The frame problem was originally a problem for Artificial Intelligence, but philosophers have interpreted it as an epistemological problem for human cognition. As a result of this reinterpretation, however, specifying the frame problem has become a difficult task. To get a better idea of what the frame problem is, how it gives rise to more general problems of relevance, and how deep these problems run, I expound six guises of the frame problem. I then assess some proposed heuristic solutions to (...) the frame problem; I show that these proposals misunderstand, and fail to address, an important aspect of the frame problem. Finally, I argue that though human cognition does not solve the frame problem in its epistemological guise, human cognition avoids some of the epistemological worries. (shrink)

Wegner (Wegner, D. (2002). The illusion of conscious will. MIT Press) argues that conscious will is an illusion, citing a wide range of empirical evidence. I shall begin by surveying some of his arguments. Many are unsuccessful. But one—an argument from the ubiquity of self-interpretation—is more promising. Yet is suffers from an obvious lacuna, offered by so-called ‘dual process’ theories of reasoning and decision making (Evans, J., & Over, D. (1996). Rationality and reasoning. Psychology Press; Stanovich, K. (1999). Who is (...) rational? Studies of individual differences in reasoning. Lawrence Erlbaum; Frankish, K. (2004). Mind and supermind. Cambridge University Press). I shall argue that this lacuna can be filled by a plausible a priori claim about the causal role of anything deserving to be called ‘a will.’ The result is that there is no such thing as conscious willing: conscious will is, indeed, an illusion. (shrink)

This paper examines the recent literature on meta-cognitive processes in non-human animals, arguing that in each case the data admit of a simpler, purely first-order, explanation. The topics discussed include the alleged monitoring of states of certainty and uncertainty, the capacity to know whether or not one has perceived something, and the capacity to know whether or not the information needed to solve some problem is stored in memory. The first-order explanations advanced all assume that beliefs and desires come in (...) various different _strengths_, or _degrees_. (shrink)

This paper examines the recent literature on meta-cognitive processes in non-human animals, arguing that in each case the data admit of a simpler, purely first-order, explanation. The topics discussed include the alleged monitoring of states of certainty and uncertainty, knowledge-seeking behavior in conditions of uncertainty, and the capacity to know whether or not the information needed to solve some problem is stored in memory. The first-order explanations advanced all assume that beliefs and desires come in various different strengths, or degrees.

Four different accounts of the relationship between third-person mindreading and first-person metacognition are compared and evaluated. While three of them endorse the existence of introspection for propositional attitudes, the fourth (defended here) claims that our knowledge of our own attitudes results from turning our mindreading capacities upon ourselves. Section 1 of this target article introduces the four accounts. Section 2 develops the “mindreading is prior” model in more detail, showing how it predicts introspection for perceptual and quasi-perceptual (e.g., imagistic) mental (...) events while claiming that metacognitive access to our own attitudes always results from swift unconscious self-interpretation. This section also considers the model's relationship to the expression of attitudes in speech. Section 3 argues that the commonsense belief in the existence of introspection should be given no weight. Section 4 argues briefly that data from childhood development are of no help in resolving this debate. Section 5 considers the evolutionary claims to which the different accounts are committed, and argues that the three introspective views make predictions that are not borne out by the data. Section 6 examines the extensive evidence that people often confabulate when self-attributing attitudes. Section 7 considers “two systems” accounts of human thinking and reasoning, arguing that although there are introspectableeventswithin System 2, there are no introspectableattitudes. Section 8 examines alleged evidence of “unsymbolized thinking”. Section 9 considers the claim that schizophrenia exhibits a dissociation between mindreading and metacognition. Finally, section 10 evaluates the claim that autism presents a dissociation in the opposite direction, of metacognition without mindreading. (shrink)

