Carrie Figdor
Biographic Data
| ID | 1236835 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Carrie Figdor |
| GIVEN NAMES | Carrie |
| FAMILY NAME | Figdor |
| SIGNATURE | FIGDOR C |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Iowa |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-1005-4104 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 14 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 32 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 14 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2010 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
The 21 st Century Mind-Body Problem
This paper articulates how recent advances in comparative behavioral and biological research are changing the nature of the mind/body problem from a human mind/human body problem to a problem of conceptualizing and organizing diverse types of minds in a hierarchical relational structure that is non-contingently related to phylogeny. It also discusses the impact of this refinement on our assessments of modal claims about possible artificial (AI) c…
Individuating Cognitive Characters: Lessons from Praying Mantises and Plants
This article advances the development of a phylogeny-based psychology in which cognitive ability types are individuated as characters in the evolutionary biological sense. I explain the character concept and its utility in addressing (or dissolving) conceptual problems arising from discoveries of cognitive abilities across a wide range of species. I use the examples of stereopsis in the praying mantis, internal cell-to-cell signaling in plants, a…
Animal Models in Neuropsychiatry: Do the Benefits Outweigh the Moral Costs
Animal models have long been used to investigate human mental disorders, including depression, anxiety, and schizophrenia. This practice is usually justified in terms of the benefits (to humans) outweighing the costs (to the animals). The author argues on utility maximization grounds that we should phase out animal models in neuropsychiatric research. The leading theories of how human minds and behavior evolved invoke sociocultural factors whose …
The psychological speciesism of humanism
Shannon + Friston = Content: Intentionality in predictive signaling systems
Beyond the human standard in the cognitive domain a reply to “Cognition beyond the human domain” (Angel Rodriguez’s review of Pieces of Mind OUP 2018)
Rodriguez provides an excellent general summary of Pieces of Mind as well as a graphical depiction of the decision tree behind the options I canvas for how to interpret psychological predicates across human and nonhuman domains. I respond to his two main objections: that the argument from analogy isn’t strong enough to support Literalism, and that there is a promising non-Literalist alternative that I haven’t refuted. Rodriguez also raises import…
Why literalism is still the best game in town: Replies to Drayson, Machery, and Schwitzgebel
I respond to the main criticisms raised by Schwitzgebel, Machery, and Drayson of the main arguments of Pieces of mind in favor of the position I call literalism. Schwitzgebel's mainly supportive commentary decries the Cartesian assumption that mindedness is an all or nothing affair. Machery claims that there is an alternative to literalism that is a better interpretation of the uses of psychological predicates across species. Drayson argues that …
Big Data and Changing Concepts of the Human
Big Data has the potential to enable unprecedentedly rigorous quantitative modeling of complex human social relationships and social structures. When such models are extended to non-human domains, they can undermine anthropocentric assumptions about the extent to which these relationships and structures are specifically human. Discoveries of relevant commonalities with non-humans may not make us less human, but they promise to challenge fundament…
Pieces of Mind
Many people accept that chimpanzees, dolphins, and some other animals can think and feel. But these cases are just the tip of a growing iceberg. If biologists are right, fruit flies and plants make decisions, worms and honeybees can be trained, bacteria communicate linguistically, and neurons have preferences. Just how far does cognition go? This book is the first to critically consider this question from the perspective of the entire range of ne…
The Technical View: The Proper Domain of Psychological Predicates
Chapter 7 completes the discussion of alternatives to Literalism. It presents the view that the terms are used literally in the unexpected domains, but with distinct reference. The view has two main variants. The Technical-Behaviorist variant holds that they refer to patterns of behavior in the new domains. Dennett’s Intentional Stance is pressed into service as a familiar way to articulate this variant. The Exsanguinated Property variant holds t…
On the proper domain of psychological predicates
Quantifying the Gender Gap: An Empirical Study of the Underrepresentation of Women in Philosophy
The lack of gender parity in philosophy has garnered serious attention recently. Previous empirical work that aims to quantify what has come to be called “the gender gap” in philosophy focuses mainly on the absence of women in philosophy faculty and graduate programs. Our study looks at gender representation in philosophy among undergraduate students, undergraduate majors, graduate students, and faculty. Our findings are consistent with what othe…
Neuroscience and the Multiple Realization of Cognitive Functions
Many empirically minded philosophers have used neuroscientific data to argue against the multiple realization of cognitive functions in existing biological organisms. I argue that neuroscientists themselves have proposed a biologically based concept of multiple realization as an alternative to interpreting empirical findings in terms of one-to-one structure-function mappings. I introduce this concept and its associated research framework and also…
Objectivity in the News: Finding a Way Forward
Many media critics believe news reports are inevitably biased and have urged journalists to abandon the objectivity norm. I show that the main arguments for inevitable bias fail but identify factors that make producing objective news difficult. I indicate what the next steps should be to understand bias in the news and to combat it
Quantifying the Gender Gap: An Empirical Study of the Underrepresentation of Women in Philosophy
The lack of gender parity in philosophy has garnered serious attention recently. Previous empirical work that aims to quantify what has come to be called “the gender gap” in philosophy focuses mainly on the absence of women in philosophy faculty and graduate programs. Our study looks at gender representation in philosophy among undergraduate students, undergraduate majors, graduate students, and faculty. Our findings are consistent with what othe…
Neuroscience and the Multiple Realization of Cognitive Functions
