Davidson aims to explain how it is that we come by knowledge of the world, our own minds and other minds, and to show that knowledge of other minds is the more fundamental. A community of minds is the basis of all knowledge and provides the measure of all things. Davidson believes that understanding this will provide a reply to the skeptic. I argue that while Davidson's work may provide a reply to a new (...) skeptical problem, it is not clear how it engages with traditional skeptical problems. In order to better understand Davidson's work in connection with the latter, I suggest that we look to the writing of Wittgenstein. I also suggest that when Davidson writes of knowledge, he is not thinking along traditional lines. Finally, I suggest that, while there exist inferential and perceptual models of our knowledge of another mind, Davidson's work offers yet another model. (shrink)

How do we understand other people’s minds? This is a descriptive problem of other minds, a question concerning the descriptive nature of social cognition or interpersonal understanding. There are currently three prominent approaches to this problem, namely, the theory theory approach, the simulation theory approach and the direct perception approach. Instead of trying to resolve the conflict between them, I will conduct a preliminary exploration concerning the nature of social perception or the experience of (...) seeing other people. TT, ST and DP are all implicitly or explicitly committed to a particular conception of social perception. Thus, it is necessary to look into the nature of social perception in developing a theory of social cognition. I claim that social perception involves the following three characteristics: In social perception, other people are given to us; other people are given as transcendent; other people are given as transcendent but potentially accessible. They respectively constitute the Immediacy constraint, the Transcendence constraint, and the Accessibility constraint on theories of social cognition. I suggest that TT and ST fail to do justice to the Immediacy constraint and the Accessibility constraint, while DP does not pay due attention to the Accessibility constraint. (shrink)

We ordinarily speak of being able to see that there are people on the bus, Students in the class, And children playing in the street. If human beings are understood to be conscious entities, Then one of our ways of knowing that there are other conscious entities in the world besides ourselves is by seeing that there are. We also speak of seeing that he is angry, She is depressed, And so on. It is argued that this is, Indeed, (...) One way of knowing that there are other minds (and, Hence, That the problem of other minds is not a special epistemological problem). What helps to obscure this fact is the confusion between visibility and knowability--The confusion between seeing his pain and seeing that he is in pain. (shrink)

‘How, then, she had asked herself, did one know one thing or another thing about people, sealed as they were?’ So asks Lily Briscoe in To the Lighthouse. It is this question, rather than any concern about pretence or deception, which forms the basis for the philosophical problem of other minds. Responses to this problem have tended to cluster around two solutions: either we know others’ minds through perception; or we know others’ minds through a (...) form of inference. In the first part of this paper I argue that this debate is best understood as concerning the question of whether our knowledge of others’ minds is based on perception or based on evidence. In the second part of the paper I suggest that our ordinary ways of thinking take our knowledge of others’ minds to be both non- evidential and non-perceptual. A satisfactory resolution to the philosophical problem of other minds thus requires us to take seriously the idea that we have a way of knowing about others’ minds which is both non-evidential and non-perceptual. I suggest that our knowledge of others’ minds which is based on their expressions – our expressive knowledge - may fit this bill. (shrink)

This paper reimagines the traditional problem of other minds. On a Cartesian view, the problem involves humans’ inability to perceive other persons’ minds. Similarly, Gilbert Ryle claims that we cannot directly access another’s mind. The paper’s rethinking of the problem of other minds moves beyond these questions of perceptibility and accessibility. It asks whether there are certain groups of people whose minds are systematically misinterpreted, or even denied mentality. It argues that there are. (...) This claim builds off recent work in philosophy and social psychology on epistemic injustice and the role of social categories in mental state attribution. The paper proposes the Problem of the Other’s Mind: the phenomenon of a (relatively) socially privileged person’s inability or lack of desire to understand the mind of a (relatively) socially underprivileged person. (shrink)

It is a simple truth about the English language that we can see or hear or feel what others are thinking or feeling. But it is tempting to think that there is a deeper sense in which we cannot really see or hear or feel these things at all. Rather, what is involved must be a matter of inference or interpretation, for instance. In these remarks, I argue against a variety of ways in which that thought, the thought that we (...) cannot really see or hear or feel what others are thinking or feeling, might be developed. (shrink)

We cannot perceive the minds or experiences of other people, but only their bodies and behaviour. The 'inner' therefore appears to be hidden behind the 'outer' and to be inferred from perceptible behaviour by analogy. Our knowledge of the experiences of others, in comparison with what philosophers think of as self‐knowledge, seems distinctly shaky. Wittgenstein conceived of the 'constitutional uncertainty' of the inner not as a consequence of defective evidence, but as a reflection in the rules of evidence (...) of disagreement in human attitudes and responses that antecede our language‐games. The non‐uniformity in our instinctive reactions of trust and mistrust towards each other is one source of the constitutional uncertainty of psychological concepts. There is no such uncertainty in numerous other language‐games, and that too is determined by the character of our reactions. Indeed, it is tempting to misconstrue the constitutional uncertainty of the mental as confirmation of the idea that the 'inner' is hidden. (shrink)

We resist Schilbach et al.’s characterization of the “social perception” approach to social cognition as a “spectator theory” of other minds. We show how the social perception view acknowledges the crucial role interaction plays in enabling social understanding. We also highlight a dilemma Schilbach et al. face in attempting to distinguish their second person approach from the social perception view.