It is frequently claimed that the human mind is organized in a modular fashion, a hypothesis linked historically, though not inevitably, to the claim that many aspects of the human mind are innately specified. A specific instance of this line of thought is the proposal of an innately specified geometric module for human reorientation. From a massive modularity position, the reorientation module would be one of a large number that organized the mind. From the core knowledge position, the reorientation module (...) is one of five innate and encapsulated modules that can later be supplemented by use of human language. In this paper, we marshall five lines of evidence that cast doubt on the geometric module hypothesis, unfolded in a series of reasons: (1) Language does not play a necessary role in the integration of feature and geometric cues, although it can be helpful. (2) A model of reorientation requires flexibility to explain variable phenomena. (3) Experience matters over short and long periods. (4) Features are used for true reorientation. (5) The nature of geometric information is not as yet clearly specified. In the final section, we review recent theoretical approaches to the known reorientation phenomena. (shrink)

These preprints were automatically compiled into a PDF from the collection of papers deposited in PhilSci-Archive in conjunction with the PSA 2018.

The leading hypothesis concerning the “reuse” or “recycling” of neural circuits builds on the assumption that evolution might prefer the redeployment of established circuits over the development of new ones. What conception of cognitive architecture can survive the evidence for this hypothesis? In particular, what sorts of “modules” are compatible with this evidence? I argue that the only likely candidates will, in effect, be the columns which Vernon Mountcastle originally hypothesized some 60 years ago, and which form part of the (...) well-known columnar hypothesis in neuroscience—systems that cannot handle gross cognitive functions as distinct from strictly exiguous subfunctions. This is in stark contrast to the modules postulated by much of cognitive psychology, cognitive neuropsychology, and evolutionary psychology. And yet the fate of this revised notion is unclear. The main issue confronting it is the effect of the neural network context on local function. At some point the effects of context are so strong that the degree of specialization required for modularity is not able to be met. Still, despite indications from neuroimaging that peripheral and central systems deploy shared circuitry, some skills clearly do seem to display modularization and autonomy. This article: provides an in-depth analytical and historical review of the fortunes of modular thinking in cognitive science; offers a systematic calibration of brain regions in terms of degrees of functional specificity and robustness; and suggests another way of accounting for the partially encapsulated character of expertise and other highly practiced skills without having to resort to domain-specific modules. (shrink)

El problema de marco, interpretado como un problema de determinación de la relevancia, ha sido motivo en las décadas de los 80 ́-90 ́ de grandes debates y controversias. La cuestión clave de este trabajo consistirá en dilucidar la relación que entre la dificultad definicional y resolutiva del problema de marco se establece: es necesario aclarar la interpretación particular que del problema de marco se tenga en mente antes de estimar cualquier solución que intente resolverlo. Una manera de abordar esta (...) cuestión es describir algunas de las varias interpretaciones que del problema se han propuesto y analizar luego las dificultades subyacentes. Al igual que Lormand sugerimos que cada una de estas interpretaciones se refiere a un problema distinto y que es necesario atender a las diferencias que entre éstas se establecen antes de estimar cualquier propuesta de resolución. (shrink)

Many philosophers and scientists have argued that the difference between phenomenally conscious states and other kind of states lies in the implicit self-awareness that conscious states have. Higher-Order Representationalist theories, attempt to explain such a self-awareness by means of a higher-order representation. Consciousness relies on our capacity to represent our own mental states, consciousness depends on our Theory of Mind. Such an ability can, at least conceptually, be decomposed into another two: mindreading and metacognition. In this paper I will argue (...) that consciousness cannot depend on mindreading. The tenability of HOR theories depends, therefore, on the relation between mindreading and metacognition. I analyze several views on such a relation and argue that none of them seem to be a plausible option for HOR theories. (shrink)

recent defence of the massive modularity thesis. However, as this paper seeks to show, there are major flaws in its structure. If construed deductively, it is unsound: modular mental architecture is not necessarily the best architecture, and even if it were, this alone would not show that this architecture evolved. If construed inductively, it is not much more convincing, as it then appears to be too weak to support the kind of modularity Carruthers is concerned with. The upshot of this (...) is that whatever reason we might have for believing that the mind is massively modular, it is not based on the argument from design. Introduction Carruthers’ Argument from Design Modularity and Optimality: Problems for the Deductive Argument from Design Degrees of Modularity: Problems for the Inductive Argument from Design Conclusion CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

