| Description |
1 online resource |
| Contents |
Cover; Pieces of Mind: The Proper Domain of Psychological Predicates; Copyright; Dedication; Contents; Acknowledgments; 1: Introduction; 1.1 General Remarks; 1.2 Chapter Summaries; 1.3 Consciousness and Content; 2: Cases: Qualitative Analogy; 2.1 General Remarks; 2.2 Background to the Semantic Problem; 2.3 Qualitative Analogy: Plants; 2.4 Qualitative Analogy: Bacteria; 2.5 Concluding Remarks; 3: Cases: Quantitative Analogy; 3.1 General Remarks; 3.2 Models and Meaning: The Lotka-Volterra Model; 3.3 Quantitative Analogy: Fruit Flies and the DD Model |
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3.4 Quantitative Analogy: Neurons and the TD Model3.5 Concluding Remarks; 4: Literalism: An Initial Defense; 4.1 General Remarks; 4.2 Literalism Elaborated; 4.3 The Implicit Scare Quoter; 4.4 Concluding Remarks; 5: The Nonsense View; 5.1 General Remarks; 5.2 The Nonsense View; 5.3 The Literalist Responds; 5.4 Dennett and Searle Respond; 5.5 Concluding Remarks; 6: The Metaphor View; 6.1 General Remarks; 6.2 The Metaphor View; 6.3 The Literalist Responds: Motivation; 6.4 The Literalist Responds: Meaning; 6.5 Epistemic Metaphor; 6.6 Concluding Remarks; 7: The Technical View; 7.1 General Remarks |
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7.2 The First Variant: The Technical-Behaviorist7.3 The Literalist Responds to the First Variant; 7.4 The Second Variant: Exsanguinated Properties; 7.5 The Literalist Responds to the Second Variant; 7.6 Concluding Remarks; 8: Literalism and Mechanistic Explanation; 8.1 General Remarks; 8.2 Homuncular Functionalism and Mechanistic Explanation; 8.3 Seeking a Psychological Exception; 8.4 Discharging Discharging; 8.5 Concluding Remarks; 9: Literalism and Moral Status; 9.1 General Remarks; 9.2 Psychological Ascriptions and Moral Status; 9.3 The Short Term: Moral Status and Anthropomorphism |
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9.4 The Long Term: Moral Status and Anthropocentrism9.5 The Fear of Mechanistic Reduction; 9.6 Concluding Remarks; 10: Concluding Summary; Bibliography; Index |
| Summary |
Carrie Figdor presents a critical assessment of how psychological terms are used to describe the non-human biological world. She argues against the anthropocentric attitude which takes human cognition as the standard against which non-human capacities are measured, and offers an alternative basis for naturalistic explanation of the mind |
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"Psychological 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."-- Provided by publisher |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references and index |
| Notes |
Online resource; title from PDF title page (EBSCO, viewed May 2, 2018) |
| Subject |
Psychology -- Philosophy.
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Psychology -- Language
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Psycholinguistics.
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Biology -- Philosophy.
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Biology -- Language
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Brain -- Psychophysiology
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Psycholinguistics
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psycholinguistics.
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PSYCHOLOGY -- Reference.
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Psychology -- Language
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Psycholinguistics
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Biology -- Philosophy
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Biology -- Language
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Brain -- Psychophysiology
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Psychology -- Philosophy
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| Form |
Electronic book
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| ISBN |
9780192537348 |
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0192537342 |
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9780191846861 |
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0191846864 |
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