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    There may be no psychological natural kinds corresponding... — Carmelics
    Home/Philosophy of Language
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    There may be no psychological natural kinds corresponding to folk psychological concepts such as belief and desire

    Consciousness & MindPhilosophy of Language
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    2 reasons for
    1 reason against

    Reasons For

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    Reason for 1 of 2
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    • 1.Folk psychological categories like 'belief' are defined by functional roles that cross-cut neural taxonomy in ways that resist systematic reduction (Fodor 1974).
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    • 2.If the extensions of folk psychological predicates are heterogeneous at every lower level of description, no single natural kind corresponds to them (cf. multiple realizability).
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    • 3.Sciences carve nature at joints defined by inductive projectibility; folk psychological predicates fail to support exceptionless, ceteris-paribus-free generalizations (Churchland 1981).
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    Reason for 2 of 2
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    • 1.Eliminative materialism holds that folk psychology is a radically false theory whose ontology will not survive mature neuroscientific revision (Paul Churchland, 'Eliminative Materialism,' 1981).
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    • 2.Causal overdetermination by neurophysiological kinds does not vindicate folk kinds—it shows folk kinds are explanatorily idle posits that track no discrete causal structure.
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    • 3.A kind earns realist status only when it sustains novel predictions; folk psychological kinds systematically fail this criterion, as Ramsey, Stich, and Garon argue regarding connectionist models (1991).
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    Reasons Against

    1 perspective
    Reason against
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    • 1.Action is causally overdetermined by both mental and neurophysiological kinds
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    • 2.If neuroscience can provide a sufficient causal account of action, the explanatory role of folk psychological concepts is undermined
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    Topics

    Philosophy of LanguageConsciousness & Mind

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    Related

    A kind earns realist status only when it sustains novel predictions; folk psycho...Action is causally overdetermined by both mental and neurophysiological kindsCausal overdetermination by neurophysiological kinds does not vindicate folk kin...Eliminative materialism holds that folk psychology is a radically false theory w...
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    Folk psychological categories like 'belief' are defined by functional roles that...If neuroscience can provide a sufficient causal account of action, the explanato...If the extensions of folk psychological predicates are heterogeneous at every lo...Sciences carve nature at joints defined by inductive projectibility; folk psycho...

    Similar

    Folk psychology contains terms such as 'sensation', 'perceive', 'belie...81%Folk psychological terms such as 'sensation', 'perceive', 'belief', 'd...78%Words for colors, smells, sounds, and tastes also appear in folk psych...77%Folk psychology offers a wide variety of nondoxastic attitudes such as...77%

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    AI-extracted1/3 agreementValid
    SEP: natural-kinds
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    Our interest in natural kinds is generated by the fact that the particular sciences make frequent use of what, on the face of it, seem to be natural kinds. So an important question is whether the kinds of the special sciences (e.g. psychology, economics, biology, chemistry and so on) do in fact satisfy the conditions laid out by metaphysicians for natural-kindhood (Fodor 1974; Dupré 1981, 1993; Millikan 1999; Ellis 2001). And to the extent that they do not, does that show that these kinds are no
    Extraction notes

    Validity: Extracted via Max plan + API grounding/validity checks

    Details

    Type
    claim
    Perspectives
    3 (2 for, 1 against)
    Edits
    1 edit