Showing papers in "Synthese in 1987"

Modelling collective belief

Abstract: What is it for a group to believe something? A summative account assumes that for a group to believe that p most members of the group must believe that p. Accounts of this type are commonly proposed in interpretation of everyday ascriptions of beliefs to groups. I argue that a nonsummative account corresponds better to our unexamined understanding of such ascriptions. In particular I propose what I refer to as the ‘joint acceptance’ model of group belief. I argue that group beliefs according to the joint acceptance model are important phenomena whose aetiology and development require investigation. There is an analogous phenomenon of social or group preference, which social choice theory tends to ignore.

Foundations of social epistemics

Abstract: A conception of social epistemology is articulated with links to studies of science and opinion in such disciplines as history, sociology, and political science. The conception is evaluative, though, rather than purely descriptive. Three types of evaluative approaches are examined but rejected: relativism, consensualism, and expertism. A fourth, truth-linked, approach to intellectual evaluation is then advocated: social procedures should be appraised by their propensity to foster true belief. Standards of evaluation in social epistemics would be much the same as those in individual epistemics, only the objects of evaluation would be interpersonal patterns of judgment and communication, and institutional practices that bear on opinion formation.

Knowledge, context, and social standards

Abstract: This paper defends the view that standards, which are typically social in nature, play a role in determining whether a subject has knowledge. While the argument focuses on standards that pertain to reasoning, I also consider whether there are similar standards for memory and perception.

Contemplation and happiness: A reconsideration

Abstract: When one considers Aristotle's contributions to ethical theory one might have in mind any of several different things. One might think of his contributions to the subsequent history of moral philosophy, from Hellenistic and Greek Christian times to the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, V i c t o r i a n England and nineteenth-century Germany, say. Or one might consider the ways in which his views have influenced recent and current work in moral philosophy, and ways in which they might further illuminate (or, as may be, darken) current discussions. A distinct third possibility, which I will be following in this paper, is to discuss Aristotle's contributions to ethical theory by addressing his ideas in a systematic way and in some detail on their own, looking for what is unique or specially distinctive about them, without special reference either to contemporary theory or to the ways in which his ideas were interpreted and put to use in the subsequent history of ethics. Along these lines, one could discuss his moral psychology his theory of the nature and function of human reason, how reason when used fully controls nonrational desires and evokes its own kind of motivation (\"rational wishes\", boulgseis in the Greek). Or one might consider his theory of what a moral virtue is, and the ways in which, and reasons why, he thinks such fairly comprehensive states of character, involving judgment, perception and feeling, must take precedence in a philosophical account of the moral life over any appeal to principles of moral behavior (rules or laws). Or one might think of Aristotle's views on the methods of ethics. Or his conception of practical knowledge, of what and how the fully virtuous person can legitimately lay claim to know (and so to be right, as opposed both to wrong and to neither right nor wrong) about how human beings ought to live. All these are aspects of Aristotle's moral philosophy that have recently and deservedly attracted the interest of philosophers and philosophically-minded scholars, and several of them are topics on

From information to intentionality

Abstract: Arabella believes that her cat, Glendower, wants to go out. Her belief has representational and semantic features. It is about Glendower; it represents him as wanting to go out, and it has truth conditions. Her belief also has causal and rationalizing powers. She opens the door because she believes Glendower wants to go out. If we think that Arabella and other believers are physical entities we are led to wonder how it is possible for a physical thing, whether it is composed of cells or micro chips, to have beliefs, desires and other propositional atti tudes. This is the problem of intentionality. It has proved to be a very difficult problem. The source of the difficulty is that intentional and semantic concepts, reference, truth conditions, meaning etc. make no appearance in biological or physical theory. Additionally, beliefs have a normative dimension. They are assessible as correct or incorrect, rational or irrational. But the descriptions which occur in physical theory apparently are nonnormative. How can states which not only can represent but also misrepresent be captured in physical theory? The challenge for a philosopher who holds that intentionality is part of the natural order is just this: To show how it can be that certain physical states are capable of representation and misrepresenta tion and then to show how such states enter into the causation of behavior.

Justification, sociality, and autonomy

Abstract: Theories of epistemically justified belief have long assumed individualism. In its extreme, or Lockean, form individualism rules out justified belief on testimony by insisting that a subject is justified in believing a proposition only if he or she possesses first-hand justification for it. The skeptical consequences of extreme individualism have led many to adopt a milder version, attributable to Hume, on which a subject is justified in believing a proposition only if he or she is justified in believing that there is testimony in favor of the proposition deriving from a reliable source. I argue that this Humean individualism also leads to skepticism in a wide range of cases; it makes it impossible for a layperson to be justified on expert testimony. In addition, I argue that the apparent motivation for the Humean view, an insistence on intellectual autonomy in justification, does not succeed in motivating it. I then explore the contours of a collectivist view of justification on testimony, with special attention to the place of a subject's intellectual autonomy in such justification. I try to bring empirical results of the psychology of persuasion to bear on the epistemological issues.

