Embodied cognition often challenges standard cognitive science. In this outstanding introduction, Lawrence Shapiro sets out the central themes and debates surrounding embodied cognition, explaining and assessing the work of many of the key figures in the field, including George Lakoff, Alva Noë, Andy Clark, and Arthur Glenberg. Beginning with an outline of the theoretical and methodological commitments of standard cognitive science, Shapiro then examines philosophical and empirical arguments surrounding the traditional perspective. He introduces topics such as dynamic systems theory, (...) ecological psychology, robotics, and connectionism, before addressing core issues in philosophy of mind such as mental representation and extended cognition. Including helpful chapter summaries and annotated further reading at the end of each chapter, _Embodied Cognition_ is essential reading for all students of philosophy of mind, psychology, and cognitive science. (shrink)

Shapiro tests these hypotheses against two rivals, the mental constraint thesis and the embodied mind thesis. Collecting evidence from a variety of sources (e.g., neuroscience, evolutionary theory, and embodied cognition) he concludes that the multiple realizability thesis, accepted by most philosophers as a virtual truism, is much less obvious than commonly assumed, and that there is even stronger reason to give up the separability thesis. In contrast to views of mind that tempt us to see the mind as simply being (...) resident in a brain or body, Shapiro argues for a far more encompassing integration of mind, brain, and body than philosophers have supposed. (publisher, edited). (shrink)

Embodied cognition is a recent development in psychology that practitioners often present as a superseding standard cognitive science. In this outstanding introduction, Lawrence Shapiro sets out the central themes and debates surrounding embodied cognition, explaining and assessing the work of many of the key figures in the field, including Lawrence Barsalou, Daniel Casasanto, Andy Clark, Alva Noë, and Michael Spivey. Beginning with an outline of the theoretical and methodological commitments of standard cognitive science, Shapiro then examines philosophical and (...) empirical arguments surrounding the traditional perspective, setting the stage for a detailed examination of the embodied alternative. He introduces topics such as dynamical systems theory, ecological psychology, robotics, and connectionism, before addressing core issues in philosophy of mind such as mental representation and extended cognition. This second edition has been updated and revised throughout and includes new chapters that both expand on earlier topics and that introduce new material on embodied concepts, preference formation, and emotion. Including helpful chapter summaries and annotated further reading at the end of each chapter, Embodied Cognition, Second Editionis essential reading for all students of philosophy of mind, psychology, and cognitive science. ition has been updated and revised throughout and includes new chapters that both expand on earlier topics and that introduce new material on embodied concepts, preference formation, and emotion. Including helpful chapter summaries and annotated further reading at the end of each chapter, Embodied Cognition, Second Editionis essential reading for all students of philosophy of mind, psychology, and cognitive science. (shrink)

Friendship, Altruism, and Morality, originally published in 1980, gives an account of "altruistic emotions" and friendship that brings out their moral value. Blum argues that moral theories centered on rationality, universal principle, obligation, and impersonality cannot capture this moral importance. This was one of the first books in contemporary moral philosophy to emphasize the moral significance of emotions, to deal with friendship as a moral phenomenon, and to challenge the rationalism of standard interpretations of Kant, although Blum’s "sentimentalism" owes more (...) to Schopenhauer than to Hume. It was a forerunner to care ethics, and feminist ethics more generally; to virtue ethics; and to subsequent influential interpretations of Kant that attempted to room for altruistic emotion and friendship, and other forms of particularism and partialism. In addition, the work has been widely influential in religious studies, political theory, bioethics, and feminist ethics. (shrink)

A line of research within embodied cognition seeks to show that an organism’s body is a determinant of its conceptual capacities. Comparison of this claim of body determinism to linguistic determinism bears interesting results. Just as Slobin’s (1996) idea of thinking for speaking challenges the main thesis of linguistic determinism, so too the possibility of thinking for acting raises difficulties for the proponent of body determinism. However, recent studies suggest that the body may, after all, have a determining role in (...) cognitive processes of sentence comprehension. (shrink)

When philosophers defend epiphenomenalist doctrines, they often do so by way of a priori arguments. Here we suggest an empirical approach that is modeled on August Weismann’s experimental arguments against the inheritance of acquired characters. This conception of how epiphenomenalism ought to be developed helps clarify some mistakes in two recent epiphenomenalist positions – Jaegwon Kim’s (1993) arguments against mental causation, and the arguments developed by Walsh (2000), Walsh, Lewens, and Ariew (2002), and Matthen and Ariew (2002) that natural selection (...) and drift are not causes of evolution. A manipulationist account of causation (Woodward 2003) leads naturally to an account of how macro- and micro-causation are related and to an understanding of how epiphenomenalism at different levels of organization should be understood. (shrink)

