Philosophers tend to assume that we have excellent knowledge of our own current conscious experience or 'phenomenology'. I argue that our knowledge of one aspect of our experience, the experience of visual imagery, is actually rather poor. Precedent for this position is found among the introspective psychologists of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Two main arguments are advanced toward the conclusion that our knowledge of our own imagery is poor. First, the reader is asked to form a visual (...) image, and it is expected that answering questions about certain basic features of that experience will be difficult. If so, it seems reasonable to suppose that people could be mistaken about those basic features of their own imagery. Second, it is observed that although people give widely variable reports about their own experiences of visual imagery, differences in report do not systematically correlate with differences on tests of skills that psychologists have often supposed to require visual imagery, such as mental rotation, visual creativity, and visual memory. (shrink)

Dennett argues that we can be mistaken about our own conscious experience. Despite this, he repeatedly asserts that we can or do have unchallengeable authority of some sort in our reports about that experience. This assertion takes three forms. First, Dennett compares our authority to the authority of an author over his fictional world. Unfortunately, that appears to involve denying that there are actual facts about experience that subjects may be truly or falsely reporting. Second, Dennett sometimes seems to say (...) that even though we may be mistaken about what our conscious experience is, our reports about. (shrink)

Dennett argues that we can be mistaken about our own conscious experience. Despite this, he repeatedly asserts that we can or do have unchallengeable authority of some sort in our reports about that experience. This assertion takes three forms. First, Dennett compares our authority to the authority of an author over his fictional world. Unfortunately, that appears to involve denying that there are actual facts about experience that subjects may be truly or falsely reporting. Second, Dennett sometimes seems to say (...) that even though we may be mistaken about what our conscious experience is, our reports about “what it’s like to be us” must be correct. That view unfortunately requires a nonstandard and unremarked distinction between facts about consciousness and facts about “what it’s like.” Third, Dennett says that reports about experience may be “incorrigible.” However, that claim stands in tension with evidence, highlighted by Dennett himself, that seems to suggest that people can be demonstrably mistaken about their own experience. Dennett needlessly muddies his case against infallibilism with these unsatisfactory compromises. (shrink)

Thinking about how the law might decide whether to extend legal personhood to artificial agents provides a valuable testbed for philosophical theories of mind. Further, philosophical and legal theorising about personhood for artificial agents can be mutually informing. We investigate two case studies, drawing on legal discussions of the status of artificial agents. The first looks at the doctrinal difficulties presented by the contracts entered into by artificial agents. We conclude that it is not necessary or desirable to postulate artificial (...) agents as legal persons in order to account for such contracts. The second looks at the potential for according sophisticated artificial agents with legal personality with attendant constitutional protections similar to those accorded to humans. We investigate the validity of attributes that have been suggested as pointers of personhood, and conclude that they will take their place within a broader matrix of pragmatic, philosophical and extra-legal concepts. (shrink)

To study conscious experience we must, to some extent, trust introspective reports; yet introspective reports often do not merit our trust. A century ago, E.B. Titchener advocated extensive introspective training as a means of resolving this difficulty. He describes many of his training techniques in his four-volume laboratory manual of 1901- 1905. This paper explores Titchener's laboratory manual with an eye to general questions about the prospects of introspective training for contemporary consciousness studies, with a focus on the following examples: (...) introspective knowledge of the combination tones that arise when a musical interval is played; the 'flight of colours' in the afterimage of a field of bright, broad- spectrum light; and the possibility of non-obvious visual illusions. Introspective training appears to have some merit, but also to involve significant hazards. (shrink)

The topic of epistemic normativity has come to the fore of recent work in epistemology, and so naturally, theories of knowledge, truth and justification have been increasingly held accountable to preserving normative epistemological platitudes. Central to discussions of epistemic normativity are questions about epistemic agency and epistemic value. Here, our aim is to take up some of these issues as they come to bear on the rather unconventional brand of epistemology that was defended by Richard Rorty. Our purpose is to (...) explore whether Rorty’s epistemology—or perhaps his replacement for epistemology—can preserve these normative platitudes about epistemic agency, responsibility, achievement, and the value of knowledge. Our conclusion is a negative one: that Rorty’s commitments leave him firmly at odds with some of the most plausible assumptions about epistemic agency and epistemic value. (shrink)

Given (1) Wittgensteins externalist analysis of the distinction between following a rule and behaving in accordance with a rule, (2) prima facie connections between rule-following and psychological capacities, and (3) pragmatic issues about training, it follows that most, even all, future artificially intelligent computers and robots will not use language, possess concepts, or reason. This argument suggests that AIs traditional aim of building machines with minds, exemplified in current work on cognitive robotics, is in need of substantial revision.

The purpose of this article is to explore the relationship between the thought of Richard Rorty and that of his former teacher, Charles Hartshorne. There are important similarities between the two, but ultimately the differences are more readily apparent, especially in terms of the battle between poetry (in the wide sense of the term conceived by Rorty) and (Hartshornian) metaphysics. Hartshorne is defended against Rorty.

El artículo explora las posibilidades de la teoría de Dennett sobre los sistemas físicos, funcionales e intencionales como punto de vista no reduccionista sobre las intenciones y las funciones. Dennett defiende que el aprecio de las ventajas predictivas y los compromisos ontológicos con ciertas pautas de las perspectivas funcional e intencional impide el reduccionismo y, por tanto, el fisicismo con respecto a funciones e intenciones. Se propone aquí que ese argumento se complemente con otro que muestre que las pautas del (...) comportamiento físico no son más objetivas que las demás. (shrink)