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Routledge Contemporary Introductions to Philosophy
Philosophy of Psychology: A Contemporary Introduction
José Luis Bermúdez introduces the philosophy of psychology as an interdisciplinary exploration of the nature and mechanisms of cognition. Philosophy of Psychology charts out four influential 'pictures of the mind' and uses them to explore central topics in the philosophical foundations of psychology, including the relation between different levels of studying the mind/brain; the nature and scope of psychological explanation; the architecture of cognition; and the relation between thought and language. Chapters cover all the core concepts, Philosophy of A Contemporary Introduction is a very clear and well-structured textbook from one of the leaders in the field.
392 pages, Paperback
First published February 2, 1995
About the author
José Luis Bermúdez
25 books18 followersJosé Luis Bermúdez is Professor of Philosophy at Texas A&M University, where he previously served as Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and as Associate Provost for Strategic Planning. Before joining Texas A&M in 2010 he was Professor of Philosophy, Director of the Center for Programs in Arts and Sciences, and Director of the Philosophy-Neuroscience-Psychology Program at Washington University in St. Louis.
Dr. Bermúdez has more than 100 publications, including five single-author books and six edited volumes. His research interests are interdisciplinary in nature at the intersection of philosophy, psychology, and neuroscience. His first book, The Paradox of Self-Consciousness (MIT Press, 1998) analyzed the nature of self-awareness. Thinking without Words (Oxford UP, 2003) offered a model for thinking about the cognitive achievements and abilities of prelinguistic infants an nonlinguistiuc humans. Decision Theory and Rationality (Oxford UP, 2009) explores tensions in how the concept of rationality is defined and formalized in different academic disciplines. The second edition of his textbook Cognitive Science: An Introduction to the Science of the Mind was published by Cambridge University Press in March 2014. He is the editor of the New Problems in Philosophy book series, published by Routledge. Dr Bermudez is currently completing a book on the first person in language and thought, in addition to papers in the philosophy of mind and the theory of rationality.
Dr. Bermúdez has more than 100 publications, including five single-author books and six edited volumes. His research interests are interdisciplinary in nature at the intersection of philosophy, psychology, and neuroscience. His first book, The Paradox of Self-Consciousness (MIT Press, 1998) analyzed the nature of self-awareness. Thinking without Words (Oxford UP, 2003) offered a model for thinking about the cognitive achievements and abilities of prelinguistic infants an nonlinguistiuc humans. Decision Theory and Rationality (Oxford UP, 2009) explores tensions in how the concept of rationality is defined and formalized in different academic disciplines. The second edition of his textbook Cognitive Science: An Introduction to the Science of the Mind was published by Cambridge University Press in March 2014. He is the editor of the New Problems in Philosophy book series, published by Routledge. Dr Bermudez is currently completing a book on the first person in language and thought, in addition to papers in the philosophy of mind and the theory of rationality.
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February 4, 2022
É um excelente livro introdutório sobre a área. Bermúdez define a filosofia da psicologia como: “[...] the branch of philosophy focused primarily on the nature and mechanisms of cognition”.
O cap. 1 é essencial como pano de fundo para todas as principais discussões da área. Destaca-se como os filósofos da psicologia estão interessados no que denominaram de "níveis de análise" e suas implicações para a investigação científica da cognição. As teorias científicas da cognição, normalmente, adotam uma de duas posturas metodológicas. Uma postura bottom-up, isto é, partindo das mais básicas estruturas moleculares dos neurônios individuais até processos cerebrais e psicológicos (reducionismo clássico). Ou, então, uma postura top-down, isto é, desenvolvendo uma teoria geral da cognição e procurando analisar como essa mente é realizada fisicamente.
Talvez um dos exemplos mais paradigmáticos sobre a investigação dos "níveis" de análise da mente esteja presente na teoria computacional da visão de Marr. Ele distingue os níveis em (i) computacional; (ii) algorítmico; e (iii) implementacional. Bermúdez explica essa teoria e a usa como exemplo em diversas ocasiões do livro.
