•  14
    Folk psychology
    Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science 235--255. 1994.
    For the last 25 years discussions and debates about commonsense psychology (or “folk psychology,” as it is often called) have been center stage in the philosophy of mind. There have been heated disagreements both about what folk psychology is and about how it is related to the scientific understanding of the mind/brain that is emerging in psychology and the neurosciences. In this chapter we will begin by explaining why folk psychology plays such an important role in the philosophy of mind. Doing…Read more
  •  94
    Evolution, culture, and the irrationality of the emotions
    In Dylan Evans & Pierre Cruse (eds.), Emotion, Evolution, and Rationality, Oxford University Press. 2004.
    For about 2500 years, from Plato’s time until the closing decades of the 20th century, the dominant view was that the emotions are quite distinct from the processes of rational thinking and decision making, and are often a major impediment to those processes. But in recent years this orthodoxy has been challenged in a number of ways. Damasio (1994) has made a forceful case that the traditional view, which he has dubbed _Descartes’ Error_, is quite wrong, because emotions play a fundamental role …Read more
  •  25
    Jackson’s Empirical Assumptions
    Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 62 (3): 637-643. 2001.
    Frank Jackson has given us an elegant and important book. It is, by a long shot, the most sophisticated defense of the use of conceptual analysis in philosophy that has ever been offered. But we also we find it a rather perplexing book, for we can’t quite figure out what Jackson thinks a conceptual analysis is. And until we get clearer on that, we’re not at all sure that conceptual analysis, as Jackson envisions it, is possible. The main reason for our perplexity is that Jackson seems to be maki…Read more
  • Reading One's Own Mind: Self-Awareness and Developmental Psychology
    Canadian Journal of Philosophy, Supplementary Volume 30 297-339. 2004.
    The idea that we have special access to our own mental states has a distinguished philosophical history. Philosophers as different as Descartes and Locke agreed that we know our own minds in a way that is quite different from the way in which we know other minds. In the latter half of the twentieth century, however, this idea carne under serious attack, first from philosophy (Sellars 1956) and more recently from developmental psychology. The attack from developmental psychology arises from the g…Read more
  •  53
    Normativity and epistemic intuitions
    In Joshua Michael Knobe & Shaun Nichols (eds.), Experimental Philosophy, Oxford University Press. pp. 429-460. 2008.
    In this paper we propose to argue for two claims. The first is that a sizeable group of epistemological projects – a group which includes much of what has been done in epistemology in the analytic tradition – would be seriously undermined if one or more of a cluster of empirical hypotheses about epistemic intuitions turns out to be true. The basis for this claim will be set out in Section 2. The second claim is that, while the jury is still out, there is now a substantial body of evidence sugges…Read more
  •  103
    Introduction: Philosophy and Cognitive Science
    In Eric Margolis, Richard Samuels & Stephen P. Stich (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Cognitive Science, Oxford University Press. pp. 3-18. 2012.
    This chapter offers a high-level overview of the philosophy of cognitive science and an introduction to the Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Cognitive Science. The philosophy of cognitive science emerged out of a set of common and overlapping interests among philosophers and scientists who study the mind. We identify five categories of issues that illustrate the best work in this broad field: (1) traditional philosophical issues about the mind that have been invigorated by research in cognitive …Read more
  •  87
    Theories of reference have been central to analytic philosophy, and two views, the descriptivist view of reference and the causal-historical view of reference, have dominated the field. In this research tradition, theories of reference are assessed by consulting one's intuitions about the reference of terms in hypothetical situations. However, recent work in cultural psychology has shown systematic differences between East Asians and Westerners, and some work indicates that this extends to intui…Read more
  •  3
    Gender and Philosophical Intuition
    In Joshua Knobe & Shaun Nichols (eds.), Experimental Philosophy: Volume 2, Oxford University Press Usa. 2013.
    This chapter addresses the issue of the underrepresentation of women in philosophy by presenting an account regarding gender differences in philosophical institutions. It begins with an analysis of data on the gender gap in academic philosophy; followed by a discussion about the term “intuition,”as well as the tendency to appeal to intuitions during philosophical arguments. It then presents empirical data about gender differences derived from a series of experiments such as a Gettier-style case …Read more
  •  90
    Mental Representation: A Reader (edited book)
    Blackwell. 1994.
    This volume is a collection of new and previously published essays focusing on one of the most exciting and actively discussed topics in contemporary philosophy: naturalistic theories of mental content. The volume brings together important papers written by some of the most distinguished theorists working in the field today. Authors contributing to the volume include Jerry Fodor, Ruth Millikan, Fred Dretske, Ned Block, Robert Cummins, and Daniel Dennett.
  • Altruism
    In John M. Doris (ed.), Moral Psychology Handbook, Oxford University Press. 2010.
  •  97
    Second thoughts on simulation
    In Martin Davies & Tony Stone (eds.), Mental Simulation, Blackwell. 1995.
    The essays in this volume make it abundantly clear that there is no shortage of disagreement about the plausibility of the simulation theory. As we see it, there are at least three factors contributing to this disagreement. In some instances the issues in dispute are broadly empirical. Different people have different views on which theory is favored by experiments reported in the literature, and different hunches about how future experiments are likely to turn out. In 3.1 and 3.3 we will conside…Read more
  •  290
    18 The baby in the lab-coat: why child development is not an adequate model for understanding the development of science
    with Luc Faucher, Ron Mallon, Daniel Nazer, Shaun Nichols, Aaron Ruby, and Jonathan Weinberg
    In Peter Carruthers, Stephen Stich & Michael Siegal (eds.), The Cognitive Basis of Science, Cambridge University Press. 2002.
