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105The Senses and the History of Philosophy (edited book)Routledge. 2019.The study of perception and the role of the senses have recently risen to prominence in philosophy and are now a major area of study and research. However, the philosophical history of the senses remains a relatively neglected subject. Moving beyond the current philosophical canon, this outstanding collection offers a wide-ranging and diverse philosophical exploration of the senses, from the classical period to the present day. Written by a team of international contributors, it is divided into …Read more
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27Positing a Space Mirror Mechanism Intentional Understanding Without Action?Journal of Consciousness Studies 20 (5-6): 5-6. 2013.Recent evidence regarding a novel functionality of the mirror neuron system , a so-called 'space mirror mechanism', seems to reinforce the central role of the MNS in social cognition. According to the space mirror hypothesis, neural mirroring accounts for understanding not just what an observed agent is doing, but also the range of potential actions that a suitably located object affords an observed agent in the absence of any motor behaviour. This paper aims to show that the advocate of this sp…Read more
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280Responsibility for implicitly biased behavior: A habit‐based approachJournal of Social Philosophy 53 (2): 239-254. 2021.This paper has a two-fold goal. First, I defend the view that the prejudicial behaviour that results from implicit biases is best understood as a type of habitual action—as a harmful, yet deeply entrenched, passively acquired, socially relevant type of habit. Second, I explore how characterizing such implicitly biased behaviour as a habit aids our understanding of the responsibility we bear for it. As habits are ultimately susceptible of being controlled, agents ought to be held responsible for …Read more
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646Accessibility, implicit bias, and epistemic justificationSynthese 198 (Suppl 7): 1529-1547. 2018.It has recently been argued that beliefs formed on the basis of implicit biases pose a challenge for accessibilism, since implicit biases are consciously inaccessible, yet they seem to be relevant to epistemic justification. Recent empirical evidence suggests, however, that while we may typically lack conscious access to the source of implicit attitudes and their impact on our beliefs and behaviour, we do have access to their content. In this paper, I discuss the notion of accessibility required…Read more
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160Implicit Bias: From Social Structure to Representational FormatTheoria: Revista de Teoría, Historia y Fundamentos de la Ciencia 33 (1): 41-60. 2018.In this paper, I argue against the view that the representational structure of the implicit attitudes responsible for implicitly biased behaviour is propositional—as opposed to associationist. The proposal under criticism moves from the claim that implicit biased behaviour can occasionally be modulated by logical and evidential considerations to the view that the structure of the implicit attitudes responsible for such biased behaviour is propositional. I argue, in particular, against the truth …Read more
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19Mind and SupermindPhilosophical Quarterly 57 (226): 139-142. 2007.This is a review of Mind and Supermind. By KEITH FRANKISH. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004. Pp xiv + 255. Price £45.00 (US $75.00). ISBN 0521 812038 (hardback).
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201Michael Dummett (1925-2011)Teorema: International Journal of Philosophy 31 (1): 163-169. 2012.Michael Dummett's Obituary
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35The Disordered Mind: An Introduction to Philosophy of Mind and Mental Illness (review)Disputatio 4 (30): 195-199. 2011.030-6
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14Opacity, Know-How States, and their ContentDisputatio 7 (40): 61-83. 2015.The main goal of this paper is to defend the thesis that the content of know-how states is an accuracy assessable type of nonconceptual content. My argument proceeds in two stages. I argue, first, that the intellectualist distinction between types of ways of grasping the same kind of content is uninformative unless it is tied in with a distinction between kinds of contents. Second, I consider and reject the objection that, if the content of know-how states is non-conceptual, it will be mysteriou…Read more
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297Implicit Bias: from social structure to representational formatTheoria : An International Journal for Theory, History and Fundations of Science 33 (1): 41-60. 2018.In this paper, I argue against the view that the representational structure of the implicit attitudes responsible for implicitly biased behaviour is propositional—as opposed to associationist. The proposal under criticism moves from the claim that implicit biased behaviour can occasionally be modulated by logical and evidential considerations to the view that the structure of the implicit attitudes responsible for such biased behaviour is propositional. I argue, in particular, against the truth …Read more