Ele também aproveita para introduzir distinções importantes, frequentemente utilizadas na literatura, como a distinção entre processos modulares e não-modulares; níveis pessoais e subpessoais de cognição, dentre outros.
Juntamente com questões sobre os níveis de investigação, e talvez como consequência, um segundo problema central na filosofia da psicologia é o "problema da interface":
"How does commonsense psychological explanation interface with the explanations of cognition and mental operations given by scientific psychology, cognitive science, cognitive neuroscience and the other levels in the explanatory hierarchy?" (p. 35).
Sinceramente, esse problema me parece uma reatualização do problema mente-corpo em termos científicos atuais.
As diferentes respostas às duas questões centrais mencionadas nos ajuda a identificar as 4 grandes tradições na filosofia da psicologia, isto é, concepções teóricas gerais que fomentam várias teses e teorias mais específicas sobre certos fenômenos cognitivos (percepção, agência, memória, atenção, teoria da mente). Eis as tradições:
(1) The automous mind: [This picture...] understands the mind in terms of an autonomous and independent type of explanation that has no application to the non-psychological world and that interfaces only indirectly with the types of explanation applicable in the non-psychological realm (p. 36). “[...] There are such radical differences between explanation in commonsense psychology and explanation at lower levels in the hierarchy that there can be no meaningful dialog between the different explanatory projects” (p. 40). Alguns de seus defensores: McDowell, Davidson e Dennett.
(2) Functional mind 1 (philosophical functionalism): "The network of commonsense generalizations about mental states and behavior that collectively make up commonsense psychology will be matched by an isomorphic network of generalizations holding between physical states […]. They are nodes of the network. The interface problem is resolved by the existence of systematic relations (relations of realization or implementation) between the nodes of the psychological network and the physical structures in the brain that serve as the nodes of the isomorphic network at the subpersonal level" (p. 36).
(3) Functional mind 2 (Psychological functionalism): "The favored mode of explanation in psychological functionalism is explanation by decomposition, whereby an overarching cognitive task and/or mechanism is broken down into a series of sub-tasks and/or more basic mechanisms, each of which can itself be broken down into further sub-tasks/more basic mechanisms" (p. 37).
(4) The representational mind: "The key idea behind the representational picture is that psychological states should be understood as relations to sentences in an internal language of thought, where the language of thought is a physically realized medium of thought that has many of the properties of a natural language" (p. 37). Ou uma explicação da representação mental em termos de como redes neurais representam a informação contida em algum processo cognitivo específico (reconhecimento de faces, raciocínio lógico, comportamento social etc.).
Os primeiros capítulos oferecem a maioria das ferramentas necessárias para compreender os outros.
Os capítulos 3, 4 e 5 são explicações detalhadas das tradições mencionadas acima, suas vantagens e desvantagens.
O cap. 6 (Rationality, mental causation and commonsense psychology) lida com 3 problemas: (i) responder à proposta interpretativa dos estados mentais de Dennett (o chamado instrumentalismo de Dennett); (ii) como compreender causalidade em explicações psicológicas; (iii) responder às propostas que questionam se é realmente necessário postular leis psicológicas para eventos mentais.
O objetivo do cap. 7 (The scope of commonsense psychology) é analisar a importância da explicação psicologia no nível da psicologia popular (folk psychology): “The question is one about the scope of commonsense psychology. How central a role does commonsense psychological explanation play in our understanding of ourselves and others?” (p. 172).
O cap. 8 (From perception to action: the standard view and its critics) é dedicado a analisar COMO o comportamento é GERADO. Normalmente, essa discussão é feita a partir da seguinte concepção:
[...] "The route from perception to action involves a linear flow of information from the sensory periphery into the central belief and propositional attitude system, and an equally linear output flow from that system leading directly to action" (p. 208). Ou seja, o comportamento é gerado por um processo linear de estímulo-processamento-resposta.