It is a common intuition that I am in a better position to know my own mental states than someone else's. One view that takes this intuition very seriously is Neo-Expressivism, providing a “non-epistemic” account of first-person privilege. But some have denied that we enjoy any principled first-person privilege, as do those who have the Third-Person View, according to which there is no deep difference in our epistemic position with regard to our own and others' mental states. Despite their apparently (...) deep differences, I argue that Neo-Expressivism and the Third-Person View differ in their location of first-person privilege. This difference in the source of first-person privilege allows the key elements of each of these views to be compatible, and can even be combined into a single view about the nature of introspection and self-knowledge. The compatibility of these two views that otherwise appear to be in direct opposition is methodologically significant, highlighting several dialectical lessons that clar.. (shrink)

Biomedical research today can be generally classified as human-based or nonhuman animal-based, each with separate and distinct review boards that must approve research protocols. Researchers wishing to work with humans or human tissues have become frustrated by the required burdensome approval panel, the Institutional Review Board. However, scientists have found it is much easier to work with the animal-based research review board, the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee. Consequently, animals are used for investigations even when scientists believe these studies (...) should be performed with humans or human tissue. This situation deserves attention from society and more specifically the animal protection and patient advocate communities, as neither patients nor animals are well served by the present situation. (shrink)

The distinction between perception and cognition has always had a firm footing in both cognitive science and folk psychology. However, there is little agreement as to how the distinction should be drawn. In fact, a number of theorists have recently argued that, given the ubiquity of top-down influences, we should jettison the distinction altogether. I reject this approach, and defend a pluralist account of the distinction. At the heart of my account is the claim that each legitimate way of marking (...) a border between perception and cognition deploys a notion I call ‘stimulus-control.’ Thus, rather than being a grab bag of unrelated kinds, the various categories of the perceptual are unified into a superordinate natural kind. (shrink)

Many have argued that early visual processing is encapsulated from the influence of higher-level goals, expectations, and knowledge of the world. Here we confront the main arguments offered in support of such a view, showing that they are unpersuasive. We also present evidence of top–down influences on early vision, emphasizing data from cognitive neuroscience. Our conclusion is that encapsulation is not a defining feature of visual processing. But we take this conclusion to be quite modest in scope, readily incorporated into (...) mainstream vision science. (shrink)

How do humans manage to keep track of a gradually changing object or person as the same persisting individual despite the fact that the extraction of information about this individual must often rely on heterogeneous information sources and heterogeneous tracking methods? The article introduces the Empirical Tracking of Individuals theory to address this problem. This theory proposes an analysis of the concept of integrated tracking, which refers to the capacity to acquire, store, and update information about the identity and location (...) of individuals in our environment. It hypothesizes that certain functions of attention are a key to explaining how the cognitive flexibility of the human mind overcomes the heterogeneity of sources and methods in integrated tracking. At least two premises lend support to this hypothesis. First, heterogeneity of tracking sources is overcome by the combination of information from multiple perceptual modalities and a phenomenon of multisensory 'transparency'. Second, heterogeneity of tracking sources and methods may also be overcome by inferences that combine information across domains to acquire reasons to believe propositions about the target's location and identity. (shrink)

This paper takes a fresh look at the nativism–empiricism debate, presenting and defending a nativist perspective on the mind. Empiricism is often taken to be the default view both in philosophy and in cognitive science. This paper argues, on the contrary, that there should be no presumption in favor of empiricism (or nativism), but that the existing evidence suggests that nativism is the most promising framework for the scientific study of the mind. Our case on behalf of nativism has four (...) parts. (1) We characterize nativism’s core commitments relative to the contemporary debate between empiricists and nativists, (2) we present the positive case for nativism in terms of two central nativist arguments (the poverty of the stimulus argument and the argument from animals), (3) we respond to a number of influential objections to nativist theories, and (4) we explain the nativist approach to the conceptual system. (shrink)

