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. ...
and
Cognitive Science at
Rutgers University
Rutgers University (; RU), officially Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a public land-grant research university consisting of four campuses in New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen's College, and was ...
, 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 add ...
,
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.
Epi ...
, 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 va ...
. 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 coherent ...
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 university, private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest- ...
from 1960–1964 where he was a member of the
Philomathean Society. 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 research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the ...
from 1964–1968, receiving his PhD in 1968 under the direction of
Paul Benacerraf and
Gilbert Harman.
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 ...
(1978-1986),
University of California, San Diego
The University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego or colloquially, UCSD) is a public land-grant research university in San Diego, California. Established in 1960 near the pre-existing Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego is ...
(1986-1989), and, since 1989, at
Rutgers University
Rutgers University (; RU), officially Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a public land-grant research university consisting of four campuses in New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen's College, and was ...
.
Stich joined 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 ...
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 int ...
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, a ...
.
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
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 add ...
,
cognitive science,
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.
Epi ...
, 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 va ...
. In philosophy of mind and cognitive science, Stich (1983) has 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 coherent ...
—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 ...
'' (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 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 are responsible for a theory of how humans understand the mental states of ourselves and others, or
mindreading
Mentalism is a performing art in which its practitioners, known as mentalists, appear to demonstrate highly developed mental or intuitive abilities. Performances may appear to include hypnosis, telepathy, clairvoyance, divination, precognition ...
, which they present in Nichols and Stich (2003). Their theory is a hybrid, containing elements of both the
simulation theory and
theory theory, 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.
See also
*
American philosophy
American philosophy is the activity, corpus, and tradition of philosophers affiliated with the United States. The '' Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' notes that while it lacks a "core of defining features, American Philosophy can never ...
*
List of American philosophers
This is a list of American philosophers; of philosophers who are either from, or spent many productive years of their lives in the United States.
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*
List of Jean Nicod Prize laureates
References
External links
Stich's WebsiteStich's profile at RutgersStich'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