•  3
    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.
  •  40
    Wavelets
    with Martin Greiner and Peter Lipa
    Complexity 2 (2): 31-36. 1996.
  •  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
  •  16
    On being simple minded
    American Philosophical Quarterly 41 (3): 205-220. 2004.
    None
  •  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
  •  8
    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
  •  6
    A. Appiah, "Assertion and Conditionals" (review)
    Philosophical Quarterly 36 (45): 566. 1986.
  •  13
    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
  •  13
    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
  •  16
    Robert Cummins, "Meaning and Mental Representation" (review)
    Philosophical Quarterly 40 (61): 527. 1990.
  •  9
    Conceptual pragmatism
    Synthese 73 (2). 1987.
    The paper puts forward the thesis of conceptual pragmatism: that there are pragmatic choices to be made between distinct but similar concepts within various contexts. It is argued that this thesis should be acceptable to all who believe in concepts, whether the believers are platonists, realists or anti-realists. It is argued that the truth of the thesis may help to resolve many long-standing debates, and that in any case it will lead to an extension of philosophical method. The paper then brief…Read more
  •  36
    The Centered Mind offers a new view of the nature and causal determinants of both reflective thinking and, more generally, the stream of consciousness. Peter Carruthers argues that conscious thought is always sensory-based, relying on the resources of the working-memory system. This system enables sensory images to be sustained and manipulated through attentional signals directed at midlevel sensory areas of the brain. When abstract conceptual representations are bound into these images, we cons…Read more
  •  10
    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
  •  20
    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
  •  99
    Two Systems for Mindreading?
    Review of Philosophy and Psychology 7 (1): 141-162. 2016.
    A number of two-systems accounts have been proposed to explain the apparent discrepancy between infants’ early success in nonverbal mindreading tasks, on the one hand, and the failures of children younger than four to pass verbally-mediated false-belief tasks, on the other. Many of these accounts have not been empirically fruitful. This paper focuses, in contrast, on the two-systems proposal put forward by Ian Apperly and colleagues. This has issued in a number of new findings. The present paper…Read more
  •  9
    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).
  • Consciousness: Essays from a Higher-Order Perspective
    Philosophical Quarterly 56 (225): 619-622. 2006.
  •  1
    The Animals Issue
    Environmental Values 2 (4): 370-371. 1993.
  •  11
    II*—Frege's Regress
    Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 82 (1): 17-32. 1982.
    Peter Carruthers; II*—Frege's Regress, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 82, Issue 1, 1 June 1982, Pages 17–32, https://doi.org/10.1093/aristoteli.
  •  68
    Do we have introspective access to our own thoughts? Peter Carruthers challenges the consensus that we do: he argues that access to our own thoughts is always interpretive, grounded in perceptual awareness and sensory imagery. He proposes a bold new theory of self-knowledge, with radical implications for understanding of consciousness and agency.
  •  6
    On Fodor's problem
    Mind and Language 18 (5): 502-523. 2003.
    This paper sketches a solution to a problem which has been emphasized by Fodor. This is the problem of how to explain distinctively-human flexible cognition in modular terms. There are three aspects to the proposed account. First, it is suggested that natural language sentences might serve to integrate the outputs of a number of conceptual modules. Second, a creative sentence-generator, or supposer, is postulated. And third, it is argued that a set of principles of inference to the best explanat…Read more
  •  2
    Review: Thinking without words (review)
    British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 55 (4): 807-810. 2004.
  •  66
    Based on lectures developed for an audience ignorant of analytic thought, Carruthers’s clearly and elegantly written book introduces many central issues in modern philosophy, including knowledge, justification, truth, the a priori, Platonism, learning, the evolution of mind, explanation. Its organizing principle being the rationalist-empiricist controversy from the 1700s onwards, it also offers an intriguing reinterpretation of that debate and mounts a lively defense of a hybrid position that es…Read more
  •  11
    Higher-order theories of consciousness
    In Max Velmans & Susan Schneider (eds.), The Blackwell Companion to Consciousness, Blackwell. 2007.
    Higher‐order theories purport to account for the conscious character of such states in terms of higher‐order representations. This chapter focuses on three classes of higher‐order theory of phenomenal consciousness, including inner‐sense theory, actualist higher‐order thought theory, and dispositionalist higher‐order thought theory. All three of these higher‐order theories purport to offer reductive explanations of phenomenal consciousness. Inner‐sense theory has important positive virtues, but …Read more