Kristina Musholt

In recent years there has been increasing evidence that an area in the brain called the cortical midline structures (CMSs) is implicated in what has been termed self-related processing. This article will discuss recent evidence for the relation between CMS and self-consciousness in light of several important philosophical distinctions. First, we should distinguish between being a self (i.e., being a subject of conscious experience) and being aware of being a self (i.e., being able to think about oneself as such). While the former consists in having a first-person perspective on the world, the latter requires the ability to explicitly represent one's own perspective as such. Further, we should distinguish between being aware of oneself "as subject" and being aware of oneself "as object." The focus of existing studies investigating the relation between CMS and self has been predominantly on the ability to think about oneself (and in particular thinking of oneself "as object"), while the more basic aspects involved in being a self have been neglected. However, it is important to widen the scope of the cognitive neuroscience to include the latter, not least because this might have important implications for a better understanding of disorders of the self, such as those involved in schizophrenia. In order to do so, cognitive neuroscience should work together with philosophy, including phenomenology. Second, we need to distinguish between personal and subpersonal level explanations. It will be argued that although it is important to respect this distinction, in principle, some subpersonal facts can enter into constitutive conditions of personal-level phenomena. However, in order for this to be possible, one needs both careful conceptual analysis and knowledge about relevant cognitive mechanisms.

Searle suggests biological naturalism as a solution to the mind-brain problem that escapes traditional terminology with its seductive pull towards either dualism or materialism. We reconstruct Searle's argument and demonstrate that it needs additional support to represent a position truly located between dualism and materialism. The aim of our paper is to provide such an additional argument. We introduce the concept of “autoepistemic limitation” that describes our principal inability to directly experience our own brain as a brain from the first-person perspective. The neglect of the autoepistemic limitation leads to inferences from epistemic properties to ontological features—we call this “epistemic-ontological inference.” Searle attempts to avoid such epistemic-ontological inference but does not provide a sufficient argument. Once the autoepistemic limitation is considered, epistemic-ontological inference can be avoided. As a consequence, one can escape traditional terminology with its seductive pull towards either dualism or materialism.

Human cognition and behavior are guided by a myriad of norms which enable us to successfully navigate our social environment and our interactions with others. Many of these norms might be hard for us to articulate (e.g. how far to sit or stand from a stranger on the bus), and some of them differentiate between different hierarchies and roles, reflecting patterns of injustice. This paper addresses the fact that social norms, including gendered, ableist, adultist, and racist norms, influence our perception of action possibilities, or affordances, making some actions possible for some agents and not for others. In particular, we propose an account of these interactions in terms of scripts, that is, expected sequences of actions that shape the landscape of the possible ways to interact with one another.  Scripts can be learned implicitly, they are dynamic and flexible, and can regulate complex interactions by prescribing permissible actions and responses in specific situations. A script-based account can explain the way norms regulate which actions we perceive as possible in a representationalist way, and can help us explain how norm change occurs. 

The author claims that concept possession is not only necessary but also sufficient for self-consciousness, where self-consciousness is understood as the awareness of oneself as a self. Further, he links concept possession to intelligent behavior. His ultimate aim is to provide a framework for the study of self-consciousness in infants and non-human animals. I argue that the claim that all concepts are necessarily related to the self-concept remains unconvincing and suggest that what might be at issue here are not so much conceptual but rather metacognitive abilities.

Self-consciousness can be defined as the ability to think ‘I’-thoughts. Recently, it has been suggested that self-consciousness in this sense can (and should) be accounted for in terms of nonconceptual forms of self-representation. Here, I will argue that while theories of nonconceptual self-consciousness do provide us with important insights regarding the essential genetic and epistemic features of self-conscious thought, they can only deliver part of the full story that is required to understand the phenomenon of self-consciousness. I will provide two arguments to this effect, drawing on insights from the philosophy of language and on structural differences between conceptual and nonconceptual forms of representation. Both arguments rest on the intuition that while self-consciousness requires explicit self-representation, nonconceptual content can at best provide implicit self-related information. I will conclude that in order to explain the emergence of self-conscious thought out of more basic forms of representation one has to explain the transition between implicit self-related information and explicit self-representation.

