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Colin Allen Associate Professor Department of Philosophy Texas A & M University |
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Colin Allen Associate Professor Department of Philosophy Texas A & M University |
Do Behaviorists Dream of Mechanical Sheep? Black Boxes, Mind Reading, and the Explanation of Animal Behavior
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| 11 February Guest Lecture for
Spring 2000 Graduate Seminar: Evolution & Learning |
ABSTRACT:
Disputes between cognitive ethologists and comparative psychologists about the causes of animal behavior take place simultaneously at several levels of abstraction. At its most abstract the debate is conducted in terms of the nature of scientific reasoning itself: What inferences can be made about unobservables? At the least abstract the proof is in the scientific pudding: Do specific studies successfully employ mental or cognitive notions? I will use the case of animal concepts to illustrate issues at various levels of abstraction and to suggest ways to get beyond the sometimes vituperative dispute between behaviorists and cognitivists.
RELATED READING: 
Allen, C. 1999. Animal concepts revisited: The use of self-monitoring as an empirical approach. Erkenntnis 51(1):33-40.Allen, C., and M.D. Hauser. 1991. Concept attribution in non-human animals: Theoretical and methodological problems in ascribing complex mental processes. Philosophy of Science 58:221-240. (ABSTRACT) Allen, C. and M. Bekoff. 1997. Towards an interdisciplinary science of cognitive ethology: Synthesizing field, laboratory, and armchair approaches. Chapter 9 in: C. Allen & Marc Bekoff. Species of mind: The philosophy and biology of cognitive ethology (MIT Press). Allen, C. 1998. Assessing animal cognition: ethological and philosophical perspectives. Journal of Animal Science 76:42-47. ONLINE RESOURCES: Dr. Allen's Biographical Sketch Dr. Allen's Curriculum vitae Dr. Allen's Personal Web Page |
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| OTHER SPRING 2000 SPEAKERS: Alan Kamil . Tim Tully . Michael Fanselow . Leda Cosmides |
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