Since Darwin, the idea of psychological continuity between humans and other animals has dominated theory and research in investigating the minds of other species. Indeed, the field of comparative psychology was founded on two assumptions. First, it was assumed that introspection could provide humans with reliable knowledge about the causal connection between specific mental states and specific behaviors. Second, it was assumed that in those cases in which other species exhibited behaviors similar to our own, similar (...) psychological causes were at work. In this paper, we show how this argument by analogy is flawed with respect to the case of second‐order mental states. As a test case, we focus on the question of how other species conceive of visual attention, and in particular whether chimpanzees interpret seeing as a mentalistic event involving internal states of perception, attention, and belief. We conclude that chimpanzees do not reason about seeing in this manner, and indeed, there is considerable reason to suppose that they do not harbor representations of mental states in general. We propose a reinterpretation model in which the majority of the rich social behaviors that humans and other primates share in common emerged long before the human lineage evolved the psychological means of interpreting those behaviors in mentalistic terms. Although humans, chimpanzees, and most other species may be said to possess mental states, humans alone may have evolved a cognitive specialization for reasoning about such states. (shrink)

The paper uses thompson clark's theory of the relation of perceptual parts and wholes to illuminate certain aspects of our knowledge of other minds. The thesis is that the traditional problem can be usefully broken down into two parts--One of which calls for a better understanding of the logic of perceptual concepts; the other, For a closer look at what happens when we try to take the epistemological skeptic seriously.

McDowell motivates a disjunctive conception of experience in the context of other-minds skepticism, but his conception of other minds has been less frequently discussed. In this paper, I focus on McDowell’s perceptual account of others that emphasizes the primitivity of others’ bodily expressivity and his defense of a common-sense understanding of others. And I suggest that Husserl’s subtle analysis of bodily expressivity not only bears fundamental similarities with McDowell’s but also helps to demonstrate the sense in (...) which McDowell’s emphasis on bodily expressivity can remove some of the grounds for other minds skepticism. I argue that the other’s behavioral manifestation is first and foremost perceived in a salient Gestalt and social perception is inherently infused with a constitutive propensity with which we normally take the other as human person in the first place. In this light, I show that Husserl’s account can better elucidate human expressivity and its intrinsic features, thereby helping to remove some of the props of other-minds skepticism. As a result, I believe it proves fruitful to juxtapose McDowell’s and Husserl’s account of bodily expressivity, so as to alternate the Cartesian picture of other-minds that engenders skeptic anxiety and to secure a common-sense understanding of other people. (shrink)

The theory of mind (ToM) framework has been criticised by emerging alternative accounts. Each alternative begins with the accusation that ToM's validity as a research paradigm rests on the assumption of the ‘unobservability’ of other minds. We argue that the critics' discussion of the unobservability assumption (UA) targets a straw man. We discuss metaphysical, phenomenological, epistemological, and psychological readings of UA and demonstrate that it is not the case that ToM assumes the metaphysical, phenomenological, or epistemological claims. However, (...) ToM supports the psychological UA as a claim about cognitive processes responsible for mindreading. The latter can be interpreted as a claim that (a) neither the other's ‘mindedness’ in general nor the other's particular mental states are observable (i.e. apprehended perceptually); (b) particular mental states are unobservable, whereas some aspects indicative of ‘mindedness’ are observable; (c) some mental states are unobservable but some are also observable. Whereas the critics tend to attribute (a) to ToM, most ToM accounts actually take positions (b) or (c). We conclude that the allegations against ToM for positing UA are seriously misdirected. We further bring out an important stipulation of any account of observability of mental states: mental states are not observable in the same way as the sensory properties of physical objects. (shrink)

The problem of other minds has a distinguished philosophical history stretching back more than two hundred years. Taken at face value, it is an epistemological question: it concerns how we can have knowledge of, or at least justified belief in, the existence of minds other than our own. In recent decades, philosophers, psychologists, neuroscientists, anthropologists and primatologists have debated a related question: how we actually go about attributing mental states to others (regardless of whether we ever (...) achieve knowledge or rational justification in this domain). Until the mid-nineties, the latter debate – which sometimes goes under the name of the “mindreading” debate – was characterized by a fairly clear-cut opposition between two theoretical outlooks: “theory-theory” (TT) and “simulation theory” (ST). Theory-theorists typically argued that we attribute mental states to others on the basis of a “theory of mind” that is either constructed in early infancy and subsequently revised and modified (Gopnik 1996), or else is the result of maturation of innate mindreading “modules” (Baron-Cohen 1995). (shrink)

