PHILOSOPHY OF PSYCHOLOGY
Lectures: The lectures for this module will be held in xxx, on Wednesdays from 6-7 pm in
the Spring Term. The lecturer is Dr. Sarah Patterson (s.patterson@bbk.ac.uk).
Seminars: The seminars for this module will be held in xxx, on Wednesdays from 7-8 pm
in the Spring Term. They will be led by the lecturer and by xxx.
Readings: Every week there is some key reading that is the focus of the seminar
discussion. One of the purposes of the seminar is to help you to understand the reading, so
do not worry if you have not fully understood it in advance. Nevertheless, it is essential
that you attempt the seminar reading each week if you are to follow the lecture and to
participate in the seminar discussion. There is also ‘additional reading’ listed that will
deepen your understanding and help you to get the most out of the module. You are
especially advised to cover the additional reading for those topics on which you are
planning to write.
Essays (BA): This module is assessed by one essay of around 3,000 words. It must be
written in response to one of the set questions listed below, except with permission from
the module convenor. For details concerning submission of the essay, including deadlines,
see the BA Handbook.
Prior to this assessed essay, you may also write up to two essays during the course, taken
from the titles below, and receive feedback on them from your seminar leader. These can
be useful practice for your eventual assessed essay. You should submit the first such essay
by the first seminar after reading week, and the second by one week after the last seminar
of term. [Notes: (1) You are always welcome to submit an essay earlier than these dates;
(2) the seminar leader should not be expected to comment on the same essay more than
once.]
Essay (MA): This module is assessed by one essay of around 3,500 words. It must be
written in response to one of the set questions listed below, except with permission from
the module convenor. For details concerning submission of the essay, including deadlines,
see the MA Handbook.
Moodle: Electronic copies of course materials are available through Moodle, at
http://moodle.bbk.ac.uk. You will need your ITS login name and password to enter.
1
Schedule of Topics and Readings
Week 1
The “New Cognitive Revolution”: from Behaviourism to Cognitivism
Seminar Reading:
 B.F. Skinner, ‘Selections from Science and Human Behavior’ in N. Block Readings in
Philosophy of Psychology Vol. 1 (Harvard University Press, 1980)
 Noam Chomsky, Excerpts from ‘Review of Verbal Behavior’ in N. Block (ed.), Readings
in Philosophy of Psychology Vol. 1 (Harvard University Press, 1980)
Additional Reading:
 Daniel Dennett, ‘Skinner Skinned’ in his Brainstorms (Bradford Books, 1978)
 Ned Block, ‘Psychologism and Behaviourism’ Philosophical Review (1981) 90: 5-43
Week 2
Classical Computationalism: A Theory and Some Challenges
Seminar Reading:
 John Haugeland, ‘Semantic engines’ in Haugeland (ed.), Mind Design (First Edition, MIT,
1981) and in Cummins and Cummins (eds.), Minds, Brains and Computers (Blackwell,
2000) [http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~rapaport/575/F01/haugeland.pdf]
Additional Reading:
 John Searle, ‘Minds, Brains, and Programs’ Behavioral and Brain Sciences (1980) 3: 417457 [available through Cambridge Journals Online website]
 Murray Shanahan, ‘Frame Problem’ Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
[http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/frame-problem]
 Jerry Fodor and Zenon Pylyshyn, ‘Connectionism and Cognitive Architecture: a Critical
Analysis’ Cognition (1988) 28: 3–71
Week 3
Modules and Central Systems
Seminar Reading:
 Jerry Fodor, ‘Précis of The Modularity of Mind’ Behavioral and Brain Sciences (1985) 8:
1-42
Additional Reading:
 Replies by Clark Glymour and Georges Rey, Behavioral and Brain Sciences (1985) 8: 15-6
and 27-8
 Jerry Fodor, The Modularity of Mind (MIT Press, 1983)
 William Marslen-Wilson and Lorraine Tyler, ‘Against Modularity’ in J. L. Garfield (ed.),
Modularity in Knowledge Representation and Natural-Language Understanding (MIT
Press, 1987)
 Gabriel Segal, ‘The Modularity of Theory of Mind’ in P. Carruthers and P. K. Smith (eds.),
Theories of Theories of Mind (Cambridge University Press, 1996)
 Jesse Prinz, ‘Is the Mind Really Modular?’ in R. Stainton (ed.), Contemporary Debates in
Cognitive Science (Blackwell, 2006)
Week 4
Massive Modularity: For
Seminar Reading:

Peter Carruthers, ‘Is the Mind a System of Modules Shaped by Natural Selection?’ in C.
