Paul Thagard
Dados Biográficos
| ID | 340524 |
|---|---|
| NOME | Paul Thagard |
| PRENOMES | Paul |
| SOBRENOME | Thagard |
| ASSINATURA | THAGARD P |
| AFILIAÇÕES | University of Waterloo |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-6594-4761 |
| VERIFICADO | Sim |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 51 |
| TOTAL DE CITAÇÕES | 268 |
| TOTAL COMO AUTOR | 51 |
| TOTAL COMO EDITOR | 0 |
| PRIMEIRO ANO DE PUBLICAÇÃO | 1978 |
| ANO MAIS RECENTE DE PUBLICAÇÃO | 2022 |
| ÍNDICE H | 7 |
Energy Requirements Undermine Substrate Independence and Mind-Body Functionalism
Substrate independence and mind-body functionalism claim that thinking does not depend on any particular kind of physical implementation. But real-world information processing depends on energy, and energy depends on material substrates. Biological evidence for these claims comes from ecology and neuroscience, while computational evidence comes from neuromorphic computing and deep learning. Attention to energy requirements undermines the use of s…
Balance - How It Works and What It Means
Naturalizing Logic
This paper naturalizes inductive inference by showing how scientific knowledge of real mechanisms provides large benefits to it. I show how knowledge about mechanisms contributes to generalization, inference to the best explanation, causal inference, and reasoning with probabilities. Generalization from some A are B to all A are B is more plausible when a mechanism connects A to B. Inference to the best explanation is strengthened when the explan…
Emotional change
Emotional change includes generation of new emotions, switching from one emotion to another, and alteration of the frequency and intensity of emotions. Psychotherapists help clients to reduce negative emotions such as sadness and anxiety and increase positive emotions such as happiness and hope. We explain such emotional shifts by the semantic pointer theory of emotions, which views them as brain processes that integrate neural representations of…
Is Meaning Nonphysical
Two theories of consciousness
The Conceptual Structure of Social Disputes
We describe and illustrate a new method of graphically diagramming disputants' points of view called cognitive-affective mapping. The products of this method-cognitive-affective maps (CAMs)-represent an individual's concepts and beliefs about a particular subject, such as another individual or group or an issue in dispute. Each of these concepts and beliefs has its own emotional value. The result is a detailed image of a disputant's complex belie…
A Complex Systems Approach to the Study of Ideology
We propose a complex systems approach to the study of political belief systems, to overcome some of the fragmentation in the current scholarship on ideology. We review relevant work in psychology, sociology, and political science and identify major cleavages in the literature: the spatial vs. non-spatial divide (ideologies as reducible to a spatially organized set of dimensions vs. as complex conceptual structures) and the person-group problem (i…
The Brain is Wider than the Sky
This article uses psychological and neural theories to illuminate the use of analogies in literary allegories. It shows how new theories of neural representation, encompassing both cognitive and emotional aspects, have the potential to make sense of many kinds of literary comparisons including allegories. The main text analyzed is George Orwell's Animal Farm, whose effectiveness is discussed using the multiconstraint theory of analogy supplemente…
Rationality and Science
L. Magnani
Hanne Andersen, Peter Barker and Xian CHEN The Cognitive Structure of Scientific Revolutions
Emotional consciousness
La mente
Coherence, Truth, and the Development of Scientific Knowledge
What is the relation between coherence and truth? This paper rejects numerous answers to this question, including the following: truth is coherence; coherence is irrelevant to truth; coherence always leads to truth; coherence leads to probability, which leads to truth. I will argue that coherence of the right kind leads to at least approximate truth. The right kind is explanatory coherence, where explanation consists in describing mechanisms. We …
Emotional consensus in group decision making
Desires Are Not Propositional Attitudes
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
The Emotional Coherence of Religion
This paper uses a psychological/computational theory of emotional coherence to explain several aspects of religious belief and practice. After reviewing evidence for the importance of emotion to religious thought and cognition in general, it describes psychological and social mechanisms of emotional cognition. These mechanisms are relevant to explaining the acquisition and maintenance of religious belief, and also shed light on such practices as …
Pathways to Biomedical Discovery
