scholarly journals Psychological Essentialism and the Structure of Concepts

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eleonore Neufeld
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Science ◽  
Philosophy Of Mind ◽  
Social Philosophy ◽  
Active Area ◽  
Psychological Essentialism ◽  
Empirical Results ◽  
The Past ◽  
And Behaviors

Psychological essentialism is the hypothesis that humans represent some categories as having an underlying essence that unifies members of a category and is causally responsible for their typical attributes and behaviors. Throughout the past several decades, psychological essentialism has emerged as an extremely active area of research in cognitive science. More recently, it has also attracted attention from philosophers, who put the empirical results to use in many different philosophical areas, ranging from philosophy of mind and cognitive science to social philosophy. This article aims to give philosophers who are new to the topic an overview of the key empirical findings surrounding psychological essentialism, and some of the ways the hypothesis and its related findings have been discussed, extended, and applied in philosophical research.

What to say to a skeptical metaphysician: A defense manual for cognitive and behavioral scientists

2004 ◽  
Vol 27 (5) ◽  
pp. 603-627 ◽  
Author(s):  
Don Ross ◽  
David Spurrett
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Science ◽  
Recent Work ◽  
Philosophy Of Mind ◽  
The Other ◽  
Behavioral Sciences ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Relationship

A wave of recent work in metaphysics seeks to undermine the anti-reductionist, functionalist consensus of the past few decades in cognitive science and philosophy of mind. That consensus apparently legitimated a focus on what systems do, without necessarily and always requiring attention to the details of how systems are constituted. The new metaphysical challenge contends that many states and processes referred to by functionalist cognitive scientists are epiphenomenal. It further contends that the problem lies in functionalism itself, and that, to save the causal significance of mind, it is necessary to re-embrace reductionism.We argue that the prescribed return to reductionism would be disastrous for the cognitive and behavioral sciences, requiring the dismantling of most existing achievements and placing intolerable restrictions on further work. However, this argument fails to answer the metaphysical challenge on its own terms. We meet that challenge by going on to argue that the new metaphysical skepticism about functionalist cognitive science depends on reifying two distinct notions of causality (one primarily scientific, the other metaphysical), then equivocating between them. When the different notions of causality are properly distinguished, it is clear that functionalism is in no serious philosophical trouble, and that we need not choose between reducing minds or finding them causally impotent. The metaphysical challenge to functionalism relies, in particular, on a naïve and inaccurate conception of the practice of physics, and the relationship between physics and metaphysics.

scholarly journals Essentialism, Externalism, and Human Nature

2012 ◽  
Vol 70 ◽  
pp. 29-51
Author(s):  
M.J. Cain
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Science ◽  
Human Nature ◽  
Philosophy Of Mind ◽  
Developmental Psychology ◽  
Culturally Specific ◽  
Scientific Education ◽  
Psychological Essentialism ◽  
Philosophical Significance ◽  
The Relationship

Psychological essentialism is a prominent view within contemporary developmental psychology and cognitive science according to which children have an innate commitment to essentialism. If this view is correct then a commitment to essentialism is an important aspect of human nature rather than a culturally specific commitment peculiar to those who have received a specific philosophical or scientific education. In this article my concern is to explore the philosophical significance of psychological essentialism with respect to the relationship between the content of our concepts and thoughts and the nature of the extra-cranial world. I will argue that, despite first appearances, psychological essentialism undermines a form of externalism that has become commonplace in the philosophy of mind and language.

DESIGN DISCOURSE AND THE COGNITIVE SCIENCE OF DESIGN

2014 ◽  
Vol 79 (1) ◽  
pp. 37-53
Author(s):  
Jeroen de Ridder
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Science ◽  
Science And Religion ◽  
The Other ◽  
Significant Progress ◽  
The Past ◽  
The One ◽  
Bare Bones ◽  
Single Focus

Much of Alvin Plantinga’s Where the Conflict Really Lies(2011) will contain few surprises for those who have been following his work over the past decades. This —I hasten to add — is nothing against the book. The fact alone that his ideas on various topics, which have appeared scattered throughout the literature, are now actualized, applied to the debate about the (alleged) conflict between science and religion, and organized into an overarching argument with a single focus makes this book worthwhile. Moreover, I see this book making significant progress on two opposite ends of the spectrum of views about science and religion. On the one end, we find the so-called new atheists and other conflict-mongers. Compared to the overheated rhetoric that oozes from their writings, this book is a breath of fresh air. Plantinga cuts right to the chase and soberly exposes the bare bones of the new atheists’ arguments. It immediately becomes clear how embarrassingly bare these bones really are. On the other end of the spectrum are theologians and scientists who envisage harmony and concord between science and religion.

