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183Creative action in mindPhilosophical Psychology 24 (4). 2011.The goal of this article is to display the attractiveness of a novel account of the place of creativity in the human mind. This is designed to supplement (and perhaps replace) the widespread assumption that creativity is thought-based, involving novel combinations of concepts to form creative thoughts, with the creativity of action being parasitic upon prior creative thinking. According to the proposed account, an additional (or perhaps alternative) locus of creativity lies in the assembly and a…Read more
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938Should damage to the machinery for social perception damage perceptionCognitive Neuroscience 2 (2): 116-17. 2011.We argue that Graziano and Kastner are mistaken to claim that neglect favors their self-directed social perception account of consciousness. For the latter should not predict that neglect would result from damage to mechanisms of social perception. Neglect is better explained in terms of damage to attentional mechanisms.
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41Review of Edward Stein: Without Good Reason: The Rationality Debate in Philosophy and Cognitive Science_; Jonathan St. B. T. Evans and David E. Over: _Rationality and Reasoning (review)British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 49 (1): 189-193. 1998.
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51Invertebrate concepts confront the generality constraint (and win)In Robert W. Lurz (ed.), The Philosophy of Animal Minds, Cambridge University Press. pp. 89--107. 2009.
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139Animal subjectivityPSYCHE: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Research On Consciousness 4. 1998.Carruthers, P. . Natural theories of consciousness. European Journal of Philosophy
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230Human creativity: Its cognitive basis, its evolution, and its connections with childhood pretenceBritish Journal for the Philosophy of Science 53 (2): 225-249. 2002.This paper defends two initial claims. First, it argues that essentially the same cognitive resources are shared by adult creative thinking and problem-solving, on the one hand, and by childhood pretend play, on the other—namely, capacities to generate and to reason with suppositions (or imagined possibilities). Second, it argues that the evolutionary function of childhood pretence is to practice and enhance adult forms of creativity. The paper goes on to show how these proposals can provide a s…Read more
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23Assertion and ConditionalsPhilosophical Quarterly 36 (145): 566. 1986.This book develops in detail the simple idea that assertion is the expression of belief. In it the author puts forward a version of 'probabilistic semantics' which acknowledges that we are not perfectly rational, and which offers a significant advance in generality on theories of meaning couched in terms of truth conditions. It promises to challenge a number of entrenched and widespread views about the relations of language and mind. Part I presents a functionalist account of belief, worked thro…Read more
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10The Innate Mind, Volume 3: Foundations and the Future (edited book)Oup Usa. 2008.This book is the third of a three-volume set on the innate mind. It provides an assessment of nativist thought and definitive reference point for future inquiry. Nativists have long been interested in a variety of foundational topics relating to the study of cognitive development and the historical opposition between nativism and empiricism. Among the issues here are questions about what it is for something to be innate in the first place; how innateness is related to such things as heritability…Read more
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215Moderately massive modularityIn Anthony O'Hear (ed.), Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement, Cambridge University Press. pp. 67-89. 2003.This paper will sketch a model of the human mind according to which the mind’s structure is massively, but by no means wholly, modular. Modularity views in general will be motivated, elucidated, and defended, before the thesis of moderately massive modularity is explained and elaborated.
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Critical study: Baker and Hacker's WittgensteinIn G. P. Baker & P. M. S. Hacker (eds.), Wittgenstein: Understanding and Meaning, Blackwell. 1980.
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69This chapter argues that there are multiple adaptations underlying the distinctiveness of the human mind. Careful analysis of the capacities that are involved in the creation, acquisition, and transmission of culture and cultural products suggests that it is very unlikely that these could all be underlain by just one, or a few, novel cognitive systems. On the contrary, there are at least a handful of such systems, each of which is largely independent of the others.
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56Massive modularity is consistent with most forms of neural reuseBehavioral and Brain Sciences 33 (4): 289-290. 2010.Anderson claims that the hypothesis of massive neural reuse is inconsistent with massive mental modularity. But much depends upon how each thesis is understood. We suggest that the thesis of massive modularity presented in Carruthers (2006) is consistent with the forms of neural reuse that are actually supported by the data cited, while being inconsistent with a stronger version of reuse that Anderson seems to support
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35Precis of "Phenomenal Consciousness: A Naturalistic Theory"SWIF Philosophy of Mind Review 2 (1). 2001.
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179Cartesian Epistemology: Is the theory of the self-transparent mind innate?Journal of Consciousness Studies 15 (4): 28-53. 2008.This paper argues that a Cartesian belief in the self-transparency of minds might actually be an innate aspect of our mind-reading faculty. But it acknowledges that some crucial evidence needed to establish this claim hasn’t been looked for or collected. What we require is evidence that a belief in the self-transparency of mind is universal to the human species. The paper closes with a call to anthropologists (and perhaps also developmental psychologists), who are in a position to collect such e…Read more
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217The Animals Issue: Moral Theory in PracticeCambridge University Press. 1992.Do animals have moral rights? In contrast to the philosophical gurus of the animal rights movement, whose opinion has held moral sway in recent years, Peter Carruthers here claims that they do not. He explores a variety of moral theories, arguing that animals lack direct moral significance. This provocative but judiciously argued book will appeal to all those interested in animal rights, whatever their initial standpoint. It will also serve as a lively introduction to ethics, demonstrating why t…Read more
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280Moral Responsibility and ConsciousnessJournal of Moral Philosophy 9 (2): 200-228. 2012.Our aim in this paper is to raise a question about the relationship between theories of responsibility, on the one hand, and a commitment to conscious attitudes, on the other. Our question has rarely been raised previously. Among those who believe in the reality of human freedom, compatibilists have traditionally devoted their energies to providing an account that can avoid any commitment to the falsity of determinism while successfully accommodating a range of intuitive examples. Libertarians, …Read more
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120Is the mind a system of modules shaped by natural selection?In Christopher R. Hitchcock (ed.), Contemporary Debates in the Philosophy of Science, Blackwell. 2003.This chapter defends the positive thesis which constitutes its title. It argues first, that the mind has been shaped by natural selection; and second, that the result of that shaping process is a modular mental architecture. The arguments presented are all broadly empirical in character, drawing on evidence provided by biologists, neuroscientists and psychologists (evolutionary, cognitive, and developmental), as well as by researchers in artificial intelligence. Yet the conclusion is at odds wit…Read more
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297Phenomenal Consciousness: A Naturalistic TheoryCambridge 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
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129Block's Overflow ArgumentPacific 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.
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210Simulation and self-knowledge: A defence of the theory-theoryIn 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
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Areas of Interest
Philosophy of Mind |
Philosophy of Cognitive Science |
Cognitive Sciences |