Behaviourism, methodological and scientific

By Gallistel, C.R.

Methodological behaviourism is the doctrine that the data on which a psychological science must rest are behavioural data – or, at the very least, publicly observable data – ...

Mind, philosophy of

By Jackson, Frank; Rey, Georges

‘Philosophy of mind’, and ‘philosophy of psychology’ are two terms for the same general area of philosophical inquiry: the nature of mental phenomena and their connection with behaviour ...

Linguistics, philosophy of

By Rey, Georges; Blair, Dan

Although related to issues in the philosophy of language, the philosophy of linguistics is a largely distinct topic, being concerned not so much with language itself but with ...

Piaget, Jean (1896–1980)

By Gopnik, Alison

The Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget was the founder of the field we now call cognitive development. His own term for the discipline was ‘genetic epistemology’, reflecting his deep ...

Taylor, Charles (1931–)

By Calhoun, Craig

Among the most influential of late twentieth-century philosophers, Taylor has written on human agency, identity and the self; language; the limits of epistemology; interpretation and explanation in social ...

Taylor, Charles (1931–)

Among the most influential of twentieth-century philosophers, Taylor writes on human agency, identity and the self; language; epistemology; interpretation and explanation in social science; ethics; multiculturalism, and democratic ...

Animal thought, recent work on

By Rey, Georges; Hauser, Marc

In recent years there has been a good deal of experimental work on the question of animal cognition, much of it modelled on recent experiments in infant cognition. ...

Mirror self-recognition

By Schilhab, Theresa

Mirror self-recognition (MSR) refers to the empirical investigation of self-awareness, also known as the ‘mirror and mark test’ introduced by psychologist Gordon G. Gallup (1970). The ability to ...

Morality and emotions

By Nussbaum, Martha C.

Emotions such as anger, fear, grief, envy, compassion, love and jealousy have a close connection to morality. Philosophers have generally agreed that they can pose problems for morality ...

Rational choice theory

By Hardin, Russell

Rational choice theory is the descendant of earlier philosophical political economy. Its core is the effort to explain and sometimes to justify collective results of individuals acting from ...

Cognitive development

By Keil, F.C.; Gutheil, G.

Psychological research of the last two decades has produced a surge of surprising results regarding cognitive development in children that has challenged a number of traditional philosophical assumptions ...

Skinner, Burrhus Frederick (1904–90)

By Flanagan, Owen; Rey, Georges

B.F. Skinner advocated a philosophy of psychology, called ‘radical behaviourism’, as well as a substantive psychological theory, ‘scientific behaviourism’. Radical behaviourism restricted psychology to establishing lawful links between ...

Animal language and thought

By Jamieson, Dale

The question of animal language and thought has been debated since ancient times. Some have held that humans are exceptional in these respects, others that humans and animals ...

Behaviourism, analytic

By Braddon-Mitchell, David

Analytical behaviourism is the doctrine that talk about mental phenomena is really talk about behaviour, or tendencies to behave. For an analytical behaviourist, to say that Janet desires ...

Eliminativism

By Rey, Georges

‘Eliminativism’ refers to the view that mental phenomena – for example, beliefs, desires, conscious states – do not exist. Although this can seem absurd on its face, in ...

Language, philosophy of

By Crimmins, Mark

Philosophical interest in language, while ancient and enduring (see Language, ancient philosophy of; Language, medieval theories of; Language, Renaissance philosophy of; Language, early modern philosophy of), has blossomed ...

Learning

By Glymour, Clark

Learning is the acquisition of some true belief or skill through experience. Rationalist/idealist philosophers held that the very constitution of thought guarantees that fundamental laws hold of the ...

Nativism

By Samet, Jerry

Traditional empiricism claims that the mind is initially equipped only with the capacity for experience and the mechanisms that make it possible for us to learn from experience. ...

Psychology, theories of

By Wetherick, N.E.

The object of study in psychology is the experience and behaviour of organisms, particularly human organisms. Psychology resembles the other sciences in employing methods appropriate to material phenomena ...

Scientific method

By Hatfield, Gary

Procedures for attaining scientific knowledge are known as scientific methods. These methods include formulating theories and testing them against observation or experiment. Ancient and medieval thinkers called any ...

Scientific realism and social science

By Keat, Russell

A central issue in the philosophy of the social sciences is the possibility of naturalism: whether disciplines such as sociology, anthropology, economics and psychology can be ‘scientific’ in ...

Structuralism in linguistics

By Holdcroft, David

The term structural linguistics can be used to refer to two movements which developed independently of each other. The first is European and can be characterized as post-Saussurean, ...

Attention

By Mole, Christopher

Attention is related to several puzzling phenomena. But its nature, and role in their explanation, is contentious. ...

Introspection, psychology of

Introspection is the process of directly examining one’s own conscious mental states and processes. Since the seventeenth century, there has been considerable disagreement on the scope, nature and ...

Introspection, psychology of

By Von Eckhardt, Barbara

Introspection is the process of directly examining one’s own conscious mental states and processes. Since the seventeenth century, there has been considerable disagreement on the scope, nature and ...