Students: Many of the document links are now broken (to avoid copyright violations). These documents are now available through the ERes system. Contact me for the password.

 

 

PHIL 451/551; PSYC 451

Philosophy and Psychology

 

Presentation list

 

Fall 2006

S SCI 311

MWF 10:00-10:50

 

Instructor: Shaun Nichols

Office: Social Sciences 318c

Phone: 626-0616

Office Hours: Friday, 1:00-3:00, and by appointment

 

Course website: http://dingo.sbs.arizona.edu/~snichols/courses/philpsych.htm

 

Course description: This will be a course in the philosophy of psychology in which scientific psychology plays a major role. We will begin by reviewing work on cognitive architecture and the philosophical foundations of psychology. Then we will consider in greater depth several contemporary research domains, including simulation, introspection, reasoning, and experimental philosophy.

 

Readings: All readings will be available on the web, either on e-reserve, or linked through this syllabus.

 

Course requirements and grading:

Undergraduates:

Two essay exams (midterm and final), 30% each

Midterm exam: Fiday, October 13th

Final exam: Friday, December 8th, 11:00-1:00

One paper (2500-3000 words), due Monday, November 27th

 

Graduates:

One term paper (5-6000 words), 85%

Outline due Monday, November 20th

Final draft due Monday, December 11th

Class presentation of a reading, 15%

 

University boilerplate:

You need a good excuse, in advance, to miss an exam or to hand in a paper late. All holidays or special events observed by organized religions will be honored for those students who show affiliation with that particular religion. Absences pre-approved by the UA Dean of Students (or Dean's designee) will be honored.


I expect acceptable classroom behavior at all times. Disruptive or threatening behavior may result in disciplinary procedures leading to severe penalties. See the UA Policy on Threatening Behavior by Students, and documents referenced therein.

Students with Disabilities
Students with physical, psychological, or learning disabilities who anticipate needing accommodations in this course are encouraged to register with the S.A.L.T. Center or the Disability Resource Center. Students with special needs who are registered with the S.A.L.T. Center or the Disability Resource Center are reminded that they must submit appropriate documentation as soon as possible if they are requesting special accommodations.

 

Tentative Schedule

 

I. Background:

A. Review: Behaviorism, Identity Theory, and Functionalism

For August 23, view the Heider-Simmel animation here (in QuickTime):

http://research.yale.edu/perception/animacy/HS-Blocks-QT.mov

 

B. Anti-Reductionism

Jerry Fodor (1974). Special Sciences. Synthese 2: 97-115.

Harold Kincaid (1990). Molecular Biology and the Unity of Science (NOTE: just read pages 575-583), Philosophy of Science 57, 575-593.

 

II. Cognitive architecture

A. Computational Theory of Mind

Fodor (1975). Language of Thought, chap. 1, (esp. pp. 27-34) Harvard.

Fodor (1987), Why There Still Has to Be a Language of Thought (from Psychosemantics)

 

B. Functional decomposition (Homuncularism)

Daniel Dennett (1978). Artificial intelligence as philosophy and psychology. From Brainstorms. MIT Press.

David Marr (1982). Vision, chapter 1 & chapter 6

 

C. Modularity

Fodor (1985). Precis to Modularity of Mind, Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 8, 1-5.

 

III. Folk psychology & simulation

Wilfrid Sellars (1963). Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind, NOTE: just sections X-XV.

David Lewis (1972). Psychophysical and Theoretical Identifications. Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 50, 249-58.

Paul Churchland (1981). Eliminative Materialism and the Propositional Attitudes. Journal of Philosophy LXXVII(2): 67-90.

Robert Gordon (1986). Folk psychology as simulation. Mind and Language, 1, 158-170.

Goldman (2006). Simulating Minds: The Philosophy, Psychology, and Neuroscience of Mindreading, Oxford University Press, chap. 6 and pp. 205-6.

Rebecca Saxe (2005) Against simulation: the argument from error. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 9, 174-9.

Alvin Goldman and Natalie Sebanz (2005) Simulation, mirroring, and a different argument from error. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 9, Page 320

Saxe (2005) Tuning forks in the mind: Reply to Goldman and Sebanz. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 9, 321.

 

IV. Introspection

Richard Nisbett and Timothy Wilson (1977). Telling more than we can know: Verbal reports on mental processes. Psychological Review 8: 231-259.

Alison Gopnik (1993). How we know our own minds: The illusion of first-person knowledge of intentionality. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 16: 1-14.

Goldman (1993). The psychology of folk psychology. Behavioural and Brain Sciences 16: 15-28.

Shaun Nichols and Stephen Stich (2003). Mindreading, chapter 4. Oxford University Press, chap. 4.

Goldman (2006). Simulating Minds, chapter 9. Oxford University Press.

 

V. Reasoning & rationality

Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman (1974). Judgment under uncertainty: Heuristics and biases. Science, 185, 1124–1131.

Stich (1985). Could Man Be an Irrational Animal? Synthese, 64, 115-34.

Stich (1990). Fragmentation of Reason, chapter 6. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Peter Todd and Gerd Gigerenzer (2000). Precis of Simple heuristics that make us smart. Behavioral & Brain Sciences, 23, 727-780

Michael Bishop and J.D. Trout (2005). Epistemology and the Psychology of Human Judgement, chapter 7. Oxford University Press.

Jonathan Weinberg (forthcoming). Review of Bishop & Trout. Philosophy of Science.

Keith Stanovich and Richard West (2000). Individual differences in reasoning: Implications for the rationality debate? Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 23, 645-726.

 

VI. Experimental philosophy and the viability of intuitions

A. Cultural differences

Weinberg, Nichols, and Stich (2001). Normativity and Epistemic Intuitions, Philosophical Topics, 29, 429-460.

Edouard Machery, Ron Mallon, Nichols, and Stich (2004). Semantics, Cross-Cultural Style. Cognition, 92, B1-B12.

B. Individual differences

Nichols and Joseph Ulatowski (forthcoming). Intuitions and Individual Differences: The Knobe Effect Revisited.

C. Instability of intuitions

Walter Sinnott-Armstrong (forthcoming). Framing Moral Intuitions.

Stacy Swain, Joshua Alexander and Weinberg (forthcoming). The Instability of Philosophical Intuitions: Running Hot and Cold on Truetemp.

D. Intuitions recaptured

Ernest Sosa (forthcoming). Experimental Philosophy and Philosophical Intuition.