An AI Revival?
An interesting story in the NYT . I wonder what would happen if they gave Watson a huge corpus of philosophy texts. Would human philosophers be out of business?
How Do You Define Connectionism, and How Do You Relate Connectionism to Associationism?
Some people, usually classicists, stress assimilate connectionism to associationism. They do have a point: “connectionism” was historically introduced and popularized by authors, such as Thorndike and Hebb, who were closely linked to associationism. But as I explain in a recent review article it seems to me that the assimilation of connectionism to …
Philosophers' Carnival #109
Here.
Experiment Month Initiative
The Experiment Month initiative, run by Yale Cognitive Science and funded by the APA, is a program designed to help philosophers, who would not otherwise be able to, conduct experimental studies. Those interested in suggesting experiments can send their study proposals to the Experiment Month staff. A team of philosophers …
Reading Group
Hi Brainers. I’m writing to again promote an online reading group. The last one, which was on Daniel Hutto’s “Folk Psychological Narratives,” was a fantastic success, and we’d like to continue doing such groups. The new subject is Tad Zawidzki’s manuscript, “Mindshaping: Linchpin of the Human Socio-Cognitive Syndrome,” which is …
Shameless Plug: The Southern Journal of Philosophy
After a wayward few years, The Southern Journal of Philosophy has recently been overhauled: new look, new editorial board, new publisher, online back catalog, improved standards, fully online submission and review process, etc. Now under the imprint of Wiley-Blackwell, the SJP continues its nearly 50-year tradition of pluralism by publishing …
Fodorian Philosophy of Psychology
The following six theses characterize what I will call Fodorian Philosophy of Psychology (FPP, for short): There are psychological laws Psychological laws are required for psychological explanations Predicates used to express scientific laws pick out genuine properties Genuine properties are properties that ground causal relations Psychological properties are functional properties …