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Basic Information
Course Website:
http://www.lps.uci.edu/~johnsonk/CLASSES/unobservedstructure/unobservedstructuresyllabus.html
Instructor: Kent Johnson
Email:johnsonk@uci.edu Office Hours: Wed, 11:00—12:00 (and by appointment) Office Location: SST 755
Introduction. This course revolves around the general theme of
positing
unobserved structure in scientific models of (complex) empirical
phenomena.
Models of this sort typically structure and organize the available
empirical
data. Sometimes, but not always, this structuring allows us to infer
the
presence of unobserved structure present in the individual entities
under
study. For example, a statistical model might support an interpretation
regarding the internal structure of the individuals sampled in one
case, while
in another case the very same mathematical model generated from a
numerically
identical data set might support an interpretation only concerning the
aggregate behavior of the sample or the population it was drawn from.
My own
empirical interests and background on this theme concern issues in
cognitive
psychology and linguistics. Depending on the interests and background
of the
other participants, we may also explore some similar issues in other
empirical
areas such as biology and chemistry.
Some
general issues, most or all of which will be explored are (in no
particular
order): idealization, “levels” of analysis, multiple realizability and
laws in
the special sciences, the performance/competence distinction,
linguistic
methodology, statistical data analysis, statistical modeling with
latent
variables, cognitive architecture.
Readings
will include material by: Marr, Chomsky, Peacocke, Fodor, Matthews,
Elman,
Bollen, Dunteman, Liu, Putnam, Forster.
Readings
Linguistics
David Townsend and
Thomas Bever, “What Every Psychologist Should Know about
Linguistics”
Special Sciences
Jerry Fodor,
“Special Sciences”
Hilary Putnam “The
Nature of Mental States” and “Philosophy and Our Mental Life"
Functional Theories
David Marr,
excerpts from Vision
Christopher
Peacocke, “Explanation in Computational Psychology: Language,
Perception, and Level 1.5”
Francis Egan,
“Naturalistic Inquiry: Where Does Mental Representation fit in?”
Bradley Franks,
“On Explanation in the Cognitive Sciences: Competence, Idealization,
and the Failure of the Classical Cascade”
Guiding/Fitting
W.v.Quine,
“Methodological Reflections on Current Linguistic Theory”
Noam Chomsky,
“Language and Nature"
Data Analysis
George Dunteman, Principal
Components Analysis
Kenneth Bollen,
selections from Structural Equations with Latent Variables
Saul Sternberg,
“Discovering Mental Processing Stages: The Method of Additive Factors”
(Part I)
Part II
Idealization in
science
Chuang Liu,
“Approximation, Idealization, and Laws of nature”
Chuang Liu, “Laws
and Models in a Theory of Idealization”
Semantics
Richard Montague,
“Universal Grammar”
Richard Montague,
“On the Proper Treatment of Quantification in Ordinary English”
Maria Bittner,
“Concealed Causatives"
Measurement analogies in
psychological and linguistic theorizing
Robert Matthews,
“The Measurement of Mind”
Robert Matthews,
“Does Linguistic Competence Require Knowledge of Language?”