Mental representation from the bottom up

Abstract: Commonsense psychology and cognitive science both regularly assume the existence of representational states. I propose a naturalistic theory of representation sufficient to meet the pretheoretical constraints of a “folk theory of representation”, constraints including the capacities for accuracy and inaccuracy, selectivity of proper objects of representation, perspective, articulation, and “efficacy” or content-determined functionality. The proposed model states that a representing device is a device which changes state when information is received over multiple information channels originating at a single source. The changed state of a representing device is a representation. The unitary information source which would give rise to the information impinging on the representing device, and hence, give rise to the representation, is the content of the representation. The model meets the pretheoretic constraints, and also conforms to available neurobiological data for two invertebrate species.

On regulating what is known: A way to social epistemology

Abstract: This paper lays the groundwork for normative-yet-naturalistic social epistemology. I start by presenting two scenarios for the history of epistemology since Kant, one in which social epistemology is the natural outcome and the other in which it represents a not entirely satisfactory break with classical theories of knowledge. Next I argue that the current trend toward “naturalizing” epistemology threatens to destroy the distinctiveness of the sociological approach by presuming that it complements standard psychological and historical approaches. I then try to reassert, in Comtean fashion, the epistemologist's credentials in regulating knowledge production. Finally, I consider how social epistemology may have something exciting and relevant to say about contemporary debates in the theory of knowledge.

The rise and (surprisingly rapid) fall of psycholinguistics

Abstract: Psycholinguistics re-emerged in an almost explosive fashion during the 1950s and 1960s. It then underwent an equally abrupt decline as an independent sub-discipline. This paper charts this fall and identifies five general factors which, it is argued, were responsible for its demise. These are: (a) an uncompromisingly strong version of nativism; (b) a growing isolation of psycholinguistics from the body psychology; (c) a preference for formal theory over empirical data; (d) several abrupt modifications in the “Standard Theory” in linguistics; and (e) a failure to appreciate the strong commitment to functionalism that characterizes experimental psychology. In short, what looked like a revolution two decades ago turned out to be merely a local reformation that occurred along side of and largely independent from the real revolution in the cognitive sciences.

Relativism, naturalism and reticulation

Abstract: Gerald Doppelt's essay in the recent number of Synthese (69/2) poses a number of epistemic challenges to the theory of scientific change I sketched out in Science and Values. Chief among them is Doppelt's charge that my attempt to refute (Kuhnian) relativism, one of the central aims of that book, is a pyrrhic victory since even if I have disposed of the strong relativism of Kuhn in his more unguarded moments there is nonetheless a significant form of relativism which I am powerless to defeat, which indeed my view promulgates and presupposes. I believe that Doppelt's interesting essay usefully high lights some of the problems now faced by theorists of scientific change, and I intend to discuss it in those terms. But I might as well reveal part of my hand now by saying that I think Doppelt has missed the key argument in Science and Values against relativism; and because he has, most of his claims about my lack of resources for countering relativism must go by the board. If I am right about this, then Doppelt turns out to be attacking a straw man of his own invention. But, in the process of showing why Doppelt has missed the key argument against relativism, I think I can go some of the way to showing why relativists and non-relativists often seem to miss the force of one another's arguments. Such an exercise might prove of some modest aid in clarifying issues which both Doppelt and I take to be central to the theory of scientific rationality.

Personal and social knowledge

Abstract: This paper is an investigation of the relation between personal and social conditions of knowledge. A coherence theory of knowledge and justification is assumed, according to which incoming information is evaluated in terms of background information. The evaluation of incoming information in terms of background information is a higher order or metamental activity. Personal knowledge and justification is based on the coherent integration of individual information. Social knowledge and justification is based on the coherent aggregation of social information, that is, the information of individuals belonging to the social group. Personal justification and consensual justification are based upon personal and consensual probabilities respectively. Consensual and personal probabilities may differ, but under salient conditions personal probabilities will coincide with consensual probabilities and consensual probabilities will coincide with truth.

