•  162
    Block's Overflow Argument
    Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 98 65-70. 2017.
    This article challenges Block's ‘overflow argument’ for the conclusion that phenomenal consciousness and access-consciousness are distinct. It shows that the data can be explained just as well in terms of a distinction between contents that are made globally accessible through bottom–up sensory stimulation and those that are sustained and made available in working memory through top-down attention.
  •  115
    This 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.
  •  187
    II*—Frege's Regress
    Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 82 (1): 17-32. 1981-1982.
    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.
  •  424
    Moral Responsibility and Consciousness
    with Matt King
    Journal of Moral Philosophy 9 (2): 200-228. 2012.
    Our aim in this paper is to raise a question about the relationship between theories of responsibility, on the one hand, and a commitment to conscious attitudes, on the other. Our question has rarely been raised previously. Among those who believe in the reality of human freedom, compatibilists have traditionally devoted their energies to providing an account that can avoid any commitment to the falsity of determinism while successfully accommodating a range of intuitive examples. Libertarians, …Read more
  •  17
    Review (review)
    British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 49 (1). 1998.
  •  479
    Suffering without subjectivity
    Philosophical 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 needn…Read more
  •  184
    Higher-order theories of consciousness
    In Max Velmans & Susan Schneider (eds.), The Blackwell Companion to Consciousness, Wiley-blackwell. 2008.
    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
  •  126
    Why Pretend?
    In Shaun Nichols (ed.), The Architecture of the Imagination: New Essays on Pretence, Possibility, and Fiction, Oxford University Press Uk. pp. 89-110. 2006.
    This chapter studies the question of children's motivations to engage in pretence, using an account provided by Nichols and Stich in 2003 as a stalking horse. It argues that they are correct about much of the basic cognitive architecture necessary to explain pretence, but wrong on the question of motivation. Following a discussion of the views of Currie and Ravenscroft in 2002 on this issue, the chapter draws on Damasio's 1994 description of the way in which emotions enter into practical reasoni…Read more
  •  368
    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
  •  240
    Autism as mindblindness: An elaboration and partial defence
    In 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
  •  20
    Reply to Seager
    Anthropology and Philosophy 6 (1-2): 74-80. 2005.
  •  29
    First page preview
    International Journal of Philosophical Studies 12 (4). 2004.
  • Theories of Theories of Mind
    Philosophical Quarterly 49 (194): 115-119. 1999.
  •  387
    Natural theories of consciousness
    European Journal of Philosophy 6 (2): 203-22. 1998.
    Many people have thought that consciousness.
  •  142
    Conceptual pragmatism
    Synthese 73 (2): 205-224. 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
  •  106
    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
  •  162
    Mindreading in adults: evaluating two-systems views
    Synthese 194 (3): 673-688. 2017.
    A number of convergent recent findings with adults have been interpreted as evidence of the existence of two distinct systems for mindreading that draw on separate conceptual resources: one that is fast, automatic, and inflexible; and one that is slower, controlled, and flexible. The present article argues that these findings admit of a more parsimonious explanation. This is that there is a single set of concepts made available by a mindreading system that operates automatically where it can, bu…Read more
  •  2
    Reply to Bermúdez
    Anthropology and Philosophy 6 (1-2): 81-83. 2005.
  • Consciousness. Essays from a Higher-Order Perspective
    Critica 41 (121): 85-97. 2009.
  •  120
    This article evaluates the scientific credentials of a distinction that is frequently endorsed by scientists who study human reasoning, between so-called “System 1” and “System 2”. The paper argues that one aspect of what is generally intended by this distinction is real. In particular, there is a real distinction between intuitive and reflective cognitive processes. But this distinction fails to line up with many of the other properties attributed to System 1 and System 2. Accordingly, the pape…Read more
  •  362
    Language in cognition
    In 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.
  •  121
    Opening Up Vision: The Case Against Encapsulation
    Review of Philosophy and Psychology 7 (4): 721-742. 2016.
    Many have argued that early visual processing is encapsulated from the influence of higher-level goals, expectations, and knowledge of the world. Here we confront the main arguments offered in support of such a view, showing that they are unpersuasive. We also present evidence of top–down influences on early vision, emphasizing data from cognitive neuroscience. Our conclusion is that encapsulation is not a defining feature of visual processing. But we take this conclusion to be quite modest in s…Read more
  •  544
    My charge in this chapter is to set out the positive case supporting massively modular models of the human mind.1 Unfortunately, there is no generally accepted understanding of what a massively modular model of the mind is. So at least some of our discussion will have to be terminological. I shall begin by laying out the range of things that can be meant by ‘modularity’. I shall then adopt a pair of strategies. One will be to distinguish some things that ‘modularity’ definitely can’t mean, if th…Read more
  •  96
    Invertebrate concepts confront the generality constraint (and win)
    In Robert W. Lurz (ed.), The Philosophy of Animal Minds, Cambridge University Press. pp. 89--107. 2009.
  •  143
    Wavelets
    with Martin Greiner and Peter Lipa
    Complexity 2 (2): 31-36. 1996.
  •  130
    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).
  •  186
    Animal subjectivity
    PSYCHE: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Research On Consciousness 4. 1998.
    Carruthers, P.. Natural theories of consciousness. European Journal of Philosophy.
  •  169
    Simulation and the first-person (review)
    Philosophical Studies 144 (3): 467-475. 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.
  •  486
    Human creativity: Its cognitive basis, its evolution, and its connections with childhood pretence
    British 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