PHIL / PSYC 351 Thinking and Reasoning
The Instructors My name is Jonathan Livengood. I am an assistant professor of philosophy. My primary area of specialization is philosophy of science. Jonathan Livengood
The Instructors The TA for the course is Zach Horne. Zach is working on two PhDs one in philosophy and one in psychology. You should fear him. Zach Horne
The Book Holyoak and Morrison, Thinking and Reasoning. We won t be reading all of the book just 14 of the 40 chapters. However, we will also read several journal articles.
Course Content Thinking and reasoning is pretty broad.
Course Content Thinking and reasoning is pretty broad. What is the course really about?
Course Content Thinking and reasoning is pretty broad. What is the course really about? We re going to focus on four problem areas:
Course Content Thinking and reasoning is pretty broad. What is the course really about? We re going to focus on four problem areas: Induction
Course Content Thinking and reasoning is pretty broad. What is the course really about? We re going to focus on four problem areas: Induction Analogy
Course Content Thinking and reasoning is pretty broad. What is the course really about? We re going to focus on four problem areas: Induction Analogy Causation
Course Content Thinking and reasoning is pretty broad. What is the course really about? We re going to focus on four problem areas: Induction Analogy Causation Counterfactuals
Induction The word induction is vaguer than one might like. It has been used and continues to be used in several different ways. The broadest sense of the term encompasses all uncertain inference.
Induction However, we will typically reserve the term induction for an inference from observed data to an unobserved data-generating process as opposed to an inference from a known data-generating process to data generated by it.
Induction??? Compare
Induction??? Statistical Deduction Induction Compare
Analogy Humans often make inferences about one thing on the basis of its structural similarities to another thing. We infer that something has a certain feature because it is otherwise analogous to or modeled well by something else that has that feature, too.
Analogy A truly scientific illustration is a method to enable the mind to grasp some conception or law in one branch of science, James Clerk Maxwell
Analogy by placing before it a conception or a law in a different branch of science, James Clerk Maxwell
Analogy and directing the mind to lay hold of that mathematical form which is common to the corresponding ideas in the two sciences James Clerk Maxwell
Analogy leaving out of account for the present the difference between the physical nature of the real phenomena. James Clerk Maxwell
Analogy The relational structure over the parts (relata) is the same in the analogues, though the parts themselves might be very different. Analogical inference is uncertain. And so, some would say it is a species of induction.
Causation We humans behave as if the things we do affect the world in various ways. If I flip the light switch, the light will come on. If I publish a lot, I will get tenure. We think that some manipulations or interventions on the world have predictable results.
Causation Moreover, we often say that some specific agent(s) or event(s) caused some specific outcome that we have observed. For example, we might say that a lightning strike caused a forest fire.
Causation Causal relations are importantly different from statistical associations. As we have all learned, correlation (association) does not imply causation.
Causation But as Hume argued, when we scrutinize our perceptual experience, we do not find causal relations, we find at most constant (or less-thanconstant) conjunction, spatial contiguity, and temporal precedence. Hume, the villain
Counterfactuals In introductory logic courses, students learn about the material conditional as a way of translating indicative sentences like: If it is raining, then the sidewalk is wet.
Counterfactuals Natural language has other kinds of conditional as well. One philosophically and psychologically interesting conditional is the subjunctive conditional, which comes in two varieties: If it were to rain, the sidewalk would become wet. If it had not rained, the sidewalk would not be wet.
Counterfactuals Natural language has other kinds of conditional as well. One philosophically and psychologically interesting conditional is the subjunctive conditional, which comes in two varieties: If it were to rain, the sidewalk would become wet. If it had not rained, the sidewalk would not be wet.
Counterfactuals Natural language has other kinds of conditional as well. One philosophically and psychologically interesting conditional is the subjunctive conditional, which comes in two varieties: If it were to rain, the sidewalk would become wet. If it had not rained, the sidewalk would not be wet.
Additional Course Content In addition to induction, analogy, causation, and counterfactuals, we will discuss several related issues, like judgment and decision-making, explanation, concepts, computational modeling, and so forth. In this course, we will all be doing research. I expect to learn, not just to teach.
Course Requirements & Grading About two-thirds of you registered for this course under its psychology designation. The rest under its philosophy designation. The course requirements are a bit different than is typical in psychology courses.
Course Requirements & Grading Three-quarters of your course grade is based on drafts and peer review of a single term paper. In all, you will write five (5) drafts. Two of your drafts will be reviewed by your peers. Two of your drafts will be reviewed by Zach and me. The final draft will be 38% of your course grade.
Course Requirements & Grading The rest of your grade will depend on the best four (4) out of five (5) experiment proposals that you develop with a laboratory working group. We will have much more to say about the proposals and the term paper later.
Course Requirements & Grading Grades are on a 400 point scale. The points are distributed as follows: 4 Experiment Proposals * 25 pts = 100 pts First Official Paper Draft = 25 Second Official Paper Draft = 50 Peer Review = 75 Final Paper = 150
Readings We expect you to complete course readings by the day they appear on the syllabus or on the course website. Come with questions, objections, and interesting thoughts. Discussion will make the course better!
Next Time We will be talking about the relationship between prescriptive and descriptive accounts of thinking and reasoning.