The emergence of psycholinguistics

Abstract: The interdisciplinary activity between psychology and linguistics, known as psycholinguistics, may offer a unique case study in integrat ing two sciences because parallel episodes of psycholinguistics emer ged independently and produced parallel topics and theories. One episode came around the turn of the century, primarily in Europe; the other came in the 1960s, primarily in the United States. They were mirror images of each other, as I hope to point out in this review. The two episodes the early and the recent psycholinguistics were separated by more than just a few decades; they were also separated by the behaviorist movement in the social sciences, by the shift of academic dominance from German to American universities, and by a lapse of contacts between European and American scholars in this field. All but our most recent histories of psychology (and all of our introductory textbooks) still reflect behaviorist and American inter pretations of psychology's past, an historical treatment of the field that left later psycholinguists unaware of the earlier psycholinguists whose work they duplicated. Thus the whims of history provide an opportunity to study an interdisciplinary activity that arose twice, independently, at different times and places. In making comparisons between the two we may find generalities about interdisciplinary activity that are independent of time, place, and culture. I will speak mostly about the early period of psycholinguistics, though I will draw comparisons with the later period which is the focus of Arthur Reber's paper following mine.

Gravitation as a universal force

Abstract: In his book Philosophie der Raum-Zeit-Lehre (1928) Reichenbach introduced the concept of “universal force”. Reichenbach's use of this concept was later severely criticized by Grunbaum. In this article it is argued that although Grunbaum's criticism is correct in an important respect, it misses part of Reichenbach's intentions. An attempt is made to clarify and defend Reichenbach's position, and to show that “universal force” is a useful notion in the physically important case of gravitation.

Some social features of cognition

Abstract: This paper describes and assesses a number of dispositions which are instrumental in allowing us to take on the opinions of others unselfconsciously. It is argued that these dispositions are in fact reliable in the environments in which they tend to come into play. In addition, it is argued that agents are, by their own lights, justified in the beliefs they arrive at as a result of these processes. Finally, these processes are argued to provide a basis for rejecting the claim that fixation of belief is radically holistic.

J. M. Keynes' ‘theory of evidential weight’: Its relation to information processing theory and application in The General Theory

Abstract: The conclusions derived by Keynes in his Treatise on Probability (1921) concerning induction, analogical reasoning, expectations formation and decision making, mirror and foreshadow the main conclusions of cognitive science and psychology.

The principle of charity and the problem of irrationality (translation and the problem of irrationality)

Abstract: Common formulations of the principle of charity in translation seem to undermine attributions of irrationality in social scientific accounts that are otherwise unexceptionable This I call “the problem of irrationality” Here I resolve the problem of irrationality by developing two complementary views of the principle of charity First, I develop the view (ill-developed in the literature at present) that the principle of charity is preparatory, being needed in the construction of provisional first-approximation translation manuals These serve as the basis for explanatory accounts and associated refinements in the translation manual In developing such explanatory accounts, the principle of charity is no longer constraining Thus, the principle of charity applies only in the early stages of constructing translation manuals, and there is no problem of irrationality in the later stages of constructing translation manuals Second, I reduce the principle of charity, where it does apply, to a special case of what I call “the principle of explicability”: so translate as to attribute explicable beliefs and practices to the speakers of the source-language I show that the appropriate formulation of the principle of charity counsels just what the principle of explicability requires in the early stages of social scientific investigation

Rationality and moral obligation

Abstract: Rationality is (“by definition,” as it were) a matter of seeking optimal (best available) resolutions to the problems we face in life. It consists in the intelligent pursuit of appropriate objectives. It impels us to act for the best. Does this mean that rationality requires people to be good? The relationship between morality and rationality has been debated since classical antiquity. In the course of these discussions, it has become clear that various fundamental distinctions are needed to deliberate sensibly about this issue. It is appropriate to begin by attending to some of them.

Faithful representation, physical extensive measurement theory and Archimedean axioms

Abstract: The formal methods of the representational theory of measurement (RTM) are applied to the extensive scales of physical science, with some modifications of interpretation and of formalism. The interpretative modification is in the direction of theoretical realism rather than the narrow empiricism which is characteristic of RTM. The formal issues concern the formal representational conditions which extensive scales should be assumed to satisfy; I argue in the physical case for conditions related to weak rather than strong extensive measurement, in the sense of Holman 1969 and Colonius 1978. The problem of justifying representational conditions is addressed in more detail than is customary in the RTM literature; this continues the study of the foundations of RTM begun in an earlier paper. The most important formal consequence of the present interpretation of physical extensive scales is that the basic existence and uniqueness properties of scales (representation theorem) may be derived without appeal to an Archimedean axiom; this parallels a conclusion drawn by Narens for representations of qualitative probability. It is concluded that there is no physical basis for postulation of an Archimedean axiom.

