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Last modified 5 Jul 08
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Peter Godfrey-Smith: Online Papers
Philosophy of Mind: Recent Work
My recent work in this area has mostly been about folk psychology and mental representation. I have been trying to re-examine these topics with the aid of ideas imported from recent philosophy of science. These papers overlap quite a lot, and later papers supersede earlier ones where they disagree. All the files here are in pdf format.
On Folk Psychology and Mental Representation An overview. Written for a conference in Sydney in 2000, in appears in Representation in Mind: New Approaches to Mental Representation, edited by H. Clapin, P. Staines, and P. Slezak (Elsevier, 2004).
Untangling the Evolution of Mental Representation is a speculative discussion that looks at some co-evolutionary possibilities.
Folk Psychology as a Model argues that folk psychology might be seen as a model rather than a theory. (This is not, as it might appear to be, a version of simulationism.) This paper appears in the Philosopher's Imprint.
Environmental Complexity and the Evolution of Cognition is a summary of the main ideas of my 1996 book, Complexity and the Function of Mind in Nature.
Philosophy of Biology
The Replicator in Retrospect. The replicator concept is useful for some purposes, but the role of replicators has been overstated. In particular, replicators are not essential to evolution by natural selection.
Three Kinds of Adaptationism. Some versions of adaptationism are empirical claims about the biological world, but others are not. Much of the heat generated by the adaptationism debates is due to a philosophical, as opposed to empirical, version of the view.
On Genetic Information and Genetic Coding. Genes can code for proteins, but not for phenotypes in the usual sense. This paper gives an alternative version of arguments in a paper in Philosophy of Science, 2000.
Individualist and Multi-Level Perspectives on Selection in Structured Populations. Written with Ben Kerr. "Individualist" and "Multi-Level" treatments of trait-group models are mathematically equivalent, but they package information differently and have different heuristic features. The right response is to maintain an ability to "gestalt-switch" between the two approaches.
Evolution of Behavioral Heterogeneity in Individuals and Populations. A paper written with Carl Bergstrom, on the relation between mixed strategies and polymorphisms in game-theoretic models. When will evolution distinguish the two?
Information and the Argument from Design. Some proponents of "Intelligent Design" creationism appeal to information theory to make their claims look more rigorous. This paper criticizes William Dembski's version of the view, but also includes a more general discussion of information and probability in evolution. This is a modified version of a paper that paper appears in a collection edited by Rob Pennock on the "Intelligent Design" controversy.
Functions: Consensus without Unity. Discusses the relation between different kinds of functional properties and functional explanations in biology.
Philosophy of Science, Metaphysics, etc.
Theories and Models in Metaphysics. This one was given at Daniel Stoljar's methodologically explicit conference at ANU, July 2005. More models, but applied to a different part of philosophy.
Dewey on Naturalism, Realism, and Science. John Dewey was closer to contemporary naturalism and scientific realism than you might think. His later work (post 1925) develops a very interesting alternative form of naturalism.
Goodman's Problem and Scientific Methodology. The 'grue' problem -- or rather, one aspect of it -- can be assimilated to some well-known practical problems arising in scientific data analysis. The connection is made through the concepts of confounding and bias.
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