Embodied cognition is one of the foremost areas of study and research in philosophy of mind, philosophy of psychology and cognitive science. The Routledge Handbook of Embodied Cognition is an outstanding guide and reference source to the key philosophers, topics and debates in this exciting subject and essential reading for any student and scholar of philosophy of mind and cognitive science. Comprising over thirty chapters by a team of international contributors, the Handbook is divided into six parts: Historical Underpinnings Perspectives (...) on Embodied Cognition Applied Embodied Cognition: Perception, Language and Reasoning Applied Embodied Cognition: Social and Moral Cognition and Emotion Applied Embodied Cognition: Memory, Attention and Group Cognition Meta-Topics. The early chapters of the Handbook cover empirical and philosophical foundations of embodied cognition, focusing on Gibsonian, phenomenological and cybernetic approaches. Subsequent chapters cover additional, important themes common to work in embodied cognition, incuding embedded , extended and enactive cognition as well as chapters on embodied cognition and empirical research in perception, language, reasoning, social and moral cognition, emotion, consciousness, memory and learning and development. (shrink)

This ambitious and lively book argues for a rehabilitation of the concept of 'human needs' as central to politics and political theory. Contemporary political philosophy has focused on issues of justice and welfare to the exclusion of the important issues of political participation, democratic sovereignty, and the satisfaction of human needs, and this has had a deleterious effect on political practice. Lawrence Hamilton develops a compelling positive conception of human needs: the evaluation of needs must be located within a (...) more general analysis of institutions, but can in turn help to justify forms of coercive authority that are directed toward the transformation of political and social institutions and practices. His argument is animated throughout by provocative and original discussions of topics such as autonomy, recognition, rights, civil society, liberalism and democracy, and will interest a wide range of readers in political and social philosophy, political theory, law, development and policy. (shrink)

A statement of the form ‘C caused E’ obeys the requirement of proportionality precisely when C says no more than what is necessary to bring about E. The thesis that causal statements must obey this requirement might be given a semantic or a pragmatic justification. We use the idea that causal claims are contrastive to criticize both.

When conceived as an empirical claim, it is natural to wonder how one might test the hypothesis of multiple realization. I consider general issues of testability, show how they apply specifically to the hypothesis of multiple realization, and propose an auxiliary assumption that, I argue, must be conjoined to the hypothesis of multiple realization to ensure its testability. I argue further that Bechtel and Mundale go astray because they fail to appreciate the need for this auxiliary assumption. †To contact the (...) author, please write to: Department of Philosophy, University of Wisconsin–Madison, 5185 Helen C. White Hall, 600 North Park Street, Madison, WI 53706; e‐mail: [email protected]. (shrink)

Jaegwon Kim’s causal exclusion argument has rarely been evaluated from an empirical perspective. This is puzzling because its conclusion seems to be making a testable claim about the world: supervenient properties are causally inefficacious. An empirical perspective, however, reveals Kim’s argument to rest on a mistaken conception about how to test whether a property is causally efficacious. Moreover, the empirical perspective makes visible a metaphysical bias that Kim brings to his argument that involves a principle of non‐inclusion.

Carl Gillett has defended what he calls the “dimensioned” view of the realization relation, which he contrasts with the traditional “flat” view of realization (2003, 2007; see also Gillett 2002). Intuitively, the dimensioned approach characterizes realization in terms of composition whereas the flat approach views realization in terms of occupiers of functional roles. Elsewhere we have argued that the general view of realization and multiple realization that Gillett advances is not able to discharge the theoretical duties of those relations (Shapiro (...) 2004, unpublished manuscript; Polger 2004, 2007, forthcoming). Here we focus on an internal objection to Gillett’s account and then raise some broader reasons to reject it. (shrink)