It is commonly held that our intuitive judgements about imaginary problem cases are justified a priori, if and when they are justified at all. In this paper I defend this view — ‘rationalism’ — against a recent objection by Timothy Williamson. I argue that his objection fails on multiple grounds, but the reasons why it fails are instructive. Williamson argues from a claim about the semantics of intuitive judgements, to a claim about their psychological underpinnings, to the denial of rationalism. (...) I argue that the psychological claim — that a capacity for mental simulation explains our intuitive judgements — does not, even if true, provide reasons to reject rationalism. (More generally, a simulation hypothesis, about any category of judgements, is very limited in its epistemological implications: it is pitched at a level of explanation that is insensitive to central epistemic distinctions.) I also argue that Williamson’s semantic claim — that intuitive judgements are judgements of counterfactuals — is mistaken; rather, I propose, they are a certain kind of metaphysical possibility judgement. Several other competing proposals are also examined and criticized. (shrink)

In The Architecture of the Mind, Carruthers proposes a new and detailed explanation for how human cognition could be both flexible and massively modular. The combinatorial nature of our linguistic faculty and our capacity to engage in inner speech are the cornerstones of this new explanation. Despite the ingenuity of this proposal, I argue that Carruthers has failed to explain how a massively modular mind could display the flexibility that is characteristic of human thought.

The disagreement between philosophers about the scientific worth of the evolutionary behavioral sciences (evolutionary psychology, human behavioral ecology, etc.) is in part due to the fact that critics and advocates of these sciences characterize them very differently. In this article, by analyzing quantitatively the citations made in the articles published in Evolution & Human Behavior between January 2000 and December 2002, we provide some evidence that undermines the characterization of the evolutionary behavioral sciences put forward by their critics.

Abstract One perspective in contemporary linguistic theory defends the idea that the language faculty may result from the combinations of diverse systems and principles. As a case study, I critique a recent proposal by Juan Uriagereka and colleagues according to which the evolutionary emergence of the language faculty can be identified through studying the computational structure of knots as present within the fossil record. I here argue that the ability to conceptualize and, thereby, create knots is not parasitic on the (...) ability to conceptualize and create language. On the contrary, these two domains are entirely distinct, unrelatable in terms of their computational complexity, expressive power or, most importantly, in terms of their requisite mental operations and principles. The overall approach defended here can profitably be employed in the study of the relationship between language and thought, as I briefly discuss in the case of the role of language in spatial reorientation. (shrink)

Introduction to Special Issue of Review of Philosophy and Psychology. Overview of the central issues in cognitive architecture, epistemology, and ethics surrounding cognitive penetrability. Special issue includes papers by philosophers and psychologists: Gary Lupyan, Fiona Macpherson, Reginald Adams, Anya Farennikova, Jona Vance, Francisco Marchi, Robert Cowan.

I introduce and argue for the importance of a cognitive state that I call alief. An alief is, to a reasonable approximation, an innate or habitual propensity to respond to an apparent stimulus in a particular way. Recognizing the role that alief plays in our cognitive repertoire provides a framework for understanding reactions that are governed by nonconscious or automatic mechanisms, which in turn brings into proper relief the role played by reactions that are subject to conscious regulation and deliberate (...) control. (shrink)

In his work on the epistemology of testimony, Peter Lipton developed an account of testimonial inference that aimed at descriptive adequacy as well as justificatory sophistication. According to ‘testimonial inference to the best explanation’, we accept what a speaker tells us because the truth of her claim figures in the best explanation of the fact that she made it. In this paper, I argue for a modification of this picture. In particular, I argue that IBE plays a dual role in (...) the management and justification of testimony. On the one hand, the coherence and success of our testimony-based projects provides general abductive support for a default stance of testimonial acceptance; on the other hand, we are justified in rejecting specific testimonial claims whenever the best explanation of the instances of testimony we encounter entails, or makes probable, the falsity or unreliability of the testimony in question.Keywords: Testimony; Inference to the best explanation; Abduction; Epistemic justification. (shrink)

