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69This 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.
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377The case for massively modular models of mindIn Robert J. Stainton (ed.), Contemporary Debates in Cognitive Science, Wiley-blackwell. 2006.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
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81The emergence of metacognition: affect and uncertainty in animalsIn Michael 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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14The Cognitive Basis of Science (edited book)Cambridge University Press. 2002.The Cognitive Basis of Science concerns the question 'What makes science possible?' Specifically, what features of the human mind and of human culture and cognitive development permit and facilitate the conduct of science? The essays in this volume address these questions, which are inherently interdisciplinary, requiring co-operation between philosophers, psychologists, and others in the social and cognitive sciences. They concern the cognitive, social, and motivational underpinnings of scienti…Read more
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767The 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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281The evolution of consciousnessIn Peter Carruthers & A. Chamberlain (eds.), Evolution and the Human Mind: Modularity, Language and Meta-Cognition, Cambridge University Press. pp. 254. 2000.How might consciousness have evolved? Unfortunately for the prospects of providing a convincing answer to this question, there is no agreed account of what consciousness is. So any attempt at an answer will have to fragment along a number of different lines of enquiry. More fortunately, perhaps, there is general agreement that a number of distinct notions of consciousness need to be distinguished from one another; and there is also broad agreement as to which of these is particularly problematic…Read more
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216The Animals Issue: Moral Theory in PracticeCambridge University Press. 1992.Do animals have moral rights? In contrast to the philosophical gurus of the animal rights movement, whose opinion has held moral sway in recent years, Peter Carruthers here claims that they do not. He explores a variety of moral theories, arguing that animals lack direct moral significance. This provocative but judiciously argued book will appeal to all those interested in animal rights, whatever their initial standpoint. It will also serve as a lively introduction to ethics, demonstrating why t…Read more
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268The Architecture of the Mind:Massive Modularity and the Flexibility of Thought: Massive Modularity and the Flexibility of ThoughtOxford University Press UK. 2006.This book is a comprehensive development and defense of one of the guiding assumptions of evolutionary psychology: that the human mind is composed of a large number of semi-independent modules. The Architecture of the Mind has three main goals. One is to argue for massive mental modularity. Another is to answer a 'How possibly?' challenge to any such approach. The first part of the book lays out the positive case supporting massive modularity. It also outlines how the thesis should best be devel…Read more
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1The Architecture of the Mind: Massive Modularity and the Flexibility of ThoughtCritica 41 (122): 113-124. 2009.
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115Simulation 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.
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154Simple heuristics meet massive modularityIn Peter Carruthers, Stephen Laurence & Stephen P. Stich (eds.), The Innate Mind: Structure and Contents, Oxford University Press Usa. 2005.This chapter investigates the extent to which claims of massive modular organization of the mind (espoused by some members of the evolutionary psychology research program) are consistent with the main elements of the simple heuristics research program. A number of potential sources of conflict between the two programs are investigated and defused. However, the simple heuristics program turns out to undermine one of the main arguments offered in support of massive modularity, at least as the latt…Read more
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256Sympathy and subjectivityAustralasian Journal of Philosophy 77 (4): 465-82. 1999.This paper shows that even if the mental states of non-human animals lack phenomenological properties, as some accounts of mental-state consciousness imply, this need not prevent those states from being appropriate objects of sympathy and moral concern. The paper argues that the most basic form of mental (as opposed to biological) harm lies in the existence of thwarted agency, or thwarted desire, rather than in anything phenomenological
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935Should damage to the machinery for social perception damage perceptionCognitive Neuroscience 2 (2): 116-17. 2011.We argue that Graziano and Kastner are mistaken to claim that neglect favors their self-directed social perception account of consciousness. For the latter should not predict that neglect would result from damage to mechanisms of social perception. Neglect is better explained in terms of damage to attentional mechanisms.
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210Simulation and self-knowledge: A defence of the theory-theoryIn Peter Carruthers & Peter K. Smith (eds.), Theories of Theories of Mind, Cambridge University Press. pp. 22--38. 1996.In this chapter I attempt to curb the pretensions of simulationism. I argue that it is, at best, an epistemological doctrine of limited scope. It may explain how we go about attributing beliefs and desires to others, and perhaps to ourselves, in some cases. But simulation cannot provide the fundamental basis of our conception of, or knowledge of, minded agency
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362Suffering 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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34Replies to critics: Explaining subjectivityPSYCHE: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Research On Consciousness 6. 2000.This article replies to the main objections raised by the commentators on Carruthers . It discusses the question of what evidence is relevant to the assessment of dispositional higher-order thought theory; it explains how the actual properties of phenomenal consciousness can be dispositionally constituted; it discusses the case of pains and other bodily sensations in non-human animals and young children; it sketches the case for preferring higher-order to first-order theories of phenomenal consc…Read more
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61Reply to Shriver and AllenPhilosophical Psychology 18 (1): 113-122. 2005.Shriver and Allen (this volume, this journal; hereafter S&A) make three unconnected criticisms of my views concerning phenomenal consciousness and the question of animal consciousness. First, they claim that my dispositional higher-order thought theory of consciousness has much greater significance for ethics than I recognize. Second, they claim that, in the course of attempting to motivate that theory, I have presented inadequate criticisms of first-order theories (according to which phenomenal…Read more
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86Review: Thinking without words (review)British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 55 (4): 807-810. 2004.
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124Ruling-out realismPhilosophia 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 -
47Review of Shaun Nichols, Stephen Stich, Mindreading: An Integrated Account of Pretence, Self-Awareness, and Understanding of Other Minds (review)Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2004 (8). 2004.
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16Robert Cummins, "Meaning and Mental Representation" (review)Philosophical Quarterly 40 (61): 527. 1990.