This paper disputes the claim that our understanding of others is enabled by a commonsense or ‘folk’ psychology, whose ‘core’ involves the attribution of intentional states in order to predict and explain behaviour. I argue that interpersonal understanding is seldom, if ever, a matter of two people assigning intentional states to each other but emerges out of a context of interaction between them. Self and other form a coupled system rather than two wholly separate entities equipped with an internalised capacity (...) to assign mental states to the other. This applies even in those instances where one might seem to adopt a ‘detached’ perspective towards others. Thus ‘folk psychology’, as commonly construed, is not folk psychology. (shrink)

I consider the ‘inferentialist’ thesis that whenever a mental state rationally justifies a belief it is in virtue of inferential relations holding between the contents of the two states. I suggest that no good argument has yet been given for the thesis. I focus in particular on Williamson (2000) and Ginsborg (2011) and show that neither provides us with a reason to deny the plausible idea that experience can provide non-inferential justification for belief. I finish by pointing out some theoretical (...) costs and tensions associated with endorsing inferentialism. (shrink)

According to the quotational theory of meaning ascriptions, sentences like “‘Bruder means brother” are abbreviated synonymy claims, such as “‘Bruder means the same as ‘brother’”. After discussing a problem with Harman’s version of the quotational theory, I present an amended version defended by Field. Then, I address Field’s responses to two arguments against the theory that revolve around translation and the understanding of foreign expressions. Afterwards, I formulate two original arguments against both Harman’s and Field’s versions of the theory. One (...) of them targets the hyperintensionality of quotations and the other raises a problem pertaining to variant spellings of words. (shrink)

Perceptual systems respond to proximal stimuli by forming mental representations of distal stimuli. A central goal for the philosophy of perception is to characterize the representations delivered by perceptual systems. It may be that all perceptual representations are in some way proprietarily perceptual and differ from the representational format of thought (Dretske 1981; Carey 2009; Burge 2010; Block ms.). Or it may instead be that perception and cognition always trade in the same code (Prinz 2002; Pylyshyn 2003). This paper rejects (...) both approaches in favor of perceptual pluralism, the thesis that perception delivers a multiplicity of representational formats, some proprietary and some shared with cognition. The argument for perceptual pluralism marshals a wide array of empirical evidence in favor of iconic (i.e., image-like, analog) representations in perception as well as discursive (i.e., language-like, digital) perceptual object representations. (shrink)

En este artículo, el autor examina la tradicional oposición entre el fundacionalismo y el coherentismo como teorías de la justificación, mostrando sus limitaciones y las razones por las que ninguna de ellas puede ser parte de una adecuada teoría del conocimiento. Se sugiere que, para superar esta oposición, es necesario desarrollar una teoría holista de la creencia que, a su vez, permita la elaboración de una teoría holista de la justificación. El artículo consta de tres partes. En la primera, el (...) autor discute las objeciones contra el fundacionalismo, concentrándose en la noción de creencia básica y en la justificación no-doxástica. En la segunda, se examina las objeciones contra el coherentismo. concentrándose en el regreso al infinito del requisito de ascenso épistémico. Finalmente, en la tercera parte el autor aborda el concepto de creencia y la manera como un intérprete atribuye creencias a un agente. También se analiza hasta qué punto es posible reformular la noción de "creencia básica" con el fin de darle un lugar en una adecuada teoría de la justificación. El autor sugiere que el concepto mismo de creencia surge enun contexto intersubjetiva e interpretativo. siendo ese mismo contexto el que va a permitir la justificación de creencias.". (shrink)

Philosophical Issues, Volume 30, Issue 1, Page 273-292, October 2020.

According to a classic but nowadays discarded philosophical theory, perceptual experience is a complex of nonconceptual sensory states and full-blown propositional beliefs. This classical dual-component theory of experience is often taken to be obsolete. In particular, there seem to be cases in which perceptual experience and belief conflict: cases of known illusions, wherein subjects have beliefs contrary to the contents of their experiences. Modern dual-component theories reject the belief requirement and instead hold that perceptual experience is a complex of nonconceptual (...) sensory states and some other sort of conceptual state. The most popular modern dual-component theory appeals to sui generis propositional attitudes called ‘perceptual seemings’. This article argues that the classical dual-component theory has the resources to explain known illusions without giving up the claim that the conceptual components of experience are beliefs. The classical dual-component view, though often viewed as outdated and implausible, should be regarded as a serious contender in contemporary debates about the nature of perceptual experience. (shrink)

