VOLUME 11 (1998), ISSUE 2

Manuscripts:

TIM van GELDER
The roles of philosophy in cognitive science

• Abstract: What does philosophy contribute to cognitive science? The question is addressed indirectly, by describing some of the many roles philosophers play. These include Pioneer, Building Inspector, Zen Monk, Cartographer, Archivist, Cheerleader and Gadfly. As a preparatory exercise, philosophers are characterized in terms of their primary methods: argument, conceptual analysis, and historical perspective. The various roles philosophers in fact play are seen to follow naturally from this way of characterizing the philosopher.

GERALD VISION
Blindsight and philosophy

• Abstract: The evidence of blindsight is occasionally used to argue that we can see things, and thus have perceptual belief, without the distinctive visual awareness accompanying normal sight; thereby displacing phenomenality as a component of the concept of vision. I maintain that arguments to this end typically rely on misconceptions about blindsight and almost always ignore associated visual (or visuomotor) pathologies relevant to the lessons of such cases. More specifically, I conclude, first, that the phenomena very likely don't result from dissociations within a single system, but from the interaction of evolutionarily distinct, if interacting, systems; second, that a closer study of spared motor abilities indicates that verbal responses of patients result not from degraded vision but from proprioception; and, finally, above-chance verbal responses, being forced guesses, aren't tentative beliefs and can't become beliefs just by training patients to have more confidence in their responses.

GEIR KIRKEBOEN
Descartes' psychology of vision and cognitive science: The Optics (1637) in the light of Marr's (1982) Vision

• Abstract: In this paper I consider the relation between Descartes' psychology of vision and the cognitive science approach to psychology (henceforth CS). In particular, I examine Descartes' (1637) Optics in the light of David Marr's (1982) position in CS. My general claim is that CS can be seen as a re-discovery of Descartes' psychology of vision. In the first section, I point up a parallel between Descartes' epistemological revolution, which created the modern version of the problem of perception, and the cognitive revolution. These fundamental revolutions in theoretical psychology were both inspired and legitimated by a revolution in mathematics. They took place in accordance with one of Marr's (1982) maxims: To the Desirable via the Possible. In the second section, I demonstrate that in the Optics, Descartes explains perception of metrical properties in a way that—on a detailed level—is in accordance with how Marr (1982) argues that complex information processing systems have to be explained: both Descartes and Marr emphasize the coordination of logical and physical analysis. In section three, I claim that Descartes' arguments for a sharp distinction between mechanical transmission of sense-data (sensation) and non-mechanical inferences on those sense-data (thinking) are sound arguments seen from Marr's position in CS. Descartes' arguments are based on his logical and physical analysis. Malebranche's radicalized version of Cartesian dualism turns Descartes' empirically based assumption that mechanisms cannot realize inferences into a metaphysical assumption. In the final section, I argue that this metaphysical assumption contributes to an understanding of perception as a non-symbolic, non-inferential bottom-up process in mainstream monistic and mechanistic scientific psychology until the cognitive revolution.

HUIB LOOREN de JONG & W.J. van der STEEN
Biological thinking in evolutionary psychology: Rock bottom or quicksand?

• Abstract: Evolutionary psychology is put forward by its defenders as an extension of evolutionary biology, bringing psychology within the integrated causal chain of the hard sciences. It is extolled as a new paradigm for integrating psychology with the rest of science. We argue that such claims misrepresent the methods and explanations of evolutionary biology, and present a distorted view of the consequences that might be drawn from evolutionary biology for views of human nature. General theses about adaptation in biology are empty schemata, not laws of nature allowing the subsumption of mind under biology. Functional thinking is an indispensable tool for psychology, mostly of value in abstractive unification and as a heuristic, but it gains little from association with evolutionary notions of selection. Thus, we argue, the cherished integrative causal model evaporates, and evolutionary phraseology serves no more than rhetorical purposes. Moreover, the universality of human nature and the evolutionary irrelevance of individual variation are presented as biological truths that psychologists should respect in their approach to mind. On closer inspection, this turns out to be rather dubious biology. Psychology might conceivably be better off as a continuation of biology by different means, but evolutionary psychology does not provide the conceptual integration leading to such a happy union.

