Anthology: Philosophy of Cognitive Science

I published the anthology Philosophy of Mind: Classical and Contemporary Readings with Oxford University Press in 2002.  In preparing that anthology, it proved impossible to do justice to the philosophy of cognitive science, which has become a huge field in its own right.  So that volume concentrated on relatively traditional philosophy of mind, and in the introduction I promised an eventual companion anthology on the philosophy of cognitive science.  Those promises catch up with one, and the press thinks it's time for the new anthology.  So Tim Bayne and I have put together a proposal.

The proposed table of contents is below.  Note that this list is extremely tentative: it hasn't yet been through the review process for the press, and we haven't yet sought permission to reprint any of the articles.  So the final product may look significantly different.  We have aimed for good coverage of many different areas of the philosophy of cognitive science, including both traditional areas of the field and recently active areas.  We've also aimed for a fairly even mix of articles by philosophers and articles by scientists on foundational topics.  Note that one constraint was that the anthology shouldn't overlap with the other anthology, so it doesn't include any of those articles (contents here) and more generally doesn't aim for extensive coverage of traditional philosophy of mind.  Another constraint is that the anthology probably can't be any longer than this (11 sections with 6 articles per section).

At this point we are looking for feedback on the proposal.  It would be especially useful to get feedback from people who teach courses in the philosophy of cognitive science (or related topics such as the philosophy of psychology/AI/neuroscience) about what would be desirable for a collection to be used in those courses.  But all thoughts are welcome, including suggestions about other papers that might be included, about the balance of coverage, and so on.  Feel free to comment either here or by e-mail.

Philosophy of Cognitive Science: Classical and Contemporary Readings

David Chalmers and Tim Bayne, editors.

Proposed Table of Contents.

A. History

1. Descartes, R. 1664. Treatise on Man. In J. Cottingham, R. Stoothoff and D. Murdoch (eds.) The Philosophical Writings of Descartes (Vol. 1). CUP.

2. Hume, D. 1739/1740. A Treatise of Human Nature, Book 1, Part 1. OUP. 

3. James, W. 1890. The stream of thought.  From Principles of Psychology.

4. Watson, J.B. 1913. Psychology as the behaviorist views it. Psychological Review, 20: 158-177.

5. Skinner, B.F. 1953. Selections from Science and Human Behavior. Macmillan Free Press.

6. Chomsky, N. 1959. A Review of BF Skinner's Verbal Behavior. Language, 35, No. 1: 26-58.

B. Foundations

1. Cummins, R. 2000. "How does it work?" vs. "What are the laws?" Two conceptions of psychological explanation. In F. Keil and R. Wilson (eds), Explanation and Cognition, MIT Press, pp. 117-145.

2. Pylyshyn, Z.W. 1987. What's in a mind? Synthese 70:97-122.

3. Marr, D. 1982. Levels of explanation,. From Vision (Chapter 1, The philosophy and the approach). New York: W.H. Freeman and Co., pp. 19-28.

4. Lycan, W. 1987. Homuncular functionalism. From Consciousness (Chapter 4, The continuity of levels of nature). In Consciousness. MIT Press.

5. Haugeland, J. 1991. Representational genera. In W. Ramsey, S.P. Stich, & D.E. Rumelhart (eds)    Philosophy and Connectionist Theory (pp. 61-89).

6. Something on reduction.

C. Artificial Intelligence and Computation

1. Turing, A.M. 1950. Computing machinery and intelligence. Mind 59:433-60.

2. Newell, A. and Simon, H. 1976. Computer Science as empirical inquiry: Symbols and Search. Communications of the ACM 19:113-26

3. Searle, J.R. 1981. Minds, brains, and programs. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 3: 417-57.

4. Block, N. 1990. The computer model of the mind, In D. Osherson and E. Smith (Eds) Thinking: An Invitation to Cognitive Science. Vol. 3. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

5. Hofstadter, D.R. 1985. Waking up from the Boolean dream. From Metamagical Themas. New York: Basic Books.

6. Dennett, D. 1984. Cognitive wheels: the frame problem of AI.  In C. Hookway (ed) Minds, Machines and Evolution, CUP: 129-51.

