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200Consciousness and the social mindCognitive Systems Research 9 (1-2): 15-23. 2008.Phenomenal consciousness and social cognition are interlocking capacities, but the relations between them have yet to be systematically investigated. In this paper, I begin to develop a theoretical and empirical framework for such an investigation. I begin by describing the phenomenon known as social pain: the affect associated with the perception of actual or potential damage to one’s interpersonal relations. I then adduce a related phenomenon known as affective contagion: the tendency for emot…Read more
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Those who are optimistic about the prospects of a science of consciousness, and those who believe that it lies beyond the reach of standard scientific methods, have something in common: both groups view consciousness as posing a special challenge for science. In this paper, we take a close look at the nature of this challenge. We show that popular conceptions of the problem of consciousness, epitomized by David Chalmers’ formulation of the ‘hard problem’, can be best explained as a cognitive ill…Read more
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83Teaching & learning guide for: The ins and outs of introspectionPhilosophy Compass 3 (5): 1100-1102. 2008.Philosophical interest in introspection has a long and storied history, but only recently – with the 'scientific turn' in philosophy of mind – have philosophers sought to ground their accounts of introspection in psychological data. In particular, there is growing awareness of how evidence from clinical and developmental psychology might be brought to bear on long-standing debates about the architecture of introspection, especially in the form of apparent dissociations between introspection and …Read more
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Knowing Me, Knowing You: Theory of Mind and the Machinery of IntrospectionJournal of Consciousness Studies 11 (7-8): 129-143. 2004.Does the ability to know one's own mind depend on the ability to know the minds of others? According to the 'theory theory' of first-person mentalizing, the answer is yes. Recent alternative accounts of this ability, such as the 'monitoring theory', suggest otherwise. Focusing on the issue of introspective access to propositional attitudes, I argue that a better account of first-person mentalizing can be devised by combining these two theories. After sketching a hybrid account, I show how it can…Read more
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1860A short primer on situated cognitionIn Murat Aydede & P. Robbins (eds.), The Cambridge Handbook of Situated Cognition, Cambridge University Press. pp. 3--10. 2009.Introductory Chapter to the _Cambridge Handbook of Situated Cognition_ (CUP, 2009)
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396The phenomenal stancePhilosophical Studies 127 (1): 59-85. 2006.Cognitive science is shamelessly materialistic. It maintains that human beings are nothing more than complex physical systems, ultimately and completely explicable in mechanistic terms. But this conception of humanity does not ?t well with common sense. To think of the creatures we spend much of our day loving, hating, admiring, resenting, comparing ourselves to, trying to understand, blaming, and thanking -- to think of them as mere mechanisms seems at best counterintuitive and unhelpful. More …Read more
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Review of Peter Gardenfors' Conceptual spaces (review)Philosophical Psychology 15 (2): 200-202. 2002.
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23Explaining ideology: Two factors are better than oneBehavioral and Brain Sciences 37 (3): 326-328. 2014.Hibbing et al. (2014) contend that individual differences in political ideology can be substantially accounted for in terms of differences in a single psychological factor, namely, strength of negativity bias. We argue that, given the multidimensional structure of ideology, a better explanation of ideological variation will take into account both individual differences in negativity bias and differences in empathic concern.
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71The illusory triumph of machine over mind: Wegner's eliminativism and the real promise of psychologyBehavioral and Brain Sciences 27 (5): 665-666. 2004.Wegner's thesis that the experience of will is an illusion is not just wrong, it is an impediment to progress in psychology. We discuss two readings of Wegner's thesis and find that neither can motivate his larger conclusion. Wegner thinks science requires us to dismiss our experiences. Its real promise is to help us to make better sense of them.
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88The Myth of Reverse CompositionalityPhilosophical Studies 125 (2): 251-275. 2005.In the context of debates about what form a theory of meaning should take, it is sometimes claimed that one cannot understand an intersective modifier-head construction (e.g., ‘pet fish’) without understanding its lexical parts. Neo-Russellians like Fodor and Lepore contend that non-denotationalist theories of meaning, such as prototype theory and theory theory, cannot explain why this is so, because they cannot provide for the ‘reverse compositional’ character of meaning. I argue that reverse c…Read more
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93Knowing me, knowing you: Theory of mind and the machinery of introspectionJournal of Consciousness Studies 11 (7-8): 129-143. 2004.Does the ability to know one's own mind depend on the ability to know the minds of others? According to the 'theory theory' of first-person mentalizing, the answer is yes. Recent alternative accounts of this ability, such as the 'monitoring theory', suggest otherwise. Focusing on the issue of introspective access to propositional attitudes , I argue that a better account of first-person mentalizing can be devised by combining these two theories. After sketching a hybrid account, I show how it ca…Read more
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104An unconstrained mind: Explaining belief in the afterlifeBehavioral and Brain Sciences 29 (5): 484-484. 2006.Bering contends that belief in the afterlife is explained by the simulation constraint hypothesis: the claim that we cannot imagine what it is like to be dead. This explanation suffers from some difficulties. First, it implies the existence of a corresponding belief in the “beforelife.” Second, a simpler explanation will suffice. Rather than appeal to constraints on our thoughts about death, we suggest that belief in the afterlife can be better explained by the lack of such constraints.
Columbia, Missouri, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
Philosophy of Mind |
Philosophy of Cognitive Science |
Psychology |