O autor destaca como as diferentes tradições teóricas (as 4 mencionadas acima) encaram esse problema.
Já o cap. 9 (Propositional attitudes) se dedica a esclarecer como devemos compreender "atitudes proposicionais", um construto teórico absolutamente central na filosofia:
"[…] How propositional attitudes must be realized in the nervous system in order for us to be able to appeal to them in explaining behavior. Do the ways we use propositional attitudes in explaining cognition and behavior place any constraints upon how we think about the vehicles of those attitudes?" (p. 244).
O cap. 10 (Thinking and language) se dedica a apresentar a disputa entre duas concepções sobre a relação entre linguagem e pensamento:
(i) The LANGUAGE OF THOUGHT HYPOTHESIS sits very naturally with what is sometimes called the communicative conception of language, public language is simply a tool for the communication of ideas. The fact that we are participants in a public language does not have any implications for the structure and content of our thoughts. Rather, it is the structure and content of our thoughts that give meaning to the sentences that we use, because the intentions that we have in using language are what determine the way it is understood (p. 279-280).
(ii) Opponents of the COMMUNICATIVE CONCEPTION […] hold that there are fundamental differences between the cognitive capacities of language-using creatures and the cognitive capacities of non-linguistic creatures. Participation in a public language makes available types of thinking what would otherwise be inaccessible. Language has a structuring role to play in cognition (p. 280).
Em suma, uma das melhores introduções que já li na filosofia. Atualizado, bem escrito, boa bibliografia auxiliar.
O cap. 1 é essencial como pano de fundo para todas as principais discussões da área. Destaca-se como os filósofos da psicologia estão interessados no que denominaram de "níveis de análise" e suas implicações para a investigação científica da cognição. As teorias científicas da cognição, normalmente, adotam uma de duas posturas metodológicas. Uma postura bottom-up, isto é, partindo das mais básicas estruturas moleculares dos neurônios individuais até processos cerebrais e psicológicos (reducionismo clássico). Ou, então, uma postura top-down, isto é, desenvolvendo uma teoria geral da cognição e procurando analisar como essa mente é realizada fisicamente.
Talvez um dos exemplos mais paradigmáticos sobre a investigação dos "níveis" de análise da mente esteja presente na teoria computacional da visão de Marr. Ele distingue os níveis em (i) computacional; (ii) algorítmico; e (iii) implementacional. Bermúdez explica essa teoria e a usa como exemplo em diversas ocasiões do livro.
Ele também aproveita para introduzir distinções importantes, frequentemente utilizadas na literatura, como a distinção entre processos modulares e não-modulares; níveis pessoais e subpessoais de cognição, dentre outros.
Juntamente com questões sobre os níveis de investigação, e talvez como consequência, um segundo problema central na filosofia da psicologia é o "problema da interface":
"How does commonsense psychological explanation interface with the explanations of cognition and mental operations given by scientific psychology, cognitive science, cognitive neuroscience and the other levels in the explanatory hierarchy?" (p. 35).
Sinceramente, esse problema me parece uma reatualização do problema mente-corpo em termos científicos atuais.
As diferentes respostas às duas questões centrais mencionadas nos ajuda a identificar as 4 grandes tradições na filosofia da psicologia, isto é, concepções teóricas gerais que fomentam várias teses e teorias mais específicas sobre certos fenômenos cognitivos (percepção, agência, memória, atenção, teoria da mente). Eis as tradições:
(1) The automous mind: [This picture...] understands the mind in terms of an autonomous and independent type of explanation that has no application to the non-psychological world and that interfaces only indirectly with the types of explanation applicable in the non-psychological realm (p. 36). “[...] There are such radical differences between explanation in commonsense psychology and explanation at lower levels in the hierarchy that there can be no meaningful dialog between the different explanatory projects” (p. 40). Alguns de seus defensores: McDowell, Davidson e Dennett.