Hitchcock (ed.), Contemporary Debates in Philosophy of Science (Blackwell, 2003)
Additional Reading:
 Leda Cosmides and John Tooby, ‘Origins of Domain Specificity: The Evolution of
Functional Organization’ in L. Hirschfeld and R. Gelman (eds.), Mapping the Mind
(Cambridge University Press, 1994) www.psych.ucsb.edu/research/cep/papers/Origin.pdf
 Leda Cosmides and John Tooby, ‘Evolutionary Psychology: A Primer’ (1997)
http://www.cep.ucsb.edu/primer.html
 Dan Sperber, ‘In Defense of Massive Modularity’ in E. Dupoux (ed.), Language, Brain and
Cognitive Development: Essays in Honor of Jacques Mehler (MIT Press. (2001)
Week 5
Massive Modularity: Against
Seminar Reading:
 Fiona Cowie and James Woodward, ‘The Mind is Not (Just) a System of Modules Shaped
(Just) by Natural Selection’ in C. Hitchcock (ed.), Contemporary Debates in Philosophy of
Science (Blackwell, 2003)
Additional Reading:
 Stephen Downes, ‘The Basic Components of the Human Mind Were Not Solidified During
the Pleistocene Epoch’ in S. Downes and E. Machery (eds.), Arguing About Human Nature
(Routledge, 2013)
 Richard Samuels, ‘Is the Human Mind Massively Modular?’ in R. Stainton (ed.)
Contemporary Debates in Cognitive Science (Blackwell, 2006) http://people.cohums.ohiostate.edu/samuels58/is_the_mind_massively_modul.pdf
 Jerry Fodor, The Mind Doesn’t Work That Way (MIT Press, 2000)
 David Buller and Valerie Gray Hardcastle, ‘Evolutionary Psychology, Meet Developmental
Biology: Against Promiscuous Modularity’ Brain and Mind (2000) 1: 307-25
Week 6
Human Irrationality: For
Seminar Reading:
 Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman, ‘Judgment Under Uncertainty: Heuristics and
Biases’ Science (1974) 185: 1124-1131
Additional Reading:
 Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky, ‘On the Reality of Cognitive Illusions: A Reply to
Gigerenzer’s Critique’ Psychological Review (1996) 103: 582-591
 Lola Lopes, ‘The Rhetoric of Irrationality’ Theory & Psychology (1991) 1: 65-82
 Richard Samuels, Stephen Stich and Luc Faucher, ‘Reason and Rationality’ in I.
Niiniluoto, M. Sintonen and J. Wolenski (eds.), Handbook of Epistemology (Kluwer, 2004)
Week 7
Human Irrationality: Against
Seminar Reading:
 Gerd Gigerenzer, ‘How to Make Cognitive Illusions Disappear: Beyond “Heuristics and
Biases”’ European Review of Social Psychology (1991) 2: 83-115
Additional Reading:



Richard Samuels, Stephen Stich and Michael Bishop, ‘Ending the Rationality Wars: How
to Make Disputes About Human Rationality Disappear’ in R. Elio (ed.) Common Sense,
Reasoning and Rationality (OUP, 2002)
Gerd Gigerenzer, ‘Bounded and Rational’ in R. Stainton (ed.) Contemporary Debates in
Cognitive Science (Blackwell, 2006)
Gerd Gigerenzer and Thomas Sturm, ‘How (Far) Can Rationality Be Naturalized?’
Synthese (2012) 187: 243-68
Week 8
Language and Innateness: For
Seminar Reading:
 Stephen Laurence and Eric Margolis, ‘The Poverty of the Stimulus Argument’ British
Journal for the Philosophy of Science (2001) 52: 217-276, Sections 1-4
Additional Reading:
 Noam Chomsky, ‘Poverty of Stimulus: Unfinished Business’ Studies in Chinese
Linguistics (2012) 33: 3-16
http://www.cuhk.edu.hk/ics/clrc/scl_33_1/chomsky.pdf
 Stephen Crain and Paul Pietroski, ‘Nature, Nurture and Universal Grammar’ Linguistics
and Philosophy (2001) 24: 139-186
 Fiona Cowie, ‘Innateness and Language’, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/innateness-language/
Week 9
Language and Innateness: Against
Seminar Reading:
 Barbara Scholz and Geoffrey Pullum, ‘Irrational Nativist Exuberance’ in R. Stainton (ed.)
Contemporary Debates in Cognitive Science (Blackwell, 2006)
http://www.lel.ed.ac.uk/~gpullum/bcscholz/Exuberance.pdf.
Additional Reading:
 Fiona Cowie What’s Within (Oxford University Press, 1998), Part III (esp. Chs. 7 and 8)
 Jerry Fodor, ‘Doing Without What’s Within: Fiona Cowie's Critique of Nativism’ Mind
(2010) 110: 99-148
 Geoffrey Pullum and Barbara Scholz, ‘Empirical Assessment of Stimulus Poverty
Arguments’ The Linguistic Review (2002) 19: 9-50
Week 10
Innateness: The Very Idea
Seminar Reading:
 Richard Samuels, ‘Is Innateness a Confused Notion?’ in P. Carruthers, S. Laurence and S.
Stich (eds.), The Innate Mind: Foundations and the Future (Oxford University Press, 2007)
Additional Reading:
 Paul Griffiths, ‘What is Innateness?’ The Monist (2002) 85: 70-85
 Matteo Mameli, ‘On Innateness: The Clutter Hypothesis and the Cluster Hypothesis’ J.
Phil. (2008) 105: 719-36
 Jerry Samet and Deborah Zaitchik, ‘Innateness and Contemporary Theories of Cognition’
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Steven Gross and Georges Rey, ‘Innateness’ in E. Margolis, R. Samuels, S. Stich (eds.),
The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Cognitive Science (OUP, 2012)