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Philosophy of Psychology Meets the Semantic View

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2022

Valerie Gray Hardcastle
Valerie Gray Hardcastle*
Affiliation:
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
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Extract

Philosophers of science have much to say that could be useful to philosophers of mind, especially naturalistic philosophers of psychology. We should listen. In particular, I believe that if philosophers of mind were clearer on how explanations function in science in general, then many of their present worries would either dissolve or be altered beyond recognition. In what follows, I show you what I mean.

First, though, I shall spend a few moments recapitulating the semantic view of theories and how it applies to psychology. This section will be fairly brief since details have already been presented elsewhere (see esp. Bickle 1993). However, let me emphasize at the outset that I am not adopting the semantic view because I think it is inherently superior to the more traditional models (though I do). Indeed, everything that I claim can be translated into any view of theory you might have with greater or lesser ease.

Type
Part II. Philosophy of Psychology as Philosophy of Science
Information
PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association , Volume 1994 , Issue 2: Volume Two: Symposia and Invited Papers 1994 , 1994 , pp. 24 - 34
Copyright
Copyright © 1995 by the Philosophy of Science Association

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