    Alison Gopnik and her collaborators have recently proposed a bold and intriguing hypothesis about the relationship between scientific cognition and cognitive development in childhood. According to this view, the processes underlying cognitive development in infants and children and the processes underlying scientific cognition are _identical_. We argue that Gopnik’s bold hypothesis is untenable because it, along with much of cognitive science, neglects the many important ways in which human mind…Read more
  •  15
    Peter Carruthers,< 51 Stephen Laurence
    In Peter Carruthers, Stephen Laurence & Stephen P. Stich (eds.), The Innate Mind: Structure and Contents, Oxford University Press Usa. pp. 2--3. 2005.
  •  12
    1. Philosophical Background
    In John M. Doris (ed.), Moral Psychology Handbook, Oxford University Press. pp. 147. 2010.
  •  428
    Altruism
    In John M. Doris (ed.), Moral Psychology Handbook, Oxford University Press. 2010.
    We begin, in section 2, with a brief sketch of a cluster of assumptions about human desires, beliefs, actions, and motivation that are widely shared by historical and contemporary authors on both sides in the debate. With this as background, we’ll be able to offer a more sharply focused account of the debate. In section 3, our focus will be on links between evolutionary theory and the egoism/altruism debate. There is a substantial literature employing evolutionary theory on each side of the issu…Read more
  •  1
    The quest for the boundaries of morality
    In Aaron Zimmerman, Karen Jones & Mark Timmons (eds.), Routledge Handbook on Moral Epistemology, Routledge. 2018.
  •  7
    The everyday capacity to understand the mind, fancifully dubbed 'mindreading', plays an enormous role in our lives. In the latter half of the 20th century mindreading became the object of sustained scientific and theoretical research, capturing the attention of a wide range of disciplines, including philosophy, developmental psychology, behavioral ecology, anthropology, and cognitive psychopathology. What has been missing is a detailed and integrated account of the mental components that underli…Read more
  • Semantics, Cross-Cultural Style
    with Edouard Macher, Ron Mallon, and Shaun Nichols
    In Joshua Michael Knobe & Shaun Nichols (eds.), Experimental Philosophy, Oxford University Press. 2008.
  •  49
    Benacerraf and His Critics (edited book)
    Blackwell. 1996.
    a collection of articles by philosophers of mathematics on themes associated with the work of Paul Benacceraf
  •  18
    Many experimental philosophers are philosophers by training and professional affiliation, but some best work in experimental philosophy has been done by people who do not have advanced degrees in philosophy and do not teach in philosophy departments. This chapter explains that the experimental philosophy is the empirical investigation of philosophical intuitions, the factors that affect them, and the psychological and neurological mechanisms that underlie them. It explores what are philosophical…Read more
  •  9
    Folk Psychology
    In Stephen P. Stich & Ted A. Warfield (eds.), The Blackwell Guide to Philosophy of Mind, Blackwell. 2003.
    This chapter contains sections titled: Why Does Folk Psychology Play an Important Role in the Philosophy of Mind? What is Folk Psychology? Two Possible Answers The Challenge from Simulation Theory Three Accounts of Mindreading: Information‐rich, Simulation‐based and Hybrid Conclusion.
  •  9
    Replies
    In Dominic Murphy & Michael Bishop (eds.), Stich, Wiley‐blackwell. 2009-03-20.
    This chapter contains sections titled: Reply to Devitt and Jackson Reply to Egan Reply to Cowie Reply to Goldman Reply to Sterelny Reply to Prinz Reply to Godfrey‐Smith Reply to Sosa Reply to Bishop References.
  •  172
    The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Cognitive Science (edited book)
    with Eric Margolis and Richard Samuels
    Oxford University Press. 2012.
    The philosophy of cognitive science is concerned with fundamental philosophical and theoretical questions connected to the sciences of the mind. How does the brain give rise to conscious experience? Does speaking a language change how we think? Is a genuinely intelligent computer possible? What features of the mind are innate? Advances in cognitive science have given philosophers important tools for addressing these sorts of questions; and cognitive scientists have, in turn, found themselves d…Read more
  •  70
    Reading One's Own Mind: Self-Awareness and Developmental Psychology
    Canadian Journal of Philosophy 34 (sup1): 297-339. 2004.
    The idea that we have special access to our own mental states has a distinguished philosophical history. Philosophers as different as Descartes and Locke agreed that we know our own minds in a way that is quite different from the way in which we know other minds. In the latter half of the twentieth century, however, this idea carne under serious attack, first from philosophy and more recently from developmental psychology. The attack from developmental psychology arises from the growing body of …Read more
  •  1
    Choice effects and the ineffectiveness of simulation
    with Shaun Nichols and Alan Leslie
    Mind and Language 10 (4): 437-45. 1995.
    Kühberger et al. show that producing the Langer effect is considerably more difficult than has been assumed. Although their results clearly demonstrate a need for further exploration of the Langer effect, none of their arguments undermines the evidence against simulation theory that we presented in Nichols et al. (1996). In our study the actor subjects did show an effect, but the prediction subjects did not predict it, despite the fact that they were provided with all the details of the actor's …Read more
  •  31
    Eliminating emotions? (review)
    Metascience 8 (1): 5-49. 1999.