[ExI] experimental philosophy

[William Flynn Wallace]

Henry;
Speaking of calling psychology by any other name, I'll plug this article by
my esteemed colleague Scott Lilienfeld that looks at the movement
toward "eliminative
reductionism (the belief that the neural level of analysis will eventually
render the psychological level of analysis superfluous)

Yeah, I've heard this since 1965.  And where will it stop?  At the level of
biochemistry?  Physics? Nuclear physics?  Subatomic physics?

 I have never understood how knowing what is going on in various brain
centers while certain behaviors are being manifested is helpful in
predicting behavior.  Let's keep that in mind:  the name of the game is
predicting behavior.  It's not medicine, where behavior can be traced to a
brain lesion that may be operable.

Even if one knew exactly what behavior was going to occur when a certain
area was active, how are you going to measure it outside of the lab?  And
if one person was hooked up to all the equipment and watched a commercial
and liked it, could you then predict with an accuracy that everyone would
like it?

No two peoples' brains function identically.  The same input yields
different, if only slightly different, behaviors.

This is science, so show me how this works.

bill w

On Wed, Mar 30, 2016 at 9:53 PM, Henry Rivera <hrivera at alumni.virginia.edu>
wrote:

>
> On Mar 30, 2016, at 5:57 PM, William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> But to call it something other than psychology is just playing with words
> and taking credit where it isn't due.
>
>
> Speaking of calling psychology by any other name, I'll plug this article
> by my esteemed colleague Scott Lilienfeld that looks at the movement
> toward "eliminative reductionism (the belief that the neural level of
> analysis will eventually render the psychological level of analysis
> superfluous)" in psychology. This is in contrast to "emergent properties
> (the assumption that higher-order mental functions are not directly
> reducible to neural processes)." The authors note: "a number of
> psychology departments have recently modified their names to underscore a
> focus on neuroscience (Beins, 2012). Such names include “Department of
> Psychological and Brain Sciences” (e.g., University of California, Santa
> Barbara, Johns Hopkins University, Indiana University, Dartmouth
> University, Boston University, University of Louisville, University of
> Massachusetts–Amherst) and “Department of Psychology and Neuroscience”
> (e.g., Duke University, Baylor University, University of Colorado at
> Boulder)." The article touches on philosophy too a bit.
>
> Full disclosure: I'm a (US) psychologist who has taken more than my fair
> share of philosophy courses. And I aced economics without really putting
> forth effort. Thus, as you might predict, the so-called field of behavioral
> economics comes quite naturally to me. I'm not convinced it's not just good
> ole fashioned psychology however. The name could just be a result of
> marketing books to a broader audience although they have made a niche for
> themselves now. But I digress.
>
> Schwartz, S. J., Lilienfeld, S. O., Meca, A., & Sauvigné, K. C. (2016).
> The role of neuroscience within psychology: A call for inclusiveness over
> exclusiveness. *The American psychologist*, *71*(1), 52-70.
>
> -Henry
>
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