Volume 18 (2005), Issue 3
Manuscripts:
SARA BERNAL
Object Lessons: Spelke Principles and Psychological Explanation
Abstract: There is general agreement that from the first few months of life, our apprehension of physical objects “‘accords with”’ certain principles (Baillargeon 1995, Carey and Xu 2001, Gopnik and Meltzoff 1997, Spelke 1988, Spelke, Kestenbaum et al 1995, Scholl and Leslie 1999). In one philosopher’s locution, we are “‘perceptually sensitive”’ to physical principles describing the behavior of objects (Bermúdez 2003). But in what does this accordance or “‘sensitivity”’ consist? Are these principles explicitly represented or merely “‘implemented”’? And what sort of explanation do we accomplish in claiming that our object perception accords with these principles? My main goal here is to suggest answers to these questions. I argue that the object principles are not explicitly represented, first addressing some confusion in the debate about what that means. On the positive side, I conclude that the principles supply a competence account, at Marr’s computational levell 1, and that they function like natural constraints in vision. These are among their considerable explanatory benefits—benefits which are endowed by rules and principles in other cognitive domains as well. Characterizing the explanatory role of the object principles is my main project here, but in pursuing certain sub-goals I am led to other conclusions of interest in their own right. I address an argument for the explicit representation of the object principles which assumes that object perception is substantially thought-like. This provokes a jaunt off the main path which leads to interesting territory: the boundary between thought and perception. I argue that object apprehension is much closer to perception than to thought on the spectrum between the two.
JAMES BLACKMON, DAVID BYRD, ROBERT CUMMINS, PIERRE POIRIER,
& MARTIN ROTH
Atomistic Learning in Non-Modular Systems
Abstract: We argue that atomistic learning—learning that requires training only on a novel item to be learned—is problematic for networks in which every weight is available for change in every learning situation. This is potentially significant because atomistic learning appears to be commonplace in humans and most non-human animals. We briefly review various proposed fixes, concluding that the most promising strategy to date involves training on pseudo-patterns along with novel items, a form of learning that is not strictly atomistic, but which looks very much like it "from the outside.”
JOSHUA KNOBE
Ordinary Ethical Reasoning and the Ideal of ‘Being Yourself’
Abstract: The psychological study of ethical reasoning tends to concentrate on few specific issues, with the bulk of the research going to the study of people’s attitudes toward moral rules or the welfare of others. But people’s ethical reasoning is also shaped by a wide range of other concerns. Here I focus on the importance that people attach to the ideal of being yourself. It is shown that certain experimental results—results that seemed anomalous and inexplicable to researchers who focussed on moral rules and concern for the welfare of others—can be explained quite elegantly as the product of people’s attachment to the ideal of ‘being yourself.’ The success of this explanation then points to the need for a more general inquiry into the role that the ideal of ‘being yourself’ plays in people’s ethical reasoning.
THOMAS NADELHOFFER
Skill, Luck, Control, and Intentional Action
Abstract: On the surface, it seems intuitively plausible that if an agent luckily manages to perform a desired action (e.g., rolling a six with a fair die or winning the lottery), the performance of which is not the result of any relevant skill on her part, we should not say that she performed the action intentionally. This intuition suggests that our concept of intentional action is sensitive to considerations of skill, luck, and causal control. Indeed, some philosophers have claimed that in order for an action to be performed intentionally it must be performed with a relevant amount of skill or control—i.e., an intentional action cannot simply be the result of luck (Mele & Moser 1994). On this view, skill and control are necessary conditions of our everyday concept of intentional action. In this essay, I discuss empirical evidence that challenges this claim. After briefly setting the stage in §1, I examine Al Mele & Paul Moser’s (1994) thorough analysis of intentional action—paying particular attention to some of the interesting scenarios they offer in support of their position in §2. Next, I discuss the results of some simple psychological experiments that show that people’s judgments concerning whether actions are intentional can often be affected by the moral features of these actions—features that may trump considerations of skill, luck, and control in §3). Finally, I conclude that if this is correct, philosophers who claim that skill and control are necessary conditions of the folk concept of intentional action appear to be mistaken in §4.
ENDRE KADAR & JUDITH EFFKEN
From Discrete Actors to Goal-Directed Actions: Toward a Process-Based
Methodology for Psychology
Abstract: Studying social phenomena is often assumed to be inherently different from studying natural science phenomena. In psychology, this assumption has led to a division of the field into social and experimental domains. The same kind of division has carried over into ecological psychology, despite the fact that Gibson clearly intended his theory for both social and natural phenomena. In this paper, we argue that the social/natural science dichotomy can be derived from a distinction between hermeneutics and science that is deeply rooted in the atomistic, structuralist ontological tradition. We show that, from a process–based perspective, the central questions of hermeneutics (action of an individual within a context of possible actions), ecological psychology (behavior of an organism in an ecological niche) and physics (motion of a particle in a field) share a similar structure. Building on these ideas, we propose a common, process-based methodology for psychology that integrates field theory with insights from quantum mechanics to accommodate traditionally problematic concepts in natural science such as teleology and values. To demonstrate the feasibility of this approach, empirical findings on the paradigmatic problem of prospective control (operationalized as gaze control in automobile driving in relation to perceptual tuning) are presented.
Book Reviews:
DAVID DANKS
Review of ANDY CLARK Natural-Born Cyborgs: Minds, Technologies, and the
Future of Human Intelligence
GUALTIERO PICCININI
Review of MATTHIAS SCHEUTZ (Ed.) Computationalism: New directions
PEGGY DESAUTELS
Review of WILLIAM D. CASEBEER Natural ethical facts: Evolution, connectionism,
and moral cognition
RUPERT READ
Review of GREGORY BASSHAM & ERIC BRONSON (Eds.) The Lord of the
Rings and Philosophy