Stephen Stich

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Stephen Stich during the Gottlob Frege Lectures in Theoretical Philosophy , Tartu , Estonia (2010)

Stephen Stich (born May 9, 1943 ) is an American professor of philosophy and cognitive scientist . He currently teaches (as of 2012) at Rutgers University in New Jersey and also holds an honorary professorship in the philosophy faculty at the University of Sheffield . Stich's versatile work, which ranges from the philosophy of the mind to epistemology to ethics , was awarded the Jean Nicod Prize in 2007 .

academic career

Stephen Stich studied philosophy from 1960 to 1964 at the University of Pennsylvania , where he graduated with a BA (summa cum laude with honors). After another four years at Princeton University , he received his doctorate there in 1968. This was followed by teaching activities at a number of universities, including the City University of New York (CUNY), the University of Michigan , the University of Maryland and the University of California, San Diego .

Since 1998, Stich has been researching and teaching philosophy and cognitive science at Rutgers University .

In 2009 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences .

plant

In terms of the fundamental question of the philosophy of mind , namely that of the fundamental nature of human consciousness, Stephen Stich can be classified as a materialist . For example, his 1983 book, From Folk Psychology to Cognitive Science: The Case Against Belief , caused a sensation, not least because his arguments and conclusions here seemed to go far beyond materialism - as well as stricter physicalism accordingly, much more than an advocacy of Eliminative Materialism . At the latest since the publication of his book Deconstructing the Mind in 1996 Stich has so far modified his position and perspective that he no longer adequate without further classic near Eliminitavisten such as Paul and Patricia Churchland , or Daniel Dennett can be situates .

However, Stich is still close to Dennett in many respects, such as: B. in the categorical rejection of the possibility that nonhuman animals - including the other primates - could entertain (read: believe) probabilities. According to Stich, this is impossible because we cannot ascribe any (or only empty ) propositional attitudes to nonhuman animals without filling them with concrete (ie believed in each case ) and even writable content. According to him, it is precisely this describability that fails because of the assumed absence of natural language on the part of non-human animals. A skepticism that he also shares with Donald Davidson . What distinguishes Stephen Stich from many Anglo-Saxon philosophers, and is reflected in his book The Fragmentation of Reason (1990) in particular , is a general skepticism towards the traditional instruments and methods of analytic philosophy , although he alternatively uses a more pragmatic , epistemic relativism offers.

Stephen Stich's more recent work (as in Mindreading , 2003) dealt with the Theory of Mind , above all the question of how it is possible for people to be able to infer and interpret the mental processes and states in other people.

Publications (selection)

  • Grammar, Psychology and Indeterminacy . Journal of Philosophy . LXIX, 22, 1972.
  • Empiricism, Innateness and Linguistic Universals . Philosophical Studies . Vol. 33, No. 3, 1978.
  • Beliefs and Sub-Doxastic States . Philosophy of Science , Vol. 45, No. 4, 1978.
  • Do Animals Have Beliefs? The Australasian Journal of Philosophy . Vol. 57, No. 1, 1979.
  • From Folk Psychology to Cognitive Science: The Case Against Belief . MIT Press 1983, ISBN 0-262-69092-6 .
  • Connectionism, Eliminativism and the Future of Folk Psychology . Philosophical Perspectives . Vol. 4, 1990.
  • The Fragmentation of Reason: Preface to a Pragmatic Theory of Cognitive Evaluation . MIT Press 1990, ISBN 0-262-69159-0 .
  • What Is a Theory of Mental Representation? Min . Vol. 101, No. 402, 1992.
  • Naturalizing Epistemology: Quine, Simon and the Prospects for Pragmatism . in C. Hookway & D. Peterson: Philosophy and Cognitive Science . Royal Institute of Philosophy, Supplement No. 34, 1993, article online .
  • Deconstructing the Mind . Oxford University Press 1996, ISBN 0-19-512666-1 . 1st chapter online .
  • The Flight to Reference, or How Not to Make Progress in the Philosophy of Science . (with Michael Bishop), Philosophy of Science . Vol. 65, No. 1, article online 1998.
  • Theory Theory to the Max . (with Shaun Nichols), in Mind and Language . Vol. 13, No. 3, article online , 1998.
  • Jackson's Empirical Assumptions . (with Jonathan Weinberg), Philosophy and Phenomenological Research . Vol. 62, No. 3, article online , 2001.
  • Mind reading . (with Shaun Nichols), Oxford University Press ( ISBN 0-19-823610-7 ), 2003.
  • Two Theories about the Cognitive Architecture Underlying Morality . (with Daniel Kelley), Online Philosophy Conference . 2006.
  • Collected Papers, Volume 1: Mind and Language, 1972-2010 . Oxford University Press, New York 2011, ISBN 978-0-19-973410-8 .
  • Collected Papers, Volume 2: Knowledge, Rationality, and Morality, 1978-2010 . Oxford University Press, New York 2012, ISBN 978-0-19-973347-7 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Archived copy ( memento of the original from January 26, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.institutnicod.org
  2. ↑ http://www.rci.rutgers.edu/~stich/CV/CV%20-%20SPS%20-%20updated%2011-09.pdf
  3. ↑ Stich, Stephen, “Do Animals Have Beliefs?” Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 57: 15-28, (1978)
  4. ↑ Davidson, Donald: “Thought and Talk”, in S. Guttenplan, Mind and Language, Oxford, 7-23 (1975)
  5. ^ Davidson, Donald: "Rational Animals," Dialectica, 36: 317-328 (1982)

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Stitch, Stephen
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American philosopher and cognitive scientist
DATE OF BIRTH May 9, 1943