Julian Hauser

One question we can ask when investigating the nature of self-representation concerns the types of property that must figure in its content. Here, authors have claimed that self-representations must be about spatial, temporal, bodily, or mental properties. However, we can also ask a second question: how do we need to represent a property to self-represent it? I address this latter question. I argue that a distinction between egocentric and allocentric forms of representation—known from spatial cognition—also applies to representations of other kinds of property. I use examples drawn from animal cognition and developmental psychology to show how creatures allocentrically represent their temporal, bodily, and cognitive properties. These representations are minimal self-representations: they represent one’s properties so that an explicit differentiation is made between the system and other objects (or between the system’s actual and merely possible properties), they are directly linked to behavior and sensation, and they are immune to error through misidentification. The upshot is a view on which different creatures may self-represent more or fewer kinds of property. More substantive forms of self-representation (for instance, as exemplified by neurotypical adult human beings) then require integrated minimal self-representations of the right kinds of property.

Joint attention is characterized by openness: when two agents jointly attend to an object, they are immediately and fully aware of each other's attentional states. Existing accounts of openness involve a mental picture in which two agents attend to the same object and where openness is then 'added'. I argue that the experience of openness comes first. Young infants operate under a tacit assumption of openness: they behave as if attentional states were open even when they aren't. The ability to engage in joint attention doesn't arise when infants begin to experience openness, but rather when they can limit these experiences to open interactions. For this, they depend on cognitive processes that detect non-open interactions. Some of these processes develop early and don't require the representation of others' mental states. Other processes develop later and require the infant to differentiate between herself and others as subjects of attentional states.

Phenomenal transparency was once widely believed to be necessary for cognitive extension. Recently, this claim has come under attack, with a new consensus coalescing around the idea that transparency is neither necessary for internal nor extended cognitive processes. We take these recent critiques as an opportunity to refine the concept of transparency relevant for cognitive extension. In particular, we highlight that transparency concerns an agent’s employment of a resource – and that such employment is compatible with an agent consciously apprehending (or attending to) a resource. This means it is possible for an object to be transparent and opaque to an agent, even at a single moment in time. Once we understand transparency in this way, the detractors’ claims lose their bite, and existing arguments for transparency’s necessity for cognitive extension return to apply with full force.

We might worry that our seamless reliance on AI systems makes us prone to adopting the strange errors that these systems commit. One proposed solution is to design AI systems so that they are not phenomenally transparent to their users. This stops cognitive extension and the automatic uptake of errors. Although we acknowledge that some aspects of AI extension are concerning, we can address these concerns without discouraging transparent employment altogether. First, we believe that the potential danger should be put into perspective – many unreliable technologies are unlikely to be used transparently precisely because they are unreliable. Second, an agent who transparently employs a resource may also reflect (opaquely) on its reliability. Finally, agents can rely on a process transparently and be yanked out of their transparent use when it turns unreliable. When an agent is responsive to the reliability of their process in this way, they have epistemically integrated it, and the beliefs they form with it are formed responsibly. This prevents the agent from automatically incorporating problematic beliefs. Responsible (and transparent) use of AI resources – and consequently responsible AI extension – is hence possible. We end the paper with several design and policy recommendations that encourage epistemic integration of AI-involving belief-forming processes.

Certain creatures represent their own system states; they have self-representations. But what are the boundaries of these systems? Or, more precisely, what object's properties determine whether a self-representation is accurate? Many accounts simply assume that the relevant boundary is the body or some part of it (e.g. Hohwy and Michael, Mackenzie, Newen). Others mostly disregard the importance of this question, often because they view the self as abstract or fictional (e.g. Dennett, Metzinger, Velleman). And while some others argue that the relevant boundaries are negotiable, such accounts are at best piecemeal, focusing either on mental states (e.g. Clark, Chalmers) or moral traits (e.g. Alfano, Skorburg, Howell). This thesis develops an account of self-representation that is general (it covers both categorical and dispositional properties of the self), shows how self-models are used in embodied cognition, and explains when we *accurately* self-represent properties without assuming that those properties are, or supervene on, any specific object's properties. I begin the thesis by investigating the structure of our self-representations. I argue that systems with certain capacities need to self-represent by combining a model of the objective world with a token indicating the system's current state (the self-as-subject). The relational properties of the self-as-subject represent the system's states. This is akin to the blue dot on your mobile phone's navigation app indicating your current location. A fully relational account of self-representation (which I develop based on Ismael's work) has the added advantage of linking the notions of self-as-subject and self-as-object, which are often treated as independent constructs in the literature. I differ from Ismael in that while she assumes that correct self-as-subject location can be determined by the location of the body, I develop an account in which the self-as-subject is accurately positioned in the self-model when conditionals about the consequences of the cognitive system's output come out true. I thereby extend what for Ismael is mainly an account of how we represent our position in space to an account of a wide variety of self-attributed categorical properties. To determine whether an object exemplifies a disposition, we often evaluate what state transition the object undergoes in relevant possible worlds. For example, does the glass break in the possible worlds where it is struck? When it comes to self-attributed dispositions, we can ask: what possible worlds are close enough to determine whether someone exemplifies a disposition? For me to be a morning person, does it matter whether I wake up early in a possible world where alarm clocks haven't been invented? Where I've had a major brain surgery? Where my partner doesn't prepare coffee for me? I argue that convention has a role to play in determining the set of relevant possible worlds and that the constraints on these worlds are such that our self-attributed dispositions supervene on properties external to brain or body. Our self-attributed dispositions, if not we ourselves, can be, and often are, extended.

Copyright is at the centre of both popular and academic debate. That emotions are running high is hardly surprising – copyright influences who contributes what to culture, how culture is used, and even the kind of persons we are and come to be. Consequentialist, Lockean, and personality interest accounts are generally advanced in the literature to morally justify copyright law. I argue that these approaches fail to ground extensive authorial rights in intellectual creations and that only a small subset of the rights accorded by copyright law is justified. The pared-down version of copyright that I defend consists of the right to attribution, the right to have one’s non-endorsement of modifications or uses of one’s work explicitly noted, and the right to a share of the profit resulting from the commercial uses of one’s work. I also cursorily explore whether contribution to another person’s work gives rise to moral interests.