Stephen P. Stich (born May 9, 1943) is an American academic who is Distinguished Professor of

Philosophy Philosophy (from , ) is the systematized study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about existence, reason, knowledge, values, mind, and language. Such questions are often posed as problems to be studied or resolved. Some ...

and Cognitive Science at

Rutgers University Rutgers University (; RU), officially Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a Public university, public land-grant research university consisting of four campuses in New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen's ...

, as well as an Honorary Professor in Philosophy at the

University of Sheffield , mottoeng = To discover the causes of things , established = – University of SheffieldPredecessor institutions: – Sheffield Medical School – Firth College – Sheffield Technical School – University College of Sheffield , type = Pu ...

. Stich's main philosophical interests are in the

philosophy of mind Philosophy of mind is a branch of philosophy that studies the ontology and nature of the mind and its relationship with the body. The mind–body problem is a paradigmatic issue in philosophy of mind, although a number of other issues are addre ...

epistemology Epistemology (; ), or the theory of knowledge, is the branch of philosophy concerned with knowledge. Epistemology is considered a major subfield of philosophy, along with other major subfields such as ethics, logic, and metaphysics. Episte ...

, and

moral psychology Moral psychology is a field of study in both philosophy and psychology. Historically, the term "moral psychology" was used relatively narrowly to refer to the study of moral development. Moral psychology eventually came to refer more broadly to var ...

. His 1983 book, ''From Folk Psychology to Cognitive Science: The Case Against Belief'', received much attention as he argued for a form of

eliminative materialism Eliminative materialism (also called eliminativism) is a materialist position in the philosophy of mind. It is the idea that majority of the mental states in folk psychology do not exist. Some supporters of eliminativism argue that no coheren ...

about the mind. He changed his mind, in later years, as indicated in his 1996 book ''Deconstructing the Mind''.

Education and career

Stich was an undergraduate at the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...

from 1960–1964 where he was a member of the

Philomathean Society The Philomathean Society of the University of Pennsylvania is a collegiate literary society, the oldest student group at the university, and a claimant to the title of the oldest continuously-existing literary society in the United States.This cl ...

. He received his BA in 1964 (''Summa Cum Laude'' with distinction in Philosophy). He did graduate work at

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial Colleges, fourth-oldest ins ...

from 1964–1968, receiving his PhD in 1968 under the direction of

Paul Benacerraf Paul Joseph Salomon Benacerraf (; born 26 March 1931) is a French-born American philosopher working in the field of the philosophy of mathematics who taught at Princeton University his entire career, from 1960 until his retirement in 2007. He wa ...

and

Gilbert Harman Gilbert Harman (May 26, 1938 – November 13, 2021) was an American philosopher, who taught at Princeton University from 1963 until his retirement in 2017. He has published widely in philosophy of language, cognitive science, philosophy of min ...

. He has held full-time teaching positions at

University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...

(1968-1978),

University of Maryland, College Park The University of Maryland, College Park (University of Maryland, UMD, or simply Maryland) is a public land-grant research university in College Park, Maryland. Founded in 1856, UMD is the flagship institution of the University System of Mary ...

(1978-1986),

University of California, San Diego The University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego or colloquially, UCSD) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in San Diego, California. Established in 1960 near the pre-existing Scripps Insti ...

(1986-1989), and, since 1989, at

. Stich joined the

as an honorary professor in their philosophy department in February 2005. He remains primarily at Rutgers, but visits Sheffield periodically, where he teaches and works at the Hang Seng Centre for Cognitive Studies. In 2007 he was awarded the

Jean Nicod Prize The Jean Nicod Prize is awarded annually in Paris to a leading philosopher of mind or philosophically oriented cognitive scientist. The lectures are organized by the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique as part of its effort to promote in ...

and gave a series of lectures in Paris titled ''Moral Theory Meets Cognitive Science: How the Cognitive Science Can Transform Traditional Debates''. In 2009, he was elected a Fellow of the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and ...

. In 2020, he became a visiting professor at Princeton University through the University Center for Human Values.

Philosophical work

Stich is primarily known in philosophy for his work in the

, cognitive science,

, and

. In philosophy of mind and cognitive science, Stich (1983) has argued for a form of

—the view that talk of the mental should be replaced with talk of its physical substrate. Since then, however, he has changed some of his views on the mind. See ''

Deconstructing the Mind The term deconstruction refers to approaches to understanding the relationship between text and meaning. It was introduced by the philosopher Jacques Derrida, who defined it as a turn away from Platonism's ideas of "true" forms and essences w ...

'' (1996) for his more recent views. In epistemology, he has explored (with several of his colleagues) the nature of intuitions using the techniques of

experimental philosophy Experimental philosophy is an emerging field of philosophical inquiry Edmonds, David and Warburton, NigelPhilosophy’s great experiment, ''Prospect'', March 1, 2009 that makes use of empirical data—often gathered through surveys which probe ...