C. WESLEY DEMARCO
On the impossibility of placebo effects in psychotherapy

• Abstract: Two inimical interpretations of psychotherapy look to many of the same features of empirical research. One camp infers that placebo effects are impossible in principle in psychotherapy; the other camp infers from the same research that psychotherapy is essentially placebo. I examine the crucial discussions and concluded that these opposing evaluations ensue because each group presumes a different baseline from which the significance of the research is gauged. I show how different baselines set different standards of significance and invite different comparisons between therapeutic and non-therapeutic practices. Attention to this point about the baseline of significance puts the placebo debate in sharper relied and frames more clearly the merits and demerits of each position. It also leads to the conclusion that neither group really lays hold of in-principle claims, since both interpretations rest on context-dependent features of the empirical situation. Along the way I discuss salient features of outcomes research, meta analysis, and the role of symbols in therapeutic transactions. I close the essay with some remarks that link the proliferation of therapies with cultural splintering generally and show how this bears on the placebo issue.

Discussion:

JEFFREY HERSHFIELD
Lycan on the subjectivity of the mental

• Abstract: In a series of recent books and articles, Lycan has proposed a powerful materialist theory of mind which attempts to demonstrate, among other things, that the subjective character of the mental can be understood as a perfectly objective phenomenon. If successful, such a feat would be a boon to the materialist cause, since materialism demands that the ontology of the mind be thoroughly objective. Although objectivity is here supposed to mark an ontological category, it is typically characterized in epistemic terms. Thus a phenomenon is held to be objective if it is equally accessible to all competent observers. An objective phenomenon can in principle be completely characterized in third person terms—terms that attract away from particular points of view.1 Subjective phenomena, on the other hand, are those that are inherently perspective—they can only be completely understood, and characterized, from the first-person point of view. Hence if Lycan succeeds it would be a remarkable feat indeed, since the subjective and the objective appear to mark mutually exclusive ontological categories.

WILLIAM G. LYCAN
Phenomenal information again: It is both real and intrinsically perspective

• Abstract: In Lycan (1995, 1996), I argued against Nemirow (1990) and Lewis (1990) that there is distinctive, irreducibly phenomenal and perspective information of the sort alleged by Jackson (1982, 1986); but I gave an account of such information that is entirely compatible with a materialist view of human subjects. J. Hershfield (1998) argues that the latter account is inadequate, in that it fails to support the claim that the information it characterizes is irreducibly phenomenal or perspective. I reply that Hershfield's conclusion does not follow from his argument's premises.

Review Essays:

ANDREW BEEDLE
Sixteen years of artificial intelligence: Mind design and Mind design II

• Abstract: John Haugeland's Mind Design and Mind Design II are organized around the idea that the fundamental idea of cognitive science is that, "intelligent beings are semantic engines - in other words, automatic formal systems with interpretations under which they consistently make sense." The goal of artificial intelligence research, or the problem of "mind design" as Haugeland calls it, is to develop computers that are in fact semantic engines. This essay canvasses the changes in artificial intelligence research reflected in the different selections of essays found in each volume. While Mind Design II is a worthy successor to Mind Design, there are some notable developments in AI which suggest that seemingly intelligent behavior need not be guided by semantic engines at all.

BRIAN KEELEY
Artificial life for philosophers

• Abstract: Artificial life (ALife) is the attempt to create artificial instances of life in a variety of media, but primarily within the digital computer. As such, the field brings together computationally-minded biologists and biologically-minded computer scientists. I argue that this new field is filled with interesting philosophical issues. However, there is a dearth of philosophers actively conducting research in this area. I discuss two books on the new field: Margaret Boden's The philosophy of artificial life and Christopher Langton's Artificial life: An overview. They cover three areas of philosophical interest: the definition of life, the relationship between life and mind, and the possibility of creating life within a computational environment. This discussion allows me to critique past work in the philosophy of ALife that tends to see the field as a proving ground for traditional arguments from the philosophy of artificial intelligence. Instead, I suggest, what is interesting about ALife is how it differs from artificial intelligence and that the most interesting philosophical issues in the area are those derived from biology, not psychology. I recommend that these two books taken together constitute an interesting introduction to ALife and the wealth of philosophical issues found therein.