Dispositionalism about belief has had a recent resurgence. In this paper we critically evaluate a popular dispositionalist program pursued by Eric Schwitzgebel. Then we present an alternative: a psychofunctional, representational theory of belief. This theory of belief has two main pillars: that beliefs are relations to structured mental representations, and that the relations are determined by the generalizations under which beliefs are acquired, stored, and changed. We end by describing some of the generalizations regarding belief acquisition, storage, and change.

In the literature seeking to explain concepts in terms of their point, talk of ‘the point’ of concepts remains under-theorised. I propose a typology of points which distinguishes practical, evaluative, animating, and inferential points. This allows us to resolve tensions such as that between the ambition of explanations in terms of the points of concepts to be informative and the claim that mastering concepts requires grasping their point; and it allows us to exploit connections between types of points to understand (...) why they come apart, and whether they do so for problematic ideological reasons or for benignly functional reasons. (shrink)

In this paper, I examine Azzouni's tracking requirement and its use as a normative constraint on theories about objects which we take as real. I focus on what he calls ‘thick epistemic access’ and argue that there is a logical–conceptual sense in which thick access to the real presupposes thin access to it. Then, I move on to advance an alternative—Sellarsian—way to ontic commitment and show that (a) it is better than Azzouni's, and (b) it can accommodate thick epistemic access (...) as a bonus. Finally, I try to defend the Quinean theoretical virtues against some of Azzouni's objections. Introduction Theoretical irrealism vs holistic realism On the epistemic authority of observation The myth of the levels Quinean virtues Conclusion. (shrink)

This article surveys work in epistemology since the mid-1980s. It focuses on contextualism about knowledge attributions, modest forms of foundationalism, and the internalism/externalism debate and its connections to the ethics of belief.

A number of those that have advocated for theoretical pluralism in epistemology suggest that naturalistic arguments from cognitive science can support their case. Yet these theorists have traditionally faced two pressing needs. First, they have needed a cognitive science adequate to the task. Second, they have needed a bridge between whatever scientific account of cognition they favor and the normative claims of a pluralistic epistemology. Both of these challenges are addressed below in an argument for theoretical pluralism that brings together (...) two recent prototype-activation approaches to cognition. The paper dovetails Paul Churchland's neuro-computational approach with George Lakoff and Mark Johnson's image schematic approach, and shows how they mutually support each other in an increasingly persuasive naturalistic case for theoretical pluralism in epistemology. (shrink)

Imagine yourself sitting on your front porch, sipping your morning coffee and admiring the scene before you. You see trees, houses, people, automobiles; you see a cat running across the road, and a bee buzzing among the flowers. You see that the flowers are yellow, and blowing in the wind. You see that the people are moving about, many of them on bicycles. You see that the houses are painted different colors, mostly earth tones, and most are one-story but a (...) few are two-story. It is a beautiful morning. Thus the world interfaces with your mind through your senses. There is a strong intuition that we are not disconnected from the world. We and the other things we see around us are part of a continuous whole, and we have direct access to them through vision, touch, etc. However, the philosophical tradition tries to drive a wedge between us and the world by insisting that the information we get from perception is the result of inference from indirect evidence that is about how things look and feel to us. The philosophical problem of perception is then to explain what justifies these inferences. We will focus on visual perception. Figure one presents a crude diagram of the cognitive system of an agent capable of forming beliefs on the basis of visual perception. Cognition begins with the stimulation of the rods and cones on the retina. From that physical input, some kind of visual processing produces an introspectible visual image. In response to the production of the visual image, the cognizer forms beliefs about his or her surroundings. Some beliefs the perceptual beliefs are formed as direct responses to the visual input, and other beliefs are inferred from the perceptual beliefs. The perceptual beliefs are, at the very least, caused or causally influenced by having the image. This is signified by the dashed arrow marked with a large question mark. We will refer to this as the mystery link. Figure one makes it apparent that in order to fully understand how knowledge is based on perception, we need three different theories.. (shrink)

