In this work, it is shown that given a correct understanding of the nature of reference and of linguistic meaning generally, it is possible to produce non-revisionist analyses of the nature of -/- *Perceptual content, *Mental content generally, *Logical equivalence, *Logical dependence generally, *Counterfactual truth, *The causal efficacy of mental states, and *Our knowledge of ourselves and of the external world. -/- In addition, set-theoretic interpretations of several semantic concepts are put forth. These concepts include truth, falsehood, negation, (...) and conjunction. (shrink)

The paper presents and discusses the “which-is-which content of handedness,” the meaning of left as left and right as right, as a possible candidate for the idea of a genuine embodied cognitive content. After showing that the Ozma barrier, the non-transferability of the meaning of left and right, provides a kind of proof of the non-descriptive, indexical nature of the which-is-which content of handedness, arguments are presented which suggest that the classical representationalist account of cognition faces (...) a perplexing problem of underdetermination of reference of left and right in the which-is-which sense. By way of contrast, no such problems occur in a framework were embodied contents are not mediated by some extra body model which carries the representational power, but are instead directly represented. (shrink)

As part of a larger study, predictors of self-blame were investigated in a sample of 149 undergraduate sexual assault survivors. Each participant completed questionnaires regarding their preassault, peritraumatic, and post assault experiences and participated in an individual interview. Results confirmed the central hypothesis that, although several established correlates independently relate to self-blame, only cognitive content and process variables—negative self-cognitions and counterfactual-preventability cognitions—uniquely predict self-blame in a multivariate model.

In this paper we introduce two issues relevantly related to the cognitive phenomenology debate, which, to our minds, have not been yet properly addressed: the relation between access and phenomenal consciousness in cognition and the relation between conscious thought and inner speech. In the first case, we ask for an explanation of how we have access to thought contents, and in the second case, an explanation of why is inner speech so pervasive in our conscious thinking. We discuss the (...) prospects of explanation for both sides of the debate and argue that cognitive phenomenology defenders are in an overall advantageous position. We also propose an account of inner speech that differs from other influential explanations in some interesting respects. (shrink)

Nicholas Shea offers Varitel Semantics as a naturalistic account of mental content. I argue that the account secures determinate content only by appeal to pragmatic considerations, and so it fails to respect naturalism. But that is fine, because representational content is not, strictly speaking, necessary for explanation in cognitive science. Even in Shea’s own account, content serves only a variety of heuristic functions.

John Perry has urged that a semantic theory for natural languages ought to be concerned with the issue of cognitive significance—of how true identity statements containing different (utterances of) indexicals and proper names can be informative, held to be unaccountable by the referentialist view. The informativeness that he has in mind—one that has puzzled Frege, Kaplan and Wettstein—concerns knowledge about the world. In trying to solve this puzzle on referentialist terms, he comes up with the notion of cognitive (...) significance as a special kind of a second-order content which should account for cognitive significance in the former sense. Focusing on his treatment of perceptual demonstratives, I argue that he fails to do so both on the level of second-order contents containing demonstrative utterances and on the level of second-order contents containing perceptual buffers as new notions associated with the perceptions and used to temporarily store ideas we gain from the perceptions, which he holds to be causally connected to each other. (shrink)

This paper pursues two lines of inquiry. First, drawing on evidence from clinical literature on borderline states of consciousness, I propose a new categorical framework for liminal states of consciousness associated with certain forms of meditative attainment; second, I argue for dissociating phenomenal character from phenomenal content in accounting for the etiology of nonconceptual states of awareness. My central argument is that while the idea of nonconceptual awareness remains problematic for Buddhist philosophy of mind, our linguistic and categorizing practices (...) cannot be adequately explained without considering the ways in which the first-person phenomenology grounds a more basic level of cognitive and affective sensing. (shrink)

This research paper aims to study analogy as a comparative thinking and to investigate whether it is justified in claiming that an analogical thought has cognitive content. Two theories in cognitive science claim that analogy has cognitive content. The first one is called the weak view of analogy in cognition, e.g. the works of Gust et al. (2008), Lakoff & Johnson (1980), Hesse (1950), Black (1955); and the second one is called the strong view of (...) analogy in cognition, e.g. the works of Hofstadter (2001), Hofstadter& Sanders (2013). According to the weak view, analogical thought is only a necessary condition of cognition. But for the strong view, analogy is both necessary and sufficient of cognition. Regardless of the differences, both theories are not justified in claiming analogical content. While the weak view cannot provide an account of the perceptual aspect of content, the strong view suffers from the lack of normative constraint for analogical content. -/- Keywords: analogy, comparative thinking, concept, cognitive content, philosophy of cognitive science . (shrink)

