychological and Philosophical Issues in Perception, John Wiley and Sons. pp. 113--143. 2002.In this chapter I examine past and recent theories of unconscious inference. Most theorists have ascribed inferences to perception literally, not analogically, and I focus on the literal approach. I examine three problems faced by such theories if their commitment to unconscious inferences is taken seriously. Two problems concern the cognitive resources that must be available to the visual system (or a more central system) to support the inferences in question. The third problem foc…Read more
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61Transl of Immanuel Kant: Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics That Will Be Able to Come Forward as ScienceIn Henry E. Allison & Peter Heath (eds.), Immanuel Kant: Theoretical Philosophy after 1781, Cambridge University Press. 2002.This edition of the Prolegomena presents Kant's thought clearly by paying careful attention to his original language. An extensive translator's introduction considers the origin and purpose of the Prolegomena, examines Kant's use of the analytic method, compares the structure of the Prolegomena to that of the Critique of Pure Reason, examines Kant's relation to Hume as expressed in this work, briefly surveys the work's reception, and offers a note on texts and translation. Detailed scholarly not…Read more
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201The reality of qualiaErkenntnis 66 (1-2): 133--168. 2007.This paper argues for the reality of qualia as aspects of phenomenal experience. The argument focuses on color vision and develops a dispositionalist, subjectivist account of what it is for an object to be colored. I consider objections to dispositionalism on epistemological, metaphysical, and 'ordinary' grounds. I distinguish my representative realism from sense-data theories and from recent 'representational' or 'intentional' theories, and I argue that there is no good reason to adopt a physi…Read more
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24Wundt and Psychology as Science: Disciplinary TransformationsPerspectives on Science 5 (3): 349-382. 1997.Challenges the revised standard historiography on Wundt as a psychologist. Considers the concept of psychology as a natural science. Examines the relations between psychology and philosophy before and after 1900. Reflects on the notion of disciplinehood as it affects historical narratives.
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32Mental functions as constraints on neurophysiology: Biology and psychology of visionIn Valerie Gray Hardcastle (ed.), Where Biology Meets Psychology, Mit Press. pp. 251--71. 1999.This chapter examines a question at the intersection of the mind-body problem and the analysis of mental representation: the question of the direction of constraint between psychological fact and theory and neurophysiological or physical fact and theory. Does physiology constrain psychology? Are physiological facts more basic than psychological facts? Or do psychological theories, including representational analyses, guide and constrain physiology? Despite the antireductionist bent of functional…Read more
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52CognitionIn Lawrence A. Shapiro (ed.), The Routledge Handbook of Embodied Cognition, Routledge. 2014.What is cognition? What makes a process cognitive? These questions have been answered differently by various investigators and theoretical traditions. Even so, there are some commonalities, allowing us to specify a few contrasting answers to these questions. The main commonalities involve the notion that cognition is information processing that explains intelligent behavior. The differences concern whether early perceptual processes are cognitive, whether representations are needed to explain co…Read more
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407The Cartesian CircleIn Stephen Gaukroger (ed.), The Blackwell Guide to Descartes' Meditations, Wiley-blackwell. 2006.The problem of the Cartesian circle, as it is called, has sparked ongoing debate, which intersects several important themes of the Meditations. Discussions of the circle must address questions about the force and scope of the famous method of doubt introduced in Meditation I, and they must examine the intricate arguments for the existence of God and the avoidance of error in Meditations III to V. These discussions raise questions about the possibility of overturning skepticism, once a skeptical …Read more
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1494Introspective evidence in psychologyIn Peter Achinstein (ed.), Scientific Evidence: Philosophical Theories & Applications, The Johns Hopkins University Press. 2005.In preparation for examining the place of introspective evidence in scientific psychology, the chapter begins by clarifying what introspection has been supposed to show, and why some concluded that it couldn't deliver. This requires a brief excursus into the various uses to which introspection was supposed to have been put by philosophers and psychologists in the modern period, together with a summary of objections. It then reconstructs some actual uses of introspection (or related techniques, d…Read more
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1386Remaking the science of mind: Psychology as a natural scienceIn Christopher Fox, Roy Porter & Robert Wokler (eds.), Inventing Human Science: Eighteenth Century Domains, University of California Press. 1995.Psychology considered as a natural science began as Aristotelian "physics" or "natural philosophy" of the soul, conceived as an animating power that included vital, sensory, and rational functions. C. Wolff restricted the term " psychology " to sensory, cognitive, and volitional functions and placed the science under metaphysics, coordinate with cosmology. Near the middle of the eighteenth century, Krueger, Godart, and Bonnet proposed approaching the mind with the techniques of the new natural s…Read more