D. Cognitive architecture

1. Churchland, P. and Sejnowski, T. 1989. Neural representation and neural computation. In L. Nadel, L. Cooper, P. Culicover and R.M. Harnish (eds) Neural Connections, Mental Computations, MIT Press (section three onward ).

2. Fodor, J.A. 1987. Why there still has to be a language of thought. Psychosemantics. Cambridge: MA: MIT.

3. van Gelder, T. 1995. What might cognition be, if not computation? Journal of Philosophy, 91: 345-81.

4. Brooks, Rodney A. 1991. Intelligence without representation. Artificial Intelligence, 47(1-3): 139-159.

5. Clark, A. 1997. The dynamical challenge. Cognitive Science 21: 461-81.

6. Fodor, J.A. 1990. Precis of The Modularity of Mind. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 8: 1-5.

E. Neuroscience

1. Lashley, K. 1950. In search of the engram. Soc. Exp. Biol., 1950, 4: 454-482.

2. Bechtel, W. & Mundale, J. 1999. Multiple realizability revisited: Linking cognitive and neural states. Philosophy of Science 66: 175-207.

3. Stoljar, D. and Gold, I. 1998. On Biological and Cognitive Neuroscience, Mind and Language, 13/1: 110-131.

4. Henson, R. in press. What can neuroimaging tell the experimental psychologist? Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology.

5. Coltheart, M. 2001. Assumptions and methods in Cognitive Neuropsychology. In B. Rapp (Ed.). Handbook of Cognitive Neuropsychology. Philadelphia: Psychology Press.

6. Bickle, J. in press. Reducing mind to molecular pathways. Synthese.

F. Theory of mind

1. Gordon, R.M. 1986. Folk psychology as simulation. Mind and Language 1: 158-71.

2. Stich, S.P. & Nichols, S. 1996. Mental simulation versus tacit theory. In S. Stich Deconstructing the Mind, Oxford: OUP, 136-67.

3. Gopnik, A. & Wellman, H. 1992. Why the child's theory of mind really is a theory. Mind and Language, 7:145-171.

4. Gallese, V. & Goldman, A. 1998. Mirror neurons and the simulation theory of mindreading, Trends in the Cognitive Sciences, 12/2: 493-502.

5. Nisbett, R. E., & Wilson, T. D. 1977. Telling more than we can know: Verbal reports on mental processes. Psychological Review, 84: 231-259.

6. Povinelli, D.J. & Vonk, J. 2003. Chimpanzee minds: Suspiciously human? Trends in the Cognitive Sciences, 7, 157-160.

G. Consciousness

1. Chalmers, D. 2004. How can we construct a science of consciousness? In M. Gazzaniga (ed.), The Cognitive Neurosciences III. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

2. Dennett, Daniel C. 1991. Multiple drafts versus the Cartesian Theatre. In Consciousness Explained. Boston, MA: Little, Brown & Co.

3. Churchland, P.S. 1994. What can neurobiology tell us about consciousness? In Proceedings and Addresses of the APA.

4. Crick, F. & Koch, C. 1998. Consciousness and neuroscience. Cerebral Cortex 8: 97-107.

5. Block, N. 1998. How not to find the neural correlate of consciousness.  In A. O'Hear (ed.) Royal Institute of Philosophy, Supplement: 43, pp. 23-34.

6. Palmer, S. 1999. Color, consciousness, and the isomorphism constraint. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 22 (6): 1-21.

H. Concepts

1. Wittgenstein. L. 1953. Selections from Philosophical Investigations (sections 65-76)

2.Rosch, E. 1978. Principles of categorization. In E. Rosch & B. Lloyd (eds) Cognition and Categorization. Lawrence Erlbaum.

3. Armstrong, S.L., Gleitman, L.R., and Gleitman, H. 1983. What some concepts might not be. Cognition, 13: 263-308.

4. Millikan, R. 1998. A common structure for concepts of individuals, stuffs, and real kinds: More mama, more milk, and more mouse. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 21(1): 55-65.

5. Peacocke, C. 1996. Precis of A Study of Concepts. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 56: 407-11.

6. Fodor, J. 1994. Concepts: A potboiler. Cognition, 50: 95-113.

I. Perception

1. Gibson, J. J. 1972. A theory of direct visual perception. In J. Royce, W. Rozenboom (Eds.). The Psychology of Knowing. New York: Gordon & Breach.