Why are we conscious? What does consciousness enable us to do that cannot be done by zombies in the dark? This paper argues that introspective consciousness probably co-evolved as a "spandrel" along with our more useful ability to represent the mental states of other people. The first part of the paper defines and motivates a conception of consciousness as a kind of "double vision" – the perception of how things seem to us as well as what they are (...) – along lines recently explored by Peter Carruthers. The second part explains the basic socioepistemic function of consciousness and suggests an evolutionary pathway to this cognitive capacity that begins with predators and prey. The third part discusses the relevance of these considerations to the traditional problem of other minds. (shrink)

In opposition to mainstream theory of mind approaches, some contemporary perceptual accounts of social cognition do not consider the central question of social cognition to be the problem of access to other minds. These perceptual accounts draw heavily on phenomenological philosophy and propose that others' mental states are “directly” given in the perception of the others' expressive behavior. Furthermore, these accounts contend that phenomenological insights into the nature of social perception lead to the dissolution of the (...) access problem. We argue, on the contrary, that the access problem is a genuine problem that must be addressed by any account of social cognition, perceptual or non-perceptual, because we cannot cast the access problem as a false problem without violating certain fundamental intuitions about other minds. We elaborate the fundamental intuitions as three constraints on any theory of social perception: the Immediacy constraint; the Transcendence constraint; and the Accessibility constraint. We conclude with an outline of an account of perceiving other minds that meets the three constraints. (shrink)

Neurophenomena such as central sensitisation, hyperalgesia and allodynia, speak of a brain that is anything but hardwired. The brain's ability to self-organise in staggeringly complex ways forces us to look beyond what turn out to be perceptions of a body-mind reference, ie the idea of a mind is more a story than an actuality. There are mounting criticisms of body-mind dualism, , but with poor understanding of what philosophical narrative can replace it. Clearly, our human condition and pain's unique role (...) in it, is much more unpredictable than we had hitherto thought. This unpredictability dictates that we at least attempt to advance the philosophical debate in the interests of the pain sufferer. Richard Hamilton will investigate other roads of pain from Spinoza to Wittgenstein and Merleau-Ponty. Richard, Horst Ruthrof and David Buchanan will look at how the theory of language has long contended its place beyond the body-mind problem. (shrink)

Although enactive approaches to cognition vary in terms of their character and scope, all endorse several core claims. The first is that cognition is tied to action. The second is that cognition is composed of more than just in-the-head processes; cognitive activities are externalized via features of our embodiment and in our ecological dealings with the people and things around us. I appeal to these two enactive claims to consider a view called “direct social perception” : the idea that (...) we can sometimes perceive features of other minds directly in the character of their embodiment and environmental interactions. I argue that if DSP is true, we can probably also perceive certain features of mental disorders as well. I draw upon the developmental psychologist Daniel Stern’s notion of “forms of vitality”—largely overlooked in these debates—to develop this idea, and I use autism as a case study. I argue further that an enactive approach to DSP can clarify some ways we play a regulative role in shaping the temporal and phenomenal character of the disorder in question, and it may therefore have practical significance for both the clinical and therapeutic encounter. (shrink)

This article describes some of the main arguments for the existence of other minds, and intersubjectivity more generally, that depend upon a transcendental justification. This means that our focus will be largely on ‘continental’ philosophy, not only because of the abiding interest in this tradition in thematising intersubjectivity, but also because transcendental reasoning is close to ubiquitous in continental philosophy. Neither point holds for analytic philosophy. As such, this essay will introduce some of the important contributions of Edmund (...) Husserl, Martin Heidegger, Jean-Paul Sartre, Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Karl-Otto Apel, all of whom use transcendental reasoning as a key part of their analyses of intersubjectivity, and we also consider the work of Peter Strawson who does likewise in the analytic tradition. (shrink)

How do we know about other minds on the basis of perception? The two most common answers to this question are that we literally perceive others’ mental states, or that we infer their mental states on the basis of perceiving something else. In this paper, I argue for a different answer. On my view, we don’t perceive mental states, and yet perceptual experiences often immediately justify mental state attributions. In a slogan: other minds are neither (...) seen nor inferred. I argue that this view offers the best explanation of our deeply equivocal intuitions about perception-based mental state attributions, and also holds substantial interest for the epistemology of perception more generally. (shrink)

One reason why the problem of other minds keeps cropping up in modern philosophy is that we seem to have conflicting intuitions about our access to the mental lives of others. On the one hand, we are inclined to think that it is wrong to claim, like Cartesian dualists must, that the minds of others are essentially inaccessible to direct experience. But on the other hand we feel that it is equally wrong to claim, like the (...) behaviorists, that the mental lives of others are completely accessible to an outside spectator. This paper attempts to address the problem of the accessibility of other minds while staying faithful to both these intuitions. Central to this undertaking is the idea that we express our mental lives in our bodily behavior. With a firm grasp of the notion of expression, as it is developed in the writings of Wittgenstein and Levinas, we can understand how other minds can be directly perceivable and yet retain a certain inaccessibility. The key is to emphasize the difference between the expressive appearance of a human being and the way an object appears in perception. (shrink)

In this paper, I offer an account of our knowledge of other minds based on V. C. Aldrich's account of aesthetic perception, according to which there is a sense in which we literally see other minds.

