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Lawrence A. Shapiro [49]Lawrence Andrew Shapiro [1]
  1. (1 other version)Embodied Cognition.Lawrence A. Shapiro - 2010 - New York: Routledge.
    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 (...)
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  2. The Multiple Realization Book.Thomas W. Polger & Lawrence A. Shapiro - 2016 - Oxford: Oxford University Press UK. Edited by Lawrence A. Shapiro.
    Since Hilary Putnam offered multiple realization as an empirical hypothesis in the 1960s, philosophical consensus has turned against the idea that mental processes are identifiable with brain processes, and multiple realization has become the keystone of the 'antireductive consensus' across philosophy of science. Thomas W. Polger and Lawrence A. Shapiro offer the first book-length investigation of multiple realization, which serves as a starting point to a series of philosophically sophisticated and empirically informed arguments that cast doubt on the generality of (...)
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  3. The Mind Incarnate.Lawrence A. Shapiro - 2004 - MIT Press.
    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 (...)
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  4. Multiple realizations.Lawrence A. Shapiro - 2000 - Journal of Philosophy 97 (12):635-654.
  5. Embodied Cognition: Lessons from Linguistic Determinism.Lawrence A. Shapiro - 2011 - Philosophical Topics 39 (1):121-140.
    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 (...)
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  6. (1 other version)The Routledge Handbook of Embodied Cognition.Lawrence A. Shapiro (ed.) - 2014 - New York: Routledge.
    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 (...)
     
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  7. Epiphenomenalism - the do's and the don 'ts'.Lawrence A. Shapiro & Elliott Sober - 2006 - In G. Wolters & Peter K. Machamer (eds.), Thinking about Causes: From Greek Philosophy to Modern Physics. University of Pittsburgh Press. pp. 235-264.
    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 (...)
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  8. Against proportionality.Lawrence A. Shapiro & Elliott Sober - 2012 - Analysis 72 (1):89-93.
    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.
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  9. How to test for multiple realization.Lawrence A. Shapiro - 2008 - Philosophy of Science 75 (5):514-525.
    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 (...)
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  10.  78
    Lessons from Causal Exclusion1.Lawrence A. Shapiro - 2010 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 81 (3):594-604.
    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.
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  11. Understanding the Dimensions of Realization.Lawrence A. Shapiro - 2008 - Journal of Philosophy 105 (4):213-222.
    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 (...)
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  12. Mechanism or Bust? Explanation in Psychology.Lawrence A. Shapiro - 2017 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 68 (4):1037-1059.
    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 (...)
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  13. Dynamics and Cognition.Lawrence A. Shapiro - 2013 - Minds and Machines 23 (3):353-375.
    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 (...)
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  14. Radicalizing Enactivism: Basic Minds without Content, by Daniel D. Hutto and Erik Myin.Lawrence A. Shapiro - 2014 - Mind 123 (489):213-220.
  15. Flesh matters: The body in cognition.Lawrence A. Shapiro - 2019 - Mind and Language 34 (1):3-20.
    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 (...)
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  16. Mental Manipulations and the Problem of Causal Exclusion.Lawrence A. Shapiro - 2012 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 90 (3):507 - 524.
    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.
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  17.  42
    Mechanism or Bust? Explanation in Psychology.Lawrence A. Shapiro - 2016 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science:axv062.
  18.  96
    In defense of interventionist solutions to exclusion.Thomas W. Polger, Lawrence A. Shapiro & Reuben Stern - 2018 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 68:51-57.
    Mental and physical causes do not competedthe presence of one does not exclude the efficacy of the other. This point is obvious from the perspective of an interventionist theory of causation, but only when this theory gets its proper due. Doubts about the interventionist justification for concluding that there is both physical and mental causation, we have argued, rest on misunderstandings of interventionism. When looking to interventions to reveal causal structures, care must be taken to consider the right variable sets. (...)
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  19. Content, Kinds, and Individualism in Marr’s Theory of Vision.Lawrence A. Shapiro - 1993 - Philosophical Review 102 (4):489-513.
  20.  57
    (1 other version)Darwin and disjunction: Foraging theory and univocal assignments of content.Lawrence A. Shapiro - 1992 - Philosophy of Science Association 1992:469-480.
    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 (...)
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  21. Identity, variability, and multiple realization in the special sciences.Lawrence A. Shapiro & Thomas W. Polger - 2012 - In Simone Gozzano & Christopher S. Hill (eds.), New Perspectives on Type Identity: The Mental and the Physical. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 264.
    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, (...)
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  22. A clearer vision.Lawrence A. Shapiro - 1997 - Philosophy of Science 64 (1):131-53.
    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 (...)
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  23.  65
    Arguing About the Mind.Brie Gertler & Lawrence A. Shapiro (eds.) - 2007 - London: Routledge.
    _Arguing About the Mind_ is an accessible, engaging introduction to the core questions in the philosophy of mind. This collection offers a selection of thought-provoking articles that examine a broad range of issues from the mind and body relation to animal and artificial intelligence. Topics addressed include: the problem of consciousness; the nature of the mind; the relationship between the mind, body and world; the notion of selfhood; pathologies and behavioural problems; animal, machine and extra-terrestrial intelligence. The editors provide lucid (...)
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  24. The nature of nature: Rethinking naturalistic theories of intentionality.Lawrence A. Shapiro - 1997 - Philosophical Psychology 10 (3):309-322.
    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 (...)
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  25.  37
    Nature from within: Gustav Theodor Fechner and His Psychophysical Worldview.Lawrence A. Shapiro - 2005 - Mind 114 (455):739-743.
  26. The embodied cognition research program.Lawrence A. Shapiro - 2006
    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 (...)
     