Os tópicos e problemas filosóficos discutidos no volume são de natureza bastante variada: a natureza da complexidade computacional no processamento de uma língua natural; a relação entre o significado linguístico e o sentido Fregeano; as conexões entre a a agência e o poder; o conteúdo semântico da ficção; a explicação dos impasses éticos; a natureza dos argumentos cépticos; as conexões entre as dissociações cognitivas e o carácter modular da mente; a relação entre a referência e o significado. Estes tópicos deixam-se (...) subsumir num tema mais geral, o tema das ligações múltiplas entre a cognição e o conteúdo, mental ou linguístico. O tópico do conteúdo, a questão de determinar como é que muitas das nossas elocuções e muitos dos nossos estados mentais são dotados de conteúdo, representam algo (correcta ou incorrectamente), e o tópico da cognição, a investigação da natureza e dos mecanismos envolvidos na cognição humana, no processamento de informação tipicamente proveniente do exterior, são inegavelmente tópicos centrais da investigação filosófica, presente ou passada.Dado o carácter inclusivo e pluridisciplinar dos tópicos cobertos, não é surpreendente que os ramos da Filosofia representados no presente volume sejam igualmente diversificados: a Filosofia Moral, a Filosofia da Linguagem, a Teoria do Conhecimento, a Filosofia da Mente, os Fundamentos da Ciência Cognitiva. E também não é surpreendente que nele também estejam representados outros ramos do conhecimento cuja relevância para o estudo do conteúdo e da cognição é conspícua: a Psicologia Cognitiva; a Linguística Computacional e a Inteligência Artificial. Os autores dos ensaios são de proveniências diversas. De um lado, há um conjunto de especialistas nacionais a trabalhar na tradição analítica em Filosofia, como João Branquinho, ou a trabalhar em algumas áreas filosoficamente importantes da Ciência Cognitiva, como António Branco (Processamento da Língua Natural), José Frederico Marques (Psicologia Cognitiva) e Helder Coelho (Inteligência Artificial). Do outro lado, há um conjunto de especialistas estrangeiros de elevada reputação internacional: Allan Gibbard, da Universidade de Michigan, autor de livros influentes na área da Ética e Filosofia Moral; Stephen Schiffer, da New York University, uma das principais figuras actuais da Filosofia da Linguagem e da Semântica Geral; Paolo Leonardi, da Universidade de Bolonha, um especialista nas áreas da Filosofia da Linguagem e Filosofia da Comunicação; e Manuel García-Carpintero, da Universidade de Barcelona, um dos grandes vultos da Filosofia Analítica praticada em Espanha e na Europa Continental. (shrink)

Vehicle externalism maintains that the vehicles of our mental representations can be located outside of the head, that is, they need not be instantiated by neurons located inside the brain of the cogniser. But some disagree, insisting that ‘non-derived’, or ‘original’, content is the mark of the cognitive and that only biologically instantiated representational vehicles can have non-derived content, while the contents of all extra-neural representational vehicles are derived and thus lie outside the scope of the (...) class='Hi'>cognitive. In this paper we develop one aspect of Menary’s vehicle externalist theory of cognitive integration—the process of enculturation—to respond to this longstanding objection. We offer examples of how expert mathematicians introduce new symbols to represent new mathematical possibilities that are not yet understood, and we argue that these new symbols have genuine non-derived content, that is, content that is not dependent on an act of interpretation by a cognitive agent and that does not derive from conventional associations, as many linguistic representations do. (shrink)

‘Radical enactivism’ (Hutto and Myin 2013, 2017) eschews representational content for all ‘basic’ mental activities. Critics have argued that this view cannot make sense of the workings of the imagination. In their recent book (2017), Hutto and Myin respond to these critics, arguing that some imaginings can be understood without attributing them any representational content. Their response relies on the claim that a system can exploit a structural isomorphism between two things without either of those things being a (...) semantically evaluable representation of the other. I argue that even if this claim is granted, there remains a problem for radically enactive accounts of imagining, namely that the active establishing and maintenance of a structural isomorphism seems to require representational content even if the exploitation of such an isomorphism, when established, does not. (shrink)

Analytic semantics got its start when Frege pointed out differences in cognitive content between sentences that in some good sense “say the same.” Frege put cognitive content (in the form of sense) at the heart of semantic content. Most prefer nowadays to see cognitive contents as generated by semantic contents in context; a sentence's cognitive significance is an aspect rather of the information imparted by its use. I argue for a particular version of (...) this idea. Semantic contents generate cognitive contents by operating levers in a larger piece of machinery, involving also the presupposition P one is leaning on and the subject matter M under discussion. A sentence's cognitive content is what its literal-content-restricted-to-P-worlds says about M. It's by triggering different presuppositions and/or different subject matters that coreferential names make their distinctive mark on a sentence's felt information value. (shrink)

