Abstracts of on-line IRCS Technical Reports by Gary Hatfield
IRCS-01-04
Perception as Unconscious Inference
Gary Hatfield
Since antiquity, visual theorists have variously proposed that
perception (usually vision) results from unconscious inference.
This paper reviews historical and recent theories of unconscious
inferences, in order to make explicit their commitments to
inferential cognitive processes. In particular, it asks whether
the comparison of perception with inference has been intended
metaphorically or literally. It then focuses on the literal
theories, and assesses their resources for responding to three
problems that arise when visual perception is explained as
resulting from unconscious inference: the cognitive machinery problem,
the sophisticated content problem, and the phenomenal problem.
IRCS-01-05
The Brain's "New" Science: Psychology, Neurophysiology, and Constraint
Gary Hatfield
There is a strong philosophical intuition that direct study of the brain
can and will constrain the development of psychological theory. When
this intuition is tested against case studies from the psychology of
perception and memory, it turns out that psychology has led the way
toward knowledge of neurophysiology. An abstract argument is developed
to show that psychology can and must lead the way in neuroscientific study
of mental function. The counterintuition is based on mainly weak arguments
about the fundamentality or objectivity of physics or physiology in
relation to psychology.
IRCS-01-06
Behaviorism and Naturalism
Gary Hatfield
Behaviorism as a school of psychology was founded by John B. Watson,
and grew into the neobehaviorisms of the 1920s, 30s and 40s. Philosophers
were involved from the start, prefiguring the movement and endeavoring
to define or redefine its tenets. Behaviorism expressed the naturalistic
bent in American thought, which opposed the then prevailing philosophical
idealism and was inspired by developments in natural science itself,
especially biology. This naturalism was not materialistic; it viewed
mind as a part of nature from a Darwinian and functionalist
perspective. Although Watson adopted a strict materialism, other
behaviorists, including Tolman, Hull, and Skinner, were biologically
oriented and rejected materialism and physicalist reduction. After
the 1940s the character of philosophical naturalism in America
changed. The physicalism of some logical empiricists and Quine
became prominent, and behaviorism was philosophically reinterpreted in
physicalist terms.
IRCS-01-07
Psychology Old and New
Gary Hatfield
Psychology as the study of mind was an established subject matter
throughout the nineteenth century in Britain, Germany, France,
and the United States, taught in colleges and universities and made
the subject of books and treatises. During the period 1870-1914
this existing discipline of psychology was being transformed
into a new, experimental science, especially in Germany and the
United States. The increase in experimentation changed the body
of psychological writing, although there remained considerable
continuity in theoretical content and non-experimental methodology
between the old and new psychologies. This paper follows the emergence
of the new psychology out of the old in the national traditions of
Britain (primarily England), Germany, and the United States, with
some reference to French, Belgian, Austrian, and Italian thinkers.
The final section considers some methodological and philosophical
issues in these literatures.