Having concepts is a distinctive sort of cognitive capacity. One thing that conceptual thought requires is obeying the Generality Constraint: concepts ought to be freely recombinable with other concepts to form novel thoughts, independent of what they are concepts of. Having concepts, then, constrains cognitive architecture in interesting ways. In recent years, spurred on by the rise of evolutionary psychology, massively modular models of the mind have gained prominence. I argue that these architectures are incapable of satisfying the Generality Constraint, (...) and hence incapable of underpinning conceptual thought. I develop this argument with respect to two well-articulated proposals, due to Dan Sperber and Peter Carruthers. Neither proposal gives us a satisfactory explanation of Generality within the confines of a genuinely modular architecture. Massively modular minds may display considerable behavioral and cognitive flexibility, but not humanlike conceptualized thought. (shrink)

Desires, or directive representations, are central components of human and animal minds. Nevertheless, desires are largely neglected in current debates about the naturalization of representational content. Most naturalists seem to assume that some version of the standard teleological approach, which identifies the content of a desire with a specific kind of effect that the desire has the function of producing, will turn out to be correct. In this paper I argue, first, that this common assumption is unjustified, since the standard (...) approach is in fact deeply problematic. Secondly, I propose an alternative account of the content of desires which, while generating plausible and determinate content ascriptions, avoids the main problem that plagues the standard approach, and is also preferable on other grounds. (shrink)

Contemporary accounts on fictional emotions, i.e., emotions experienced towards objects we know to be fictional, are mainly concerned with explaining their rationality or lack thereof. In this context dominated by an interest in the role of belief, questions regarding their phenomenal quality have received far less attention: it is often assumed that they feel “similar” to emotions that target real objects. Against this background, this paper focuses on the possible specificities of fictional emotions’ qualitative feel. It starts by presenting what (...) I call the “phenomenological question” about the qualitative feel of fictional emotions (section 1) and by showing that this is irreducible to questions about their cognitive, intentional, evaluative, and embodied nature (section 2). Drawing on some insights from early phenomenologists, the next two sections elaborate criteria to distinguish between real and sham emotions on the one side (section 3) and between genuine and non-genuine emotions on the other (section 4). Finally, I apply this orthogonal distinction to the particular case of fictional emotions (section 5). The paper argues that fictional emotions are neither sham emotions nor quasi-emotions, but full-fledged emotional experiences, despite them displaying the distinctive phenomenology of emotions experienced as non-genuine. In the particular case of fictional emotions, they are non-genuine because our psychology is in fact in a state dominated by aesthetic enjoyment. (shrink)

Most of those who hold that emotions involve appraisals also accept that the content of emotions is nonconceptual. The main motivation for nonconceptulism regarding emotions is that it accounts for the difference between emotions and evaluative judgements. This paper argues that if one assumes a broadly Fregean account of concepts, there are good reasons to accept that emotions have nonconceptual contents. All the main arguments for nonconceptualism regarding sensory perception easily transpose to the case of emotions. The paper ends by (...) responding to two important objections: firstly, that nonconceptualism rules out the possibility that emotions justify evaluative judgements and secondly, that nonconceptualism cannot account for the fact that some emotions have conceptually articulated cognitive bases. (shrink)

A cursory glance at the list of Nobel Laureates for Economics is sufficient to confirm Stanovich’s description of the project to evaluate human rationality as seminal. Herbert Simon, Reinhard Selten, John Nash, Daniel Kahneman, and others, were awarded their prizes less for their work in economics, per se, than for their work on rationality, as such. Although philosophical works have for millennia attempted to describe, explicate and evaluate individual and collective aspects of rationality, new impetus was brought to this endeavor (...) over the last century as mathematical logic along with the social and behavioral sciences emerged. Yet more recently, over the last several decades, propelled by the emergence of artificial intelligence, cognitive science, evolutionary psychology, neuropsychology, and related fields, even more sophisticated approaches to the study of rationality have emerged. (shrink)

How can we theoretically and philosophically study the problem of values and authority in the context of education? The chapter uses the framework of action theoretical semiotics developed mainly on the conceptual structures of Greimassian semiotic theory. This detailed and elaborated theory of human discourse (utilized usually in terms of literary and “cultural” texts) will be expanded by biosemiotic and Peircean points of view to fit in the special problem area of education as transformation or extension from the biosemiotic and (...) zoosemiotic sphere to anthroposemiotic sphere: from nature to culture. The main theoretical starting point for action theoretical semiotics is the concept of meaning which is defined as relationship of an object to the action of the subject. The chapter will connect the action theoretical semiotics to the conception of Bildung and modern idea of the normativity of the rational inference by, e.g., contemporary philosopher of semantics Robert Brandom, to consider the educational implications of this semiotic view. (shrink)