Many who advocate dynamical systems approaches to cognitive science believe themselves committed to the thesis of extended cognition and to the rejection of representation. I argue that this belief is false. In part, this misapprehension rests on a warrantless re-conception of cognition as intelligent behavior. In part also, it rests on thinking that conceptual issues can be resolved empirically. Once these issues are sorted out, the way is cleared for a dynamical systems approach to cognition that is free to retain (...) the standard conception of cognition as taking place in the head, and over representations. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Proponents of mechanistic explanation have recently suggested that all explanation in the cognitive sciences is mechanistic, even functional explanation. This last claim is surprising, for functional explanation has traditionally been conceived as autonomous from the structural details that mechanistic explanations emphasize. I argue that functional explanation remains autonomous from mechanistic explanation, but not for reasons commonly associated with the phenomenon of multiple realizability. 1Introduction 2Mechanistic Explanation: A Quick Primer 3Functional Explanation: An Example 4Autonomy as Lack of Constraint 5The Price (...) of Autonomy 6Another Argument against Autonomy 7Conclusion: Autonomy and Multiple Realization. (shrink)

Embodied cognition emphasizes the importance of the body to cognition, but what is the nature of this importance? For some advocates, the body provides a computational resource within the context of a larger cognitive system. For others, the body constrains cognition, such that differently embodied organisms will differ cognitively as well. I examine these distinct conceptions of embodiment, defending the greater interest of the second. I argue as well that judgments of the body's significance in cognition do not, as contestants (...) on both sides of the debate often insist, depend on showing the body to be a constituent in cognition. (shrink)

Christian List and Peter Menzies 2009 have looked to interventionist theories of causation for an answer to Jaegwon Kim's causal exclusion problem. Important to their response is the idea of realization-insensitivity. However, this idea becomes mired in issues concerning multiple realization, leaving it unable to fulfil its promise to block exclusion. After explaining why realization-insensitivity fails as a solution to Kim's problem, I look to interventionism to describe a different kind of solution.

Frances Egan argues that the states of computational theories of vision are individuated individualistically and, as far as the theory is concerned, are not intentional. Her argument depends on equating the goals and explanatory strategies of computational psychology with those of its algorithmic level. However, closer inspection of computational psychology reveals that the computational level plays an essential role in explaining visual processes and that explanations at this level are nonindividualistic and intentional. In conclusion, I sketch an account of content (...) in which content does the sort of explanatory work that Egan denies is possible. (shrink)

Fodor (1990) argues that the theory of evolution by natural selection will not help to save naturalistic accounts of representation from the disjunction problem. This is because, he claims, the context 'was selected for representing things as F' is transparent to the substitution of predicates coextensive with F. But, I respond, from an evolutionary perspective representational contexts cannot be transparent: only under particular descriptions will a representational state appear as a "solution" to a selection "problem" and so be adaptive. Only (...) when we construe representational states as opaque in this manner are the generalizations of branches of evolutionary theory, like foraging theory, possible. (shrink)

In The Sovereignty of Good Iris Murdoch suggests that the central task of the moral agent involves a true and loving perception of an- other individual, who is seen as a particular reality external to the agent. Writing in the 1960s she claimed that this dimension of morality had been "theorized away" in contemporary ethics. I will argue today that 20 years later, this charge still holds true of much contemporary ethical theory.

Issues of identity and reduction have monopolized much of the philosopher of mind’s time over the past several decades. Interestingly, while investigations of these topics have proceeded at a steady rate, the motivations for doing so have shifted. When the early identity theorists, e.g. U. T. Place ( 1956 ), Herbert Feigl ( 1958 ), and J. J. C. Smart ( 1959 , 1961 ), fi rst gave voice to the idea that mental events might be identical to brain processes, (...) they had as their intended foil the view that minds are immaterial substances. But very few philosophers of mind today take this proposal seriously. Why, then, the continued interest in identity and reduction? Th e concern, as philosophers like Hilary Putnam and Jerry Fodor have expressed it, is that a victory for identity or reduction is a defeat for psychology. For if minds are physical, or if mental events are physical events, then psychologists might as well disassemble their laboratories, making room for the neuroscientists and molecular biologists who are in a better position to explain those phenomena once misdescribed as “psychological.” Th e worry nowadays is not that locating thought in immaterial souls will make psychology intractable, but that locating thoughts in material brains will make it otiose. (shrink)

This book is comprised of essays previously published in Philosophy & Public Affairs and also an extended excerpt from Michael Walzer's Just and Unjust Wars.

