•  14
    Unconsciously competing goals can collaborate or compromise as well as win or lose
    Behavioral and Brain Sciences 37 (2): 139-140. 2014.
    This commentary offers a friendly extension of Huang & Bargh's (H&B's) account. Not only do active goals sometimes operate unconsciously to dominate or preempt others, but simultaneously active goals can also collaborate or compromise in shaping behavior. Because neither goal wins complete control of behavior, the result may be that each is only partly satisfied.
  • Review of John Dupre's Human Nature and the Limits of Science (review)
    Economics and Philosophy 18 (2): 357-362. 2002.
  •  31
    Introduction: What makes science possible
    with Stephen Stich and Michael Siegal
    In Peter Carruthers, Stephen Stich & Michael Siegal (eds.), The Cognitive Basis of Science, Cambridge University Press. 2002.
  •  10
    Some New Techniques for the Analysis Correlations of Point Distributions
    In R. J. Russell, N. Murphy & A. R. Peacocke (eds.), Chaos and Complexity, Vatican Observatory Publications. pp. 165. 1995.
  •  385
    Reductive explanation and the "explanatory gap"
    Canadian Journal of Philosophy 34 (2): 153-174. 2004.
    Can phenomenal consciousness be given a reductive natural explanation? Exponents of an
  •  112
    Who is blind to blindsight?
    PSYCHE: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Research On Consciousness 7. 2001.
    This paper uses the explanation of blindsight generated by a two-systems theory of vision in order to set Siewert a dilemma. Either his blindsight examples are modelled on actual blindsight, in which case certain reductive theories of phenomenal consciousness will have no difficulty in accommodating them. Or they are intended to be purely imaginary, in which case they will have no force against a reductive naturalist
  • Consciousness and Concepts
    with Robert Kirk
    Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 66 23-59. 1992.
  •  199
    Valence and Value
    Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 97 (3): 658-680. 2017.
    Valence is a central component of all affective states, including pains, pleasures, emotions, moods, and feelings of desire or repulsion.This paper has two main goals. One is to suggest that enough is now known about the causes, consequences, and properties of valence to indicate that it forms a unitary natural-psychological kind, one that seemingly plays a fundamental role in motivating all kinds of intentional action. If this turns out to be true, then the correct characterization of the natur…Read more
  •  61
    Reductive Explanation and the "Explanatory Gap"
    Canadian Journal of Philosophy 34 (2): 153-173. 2004.
    Can phenomenal consciousness be given a reductive natural explanation? Exponents of an ‘explanatory gap’ between physical, functional and intentional facts, on the one hand, and the facts of phenomenal consciousness, on the other, argue that there are reasons of principle why phenomenal consciousness cannot be reductively explained: Jackson, ; Levine,, ; McGinn ; Sturgeon, ; Chalmers,. Some of these writers claim that the existence of such a gap would warrant a belief in some form of ontological…Read more
  •  1
    Phenomenal Consciousness: A Naturalistic Theory
    Philosophical Quarterly 52 (207): 265-268. 2002.
  •  31
    Phenomenal Consciousness
    Mind 110 (440): 1057-1062. 2001.
  •  12
    Natural Theories of Consciousness
    European Journal of Philosophy 6 (2): 203-222. 2002.
  • Norman Malcolm, "Nothing is Hidden" (review)
    Philosophical Quarterly 37 (48): 328. 1987.
  • Language, Thought and Consciousness
    Mind 106 (423): 593-596. 1997.
  •  75
    Implicit and explicit attitudes manifest themselves as distinct and partly dissociable behavioral dispositions. It is natural to think that these differences reflect differing underlying representations. The present article argues that this may be a mistake. Although non-verbal and verbal measures of attitudes often dissociate, this may be because the two types of outcome-measure are differentially impacted by other factors, not because they are tapping into distinct kinds of representation or d…Read more
  •  180
    Basic questions
    Mind and Language 33 (2): 130-147. 2018.
