The lack of gender parity in philosophy has garnered serious attention recently. Previous empirical work that aims to quantify what has come to be called “the gender gap” in philosophy focuses mainly on the absence of women in philosophy faculty and graduate programs. Our study looks at gender representation in philosophy among undergraduate students, undergraduate majors, graduate students, and faculty. Our findings are consistent with what other studies have found about women faculty in philosophy, but we were able to add two pieces of new information. First, the biggest drop in the proportion of women in philosophy occurs between students enrolled in introductory philosophy classes and philosophy majors. Second, this drop is mitigated by the presence of more women philosophy faculty.

Many empirically minded philosophers have used neuroscientific data to argue against the multiple realization of cognitive functions in existing biological organisms. I argue that neuroscientists themselves have proposed a biologically based concept of multiple realization as an alternative to interpreting empirical findings in terms of one-to-one structure-function mappings. I introduce this concept and its associated research framework and also how some of the main neuroscience-based arguments against multiple realization go wrong.

Many people accept that chimpanzees, dolphins, and some other animals can think and feel. But these cases are just the tip of a growing iceberg. If biologists are right, fruit flies and plants make decisions, worms and honeybees can be trained, bacteria communicate linguistically, and neurons have preferences. Just how far does cognition go? This book is the first to critically consider this question from the perspective of the entire range of new ascriptions of psychological capacities throughout biology. It is also the first to consider the role of mathematical models and other quantitative forms of evidence in prompting and supporting the new ascriptions. It defends a default literal interpretation of psychological terms across biological domains. It also considers the implications of the literal view for efforts to explain the mind’s place in nature and for traditional ways of distinguishing the superior moral status of humans relative to other living beings.

One question of the bounds of cognition is that of which things have it. A scientifically relevant debate on this question must explain the persistent and selective use of psychological predicates to report findings throughout biology: for example, that neurons prefer, plants and fruit flies decide, and bacteria communicate linguistically. This paper argues that these claims should enjoy default literal interpretation, and that these reports of psychological properties in non-humans are as straightforward as they seem. An epistemic consequence is that these findings can contribute directly to understanding the nature of psychological capacities.

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