This book consists of an edited collection of original essays of the highest academic quality by seasoned experts in their fields of cognitive science. The essays are interdisciplinary, drawing from many of the fields known collectively as “the cognitive sciences.” Topics discussed represent a significant cross-section of the most current and interesting issues in cognitive science. Specific topics include matters regarding machine learning and cognitive architecture, the nature of cognitive content, the relationship of information (...) to cognition, the role of language and communication in cognition, the nature of embodied cognition, selective topics in visual cognition, brain connectivity, computation and simulation, social and technological issues within the cognitive sciences, and significant issues in the history of neuroscience. This book will be of interest to both professional researchers and newer students and graduate students in the fields of cognitive science—including computer science, linguistics, philosophy, psychology and neuroscience. The essays are in English and are designed to be as free as possible of technical jargon and therefore accessible to young scholars and to scholars who are new to the cognitive neurosciences. In addition to several entries by single authors, the book contains several interesting roundtables where researchers contribute answers to a central question presented to those in the focus group on one of the core areas listed above. This exciting approach provides a variety of perspectives from across disciplines on topics of current concern in the cognitive sciences. (shrink)

Bayne and McClelland (2016) raise the matching content challenge for proponents of cognitive phenomenology: if the phenomenal character of thought is determined by its intentional content, why is it that my conscious thought that there is a blue wall before me and my visual perception of a blue wall before me don’t share any phenomenology, despite their matching content? In this paper, I first show that the matching content challenge is not limited to proponents of (...) cognitive phenomenology but extends to cases of cross-modal perception, threatening representationalism about consciousness in general. I then give two responses to the challenge, both of which appeal to intentional modes. The difference in intentional mode between a thought and a visual perception can either explain why we should not expect any phenomenal overlap between the two experiences, or it can make it clear why the phenomenal overlap is easy to overlook. I show that these responses are available to the representationalist about perceptual consciousness, as well as the proponent of cognitive phenomenology. The upshot is that, when it comes to the matching content challenge, both perceptual representationalism and cognitive representationalism stand on equal dialectical footing. (shrink)

Cognitive penetration of perception, broadly understood, is the influence that the cognitive system has on a perceptual system. The paper shows a form of cognitive penetration in the visual system which I call ‘architectural’. Architectural cognitive penetration is the process whereby the behaviour or the structure of the perceptual system is influenced by the cognitive system, which consequently may have an impact on the content of the perceptual experience. I scrutinize a study in perceptual (...) learning that provides empirical evidence that cognitive influences in the visual system produce neural reorganization in the primary visual cortex. The type of cognitive penetration can be synchronic and diachronic. (shrink)

A central finding in experimental research identified with Embodied Cognition (EC) is that understanding actions involves their embodied simulation, i.e. executing some processes involved in performing these actions. Extending these findings, I argue that reenactment – the overt embodied simulation of actions and practices, including especially communicative actions and practices, within utterances – makes it possible to forge an integrated EC-based account of linguistic meaning. In particular, I argue: (a) that remote entities can be referred to by reenacting actions performed (...) with them; (b) that the use of grammatical constructions can be conceived of as the reenactment of linguistic action routines; (c) that complex enunciational structures (reported speech, irony, etc.) involve a separate level of reenactment, on which characters are presented as interacting with one another within the utterance; (d) that the segmentation of long utterances into shorter units involves the reenactment of brief audience interventions between units; and (e) that the overall meaning of an utterance can be stated in reenactment terms. The notion of reenactment provides a conceptual framework for accounting for aspects of language that are usually thought to be outside the reach of EC in an EC framework, thus supporting a view of meaning and linguistic content as thoroughly grounded in action and interaction. (shrink)

This paper argues that, given a certain apparently inevitable thesis about content, we could not know our own minds. The thesis is that the content of a thought is determined by its relational properties.

The cultural transmission of theological concepts remains an underexplored topic in the cognitive science of religion (CSR). In this paper, I examine whether approaches from CSR, especially the study of content biases in the transmission of beliefs, can help explain the cultural success of some theological concepts. This approach reveals that there is more continuity between theological beliefs and ordinary religious beliefs than CSR authors have hitherto recognized: the cultural transmission of theological concepts is influenced by content (...) biases that also underlie the reception of ordinary religious concepts. (shrink)

Schizophrenia is often associated with other physical and mental problems. Generalized anxiety disorder is notably one of the comorbid disorders which is often linked to schizophrenia. The association of polythematic delusions and of ideas resulting from generalized anxiety disorder complicates the exercise of the corresponding cognitive therapy, for the resulting ideas are most often inextricably intertwined. In what follows, we endeavour to propose a methodology for the differential treatment of polythematic delusions inherent to schizophrenia when combined with ideas originating (...) from generalized anxiety disorder. We propose, with regard to the corresponding content of delusions, an analysis which allows under certain conditions, to separate the content associated with polythematic delusions and the one that relates to generalized anxiety disorder, in order to facilitate the exercise of the corresponding cognitive therapy. (shrink)