This article presents an overview and critique of current interdisciplinary research on the nature and development of intellectual humility (IH), with the aim of systematically outlining currently debated open questions. We focus on four specific areas of research: (1) theoretical questions regarding the nature of IH, (2) issues with the measurement of IH in development, (3) existing research on the development of IH and related socio- cognitive abilities, and (4) interventions to increase IH in children and adolescents. We critically review the existing empirical and theoretical literature in these areas, identify and articulate open questions, and map out directions for future research that follow from these questions. The main theoretical issues we identify concern the distinction between different features of IH (i.e., internal vs external, self- vs other-directed) and their relation to each other as well as the distinction between IH as a prescriptive virtue as opposed to a descriptive character trait. As we will demonstrate, taking seriously the notion of IH as a virtue raises crucial questions for its empirical study in the contexts of measurement, development, and potential interventions.

This chapter discusses two ways of interpreting the question of whether we can introspect the self. It will, first, consider different theories of introspection and argue in favor of an account of introspection that is not based on an “inner sense” model of the self. Rather, in the view proposed here, we should understand introspection as making explicit the implicit self-relatedness of conscious experience. Second, it will consider various potential obstacles that stand in the way of introspection. It will argue that the – epistemically as well politically – most relevant of these are a result of the fact that our capacities for introspecting the self are socially acquired. In conclusion, this points towards a dynamic and relational notion of the self.

Self-face perception plays an important role in self-consciousness and personal identity as well as in social exchanges and well-being. Despite its significance, little is known about how individuals represent their faces internally. This study explored mechanisms of self-face perception in three experiments. First, participants chose from two images (self-face image vs. self-image with manipulated facial features) which one was their veridical image and which one they liked most. Afterwards, participants could (digitally) manipulate their facial features to increase their attractiveness (either to themselves or to an imagined other/s). Results showed that self-face recognition was better when veridical faces were paired with ‘clones’ with larger facial features or when all facial features were enlarged concurrently. Moreover, up to half of the participants preferred smaller noses and larger eyes and manipulated their self-images accordingly. State (but not trait) self-esteem was inversely correlated with eye, mouth and nose size manipulations made to increase one’s attractiveness. The results indicate that a certain tolerance for error in self-face recognition might be required to maintain a consistent facial identity during one’s lifespan. The discovered preference for neotenous features and discrepancies between one’s perceived and one’s veridical face and their link to state self-esteem are discussed.

What is the relation between self-knowledge and knowledge of others? And how do we develop an understanding of others and ourselves? In this paper, I will argue that our sense of self is thoroughly social even though self-knowledge is not based on the same kind of evidence as knowledge of others. Moreover, I will suggest that we need to distinguish between different kinds of self- and other-understanding: some are based on procedural knowledge or knowing-how and involve an implicit representation of self or other, while others involve conceptual abilities. I will conclude with some considerations regarding the role of the second-person perspective in structuring the development of the concept of ourselves and others as persons.

Questions about infants’ development of agency have been a topic of great interest for developmental psychology for many years. The central claim of our review is that agentic control is a necessary feature of minimal agency. We review influential experimental paradigms on infants’ agency which have predominantly focused on infants’ detection of multi-sensory contingencies (e.g., the mobile paradigm). We argue that these paradigms show infants’ ability to integrate multi-sensory information and learn reinforced movements, but do not test whether infants have agentic control over these movements. We further argue that, without a measure of agentic control, it cannot be conclusively shown whether the movements produced by infants reflect mere automatic responses or are indeed evidence of infants’controlled actions. Finally, based on the criterion of agentic control, we derive concrete experimental suggestions for a test of infants’ minimal agency.