I defend both conceptualists and nonconceptualists against an attack which has been leveled at them by critics such as Byrne (Perception and conceptual content In: Steup M, Sosa E (eds) Contemporary debates in epistemology. Blackwell, Malden, pp 231-250, 2005), Speaks (Philos Rev 114:359–398, 2005), and Crowther (Erkenntnis 65:5–276, 2006). They distinguish a ‘state’ reading and a ‘content’ reading of ‘(non)conceptual’ and argue that many arguments on either side support only the respective state views, not the respective content views. To prepare (...) the ground for my defense, I argue for an understanding of the state view in terms of concept exercise rather than concept possession and provide an overview of versions of conceptualism and nonconceptualism of different strengths. I then argue that conceptualists and nonconceptualists tacitly accept a so-called ‘state-to-content’ principle, show that existing defenses of this principle fail, and provide a new defense of it. It draws on the sources of the nonconceptualism debate, viz. the need to do justice both to the phenomenology of experience and to its epistemological role and to account for the existence of perceptual content and thought content. I argue that epistemological considerations together with considerations from the subject’s perspective support the claim that conceptual thought has conceptual and propositional content, whereas nonconceptual experience has nonconceptual and non-propositional content. (shrink)

Este é um conto sobre visão, pensamento e contradição, bem como sobre o papel que desempenham na primeira metade da Ciência da Lógica de Hegel. A Lógica começa com uma descida, nesse caso, uma queda do Ser ao Nada. Posteriormente, aproximadamente na metade de cada texto, há um certo paradoxo em que tudo está em jogo, a categoria da contradição. Nesse exato momento, o pensamento ao mesmo tempo falha e é renovado em um viés especulativo. Nessa seção, nos debruçamos sobre (...) algumas das interpretações influentes do uso hegeliano da contradição. Para isso, voltamo-nos a uma curiosa obra de arte, Pleiades, de James Turrell, como um exemplo estético dessa primeira queda. Progrediremos, então, através do texto com pensamento e visão como nosso duplo norteador em um passo relativamente rápido, sem desacelerar até encontrarmos a história de Hegel da contradição, onde mostro a natureza explosiva da contradição. Isso nos permitirá ver como Hegel invoca o poder da contradição para gerar a segunda metade da história da Ciência da Lógica. Eu começo com a descida do Ser ao Nada, o momento em que a escuridão emerge. (shrink)

Higher-order thought theories maintain that consciousness involves the having of higher-order thoughts about mental states. In response to these theories of consciousness, an attempt is often made to illustrate that nonhuman animals possess said consciousness, overlooking an alarming consequence: attributing higher-order thought to nonhuman animals might entail that they should be held morally accountable for their actions. I argue that moral responsibility requires more than higher-order thought: moral agency requires a specific higher-order thought which concerns a belief about the rightness (...) or wrongness of affecting another’s mental states. This “moral thought” about the rightness or wrongness is not yet demonstrated in even the most intelligent nonhuman animals, thus we should suspend our judgments about the “rightness” or “wrongness” of their actions while further questioning the recent insistence on developing an animal morality. (shrink)

This book attempts to explicate and expand upon Frank Ramsey's notion of the realistic spirit. In so doing, it provides a systematic reading of his work, and demonstrates the extent of Ramsey's genius as evinced by both his responses to the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus , and the impact he had on Wittgenstein's later philosophical insights.

Fodor advocates a view of cognitive processes as computations defined over the language of thought (or Mentalese). Even among those who endorse Mentalese, considerable controversy surrounds its representational format. What semantically relevant structure should scientific psychology attribute to Mentalese symbols? Researchers commonly emphasize logical structure, akin to that displayed by predicate calculus sentences. To counteract this tendency, I discuss computational models of navigation drawn from probabilistic robotics. These models involve computations defined over cognitive maps, which have geometric rather than logical (...) structure. They thereby demonstrate the possibility of rational cognitive processes in an exclusively non-logical representational medium. Furthermore, they offer much promise for the empirical study of animal navigation. (shrink)

Over recent years, there has been a resurgence of interest in arguments favouring intellectualism—the view that Ryle’s epistemic distinction is invalid because knowing how is in fact nothing but a species of knowing that. The aim of this paper is to challenge intellectualism by introducing empirical evidence supporting a form of knowing how that resists such a reduction. In presenting a form of visuomotor pathology known as visual agnosia, I argue that certain actions performed by patient DF can be distinguished (...) from a mere physical ability because they are (1) intentional and (2) knowledge-based; yet these actions fail to satisfy the criteria for propositional knowledge. It is therefore my contention that there exists a form of intentional action that not only constitutes a genuine claim to knowledge but, in being irreducible to knowing that, resists the intellectualist argument for exhaustive epistemic reduction. (shrink)