The not so happy story of the marriage of linguistics and psychology or why linguistics has discouraged psychology's recent advances

Abstract: Apparently, it is as rare in inquiry as it is in life for two admirers to rekindle a dying relationship. Linguistics and psychology have twice failed to sustain a lasting romance. Certainly, each shares some of the responsibility for these failures. In the first case, Arthur Blumenthal has discussed (here and elsewhere: see Blumenthal, 1970, 1975) how (academic) generations of empiricistic linguists and psychologists in the first half of this century permitted serious misrepresentation of Wundt's views generally, and suppression of his program of psy cholinguistic research in particular. In the more recent liason, however, Arthur Reber argues (see also Reber, 1973) that it is pri marily linguistics that has discouraged psychology's advances. Presumably, linguistics is particularly culpable, since it initiated the courtship this second time around. Chomsky, after all, has repeatedly asserted that he would "try to develop the study of linguistic structure as a chapter of human psychology" (Chomsky, 1972, p. 66). It is where Wundt's and Chomsky's views converge that is most central to understanding the emergence of psycholinguistics (the first time, the second time, or any time). I will briefly address those points of convergence first, ultimately suggesting that they constitute im portant contributions if not to the theoretical progress, then surely to the methodological progress of the relevant sciences. Then I will return to discuss at greater length some of the peculiar details of this second affair between linguistics and psychology, offering in the process a partial justification for contemporary linguistics' wanton ways. It is, first of all, certain negative claims on which Wundt and Chomsky concur. Both have directed devastating criticism against the associationism which has generally prevailed in the philosophy, psy chology, and linguistics of the last hundred years. Both have rejected claims that association, analogy, general learning strategies, inductive inference, or any other such process can suffice to account for either

Cognitive Science and the Problem of Semantic Content

Abstract: By ‘cognitive science’ I mean the branch of cognitive psychology that incorporates the computer model, and that is sometimes known as ‘computational psychology’ and ‘information-processing psychology’ as well. My remarks are directed particularly against the version of cognitive science defended in recent writings by Jerry Fodor. By ‘the problem of semantic content’ I mean roughly the problem of explicating those features of a brain state or process by virtue of which it may properly be said to possess meaning or reference or truth value. Since I am primarily concerned with the account of semantic content implicated in Fodor’s version of cognitive science, I shall summarize that account before attempting to formulate the problem in a more precise manner.

Some unswept debris from the Hart-Devlin debate

Abstract: On the question of which sorts of conduct the state can legitimately prohibit by means of the criminal law, H. L. A. Hart has been one of this century's leading advocates of the kind of position advanced by John Stuart Mill in the nineteenth century. That position, to which I shall refer by the overworked label \"liberalism\", is that the prevention of harm or offense to parties other than the actor is the only morally legitimate reason for a criminal prohibition. One important rival theory, often called \"legal moralism\", insists that it is also sometimes a legitimate reason in support of criminal statutes that they prevent actions that are inherently immoral, even if those actions cause no harm or offense to nonconsenting parties. Patrick Devlin defended legal moralism in his influential Maccabean Lecture at the British Academy in 1958, and thereby provoked a heavy barrage of criticism from liberal writers, including most prominently Hart himself. Then in 1965, Devlin fired the last shot in the \"Hart-Devlin debate\" by republishing his original lecture with the new title, 'Morals and the Criminal Law', additional footnotes replying to criticisms, and six new essays developing his views in more detail. 1 To a reader two decades later, Devlin's book has a strangely uneven quality. On the one hand, his responses to Hart's critical arguments often seem feeble and perfunctory. On the other hand, when he turns his attack against Hart's own views he argues with fresh vigor. Most present day readers will probably conclude that there is no salvaging Devlin's social disintegration thesis, his analogies to political subversion and treason, his conception of the nature of popular morality and how its deliverance is to be ascertained, or the skimpy place he allows to natural moral change. But he does argue forcibly against liberals on the grounds that their nonmoralistic theories cannot account for certain features of our present criminal law that they would presumably be unwilling to have changed. Those arguments deserve our respectful attention.

Kripke on functionalism and automata

Abstract: Saul Kripke has proposed an argument to show that there is a serious problem with many computational accounts of physical systems and with functionalist theories in the philosophy of mind. The problem with computational accounts is roughly that they provide no noncircular way to maintain that any particular function with an infinite domain is realized by any physical system, and functionalism has the similar problem because of the character of the functional systems that are supposed to be realized by organisms. This paper shows that the standard account of what it is for a physical system to compute a function can avoid Kripke's criticisms without being reduced to circularity; a very minor and natural elaboration of the standard account suffices to save both functionalist theories and computational accounts generally.

On some fundamental distinctions of computationalism

Abstract: The following paper presents a characterization of three distinctions fundamental to computationalism, viz., the distinction between analog and digital machines, representation and nonrepresentation-using systems, and direct and indirect perceptual processes. Each distinction is shown to rest on nothing more than the methodological principles which justify the explanatory framework of the special sciences.