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235In this essay, it is argued that naturalism of an even moderate sort speaks strongly against a certain widely held thesis about the human mental (and cognitive) architecture: that it is divided into two distinct levels, the personal and the subpersonal, about the former of which we gain knowledge in a manner that effectively insulates such knowledge from the results of scientific research. An empirically motivated alternative is proposed, according to which the architecture is, so to speak, flat…Read more
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These ten lectures articulate a distinctive vision of the structure and workings of the human mind, drawing from research on embodied cognition as well as from historically more entrenched approaches to the study of human thought. On the author’s view, multifarious materials co-contribute to the production of virtually all forms of human behavior, rendering implausible the idea that human action is best explained by processes taking place in an autonomous mental arena – those in the conscious mi…Read more
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397Cognitive Systems, Predictive Processing, and the SelfReview of Philosophy and Psychology 13 (4): 947-972. 2021.This essay presents the conditional probability of co-contribution account of the individuation of cognitive systems (CPC) and argues that CPC provides an attractive basis for a theory of the cognitive self. The argument proceeds in a largely indirect way, by emphasizing empirical challenges faced by an approach that relies entirely on predictive processing (PP) mechanisms to ground a theory of the cognitive self. Given the challenges faced by PP-based approaches, we should prefer a theory of th…Read more
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28Review of Nicholas Shea's Representation in Cognitive Science (review)Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 92 (C): 260-263. 2022.
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413Epistemic value in the subpersonal valeSynthese 198 (10): 9243-9272. 2020.A vexing problem in contemporary epistemology—one with origins in Plato’s Meno—concerns the value of knowledge, and in particular, whether and how the value of knowledge exceeds the value of mere true opinion. The recent literature is deeply divided on the matter of how best to address the problem. One point, however, remains unquestioned: that if a solution is to be found, it will be at the personal level, the level at which states of subjects or agents, as such, appear. We take exception to th…Read more
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441This essay explores the connection between theories of the self and theories of self-knowledge, arguing (a) that empirical results strongly support a certain negative thesis about the self, a thesis about what the self isn’t, and (b) that a more promising account of the self makes available unorthodox – but likely apt – ways of characterizing self-knowledge. Regarding (a), I argue that the human self does not appear at a personal level the autonomous (or quasi-autonomous) status of which might p…Read more
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425Embodiment, Consciousness, and Neurophenomenology: Embodied Cognitive Science Puts the (First) Person in Its PlaceJournal of Consciousness Studies 22 (3-4): 148-180. 2015.This paper asks about the ways in which embodimentoriented cognitive science contributes to our understanding of phenomenal consciousness. It is first argued that central work in the field of embodied cognitive science does not solve the hard problem of consciousness head on. It is then argued that an embodied turn toward neurophenomenology makes no distinctive headway on the puzzle of consciousness; for neurophenomenology either concedes dualism in the face of the hard problem or represents onl…Read more
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660What Is a Cognitive System? In Defense of the Conditional Probability of Co-contribution AccountCognitive Semantics 5 (2): 175-200. 2019.A theory of cognitive systems individuation is presented and defended. The approach has some affinity with Leonard Talmy's Overlapping Systems Model of Cognitive Organization, and the paper's first section explores aspects of Talmy's view that are shared by the view developed herein. According to the view on offer -- the conditional probability of co-contribution account (CPC) -- a cognitive system is a collection of mechanisms that contribute, in overlapping subsets, to a wide variety of forms …Read more
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547Group Minds and Natural KindsAvant: Trends in Interdisciplinary Studies. forthcoming.The claim is frequently made that structured collections of individuals who are themselves subjects of mental and cognitive states – such collections as courts, countries, and corporations – can be, and often are, subjects of mental or cognitive states. And, to be clear, advocates for this so-called group-minds hypothesis intend their view to be interpreted literally, not metaphorically. The existing critical literature casts substantial doubt on this view, at least on the assumption that groups…Read more
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400The Self in the Age of Cognitive Science: Decoupling the Self from the Personal LevelPhilosophic Exchange 2018. 2018.Philosophers of mind commonly draw a distinction between the personal level – the distinctive realm of conscious experience and reasoned deliberation – and the subpersonal level, the domain of mindless mechanism and brute cause and effect. Moreover, they tend to view cognitive science through the lens of this distinction. Facts about the personal level are given a priori, by introspection, or by common sense; the job of cognitive science is merely to investigate the mechanistic basis of these fa…Read more
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947Representation and mental representationPhilosophical Explorations 21 (2): 204-225. 2018.This paper engages critically with anti-representationalist arguments pressed by prominent enactivists and their allies. The arguments in question are meant to show that the “as-such” and “job-description” problems constitute insurmountable challenges to causal-informational theories of mental content. In response to these challenges, a positive account of what makes a physical or computational structure a mental representation is proposed; the positive account is inspired partly by Dretske’s vi…Read more
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1150Embodiment, Consciousness, and the Massively Representational MindPhilosophical Topics 39 (1): 99-120. 2011.In this paper, I claim that extant empirical data do not support a radically embodied understanding of the mind but, instead, suggest (along with a variety of other results) a massively representational view. According to this massively representational view, the brain is rife with representations that possess overlapping and redundant content, and many of these represent other mental representations or derive their content from them. Moreover, many behavioral phenomena associated with attention…Read more
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147Cognitive Systems and the Extended MindOup Usa. 2009.Robert Rupert argues against the view that human cognitive processes comprise elements beyond the boundary of the organism, developing a systems-based conception in place of this extended view. He also argues for a conciliatory understanding of the relation between the computational approach to cognition and the embedded and embodied views.