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320Are visuomotor representations cognitively penetrable? Biasing action-guiding visionSynthese (Suppl 17): 1-19. 2018.Is action-guiding vision cognitively penetrable? More specifically, is the visual processing that guides our goal-directed actions sensitive to semantic information from cognitive states? This paper critically examines a recent family of arguments whose aim is to challenge a widespread and influential view in philosophy and cognitive science: the view that action-guiding vision is cognitively impenetrable. I argue, in response, that while there may very well be top–down causal influences on acti…Read more
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14The Implicit Conception of Implicit ConceptionsPhilosophical Issues 9 115-120. 1998.Peacocke's characterization of what he calls implicit conceptions recognizes the significance of a subset of contentful states in making rational behavior intelligible. What Peacocke has to offer in this paper is an account of (i) why we need implicit conceptions; (ii) how we can discover them; (iii) what they explain; (iv) what they are; and (v) how they can help us to better understand some issues in the theory of meaning and the theory of knowledge. The rationalist tradition in which Peacocke…Read more
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1554Review: Shaun Gallagher and Dan Zahavi: The Phenomenological Mind: An Introduction to Philosophy of Mind and Cognitive Science (review)Mind 118 (469): 174-177. 2009.
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59Does seeing red require thinking about red things?Think 8 (22): 29-39. 2009.We continuously form perceptual beliefs about the world based on how things appear to us in our perceptual experiences. I see that the ripe tomato in front of me is red and I form the belief that this tomato is red based on my seeing it, i.e. based on my veridical perceptual experience of this red tomato. Perceptual experiences and beliefs are representational mental states. Both are defined not by what they are, i.e. their physical properties, but by what they are about, what they represent, by…Read more
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63“Sensorimotor Chauvinism?” Commentary on O'Reagan, J. Kevin and Noë, Alva, “A Sensorimotor account of vision and Visual Consciousness”Behavioral and Brain Sciences 24 (5): 979-980. 2001.While applauding the bulk of the account on offer, we question one apparent implication viz, that every difference in sensorimotor contingencies corresponds to a difference in conscious visual experience.
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27Why there still has to be a theory of consciousnessConsciousness and Cognition 2 (1): 28-47. 1993."Consciousness", it is widely agreed, does not name any single cognitive phenomenon. But nor is the gathering of distinct phenomena under that single label an accident. What seems to unify the range of cognitive goods in this "variety store" is the central yet elusive notion of the availability of some content or feeling in subjective experience. The paper begins by building a rough taxonomy of the various ways different approaches have tried to give an account of this central target. Among thes…Read more
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18The animal concepts debate: a metaphilosophical takeTeorema: International Journal of Philosophy 29 (2): 11-24. 2010.In this paper I approach the debate over non-human animals’ concepts from a metaphilosophical perspective. I compare exemplars of a full-fledged and an austere view of concepts and concept possession. A deflationist response to these views main- tains that the austere and the full-fledged theorist each makes claims that are true when they, respectively, assert and deny ‘nonhuman animals have concepts’. I will argue that the deflationist response is misplaced, using an analogy with the debate ov…Read more
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82Nonconceptualism and the cognitive impenetrability of early visionPhilosophical Psychology 27 (5): 621-642. 2014.(2014). Nonconceptualism and the cognitive impenetrability of early vision. Philosophical Psychology: Vol. 27, No. 5, pp. 621-642. doi: 10.1080/09515089.2014.893386
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152How do we know how?Philosophical Explorations 11 (1). 2007.I raise some doubts about the plausibility of Stanley and Williamson's view that all knowledge-how is just a species of propositional knowledge. By tackling the question of what is involved in entertaining a proposition, I try to show that Stanley and Williamson's position leads to an uncomfortable dilemma. Depending on how we understand the notion of contemplating a proposition, either intuitively central cases of knowing-how cannot be thus classified or we lose our grip on the very idea of pro…Read more