2. Rock, I. 1982. Inference in perception, PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association, Volume 2: 525-40. 

3. Marr, D. 1982. Vision (pp. 29-38). MIT Press.

4. Akins, K. 1996. Of sensory systems and the "aboutness" of mental states. Journal of Philosophy, 91: 337-72.

5. Milner, A.D. & Goodale, M.A. 1998. The functions of vision. Psyche, 4/12.

6. Noe, A. & O'Regan, J.K. 2002. On the brain basis of visual consciousness: a sensorimotor account. In A. Noe & E. Thompson (eds.) Vision and Mind: Selected Readings in the Philosophy of Perception. Cambridge: MA: MIT Press.

J. Evolution and Innateness

1. Chomsky, N. 1987. On the nature, use and acquisition of language. In N. Chomsky, Generative Grammar, Kyoto University of Foreign Studies.

2. Pinker, S. and Bloom, P. 1990 Natural language and natural selection. Behavioural and Brain Sciences, 13 (4): 707-784.

3. Bates, E., Elman, J., Johnson, M., Karmiloff-Smith, A., Parisi, D., & Plunkett, K. 1999. Innateness and emergence,. In (Bechtel & Graham, eds) Companion to Cognitive Science. Blackwell.

4. Cosmides, L. & Tooby, J. 1997. Evolutionary psychology: A primer. http://www.psych.ucsb.edu/research/cep/primer.html.

5. Gould, S. J. 1997. Evolution: The pleasures of pluralism. New York Review of Books, 44/11: 47-52. (second half)

6. Spelke, E. 1994. Initial knowledge: Six suggestions. Cognition, 50: 431-45.

K. Miscellaneous

1. Wegner, D. 2003. The minds best trick: How we experience conscious will. Trends in Cognitive Science, 7/2: 65-69.

2. Griffiths, P.E. 1990. Modularity and the psychoevolutionary theory of emotion. Biology & Philosophy 5: 175-196.

3. Hardcastle, VG. 2001. The nature of pain. In W. Bechtel, P. Mandik, J. Mundale, and R. S. Stufflebeam (Eds) Philosophy and the Neurosciences: A Reader. Basil Blackwell.

4. Samuels, S., Stich, S. & Tremoulet, P. 1999. Rethinking rationality: From bleak implications to Darwinian modules, In E. Lepore & Pylyshyn (eds) What is Cognitive Science?, pp. 74-120 (or excerpt). Blackwell.

5. Bermudez, J.L. 1999. Precis of The Paradox of Self-Consciousness. PSYCOLOQUY 10(35).

6. Farah, M.J. 2002. Emerging ethical issues in neuroscience. Nature Neuroscience 5:1123-1129.

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Comments

[Patrick]

What about the last two chapters of Fodor's book "The Mind Doesn't Work that Way?"

I found them to be pretty helpful.

[M.]

Pretty good choices but for one thing. By some standards, linguistics is the most advanced branch of cog. sci (next to perception maybe), but it does not get a lot of attention in this collection. The two Chomsky pieces are of course alright, but what about some more stuff? Saying this, I personally can't think of works that really sum up what linguists are thinking and what has been achieved.

[Steven Gross]

Small typo: R. Samuels, not S. Samuels, in 3rd from the bottom.

[Edouard Machery]

The choice seems to be very reasonable--most of the classical papers I would have thought of were there.
A couple of points though:

1/ On concepts, instead of Peacocke which has little to do with the philosophy of cognitive science, I would have put one or two of the four papers:
Medin and Shaffer 1978, Psych. Review. The introduction of the exemplar view.
Nosofsky 86. The introduction of the generalized context model--which is the most used exemplar model in psychology of visual categorization.
Murphy and MEdin 1985, Psych. Rev. The introduction of the theory view.
Medin 1989. A famous review of the main views in psych at the end of the 80s.

2/ There is only one paper dedicated to decision making (samuels et al.). The issue deserve a full section. And the choice of paper is pretty obvious:
- something from Meehl on the comparison between actuarial and intuitive decision making (for example his review in 86)
- something from Kahneman and Tversky (=e.g., 82 review in their 82 anthology)
- something from Gigerenzer: ex: either the paper with Goldstein in 96 in psych rev or the paper in 2002 with the same Goldstein in psych rev.
- maybe something from Dawnes on the tally rule in decision making.

