-
47Review of Gregory Currie, Ian Ravenscroft, Recreative Minds: Imagination in Philosophy and Psychology (review)Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2003 (11). 2003.
-
248Distinctively human thinkingIn 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
-
404Why the question of animal consciousness might not matter very muchPhilosophical Psychology 18 (1): 83-102. 2005.According to higher-order thought accounts of phenomenal consciousness it is unlikely that many non-human animals undergo phenomenally conscious experiences. Many people believe that this result would have deep and far-reaching consequences. More specifically, they believe that the absence of phenomenal consciousness from the rest of the animal kingdom must mark a radical and theoretically significant divide between ourselves and other animals, with important implications for comparative psychol…Read more
-
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
-
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
-
46Consciousness: Explaining the PhenomenaRoyal 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.
-
1The Architecture of the Mind: Massive Modularity and the Flexibility of ThoughtCritica 41 (122): 113-124. 2009.
-
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
College Park, Maryland, United States of America
Areas of Interest
Philosophy of Mind |
Philosophy of Cognitive Science |
Cognitive Sciences |