•  10
    Fragmentary sense
    Mind 93 (371): 351-369. 1984.
  •  8
    The 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
  •  163
    Mindreading underlies metacognition
    Behavioral 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
  •  34
    Language, Thought and Consciousness: An Essay in Philosophical Psychology
    with Greg Jarrett
    Philosophical Review 107 (2): 315. 1998.
    Carruthers offers a refreshing piece of “substantive philosophy.” Going beyond the limitations of pure analysis, he adopts a methodology which is one part analysis, one part empirical data, and a heavy dose of inference to the best explanation. The overarching goal is to advance the commonsense—yet unfashionable—thesis that natural language is the primary medium of thought, and to defend the related cognitive conception of NL. In particular, Carruthers argues that imaginative phonological repres…Read more
  •  248
    Distinctively human thinking
    In Peter Carruthers & Jill Boucher (eds.), Language and Thought, 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
  •  81
    The emergence of metacognition: affect and uncertainty in animals
    In 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
  •  202
    Meta-cognition in animals: A skeptical look
    Mind 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
  •  30
    Peter Unger, "Philosophical Relativity" (review)
    Philosophical Quarterly 35 (39): 207. 1985.
  •  46
    Consciousness: Explaining the Phenomena
    Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 49 61-85. 2001.
    My topic in this chapter is whether phenomenal consciousness can be given a reductive natural explanation. I shall first say something about phenomenal—as opposed to other forms of—consciousness, and highlight what needs explaining. I shall then turn to issues concerning explanation in general, and the explanation of phenomenal consciousness in particular.
  •  24
    Las heurísticas simples se encuentran con la modularidad masiva
    Análisis 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
  •  213
    Phenomenal concepts and higher-order experiences
    Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 68 (2): 316-336. 2004.
    Relying on a range of now-familiar thought-experiments, it has seemed to many philosophers that phenomenal consciousness is beyond the scope of reductive explanation. (Phenomenal consciousness is a form of state-consciousness, which contrasts with creature-consciousness, or perceptual-consciousness. The different forms of state-consciousness include various kinds of access-consciousness, both first-order and higher-order--see Rosenthal, 1986; Block, 1995; Lycan, 1996; Carruthers, 2000. Phenomena…Read more
  •  111
    Consciousness: Essays From a Higher-Order Perspective
    Oxford University Press UK. 2005.
    Peter Carruthers's essays on consciousness and related issues have had a substantial impact on the field, and many of his best are now collected here in revised form. The first half of the volume is devoted to developing, elaborating, and defending against competitors one particular sort of reductive explanation of phenomenal consciousness, which Carruthers now refers to as 'dual-content theory'. Phenomenal consciousness - the feel of experience - is supposed to constitute the 'hard problem' for…Read more
  •  115
    Simulation and the first-person (review)
    Philosophical Studies 144 (3). 2009.
    This article focuses on, and critiques, Goldman’s view that third-person mind-reading is grounded in first-person introspection. It argues, on the contrary, that first-person awareness of propositional attitude events is always interpretative, resulting from us turning our mind-reading abilities upon ourselves.
  •  351
    How we know our own minds: The relationship between mindreading and metacognition
    Behavioral and Brain Sciences 32 (2): 121-138. 2009.
    Four different accounts of the relationship between third-person mindreading and first-person metacognition are compared and evaluated. While three of them endorse the existence of introspection for propositional attitudes, the fourth (defended here) claims that our knowledge of our own attitudes results from turning our mindreading capacities upon ourselves. Section 1 of this target article introduces the four accounts. Section 2 develops the “mindreading is prior” model in more detail, showing…Read more
  • Theories of Theories of Mind
    with Peter K. Smith
    Philosophical Quarterly 49 (194): 115-119. 1999.
  •  28
    Introducing Persons
    Philosophical Quarterly 38 (150): 123. 1988.
    This is an elegant and clear tour through many of the issues in philosophy of mind that have occupied philosophers of this century. The topics covered include the problem of other minds, arguments for and against the existence of the soul, a discussion of the bundle theory of the mind, behaviorism, functionalism, mind/brain identity, the argument against the possibility of private language, personal identity and the possibility of after-life, and the question of whether animals and computers can…Read more
  •  20
    The present paper elucidates, elaborates, and defends the main thesis advanced in the target article: namely, that natural-language sentences play a constitutive role in some human thought processes, and that they are responsible for some of the distinctive flexibility of human thinking, serving to integrate the outputs of a variety of conceptual modules. Section R1 clarifies and elaborates this main thesis, responding to a number of objections and misunderstandings. R2 considers three contrasti…Read more
  •  80
    The Metaphysics of the Tractatus
    Cambridge University Press. 1990.
    In this remarkably clear and original study of the Tractatus Peter Carruthers has two principal aims. He seeks to make sense of Wittgenstein's metaphysical doctrines, showing how powerful arguments may be deployed in their support. He also aims to locate the crux of the conflict between Wittgenstein's early and late philosophies. This is shown to arise from his earlier commitment to the objectivity of logic and logical relations, which is the true target of attack of his later discussion of rule…Read more
  •  307
    On being simple minded
    American Philosophical Quarterly 41 (3): 205-220. 2004.
    None
  •  6
    A. Appiah, "Assertion and Conditionals" (review)
    Philosophical Quarterly 36 (45): 566. 1986.
  •  124
    Ruling-out realism
    Philosophia 15 (1-2): 61-78. 1985.
    The case for anti-realism in the theory of meaning, as presented by Dummen and Wright, 1 is only partly convincing. There is, I shall suggest, a crucial lacuna in the argument, that can only be filled by the later Wittgenstein's following-a-rule considerations. So it is the latter that provides the strongest argument for the rejection of semantic realism.
    By 'realism', throughout, I should be taken as referring to any conception of meaning that leaves open the possibility that a sentence may have…
    Read more
  •  42
    Eternal thoughts
    Philosophical Quarterly 34 (136): 186-204. 1984.
  •  29
    The Innate Mind: Culture and Cognition (edited book)
    Oxford University Press USA. 2006.
    This book is the second of a three-volume set on the subject of innateness. The book is highly interdisciplinary, and addresses such question as: to what extent are mature cognitive capacities a reflection of particular cultures and to what extent are they a product of innate elements? How do innate elements interact with culture to achieve mature cognitive capacities? How do minds generate and shape cultures? How are cultures processed by minds?Concerned with the fundamental architecture of the…Read more
  •  64
    Modularity, language, and the flexibility of thought
    Behavioral and Brain Sciences 25 (6): 705-719. 2002.
    The present response elucidates, elaborates, and defends the main thesis advanced in the target article: namely, that natural-language sentences play a constitutive role in some human thought processes, and that they are responsible for some of the distinctive flexibility of human thinking, serving to integrate the outputs of a variety of conceptual modules. Section R1 clarifies and elaborates this main thesis, responding to a number of objections and misunderstandings. Section R2 considers thre…Read more
  •  59
    Descriptive Experience Sampling: What is it good for?
    Journal of Consciousness Studies 18 (1): 130-149. 2011.
    We defend the reliability of Hurlburt's Descriptive Experi-ence Sampling method against some of Schwitzgebel's attacks. But we agree with Schwitzgebel that the method could be used much more widely than it has been, helping to answer questions about the nature and structure of consciousness in addition to cataloguing the latter's contents. We sketch a number of potential lines of further enquiry.
  •  16
    Robert Cummins, "Meaning and Mental Representation" (review)
    Philosophical Quarterly 40 (61): 527. 1990.