    This paper argues that a set of questioning attitudes are among the foundations of human and animal minds. While both verbal questioning and states of curiosity are generally explained in terms of metacognitive desires for knowledge or true belief, I argue that each is better explained by a prelinguistic sui generis type of mental attitude of questioning. I review a range of considerations in support of such a proposal and improve on previous characterizations of the nature of these attitudes. I…Read more
  •  129
    Block's Overflow Argument
    Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 65-70. 2017.
    This article challenges Block's ‘overflow argument’ for the conclusion that phenomenal consciousness and access-consciousness are distinct. It shows that the data can be explained just as well in terms of a distinction between contents that are made globally accessible through bottom–up sensory stimulation and those that are sustained and made available in working memory through top-down attention.
  •  211
    Simulation and self-knowledge: A defence of the theory-theory
    In Peter Carruthers & Peter K. Smith (eds.), Theories of Theories of Mind, Cambridge University Press. pp. 22--38. 1996.
    In this chapter I attempt to curb the pretensions of simulationism. I argue that it is, at best, an epistemological doctrine of limited scope. It may explain how we go about attributing beliefs and desires to others, and perhaps to ourselves, in some cases. But simulation cannot provide the fundamental basis of our conception of, or knowledge of, minded agency
  •  244
    The Origins of Creativity
    In Elliot Samuel Paul & Scott Barry Kaufman (eds.), The Philosophy of Creativity, Oxford University Press. 2014.
    The goal of this chapter is to provide an integrated evolutionary and developmental account of the emergence of distinctively-human creative capacities. Our main thesis is that childhood pretend play is a uniquely human adaptation that functions in part to enhance adult forms of creativity. We review evidence that is consistent with such an account, and contrast our proposal favorably with a number of alternatives.
  •  300
    Phenomenal Consciousness: A Naturalistic Theory
    Cambridge University Press. 2000.
    How can phenomenal consciousness exist as an integral part of a physical universe? How can the technicolour phenomenology of our inner lives be created out of the complex neural activities of our brains? Many have despaired of finding answers to these questions; and many have claimed that human consciousness is inherently mysterious. Peter Carruthers argues, on the contrary, that the subjective feel of our experience is fully explicable in naturalistic terms. Drawing on a variety of interdiscipl…Read more
  •  86
    Are epistemic emotions metacognitive?
    Philosophical Psychology 30 (1-2): 58-78. 2017.
    This article addresses the question whether epistemic emotions are in any sense inherently metacognitive. The paper begins with some critical discussion of a recent suggestion made by Joelle Proust, that these emotions might be implicitly or procedurally metacognitive. It then explores the theoretical resources that are needed to explain how such emotions arise and do their work. While there is a perennial temptation to think that epistemic emotions are somehow about the cognitive states of the …Read more
  •  78
    Opening Up Vision: The Case Against Encapsulation
    Review of Philosophy and Psychology 7 (4): 721-742. 2016.
    Many have argued that early visual processing is encapsulated from the influence of higher-level goals, expectations, and knowledge of the world. Here we confront the main arguments offered in support of such a view, showing that they are unpersuasive. We also present evidence of top–down influences on early vision, emphasizing data from cognitive neuroscience. Our conclusion is that encapsulation is not a defining feature of visual processing. But we take this conclusion to be quite modest in s…Read more
  •  7
    Fragmentary Versus Reflexive Consciousness
    Mind and Language 12 (2): 181-195. 1997.
  •  572
    The illusion of conscious will
    Synthese 159 (2). 2007.
    Wegner (Wegner, D. (2002). The illusion of conscious will. MIT Press) argues that conscious will is an illusion, citing a wide range of empirical evidence. I shall begin by surveying some of his arguments. Many are unsuccessful. But one—an argument from the ubiquity of self-interpretation—is more promising. Yet is suffers from an obvious lacuna, offered by so-called ‘dual process’ theories of reasoning and decision making (Evans, J., & Over, D. (1996). Rationality and reasoning. Psychology Press…Read more