Foreword for a sixty-year-old triangle

Il contributo presenta la traduzione in inglese del testo, apparso in italiano nel 1954, in cui Gaetano Kanizsa pubblicava per la prima volta il triangolo illusorio

« L’esprit, et peut-être même le cerveau… » La question psychologique dans la Revue internationale de filmologie, 1947-1962

Le présent article décrit les travaux de la Revue internationale de filmologie en matière de psychologie. En règle générale, cette revue voit cohabiter des tendances opposées, liées à la double ascendance, philosophique et expérimentale, de la psychologie, et très sensibles encore dans la France des années 1940 à 1960 : l’une mène à spéculer de manière introspective, l’autre à faire des tests et des mesures, dans la lignée du behaviorisme puis de la théorie de la communication. Une ambition interdisciplinaire — difficilement traduite en faits — y conduit aussi les psychologues à inscrire leur travail dans une vision d’ensemble anthropologique, sinon politique, qui les fait travailler avec des sociologues et des historiens de l’art. Quelques-unes de leurs conclusions sont encore valables de nos jours, notamment à propos de la perception du mouvement ou de la « dangerosité morale » des images. D’autres, trop normatives ou négligeant trop de variables expérimentales, sont devenues indéfendables. Ce qui peut éventuellement servir de modèle épistémologique à la recherche actuelle en matière de cinéma, c’est l’application que montrent certains psycho-filmologues à considérer le cinéma comme un « fait social total » (Mauss) au lieu de le réduire à un « texte » ou à un « stimulus ».This article describes the work of the Revue internationale de filmologie with respect to psychology. As a rule, the journal was home to opposing tendencies tied to the quite apparent two-fold ascendancy, both philosophical and applied, of psychology in France in the 1940s to 1960s. The former led to introspective speculation, the other to tests and measurements deriving first from behaviourism and later from the theory of communication. A striving for interdisciplinarity, difficult to achieve in practice, also led psychologists to see their work in an anthropological, if not political light, leading them to work with sociologists and art historians. Some of their conclusions are still valid today, particularly with respect to the perception of movement and the “moral danger” represented by images. Other of their conclusions, too normative or too neglectful of experimental variables, became indefensible. What could possibly serve as an epistemological model for present-day research in film studies is the determination of some psycho-filmologues to see film as a “complete social fact” (Mauss) rather than reducing it to a “text” or a “stimulus.

On the nature and role of intersubjectivity in communication

We outline a theory of human agency and communication and discuss the role that the capability to share (that is, intersubjectivity) plays in it. All the notions discussed are cast in a mentalistic and radically constructivist framework. We also introduce and discuss the relevant literature

Mary's Powers of Imagination

One common response to the knowledge argument is the ability hypothesis. Proponents of the ability hypothesis accept that Mary learns what seeing red is like when she exits her black-and-white room, but they deny that the kind of knowledge she gains is propositional in nature. Rather, she acquires a cluster of abilities that she previously lacked, in particular, the abilities to recognize, remember, and imagine the color red. For proponents of the ability hypothesis, knowing what an experience is like simply consists in the possession of these abilities. Criticisms of the ability hypothesis tend to focus on this last claim. Such critics tend to accept that Mary gains these abilities when she leaves the room, but they deny that such abilities constitute knowledge of what an experience is like. To my mind, however, this critical strategy grants too much. Focusing specifically on imaginative ability, I argue that Mary does not gain this ability when she leaves the room for she already had the ability to imagine red while she was inside it. Moreover, despite what some have thought, the ability hypothesis cannot be easily rescued by recasting it in terms of a more restrictive imaginative ability. My purpose here is not to take sides in the debate about physicalism, i.e., my criticism of the ability hypothesis is not offered in an attempt to defend the anti-physicalist conclusion of the knowledge argument. Rather, my purpose is to redeem the imagination from the misleading picture of it that discussion of the knowledge argument has fostered

The Grand Challenge for Psychology: Integrate and Fire!

SCOPUS: no.jinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishe

Folk intuitions of Actual Causation: A Two-Pronged Debunking Explanation

How do we determine whether some candidate causal factor is an actual cause of some particular outcome? Many philosophers have wanted a view of actual causation which fits with folk intuitions of actual causation and those who wish to depart from folk intuitions of actual causation are often charged with the task of providing a plausible account of just how and where the folk have gone wrong. In this paper, I provide a range of empirical evidence aimed at showing just how and where the folk go wrong in determining whether an actual causal relation obtains. The evidence suggests that folk intuitions of actual causation are generated by two epistemically defective processes. I situate the empirical evidence within a background discussion of debunking, arguing for a two-pronged debunking explanation of folk intuitions of actual causation. I conclude that those who wish to depart from folk intuitions of actual causation should not be compelled to square their account of actual causation with the verdicts of the folk. In the dispute over actual causation, folk intuitions deserve to be rejected