3/ Innateness:
2 papers could be added:
Griffiths 200? arguing that the concept of innateness covers different ideas that are loosely connected.
Samuels 2004 in TICS where he presents the primitivist view of innateness.

4/ In the last section (miscalleneous), it would be nice to add one of Meehl's papers on the meaning of psychological variables--the type of variables that questionnaires in psychology are supposed to evaluate. This is philosophy of psychology at its best.

If you have any interest in these papers, and do not know the exact reference, let me know and I'll find them for you.
Edouard

[djc]

Thanks for the helpful comments, both here and by e-mail. Anyone got any ideas about a piece on reduction for the section on foundations? Fodor's "Special Sciences" would be ideal, but it's in the philosophy of mind volume. It would be handy to have a piece that gives some sort of overview of issues about the identity theory, multiple realization, etc, as well as getting into issues about theory reduction.

[Philip Robbins]

This looks great overall. However I agree with Edouard that there are better choices than Peacocke for the concepts section. And there are some topics that would be nice either to expand or touch on.

1. The relation between language and thought (Whorf, etc.). There are good reviews of this area to be found in the introductory essay in Carruthers & Boucher's LANGUAGE AND THOUGHT (1998), also in Carruthers 2002 (BBS paper "The cognitive functions of language").

2. The frame problem. Maybe add Lormand's "Framing the frame problem"?

3. Rationality and emotion. It would be nice to have something by Damasio here; perhaps an excerpt from DESCARTES' ERROR (1994), since that's been incredibly influential.

4. Self-consciousness. Maybe add Gopnik's 1993 BBS paper ("How we know our own minds"). Nichols & Stich 2002 ("How to read your own mind", in Smith & Jokic, ASPECTS OF CONSCIOUSNESS) is another possibility.

5. Situated approaches to cognition. Perhaps Clark's 2001 "Millennial" essay in MIND & LANGUAGE (2001) -- "Reasons, robots, and the situated mind".

6. Cognitive architecture. More on modularity! How about adding Sperber's "The modularity of thought" after the Fodor precis of MoM?

7. Evolution and innateness. Shouldn't Samuels, Stich & Tremoulet 1999 go here, rather than in miscellaneous? Likewise with Griffiths' paper on emotion.

[marc moffett]

It might also be worth considering something from the recent work in cognitive linguistics. Perhaps something from Leonard Talmy, George Lakoff, or (on the more philosophical side) Peter Gardenfors.

[Curtis Brown]

For "something on reduction," one possibility might be something by Kim. Best for this purpose might be the final chapter of _Philosophy of Mind_; other possibilities include the last chapter of _Mind in a Physical World_ or essay 16, "Multiple Realization and the Metaphysics of Reduction," in _Supervenience and Mind_.

[DCT]

As Curtis (above) writes, ch4 of 'Mind In A Physical World' might be good for Reduction.

[djc]

Thanks. "Multiple Realization and the Metaphysics of Reduction" is already included in the philosophy of mind volume. For this volume, I'm hoping for something that has more of a cognitive-science orientation, while still covering the philosophical bases.

[jelle van dijk]

As for the paper on reduction, Paul Churchland wrote a nice introductionary book that we used as students in cognitive science (matter and consciousness?), of which the second chapter discusses: dualism, identity theory (reductive materialism), philosophical behaviorism, functionalism , and, of course, closing up with eliminative materialism. Is that what you mean?

Another paper I would recommend is a paper by Tom Ziemke et al, in a special issue on Von Uexkull (don't remember the journal, can look it up for you). Ziemke has fundamental things to say about the claimed importance of embodiment, and links biologically oriented work with Brooks' robotics. Now I come to think of it, I also miss Randall Beer? And what about Varela (& Maturana)?

[Tobias Schlicht]

Nice. But what about the whole recent development of embodied enactive embedded cognition, e.g. papers by Varela, Thompson, Noe, Gallagher, or Wheeler? - And Phenomenological/embodied approaches are especially underrepresented in the chapter on Theory of Mind. - The papers by Searle, Turing and the selection from Marr's vision have been reprinted like a 100 times elsewhere.
Good luck!