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Reposted by Devin Curry

Frances Egan @francesegan.bsky.social · 6d

Shamelessly promoting my favorite paper. Everybody who was anybody in the history of science/philosophy/mathematics had a view on the moon illusion. frances-egan.org/uploads/3/5/...

frances-egan.org

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Devin Curry @devinsanchezcurry.com · 6d

i don't think there's a particularly strong correlation between having regimented daily writing time and being a productive writer, but i do think there's a very strong correlation between having regimented daily writing time and producing guides to productive writing

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Devin Curry @devinsanchezcurry.com · 14d

ah no I'm sorry for the obnoxious self-promotion! it's an excellent paper.

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Devin Curry @devinsanchezcurry.com · 14d

...I'd say the contrast is between the objective standards applying absolutely vs the objective standards applying only relative to a particular purpose/interpreter/stance/model/whatever)

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Devin Curry @devinsanchezcurry.com · 14d

(To be clear, I think there are good reasons to call these "objective standards". But insofar as you're discussing the objective standards in order to draw a contrast with relativism...

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Devin Curry @devinsanchezcurry.com · 14d

Yep, that's right. (I'm a full-blown relativist, not just a contextualist.) Of course, I have arguments that all (superficial) interpretivists should give up on wanting an absolute standard of belief. But I don't expect to convince you of that here!

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Devin Curry @devinsanchezcurry.com · 14d

Agreed that it's an important distinction, and yeah "absolute" is better than "objective." FWIW, I think I'm a better foil on that score than Dennett! (I do go fully in for the kind of view you're rejecting; Dan only flirted with it; details in the "Interpretivism and norms" paper linked above.)

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Devin Curry @devinsanchezcurry.com · 14d

By my lights, a superficial interpretivism about belief and desire should be sensitive to that diversity of goals. (Again, though, an evidential interpretivism need not be! So I don't think this is an objection to the main thrust of your paper.)

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Devin Curry @devinsanchezcurry.com · 14d

I don't have the same objection to best systems analyses of laws, since theorists have fairly narrow theoretical goals when they posit laws of nature. When folks posit beliefs and desires, they sometimes have similarly narrow scientific goals, but often have other social goals as well (or instead).

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Devin Curry @devinsanchezcurry.com · 14d

Yeah, I think I do get what you're saying--I suppose my (small!) point is just that Dennett and Davidson's views shouldn't be characterized as less objective because they talk about "stances" and "perspectives" and "hypothetical interpreters" (since your view can be translated into those terms too).

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Devin Curry @devinsanchezcurry.com · 14d

(In the end, your "objective interpretationism" strikes me as a very reasonable approach if it's just used as an "evidential interpretationism", paired a commitment to some "deeper" metaphysics of desire (or disjunction thereof). I'm less happy with it as a superficial theory of desire.)

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Devin Curry @devinsanchezcurry.com · 14d

And different theorists (or users!) are liable to have quite various goals in attributing (or considering whether to attribute) beliefs and desires to LLMs.

philpapers.org/rec/CURIAN

Devin Sanchez Curry, Interpretivism and norms - PhilPapers

This article reconsiders the relationship between interpretivism about belief and normative standards. Interpretivists have traditionally taken beliefs to be fixed in relation to norms of interpretati...

philpapers.org

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Devin Curry @devinsanchezcurry.com · 14d

More polemically, and putting aside the question of whether you are invoking a "stance" or an "ideal interpreter", I'd suggest that whether objective measures of accuracy, power, and tractability pick out the best theory depends on the goals of the theorist.

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Devin Curry @devinsanchezcurry.com · 14d

I think you are invoking a stance here: a stance that involves taking objective measures of accuracy, power, and tractability to be the normative standards in relation to which attributions of belief and desire should be deemed accurate or inaccurate.

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Devin Curry @devinsanchezcurry.com · 14d

You go on: "Second, we do not invoke a hypothesized interpreter or a “stance”; belief and desire in our theory is not relativized to an interpreter or to a perspective. For us, the best theory is selected by objective measures of accuracy, power, and tractability."

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Devin Curry @devinsanchezcurry.com · 14d

...and (more controversially) that superficial versions of analytic functionalism and dispositionalism are incomplete theories of what mental states are if they're not married with some kind of interpretivism.

philarchive.org/rec/CURWDN

Devin Sanchez Curry, Why dispositionalism needs interpretivism: a reply to Poslajko - PhilArchive

I have proposed wedding the theories of belief known as dispositionalism and interpretivism. Krzysztof Poslajko objects that dispositionalism does just fine on its own and, moreover, is better off wit...

philarchive.org

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Devin Curry @devinsanchezcurry.com · 14d

Indeed, I've argued that such interpretivisms are incomplete theories of what mental states are (and what it is to have them) if they're not married with some kind of analytic functionalism or dispositionalism...

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Devin Curry @devinsanchezcurry.com · 14d

For what it's worth, I think versions of interpretivism that are cast as presenting a theory of "what it is" to have beliefs and desires are also compatible with versions of analytic functionalism and dispositionalism.

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Devin Curry @devinsanchezcurry.com · 14d

You write: "First, we are not presenting a theory of “what it is” to have these attitudes ... For this reason, our version of interpretationism is compatible with versions of analytic functionalism and dispositionalism"

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Devin Curry @devinsanchezcurry.com · 14d

Cool stuff!

I know this internecine stuff isn't central to your project, and that you've already reasonably waved away these kinds of complaints in fn 7, but I'm not sure about the "two crucial ways" you say your version of interpretivism differs from others on page 5.

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Reposted by Devin Curry

The GPPC @thegppc.bsky.social · 27d

Sept. 19-20: Retirement conference in honor of Gary Hatfield at UPenn. Speakers include Aleksandra Igdalova, Rolf-Peter Horstmann, Ben Baker, Peter Schwartz, Louise Daoust, and Uljana Feest. For those interested in attending, RSVP here:
upenn.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_...
#philsky

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Devin Curry @devinsanchezcurry.com · Sep 6

either my whole brain constructs strawmen equipotentially or my strawmen are the exclusive products of the strawman module in my temporoparietal junction

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Devin Curry @devinsanchezcurry.com · Sep 3

i'm ambivalent about recommending that essay prompt (or things along its lines), though I've now used (variations of) it many times. it reliably elicits some fantastic, thoughtful responses, including from students who didn't otherwise ace the course. but it also elicits a bunch of lazy responses.

Devin Curry @devinsanchezcurry.com · Sep 3

for lower-division courses, i like short answer questions. (even when I give essay prompts, they're really just series of short answer questions.) here's a picture of a 50-minute final exam from a 200-level philosophy of cognitive science course, alongside a picture of the study guide for that exam.

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Devin Curry @devinsanchezcurry.com · Aug 28

do you know A Giant Dog?

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