It is seemingly bad for animals to have their desires modified in at least some cases, for instance where brainwashing or neurological manipulation takes place. In humans, many argue that such modification interferes with our positive liberty or undermines our autonomy but this explanation is inapplicable in the case of animals as they lack the capacity for autonomy in the relevant sense. As such, the standard view has been that, despite any intuitions to the contrary, the modification of animals’ desires (...) is not harmful (at least not in itself). In this article, I offer a different perspective on this issue, laying the foundations of a novel argument in defence of the view that animals _can_ be harmed by desire modification directly. I suggest that the modification of an animal’s desires (under certain circumstances) is harmful for that animal because it undermines their agency. (shrink)

In this paper we discuss an approach called grounded action cognition, which aims to provide a theory of the interdependencies between motor control and action-related cognitive processes, like perceiving an action or thinking about an action. The theory contrasts with traditional views in cognitive science in that it motivates an understanding of cognition as embodied, through application of Barsalou’s general idea of grounded cognition. To guide further research towards an appropriate theory of grounded action cognition we distinguish between grounding qua (...) acquisition and grounding qua constitution. On this basis, we distinguish three possible theoretical conceptions of grounded action cognition. In addition to these methodological and conceptual analyses, we draw on recent empirical evidence to motivate our inclination towards a particular theory. According to this theory certain representations are involved in action cognition and action perception that are not modality-specific as usually proposed by advocates of grounded cognition. Further, the evidence is in favor of our more specific theory stating that for some cognitive abilities, some motor abilites are constitutive. (shrink)

En el presente artículo me concentraré en el estudio filosófico de los delirios, como un caso ejemplificador del vínculo que pueden establecer la filosofía de la mente y la psiquiatría. Frente a versiones radicalmente naturalistas, que proponen variantes reduccionistas o eliminativistas para la explicación de ciertos fenómenos mentales y sus variantes “anormales”, defenderé una versión moderada de la perspectiva naturalista. Al respecto, señalaré que retener algún grado de simpatía hacia el naturalismo en las investigaciones filosóficas sobre los delirios es necesario (...) para desarrollar teorías sobre las creencias empíricamente informadas que no resulten contradictorias con los desarrollos actuales en psicología cognitiva y neurociencias. No obstante, afirmaré también que una perspectiva exclusivamente naturalista -tanto por parte de la filosofía como de la psiquiatría misma- es incapaz de dar cuenta del contexto normativo en donde juegan las creencias. Los criterios normativos, especialmente externos que se emplean para clasificar ciertas creencias como delirantes no resultan inteligibles bajo una explicación puramente natural. Por el contrario, para comprender las creencias delirantes qua delirantes, será preciso acercarnos a un abordaje híbrido que pueda contemplar las causas naturales del fenómeno así como su evaluación normativa. (shrink)

Actualmente se debate si el enfoque davidsoniano de la atribución intencional puede extenderse a casos de sujetos delirantes que sufren diversos trastornos psiquiátricos. En particular, respecto a los casos graves de esquizofrenia, se ha afirmado que debido a las características que presentan los sujetos diagnosticados, éstos no podrían satisfacer los requisitos de racionalidad estipulados por Davidson para ser considerados agentes intencionales. Por lo tanto, en tales casos no sería posible siquiera identificar los contenidos mentales de sus delirios. En este artículo (...) desafiaré esta perspectiva y, vinculando la discusión sobre racionalidad animal y racionalidad en sujetos con esquizofrenia, sostendré que, una vez revisados y matizados algunos principios del enfoque davidsoniano, éste puede extenderse gradual y legítimamente a sujetos con esquizofrenia, incluso en casos de gravedad. Asimismo, propondré dos estrategias metodológicas que permitan generar evidencia a favor de la atribución de –al menos– algunas creencias simples a estos sujetos, sin tener que dejar de tratarlos como agentes con algún grado de intencionalidad. (shrink)

This article deals with the relationship between language and thought, focusing on the question of whether language can be a vehicle of thought, as, for example, Peter Carruthers has claimed. We develop and examine a powerful argument—the "argument from explicitness"—against this cognitive role of language. The premises of the argument are just two: (1) the vehicle of thought has to be explicit, and (2) natural languages are not explicit. We explain what these simple premises mean and why we should believe (...) they are true. Finally, we argue that even though the argument from explicitness shows that natural language cannot be a vehicle of thought, there is a cognitive function for language. (shrink)