Psychology: Autonomous or Anomalous?

Dialogue ◽  
1985 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 427-442 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Kernohan
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Psychology ◽  
Cognitive Science ◽  
Philosophy Of Mind ◽  
Donald Davidson ◽  
Mental Activity ◽  
Essential Difference ◽  
Anomalous Monism

In a recent series of papers, Donald Davidson has put forward a challenging and original philosophy of mind which he has called anomalous monism. Anomalous monism has certain similarities to another recent and deservedly popular position: functionalist cognitive psychology. Both functionalism, in its materialist versions, and anomalous monism require token-token psychophysical identities rather than type-type ones. (Token identities are identities between individual events; type identities represent a stronger claim of identities between interesting sorts of events.) Both deny that psychology can be translated into, or scientifically reduced to, neurophysiology. Both are mentalistic theories, allowing psychology to make use of intentional descriptions in its theorizing. Anomalous monism uses a belief/desire/action psychology; cognitive science makes use of information-bearing states. But these similarities must not be allowed to conceal an essential difference between the two positions. Cognitive psychology claims to be a science, making interesting, lawlike generalizations for the purpose of explaining mental activity. Anomalous monism denies that psychology is a science by denying that psychological laws can be formulated. Davidson has other ideas for psychology connected with his work on meaning and truth. Hence, the title of one of his essays on anomalous monism is “Psychology as Philosophy”.

scholarly journals Where Can Tourism-Led Growth and Economy-Driven Tourism Growth Occur?

2018 ◽  
Vol 58 (5) ◽  
pp. 760-773 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vera Shanshan Lin ◽  
Yang Yang ◽  
Gang Li
Keyword(s):  
Growth Patterns ◽  
International Tourism ◽  
Causal Relationships ◽  
Regional Economic ◽  
Empirical Results ◽  
Developed Economies ◽  
The Past ◽  
Factors Influencing ◽  
Probit Models ◽  
Practical Implications

In this study, we investigate the causal relationships between international tourism growth and regional economic expansion in China, and more importantly, disclose the factors determining the occurrence of these relationships. The empirical results reveal that 10 of 29 regions experienced tourism-led growth (TLG) during 1978 to 2013, whereas nine regions experienced economy-driven tourism growth (EDTG). Different from the past literature, this study uses Bayesian probit models to unveil the factors influencing these different growth patterns. Our results suggest that regions with less-developed economies, larger economic sizes, and covering larger geographic areas are more likely to experience TLG, and regions with less-developed economies are more likely to experience EDTG as well. Lastly, practical implications are provided.

scholarly journals Interview on Experimental Philosophy with Joshua Knobe

2016 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 14-28
Author(s):  
Pendaran S. Roberts ◽  
Joshua Knobe ◽  
Pendaran Roberts ◽  
Joshua Knobe
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Science ◽  
Philosophy Of Mind ◽  
Experimental Philosophy ◽  
Yale University ◽  
Knobe Effect ◽  
Experimental Philosopher ◽  
Interdisciplinary Collaborations ◽  
Conversation Piece

This conversation piece contains an interview with Joshua Knobe. It provides a useful introduction to what experimental philosophy is and the interdisciplinary collaborations it encourages. Pendaran Roberts and Joshua Knobe collaboratively developed this conversation piece via email. Joshua Knobe is a renowned experimental philosopher, who works on a range of philosophical issues, including philosophy of mind, action and ethics. He is a professor in the Program in Cognitive Science and the Department of Philosophy at Yale University. He is most known for what is now called the ‘Knobe effect’.

Beliefs on Marital Violence Among Portuguese Adolescents: Monitoring Their Evolution and Relationship With Dating Violence

2021 ◽  
Vol 36 (3) ◽  
pp. 363-380
Author(s):  
Sofia Neves ◽  
Miguel Cameira ◽  
Sónia Caridade
Keyword(s):  
Dating Violence ◽  
Partner Violence ◽  
Physical Violence ◽  
Marital Violence ◽  
Traditional Beliefs ◽  
Attitudes And Behaviors ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Family ◽  
And Behaviors ◽  
Portuguese Adolescents