According to the received view in philosophy of mind, mental states or properties are _realized_ by brain states or properties but are not identical to them. This view is often called _realization_ _physicalism_. Carl Gillett has recently defended a detailed formulation of the realization relation. However, Gillett’s formulation cannot be the relation that realization physicalists have in mind. I argue that Gillett’s “dimensioned” view of realization fails to apply to a textbook case of realization. I also argue Gillett counts as (...) realization some cases that should not count if realization physicalism is to be distinguished from its competitors in the usual ways. I conclude that the relation described by Gillett cannot be realization. (shrink)

Multiple realizability has recently attractedrenewed attention, for example Bickle, 1998;Bechtel and Mundale, 1999; Bechtel and McCauley,1999; Heil, 1999; and Sober, 1999. Many of thesewriters revisit the topic of multiplerealizability in order to show that someversion of a mind-brain identity theory isviable. Although there is much of value inthese recent explorations, they do not addressthe underlying intuitions that have vexedphilosophers of mind since Hilary Putnamintroduced the concern (1967). I argue that thestandard way of construing multiplerealizability is a much stronger claim thanthat (...) of Putnam's intuition alone. I distinguishfour interpretations of the multiplerealizability intuition. Some commonformulations of multiple realizability arealmost certainly true, while others are not atall plausible. I argue that the plausible formsof multiple realizability do not impugn theprospects for a mind-brain Identity Theory. (shrink)

Klein’s account of epistemic justification, infinitism, supplies a novel solution to the regress problem. We argue that concentrating on the normative aspect of justification exposes a number of unpalatable consequences for infinitism, all of which warrant rejecting the position. As an intermediary step, we develop a stronger version of the ‘finite minds’ objection.

This article lays the groundwork for a defense of rational intuitions by first arguing against a prevalent view according to which intuition is a distinctive psychological state, an “intellectual seeming” that p, that then constitutes evidence that p. An alternative account is then offered, according to which an intuition that p constitutes non-inferential a priori knowledge that p in virtue of the concepts exercised in judging that p. This account of rational intuition as the exercise of conceptual capacities in a (...) priori judgment is then distinguished from the dogmatic, entitlement and reliabilist accounts of intuition’s justificatory force. The article concludes by considering three implications of the proposed view for the Experimental Philosophy movement. (shrink)

On the surface, one of the main differences between John McDowell and Wilfrid Sellars when it comes to their conceptions of intentionality has to do with their respective accounts of meaning. McDowell advocates a relational account of meaning, whereas Sellars holds, on the contrary, that a correct view of intentionality is only possible through a non-relational account of meaning. According to McDowell, Sellars does not consider the possibility of his own relational view because he suffers from a ‘blind spot’. It (...) is implied that if Sellars saw this possibility, he would see the light and embrace something like McDowell’s own account. I would like to argue in this paper that the whole issue goes much deeper than that. Sellars does not suffer from a ‘blind spot’ and showing why this is the case should give us an idea of how far apart these two thinkers really are, appearances notwithstanding. It will also reveal that the heart of their disagreement does not consist in a dispute over whether the correct shape of an account of meaning should be relational or not. Sellars’s and McDowell’s respective outlooks on intentionality differ fundamentally with regards to the concept of objectivity. (shrink)

RÉSUMÉ : La conception traditionnelle de l’expérience — aussi nommée conception causale de l’expérience — a vu sa prédominance menacée depuis une trentaine d’année avec l’arrivée de la conception disjonctive de l’expérience. Le présent article porte sur un argument récemment proposé par John McDowell en faveur du disjonctivisme. De façon très générale, son argument peut être caractérisé comme une tentative de montrer que la conception traditionnelle est incapable de rendre compte d’un certain aspect de l’expérience, contrairement à la conception disjonctive. (...) J’aimerais dans cet article suggérer que l’argument de McDowell — de facture transcendantale — n’a pas les ressources suffisantes pour atteindre son but. ABSTRACT: The traditional conception of experience — also known as the causal conception — has been criticised in the last thirty years or so by proponents of the disjunctive conception. This article examines an argument recently put forward by John McDowell in support of disjunctivism. Broadly speaking, his argument can be seen as an attempt to show that, unlike the disjunctive conception, the traditional conception cannot account for a crucial aspect of experience. I aim here to show that McDowell’s argument — which is of a transcendental kind — does not have sufficient resources to achieve its intended goal. (shrink)

