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Review of The Paradox of Self-Consciousness by José Luis Bermúdez (review)British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 51 (3): 483-486. 2000.
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56Evolution and the Human Mind: Modularity, Language and Meta-Cognition (edited book)Cambridge University Press. 2000.How did our minds evolve? Can evolutionary considerations illuminate the question of the basic architecture of the human mind? These are two of the main questions addressed in Evolution and the Human Mind by a distinguished interdisciplinary team of philosophers, psychologists, anthropologists and archaeologists. The essays focus especially on issues to do with modularity of mind, the evolution and significance of natural language, and the evolution of our capacity for meta-cognition, together w…Read more
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261Language, thought, and consciousness: an essay in philosophical psychologyCambridge University Press. 1996.Do we think in natural language? Or is language only for communication? Much recent work in philosophy and cognitive science assumes the latter. In contrast, Peter Carruthers argues that much of human conscious thinking is conducted in the medium of natural language sentences. However, this does not commit him to any sort of Whorfian linguistic relativism, and the view is developed within a framework that is broadly nativist and modularist. His study will be essential reading for all those inter…Read more
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779The cognitive functions of languageBehavioral and Brain Sciences 25 (6): 657-674. 2002.This paper explores a variety of different versions of the thesis that natural language is involved in human thinking. It distinguishes amongst strong and weak forms of this thesis, dismissing some as implausibly strong and others as uninterestingly weak. Strong forms dismissed include the view that language is conceptually necessary for thought (endorsed by many philosophers) and the view that language is _de facto_ the medium of all human conceptual thinking (endorsed by many philosophers and …Read more
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19Stimulating introduction to the most central and interesting issues in the philosophy of mind. Topics covered include dualism versus the various forms of materialism, personal identity and survival, and the problem of other minds
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83Précis of the architecture of the mind: Massive modularity and the flexibility of thoughtMind and Language 23 (3). 2008.This article outlines the main themes and motivations of Carruthers, 2006. Its purpose is to provide some background for the critical commentaries of Cowie, Machery, and Wilson (this volume).
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366Suffering without subjectivityPhilosophical Studies 121 (2): 99-125. 2004.This paper argues that it is possible for suffering to occur in the absence of phenomenal consciousness – in the absence of a certain sort of experiential subjectivity, that is. (Phenomenal consciousness is the property that some mental states possess, when it is like something to undergo them, or when they have subjective feels, or possess qualia.) So even if theories of phenomenal consciousness that would withhold such consciousness from most species of non-human animal are correct, this nee…Read more
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20The Nature of the Mind: An IntroductionRoutledge. 2003._The Nature of the Mind_ is a comprehensive and lucid introduction to major themes in the philosophy of mind. It carefully explores the conflicting positions that have arisen within the debate and locates the arguments within their context. It is designed for newcomers to the subject and assumes no previous knowledge of the philosophy of mind. Clearly written and rigorously presented, this book is ideal for use in undergraduate courses in the philosophy of mind. Main topics covered include: * th…Read more
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87On Fodor-fixation, flexibility, and human uniqueness: A reply to Cowie, Machery, and WilsonMind and Language 23 (3). 2008.This paper argues that two of my critics (Cowie and Wilson) have become fixated on Fodor’s notion of modularity, both to their own detriment and to the detriment of their understanding of Carruthers, 2006. The paper then focuses on the supposed inadequacies of the latter’s explanations of both content flexibility and human uniqueness, alleged by Machery and Cowie respectively.