Informational theories of semantic content have been recently gaining prominence in the debate on the notion of mental representation. In this paper we examine new-wave informational theories which have a special focus on cognitive science. In particular, we argue that these theories face four important difficulties: they do not fully solve the problem of error, fall prey to the wrong distality attribution problem, have serious difficulties accounting for ambiguous and redundant representations and fail to deliver a metasemantic theory (...) of representation. Furthermore, we argue that these difficulties derive from their exclusive reliance on the notion of information, so we suggest that pure informational accounts should be complemented with functional approaches. (shrink)

This paper is an attempt to present a Kripkean (Causal) picture of Reference where the cognitive content in fixing reference plays a vital role. It also points out that Kripke is not a pure causal theorist. By introducing Thomas Kuhn and his theory on vulnerability of the rigid designation, I have shown that there is a danger for causal theory of reference. However Kuhn’s argument fails to have an impact if a Knowledge aspect is augmented to Kripkean theory (...) of reference. This new causal theory of reference preserves the truth of the referential term in spite of the vulnerability of the rigid designation and problem of reference change. It can also adequately answer the question of theoretical terms reference failure. (shrink)

The cognitive experience view of thought holds that the content of thought is determined by its cognitive-phenomenal character. Adam Pautz argues that the cognitive experience view is extensionally inadequate: it entails the possibility of mix-and-match cases, where the cognitive-phenomenal properties that determine thought content are combined with different sensory-phenomenal and functional properties. Because mix-and-match cases are metaphysically impossible, Pautz argues, the cognitive experience view should be rejected. This paper defends the cognitive experience (...) view from Pautz’s argument. I build on resources in the philosophy of mind literature to show that cognitive-phenomenal properties are modally independent from sensory-phenomenal and functional properties. The result is that mix-and-match cases, though modally remote, are metaphysically possible. The possibility of mix-and-match cases allows us to move from defensive posture to a critical one: it poses problems for any theory of content that imposes rationality constraints, including Pautz’s positive view, phenomenal functionalism. (shrink)

This paper addresses Prinz's naturalistic theory of conceptual content, which he has defended in several works (Prinz, 2000; 2002; 2006). More precisely, I present in detail and critically assess his account of referential content, which he distinguishes from nominal or cognitive content. The paper argues that Prinz's theory faces four important difficulties, which might have significant consequences for his overall empiricist project.

Cognitive states, such as beliefs, desires and intentions, may influence how we perceive people and objects. If this is the case, are those influences worse when they occur implicitly rather than explicitly? Here we show that cognitive penetration in perception generally involves an implicit component. First, the process of influence is implicit, making us unaware that our perception is misrepresenting the world. This lack of awareness is the source of the epistemic threat raised by cognitive penetration. Second, (...) the influencing state can be implicit, though it can also be or become explicit. Being unaware of the content of the influencing state, we argue, does not make as much difference to the epistemic threat as it does to the epistemic responsibility of the agent. Implicit influencers cannot be examined for their accuracy and justification, and cannot be voluntarily accepted by the perceiver. Conscious awareness, however, is not sufficient for attributing blame to the agent. An equally important condition is the degree of control that they can exercise to change the contents that influence perception or stop their influence. Here we suggest that such control can also result from social influence, and that cognitive penetrability of perception is therefore also a social issue. (shrink)

There are good, even if inconclusive, reasons to think that cognitive penetration of perception occurs: that cognitive states like belief causally affect, in a relatively direct way, the contents of perceptual experience. The supposed importance of – indeed as it is suggested here, what is definitive of – this possible phenomenon is that it would result in important epistemic and scientific consequences. One interesting and intuitive consequence entirely unremarked in the extant literature concerns the perception of art. Intuition (...) has it that knowledge about art changes how one aesthetically evaluates artworks. A profound explanation of this intuitive fact is that perceptual experiences vary with artistic expertise. Cognitive penetration provides an explanatory mechanism for this latter effect. What one knows or otherwise thinks about art may affect, in one of two ways sketched below, how one perceives art. Differences in aesthetic evaluation may follow, either because high-level aesthetic properties can be perceptually represented or because they causally depend on low-level perceptible properties. All of this lends credence to the hypothesis that the expert better judges art because she better perceives art. And she better perceives art because she better knows art. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to scrutinize active externalism and its repercussions for externalism about mental content. I start from the claim that active externalism is a version of content externalism that follows from the extended cognition thesis as a thesis about cognitive vehicles. Various features of active content externalism are explored by comparison with the known forms of passive externalism – in particular with respect to the multiple realizability of the relevant external content-determining (...) components and with respect to mental causation. A crucial result is that social externalism is already a version of active externalism. I conclude with a first sketch of a general account of meaning inspired by extended cognition: a use theory supplemented by a functional-role account. (shrink)