In this paper we address the question of what determines the content of our conscious episodes of thinking, considering recent claims that phenomenal character individuates thought contents. We present one prominent way for defenders of phenomenal intentionality to develop that view and then examine ‘sensory inner speech views’, which provide an alternative way of accounting for thought-content determinacy. We argue that such views fare well with inner speech thinking but have problems accounting for unsymbolized thinking. Within this dialectic, we present (...) an account of the nature of unsymbolized thinking that accords with and can be seen as a continuation of the activity of inner speech, while offering a way of explaining thought-content determinacy in terms of linguistic structures and representations. (shrink)

We very often discover ourselves engaged in inner speech. It seems that this kind of silent, private, speech fulfils some role in our cognition, most probably related to conscious thinking. Yet, the study of inner speech has been neglected by philosophy and psychology alike for many years. However, things seem to have changed in the last two decades. Here we review some of the most influential accounts about the phenomenology and the functions of inner speech, as well as the methodological (...) problems that affect its study. (shrink)

Nonconceptualists maintain that there are ways of representing the world that do not reflect the concepts a creature possesses. They claim that the content of these representational states is genuine content because it is subject to correctness conditions, but it is nonconceptual because the creature to which we attribute it need not possess any of the concepts involved in the specification of that content. Appeals to nonconceptual content have seemed especially useful in attempts to capture the representational properties of perceptual (...) experiences, the representational states of pre-linguistic children and non-human animals, the states of subpersonal visual information-processing systems, and the subdoxastic states involved in tacit knowledge of the grammar of a language. Nonconceptual content is also invoked in the explanation of concept possession, concept acquisition, sensorimotor behaviour, and in the analysis of the notion of self-consciousness. The notion of nonconceptual content plays an important role in many discussions about the relationships between perception and thought. (shrink)

Chimpanzees and humans are close evolutionary relatives who behave in many of the same ways based on a similar type of agentive organization. To what degree do they experience the world in similar ways as well? Using contemporary research in evolutionarily biology and animal cognition, I explicitly compare the kinds of experience the two species of capable of having. I conclude that chimpanzees’ experience of the world, their experiential niche as I call it, is: intentional in basically the same way (...) as humans’; rational in the sense that it is self-critical and operates with logically structured causal and intentional inferences; but not normative at all in that it does not operate with “objective” evaluative standards. Scientific data do not answer philosophical questions, but they provide rich raw material for scientists and philosophers alike to reflect on and clarify fundamental psychological concepts. (shrink)

The evolutionary origin of consciousness has been a growing area of study in recent years. Nevertheless, there is intense debate on whether the existence of phenomenal consciousness without the cerebral cortex is possible. The corticocentrists have an empirical advantage because we are quasi-confident that we humans are conscious and have the well-developed cortex as the site of our consciousness. However, their prejudice can be an anthropic bias similar to the anthropocentric prejudice in pre-Darwinian natural history. In this paper, I propose (...) three basic principles to provide a conceptual basis for evolutionary studies of consciousness: the non-solipsistic principle, the evolution principle, and the anthropic principle. These principles collectively help us to avoid solipsism, anthropocentrism, and anthropomorphism to some degree, although we cannot be completely free from them. Also, the landscape metaphor associated with the anthropic principle provides an image of how different forms of consciousness can be acquired. (shrink)

In recent years, many philosophers and scientists have argued or accepted that it is impossible to learn primitive sensory concepts like “blue” and “red”. This paper defends a more qualified picture. I try to show that some received characterisations of “learning” are nonequivalent and point towards different learning-nonlearning distinctions. And, on some ways of specifying such a distinction, it might be correct that we do not and cannot “learn” a concept of blue. But on other ways of specifying such a (...) distinction, we can and do sometimes “learn” a concept of blue from experiences of blue. The latter part of the argument connects with some traditional “abstractionist” views, and I defend the present claims in view of some widely circulated concerns about “abstracting” concepts from experience. I close with some reflections on how one might, in view of all this, think about “the learning-nonlearning distinction”. (shrink)

In recent years, many philosophers and scientists have argued or accepted that it is impossible to learn primitive sensory concepts like “blue” and “red”. This paper defends a more qualified picture. I try to show that some received characterisations of “learning” are nonequivalent and point towards different learning-nonlearning distinctions. And, on some ways of specifying such a distinction, it might be correct that we do not and cannot “learn” a concept of blue. But on other ways of specifying such a (...) distinction, we can and do sometimes “learn” a concept of blue from experiences of blue. The latter part of the argument connects with some traditional “abstractionist” views, and I defend the present claims in view of some widely circulated concerns about “abstracting” concepts from experience. I close with some reflections on how one might, in view of all this, think about “the learning-nonlearning distinction”. (shrink)