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 developed, and articulates the notion of 'module' that is in question. Then the second part of the book takes up the challenge of explaining how the sorts of flexibility and creativity that are distinctive of the human mind could possibly be grounded in the operations of a massive number of modules.Peter Carruthers's third aim is to show how the various components of the mind are likely to be linked and interact with one another - indeed, this is crucial to demonstrating how the human mind, together with its familiar capacities, can be underpinned by a massively modular set of mechanisms. He outlines and defends the basic framework of a perception / belief / desire / planning / motor-control architecture, as well as detailing the likely components and their modes of connectivity. Many specific claims about the place within this architecture of natural language, of a mind-reading system, and others are explained and motivated. A number of novel proposals are made in the course of these discussions, one of which is that creative human thought depends upon a prior kind of creativity of action.Written with unusual clarity and directness, and surveying an extensive range of research in cognitive science, this book will be essential reading for anyone with an interest in the nature and organization of the mind. (shrink)

Experiences justify beliefs about our environment. Sometimes the justification is immediate: seeing a red light immediately justifies believing there is a red light. Other times the justification is mediate: seeing a red light justifies believing one should brake in a way that is mediated by background knowledge of traffic signals. How does this distinction map onto the distinction between what is and what isn't part of the content of experience? Epistemic egalitarians think that experiences immediately justify whatever is part (...) of their content. Epistemic elitists deny this and think that there is some further constraint the contents of experience must satisfy to be immediately justified. Here I defend epistemic elitism, propose a phenomenological account of what the further constraint is, and explore the resulting view's consequences for our knowledge of other minds, and in particular for perceptual theories of this knowledge. (shrink)

This paper proposes an empirical hypothesis that in some cases of social interaction we have an immediate perceptual access to others' minds in the perception of their embodied intentionality. Our point of departure is the phenomenological insight that there is an experiential difference in the perception of embodied intentionality and the perception of non-intentionality. The other's embodied intentionality is perceptually given in a way that is different from the givenness of non-intentionality. We claim that the (...) phenomenological difference in the perception of embodied intentionality and non-intentionality translates into an account of how, in some cases of social cognition, we perceive mental properties in the perception of embodied intentionality. The hypothesis derives support from a host of recent empirical studies in social neuroscience which demonstrate the importance of embodied engagements in understanding other minds. These studies reveal that embodied intersubjective interaction often builds on our ability to understand other minds in an immediate perceptual way not adequately investigated by theory-theory (TT) and simulation theories (ST) of mind-reading. We argue that there is a genuine, nontrivial difference in the informational content of the perception of embodied intentionality and the perception of non-intentionality which leads to a further difference in the way information is processed in the case of perception of embodied intentionality as opposed to the perception of non-intentionality. The full significance of such difference is appreciated only within an account of perception which views perception and action as tightly coupled. Thus, we propose an "action-oriented account of social perception" to develop a neurophilosophical account of the perceptual knowledge of other minds. (shrink)

Previous research suggests that how people conceive of minds depends on the culture in which they live, both in determining how they interact with other human minds and how they infer the unseen minds of gods. We use exploratory factor analysis to compare how people from different societies with distinct models of human minds and different religious traditions perceive the minds of humans and gods. In two North American samples (American adults, N = 186; (...) Canadian students, N = 202), we replicated a previously found two‐factor agency/experience structure for both human and divine minds, but in Fijian samples (Indigenous iTaukei Fijians, N = 77; Fijians of Indian descent, N = 214; total N = 679) we found a three‐factor structure, with the additional containing items related to social relationships. Further, Fijians’ responses revealed a different three‐factor structure for human minds and gods’ minds. We used these factors as dimensions in the conception of minds to predict (a) expectations about human and divine tendencies towards punishment and reward; and (b) conception of gods as more embodied (an extension of experience) or more able to know people's thoughts (an extension of agency). We found variation in how these factors predict conceptions of agents across groups, indicating further theory is needed to explain how culturally generated concepts of mind lead to other sorts of social inferences. We conclude that mind perception is shaped by culturally defined social expectations and recommend further work in different cultural contexts to examine the interplay between culture and social cognition. (shrink)