This paper takes up David Kaplan's suggestion that the phenomenon of cognitive dynamics can be approached via a study of what it takes for someone to change her mind. It is argued that in order for a subject to be able to change her mind about something, there must be occasions on which the following is the case: (1) First, the subject believed of an 'x' that it was f, now she believes of 'x' that it is not-f. (2) (...) She stopped believing of 'x' that it was f before she started believing of 'x' that it was not-f. (3) She knows that (1) and (2). The first part of the investigation shows why (1) - (3) are necessary within an account of what it is for someone to change her mind. The second part focuses on condition (3) and argues that it entails that the sameness or difference of thought content over time must sometimes be an epistemic given, i.e., that the subject can know that a thought she entertains now is the same as a thought she entertained earlier. (shrink)

In the contemporary discussions concerning unconscious perception it is not uncommon to postulate that content and phenomenal character are ‘orthogonal’, i.e., there is no type of content which is essentially conscious, but instead, every representational content can be either conscious or not. Furthermore, this is not merely treated as a thesis justified by theoretical investigations, but as supported by empirical considerations concerning the actual functioning of the human cognition. In this paper, I address unconscious color perception and (...) argue for a negative thesis—that the main experimental paradigms used in studying unconscious color perception do not provide support for the position that conscious and unconscious color representations have the same type of content. More specifically, I claim that there is no significant support for the claim that unconscious vision categorically represents surface colors. (shrink)

How can we think about things in the outside world? There is still no widely accepted theory of how mental representations get their meaning. In light of pioneering research, Nicholas Shea develops a naturalistic account of the nature of mental representation with a firm focus on the subpersonal representations that pervade the cognitive sciences.

Content nonconceptualism and State conceptualism are motivated by different readings of what I want to call here Bermúdez’s conditions on content-attribution (2007). In one read- ing, what is required is a neo-Fregean content to solve problems of cognitive significance at the nonconceptual level (Toribio, 2008; Duhau, 2011). In the other reading, what is required is a neo-Russellian or possible-world content to account for how conspecifics join attention and cooperate, contemplating the same things from different perspectives (...) in the same perceptual field. The solution to this apparent contradiction is the rejection of the real content view and the adherence to what I call here Content-pragmatism: there is no such thing as the content of experience. According to content pragmatism, “proposition” is not as real as a mental state, but rather, it is a term of art that semanticists use, as a matter of theoretical convenience, to classify mental states. What follows from Content-pragmatism is Content- pluralism: there are so many contents that are required to meet Bermúdez’s condition on content attribution. Because both criticism and the defense of State conceptualism overlook the real scope of Bermúdez’s condition on content attribution, they are ineffective. In this paper, I will argue that the opposition between State and Content nonconceptualism is a real one, but only a relative one, that is, relative to the opposite constraints to be met. If we want to solve the problems of cognitive significance, the best we can do is to let the content of experience be modeled as neo-Fregean content, namely, a compound of nonconceptual modes of presentation of objects and properties. In this case, Content-nonconceptualism prevails. In contrast, if we want to account for how conspecifics join attention to the same entities in the same perceptual field from different perspectives, the best we can do is let the content of experience be modeled either as a structured Russellian proposition or as a function from possible worlds to truth-values. In this case, State-nonconceptualism prevails. (shrink)

Extended Cognition (EC) hypothesizes that there are parts of the world outside the head serving as cognitive vehicles. One criticism of this controversial view is the problem of “cognitive bloat” which says that EC is too permissive and fails to provide an adequate necessary criterion for cognition. It cannot, for instance, distinguish genuine cognitive vehicles from mere supports (e.g. the Yellow Pages). In response, Andy Clark and Mark Rowlands have independently suggested that genuine cognitive vehicles are (...) distinguished from supports in that the former have been “recruited,” i.e. they are either artifacts, or, products of evolution. I argue against this proposal. There are counter examples to the claim that “Teleological” EC is either necessary or sufficient for cognition. Teleological EC conflates different types of scientific projects, and inherits content externalism’s alienation from historically impartial cognitive science. (shrink)

In response to an impasse, articulated in the late 1980s, the cognitive capacities of ordinary people assumed central place in contemporary critical social theory. The participants’ perspective gained precedence over scientific standards branded as external. The notion of cognition, however, went unchallenged. This article continues the move away from external standards, and discusses two models of critique, which differ based on their underlying notions of cognition. The representational model builds on cognitive content, misrecognition and normativity; three features (...) which are illustrated with positions adopted by prominent exponents of critical social theory. An alternative understanding relies on action-oriented disclosure and the participants’ basic familiarity with the social world. On this reading, what clashes with unequal structures is skilful coping, rather than representations and normative standards. The action-oriented approach may overcome the dilemma of understanding both the impact and the possible transcendence of unequal structures, although it cannot ultimately replace representational critique. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that it's possible that the contents of some visual experiences are influenced by the subject's prior beliefs, hopes, suspicions, desires, fears or other mental states, and that this possibility places constraints on the theory of perceptual justification that 'dogmatism' or 'phenomenal conservativism' cannot respect.