I undermine the argument that ‘high’ epistemic standards are false because children and other cognitively unsophisticated subjects possess justification while lacking certain logical and epistemic concepts. I argue, instead, that the standards we often use to attribute logical and epistemic concepts to ordinary, cognitively sophisticated adults can easily be seen to cover many unsophisticated subjects; therefore, the alleged lack of certain concepts is no basis for rejecting ‘high’ epistemic standards. Whether or not such standards are correct has to be argued (...) on other grounds. (shrink)

This paper explores the possibility that the human mind underwent substantial changes in recent history. Assuming that consciousness is a substantial trait of the mind, the paper focuses on the suggestion made by Julian Jaynes that the Mycenean Greeks had a "bicameral" mind instead of a conscious one. The suggestion is commonly dismissed as patently absurd, for instance by critics such as Ned Block. A closer examination of the intuitions involved, considered from different theoretical angles , reveals that the idea (...) of 'Greek zombies' should be taken more seriously than is commonly assumed. (shrink)

This paper takes five different perspectives on kinesthesia, beginning with its evolution across animate life and its biological distinction from, and relationship to proprioception. It proceeds to document the historical derivation of “the muscle sense,” showing in the process how analytic philosophers bypass the import of kinesthesia by way of “enaction,” for example, and by redefinitions of “tactical deception.” The article then gives prominence to a further occlusion of kinesthesia and its subduction by proprioception, these practices being those of well-known (...) phenomenologists, practices that exemplify an adultist perspective supported in large part by the writings of Merleau-Ponty. Following this extended critical review, the article shows how Husserl’s phenomenology enlightens us about kinesthesia and in doing so offers us substantive clues to the phenomenology of learning as it takes place in the development and acquisition of skillful movement. It shows further how phenomenological methodology contrasts markedly with existential analysis, most significantly in its recognition of, and its ability to set forth a developmental history, a veritable genetic phenomenology that is basically a phenomenology of learning anchored in kinesthesia. After showing how that phenomenology of learning finds mutual validation in a classic empirical study of infant movement, the article ends by highlighting how human “I cans” are grounded in “I move,” specifically, in the pan-human ability to learn one’s body and learn to move oneself. (shrink)

According to our traditional conception of agency, most human beings are agents and most, if not all, nonhuman animals are not. However, recent developments in philosophy and psychology have made it clear that we need more than one conception of agency, since human and nonhuman animals are capable of thinking and acting in more than one kind of way. In this paper, I make a distinction between perceptual and propositional agency, and I argue that many nonhuman animals are perceptual agents (...) and that many human beings are both kinds of agent. I then argue that, insofar as human and nonhuman animals exercise the same kind of agency, they have the same kind of moral status, and I explore some of the moral implications of this idea. (shrink)

How do frogs represent their prey? This question has been the focus of many debates among proponents of naturalistic theories of content, especially among proponents of teleosemantics. This is because alternative versions of the teleosemantic approach have different implications for the content of frog representations, and it is still controversial which of these content ascriptions (if any) is the most adequate. Theorists often appeal to intuitions here, but this is a dubious strategy. In this paper, I suggest an alternative, empirical (...) test for theories of content. I propose that we should examine whether a theory generates content ascriptions that fit with our best scientific explanations of animal behavior. I then focus on the most prominent version of teleosemantics, Ruth Millikan’s consumer-oriented approach, and argue that it fails the empirical test in the frog case, since it yields a content ascription that (i) does not include properties that should be included (namely, being small, dark and moving ) and (ii) includes a property that should not be included (namely, being frog food ). This is an important result in itself, but it also demonstrates by way of example how progress can be made in the complex debate about theories of content. (shrink)

Aesthetic concepts and conceptions are structured mental representations partly composed of phenomenal concepts. I defend this claim by appealing to contemporary accounts of concepts and to the current literature on phenomenal concepts. In addition, I discuss the relationship between aesthetic concepts and aesthetic understanding — an epistemic state at the centre of much work in contemporary epistemology.

