Evolutionary psychology is one of many biologically informed approaches to the study of human behavior. Along with cognitive psychologists, evolutionary psychologists propose that much, if not all, of our behavior can be explained by appeal to internal psychological mechanisms. What distinguishes evolutionary psychologists from many cognitive psychologists is the proposal that the relevant internal mechanisms are adaptations—products of natural selection—that helped our ancestors get around the world, survive and reproduce. To understand the central claims of evolutionary psychology we require an understanding of some key concepts in evolutionary biology, cognitive psychology, philosophy of science and philosophy of mind. Philosophers are interested in evolutionary psychology for a number of reasons. For philosophers of science —mostly philosophers of biology—evolutionary psychology provides a critical target. There is a broad consensus among philosophers of science that evolutionary psychology is a deeply flawed enterprise. For philosophers of mind and cognitive science evolutionary psychology has been a source of empirical hypotheses about cognitive architecture and specific components of that architecture. Philosophers of mind are also critical of evolutionary psychology but their criticisms are not as all-encompassing as those presented by philosophers of biology. Evolutionary psychology is also invoked by philosophers interested in moral psychology both as a source of empirical hypotheses and as a critical target.

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Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

From Metaphysics to Ethics: A Defence of Conceptual Analysis

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The Philosophy of Philosophy

'In virtue of' is a mainstay of philosophical discourse. So are similar expressions, such as 'depends on', 'is prior to', and 'is determined by'. It is reasonable to suppose that these expressions are all used to express claims of non-causal dependence, or ? as is becoming the standard term ? 'grounding'. Whilst causation has been studied extensively, it is only in recent years that grounding has become established as a major concern of metaphysics. In this paper we will take stock by bringing together some of the main themes to have emerged in the recent debate. We begin by introducing the notion of grounding. Then we discuss scepticism about grounding before setting out some of the main questions about grounding under current investigation. The final section introduces further avenues for future research.

Recent work on grounding

The aim of this paper is to argue that the phenomenal similarity between perceiving and visualizing can be explained by the similarity between the structure of the content of these two different mental states. And this puts important constraints on how we should think about perceptual content and the content of mental imagery.

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Perceptual content and the content of mental imagery

The addition of “actually” operators to modal languages allows us to capture important inferential behaviours which cannot be adequately captured in logics formulated in simpler languages. Previous work on modal logics containing “actually” operators has concentrated entirely upon extensions of KT5 and has employed a particular model-theoretic treatment of them. This paper proves completeness and decidability results for a range of normal and nonnormal but quasi-normal propositional modal logics containing “actually” operators, the weakest of which are conservative extensions of K, using a novel generalisation of the standard semantics.

Completeness and Decidability Results for Some Propositional Modal Logics Containing “Actually” Operators

Introduction 1. Things to explain 2. Matters of perspective 3. A theory of distinctively sensory content 4. Applications and extensions 5. Mental images 6. Pictures 7. More on pictures 8. Distinctively sensory records Conclusion References Index

Showing, Sensing, and Seeming: Distinctively Sensory Representations and their Contents

In [2], Smith seeks to show that ‘some of the problems faced by existing truthmaker theories can be solved’ by recognising that ‘when we make (true) contingent judgments, then we thereby . . . delineate corresponding truthmaking chunks of what is real’ [2, p. 274]. He offers an account of truthmaking which attends to the delineations made by those making contingently true judgments and claims that it avoids two problems afflicting other accounts of truthmaking. Here I present two difficulties for his account: the first is that, given an assumption made by Smith, his account avoids neither of the problems plaguing the other accounts; and the second is that, even without Smith’s assumption, his account suffers from one of the relevant faults. In what follows, ‘x’ and ‘y’ are variables ranging over contingently existing things and ‘ ’ and ‘ ’ are schematic letters standing in for one-place predicates applying to contingent existents. I also assume that necessarily, the mereological sum consisting of all and only the xs which exists just in case there is an x which s. Finally, ‘p entails q’ is equated with the necessity of p’s materially implying q (all necessitated conditionals occurring below are to be read as entailments).

Smith on Truthmakers

Visualizings, the simplest imaginings which employ visual imagery, have certain characteristic features; they are perspectival, for instance. Also, it seems that some but not all of our visualizings are imaginings of seeings. But it has been forcefully argued, for example by M.G.F. Martin and Christopher Peacocke, that all visualizings are imaginings of visual sensations. I block these arguments by providing an account of visualizings which allows for their perspectival nature and other features they typically have, but which also explains how we can visualize things without thereby imagining visual sensations.

Imagery, The Imagination and Experience

Williamson has argued against scepticism concerning our metaphysically modal knowledge, by arguing that standard patterns of suppositional reasoning to counterfactual conclusions provide reliable sources of correct ascriptions of possibility and necessity. The paper argues that, while Williamson’s claims relating to necessity may well be right, he has not provided adequate reasons for thinking that the familiar modes of counterfactual reasoning to which he points generalise to provide a decent route to ascriptions of possibility. The paper also explores another path to ascriptions of possibility that may be extracted from Williamson’s ideas, before briefly considering the general status of counterfactual reasoning in relation to our knowledge of possibilities.

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Dominic Gregory

Papers

Completeness and Decidability Results for Some Propositional Modal Logics Containing “Actually” Operators

Showing, Sensing, and Seeming: Distinctively Sensory Representations and their Contents

Smith on Truthmakers

Imagery, The Imagination and Experience

Counterfactual reasoning and knowledge of possibilities