This paper surveys some of the central issues in the philosophy of creativity and argues that an adequate treatment of them requires attention to the rich psychological literature on creativity. It also shows that the range of interesting philosophical questions to be raised about creativity is much wider than concerns its role in art. Issues covered include the definition of ‘creativity’; the relation of creativity to imagination; whether the creative process is rational; whether it is teleological; the relation of creativity (...) to knowledge; whether creativity can be explained; computational and Darwinian theories of creativity; whether creativity is a virtue; the relation of creativity to tradition; the aesthetic value of creativity; and whether creative activity is different in science and art. (shrink)

In the domain of evolutionary cognitive archaeology, the early body ornaments from the Middle Stone Age/Palaeolithic are generally treated as mere by-products of an evolved brain-bound cognitive architecture selected to cope with looming social problems. Such adaptive artefacts are therefore taken to have been but passive means of broadcasting a priori envisaged meanings, essentially playing a neutral role for the human mind. In contrast to this epiphenomenalist view of material culture, postphenomenology and the Material Engagement Theory have been making a (...) case for the active role of artefacts on the count that they can actually shape and restructure the human mind. By bringing these dissenting voices together, the paper at hand employs an enactive way of thinking in order to challenge the epiphenomenalist take on early body ornaments. In fact, two variants of enactivism are presented, each advancing a unique explanation of how the engagement of early humans with body ornaments transformed their minds along the two postphenomenological categories of embodied and hermeneutic cognition. Our theoretical frameworks specifically seek to explore how early beadworks could have scaffolded the creation of semiotic categories and the development of cognitive processes. Despite relying on inherently different premises, both theories suggest that beads fostered the emergence of an epistemic apparatus which thoroughly transformed the way humans engaged with the world. Having concurred on the ornaments’ transformative effects, we ultimately conclude that the epiphenomenalist paradigm best be replaced with an enactive approach grounded on the dictates of postphenomenology and the MET. (shrink)

Bullot & Reber (B&R) put forth a design stance to fuse psychological and art historical accounts of visual thinking into a single theory. We argue that this aspect of their proposal needs further fine-tuning. Issues of transgression and coherence are necessary to provide stability to the design stance. We advocate looking to Art Education for such fundamentals of picture understanding.

The aim of this paper is to present a challenge to the received view in folk psychology. According to this challenge, the semantic assumption behind the received view, which considers that propositional attitude ascriptions are descriptions of the internal causally efficacious states underlying behavior, cannot account for the main function of reasons in terms of mental states.

In Section 1, I introduce three views that explain human cognitive development from different standpoints: Marcus’s neo-nativism, standard neuroconstructivism, and neo-neuroconstructivism. In Section 2, I assess Marcus’s attempt to reconcile nativism with developmental flexibility. In Section 3, I argue that in structurally reconfiguring nativism, Marcus ends up transforming it into an unrecognizable form, and I claim that his view could be accommodated within the more general framework provided by standard neuroconstructivism. In Section 4, I focus on recent empirical findings in (...) neuropsychology and cultural/social neuroscience, and propose a friendly revision to standard neuroconstructivism, thus developing the neo-neuroconstructivist view. I conclude the article in Section 5 by analysing the implications of the results discussed in Section 4 for both neo-nativism and standard neuroconstructivism. 1 Introduction2 Marcus’s Neo-nativism3 Is Marcus’s Neo-nativism Really a Form of Nativism?4 Neo-neuroconstructivism and Dynamic Enskillment5 Conclusion. (shrink)