The theory of language must predict the possible thought—signal (or meaning—sound or sign) pairings of a language. We argue for a Meaning First architecture of language where a thought structure is generated first. The thought structure is then realized using language to communicate the thought, to memorize it, or perhaps with another purpose. Our view contrasts with the T-model architecture of mainstream generative grammar, according to which distinct phrase-structural representations—Phonetic Form (PF) for articulation, Logical Form (LF) for interpretation—are generated within (...) the grammar. At the same time, our view differs from early transformational grammar and generative semantics: We view the relationship between the thought structure and the corresponding signal as one of compression. We specify a formal sketch of compression as a choice between multiple possible pronounciations balancing the desire to transmit information against the effort of pronounciation. The Meaning First architecture allows a greater degree of independence between thought structures and the linguistic signal. We present three arguments favoring this type of independence. First we argue that scopal properties can be better explained if we only compare thought structures independent of the their realization as a sentence. Secondly, we argue that Meaning First architecture allows contentful late insertion, an idea that has been argued for in Distributed Morphology already, but as we argue is also motivated by the division of the logical and socio-emotive meaning content of language. Finally, we show that only the Meaning First architecture provides a satisfying account of the mixing of multiple languages by multilingual speakers, especially for cases of simultaneous articulation across two modalities in bimodal speakers. Our view of the structure of grammar leads to a reassessment of priorities in linguistic analyses: while current mainstream work is often focused on establishing one-to-one relationships between concepts and morphemes, our view makes it plausible that primitive concepts are frequently marked indirectly or unpronounced entirely. Our view therefore assigns great value to the understanding of logical primitives and of compression. (shrink)

An important issue for visual argumentation is its relationship to propositions, since it has been argued that, in order to be arguments, images should be propositional. The first part of the paper will approach this debate from a theoretical perspective. After quickly surveying the field on the issue, I will address the relationship between images and propositions. Three specific questions will be examined: can propositions accurately account for the way images express arguments?; are verbal propositions necessary to reconstruct arguments that (...) images alone cannot convey, due to their lacking linguistic tools?; are images essentially non-propositional because they don’t have truth-value? The second part of the paper will include a detailed analysis of two posters. From these analyses, I will ultimately conclude that some images can display a visual argument without necessarily being propositional. (shrink)

The term \synthetic phenomenology" refers to: 1) any attempt to characterize the phenomenal states possessed, or modeled by, an artefact ; or 2) any attempt to use an artefact to help specify phenomenal states. The notion of synthetic phenomenology is clari¯ed, and distinguished from some related notions. It is argued that much work in machine consciousness would bene¯t from being more cognizant of the need for synthetic phenomenology of the ¯rst type, and of the possible forms it may take. It (...) is then argued that synthetic phenomenology of the second type looks set to resolve some problems confronted by standard, nonsynthetic attempts at characterizing phenomenal states. An example of the second form of synthetic phenomenology is given. (shrink)

Constructivism undermines realism by arguing that experience is mediated by concepts, and that there is no direct way to examine those aspects of objects that belong to them independently of our conceptualizations; perception is theory-laden. To defend realism one has to show first that perception relates us directly with the world without any intermediary conceptual framework. The result of this direct link is the nonconceptual content of experience. Second, one has to show that part of the nonconceptual content extracted from (...) the environment correctly represents features of mind independent objects. With regard to the first condition, I have argued elsewhere that a part of visual processing, which I call “perception,” is theory-neutral and nonconceptual. In this paper, facing the second demand, I argue that a part of the nonconceptual content of perception presents properties that are the properties of mind independent objects. I claim first that nonconceptual content is the appropriate level of analysis of the issue of realism since it avoids the main problems besetting various types of analysis of the issue at the level of beliefs about the world. Then I claim that a subset of the nonconceptual content presents features of objects in the environment as they really are. (shrink)

The paper argues that the reference of perceptual demonstratives is fixed in a causal nondescriptive way through the nonconceptual content of perception. That content consists first in spatiotemporal information establishing the existence of a separate persistent object retrieved from a visual scene by the perceptual object segmentation processes that open an object-file for that object. Nonconceptual content also consists in other transducable information, that is, information that is retrieved directly in a bottom-up way from the scene (motion, shape, etc). The (...) nonconceptual content of the mental states induced when one uses a perceptual demonstrative constitutes the mode of presentation of the perceptual demonstrative that individuates but does not identify the object of perceptual awareness and allows reference to it. On that account, perceptual demonstratives put us in a de re relationship with objects in the world through the non-conceptual information retrieved directly from the objects in the environment. (shrink)

'Epistemological constructivism' holds that vision is mediated by background preconceptions and is theory-laden. Hence, two persons with differing theoretical commitments see the world differently and they could agree on what they see only if they both espoused the same conceptual framework. This, in its turn, undermines the possibility of theory testing and choice on a common theory-neutral empirical basis. In this paper, I claim that the cognitive sciences suggest that a part of vision may be only indirectly penetrated by cognition (...) in a way that does not threaten retrieval of information from a visual scene in a bottom-up way. That blocks the constructivist epistemological thesis. However, since spatial attention, which can be cognitively driven, seems to permeate all stages of visual processes, one is led to conclude that there is no part of vision immune to direct cognitive interference. Against this, I elaborate on the role of spatial attention and argue that it does influence vision in a top-down manner, but it does so only in an indirect way. I then argue that the existence of visual processes that are only indirectly penetrated by cognition undermines the epistemological conclusions of constructivism. (shrink)

