Keith Douglas' Web Page

About me Find out who I am and what I do.
My resumé A copy of my resumé and other documentation about my education and work experience for employers and the curious.
Reviews, theses, articles, presentations A collection of papers from my work, categorized and annotated.
Current research projects What I am currently working on, including some non-research material.
Interesting people People professionally "connected" to me in some way.
Interesting organizations Organizations I am "connected" to. (Some rather loosely.)
Intellectual/professional influences Influences on my work, including an organization chart. Here you can also buy many good books on philosophy and other subjects via amazon.com. I have included brief reviews of hundreds of books.
Professional resources Research sources, amazon.com associates programs, etc.
What is the philosophy of computing? A brief introduction to my primary professional interest.
My intellectual heroes A partial list of important people. Limited to the dead.
My educational philosophy As a sometime teacher I've developed one. Includes book resources.

Book Influences - Philosophy of Science - Psychology

Conduct of Inquiry: Methodology for Behavioral Science Kaplan A sensible book of philosophy of social science and philosophy of psychology from the 1960s that still has value today, despite the author's uncritical acceptance of psychoanalysis.
Describing Inner Experience Hurlburt and Schwitzgebel A proponent (psychologist) of a specific technique for conducting interviews to elicit descriptions of "inner experience" and a skeptic (philosopher) team up to try the the method out and analyze the results. I tried to be open minded about this; however, I have to side with the skeptic at almost every turn - the "method" runs roughshod over many distinctions and runs into all the dangers of phenomenology more generally. However, the detailed record of their subject reporting her experience is valuable and could be used by the (or another) skeptic to show clearly some of the problems. For example, the proponent is convinced that there were the details of F-18s in an experience the subject had, despite the "story" involved being about Stukas. I find it this case interesting, for at least in my dreams, I can be sure that something is an X (or is a person Y) without having the "picture" (or other sense impression) of X or Y. So maybe the subject has the "but it must be" impression? How would one even tell? A science of consciousness (or whatever one wants to call it) is a valuable endeavour, but simply hoping that because someone is confident their words can be taken at face value is not a useful approach. All and all, a somewhat (but not completely) disappointing book.
Remarks on the Philosophy of Psychology, vol. 1 Wittgenstein More Wittgenstein, this time also to find out his views on Turing. Wittgenstein recognized that the "Turing machine" was a (idealized) human. There is nothing else on this theme in either volume; however, I only own the first. A lot of other stuff here, very difficult to summarize. Rule following, mathematical practice, perception are some of the topics addressed. German/English facing pages.
Species of Mind: The Philosophy and Biology of Cognitive Ethology Allen and Bekoff Allen (a philosopher) and Bekoff (a biologist) show why the discipline of cognitive ethology illustrates (without them stating it up front) the Bungian point that scientific research is suffused with philosophical ideas. They show that different views in the philosophy of mind and in metaphysics affect one's methodology in cognitive ethology (roughly: the psychology of nonhuman animals). Siding with Milikan (against Dennett) on some issues in the philosophical arena, I think there is a BIT of misrepresentation of Dennett from time to time. But this slight problem is independent of the book's great merit in illustrating the previous point.
The Philosophy of Psychology Botterill and Carruthers This is a small volume on philosophical issues raised in connection with psychology, as the name suggests. Topics included are folk psychology vs. scientific psychology, modularity, nativism, "mind-reading", rationality, mental content, mental representation and consciousness. Each subtopic within each is briefly explored, a position defended and literature references provided. This book says it is addressed primarily to upper division undergraduates in philosophy or perhaps to graduate students in the cognitive sciences generally with some philosophical background. This seems fair - the selections are long and varied enough to get a flavour of some of the topics debated in this area currently and act as a "jumping off" point to current literature. I also agree with the amazon.com reviewer who states that a lot of it is folk vs. scientific psychology and could be broader in scope. For example, there is almost no discussion of sense perception, despite the mountain of research in this area and its perennial interest by philosophers.

Finished with this section? Go back to the list of book subjects here.