This paper reviews the debate between Carnap and Schrödinger about Hypothesis P (It is not only I who have perceptions and thoughts; other human beings have them too)–a hypothesis that underlies the possibility of doing science. For Schrödinger this hypothesis is not scientifically testable; for Carnap it is. But Schrödinger and Carnap concede too much to each other and miss an alternative understanding: science does not depend on an explicit hypothesis concerning what other human beings see and (...) think; it is simply a practice of communication which anticipates or presupposes the perfect interchangeability of positions amongst the members of the linguistic community. The mentalistic vocabulary of folk-psychology, used by Carnap and Schrödinger, does not take first but last place in this perspective; because it does nothing but express after the event the confidence to which the disputants bear witness regarding a generally successful practice of communication. (shrink)

This paper is positioned within broader scholarly debates about ritual‐religious and psychological elements underlying the phenomenon of altered states of mind in Egyptian Muslim contexts. This research examines the intricate relationships between ritual, consciousness, and the unseen/unknowable world reflected in the imagination and practices of urban and rural communities belonging administratively to the city of Tanta in Egypt. This comparative study proposes that the image of the embodied invisible Other, in both benevolent and malevolent forms, impacts the state of (...) consciousness of persons participating in two different rituals, thezikr(remembrance of God) and thezār(the exorcism of spirits). This inquiry concentrates on the transformation of the states of people's consciousness, namely themajzūb(those mystically attracted to God) and themalbūs(those possessed by spirits), through embodied engagement with the invisible Other that is made visible through participation in the ritual performances of thezikrand/or thezār. Rituals performed by Egyptians, particularly those who experience altered states of consciousness, display both a psychic (emotional) experience and an encounter with the invisible Other that may be depicted as divine or otherwise non‐divine. Each case of thezikrritual andzārcult relates to its participants' perception of reality. (shrink)

Taking an abductive, mixed-methods approach, we explore the content of people’s moral deliberations. In Study 1, we gather qualitative data from small groups of graduate business students discussing moral dilemmas. We analyze their conversations with a focus on how participants perceive others’ thoughts, opinions, and evaluations about the dilemmas and incorporate them into their reasoning. Ascribing such capacities to think and feel to others—i.e., mind perception—is central to morality. We use the conversations in Study 1 to identify whose (...) class='Hi'>minds participants perceive. Study 1 also identifies how particular elements of deliberation—including the exploration of consequences, acknowledging ambivalence, seeking alternative options, the development of deep feelings, and the search for a moral compass—are linked to these perceptions of others’ minds. In Study 2 (an exploratory, online experiment with 378 participants), we find that priming individuals with specific forms of mind perception can influence the elements of moral reasoning they employ, and we find evidence that the presence of elements of reasoning are linked to participants’ final choices in a business-related ethical dilemma. (shrink)

_The Primacy of Perception_ brings together a number of important studies by Maurice Merleau-Ponty that appeared in various publications from 1947 to 1961. The title essay, which is in essence a presentation of the underlying thesis of his _Phenomenology of Perception,_ is followed by two courses given by Merleau-Ponty at the Sorbonne on phenomenological psychology. "Eye and Mind" and the concluding chapters present applications of Merleau-Ponty's ideas to the realms of art, philosophy of history, and politics. Taken together, the (...) studies in this volume provide a systematic introduction to the major themes of Merleau-Ponty's philosophy. (shrink)

The central text of this article is Thomas Reid’s response to Berkeley’s argument for distinguishing tangible from visual shape. Reid is right to hold that shape words do not have different visual and tangible meanings. We might also perceive shape, moreover, with senses other than touch and sight. As Reid also suggests, the visual perception of shape does not require perception of hue or brightness. Contrary to treatments of the Molyneux problem by H. P. Grice and Judith (...) Jarvis Thomson, I argue that breakdowns of a certain kind between tangible and visible shape are conceivable. (shrink)

The sequelae of individual differences in children's understanding of emotions and of other minds were investigated in a longitudinal study of 46 children. At 40 months, differences in the children's understanding of emotions were not significantly related to their ability to explain behaviour in terms of beliefs within a false belief paradigm. Follow-up in kindergarten showed that early emotion understanding was related to children's positive perception of their peer experiences, to their understanding of mixed emotions, and their (...) moral sensibility as kindergarteners. Early understanding of other minds was, in contrast, related to negative initial perceptions of school, and sensitivity to teacher criticism. These differences in sequelae highlight the importance of differentiating the emotional and cognitive components of social understanding in framing developmental questions. (shrink)

In Perception: First Form of Mind, Tyler Burge develops an understanding of the most primitive type of representational mind: perception. Focusing on its form, function, and underlying capacities, as indicated in the sciences of perception, Burge provides an account of the representational content and formal representational structure of perceptual states, and develops a formal semantics for them. The account is elaborated by an explanation of how the representational form is embedded in an iconic format. These structures are (...) then situated in current theoretical accounts of the processing of perceptual representations, with an emphasis on the formation of perceptual categorizations. An exploration of the relationship between perception and other primitive capacities-conation, attention, memory, anticipation, affect, learning, and imagining-clarifies the distinction between perceiving, with its associated capacities, and thinking, with its associated capacities. Drawing on a broad range of historical and contemporary research, rather than relying on introspection or ordinary talk about perception, Perception: First Form of Mind is a scientifically rigorous and agenda-setting work in the philosophy of perception and the philosophy of science. (shrink)

The active inference framework offers an attractive starting point for understanding cultural cognition. Here, we argue that affective dynamics are essential to include when constructing this type of theory. We highlight ways in which interactions between emotional responses and the perception of those responses, both within and between individuals, can play central roles in both motivating and constraining sociocultural practices.

