Epistemic boundedness

Fodor defines epistemic boundedness as a condition wherein there are epistemi‐cally significant constraints on the beliefs that a mind is capable of entertaining. He discusses a type of (epistemic) boundedness wherein a hypothesis cannot be entertained because it is inexpressible in terms of the mind's stock of concepts. In addition to this semantic boundedness, I describe a number of different sources of boundedness having to do with syntactic, abductive, and implementational limitations. I also discuss the similarities and differences between individual and social limitations on our epistemic possibilities.     

文化心理学的基本内涵辨析

由于文化心理学刚刚兴起,概念尚未十分清晰,不同的学者对之有不同的看法。不过,不同学者看法中也有一些共同之处。他们基本上都认为文化心理学研究的是意义;心理与文化相互建构;文化心理学的研究方法与主流心理学不同,主要采用客位研究策略。综合各家之言和文化心理学的基本特点,可以把文化心理学界定为研究文化心理或文化行为的具有边缘或交叉性质的独立学科。     

How does a word become a message? An illustration on a developmental time-scale

Recent changes in views on cognition underscore its embodied, situated and distributed character. These changes are compatible with the conceptual framework of ecological psychology. However for ecological psychology to propose explanations for a broad range of cognitive phenomena, including language, it needs an account of how to link the dynamics of coupling between the organism and the environment with the apparent symbolicity of informational structures. In this paper it is proposed that a theory of information in biological systems, advocated by Howard Pattee, may help forge this link. By treating informational structures as constraints on dynamics this approach helps to identify which processes, in which systems and on what time-scales are needed for structures to ‘become messages’. I will illustrate how these processes might work on developmental time-scale in the domain of language, building on the work by Edward Reed (1995, 1996) and extending it using the view of linguistic structures as constraints.     

Lessons from Wittgenstein: Elucidating folk psychology

To the extent that psychologists are concerned to do more than collect raw data for possible interpretation, they cannot avoid interrogating the philosophical assumptions which inform their work. This paper argues that there is a vital need for conceptual clarification of many of the central topics studied by today's sciences of the mind. Yet, rather than offering a comprehensive survey of these, this paper focuses on one illustrative, high profile case: the way in which our everyday understanding of reasons for action has been wrongly categorized in terms of ‘theory of mind’ abilities. Focusing on this example I show how it is possible to elucidate topics in the philosophy of psychology by relinquishing certain powerful explanatory temptations and by attending more closely to our everyday practices and activities.     

Mind–brain identity and evidential insulation

Is it rational to believe that the mind is identical to the brain? Identity theorists say it is (or looks like it will be, once all the neuroscientific evidence is in), and they base this claim on a general epistemic route to belief in identity. I re-develop this general route and defend it against some objections. Then I discuss how rational belief in mind–brain identity, obtained via this route, can be threatened by an appropriately adjusted version of the anti-physicalist knowledge argument. Responses to this threat usually appeal either to different modes of presentation or to phenomenal concepts. But neither type of response is satisfactory. I provide a novel response, which appeals to an innocuous epistemic peculiarity of phenomenal states, namely their, as I shall call it, evidential insulation.     

中文语境下的“心理”和“心理学”

“心”或“心理”等词语在汉语中有相当长的历史,对这些词语的理解反映了中国人关于“心理”的认识。中文的“心”往往不是指一种身体器官而是指人的思想、意念、情感、性情等,故“心理学”这三个汉字有极大的包容性。任何学科都摆脱不了社会文化的作用,中国心理学亦曾受到意识形态、科学主义和大众常识等方面的影响。近年中国学者对心理学自身的问题进行了反思。从某种意义上说,中国人对“心理”和“心理学”的理解或许有助于心理学的整合,并与其他国家的心理学一道发展出真正的人类心理学     

Metaphilosophy of Mind: how Do Minds Investigate Minds? Refutation of the Theocentric View