While there is controversy over which of several naturalistic theories of the mental is most plausible, there is consensus regarding the desideratum of a naturalistically respectable theory. A naturalistic theory of the mental, it is agreed, must explicate representation in nonintentional terms. I argue that this constraint does not get at the heart of what it is to be natural. On the one hand, it fails to provide us with a meaningful distinction between the natural and the unnatural. On the (...) other hand, it unfairly suggests that we withhold judgment on those successes our sciences of the mind have already achieved until a convincing decomposition of the mental is available. I urge a new conception of naturalism that focuses less upon ontological considerations and more upon methodological ones. (shrink)

Concern about the role and the limits of modeling has heightened after repeated questions were raised regarding the dependability and suitability of the models that were used in the run-up to the 2008 financial crash. In this book, Lawrence Boland provides an overview of the practices of and the problems faced by model builders to explain the nature of models, the modeling process, and the possibility for and nature of their testing. In a reflective manner, the author raises serious (...) questions about the assumptions and judgments that model builders make in constructing models. In making his case, he examines the traditional microeconomics-macroeconomics separation with regard to how theoretical models are built and used and how they interact, paying particular attention to the use of equilibrium concepts in macroeconomic models and game theory and to the challenges involved in building empirical models, testing models, and using models to test theoretical explanations. (shrink)

This book is about forming effective critiques of neoclassical economics. Its focus is on constructive criticism of the foundations neoclassical theory, beginning with what Alfred Marshall called the `Principles of Economics'. It concludes that there is still much that can be done to make neoclassical economics more realistic.

Max Weber is noted for his diagnosis of the rationalization of life under capitalism. But in his social thought he also developed a powerful theory of the process of 'sociation' and associational life. This paper investigates the latter aspect of his thought in the context of his and Marianne Weber's American journey. Their observations about the religious sects, the African-American community, educational insti tutions, and the position of women reveal an understanding of democ ratization as a process of voluntaristic sociation, (...) whose original model is the sect. In these institutional settings and through their interactions with figures like William James, W. E. B. Du Bois, and M. Carey Thomas, the Webers develop a view of American social life that empha sizes the contribution of associative activity to the moral and political education of individuals, and to the creation of a distinctively modern form of democratic culture. (shrink)

Unifying traditional cognitive science is the idea that thinking is a process of symbol manipulation, where symbols lead both a syntactic and a semantic life. The syntax of a symbol comprises those properties in virtue of which the symbol undergoes rule-dictated transformations. The semantics of a symbol constitute the symbolsÕ meaning or representational content. Thought consists in the syntactically determined manipulation of symbols, but in a way that respects their semantics. Thus, for instance, a calculating computer sensitive only to the (...) shape of symbols might produce the symbol Ô5Õ in response to the inputs Ô2Õ, Ô+Õ, and Ô3Õ. As far as the computer is concerned, these symbols have no meaning, but because of its program it will produce outputs that, to the user, Òmake senseÓ given the meanings the user attributes to the symbols. (shrink)

Ras proteins function as critical relay switches that regulate diverse signaling pathways between cell surface receptors and the nucleus. Over the past 2‐3 years researchers have identified many components of these pathways that mediate Ras activation and effector function. Among these proteins are several guanine nucleotide exchange factors (GEFs), which are responsible for directly interacting with and activating Ras in response to extracellular stimuli. Analogous GEFs regulate Ras‐related proteins that serve other diverse cellular functions. In particular, a growing family of (...) proteins (Dbl homology proteins) has recently been identified, which may function as GEFs for the Rho family of Ras‐related proteins. This review summarizes our current knowledge of the structure, biochemistry and biology of Ras and Rho family GEFs. Additionally, we describe mechanisms of GEF activation of Ras in signal transduction and address the potential that deregulated GEFs might contribute to malignant transformation through chronic Ras protein activation. (shrink)

There are many who believe Moses parted the Red Sea and Jesus came back from the dead. Others are certain that exorcisms occur, ghosts haunt attics, and the blessed can cure the terminally ill. Though miracles are immensely improbable, people have embraced them for millennia, seeing in them proof of a supernatural world that resists scientific explanation. -/- Helping us to think more critically about our belief in the improbable, The Miracle Myth casts a skeptical eye on attempts to justify (...) belief in the supernatural, laying bare the fallacies that such attempts commit. Through arguments and accessible analysis, Larry Shapiro sharpens our critical faculties so we become less susceptible to tales of myths and miracles and learn how, ultimately, to evaluate claims regarding vastly improbable events on our own. Shapiro acknowledges that belief in miracles could be harmless, but cautions against allowing such beliefs to guide how we live our lives. His investigation reminds us of the importance of evidence and rational thinking as we explore the unknown. (shrink)