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  27.  73
    Behavior, ISO functionalism, and psychology.Lawrence A. Shapiro - 1994 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 25 (2):191-209.
  28. The Puzzling Resilience of Multiple Realization.Thomas W. Polger & Lawrence A. Shapiro - 2023 - Minds and Machines 33 (2):321-345.
    According to the multiple realization argument, mental states or processes can be realized in diverse and heterogeneous physical systems; and that fact implies that mental state or process kinds cannot be identified with particular kinds of physical states or processes. More specifically, mental processes cannot be identified with brain processes. Moreover, the argument provides a general model for the autonomy of the special sciences. The multiple realization argument is widely influential, but over the last thirty years it has also faced (...)
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  29. Can psychology be a unified science?Lawrence A. Shapiro - 2005 - Philosophy of Science 72 (5):953-963.
    Jaegwon Kim has argued that if psychological kinds are multiply realizable then no single psychological theory can describe regularities ranging over psychological states. Instead, psychology must be fractured, with human psychology covering states realized in the human way, martian psychology covering states realized in the martian way, and so on. I show that even if one accepts the principles that motivate Kim.
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  30. Junk Representations.Lawrence A. Shapiro - 1997 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 48 (3):345-361.
    Many philosophers and psychologists who approach the issue of representation from a computational or measurement theoretical perspective end up having to deny the possibility of junk representations—representations present in an organism's head but that enter into no psychological processes or produce no behaviour. However, I argue, a more functional perspective makes the possibility of junk representations intuitively quite plausible—so much so that we may wish to question those views of representation that preclude the possibility of junk representations. I explore some (...)
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  31. Prediction and accommodation in evolutionary psychology.M. Forster & Lawrence A. Shapiro - 2000 - Psychological Inquiry 11:31-33.
    Ketelaar and Ellis have provided a remarkably clear and succinct statement of Lakatosian philosophy of science and have also argued compellingly that the neo-Darwinian theory of evolution fills the Lakatosian criteria of progressivity. We find ourselves in agreement with much of what Ketelaar and Ellis say about Lakatosian philosophy of science, but have some questions about (1) the place of evolutionary psychology in a Lakatosian framework, and (2) the extent to which evolutionary psychology truly predicts new findings.
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  32.  92
    Evolution Without Adaptation?Robert Richardson & Lawrence A. Shapiro - 2009 - Metascience 18 (2):319-323.
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  33. Content.Lawrence A. Shapiro - unknown
    PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association, Vol. 1992, Volume One: Contributed Papers. (1992), pp. 469-480.
     