I shall propose metaphilosophy of mind as the philosophy of mind investigating mind. That is to say, I pose the question of how knowledge of mind provided by cognitive science, broadly construed, is constrained by the epistemic position of the knower, i.e. by the very fact that it is undertaken by a mind. Here I would like to propose a minimal framework, based on two distinctions: (i) the standard one between empirical and conceptual analysis; (ii) a new one, between the internal questions of mind and the boundary questions of mind. I shall then combine these distinctions to arrive at several ways of investigating the mind, the brain and cognition. On this ground, I will discuss the notion of epistemological theocentrism as outlined by Henry Allison and argue against the perspective I call theocentric philosophy of mind. From this angle I will be able to address skepticism which cannot be defeated but actually can be, as I put it, disarmed. Finally, metaphilosophy of mind based on the abovementioned distinctions elicits a perspective that is not sufficiently delineated by cognitive scientists and philosophers: empirical way of addressing the boundary questions of mind.     

Pragmatic encroachment in accounts of epistemic excellence

Recently a number of philosophers have argued for a kind of encroachment of the practical into the epistemic. Fantl and McGrath, for example, argue that if a subject knows that p, then she is rational to act as if p (Fantl and McGrath, Phil Phenomenol Res LXXV(3):558–589 , 2007). In this paper I make a preliminary case for what we might call encroachment in, not knowledge or justification, but epistemic excellence, recent accounts of which include those of Roberts and Wood (Intellectual virtues: an essay in regulative epistemology, 2007), Bishop and Trout (Epistemology and the psychology of human judgment, 2005), and Baehr (The inquiring mind, 2011). I believe that practical considerations bear on whether a disposition is an epistemic excellence, and I propose a practical condition on epistemic excellence that is roughly analogous to the practical condition on knowledge proposed by Fantl and McGrath. Since the view is also an epistemic analogue to a kind of moral rationalism in ethics, we might also call it a variety of ‘epistemic rationalism’.     

Human Nature and Culture: An Evolutionary Psychological Perspective

Personality psychology is the broadest of all psychological subdisciplines in that it seeks a conceptually integrated understanding of both human nature and important individual differences. Cultural differences pose a unique set of problems for any comprehensive theory of personality—how can they be reconciled with universals of human nature on the one hand and within‐cultural variation on the other? Evolutionary psychology provides one set of conceptual tools by which this conceptual integration can be made. It requires jettisoning the false but still‐pervasive dichotomy of culture versus biology, acknowledging a universal human nature, and recognizing that the human mind contains many complex psychological mechanisms that are selectively activated, depending on cultural contexts. Culture rests on a foundation of evolved psychological mechanisms and cannot be understood without those mechanisms.     

本土心理学评析

西方主流心理学的客观主义倾向和缺乏文化敏感性直接导致了本土心理学的产生。心理学的本土化过程包括论题的本土化、概念和理论的本土化、方法学的本土化以及学科制度的本土化四个方面。本土心理学存在一定的局限性,只有将文化的特殊性和跨文化的相似性都纳入本土心理学的研究议程中,它才能更好地发展。     

Studying the specificity of spirituality: lessons from the psychology of religion

Psychological research on spirituality need not start from scratch: the psychology of religion provides substantial knowledge and experience that can be drawn on when psychologists want to do research on spirituality. Spirituality, while certainly not identical with religion or religiosity, is a human phenomenon to which many methodological insights from the study of religion may be applied, although it is also a domain where many mistakes from the history of the psychology of religion are likely to be repeated. After presenting some thoughts on the conceptualization of spirituality, and reflecting on the type of psychology required to do research on spirituality, the paper points out some hidden agenda's in the psychologies of religion and spirituality. Focusing on and keeping in mind the specificity of spiritual conduct, the paper discusses a number of practical aspects of empirical research on spirituality.     

