Philosophy of Psychology

José Luis Bermúdez introduces the philosophy of psychology as an interdisciplinary exploration of the nature and mechanisms of cognition. Philosophy of Psychology charts out four influential 'pictures of the mind' and uses them to explore central topics in the philosophical foundations of psychology, including the relation between different levels of studying the mind/brain; the nature and scope of psychological explanation; the architecture of cognition; and the relation between thought and language. Chapters cover all the core concepts, including: - models of psychological explanation - the nature of commonsense psychology - arguments for the autonomy of psychology - functionalist approaches to cognition - computational models of the mind - neural network modeling - rationality and mental causation - perception, action and cognition - the language of thought and the architecture of cognition. Philosophy of Psychology: A Contemporary Introduction is a very clear and well-structured textbook from one of the leaders in the field.

José Luis Bermúdez is Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Philosophy-Neuroscience-Psychology Program at Washington University in St Louis, USA. He is series editor of the International Library of Philosophy (Routledge).

Introduction: What is the Philosophy of Psychology?  1. Levels of Psychological Explanation and the Interface Problem  2. The Nature of Commonsense Psychology: The Autonomous Mind and the Functional Mind  3. Causes in the Mind: From the Functional Mind to the Computational Mind  4. Neural Networks and the Neurobiological Mind  5. Rationality, Mental Causation and Commonsense Psychology  6. The Scope of Commonsense Psychology  7. From Perception to Action  8. Propositional Attitudes: Contents and Vehicle  9. Words and Thoughts