Pylyshyn restricts cognitively penetrable vision to late vision, whereas he does not make any distinction between different kinds of penetrating cognition. I argue that this approach disconnects early vision content from late vision content and blurs the distinction between the latter and the content of thought. To overcome this problem I suggest that we should not distinguish between different kinds of visual content but instead introduce a restriction on the kind of cognition that can directly penetrate (...) visual experience. In particular, I suggest that visual experience, unlike thought, is directly penetrated only by practical non-propositional knowledge. I specify this weak cognitive penetrability in anti-representational terms. In particular, I suggest that the dependence of visual content on practical non-propositional knowledge should be conceived as a rational non-inferential relation, for it is in this way that we can account for the distinctive content of visual experience. (shrink)

Cognitive representations are typically analysed in terms of content, vehicle and format. While current work on formats appeals to intuitions about external representations, such as words and maps, in this paper we develop a computational view of formats that does not rely on intuitions. In our view, formats are individuated by the computational profiles of vehicles, i.e., the set of constraints that fix the computational transformations vehicles can undergo. The resulting picture is strongly pluralistic, it makes space for (...) a variety of different formats, and is intimately tied to the computational approach to cognition in cognitive science and artificial intelligence. (shrink)

What is the content of a mental state? This question poses the problem of intentionality: to explain how mental states can be about other things, where being about them is understood as representing them. A framework that integrates predictive coding and signaling systems theories of cognitive processing offers a new perspective on intentionality. On this view, at least some mental states are evaluations, which differ in function, operation, and normativity from representations. A complete naturalistic theory of intentionality must (...) account for both types of intentional state. (shrink)

(June 2013) “The mind-body problem in cognitive neuroscience”, Philosophia Scientiae 17/2, Gabriel Vacariu and Mihai Vacariu (eds.): 1. William Bechtel (Philosophy, Center for Chronobiology, and Interdisciplinary Program in Cognitive Science University of California, San Diego) “The endogenously active brain: the need for an alternative cognitive architecture” 2. Rolls T. Edmund (Oxford Centre for Computational Neuroscience, Oxford, UK) “On the relation between the mind and the brain: a neuroscience perspective” 3. Cees van Leeuwen (University of Leuven, Belgium; Riken (...) Brain Science Institute, Japan) “Brain and mind” 4. Kari Theurer (Trinity College) and John Bickle (Philosophy, Mississippi State University) “What’s old is new again: Kemeny-Oppenheim reduction at work in current molecular neuroscience” 5. Bernard Andrieu (Staps Université de Lorraine) “Sentir son cerveau? Les dispositifs neuro-expérientiels en 1er personne” 6. Corey Maley and Gualtiero Piccinini (Philosophy, University of Missouri – St. Louis) “Get the latest upgrade: Functionalism 6.3.1” 7. Paula Droege (Philosophy, Pennsylvania State University) “Memory and consciousness” 8. Gabriel Vacariu and Mihai Vacariu (Philosophy, University of Bucharest) “Troubles with cognitive neuroscience”. (shrink)

Radical skepticism is the view that we know nothing or at least next to nothing. Nearly no one actually believes that skepticism is true. Yet it has remained a serious topic of discussion for millennia and it looms large in popular culture. What explains its persistent and widespread appeal? How does the skeptic get us to doubt what we ordinarily take ourselves to know? I present evidence from two experiments that classic skeptical arguments gain potency from an interaction between two (...) factors. First, people evaluate inferential belief more harshly than perceptual belief. Second, people evaluate inferential belief more harshly when its content is negative (i.e., that something is not the case) than when it is positive (i.e., that something is the case). It just so happens that potent skeptical arguments tend to focus our attention on negative inferential beliefs, and we are especially prone to doubt that such beliefs count as knowledge. That is, our cognitive evaluations are biased against this specific combination of source and content. The skeptic sows seeds of doubt by exploiting this feature of our psychology. (shrink)