Is there a problem with mathematical psychology in the eighteenth century? A fresh look at Kant's old argument

Common opinion ascribes to Immanuel Kant the view that psychology cannot become a science properly so called, because it cannot be mathematized. It is equally common to claim that this reflects the state of the art of his times; that the quantification of the mind was not achieved during the eighteenth century, while it was so during the nineteenth century; or that Kant's so-called "impossibility claim" was refuted by nineteenth-century developments, which in turn opened one path for psychology to become properly scientific. These opinions are often connected, but they are misguided nevertheless. In Part I, I show how the issue of a quantification of the mind was discussed before Kant, and I analyze the philosophical considerations both of pessimistic and optimistic authors. This debate reveals a certain progress, although it remains ultimately undecided. In Part II, I present actual examples of measuring the mind in the eighteenth century and analyze their presuppositions. Although these examples are limited in certain ways, the common view that there was no such measurement is wrong. In Part III, I show how Kant's notorious " impossibility claim" has to be viewed against its historical background. He not only accepts actual examples of a quantitative treatment of the mind, but also takes steps toward an explanation of their possibility. Thus, he does not advance the claim that the mind as such cannot be mathematized. His claim is directed against certain philosophical assumptions about the mind, assumptions shared by a then-dominating, strongly introspectionist conception of psychology. This conception did and could not provide an explanation of the possibility of quantifying the mind. In concluding, I reflect on how this case study helps to improve the dispute over when and why psychology became a science.     

What Can Feminist Epistemology Do for Surgery?

Surgery is an important part of contemporary health care, but currently much of surgery lacks a strong evidence base. Uptake of evidence‐based medicine (EBM) methods within surgical research and among practitioners has been slow compared with other areas of medicine. Although this is often viewed as arising from practical and cultural barriers, it also reflects a lack of epistemic fit between EBM research methods and surgical practice. In this paper we discuss some epistemic challenges in surgery relating to this lack of fit, and investigate how resources from feminist epistemology can help to characterize them. We point to ways in which these epistemic challenges may be addressed by gathering and disseminating evidence about what works in surgery using methods that are contextual, pluralistic, and sensitive to hierarchies.     

Critical reflections on second-generation mindfulness-based interventions

ObjectivesThe purpose of this paper is to provide a critical introduction on Second-Generation Mindfulness-Based Interventions (SG-MBIs) to sport and performance psychology scholars and practitioners.MethodThis essay is written as a commentary on Roychowdhury et al.’s, (2021, this issue) article in this issue. Specifically, I apply theoretical insights from Roychowdhury et al., (2021, this issue) to the practical model of SG-MBIs.ResultsI find that SG-MBIs attempt to respond to ethical concerns with the ways that mindfulness has been commodified, secularized, and universalized through appeals to cultural authenticity.DiscussionWhile acknowledging the cultural contexts from which practices like mindfulness have been taken is important, appeals to cultural authenticity often reproduce fixed and essentializing constructions of culture and are easily coopted by neoliberal multiculturalism.ConclusionAs sport and performance psychology professionals reflect on the next generation of mindfulness-based interventions, it will be important to attend to the contextual flexibility of neoliberalism to universalize and essentialize.     

Belief and contextual acceptance

I develop a strategy for representing epistemic states and epistemic changes that seeks to be sensitive to the difference between voluntary and involuntary aspects of our epistemic life, as well as to the role of pragmatic factors in epistemology. The model relies on a particular understanding of the distinction between full belief and acceptance, which makes room for the idea that our reasoning on both practical and theoretical matters typically proceeds in a contextual way. Within this framework, I discuss how agents can rationally shift their credal probability functions so as to consciously modify some of their contextual acceptances; the present account also allows us to represent how the very set of contexts evolves. Voluntary credal shifts, in turn, might provoke changes in the agent’s beliefs, but I show that this is actually a side effect of performing multiple adjustments in the total lot of the agent’s acceptance sets. In this way we obtain a model that preserves many pre-theoretical intuitions about what counts as adequate rationality constraints on our actual practices—and hence about what counts as an adequate, normative epistemological perspective.     