In its most general form, the issue of intentionality takes the following shape: How can something be about something else? In basic cases, this relation is one between a subjective occurrence and a state of affairs, allowing the problem of intentionality to be articulated in this manner: What makes it the case that a subjective occurrence has the capacity to be about something external to it? The views of John McDowell on intentionality form the focus of this article. They are (...) examined through the notion of content and via the later Wittgenstein's standpoint on content and intentionality. The main objective is to reach a conspicuous perspective of McDowell's stance on intentionality in order to uncover its presuppositions. This leads to the identification of a pivotal point of tension in McDowell's philosophical commitments, in particular the extent to which he can legitimately claim to be a quietist. (shrink)

Although they may differ on the reason why, many philosophers hold that it is a priori that an object is red if and only if it is such as to look red to normal observers in normal conditions.

Cognition is not, and could not possibly be, entirely representational in character. There is also a phenomenal form of cognitive expression that registers the intrinsic properties of mental states themselves. Arguments against the reality of this intrinsic phenomenal dimension to mental experience have focused either on its supposed impossibility, or secondly, the non-appearance of any such qualities to introspection. This paper argues to the contrary, that the registration of cognitive state properties does take place independently of representational content; and necessarily (...) so, since it supports an independent function—self-management. Given the fact that unlike a computer, the brain must, of necessity, operate itself, it needs to be in touch with itself to do so. Intrinsic phenomenal forms of cognitive expression allow the brain to do just that by registering characteristics of the cognitive states themselves. Self-management might well prove to constitute the prime reason for the emergence of subjectivity itself. (shrink)

In this paper I attempt to show how Moore’s early emancipation from Bradley’s absolute idealism presupposes a fundamental adherence to certain theses of absolute idealism itself. In particular, I argue that the idea of an immediate epistemic access to concepts and propositions that Moore endorses in his platonic atomism is a reworking of a form of epistemic realism already present in Bradley. Epistemic realism is the conjunction of two theses: i) reality is independent of any constructive work of the human (...) mind; ii) reality is immediately accessible to knowledge. In this paper I first focus on Moore’s early idealist phase, suggesting that it should be understood as an attempt at isolating this thesis in Bradley against Kant’s transcendental idealism. I then suggest that it is on the background of an invariant adherence to it that we should understand Moore’s later rejection of monism and idealism through his anti-psychologism. I hence explore how epistemic realism is at work in Moore’s platonic atomism and conclude with some remarks about the further significance of Moore’s rejection of Kant. (shrink)

We argue for teleology as a description of the way in which we ordinarily understand others’ intentional actions. Teleology starts from the close resemblance between the reasoning involved in understanding others’ actions and one’s own practical reasoning involved in deciding what to do. We carve out teleology’s distinctive features more sharply by comparing it to its three main competitors: theory theory, simulation theory, and rationality theory. The plausibility of teleology as our way of understanding others is underlined by developmental data (...) in its favour. (shrink)

In “How We Know Our Own Minds: The Relationship Between Mindreading and Metacognition,” Peter Carruthers argues for a view according to which first-person awareness of one’s own propositional attitudes is always interpretive, though one’s awareness of “sensory-imagistic” states is not. In this commentary, I criticize Carruthers’ way of drawing the distinction between sensory states and propositional attitudes. Furthermore, I argue for the superiority of a view, which I derive from Wilfrid Sellars, according to which all self-ascriptions of mental states are, (...) at bottom, interpretive—i.e., the outputs of an inferential process that consists in applying a folk-psychological theory to oneself. (shrink)

When do children become consciously aware of events in the world? Five possible strategies are considered for their usefulness in determining the age in question. Three of these strategies ask when children show signs of engaging in activities for which conscious awareness seems necessary in adults , and two of the strategies consider when children have the ability to have the minimal form of higher-order thought necessary for access consciousness and phenomenal consciousness, respectively. The tentative answer to the guiding question (...) is that children become consciously aware between 12 and 15 months. (shrink)