This chapter focuses on sections iv and v of part II of Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations. In these sections Wittgenstein deals with two closely knit problems: our knowledge of other minds and the subject matter of psychology. The interpretation of Wittgenstein’s treatment of these problems cannot remain confined to these sections, however, as equally important references to these problems occur elsewhere in the Investigations as well as in the Remarks on the Philosophy of Psychology. Moreover, Wittgenstein’s very treatment of (...) the two problems is intertwined with his treatment of some other problems in the philosophy of psychology. For instance, in the context of his discussion of the subject matter of psychology, he points out analogies with problems pertaining to theories of perception. I take these analogies seriously and, therefore, a discussion of perception is interwoven as appropriately. Yet another preliminary remark. Although references to other philosophers and psychologists do not occur in sections iv and v, it does not follow that they were not written in response to others. On the contrary, a substantial part of these (and other) sections is the product of reflecting upon theories produced by Russell, James and Köhler. In my view, the best way to understand Wittgenstein is to involve the standpoints of his adversaries explicitly into the discussion. Otherwise seemingly trivial questions and condensed remarks, gain power and depth when explicitly seen as undermining and reversing dominant theories in philosophy and psychology. (shrink)

The study suggests a model for understanding inter-group relations which has combined two psycho-social concepts: perceptions of collective narratives :26–38, 2002) and identity strategies . The model examined two minority groups of Israeli citizens: Palestinian Muslims and Christians, with a representative sample of 1,164 Muslims and 805 Christians, all Israeli citizens, aged 18–65. We used questionnaires which were developed and adapted for the unique population in this study. As expected, members of both groups mostly endorsed integration strategy. Stronger willingness for (...) competition and separation, as well as lower acceptance of the “other” collective narratives, were found among Christian participants compared to their Muslim counterparts. The expected pattern of inter-relations between the two psychosocial concepts was found: integration and assimilation strategies were related to higher rates of acceptance of the out-group collective narratives and to lower levels of legitimization of in-group collective narratives. In the same vein, the opposite pattern was found in the relations between strategies of competition and separation and the perceptions of collective narratives. The discussion focuses on the contribution of the theoretical model and the findings of our study to a better understanding of the complicated inter-group relations between Palestinian Muslims and Christians who are citizens of Israel. (shrink)

The psychology and phenomenology of our knowledge of other minds is not well captured either by describing it simply as perception, nor by describing it simply as inference. A better description, I argue, is that our knowledge of other minds involves both through ‘perceptual co-presentation’, in which we experience objects as having aspects that are not revealed. This allows us to say that we perceive other minds, but perceive them as private, i.e. imperceptible, (...) just as we routinely perceive aspects of physical objects as unperceived. I discuss existing versions of this idea, particularly Joel Smith’s, on which it is taken to imply that our knowledge of other minds is, in these cases, perceptual and not inferential. Against this, I argue that perceptual co-presentation in general, and mind-perception in particular, yields knowledge that is simultaneously both perceptual and inferential. (shrink)

