This book is an essay on how people make sense of each other and the world they live in. Making sense is the activity of fitting something puzzling into a coherent pattern of mental representations that include concepts, beliefs, goals, and actions. Paul Thagard proposes a general theory of coherence as the satisfaction of multiple interacting constraints, and discusses the theory's numerous psychological and philosophical applications. Much of human cognition can be understood in terms of coherence as constraint satisfaction, and many of the central problems of philosophy can be given coherence-based solutions. Thagard shows how coherence can help to unify psychology and philosophy, particularly when addressing questions of epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, politics, and aesthetics. He also shows how coherence can integrate cognition and emotion.
Adapted from the Canadian Encyclopedia:
Paul R. Thagard, philosopher (b at Yorkton, Sask, 1950). Paul Thagard received a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Saskatchewan (1971), and completed degrees in philosophy at Cambridge University (1977) and the University of Toronto (1977). In 1985 he studied computer science at the University of Michigan (receiving an MSc), where he spent 8 years teaching philosophy at the Dearborn campus before accepting a position as a research psychologist at the University of Princeton (1986). Thagard later joined the University of Waterloo as a professor of philosophy, with a cross appointment to psychology and computer science, and director of the Cognitive Science Program. His considerable body of work (including many books and some 200 articles) has been profoundly influential to the study of human cognition in a wide range of practical and theoretical contexts.
Full article:
http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/index.cfm?PgNm=TCE&Params=A1ARTA0010477
Web site:
http://watarts.uwaterloo.ca/~pthagard/Biographies/pault.html