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177Hop over FOR, HOT theoryIn Rocco J. Gennaro (ed.), Higher-Order Theories of Consciousness: An Anthology, John Benjamins. 2004.Following a short introduction, this chapter begins by contrasting two different forms of higher-order perception theory of phenomenal consciousness - inner sense theory versus a dispositionalist kind of higher-order thought theory - and by giving a brief statement of the superiority of the latter. Thereafter the chapter considers arguments in support of HOP theories in general. It develops two parallel objections against both first-order representationalist theories and actualist forms of HOT t…Read more
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8The Innate Mind, Vol. III, Foundations and the Future (edited book)Oxford University Press. 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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46Languages of thought need to be distinguished from learning mechanisms, and nothing yet rules out multiple distinctively human learning systemsBehavioral and Brain Sciences 31 (2): 148-149. 2008.We distinguish the question whether only human minds are equipped with a language of thought (LoT) from the question whether human minds employ a single uniquely human learning mechanism. Thus separated, our answer to both questions is negative. Even very simple minds employ a LoT. And the comparative data reviewed by Penn et al. actually suggest that there are many distinctively human learning mechanisms
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163Mindreading underlies metacognitionBehavioral and Brain Sciences 32 (2): 164-182. 2009.This response defends the view that human metacognition results from us turning our mindreading capacities upon ourselves, and that our access to our own propositional attitudes is through interpretation rather than introspection. Relevant evidence is considered, including that deriving from studies of childhood development and other animal species. Also discussed are data suggesting dissociations between metacognitive and mindreading capacities, especially in autism and schizophrenia
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166Autism as mindblindness: An elaboration and partial defenceIn Peter Carruthers & Peter K. Smith (eds.), Theories of Theories of Mind, Cambridge University Press. pp. 257. 1996.In this chapter I defend the mind-blindness theory of autism, by showing how it can accommodate data which might otherwise appear problematic for it. Specifically, I show how it can explain the fact that autistic children rarely engage in spontaneous pretend-play, and also how it can explain the executive-function deficits which are characteristic of the syndrome. I do this by emphasising what I take to be an entailment of the mind-blindness theory, that autistic subjects have difficulties of ac…Read more
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202Meta-cognition in animals: A skeptical lookMind and Language 22 (1). 2007.This paper examines the recent literature on meta-cognitive processes in non-human animals, arguing that in each case the data admit of a simpler, purely first-order, explanation. The topics discussed include the alleged monitoring of states of certainty and uncertainty, the capacity to know whether or not one has perceived something, and the capacity to know whether or not the information needed to solve some problem is stored in memory. The first-order explanations advanced all assume that bel…Read more
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47Review of Gregory Currie, Ian Ravenscroft, Recreative Minds: Imagination in Philosophy and Psychology (review)Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2003 (11). 2003.
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248Distinctively human thinkingIn Peter Carruthers & Jill Boucher (eds.), Language and Thought: Interdisciplinary Themes, Cambridge University Press. pp. 69. 1998.This chapter takes up, and sketches an answer to, the main challenge facing massively modular theories of the architecture of the human mind. This is to account for the distinctively flexible, non-domain-specific, character of much human thinking. I shall show how the appearance of a modular language faculty within an evolving modular architecture might have led to these distinctive features of human thinking with only minor further additions and non-domain-specific adaptations
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81The emergence of metacognition: affect and uncertainty in animalsIn Michael J. Beran, Johannes Brandl, Josef Perner & Joëlle Proust (eds.), The foundations of metacognition, Oxford University Press. pp. 76. 2012.This chapter situates the dispute over the metacognitive capacities of non-human animals in the context of wider debates about the phylogeny of metarepresentational abilities. This chapter clarifies the nature of the dispute, before contrasting two different accounts of the evolution of metarepresentation. One is first-person-based, claiming that it emerged initially for purposes of metacognitive monitoring and control. The other is social in nature, claiming that metarepresentation evolved init…Read more
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24Las heurísticas simples se encuentran con la modularidad masivaAnálisis Filosófico 28 (1): 113-138. 2008.Este artículo investiga la coherencia entre la propuesta de una organización modular masiva de la mente y el enfoque de las heurísticas simples. Se discute una serie de potenciales conflictos entre los dos programas, pero finalmente son desestimados. De todos modos, el programa de las heurísticas simples sí termina socavando uno de los muchos argumentos propuestos para apoyar la modularidad masiva, al menos en el modo en que esta última es comprendida por los filósofos. Así que un resultado de l…Read more
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Areas of Interest
Philosophy of Mind |
Philosophy of Cognitive Science |
Cognitive Sciences |