In the last two decades, the problem of violence in the family sphere in particular and in intimate relationships in general has been on the agenda for Portuguese governmental and nongovernmental agencies. Several initiatives and campaigns have been launched, which are aimed at reducing occurrence of this violence, particularly among teenagers. This present study aims to assess the evolution in adolescents' attitudes and behaviors concerning intimate partner violence. We collected data from a sample of adolescents (n = 913) to compare with corresponding data collected 7 years ago by Neves and Nogueira (2010) in a sample that had identical sociodemographic characteristics (n = 899). Both cohorts resided in the same areas in the northeastern region of Portugal. The instruments used were the Scale of Beliefs about Marital Violence (ECVC) and the Marital Violence Inventory (IVC; Neves & Nogueira, 2010). The results indicate that although respondents tend to reject traditional beliefs on marital violence more now than in the past, especially male and older respondents, the percentage of dating violence reports has not decreased. Among girls, there was even an increase in perpetration of emotional and mild physical violence. We discuss possible reasons for this discrepancy between the evolution of attitudes and behaviors and make suggestions for improvement in the actions implemented among teenagers to increase their effectiveness.

The Influence of Politics and Diversity in Educational Differentiation

2020 ◽  
pp. 184-192
Author(s):  
Desiree L. DePriest
Keyword(s):  
Online Learning ◽  
Critical Examination ◽  
Traditional Schools ◽  
Diverse Populations ◽  
Learning Models ◽  
The Past ◽  
And Behaviors ◽  
Online Environments

Current societal shifts are unfolding connections between laws, acts, and behaviors of the past that affect education in the present. There is limited scholarship that reveals the historical intentionality in excluding underrepresented and marginalized persons from education. The concern is that the quest for higher industry recognition based on the old models of elite and traditional schools will make online environments vulnerable to those same exclusions. The mission is to apply transparency to the underlying disparate history in education and how severely it has affected so many generations of people, change the paradigm going forward, and not repeat homogeneity online. This chapter proposes a critical examination of factors that necessitated the evolution from past education models established to perpetuate societal dominance by a select few, to the present inclusive online learning models. The chapter argues that technology, along with the failure to include diverse populations as a unique demographic, contributed to the disruption that became online learning.

Distributed Cognition in Medieval and Renaissance Studies

2019 ◽  
pp. 18-43
Author(s):  
Miranda Anderson
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Cognitive Science ◽  
Philosophy Of Mind ◽  
Distributed Cognition ◽  
Art Music ◽  
The Body ◽  
Cognitive Sciences ◽  
Research Context ◽  
Renaissance Studies

The purpose of this chapter is to provide a background to current research in medieval and Renaissance studies on topics related to distributed cognition and to consider how the various chapters in this volume represent, reflect and advance work in this area. The volume brings together 14 chapters by international specialists working in the period between the ninth and the seventeenth century in the fields of law, history, drama, literature, art, music, philosophy, science and medicine. The chapters revitalise our reading of medieval and Renaissance works by bringing to bear recent insights in cognitive science and philosophy of mind on the distributed nature of cognition. Together the chapters make evident the ways in which particular notions and practices of distributed cognition emerged from the particular range of sociocultural and technological contexts that existed during this period. This chapter attempts to put these contributions in their wider research context by examining how such topics have been approached by mainstream scholarship, earlier work in the cognitive sciences and by existing applications of distributed cognition theory. It draws out both more general features of distributed cognition and what was distinctive about medieval and Renaissance insights into (and superstitions about) the cognitive roles of the body and environment. Throughout this chapter, I reference the chapters in this volume that provide further information on topics covered or take forward the issues in question. In the concluding section, I turn to a fuller overview of the chapters themselves

Perceptual Learning beyond Philosophy of Mind

2019 ◽  
pp. 209-218
Author(s):  
Kevin Connolly
Keyword(s):  
Speech Perception ◽  
Philosophy Of Science ◽  
Perceptual Learning ◽  
Philosophy Of Mind ◽  
Natural Kind ◽  
Color Perception ◽  
Social Philosophy ◽  
Sensory Substitution ◽  
Multisensory Perception ◽  
Major Focus

The concluding chapter argues that perceptual learning has relevance for philosophy far beyond philosophy of mind—in epistemology, philosophy of science, and social philosophy, among other domains. The goal of this chapter is to extend one major focus of the book, which is to identify the scope of perceptual learning. Chapters 3 through 7 argued that perceptual learning occurs in all sorts of domains in the philosophy of mind, including natural kind recognition, sensory substitution, multisensory perception, speech perception, and color perception. This chapter extends that scope beyond philosophy of mind and offers some initial sketches of ways in which we can apply knowledge of perceptual learning to those domains.

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