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184Systems, Functions, and Intrinsic Natures: On Adams and Aizawa's The Bounds of Cognition (review)Philosophical Psychology 23 (1): 113-123. 2010.This Article does not have an abstract
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342The functionalist's bodyAvant: Trends in Interdisciplinary Studies 5 (2): 258-268. 2014.Interview with professor Robert D Rupert.
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199On the relationship between naturalistic semantics and individuation criteria for terms in a language of thoughtSynthese 117 (1): 95-131. 1998.Naturalistically minded philosophers hope to identify a privileged nonsemantic relation that holds between a mental representation m and that which m represents, a relation whose privileged status underwrites the assignment of reference to m. The naturalist can accomplish this task only if she has in hand a nonsemantic criterion for individuating mental representations: it would be question-begging for the naturalist to characterize m, for the purpose of assigning content, as 'the representation…Read more
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124Innateness and the situated mindIn Murat Aydede & P. Robbins (eds.), The Cambridge Handbook of Situated Cognition, Cambridge University Press. pp. 96--116. 2008.forthcoming in P. Robbins and M. Aydede (eds.), The Cambridge Handbook of Situated Cognition (Cambridge UP)
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2034Challenges to the hypothesis of extended cognitionJournal of Philosophy 101 (8): 389-428. 2004.
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499I respond to Karola Stotz's criticisms of my previously published challenges to the inference from developmental systems theory to an extended view of cognition.
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489Embodied Functionalism and Inner Complexity: Simon’s 21st-Century MindIn Roger Frantz & Leslie Marsh (eds.), Minds, Models and Milieux: Commemorating the Centennial of the Birth of Herbert Simon, Palgrave-macmillan. 2016.This chapter argues that Simon anticipated what has emerged as the consensus view about human cognition: embodied functionalism. According to embodied functionalism, cognitive processes appear at a distinctively cognitive level; types of cognitive processes (such as proving a theorem) are not identical to kinds of neural processes, because the former can take various physical forms in various individual thinkers. Nevertheless, the distinctive characteristics of such processes — their causal stru…Read more
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53Review of J. T. Ismael, The Situated Self (review)Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2007 (10). 2007.
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291Minding one's cognitive systems: When does a group of minds constitute a single cognitive unit?Episteme 1 (3): 177-188. 2005.The possibility of group minds or group mental states has been considered by a number of authors addressing issues in social epistemology and related areas (Goldman 2004, Pettit 2003, Gilbert 2004, Hutchins 1995). An appeal to group minds might, in the end, do indispensable explanatory work in the social or cognitive sciences. I am skeptical, though, and this essay lays out some of the reasons for my skepticism. The concerns raised herein constitute challenges to the advocates of group minds (or…Read more
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67Coining Terms In The Language of ThoughtJournal of Philosophy 98 (10): 499-530. 2001.Robert Cummins argues that any causal theory of mental content (CT) founders on an established fact of human psychology: that theory mediates sensory detection. He concludes,
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718Supersizing the Mind: Embodiment, Action, and Cognitive Extension (review)Journal of Mind and Behavior 30 (4). 2009.For well over two decades, Andy Clark has been gleaning theoretical lessons from the leading edge of cognitive science, applying a combination of empirical savvy and philosophical instinct that few can match. Clark’s most recent book, Supersizing the Mind: Embodiment, Action, and Cognitive Extension, brilliantly expands his oeuvre. It offers a well-informed and focused survey of research in the burgeoning field of situated cognition, a field that emphasizes the contribution of environmental and …Read more
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966The Sufficiency of Objective RepresentationIn Uriah Kriegel (ed.), Current Controversies in Philosophy of Mind, Routledge. 2013.
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