This chapter aims to give an overview of different types of knowledge that can reasonably be considered forms of implicit self-knowledge in contrast to explicit self-knowledge. It begins by clarifying the notion of self-knowledge, focusing on its epistemic feature of immunity to error through misidentification. It then considers theories of nonconceptual self-consciousness before discussing the relation between implicit and explicit forms of representation and (self-)knowledge. It suggests that nonconceptual, implicit self-knowledge might be understood in terms of knowledge-how and discusses the role of language acquisition, rationality, conceptual abilities, theory of mind, self-reflection and metacognition for the transition between implicit and explicit self-knowledge. Finally, it considers the problem of implicit bias, self-deception and oppressive socialization for gaining knowledge about one’s true self.

In his admirable review, Ballantyne characterizes intellectual humility (IH) as a personal way ‘to manage evidence … in seeking truth.’ However, not every way of managing truth is virtuous. Since IH is supposed to be an intellectual virtue, we propose that IH should be understood as a ‘golden mean’ or ‘middle path’ between extremes of intellectual arrogance and lack of self-confidence (or between dogmatism and gullibility). The golden mean should not be characterized descriptively by the statistical mean of a population but instead either epistemically by accuracy in intellectual assessments of oneself and others or pragmatically by the kinds of such assessments that enable or lead to successful inquiry. This comment explains and considers advantages and disadvantages of these two ways of locating the golden mean.

Developmental neuroscience is generally understood as a field that studies the development of cognitive abilities and their relation to brain mechanisms during childhood by means of employing various methods, often using a combination of observational and experimental behavioural techniques with neuroscientific methods, such as functional and anatomic magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), electroencephalography (EEG) and functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). With this approach, developmental neuroscience pursues at least three different goals. A first goal of developmental neuroscience is to understand the development of cognitive abilities by using neuroscientific methods. In other words, when pursuing this goal, developmental neuroscientists ask at what age children possess certain cognitive abilities. This question is not only empirically important but also philosophically relevant, for instance, with respect to the question as to how we should think about pre-linguistic, nonconceptual ways of thinking about the world, when and how children acquire the skills necessary for understanding and interacting with others or when and how they develop a concept of themselves as individual agents. Findings from developmental neuroscience thus have the potential to inform our understanding of different forms of thinking and cognizing (e.g. linguistic and conceptual compared with pre-linguistic and pre-conceptual) as well as our conception of children and childhood as such. The latter, in turn, will also have implications for questions relating to the philosophy of education or to ethical questions in relation to children and their rights. A second, related goal is to understand brain development and its relation to cognitive function at different ages. Here, typical questions would be whether the maturation of specific brain structures supports the emergence of certain cognitive abilities or whether cognitive abilities are supported by different brain structures at different points in development. Third, in addition to investigating the presence of certain cognitive abilities, their neural mechanisms at different ages and their development, we can also take advantage of development to inform our understanding of mature cognitive and neural mechanisms. That is to say that we can see developmental neuroscience as a lens through which to gain a clearer picture of cognition in general, independently of questions relating to its development. For instance, developmental neuroscience can help us to understand the modularity or composition of different cognitive processes because different subcomponents of cognitive abilities may emerge at different time points in development. Studying change in these cognitive abilities may therefore reveal the individual subcomponents of the ability in question, whereas in adults all components may work together at the same time making it harder to disentangle them. In this sense, the developmental approach can follow a similar logic to studies with patients suffering from selective impairments, for example due to brain lesions. In this way, developmental neuroscience can deliver important insights into various issues in the philosophy of mind and cognition in general. In the following, we will explain these different goals in more detail and illustrate them with specific examples from developmental neuroscience, focusing on the development of language and social cognition. In doing so, we will at the same time demonstrate various ways in which the different methods of developmental neuroscience listed earlier can be employed.

The aim of this chapter is to explore the complex relation between mindshaping and epistemic agency. I will begin by providing a brief account of epistemic agency in terms of an agent’s activities of belief formation and maintenance. Notably, while traditional epistemologists tend to focus on what I will call the self-directed dimension of epistemic agency, social and feminist epistemologists emphasize the relational nature of both knowledge and agency. In the following, I will argue that mindshaping bears important relations both to the self-directed as well as to the other-directed dimensions of epistemic agency. In particular, I will propose that we can conceive of mindshaping as both enabling as well as potentially undermining epistemic agency. This is important, I think, because it brings into view the relation between the way in which our social world is structured and our capacities for epistemic agency and encourages us to ask what well-functioning and just epistemic communities, that is communities that enable their members to properly develop and exercise their epistemic agency, should look like.