This paper argues that contemporary philosophical literature on meaning in life has important implications for the debate about our obligations to non-human animals. If animal lives can be meaningful, then practices including factory farming and animal research might be morally worse than ethicists have thought. We argue for two theses about meaning in life: that the best account of meaningful lives must take intentional action to be necessary for meaning—an individual’s life has meaning if and only if the individual acts (...) intentionally in ways that contribute to finally valuable states of affairs; and that this first thesis does not entail that only human lives are meaningful. Because non-human animals can be intentional agents of a certain sort, our account yields the verdict that many animals’ lives can be meaningful. We conclude by considering the moral implications of these theses for common practices involving animals. (shrink)

Is thinking necessarily linguistic? Do we think with words, to use Bermudez’s (2003) phrase? Or does thinking occur in some other, yet to be determined, representational format? Or again do we think in various formats, switching from one to the other as tasks demand? In virtue perhaps of the ambiguous na- ture of first-person introspective data on the matter, philosophers have tradition- ally disagreed on this question, some thinking that thought had to be pictorial, other insisting that it could not (...) be but linguistic. When any problem divides a community of otherwise intelligent rational thinkers, one suspects some deep conceptual confusion is at play. Indeed, we believe that the conceptual cate- gories used to frame these and related questions are so hopelessly muddled that one could honestly answer “both simultaneously”, or “neither”, depending one what is meant by the alternatives. But let’s get our priorities straight. This paper first and foremost aims at defending what we believe to be a step in that direc- tion of the proper view of thinking, a view we call the spatial-motor view. In order to do so, however, we have found it essential to start by addressing the conceptual confusion just alluded to. Accordingly, the paper proceeds in two steps. First a conceptual step, in which we reconsider some of the traditional categories brought into play when thinking about thinking. Then an empirical step, in which we offer empirical evidence for one of the views conceptually isolated during the first part of the work. Future version of this collaborative work will include a speculative step in which we spin out an evolutionary and developmental scenario whose function it is justify the spatial-motor view by showing how it fits into current evolutionary and developmental theories. (shrink)

Over the last quarter century, the dominant tendency in comparative cognitive psychology has been to emphasize the similarities between human and nonhuman minds and to downplay the differences as (Darwin 1871). In the present target article, we argue that Darwin was mistaken: the profound biological continuity between human and nonhuman animals masks an equally profound discontinuity between human and nonhuman minds. To wit, there is a significant discontinuity in the degree to which human and nonhuman animals are able to approximate (...) the higher-order, systematic, relational capabilities of a physical symbol system (PSS) (Newell 1980). We show that this symbolic-relational discontinuity pervades nearly every domain of cognition and runs much deeper than even the spectacular scaffolding provided by language or culture alone can explain. We propose a representational-level specification as to where human and nonhuman animals' abilities to approximate a PSS are similar and where they differ. We conclude by suggesting that recent symbolic-connectionist models of cognition shed new light on the mechanisms that underlie the gap between human and nonhuman minds. (shrink)

In our target article, we argued that there is a profound functional discontinuity between the cognitive abilities of modern humans and those of all other extant species. Unsurprisingly, our hypothesis elicited a wide range of responses from commentators. After responding to the commentaries, we conclude that our hypothesis lies closer to Darwin's views on the matter than to those of many of our contemporaries.

Here I will develop a naturalistic account of epistemic reflection and its significance for epistemology. I will first argue that thought, as opposed to mere information processing, requires a capacity for cognitive self-regulation. After discussing the basic capacities necessary for cognitive self-regulation of any kind, I will consider qualitatively different kinds of thought that can emerge when the basic capacities enable the creature to interiorize a form of social cooperation. First, I will discuss second-personal cooperation and the kind of thought (...) that emerges from its interiorization. Then, I will discuss third-personal cooperation and the kind of thought that emerges from its interiorization. We will see that epistemic reflection is the interiorized version of interpersonal argumentation, which is the epistemic component of third-personal cooperation. In developing this account, I will draw heavily on the work of Michael Tomasello and other cognitive scientists advocating the “social intentionality hypothesis”. However, I will show how work done in the defeasible reasoning tradition can provide us with a deeper explanation of some claims made by advocates of the social intentionality hypothesis. Additionally, we will see that work done on social intentionality can help us better understand the significance of knowledge and justification as understood by the defeasible reasoning tradition. We will see that the social intentionality hypothesis and the defeasible reasoning tradition are mutually illuminating. By drawing equally on both, I will provide a novel account of the foundations of knowledge. (shrink)

