Philosophers and psychologists on the science of mind.
A couple of posts ago I linked to the BBC debate between Keith Laws and Rupert Reed debating whether Psychology is a science. Keith’s answer was a perhaps maybe if we clean up our act, and Ruperts and emphatic no. But go listen.
It resulted in a long twitter-debate, stretching over days. Someone likened it to watching Tarkovski. (I keep imagining a slow shot from Solaris that I watched this weekend in a, um, experiment, where we try to wed psychology and film studies).
It was storified. Here. Even I get one of mine enclosed. (I objected to Rupert saying we had access to the world, and should use that as psychology – which immediately brought to mind “the myth of the given” from Sellars. But, since I’m not really a philosopher, it also brought up all those researchers into us not knowing quite our own minds, from Gazzaniga, and Nisbet&Wilson, and invisible gorillas, and decision blindness, and confabulating perferences, and subtle adjustments to norms, and what not, mostly from that non-science that is psychology).
It is rather fascinating.
Then I read this, today, from Guy Longworth. Which I thought was rather lovely. And, figure was prompted by the debate (as he took part). Oh, he is a philosopher too.
Generally, I thought philosophers and psychologists got along, but maybe that is because the ones I hang out with are the ones in Cognitive Science. We kinda do the same thing.