What role do emotions play for the development of one’s self? This essay will discuss the importance of affect-laden interactions with others for the development of our ability for autonomous agency in childhood and beyond. I will explore, first, how affective encounters with others enable reasons-responsive agency by introducing us into the space of reasons and by providing us with interpretive frameworks of perceiving the world relative to our aims, concerns, and values. However, the very same mindshaping processes that enable agency in the sense of reasons-responsiveness also make us susceptible to agency-undermining social practices. Yet the proper response to these threats to our agency should not be seen in a turn towards introspection and a retreat from sociality or the emotions. Rather, as I will argue in the second part of the chapter, we need to harness and foster our social and emotional abilities in the service of cultivating our skills of autonomy competence.

Der Begriff des nicht-begrifflichen Gehalts kann für eine Vielzahl von Problemen und Fragestellungen in der Philosophie des Geistes fruchtbar gemacht werden. Die Debatte um begriffliche und nicht-begriffliche Gehalte ist ursprünglich vornehmlich im Kontext der Auseinandersetzung mit Wahrnehmungstheorien zu verorten. Darüber hinaus spielen Argumente im Hinblick auf die kognitiven Fähigkeiten von Kleinkindern und nicht-menschlichen Tieren eine wichtige Rolle in der Debatte. Beide Argumentationsstränge haben in der Geschichte der Philosophie eine lange Tradition. In jüngerer Zeit fließen außerdem die kognitionswissenschaftliche Annahme von repräsentationalen Zuständen auf der subpersonalen Ebene sowie Argumente im Kontext von Selbstbewusstseinstheorien in die Debatte ein. Der Beitrag liefert einen Überblick über verschiedene Argumente für und gegen die Existenz von nicht-begrifflichen Gehalten. Anschließend widmet er sich der Frage nach der Spezifikation nicht-begrifflicher Gehalte und bietet schließlich eine kurze Zusammenfassung offener Fragen.

Der Beitrag wird zunächst unterschiedliche Altruismusbegriffe unterscheiden, insbesondere den biologischen und den psychologischen Altruismus. Ich werde Argumente für und gegen die Existenz des psychologischen Altruismus vorstellen und zeigen, dass insbesondere evolutionstheoretische Argumente, entgegen einer gängigen Auffassung, nicht gegen die Existenz eines genuinen psychologischen Altruismus sprechen. In einem zweiten Schritt werde ich auf empirische Studien zur psychologischen Motivation altruistischen Verhaltens und zur Entwicklung von pro-sozialen Einstellungen bei Kindern eingehen und diese kritisch diskutieren. Schließlich werde ich die These vertreten, dass der Altruismus primär insofern zur menschlichen Natur gehört, als Mensch zu sein wesentlich beinhaltet, sich und andere als Personen – im Sinne von sich gegenseitig Gründe gebend – begreifen zu können.

One of the aims of Matthew Boyle’s book is to provide a defense of the view that the capacity for self-knowledge is of radical significance in virtue of the fact that it transforms the nature of human cognition in general. In Boyle’s view, our engagement with the world is always already an implicitly self-conscious engagement. In this sense, the being of humans is, in Sartre’s terminology, a “being-for-itself”. This fact is meant to explain the possibility of reflective self-knowledge as well as to vindicate the general soundness of our self-understanding as self-determined beings. In the first part of this paper, I am inviting Boyle to say more about how his account of implicit (nonpositional) self-awareness avoids the problem of over-intellectualizing while at the same time characterizing a specifically human capacity. In the second part of the paper, I argue that self-consciousness can only be understood in relation to intersubjectivity; hence our being is not just a “being-for-itself”, but most and foremost a “being-for-others” (or better: “being-with-others”). Finally, in the third part of the paper, I discuss some implications for challenges to the soundness of the first-person perspective.