Suppose you have recently gained a disposition for recognizing a high-level kind property, like the property of being a wren. Wrens might look different to you now. According to the Phenomenal Contrast Argument, such cases of perceptual learning show that the contents of perception can include high-level kind properties such as the property of being a wren. I detail an alternative explanation for the different look of the wren: a shift in one’s attentional pattern onto other low-level properties. Philosophers have (...) alluded to this alternative before, but I provide a comprehensive account of the view, show how my account significantly differs from past claims, and offer a novel argument for the view. Finally, I show that my account puts us in a position to provide a new objection to the Phenomenal Contrast Argument. (shrink)

Evidence from cognitive science supports the claim that humans and other animals see the world as divided into objects. Although this claim is widely accepted, it remains unclear whether the mechanisms of visual reference have representational content or are directly instantiated in the functional architecture. I put forward a version of the former approach that construes object files as icons for objects. This view is consistent with the evidence that motivates the architectural account, can respond to the key (...) arguments against representational accounts, and has explanatory advantages. I draw general lessons for the philosophy of perception and the naturalization of intentionality. (shrink)

Contentful Moral Perceptualists such as Audi (2013), Lord (2018), McNaughton (1988), McBrayer (2010a, 2010b), Cowan (2014, 2015), and Werner (2016, 2018) claim that moral propositions can serve as the content of perception for moral subjects. However, in my original interpretation, recent critics of moral perceptualism, such as Faraci (2015), Väyrynen (2018), and Chudnoff (2015), subtly suggest that it is more reasonable to claim that moral propositions are the content of cognition rather than perception. Faraci, Väyrynen, and Chudnoff argue (...) that the so-called "moral perception" posited by Contentful Moral Perceptualists is actually dominated by dominative moral principles, representing a psychological state inferred from principles. Therefore, these critics believe that the so-called "moral perception" lacks the non-inferential characteristic of genuine perceptual experience and is not true perception. This paper will evaluate whether the "contentful moral perceptual model" can respond to the challenges posed by these critics. I will provide a preliminary defense for an affirmative answer. -/- Keywords: Moral Perception, Phenomenal Contrast Method, Perceptual Content, Phenomenal Experience, Non-Inferential Characteristics of Perception . (shrink)

We tend to think that perceptual experiences tell us about what the external world is like without being influenced by our own mind. But recent psychological and philosophical research indicates that this might not be true. Our beliefs, expectations, knowledge, and other personal-level mental states might influence what we experience. This kind of psychological phenomena is now called “cognitive penetration.” The research of cognitive penetration not only has important consequences for psychology and the philosophy of mind, but also (...) has interesting epistemological implications. According to the Downgrade Thesis, some cognitively penetrated perceptual experiences give their subjects less justification for believing their penetrated contents than perceptual experiences that are unpenetrated to represent those contents would usually give. In this paper, I propose an innovative argument for the Downgrade Thesis. First, I develop a positive account of how some cognitive penetration works, according to which cognitive states influence perceptual experiences by triggering some imaginings. Second, I argue that imaginings do not give their subjects justification for believing their contents. I apply this epistemology of imagining to cognitive penetration, and argue that because of the role that imaginings play, some cognitively penetrated experiences also give their subjects less justification for believing their penetrated contents. (shrink)

Traditionally, phenomenal consciousness has been restricted to the realm of perceptual and otherwise sensory experiences. If there is a kind of phenomenology altogether unlike sensory phenomenology, then this was a mistake, and requires an accounting. I argue such cognitive phenomenology exists by appealing to a phenomenal contrast case that relies on meaningful and relatively meaningless dialogue. I explain why previous phenomenal contrast arguments are less likely to be effective on even neutral parties to the debate: these arguments rely on (...) a ‘hard-to understand’ sentence, which may elicit sensory crutches that one focuses on, thereby obscuring cognitive phenomenology. I also argue for a positive characterization of the phenomenal contrast in terms of seeming to be aware of abstract relations that obtain between different contributions in a dialogue. This paves the way for arguing that what it’s like to entertain a cognitive content that p differs from that of q in their cognitive phenomenology. (shrink)