A biochemical pathway is a sequence of chemical reactions in a biological organism. Such pathways specify mechanisms that explain how cells carry out their major functions by means of molecules and reactions that produce regular changes. Many diseases can be explained by defects in pathways, and new treatments often involve finding drugs that correct those defects. This paper presents explanation schemas and treatment strategies that characterize…
How Molecules Matter to Mental Computation
Almost all computational models of the mind and brain ignore details about neurotransmitters, hormones, and other molecules. The neglect of neurochemistry in cognitive science would be appropriate if the computational properties of brains relevant to explaining mental functioning were in fact electrical rather than chemical. But there is considerable evidence that chemical complexity really does matter to brain computation, including the role of …
Coherence in Thought and Action
This book is an essay on how people make sense of each other and the world they live in. Making sense is the activity of fitting something puzzling into a coherent pattern of mental representations that include concepts, beliefs, goals, and actions. Paul Thagard proposes a general theory of coherence as the satisfaction of multiple interacting constraints, and discusses the theory's numerous psychological and philosophical applications. Much of h…
Coherence in thought and action
This book is an essay on how people make sense of each other and the world they live in. Making sense is the activity of fitting something puzzling into a coherent pattern of mental representations that include concepts, beliefs, goals, and actions. Paul Thagard proposes a general theory of coherence as the satisfaction of multiple interacting constraints, and he discusses the theory's numerous psychological and philosophical applications. Much o…
Ulcers and bacteria I
Ulcers and bacteria II
The role of psychology in science studies
The Best Explanation
The analogical mind
The use of analogy in human thinking is examined from the perspective of a multiconstraint theory, which postulates 3 basic types of constraints: similarity, structure, and purpose. The operation of these constraints is apparent in laboratory experiments on analogy and in naturalistic settings, including politics, psychotherapy, and scientific research. The multiconstraint theory has been implemented in detailed computational simulations of the a…
Scientific change
A Complex Systems Approach to the Study of Ideology
We propose a complex systems approach to the study of political belief systems, to overcome some of the fragmentation in the current scholarship on ideology. We review relevant work in psychology, sociology, and political science and identify major cleavages in the literature: the spatial vs. non-spatial divide (ideologies as reducible to a spatially organized set of dimensions vs. as complex conceptual structures) and the person-group problem (i…
Coherence, Truth, and the Development of Scientific Knowledge
What is the relation between coherence and truth? This paper rejects numerous answers to this question, including the following: truth is coherence; coherence is irrelevant to truth; coherence always leads to truth; coherence leads to probability, which leads to truth. I will argue that coherence of the right kind leads to at least approximate truth. The right kind is explanatory coherence, where explanation consists in describing mechanisms. We …
Rationality and Charity
Quine and others have recommended principles of charity which discourage judgments of irrationality. Such principles have been proposed to govern translation, psychology, and economics. After comparing principles of charity of different degrees of severity, we argue that the stronger principles are likely to block understanding of human behavior and impede progress toward improving it. We support a moderate principle of charity which leaves room …
Pathways to Biomedical Discovery
A biochemical pathway is a sequence of chemical reactions in a biological organism. Such pathways specify mechanisms that explain how cells carry out their major functions by means of molecules and reactions that produce regular changes. Many diseases can be explained by defects in pathways, and new treatments often involve finding drugs that correct those defects. This paper presents explanation schemas and treatment strategies that characterize…
Ulcers and bacteria I
Frames, knowledge, and inference
From the Descriptive to the Normative in Psychology and Logic
The aim of this paper is to describe a methodology for revising logical principles in the light of empirical psychological findings. Historical philosophy of science and wide reflective equilibrium in ethics are considered as providing possible models for arguing from the descriptive to the normative. Neither is adequate for the psychology/logic case, and a new model is constructed, employing criteria for evaluating inferential systems. Once we h…
Mudança científica