Heuristics are often invoked in the philosophical, psychological, and cognitive science literatures to describe or explain methodological techniques or "shortcut" mental operations that help in inference, decision-making, and problem-solving. Yet there has been surprisingly little philosophical work done on the nature of heuristics and heuristic reasoning, and a close inspection of the way(s) in which "heuristic" is used throughout the literature reveals a vagueness and uncertainty with respect to what heuristics are and their role in cognition. This dissertation seeks to (...) remedy this situation by motivating philosophical inquiry into heuristics and heuristic reasoning, and then advancing a theory of how heuristics operate in cognition. I develop a positive working characterization of heuristics that is coherent and robust enough to account for a broad range of phenomena in reasoning and inference, and makes sense of empirical data in a systematic way. I then illustrate the work this characterization does by considering the sorts of problems that many philosophers believe heuristics solve, namely those resulting from the so-called frame problem. Considering the frame problem motivates the need to gain a better understanding of how heuristics work and the cognitive structures over which they operate. I develop a general theory of cognition which I argue underwrites the heuristic operations that concern this dissertation. I argue that heuristics operate over highly organized systems of knowledge, and I offer a cognitive architecture to accommodate this view. I then provide an account of the systems of knowledge that heuristics are supposed to operate over, in which I suggest that such systems of knowledge are concepts. The upshot, then, is that heuristics operate over concepts. I argue, however, that heuristics do not operate over conceptual content, but over metainformational relations between activated and primed concepts and their contents. Finally, to show that my thesis is empirically adequate, I consider empirical evidence on heuristic reasoning and argue that my account of heuristics explains the data. (shrink)

Modular approaches to the architecture of the mind claim that some mental mechanisms, such as sensory input processes, operate in special-purpose subsystems that are functionally independent from the rest of the mind. This assumption of modularity seems to be in tension with recent claims that the mind has a predictive architecture. Predictive approaches propose that both sensory processing and higher-level processing are part of the same Bayesian information-processing hierarchy, with no clear boundary between perception and cognition. Furthermore, it is not (...) clear how any part of the predictive architecture could be functionally independent, given that each level of the hierarchy is influenced by the level above. Both the assumption of continuity across the predictive architecture and the seeming non-isolability of parts of the predictive architecture seem to be at odds with the modular approach. I explore and ultimately reject the predictive approach’s apparent commitments to continuity and non-isolation. I argue that predictive architectures can be modular architectures, and that we should in fact expect predictive architectures to exhibit some form of modularity. (shrink)

This chapter offers a high-level overview of the philosophy of cognitive science and an introduction to the Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Cognitive Science. The philosophy of cognitive science emerged out of a set of common and overlapping interests among philosophers and scientists who study the mind. We identify five categories of issues that illustrate the best work in this broad field: (1) traditional philosophical issues about the mind that have been invigorated by research in cognitive science, (2) issues regarding (...) the practice of cognitive science and its foundational assumptions, (3) issues regarding the explication and clarification of core concepts in cognitive science, (4) first-order empirical issues where philosophers participate in the interdisciplinary investigation of particular psychological phenomena, (5) traditional philosophical issues that aren’t about the mind but that can be informed by a better understanding of how the mind works. (shrink)

Metaphysics has had a long history of debate over its viability, and substantivity. This thesis explores issues connected to the realism question within the domain of metaphysics, ultimately aiming to defend a realist, substantive metaphysics by responding to so-called deflationary approaches, which have become prominent, and well supported within the recent metametaphysical and metaontological literature. To this end, I begin by examining the changing nature of the realism question. I argue that characterising realism and anti-realism through theories of truth unduly (...) places epistemology prior to ontology, and is unwarranted in assuming a non-neutrality between theories of truth and positions within the realism debate. I therefore propose a characterisation of realism and anti-realism understood through truthmaking. This produces a suitable working characterisation of realism that will be used within the remainder of this project. In the second section, I trace the historical influences upon current deflationary approaches to metaphysics, most prominently those of Carnap, and Putnam. I argue that Quine’s supposed attack on Carnap’s anti-metaphysical thought fails, and show how current deflationary thought, most prominently exhibited by Hirsch, came to focus on linguistically derived concerns over the substantivity of metaphysics. In the third section, I outline a number of issues for the deflationist, and defend the coherency and legitimacy of the unrestricted existential quantifier. Focusing on the linguistic aspect of deflationism, I argue that the conception of language that the deflationist relies upon lacks suitable empirical and theoretical support within linguistics and other related domains. Furthermore, I suggest that linguistic analysis in fact supports the claim that the quantifier carries no inherent restrictions. This restores our ability to suitably posit the unrestricted existential quantifier, as a quantifier wherein the domain is only restricted by metaphysically substantive restrictions. Through this, I argue that metaphysics is a substantive domain of discourse. Lastly, I sketch a positive account of how, under an empirically and theoretically justified conception of language, metaphysics can be coherently held to be a realist, substantive enterprise, contra claims that hold that the nature of language inherently prevents metaphysics being considered to be a substantive domain of discourse. (shrink)

