Coming up

In the next few days I will finish up a large pair of posts. I am going through Fodor and Phylsyn's massive (60 page) critique of Gibson's system. I was hoping to tackle it in one post, but it is just too long. Hence I will do a first post summarizing their paper and giving some in-line comments. Then I will do a second post defending Ecological Psychology against their attack. As I think most people will be more interested in the second post, I plan to do these in rapid succession, so the first post can more easily be ignored by those who are less interested.

At some point in the next few weeks, I will then go over Turvey, Shaw, and Mace's defense against F&P's attack.

My goal is, between the three posts, to elucidate how understanding Gibson's place in the American Philosophy tradition would help us get a better handle on our field. There is confusion about what Gibson himself was up to, what different contemporary approaches are up to, and why we don't seem to be able to have good dialogs with outsiders (including colleagues affiliated with other approaches and unaffiliated students).

I hope to get a some other short thoughts, on broader topics, interspersed. I did not really intend this blog to do this many specialized posts in a row.

P.S. In a week I head for a few days at the <a href = http://www.uakron.edu/chp/>Center for the History of Psychology</a> at the University of Akron to visit their archives. I won't have much free time, but if anyone has suggestions for Akron activities, let me know. So far, trying to eat <a href = http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AeFjYZAik3o&feature=player_embedded>5 pounds worth of grilled cheese</a> seems like the best bet.