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87The Emergence of PsychologyIn W. J. Mander (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of British Philosophy in the Nineteenth Century, Oxford University Press. 2014.This chapter challenges the view that psychology emerged from philosophy about 1900, when each found its own proper sphere with little relation to the other. It begins by considering the notion of a discipline, defined as a distinct branch of learning. Psychology has been a discipline from the time of Aristotle, though with a wider ambit, to include phenomena of both life and mind. Empirical psychology in a narrower sense arose in the eighteenth century, through the application (in Britain and e…Read more
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102Empirical, rational, and transcendental psychology: Psychology as science and as philosophyIn Paul Guyer (ed.), The Cambridge companion to Kant, Cambridge University Press. 1992.The chapter places Kant's discussions of empirical and rational psychology in the context of previous discussions in Germany. It also considers the status of what might be called his "transcendental psychology" as an instance of a special kind of knowledge: transcendental philosophy. It is divided into sections that consider four topics: the refutation of traditional rational psychology in the Paralogisms; the contrast between traditional empirical psychology and the transcendental philosophy of…Read more
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73Review essay: The importance of the history of science for philosophy in general (review)Synthese 106 (1). 1996.Essay review of Daniel Garber, 1992, Descartes' Metaphysical Physics, University of Chicago Press, Chicago and London, xiv + 389 pp., and Michael Friedman,: 1992, Kant and the Exact Sciences, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass., and London, xvii + 357 pp. These two books display the historical connection between science and philosophy in the writings of Descartes and Kant. They show the place of science in, or the scientific context of, these authors' central metaphysical doctrines, perta…Read more
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142Perception and Sense DataIn Michael Beaney (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of The History of Analytic Philosophy, Oxford University Press. pp. 948-974. 2013.Analytic philosophy arose in the early decades of the twentieth century, with Bertrand Russell and G. E. Moore leading the way. Although some accounts emphasize the role of logic and language in the origin of analytic philosophy, of equal importance is the theme of perception, sense data, and knowledge, which dominated systematic philosophical discussion in the first two decades of the twentieth century in both Britain and America. This chapter examines work on perception and sense data as well …Read more
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27Descartes and His Contemporaries: Meditations, Objections, and Replies (review)Journal of the History of Philosophy 35 (4): 624-626. 1997.Review of Roger Ariew and Marjorie Grene, editors, _Descartes and His Contemporaries: Meditations, Objections, and Replies_. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995. Pp. vii + 261. Cloth, $45.00. Paper, $17.95.
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402Philosophy of Psychology as Philosophy of SciencePSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association 1994. 1994.This paper serves to introduce the papers from the symposium by the same title, by describing the sort of work done in philosophy of psychology conceived as a branch of the philosophy of science, distinguishing it from other discussions of psychology in philosophy, and criticizing the claims to set limits on scientific psychology in the largely psychologically uninformed literatures concerning "folk psychology' and "wide" and "narrow" content. Philosophy of psychology as philosophy of science ta…Read more
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95Metaphysics and the new scienceIn David C. Lindberg & Robert S. Westman (eds.), Reappraisals of the Scientific Revolution, ed. by and (Cambridge:), Cambridge University Press. 1990.An understanding of the relationship between metaphysics and natural philosophy - or, as we might now say, between philosophy and science - is fundamental to understanding the rise of the "new science" of the seventeenth century. Twentieth-century scholarship on this relationship has been dominated by the thoughbt of Ernst Cassirer, E. A. Burtt, A. N. Whitehead, and Alexandre Koyre. These authors found a common core in the mathematization of nature, which they ascribed to a common Platonic or Py…Read more
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1006Was the scientific revolution really a revolution in science?In Jamil Ragep & Sally Ragep (eds.), Tradition, Transmission, Transformation: Proceedings of Two Conferences on Pre-Modern Science Held at the University of Oklahoma, Brill. 1996.This chapter poses questions about the existence and character of the Scientific Revolution by deriving its initial categories of analysis and its initial understanding of the intellectual scene from the writings of the seventeenth century, and by following the evolution of these initial categories in succeeding centuries. This project fits the theme of cross cultural transmission and appropriation -- a theme of the present volume -- if one takes the notion of a culture broadly, so that, say, se…Read more
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