, especially epistemic intuitions that vary among cultures—see Stich (1988) and Stich, et al. (2001). This work reflects a general skepticism about

conceptual analysis Philosophical analysis is any of various techniques, typically used by philosophers in the analytic tradition, in order to "break down" (i.e. analyze) philosophical issues. Arguably the most prominent of these techniques is the analysis of concepts ...

and the traditional methods of analytic philosophy. In ''The Fragmentation of Reason'' he briefly sketched a form of epistemic relativism "in the spirit of

pragmatism Pragmatism is a philosophical tradition that considers words and thought as tools and instruments for prediction, problem solving, and action, and rejects the idea that the function of thought is to describe, represent, or mirror reality. ...

."Ch. 6 p.129 of The Fragmentation of Reason: Preface to a Pragmatic Theory of Cognitive Evaluation He and

Shaun Nichols Shaun Nichols (born 7 February 1964) is an American professor of philosophy at Cornell University specializing in the philosophy of cognitive sciences, moral psychology and philosophy of mind. Education and career Nichols received his PhD in ph ...

are responsible for a theory of how humans understand the mental states of ourselves and others, or mindreading, which they present in Nichols and Stich (2003). Their theory is a hybrid, containing elements of both the

simulation theory Simulation theory or Simulation Theory may refer to: *Simulation theory of empathy, theory in philosophy of mind about how people read others' actions and intentions *Simulation Theory (album), ''Simulation Theory'' (album), 2018 studio album by th ...

and

theory theory The theory-theory (or theory theory) is a scientific theory relating to the human development of understanding about the outside world. This theory asserts that individuals hold a basic or 'naïve' theory of psychology ("folk psychology") to infer t ...

, and also aims to explain the mental architecture that enables pretence.

Selected publications

* 1972, "Grammar, Psychology and Indeterminacy", ''Journal of Philosophy'', LXIX, 22, pp. 799–818. * 1978, "Empiricism, Innateness and Linguistic Universals", ''Philosophical Studies'', Vol. 33, No. 3, pp. 273–286. * 1978, "Beliefs and Sub-Doxastic States", ''Philosophy of Science'', Vol. 45, No. 4, pp. 499–518. * 1979, "Do Animals Have Beliefs?" ''The Australasian Journal of Philosophy'', Vol. 57, No. 1, pp. 15–28. * 1983, ''From Folk Psychology to Cognitive Science: The Case Against Belief'', MIT Press. * 1985, "Could Man Be An Irrational Animal?" ''Synthese'', Vol. 64, No. 1, pp. 115–135. * 1988, "Reflective Equilibrium, Analytic Epistemology and the Problem of Cognitive Diversity", ''Synthese'', Vol. 74, No. 3, pp. 391–413. * 1990, "Connectionism, Eliminativism and the Future of Folk Psychology", ''Philosophical Perspectives'', Vol. 4, pp. 499–533. (with William Ramsey & Joseph Garon) * 1990, ''The Fragmentation of Reason: Preface to a Pragmatic Theory of Cognitive Evaluation'', MIT Press. * 1992, "What Is a Theory of Mental Representation?" ''Mind'', Vol. 101, No. 402, pp. 243–61. * 1993, "Naturalizing Epistemology: Quine, Simon and the Prospects for Pragmatism", in C. Hookway & D. Peterson (eds.), ''Philosophy and Cognitive Science'', Royal Institute of Philosophy, Supplement no. 34 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), pp. 1–17
Online text
* 1996, ''Deconstructing the Mind'', Oxford University Press

* 1998, "The Flight to Reference, or How Not to Make Progress in the Philosophy of Science", (with Michael Bishop) ''Philosophy of Science'', Vol. 65, No. 1, pp. 33–49

* 1998, "Theory Theory to the Max", (with Shaun Nichols) ''Mind and Language'', Vol. 13, No. 3, pp. 421–49

* 2001, "Jackson's Empirical Assumptions", (with Jonathan Weinberg) ''Philosophy and Phenomenological Research'', Vol. 62, No. 3, pp. 637–643

* 2003, ''Mindreading'', (co-authored with Shaun Nichols) Oxford University Press. * 2006, "Two Theories about the Cognitive Architecture Underlying Morality", (with Daniel Kelley), ''Online Philosophy Conference''
Online PDF
(presently 404) * 2012, "Collected Papers, Volume 2: Knowledge, Rationality, and Morality, 1978-2010", Oxford University Press, 2012, . * 2017, "Gettier Across Cultures", (with Edouard Machery, Stephen Stich, David Rose, Amita Chatterjee, Kaori Karasawa, Noel Struchiner, Smita Sirker, Naoki Usui, and Takaaki Hashimoto) ''Nous'', Vol. 51.

References

External links

Stich's Website

Stich's profile at Rutgers

Stich's web site at Rutgers

{{DEFAULTSORT:Stich, Stephen Academics of the University of Sheffield American cognitive scientists Philosophers of mind Washington University in St. Louis faculty Jean Nicod Prize laureates Living people 1943 births 20th-century American philosophers 21st-century American philosophers Moral psychologists Epistemologists Distinguished professors of philosophy

Education and career

Philosophical work

Selected publications

See also

References

External links