This Open Access book addresses the age-old problem of infinite regresses in epistemology. How can we ever come to know something if knowing requires having good reasons, and reasons can only be good if they are backed by good reasons in turn? The problem has puzzled philosophers ever since antiquity, giving rise to what is often called Agrippa's Trilemma. The current volume approaches the old problem in a provocative and thoroughly contemporary way. Taking seriously the idea that good reasons are (...) typically probabilistic in character, it develops and defends a new solution that challenges venerable philosophical intuitions and explains why they were mistakenly held. Key to the new solution is the phenomenon of fading foundations, according to which distant reasons are less important than those that are nearby. The phenomenon takes the sting out of Agrippa's Trilemma; moreover, since the theory that describes it is general and abstract, it is readily applicable outside epistemology, notably to debates on infinite regresses in metaphysics. (shrink)

One of the reasons why the Neural Correlates of Consciousness Program could appear attractive in the 1990s was that it seemed to disentangle theoretical and empirical problems. Theoretical disagreements could thus be sidestepped in order to focus on empirical research regarding the neural substrate of consciousness. One of the further consequences of this dissociation of empirical and theoretical questions was that fundamental questions regarding the Mind Body Problem or the “Hard Problem of Consciousness” could remain unresolved even if the search (...) for the neural correlates had been successful.Drawing on historical examples, a widely held consensus in the philosophy of science, and actual NCC research we argue that there is no such independence. Moreover, as the dependence between the theoretical and the empirical level is mutual, empirical progress will go hand in hand with theoretical development. Thus, contrary to what the original NCC program suggested, we conclude that NCC research may significantly take advantage from and contribute to theoretical progress in our explanation and understanding of consciousness. Eventually, this might even contribute to a solution of the Hard Problem of Consciousness. (shrink)

It is often thought that the test for whether an indicative conditional is assertible is to first suppose the antecedent and then check to see if the consequent is probable on that supposition. Call this procedure the “Ramsey Test”. Some influential accounts of indicative conditionals hold that the Ramsey Test works because indicative conditionals are used to express a high credence in the consequent conditional on the antecedent. In this paper I will argue that a different expressivist account, one inspired (...) by Brandom can handle a wider range of phenomena. In particular, it does a better job explaining how conditionals function in modus tollens arguments. I will end by discussing how the account proposed here goes beyond Brandom’s own work on logic and hermeneutics. Of particular importance is the role played by a conversational common ground, distinct from the commitments of the interpreter and interpreted. (shrink)

In this paper, I examine Wilfrid Sellars’ famous Myth of Jones. I argue the myth provides an ontologically austere account of thoughts and beliefs that makes sense of the full range of our folk psychological abilities. Sellars’ account draws on both Gilbert Ryle and Ludwig Wittgenstein. Ryle provides Sellars with the resources to make thoughts metaphysically respectable and Wittgenstein the resources to make beliefs rationally criticisable. By combining these insights into a single account, Sellars is able to see reasons as (...) causes and, hence, to respect the full range of our folk psychological generalisations. This is achieved by modelling folk psychological practice on theoretical reasoning. But despite frequent misinterpretation, Sellars does not claim that thoughts and beliefs are theoretical concepts. Thus, folk psychological explanation is not theoretical, and hence, it is not replaceable by scientific theory. Hence, scientific concepts will not eliminate folk psychological concepts. Thus, Sellars avoids eliminativism. (shrink)

Визначення онтологічного статусу «емпатії» – це сьогодні важлива частина проблематики, що стосується відповідей на питання про природу ментальної реальності як такої. У межах класичного поділу світу на «тіло та розум» («психофізичний дуалізм») такі об’єкти, як емпатія, мали цілком визначене пояснення. Вони тлумачилися як частина «нетілесної», «душевної» реальності. Однак зміна наукових і світоглядних парадигм заклала умови для формування нового розуміння онтологічного та епістемологічного статусу подібних об’єктів. Ключові питання, що ставиться у статті: чи належать акти емпатії до ментальної реальності? і чи є (...) ментальні акти частиною «ментального світу»? Однак після середини минулого століття світ «ментального» зазнав трансформації. Дана стаття – це спроба підважити твердження, що акти емпатії є різновидом ментальних актів (у традиційному розумінні). Джерельну базу дослідження становлять переважно праці Вілфреда Селарса та Гілберта Райла. Визначено, які зміни відбулися у розумінні свідомості після зауваг Райла та яким чином це впливає на приписування онтологічного статусу феноменам, які у минулому беззаперечно належали до ментальних об’єктів. (shrink)