Almost any mainstream reading about the nature of Kant's 'content of cognition' in both non-conceptualist and conceptualist camps agree that 'singular representations' (sensible intuitions) are, at least in some weak sense, objectdependent because they supervene on a manifold of sensations that are given through the disposition of our sensibility and parallel thus the real and physical components of the world (cf. McDowell 1996, Allison 1983, Ginsborg 2008, Allais 2009). The relevant class of sensible intuitions should refer, as they argue, (...) only to empirical and not to pure ones. Kant's transcendental argument creates, however, no implications as to the metaphysics of properties. Neither does he consider the world to be consisted of sensory content simpliciter nor do sensations refer to objects per se. Instead, he provides an all-encompassing pattern for sensible intuitions of any kind through the representation of space as a cognitive map in that an object can be represented if spatial properties are attributed to it. Sensible intuitions of any kind could be referring, that is to say, and can be conceptualized if they are spatial. Consequently and unlike the contemporary philosophy of perception, Kant contrasts sensible intuitions and pure concepts of understanding 'altogether' against one single experience, from which the justification of objects should proceed. In other words, what stands at the core of exposing the content of cognition concerns not the phenomenological status and actuality of sensible intuitions in the sense of 'bits of experiential intake', but the logical structure of possibility of sensible intuitions of any (external or internal) causal background. The aim of this discussion is to clarify that Kant's transcendental idealism mutatis mutandis reviews multiple and diverse kinds of 'data of mind' and cognition in the background, without reducing the content of cognition to metaphysically determined referents as 'matters of fact' and to pure concepts of understanding. Sensible intuitions in the sense of content of cognition vary, most importantly, from unstructured and unjustifiable data of mind including (physical) contents of perception and stuff of mind and also from reflective and intellectual intuitions that are the cognates of the structured complex singular representations. Put it in simple terms, Kant advocates the thesis that 'facts' are objects for concepts if they are already well-founded trough the cognitive map of the representation of space. -/- . (shrink)

Elijah Chudnoff’s case for irreducible cognitive phenomenology hinges on seeming to see the truth of a mathematical proposition (Chudnoff 2015). In the following, I develop an augmented version of Chudnoff’s case, not based on seeming to see, or intuition, but based on being in a state with presentational phenomenology of high-level content. In contrast to other cases for cognitive phenomenology, those based on Strawson’s case (Strawson 2011), I argue that the case presented here is able to withstand (...) counterarguments, which attempt to reduce cognitive phenomenology to sensory phenomenology. To support my argument, I present findings from Bowden and Jung-Beeman’s experiments with the Aha! Experience (Bowden & Jung-Beeman 2004), and argue that the Aha! Experience is a species of the experience of understanding presented here. I interpret the results of these experiments to provide further evidence for irreducible cognitive phenomenology. (shrink)

The Computational Theory of Mind (CTM) holds that cognitive processes are essentially computational, and hence computation provides the scientific key to explaining mentality. The Representational Theory of Mind (RTM) holds that representational content is the key feature in distinguishing mental from non-mental systems. I argue that there is a deep incompatibility between these two theoretical frameworks, and that the acceptance of CTM provides strong grounds for rejecting RTM. The focal point of the incompatibility is the fact that representational (...) content is extrinsic to formal procedures as such, and the intended interpretation of syntax makes no difference to the execution of an algorithm. So the unique 'content' postulated by RTM is superfluous to the formal procedures of CTM. And once these procedures are implemented in a physical mechanism, it is exclusively the causal properties of the physical mechanism that are responsible for all aspects of the system's behaviour. So once again, postulated content is rendered superfluous. To the extent that semantic content may appear to play a role in behaviour, it must be syntactically encoded within the system, and just as in a standard computational artefact, so too with the human mind/brain - it's pure syntax all the way down to the level of physical implementation. Hence 'content' is at most a convenient meta-level gloss, projected from the outside by human theorists, which itself can play no role in cognitive processing. (shrink)

According to Sparse views of perceptual content, the phenomenal character of perceptual experience is exhausted by the experiential presentation of ‘low-level’ properties such as (in the case of vision) shapes, colors, and textures Whereas, according to Rich views of perceptual content, the phenomenal character of perceptual experience can also sometimes involve experiencing ‘high-level’ properties such as natural kinds, artefactual kinds, causal relations, linguistic meanings, and moral properties. An important dialectical tool in the debate between Rich and Sparse theorists (...) is the so-called ‘method of phenomenal contrast’. I explore how this method of phenomenal contrast interacts with the sort of content-externalism made familiar by Putnam. I show that the possibility of Twin Earth style cases places important restrictions on the range of properties that the method of phenomenal contrast could plausibly apply to. Moreover, these restrictions would apply to some paradigmatically low-level properties as well as to some of the frequently advanced high-level properties. I also draw some general lessons about the different ways one might conceive of the relation between phenomenal character and representational content. (shrink)

On the dominant interpretation, Ockham is an externalist about mental content. This reading is founded principally on his theory of intuitive cognition. Intuitive cognition plays a foundational role in Ockham’s account of concept formation and judgment, and Ockham insists that the content of intuitive states is determined by the causal relations such states bear to their objects. The aim of this paper is to challenge the externalist interpretation by situating Ockham’s account of intuitive cognition vis-à-vis his broader account (...) of efficient causation. While there can be no doubt that intuitive states are causally individuated, I argue that, given Ockham’s broader theory of efficient causation (on which causation turns out to be an internal relation), this very fact entails that the content of such states is determined by factors internal (rather than external) to the states themselves. (shrink)