Pieces of Mind: The Proper Domain of Psychological PredicatesPsychological terms are widely used to describe the biological world: plants, insects, bacteria colonies, even single cells are described as making decisions, anticipating rewards, and communicating with language. Carrie Figdor presents a comprehensive critical assessment of the interpretation of psychological terms across biological domains. She argues that we interpret these descriptions as literal claims about the capacities of such beings, and she argues against the anthropocentric attitude which takes human cognition as the standard for full-blooded capacities, to which nonhuman capacities are compared and found wanting. She offers an alternative view of what is required for a naturalistic explanation of the mind, and promotes finding a non-anthropocentric framework for determining distinctions in moral status. This is the first book to give a comprehensive theory of the interpretation of mental language throughout biology and to emphasize the role of mathematical modeling in the spread and revision of concepts. |
Contents
| 1 | |
Cases Qualitative Analogy | 12 |
Cases Quantitative Analogy | 31 |
Literalism An Initial Defense | 60 |
The Nonsense View | 89 |
The Metaphor View | 105 |
The Technical View | 129 |
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Common terms and phrases
activity animal cognition animals anthropocentric anthropomorphic argue ascribed bacteria basic behavior Bennett and Hacker biological brain Chapter claim classical conditioning cognitive capacities cognitive neuroscience computational consider construal contexts decision decision-making dehumanization discussed distinction empirical entities epistemic equations evidence example explanatory exsanguinated Exsanguinated Property fallacy fruit flies full-blooded functionalist Gentner homuncular functionalist homunculi humans and nonhumans inference Intentional Stance interpretation intuitive ion channels levels linguistic Literalist logical Lycan mathematical models meaning mechanistic explanation mental mereological Metaphor view metaphysical moral status neural neurons neuroscience neuroscientists Nonsense view objects OUP CORRECTED PROOF perspective Philosophy plants polysemes predation psycho psychological ascriptions psychological capacities psychological concepts psychological predicates psychological properties psychological terms qualitative analogy quantitative rational reason reference referential relations relevant response rotating scare quotes scientific scientists semantic sense sentence similarity social speciesism specific standard structure subpersonal TD model Technical view Technical-Behaviorist theory variant