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46Distinctively human thinking: Modular precursors and componentsIn Peter Carruthers, Stephen Laurence & Stephen P. Stich (eds.), The Innate Mind: Structure and Contents, Oxford University Press Usa. pp. 69--88. 2005.
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117The Evolution of Self-KnowledgePhilosophical Topics 40 (2): 13-37. 2012.Humans have the capacity for awareness of many aspects of their own mental lives—their own experiences, feelings, judgments, desires, and decisions. We can often know what it is that we see, hear, feel, judge, want, or decide. This article examines the evolutionary origins of this form of self-knowledge. Two alternatives are contrasted and compared with the available evidence. One is first-person based: self-knowledge is an adaptation designed initially for metacognitive monitoring and control. …Read more
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282Conscious experience versus conscious thoughtIn Uriah Kriegel & Kenneth Williford (eds.), Consciousness and Self-Reference, Mit Press. 2006.Are there different constraints on theories of conscious experience as against theories of conscious propositional thought? Is what is problematic or puzzling about each of these phenomena of the same, or of different, types? And to what extent is it plausible to think that either or both conscious experience and conscious thought involve some sort of selfreference? In pursuing these questions I shall also explore the prospects for a defensible form of eliminativism concerning conscious thinking…Read more
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15The Cognitive Basis of Science (edited book)Cambridge University Press. 2002.The Cognitive Basis of Science concerns the question 'What makes science possible?' Specifically, what features of the human mind and of human culture and cognitive development permit and facilitate the conduct of science? The essays in this volume address these questions, which are inherently interdisciplinary, requiring co-operation between philosophers, psychologists, and others in the social and cognitive sciences. They concern the cognitive, social, and motivational underpinnings of scienti…Read more
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312Language in cognitionIn Eric Margolis, Richard Samuels & Stephen P. Stich (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Cognitive Science, Oxford University Press. 2012.In E. Margolis, R. Samuels, and S. Stich (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Cognitive Science. Oxford University Press, 2008.
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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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957Should 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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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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20Better tests of consciousness are needed, but skepticism about unconscious processes is unwarrantedBehavioral and Brain Sciences 37 (1): 36-37. 2014.
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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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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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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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48Review 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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14The 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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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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35Precis of "Phenomenal Consciousness: A Naturalistic Theory"SWIF Philosophy of Mind Review 2 (1). 2001.
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Areas of Interest
Philosophy of Mind |
Philosophy of Cognitive Science |
Cognitive Sciences |