Os autores deste ensaio entendem que é preciso testar de forma mais completa as afirmações empíricas das recentes teorias da mudança científica. Tendo em vista facilitar tal empreendimento, apresentam-se em linguagem não-técnica as afirmações empíricas de Kuhn, Feyerabend, Lakatos e Laudan, que estão organizadas por autor e por assunto. Ao final, inclui-se uma bibliografia de estudos de caso
Variability and confirmation
Ulcers and bacteria II
Societies of minds
Concepts and conceptual change
Paradigms and Revolutions
Desires Are Not Propositional Attitudes
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
The Conceptual Structure of the Chemical Revolution
This paper investigates the revolutionary conceptual changes that took place when the phlogiston theory of Stahl was replaced by the oxygen theory of Lavoisier. Using techniques drawn from artificial intelligence, it represents the crucial stages in Lavoisier's conceptual development from 1772 to 1789. It then sketches a computational theory of conceptual change to account for Lavoisier's discovery of the oxygen theory and for the replacement of …
Empathy and Analogy
Nous défendons l'idée que la meilleure façon de concevoir l'empathie est de la voir comme une pensée analogique du type qui est décrit par la théorie multifactorielle de l'analogie proposée par Keith Holyoak et Paul Thagard (1995). Notre explication montre que le débat entre ceux qui conçoivent l'empathie comme l'application d'une théorie et ceux qui la voient plutôt comme une simulation repose sur une présupposition fausse et qu'il est formulé e…
Mind, Society, and the Growth of Knowledge
Explanations of the growth of scientific knowledge can be characterized in terms of logical, cognitive, and social schemas. But cognitive and social schemas are complementary rather than competitive, and purely social explanations of scientific change are as inadequate as purely cognitive explanations. For example, cognitive explanations of the chemical revolution must be supplemented by and combined with social explanations, and social explanati…
The Conceptual Structure of Social Disputes
We describe and illustrate a new method of graphically diagramming disputants' points of view called cognitive-affective mapping. The products of this method-cognitive-affective maps (CAMs)-represent an individual's concepts and beliefs about a particular subject, such as another individual or group or an issue in dispute. Each of these concepts and beliefs has its own emotional value. The result is a detailed image of a disputant's complex belie…
The Emotional Coherence of Religion
This paper uses a psychological/computational theory of emotional coherence to explain several aspects of religious belief and practice. After reviewing evidence for the importance of emotion to religious thought and cognition in general, it describes psychological and social mechanisms of emotional cognition. These mechanisms are relevant to explaining the acquisition and maintenance of religious belief, and also shed light on such practices as …
How Molecules Matter to Mental Computation
Almost all computational models of the mind and brain ignore details about neurotransmitters, hormones, and other molecules. The neglect of neurochemistry in cognitive science would be appropriate if the computational properties of brains relevant to explaining mental functioning were in fact electrical rather than chemical. But there is considerable evidence that chemical complexity really does matter to brain computation, including the role of …
Emotional consensus in group decision making
Welcome to the Cognitive Revolution
After attempting to clarify Peter Slezak's challenge to the `strong programme' in the sociology of science, this Response outlines a cognitive/historical/sociological approach to understanding the development of scientific knowledge
The Best Explanation
From the Descriptive to the Normative in Psychology and Logic
The aim of this paper is to describe a methodology for revising logical principles in the light of empirical psychological findings. Historical philosophy of science and wide reflective equilibrium in ethics are considered as providing possible models for arguing from the descriptive to the normative. Neither is adequate for the psychology/logic case, and a new model is constructed, employing criteria for evaluating inferential systems. Once we h…
Paradigms and Revolutions
Variability and confirmation
Rationality and Charity
Quine and others have recommended principles of charity which discourage judgments of irrationality. Such principles have been proposed to govern translation, psychology, and economics. After comparing principles of charity of different degrees of severity, we argue that the stronger principles are likely to block understanding of human behavior and impede progress toward improving it. We support a moderate principle of charity which leaves room …
Frames, knowledge, and inference
Induction
