Deconstructing the MindOver the last two decades, debates over the viability of commonsense psychology have been center stage in both cognitive science and the philosophy of mind. Eliminativists have argued that advances in cognitive science and neuroscience will ultimately justify a rejection of our "folk" theory of the mind, and of its ontology. In the first half of this book Stich, who was at one time a leading advocate of eliminativism, maintains that even if the sciences develop in the ways that eliminativists foresee, none of the arguments for ontological elimination are tenable. Rather than being resolved by science, he contends, these ontological disputes will be settled by a pragmatic process in which social and political considerations have a major role to play. In later chapters, Stich argues that the widespread worry about "naturalizing" psychological properties is deeply confused, since there is no plausible account of what naturalizing requires on which the failure of the naturalization project would lead to eliminativism. He also offers a detailed analysis of the many different notions of folk psychology to be found in philosophy and psychology, and argues that simulation theory, which purports to be an alternative to folk psychology, is not supported by recent experimental findings. |
Contents
Chapter 1 Deconstructing the Mind | 3 |
Chapter 2 Connectionism Eliminativism and the Future of Folk Psychology with William Ramsey and Joseph Garon | 91 |
Chapter 3 What Is Folk Psychology? with Ian Ravenscroft | 115 |
Chapter 4 How Do Minds Understand Minds? Mental Simulation versus Tacit Theory with Shaun Nichols | 136 |
Chapter 5 Intentionality and Naturalism with Stephen Laurence | 168 |
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Common terms and phrases
ability account of reference argue argument assumptions beliefs and desires Cambridge capacities causal causal-historical chapter chology Churchland claims cognitive science commonsense psychology concepts conclusion connectionism connectionist models correct determine eliminativism eliminativists ence encoding entail entities example exist explain fact false Fodor folk physics folk psychology Gordon and Goldman grammatical holism inference input intentional irrealism intentional properties internally represented interpretation intuitions invoked irrealism knowledge structure language linguistic lots Lycan mental mental model Mind mistaken theory myth natural naturalist notion object off-line simulation theory ontological Papineau people's behavior perhaps Philip Kitcher philosophers phlogiston physical properties plausible play predict Premise pretend principles proposed propositional attitudes question Quine representation role scientific semantic network sentences seriously mistaken sort Stich story strategy supervene suppose tacit theory theoretical terms theorists theory of reference theory-theory things tion tional true turn underlying various witches wrong