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  34.  47
    Michael R. W. Dawson, understanding cognitive science.Lawrence A. Shapiro - 2000 - Minds and Machines 10 (3):440-444.
  35.  31
    (1 other version)Mind the Adaptation.Lawrence A. Shapiro - 2001 - Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 49:23-41.
    By now, even the kid down the street must be familiar with the functionalist's response to type-identity physicalism. Mental kinds like pain, love, the belief that Madison sits on an isthmus, etc., are not identical to physical kinds because it's conceptually possible that entities physically distinct in kind from human beings experience pain, love, beliefs that Madison sits on an isthmus, etc. Type-identity physicalism, in short, is baselessly chauvinistic in its rejection of the possibility of nonhuman minds.
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  36. Neural plasticity and multiple realizability.Lawrence A. Shapiro - 2002
     
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  37. Reductionism, Embodiment, and the Generality of Psychology.Lawrence A. Shapiro - unknown
    A central controversy in philosophy of psychology pits reductionists against, for lack of a better term, autonomists. The reductionist’s burden is to show that psychology is, at best, merely a heuristic device for describing phenomena that are, when speaking more precisely, just physical. I say “at best,” because reductionists are prone to less conciliatory remarks, such as: “psychological property P just is physical property N, so scientific explanation might as well focus exclusively on N,” and “psychological property P is nothing (...)
     
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  38.  66
    Representation from bottom to top.Lawrence A. Shapiro - 1996 - Canadian Journal of Philosophy 26 (4):523-42.
    I would like to nominate one more principle for initial inclusion in the science of teleonomy. This principle is that the nature of the stimuli that initiate and regulate a response may be no indication of the function of the response.George Williams could not have anticipated the special relevance his principle has for contemporary analyses of representational content. In particular, his principle provides both a concise statement of where a currently popular strategy for naturalizing representational content has gone wrong and (...)
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  39.  28
    Saving the phenomenal.Lawrence A. Shapiro - 1999 - PSYCHE: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Research On Consciousness 5.
  40.  19
    The Miracle Myth: Why Belief in the Resurrection and the Supernatural is Unjustified.Lawrence A. Shapiro - 2016 - New York, NY, USA: Columbia University Press.
    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 (...)
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  41. The metaphysics of multiple realizability: It's like apples and oranges.Lawrence A. Shapiro - manuscript
     
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  42.  69
    What is Psychophysics?Lawrence A. Shapiro - 1994 - PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association 1994:47 - 57.
    Since the founding of psychophysics in the latter half of the nineteenth century, controversy has raged over the subject matter of psychophysical laws. Originally, Fechner characterized psycho physics as the science describing the relation between physical magnitudes and the sensations these magnitudes produce in us. Today many psycho-physicists would deny that sensation is or could be a topic of psycho-physical investigation. I consider Savage's (1970) influential objections to the possibility of such an investigation and argue that they depend upon (i) (...)
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  43. (1 other version)A review of Frederick Adams and Kenneth Aizawa, the Bounds of cognition. [REVIEW]Lawrence A. Shapiro - 2009 - Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 8 (2):267-273.
    In The Bounds of Cognition, Fred Adams and Kenneth Aizawa treat the arguments for extended cognition to withering criticism. I summarize their main arguments and focus special attention on their distinction between the extended cognitive system hypothesis and the extended cognition hypothesis, as well as on their demand for a mark of the mental.
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  44.  55
    Colin Allen and Marc Bekoff, species of mind: The philosophy and biology of cognitive ethology. [REVIEW]Lawrence A. Shapiro - 2000 - Minds and Machines 10 (1):153-156.
  45.  86
    Book reviews. [REVIEW]Valerie L. Shalin, Wray L. Buntine, S. Gillian Parker, James Higginbotham, Afzal Ballim, Anthony S. Maida, Charles R. Fletcher, David L. Kemerer, Lawrence A. Shapiro, Richard Wyatt, Deepak Kumar, Selmer Bringsjord & Bill Patterson - 1995 - Minds and Machines 5 (2):257-307.