This article argues that the propensity to perceive impossible challenges as doable is a personality trait, and presents a method for measuring it. The name coined for this concept is “possibilitivity,” a portmanteau of “possible” and “creativity.” Possibilitivity is related to such personality traits as self-efficacy and locus of control. This article shows that this trait is embedded in individual cognitive processes, whilst targeting social issues; in this vein, it may be seen as an important mechanism facilitating change-making and transgressing (...) the seemingly impossible. Methodology for assessing this trait is presented, i.e., the process of constructing and validating a questionnaire, its psychometric properties, and some comparisons within the sample. One of the findings is that women are significantly more prone to perceive difficult challenges as doable than men. Seeing this study as the first step, further research recommendations are presented, e.g., comparing possibilitivity between various segments of society, as well as analyzing potential correlations with other traits, e.g., empathy or ambiguity tolerance. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that, according to Peirce’s mature account of perception, we directly perceive generals, or "Thirds," in external reality which should be described as physical and not as mental. I argue against three other interpretations of the role of Thirdness in Peirce’s account: (I) we do not directly perceive Thirds, although they are involved in the interpretive and judgmental part of perception; (II) we directly perceive Thirds, but they are imposed on external objects by (...) our minds; and (III) we directly perceive Thirds in external objects, but external reality is comprised of the representations of an objective mind. I address questions about the role of the percept and the percipuum in his account, in what exact sense he thought that perception is interpretive, and how he thought it is even possible to directly perceive generals in the external world. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:94 HUME ON THE PERCEPTION OF CAUSALITY Introduction Few issues in philosophy have generated as much debate and as little agreement as Hume's controversial theory of causality. The theory itself has been notoriously difficult to pin down, and not surprisingly empirical evidence has played a very minor role in the issue of what is meant by 'cause'. This is not, however, due to the fact that empirical tests (...) of the theory are hard to devise, but rather because such tests have usually been undertaken by experimental psychologists addressing slightly different issues and unaware of the philosophical implications of their work. However, recent signs of agreement on the overall nature of the theory (reviewed in Beauchamp and Rosenberg, chapter 1) allow a profitable integration of the theory with psychological research on the nature and importance of the perception of causal relations in conditioning. The significance of some of these experiments will be discussed later, and it will be argued that the factors Hume cited as being the essential determinants of causality, when complemented by the additional factor of the degree of contingency between the cause and the effect, correspond exactly with the factors known to affect conditioning; and therefore, that the laws of conditioning specify the properties that define causal relationships. Hume's Theory of Causality Hume was well aware of the importance of causal connections between events as a source of associations in the mind: 95 'Tis sufficient to observe, that there is no relation, which produces a stronger connexion in the fancy, and makes one idea more readily recall another, than the relation of cause and effect betwixt their objects (T II).2 In other words, if we believe a causal relationship exists between two events, then one of these events, the cause, will readily recall the other, the effect. The problem comes, of course, when we ask how it is that we know that a causal relationship exists. Obviously, a distinction must be made between causation as a physical property and causality as a mental idea. Traditionally, the following definitions have been made: causation is the physical property of one event causing another, such as one ball colliding with and causing the movement of a second ball. This property is part of the realm of mechanics and physics. Causality, on the other hand, describes the attribution by an organism of an effect to a cause. Such a distinction is supported by dictionary definitions. These two ways of thinking of what is meant by the term 'cause' are explicitly discussed by Hume. On the notion of physical causation, he says: We may define a CAUSE to be 'An object precedent and contiguous to another, and where all the objects resembling the former are plac'd in like relations of precedency and contiguity to those objects, that resemble the latter.' Of the mental idea of a causal relationship, on the other hand, he says: A CAUSE is an object precedent and contiguous to another, and so united with it, that the idea of the one determines the mind to form the idea of the other, and the impression of the one to form a more lively idea of the other. (T 170) Unfortunately, Hume was never less than imprecise in maintaining this dissociation, and often 96 he plainly confused the two definitions. Hence the academic controversy, between those who, like Kemp Smith, believe that the second definition represents a misguided attempt by Hume to analyse the causal relation on a mental level, 3 and those who see both definitions as essential (e.g. Beauchamp and Rosenberg). But surely the first definition simply represents Hume's view of causality as a philosophical relation, while the second represents his view of it as a psychological fact. And it is as much his intention to explain this fact, that ideas do not simply come into our heads for no apparent reason, but on the contrary are summoned up by preceding thoughts which they are associated, as it is to elucidate the philosophical relation. The extent of Hume's commitment to a psychological explanation of causal attribution has been recognised by Beauchamp and Rosenberg: 5 Hume plainly did develop a theory of causal... (shrink)

There is widely assumed to be a fundamental epistemological asymmetry between self-knowledge and knowledge of others. They are said to be ’categorically different in kind and manner’ , and the existence of such an asymmetry is taken to be a primitive datum in accounts of the two kinds of knowledge. I argue that standard accounts of the differences between self-knowledge and knowledge of others exaggerate and misstate the asymmetry. The inferentialist challenge to the asymmetry focuses on the extent to which (...) both self-knowledge and knowledge of others are matters of inference and interpretation. In the case of self-knowledge I focus on the so-called ‘transparency method’ and on the extent to which use of this method delivers inferential self-knowledge. In the case of knowledge of others’ thoughts, I discuss the role of perception as a source of such knowledge and argue that even so-called ’perceptual’ knowledge of other minds is inferential. I contend that the difference between self-knowledge and knowledge of others is a difference in the kinds of evidence on which they are typically based. (shrink)