Two psychologists, a computer scientist, and a philosopher have collaborated to present a framework for understanding processes of inductive reasoning and learning in organisms and machines. Theirs is the first major effort to bring the ideas of several disciplines to bear on a subject that has been a topic of investigation since the time of Socrates. The result is an integrated account that treats problem solving and induction in terms of ruleb…
Scientific change
Computational Philosophy of Science
By applying research in artificial intelligence to problems in the philosophy of science, Paul Thagard develops an exciting new approach to the study of scientific reasoning. This approach uses computational ideas to shed light on how scientific theories are discovered, evaluated, and used in explanations. Thagard describes a detailed computational model of problem solving and discovery that provides a conceptually rich yet rigorous alternative t…
Explanatory coherence
This target article presents a new computational theory of explanatory coherence that applies to the acceptance and rejection of scientific hypotheses as well as to reasoning in everyday life. The theory consists of seven principles that establish relations of local coherence between a hypothesis and other propositions. A hypothesis coheres with propositions that it explains, or that explain it, or that participate with it in explaining other pro…
Analogical Mapping by Constraint Satisfaction
A theory of analogical mapping between source and target analogs based upon interacting structural, semantic, and pragmatic constraints is proposed here. The structural constraint of isomorphism encourages mappings that maximize the consistency of relational corresondences between the elements of the two analogs. The constraint of semantic similarity supports mapping hypotheses to the degree that mapped predicates have similar meanings. The const…
Welcome to the Cognitive Revolution
After attempting to clarify Peter Slezak's challenge to the `strong programme' in the sociology of science, this Response outlines a cognitive/historical/sociological approach to understanding the development of scientific knowledge
Connectionism and epistemology
Concepts and conceptual change
The Conceptual Structure of the Chemical Revolution
This paper investigates the revolutionary conceptual changes that took place when the phlogiston theory of Stahl was replaced by the oxygen theory of Lavoisier. Using techniques drawn from artificial intelligence, it represents the crucial stages in Lavoisier's conceptual development from 1772 to 1789. It then sketches a computational theory of conceptual change to account for Lavoisier's discovery of the oxygen theory and for the replacement of …
Conceptual Revolutions
Societies of minds
Mudança científica
Os autores deste ensaio entendem que é preciso testar de forma mais completa as afirmações empíricas das recentes teorias da mudança científica. Tendo em vista facilitar tal empreendimento, apresentam-se em linguagem não-técnica as afirmações empíricas de Kuhn, Feyerabend, Lakatos e Laudan, que estão organizadas por autor e por assunto. Ao final, inclui-se uma bibliografia de estudos de caso
Mind, Society, and the Growth of Knowledge
Explanations of the growth of scientific knowledge can be characterized in terms of logical, cognitive, and social schemas. But cognitive and social schemas are complementary rather than competitive, and purely social explanations of scientific change are as inadequate as purely cognitive explanations. For example, cognitive explanations of the chemical revolution must be supplemented by and combined with social explanations, and social explanati…
Strategies for conceptual change
Forming impressions from stereotypes, traits, and behaviors
Deliberative coherence
Modelling Conceptual Revolutions
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
The analogical mind
The use of analogy in human thinking is examined from the perspective of a multiconstraint theory, which postulates 3 basic types of constraints: similarity, structure, and purpose. The operation of these constraints is apparent in laboratory experiments on analogy and in naturalistic settings, including politics, psychotherapy, and scientific research. The multiconstraint theory has been implemented in detailed computational simulations of the a…
Waves, Particles, and Explanatory Coherence
This paper discusses the nineteenth-century debate concerning the nature of light. We analyse the debate using a computational theory of coherence that models the acceptance of the wave theory of light and the rejection of the particle theory. We show how our analysis of the controversy avoids Achinstein's criticisms of Whe-well's coherentist account, and argue that our interpretation is more computationally tractable and psychologically realisti…
Epistemology (37 obras) · Philosophy (33 obras) · Psychology (30 obras) · Computer Science (24 obras) · Cognitive science (18 obras) · Philosophy and History of Science (18 obras) · Cognition (14 obras) · Cognitive psychology (10 obras) · Philosophy of science (10 obras) · Social Psychology (10 obras)