(2) Functional mind 1 (philosophical functionalism): "The network of commonsense generalizations about mental states and behavior that collectively make up commonsense psychology will be matched by an isomorphic network of generalizations holding between physical states […]. They are nodes of the network. The interface problem is resolved by the existence of systematic relations (relations of realization or implementation) between the nodes of the psychological network and the physical structures in the brain that serve as the nodes of the isomorphic network at the subpersonal level" (p. 36).
(3) Functional mind 2 (Psychological functionalism): "The favored mode of explanation in psychological functionalism is explanation by decomposition, whereby an overarching cognitive task and/or mechanism is broken down into a series of sub-tasks and/or more basic mechanisms, each of which can itself be broken down into further sub-tasks/more basic mechanisms" (p. 37).
(4) The representational mind: "The key idea behind the representational picture is that psychological states should be understood as relations to sentences in an internal language of thought, where the language of thought is a physically realized medium of thought that has many of the properties of a natural language" (p. 37). Ou uma explicação da representação mental em termos de como redes neurais representam a informação contida em algum processo cognitivo específico (reconhecimento de faces, raciocínio lógico, comportamento social etc.).
Os primeiros capítulos oferecem a maioria das ferramentas necessárias para compreender os outros.
Os capítulos 3, 4 e 5 são explicações detalhadas das tradições mencionadas acima, suas vantagens e desvantagens.
O cap. 6 (Rationality, mental causation and commonsense psychology) lida com 3 problemas: (i) responder à proposta interpretativa dos estados mentais de Dennett (o chamado instrumentalismo de Dennett); (ii) como compreender causalidade em explicações psicológicas; (iii) responder às propostas que questionam se é realmente necessário postular leis psicológicas para eventos mentais.
O objetivo do cap. 7 (The scope of commonsense psychology) é analisar a importância da explicação psicologia no nível da psicologia popular (folk psychology): “The question is one about the scope of commonsense psychology. How central a role does commonsense psychological explanation play in our understanding of ourselves and others?” (p. 172).
O cap. 8 (From perception to action: the standard view and its critics) é dedicado a analisar COMO o comportamento é GERADO. Normalmente, essa discussão é feita a partir da seguinte concepção:
[...] "The route from perception to action involves a linear flow of information from the sensory periphery into the central belief and propositional attitude system, and an equally linear output flow from that system leading directly to action" (p. 208). Ou seja, o comportamento é gerado por um processo linear de estímulo-processamento-resposta.
O autor destaca como as diferentes tradições teóricas (as 4 mencionadas acima) encaram esse problema.
Já o cap. 9 (Propositional attitudes) se dedica a esclarecer como devemos compreender "atitudes proposicionais", um construto teórico absolutamente central na filosofia:
"[…] How propositional attitudes must be realized in the nervous system in order for us to be able to appeal to them in explaining behavior. Do the ways we use propositional attitudes in explaining cognition and behavior place any constraints upon how we think about the vehicles of those attitudes?" (p. 244).
O cap. 10 (Thinking and language) se dedica a apresentar a disputa entre duas concepções sobre a relação entre linguagem e pensamento:
(i) The LANGUAGE OF THOUGHT HYPOTHESIS sits very naturally with what is sometimes called the communicative conception of language, public language is simply a tool for the communication of ideas. The fact that we are participants in a public language does not have any implications for the structure and content of our thoughts. Rather, it is the structure and content of our thoughts that give meaning to the sentences that we use, because the intentions that we have in using language are what determine the way it is understood (p. 279-280).
(ii) Opponents of the COMMUNICATIVE CONCEPTION […] hold that there are fundamental differences between the cognitive capacities of language-using creatures and the cognitive capacities of non-linguistic creatures. Participation in a public language makes available types of thinking what would otherwise be inaccessible. Language has a structuring role to play in cognition (p. 280).
Em suma, uma das melhores introduções que já li na filosofia. Atualizado, bem escrito, boa bibliografia auxiliar.
Displaying 1 of 1 review