Hostname: page-component-f554764f5-44mx8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-04-19T13:41:49.639Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Programs in the Explanation of Behavior

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

Robert Cummins
Robert Cummins*
Affiliation:
University of Michigan
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to set forth a sense in which programs can and do explain behavior, and to distinguish from this a number of senses in which they do not. Once we are tolerably clear concerning the sort of explanatory strategy being employed, two rather interesting facts emerge; (1) though it is true that programs are “internally represented,” this fact has no explanatory interest beyond the mere fact that the program is executed; (2) programs which are couched in information processing terms may have an explanatory interest for a given range of behavior which is independent of physiological explanations of the same range of behavior.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 44 , Issue 2 , June 1977 , pp. 269 - 287
Copyright
Copyright © 1977 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

References

REFERENCES

Cummins, R. “Dispositions, States and Causes.” Analysis 34 (1974): 194–204.10.1093/analys/34.6.194CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cummins, R. “States, Causes and the Law of Inertia.” Philosophical Studies 29 (1976): 21–36.10.1007/BF00355668CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cummins, R. “The Philosophical Problem of Truth of.” The Canadian Journal of Philosophy 5 (1975): 103–122.10.1080/00455091.1975.10716100CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cummins, R. “Functional Analysis.” The Journal of Philosophy 72 (1975): 741–765.10.2307/2024640CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fodor, J. “The Appeal to Tacit Knowledge in Psychological Explanation.” The Journal of Philosophy 65 (1968): 627–640.10.2307/2024316CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Newell, A., Simon, H. and Shaw, J., “Elements of a Theory of Human Problem Solving.” Psychological Review 65 (1958): 151–166.10.1037/h0048495CrossRefGoogle Scholar
O'Shaugnessy, B. “The Powerlessness of Dispositions.” Analysis 31 (1970): 1–15.10.1093/analys/31.1-2.1CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Watson, J. Behaviorism. New York: Norton, 1930.Google Scholar