文化心理学的启示意义及其发展趋势

心理学的研究对象乃是一种文化现象,是与人类文化互相创生发展的过程。心理学研究对象的独特性质决定着,心理学研究不可能脱离具体的文化背景。文化心理学的兴起适时地满足了当代心理学发展的要求。作为心理学研究的一种重要视角,文化心理学蕴涵着对心理学的研究对象、研究方法、研究目标及学科性质的独特理解。由于文化心理学兴起的时间较短,它必然还要不断吸取各种养分,实现内部取向的不断整合,提出更加明确的研究纲领。     

Being a Foreigner in Philosophy: A Taxonomy

The question of diversity, both with regard to the demographic profile of philosophers as well as the content of philosophical inquiry, has received much attention in recent years. One figure that has gone relatively unnoticed is that of the foreigner. To the extent that philosophers have taken the foreigner as their object of inquiry, they have focused largely on challenges nonnative speakers of English face in a profession conducted predominantly in English. Yet an understanding of the foreigner in terms of the nonnative speaker does not exhaust the conceptual space of the foreigner. This article provides a more nuanced conceptual apparatus that allows for a more precise identification and discussion of other ways in which one can be a foreigner in philosophy. I develop a taxonomy of different conceptions of the foreigner, namely the linguistic, material, cultural, and epistemic foreigner; I discuss the different and specific challenges they face; and I show how foreigners enrich philosophical practice.     

Developing a Cultural Theory of Mind: The CIAO Approach

The study of children's knowledge about minds is an extremely active area of developmental psychology. This article discusses the reach of this research and the theoretical views guiding it. It then presents some cultural variations (within the United States) in behavior explanation and explains the relevance of that variation to developmental theory. A theory ofearly mind reading that is presented incorporates culture, introspection, analogy, and ontogeny (CIAO).     

“The Thing Happened as He Wished”: Recovering an American Indian Cultural Psychology

One of the chief questions confronting mental health professionals who serve American Indian communities is how best to offer genuinely helpful services that do not simultaneously and surreptitiously reproduce colonial power relations. To ensure that counselors and therapists do not engage in psy‐colonization, it is crucial to recognize the sometimes divergent cultural foundations of mental distress, disorder, and well‐being in “Indian Country.” In this article, I will consider four excerpts from a research interview undertaken among my own people, the Aaniiih Gros Ventres of north‐central Montana. At a superficial level, these excerpts seem to reinforce reigning sensibilities that are readily familiar within the mental health professions. And yet, closer analysis of these interview excerpts reveals several tantalizing facets of an indigenous cultural psychology that may well continue to shape life and experience among tribal members in this setting. I recover this distinctive cultural psychology through archival representations of cultural and community life, including analysis of an important tribal myth. This analysis makes possible an alterNative interpretation of these interview excerpts, grounded in an aboriginal cosmology, that yields important implications for conceiving a more inclusive knowledge base for psychology that only robust community engagement can reveal.     

建立心理学学科门类及学位类别的分析与展望

摘 要 为了促进中国本土化心理学体系建设和心理学学科的整体发展,从中国与发达国家心理学学科管理制度的比较中发现中国心理学学科归属所存在的问题,并在反思中探讨形成问题的原因。通过心理学在现有学科归属中的局限性,心理学成为独立学科门类的可能性,心理学成为独立学科门类后学科新体系的系统性,心理学成为独立学科门类的社会性四个方面的分析与讨论,研究了使心理学成为独立学科门类与学位类别的必要性与可行性。特别是从建设和谐社会的角度对心理学的学科归属、心理学的未来发展、现代社会发展及心理学与其它学科的广泛联系等需要的讨论中,指出中国心理学在专业设置方面隶属于理学和教育学的不足之处,认为这种隶属关系将会制约心理学的发展和学科成熟。提出应该在现有学位体系中增加心理学学科门类与学位类别,使心理学作为一个与理学和教育学并列的独立学科门类。通过改进学位体系让心理学在更大的学科背景中,建设中国本土心理学自身体系,使心理学研究方法更加多样化,为产生众多边缘学科和更好地发挥社会应用功能创造条件,也为今后心理学发展带来许多发展机遇,并在此基础上为展望心理学未来发展提供新的视角。