My dissertation establishes the basis for a systematic outlook on the role language plays in human cognition. It is an investigation based on a cognitive conception of language, as opposed to communicative conceptions, viz. those that suppose that language plays no role in cognition. I focus, in Chapter 2, on three paradigmatic theories adopting this perspective, each offering different views on how language contributes to or changes cognition. -/- In Chapter 3, I criticize current views held by dual-process theorists, and (...) I develop a picture of the complex interaction between language and cognition that I deem more plausible by using resources from the literature on the evolution of the faculty of language. Rather than trying to find one general explanation for all cognitive processes, I take seriously the idea that our mind is composed of many subsystems, and that language can interact and modify each in different ways. There is no reason offered in the empirical literature—besides maybe parsimony—that suggest that language has to interact in the same ways with all cognitive processes. Yet, this is seemingly taken for granted, especially within dual-process approaches. -/- On my view, it is a central requirement for a theory of the role of language in cognition to explain how language might have effects, at once, on and within various parts of cognition. In Chapter 4, I explore how this framework can modify how we think about some experiments in psychology, specifically in research on categorization. My idea is that language, once it evolved, changed how some cognitive capacities worked and interacted with each other, but did so in more than one or two ways. Cognitive systems are changed in very different ways—sometimes the transformation is very subtle, such as our way of forming categories by using how similar objects are, while other times it is deep and changes the very way the system works. (shrink)

En esta introducción al número monográfico, se presentan las líneas centrales del pensamiento de Peter Carruthers, su particular versión del cognitivismo funcionalista, que parte de una curiosa inversión de un lugar común: los animales piensan pero no sienten. Esta inversión deriva del papel central que Carruthers atribuye al lenguaje en la propia arquitectura mental, a pesar de partir de una versión de la modularidad masiva: como base para la conciencia y el pensamiento de nivel superior, flexible y creativo. Finalmente, también (...) se sitúan las diversas contribuciones al volumen dentro de estos ejes centrales. In this introduction to the special issue, the central ideas in Peter Carruther's thought are presented: his particular version of functionalist cognitivism, which inverts the common place that animals feel but not think, to claim that they do think but do not feel. The key to this inversion is the central role Carruthers assigns to language in the architecture of the mind, in spite of his defense of a version of the massive modularity hypothesis: as a ground for qualitative consciousness and for flexible thought. Finally, the different contributions to the special issue are placed in terms of such central axes. (shrink)

Theories of cognition and theories of social practices and institutions have often each separately acknowledged the relevance of the other; but seldom have there been consistent and sustained attempts to synthesize these two areas within one explanatory framework. This is precisely what my dissertation aims to remedy. I propose that certain recent developments and themes in philosophy of mind and cognitive science, when understood in the right way, can explain the emergence and dynamics of social practices and institutions. Likewise, the (...) view I construct explains how social practices and institutions shape the character of cognition of their constituent agents. Moreover, I explain both cognitive and social agency under the single explanatory framework provided by Dynamic Systems Theory. Drawing upon the phenomenological tradition, "embodied, "extended", "embedded", "enactive", and "ecological" approaches to cognition, as well as the conceptual resources of Dynamic Systems Theory, I construct a theory of agency that sees cognitive and social agents as far-from-equilibrium, open, recursively self-maintenant dynamic systems. Depending on the specifics of concrete circumstances, such systems, which I call "Dynamic Embodied Agents", may develop and possess emergent capacities for error-detection, flexible learning, normative behavior, representation, self-reflection, various modes of pattern-recognition, a temporal sense of self, and even moral responsibility. Some such systems are also sensitive to perceived social influences ; while reciprocally constituting and causally affecting them. (shrink)