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54Causal efficacy, content and levels of explanationLogique Et Analyse 34 (September-December): 297-318. 1991.Let’s consider the following paradox (Fodor [1989], Jackson and Petit [1988] [1992], Drestke [1988], Block [1991], Lepore and Loewer [1987], Lewis [1986], Segal and Sober [1991]): i) The intentional content of a thought (or any other intentional state) is causally relevant to its behavioural (and other) effects. ii) Intentional content is nothing but the meaning of internal representations. But, iii) Internal processors are only sensitive to the syntactic structures of internal representations, …Read more
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9Language and Meaning in Cognitive Science: Cognitive Issues and Semantic Theory (edited book)Routledge. 1998.First Published in 1998. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company
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140Twin PleasPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 57 (4): 871-889. 1997.Dual factor theories of meaning are fatally flawed in at least two ways. First. their very duality constitutes a problem: the two dimensions of meaning (reference and conceptual role) cannot be treated as totally orthogonal without compromising the intuition that much of our linguistic and non linguistic behavior is based on the cognizer’s interaction with the world. Second, Conceptual Role Semantics is not adequate for explaining a crucial feature of linguistic representation, viz., the special…Read more
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232Ruritania and ecologyPhilosophical Issues 6 188-195. 1995.Ned Block has argued for the truth of the following conditional: If there is such a thing as narrow content, it is holistic. This paper addresses and criticises this claim.
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172Meaning, dispositions, and normativityMinds and Machines 9 (3): 399-413. 1999.In a recent paper, Paul Coates defends a sophisticated dispositional account which allegedly resolves the sceptical paradox developed by Kripke in his monograph on Wittgenstein's treatment of following a rule (Kripke, 1982). Coates' account appeals to a notion of 'homeostasis', unpacked as a subject's second-order disposition to maintain a consistent pattern of extended first-order dispositions regarding her linguistic behavior. This kind of account, Coates contends, provides a naturalistic mode…Read more
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100Ecological contentPragmatics and Cognition 5 (2): 253-281. 1997.The paper has a negative and a positive side. The negative side argues that the classical notions of narrow and wide content are not suitable for the purposes of psychological explanation. The positive side shows how to characterize an alternative notion of content that is suitable for those purposes. This account is supported by a way of conceptualizing computation that is constitutively dependent upon properties external to the system and empirical research in developmental psychology. My main…Read more
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52Social Vision: Breaking a Philosophical Impasse?Review of Philosophy and Psychology 6 (4): 611-615. 2015.I argue that findings in support of Adams and Kveraga’s functional forecast model of emotion expression processing help settle the debate between rich and sparse views of the content of perceptual experience. In particular, I argue that these results in social vision suggest that the distinctive phenomenal character of experiences involving high-level properties such as emotions and social traits is best explained by their being visually experienced as opposed to being brought about by perceptua…Read more
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134What We Do When We JudgeDialectica 65 (3): 345-367. 2011.In this paper I argue on two fronts. First, I press for the view that judging is a type of mental action, as opposed to those who think that judging is involuntary and hence not an action. Second, I argue that judging is specifically a type of non-voluntary mental action. My account of the non-voluntary nature of the mental act of judging differs, however, from standard non-voluntarist views, according to which ‘non-voluntary’ just means regulated by epistemic reasons. In addition, judging is no…Read more
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5Review of Language in the World. A Philosophical Enquiry. Max J. Cresswell (review)Philosophical Psychology 9 (1): 111-140. 1996.Left brain‐right brain differences: inquiries, evidence, and new approaches, James F. Iaccino. Hillsdale, NH: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1993. ISBN 0–8058–1340–3Artificial intelligence: a philosophical introduction, Jack Copeland Oxford: Blackwell, 1993 ISBN 0–631–18384–1Shadows of the mind, Roger Penrose. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994. ISBN 019–8539789Raw feeling: a philosophical account of the essence of consciousness, R. Kirk. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994. ISBN 0–19–824081–3Vision:…Read more
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Areas of Specialization
Philosophy of Mind |
Philosophy of Cognitive Science |
Areas of Interest
Epistemology |
Philosophy of Mind |
Philosophy of Cognitive Science |