Many empirically minded philosophers have used neuroscientific data to argue against the multiple realization of cognitive functions in existing biological organisms. I argue that neuroscientists themselves have proposed a biologically based concept of multiple realization as an alternative to interpreting empirical findings in terms of one-to-one structure-function mappings. I introduce this concept and its associated research framework and also…
Objectivity in the News: Finding a Way Forward
Many media critics believe news reports are inevitably biased and have urged journalists to abandon the objectivity norm. I show that the main arguments for inevitable bias fail but identify factors that make producing objective news difficult. I indicate what the next steps should be to understand bias in the news and to combat it
Individuating Cognitive Characters: Lessons from Praying Mantises and Plants
This article advances the development of a phylogeny-based psychology in which cognitive ability types are individuated as characters in the evolutionary biological sense. I explain the character concept and its utility in addressing (or dissolving) conceptual problems arising from discoveries of cognitive abilities across a wide range of species. I use the examples of stereopsis in the praying mantis, internal cell-to-cell signaling in plants, a…
On the proper domain of psychological predicates
Neuroscience and the Multiple Realization of Cognitive Functions
Many empirically minded philosophers have used neuroscientific data to argue against the multiple realization of cognitive functions in existing biological organisms. I argue that neuroscientists themselves have proposed a biologically based concept of multiple realization as an alternative to interpreting empirical findings in terms of one-to-one structure-function mappings. I introduce this concept and its associated research framework and also…
Objectivity in the News: Finding a Way Forward
Many media critics believe news reports are inevitably biased and have urged journalists to abandon the objectivity norm. I show that the main arguments for inevitable bias fail but identify factors that make producing objective news difficult. I indicate what the next steps should be to understand bias in the news and to combat it
Quantifying the Gender Gap: An Empirical Study of the Underrepresentation of Women in Philosophy
The lack of gender parity in philosophy has garnered serious attention recently. Previous empirical work that aims to quantify what has come to be called “the gender gap” in philosophy focuses mainly on the absence of women in philosophy faculty and graduate programs. Our study looks at gender representation in philosophy among undergraduate students, undergraduate majors, graduate students, and faculty. Our findings are consistent with what othe…
On the proper domain of psychological predicates
Pieces of Mind
Many people accept that chimpanzees, dolphins, and some other animals can think and feel. But these cases are just the tip of a growing iceberg. If biologists are right, fruit flies and plants make decisions, worms and honeybees can be trained, bacteria communicate linguistically, and neurons have preferences. Just how far does cognition go? This book is the first to critically consider this question from the perspective of the entire range of ne…
The Technical View: The Proper Domain of Psychological Predicates
Chapter 7 completes the discussion of alternatives to Literalism. It presents the view that the terms are used literally in the unexpected domains, but with distinct reference. The view has two main variants. The Technical-Behaviorist variant holds that they refer to patterns of behavior in the new domains. Dennett’s Intentional Stance is pressed into service as a familiar way to articulate this variant. The Exsanguinated Property variant holds t…
Big Data and Changing Concepts of the Human
Big Data has the potential to enable unprecedentedly rigorous quantitative modeling of complex human social relationships and social structures. When such models are extended to non-human domains, they can undermine anthropocentric assumptions about the extent to which these relationships and structures are specifically human. Discoveries of relevant commonalities with non-humans may not make us less human, but they promise to challenge fundament…
Beyond the human standard in the cognitive domain a reply to “Cognition beyond the human domain” (Angel Rodriguez’s review of Pieces of Mind OUP 2018)
Rodriguez provides an excellent general summary of Pieces of Mind as well as a graphical depiction of the decision tree behind the options I canvas for how to interpret psychological predicates across human and nonhuman domains. I respond to his two main objections: that the argument from analogy isn’t strong enough to support Literalism, and that there is a promising non-Literalist alternative that I haven’t refuted. Rodriguez also raises import…
Why literalism is still the best game in town: Replies to Drayson, Machery, and Schwitzgebel
I respond to the main criticisms raised by Schwitzgebel, Machery, and Drayson of the main arguments of Pieces of mind in favor of the position I call literalism. Schwitzgebel's mainly supportive commentary decries the Cartesian assumption that mindedness is an all or nothing affair. Machery claims that there is an alternative to literalism that is a better interpretation of the uses of psychological predicates across species. Drayson argues that …
The psychological speciesism of humanism
Shannon + Friston = Content: Intentionality in predictive signaling systems
Animal Models in Neuropsychiatry: Do the Benefits Outweigh the Moral Costs
Animal models have long been used to investigate human mental disorders, including depression, anxiety, and schizophrenia. This practice is usually justified in terms of the benefits (to humans) outweighing the costs (to the animals). The author argues on utility maximization grounds that we should phase out animal models in neuropsychiatric research. The leading theories of how human minds and behavior evolved invoke sociocultural factors whose …
Individuating Cognitive Characters: Lessons from Praying Mantises and Plants
This article advances the development of a phylogeny-based psychology in which cognitive ability types are individuated as characters in the evolutionary biological sense. I explain the character concept and its utility in addressing (or dissolving) conceptual problems arising from discoveries of cognitive abilities across a wide range of species. I use the examples of stereopsis in the praying mantis, internal cell-to-cell signaling in plants, a…
The 21 st Century Mind-Body Problem
This paper articulates how recent advances in comparative behavioral and biological research are changing the nature of the mind/body problem from a human mind/human body problem to a problem of conceptualizing and organizing diverse types of minds in a hierarchical relational structure that is non-contingently related to phylogeny. It also discusses the impact of this refinement on our assessments of modal claims about possible artificial (AI) c…
Epistemology (12 works) · Psychology (12 works) · Philosophy (11 works) · Cognition (7 works) · Cognitive science (7 works) · Computer Science (7 works) · Sociology (7 works) · Linguistics (4 works) · Metaphysics (4 works) · Neuroscience (4 works)