Hostname: page-component-74656f9884-j7cmm Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-11-11T02:17:41.595Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Alternative Individualism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

D. M. Walsh
D. M. Walsh*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, University of Edinburgh
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Psychological individualism is motivated by two taxonomic principles: (i) that psychological states are individuated by their causal powers, and (ii) that causal powers supervene upon intrinsic physiological state. I distinguish two interpretations of individualism—the ‘orthodox’ and the ‘alternative‘—each of which is consistent with these motivating principles. I argue that the alternative interpretation is legitimately individualistic on the grounds that it accurately reflects the actual taxonomic practices of bona fide individualistic sciences. The classification of homeobox genes in developmental genetics provides an illustration. When applied to the taxonomy of psychological kinds, alternative individualism has some surprising consequences. In particular, externalist taxonomies of thought are consistent with the alternative interpretation, and hence consistent with individualism. I conclude, on this basis, that the individualism/externalism dispute which has long preoccupied philosophy of psychology is an empty one.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 66 , Issue 4 , December 1999 , pp. 628 - 648
Copyright
Copyright © 1999 by the Philosophy of Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

Footnotes

‡

Department of Philosophy, University of Edinburgh, David Hume Tower, George Square, Edinburgh, Scotland EH8 9JX.

†

I have had a lot of help with this paper. It was instigated by an objection to my “Wide Content Individualism” raised by Gabriel Segal. In addition to Gabriel, I would particularly like to thank Alexander Bird, Tom Bontly, David Buller, Peter Milne, Philip Percival, Larry Shapiro, Tim Williamson, and two very helpful anonymous referees from this journal, as well as audiences in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen, Mexico City, Bradford, and University College, Dublin. This paper was written partially with the support of SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellowship #756-94-0750.

References

Bach, Kent (1982), ”De Re Belief and Methodological Solipsism”, in Woodfield, A. (ed.), Thought and Object: Essays on Intentionality. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 121–151.Google Scholar
Bontly, Thomas (1998), “Individualism and the Nature of Syntactic States”, The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 49: 557–574.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burge, Tyler (1979), “Individualism and the Mental”, in P. French, T. Uehling, and H. Wettstein (eds.), Midwest Studies in Philosophy IV: Studies in Metaphysics 4: 73–121.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burge, Tyler. (1986), “Individualism and Psychology”, The Philosophical Review 95: 3–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burge, Tyler. (1989), “Individuation and Causation in Psychology”, Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 70: 303–322.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burge, Tyler. (1993), “Mind-Body Causation and Explanatory Practice”, in Heil, J. and Mele, A. (eds.), Mental Causation. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 97–120.Google Scholar
Butler, Keith (1996), “Content, Causal Powers, and Context”, Philosophy of Science 63: 105–114.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cummins, Robert (1989), Meaning and Mental Representation. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Devitt, Michael (1990), “A Narrow Representational Theory of the Mind”, in Lycan, W. (ed.), Mind and Cognition. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 374–398.Google Scholar
Duboule, D. and Dollé, P. (1989), “The Structural and Functional Organization of the Murine Hox Family Resembles That of Drosophila Homeotic Genes”, Embo 8:1497–1505.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Egan, Frances (1991), “Must Psychology Be Individualistic?”, The Philosophical Review 100: 179–203.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Egan, Frances. (1992) “Individualism, Computation and Perceptual Content”, Mind 101: 443–459.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Enç, Berent (1995), “The Units of Behavior”, Philosophy of Science 62: 523–542.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fodor, Jerry (1987), Psychosemantics: The Problem of Meaning in the Philosophy of Mind. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fodor, Jerry. (1991), “A Modal Argument for Narrow Content”, Journal of Philosophy 87: 5–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kim, Jaegwon (1982), “Psychophysical Supervenience”, Philosophical Studies 41: 51–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kim, Jaegwon. (1993a), “Postscripts on Supervenience”, in J. Kim, Supervenience and Mind: Selected Philosophical Essays. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 161–171.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kim, Jaegwon. (1993b), “Multiple Realization and the Metaphysics of Reduction”, in J. Kim, Supervenience and Mind: Selected Philosophical Essays. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 308–335.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McGinnis, N., Kuziora, M. A., and McGinnis, W. (1990), “Human Hox and Drosophila Deformed Encode Similar Regulatory Specificities in Drosophila Embryos and Larvae”, Cell 63: 969–976.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
McGinnis, W. (1994), “A Century of Homeoesis, a Decade of Homeoboxes”, Genetics 137:607–611.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Millikan, Ruth Garrett (1993a), “What is Behavior?”, in R. G. Millikan, White Queen Psychology and Other Essays for Alice. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 135–150.Google Scholar
Millikan, Ruth Garrett. (1993b), “The Green Grass Growing All Around”, in R. G. Millikan, White Queen Psychology and Other Essays for Alice. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 151–170.Google Scholar
Muller, G. B. and Wagner, G. P. (1996), “Homology, Hox Genes and Developmental Integration”, American Zoologist 36: 4–13.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Owens, Joseph (1993), “Content, Causation and Psychophysical Supervenience”, Philosophy of Science 60: 242–261.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rudder Baker, Lynne (1993), “Metaphysics and Mental Causation”, in Heil, J. and Mele, A. (eds.), Mental Causation. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 75–96.Google Scholar
Rudder Baker, Lynne. (1994), Content and Context”, Philosophical Perspectives 8: 17–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Saidel, Eric (1994), “Discussion: Content and Causal Powers”, Philosophy of Science 61: 658–665.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Seager, William D. (1991), The Metaphysics of Consciousness. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Shoemaker, Sidney (1984), “Causality and Properties”, in S. Shoemaker, Identity, Cause, and Mind. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 206–233.Google Scholar
Shapiro, Lawrence (1993), “Content, Kinds and Individualism in Marr's Theory of Vision”, The Philosophical Review 102: 489–513.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stich, Stephen (1983), From Folk Psychology to Cognitive Psychology. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Van Gulick, Robert (1989), “Metaphysical Arguments for Internalism and Why They Don't Work”, in Silvers, S. (ed.), Representation. Boston: Kluwer, 151–159.Google Scholar
Walsh, Denis M. (1998), “Wide Content Individualism”, Mind 107: 625–651.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Waters, Kenneth (1994), “Genes Made Molecular”, Philosophy of Science 61:163–185.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wilson, Robert (1992), “Individualism, Causal Powers, and Explanation”, Philosophical Studies 68:103–139.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wilson, Robert. (1994), “Causal Depth, Theoretical Appropriateness and Individualism in Psychology”, Philosophy of Science 61: 55–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wilson, Robert. (1995), Cartesian Psychology and Physical Minds: Individualism and the Sciences of the Mind. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yablo, Stephen (1997), “Wide Causation”, in J. E. Tomberlin (ed.), Philosophical Perspectives 11: 261–282.Google Scholar