According to the Group Mind Hypothesis, a group can have beliefs over and above the beliefs of the individual members of the group. Some maintain that there can be group mentality of this kind in the absence of any group-level phenomenal consciousness. We present a challenge to the latter view. First, we argue that a state is not a belief unless the owner of the state is disposed to access the state’s content in a corresponding conscious judgment. Thus, if there (...) is no such thing as group consciousness, then we cannot literally ascribe beliefs to groups. Secondly, we respond to an objection that appeals to the distinction between ‘access consciousness’ and ‘phenomenal consciousness’. According to the objection, the notion of consciousness appealed to in our argument must be access consciousness, whereas our argument is only effective if it is about phenomenal consciousness. In response, we question both parts of the objection. Our argument can still be effective provided there are reasons to believe a system or creature cannot have access consciousness if it lacks phenomenal consciousness altogether. Moreover, our argument for the necessary accessibility to consciousness of beliefs does concern phenomenal consciousness. (shrink)

Growing evidence indicates that our higher rational capacities depend on social interaction—that only through engaging with others do we acquire the ability to evaluate beliefs as true or false, or to reflect on and evaluate the reasons that support our beliefs. Up to now, however, we have had little understanding of how this works. Here we argue that a uniquely human socio-linguistic phenomenon which we call ‘joint attention to mental content’ plays a key role. JAM is the ability to focus (...) together in conversation on the content of our mental states, such as beliefs and reasons. In such conversations it can be made clear that our attitudes to beliefs or reasons may conflict—that what I think is true, you might think is false, or that what I think is a good reason for believing something, you might think is a bad reason. We argue that through JAM, children discover that mental contents can be evaluated under various attitudes, and that this discovery transforms their mind-reading and reasoning abilities. (shrink)

Success semantics holds, roughly, that what it is for a state of an agent to be a belief that P is for it to be disposed to combine with her desires to cause behaviour that would fulfill those desires if P. J. T. Whyte supplements this with an account of the contents of an agent's “basic desires” to provide an attractive naturalistic theory of mental content. We argue that Whyte's strategy can avoid the objections raised against it by restricting “basic (...) desires” to sensory inclinations that cause us to do things independently of our beliefs about their contents. -/- La sémantique du succès soutient, en gros, que ce qu'il faut pour qu'un état d'un agent soit une croyance en P, c'est que cet état soit disposé à se combiner avec ses désirs pour provoquer un comportement qui répondrait à ces désirs si P. J. T. Whyte complète cela par un compte-rendu du contenu des « désirs de base » d'un agent pour fournir une théorie naturaliste attrayante du contenu mental. Nous soutenons que la stratégie de Whyte peut éviter les objections qui lui sont faites en restreignant les « désirs de base » aux inclinations sensorielles qui nous font agir indépendamment de nos croyances sur leur contenu. (shrink)

While there has been significant philosophical debate on whether nonlinguistic animals can possess conceptual capabilities, less time has been devoted to considering 'talking' animals, such as parrots. When they are discussed, their capabilities are often downplayed as mere mimicry. The most explicit philosophical example of this can be seen in Brandom's frequent comparisons of parrots and thermostats. Brandom argues that because parrots (like thermostats) cannot grasp the implicit inferential connections between concepts, their vocal articulations do not actually have any conceptual (...) content. In contrast, I argue that Pepperberg's work with Alex (and other African grey parrots) provides evidence that the vocal articulations of at least some parrots have conceptual content. Using Frege's insight that numbers assert something about a concept, I argue that Alex's ability to answer the question "How many?" depended upon a prior grasp of conceptual content. Developing this claim, I argue that Alex's arithmetical abilities show that he was capable of using numbers as both concepts and objects. Frege's theoretical insight and Pepperberg's empirical work provide reason to reconsider the capabilities of parrots, as well as what sorts of tasks provide evidence for conceptual content. (shrink)

Search engines are important contemporary sources of information and contribute to shaping our beliefs about the world. Each time they are consulted, various algorithms filter and order content to show us relevant results for the inputted search query. Because these search engines are frequently and widely consulted, it is necessary to have a clear understanding of the distinctively epistemic role that these algorithms play in the background of our online experiences. To aid in such understanding, this paper argues that search (...) engine algorithms are providers of “bent testimony”—that, within certain contexts of interactions, users act as if these algorithms provide us with testimony—and acquire or alter beliefs on that basis. Specifically, we treat search engine algorithms as if they were asserting as true the content ordered at the top of a search results page—which has interesting parallels with how we might treat an ordinary testifier. As such, existing discussions in the philosophy of testimony can help us better understand and, in turn, improve our interactions with search engines. By explicating the mechanisms by which we come to accept this “bent testimony,” our paper discusses methods to help us control our epistemic reliance on search engine algorithms and clarifies the normative expectations one ought to place on the search engines that deploy these algorithms. (shrink)