Six hundred three people completed a survey measuring perceptions of traditional areas of philosophical inquiry and their relationship to empirical science. The ten areas studied were: aesthetics, epistemology, ethics, history of philosophy, logic, metaphysics, philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, philosophy of science, and political philosophy. For each area, participants rated whether it is currently central to philosophy, whether its centrality depends on integration with science, and whether work in the area is sufficiently integrated with science. Centrality judgments tended to (...) be high. Participants viewed nine of the ten areas as central to philosophy, although they made this judgment more confidently for some areas. Dependence judgments were more varied, ranging from clear disagreement to clear agreement. Integration judgments were also varied but exhibited more uncertainty. Some areas whose centrality depended on integration were judged to be well integrated, but a central tendency for all other areas was ambivalence. Demographic factors had small but statistically significant effects on all three sorts of judgment. Higher age predicted higher centrality judgments and higher integration judgments. Higher socioeconomic status predicted lower dependence judgments and higher integration judgments. Men recorded higher integration judgments. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:150 PERCEPTIONS, OBJECTS AND THE NATURE OF MIND In this paper I consider the relation between perceptions and objects for Hume and the bearing which this has on his conception of the mind as composed of perceptions. But first it is necessary to distinguish at least two senses in which he uses the term 'object'. In the first, "perceptions of the human mind" — both impressions and ideas — (...) are referred to as "our objects" (T 1,2). Objects in this sense are intentional objects. Hume almost consistently uses the noun 'perception', rarely the verb 'to perceive'. This serves to emphasize that for him perception is an object, not the perceiving of an object — a departure from the tradition of Locke and Berkeley for whom perceptions are cognitive acts having objects. That perception is not conceived by Hume as a cognitive act or form of awareness but purely as an object of awareness is evident when he says, For since all actions and sensations of the mind are known to us by consciousness, they must necessarily appear in every particular what they are, and be what they appear. Everything that enters the mind, being in reality a perception, 'tis impossible anything shou'd to feeling appear different. This were to suppose, that even when we are most intimately conscious, we might be mistaken (T 190). 1 Or again, "The only existences, of which we are certain, are perceptions, which being immediately present to us by consciousness, command our strongest assent...." (T 212). In its other sense the term 'object' is used to denote bodies, or that to which we attribute a continued existence "distinct from the mind and perception", or, borrowing Locke's expression "external 151 objects". It is just because we attribute a continued and independent existence to bodies that we distinguish them from perceptions, for "all impressions are internal and perishing existences, and appear as such" (T 194). But while we make this distinction in our everyday role of common man, the difference between a perception and an (external) object is really only a difference between two types of perceptions, on the one hand those that are characterized in their occurrence by constancy and coherence, and on the other those, for example the passions, which exhibit a different type of "regularity" in their occurrence (T 195). The constancy and coherence which some perceptions exhibit, together with a natural tendency of the mind "to bestow on the objects a greater regularity than what is observ'd in our mere perceptions" (T 197) causes us to attribute to these perceptions an uninterrupted and independent existence, an existence which is, of course, fictitious, because all perceptions are really internal and perishing. 'Tis certain, that almost all mankind, and even philosophers themselves, for the greatest part of their lives, take their perceptions to be their only objects, and suppose, that the very being, which is intimately present to the mind, is the real body or material existence (T 206). This is not to say, however, that "what any common man means by a hat, or shoe, or stone" (T 202) he also believes to be a perception. What he does believe is that the hat or the shoe is immediately present to the mind, or directly appears to his consciousness. It is Hume, the philosopher, who is here interposing the philosophical doctrine that "no beings are ever present to the mind but perceptions" (T 212). This is, of course, not an empirical generalization. It is the definition of a perception as "whatever can be present 152 to the mind" (Abstract 647). It is this definition which gives sense to the statement "their perceptions are their only objects", the term "objects" here referring to "external objects". And the common man would, no doubt, be surprised to learn that these hats, shoes, etc., which directly appear to his consciousness, are by that circumstance really only his own perceptions which he has imagined, falsely, to have a continued and independent existence. Only a few experiments, however, are needed for the philosopher to realize that perceptions, i.e., what is present to the mind, do not have a continued and independent existence. Unable to give up his vulgar... (shrink)

Mind perception entails ascribing mental capacities to other entities, whereas moral judgment entails labeling entities as good or bad or actions as right or wrong. We suggest that mind perception is the essence of moral judgment. In particular, we suggest that moral judgment is rooted in a cognitive template of two perceived minds—a moral dyad of an intentional agent and a suffering moral patient. Diverse lines of research support dyadic morality. First, perceptions of mind are linked (...) to moral judgments: dimensions of mind perception (agency and experience) map onto moral types (agents and patients), and deficits of mind perception correspond to difficulties with moral judgment. Second, not only are moral judgments sensitive to perceived agency and experience, but all moral transgressions are fundamentally understood as agency plus experienced suffering—that is, interpersonal harm—even ostensibly harmless acts such as purity violations. Third, dyadic morality uniquely accounts for the phenomena of dyadic completion (seeing agents in response to patients, and vice versa), and moral typecasting (characterizing others as either moral agents or moral patients). Discussion also explores how mind perception can unify morality across explanatory levels, how a dyadic template of morality may be developmentally acquired, and future directions. (shrink)

It seems to me certain that the perception of foreign bodies of a certain sort, although a necessary, is not the only, part of the basis of our belief in other persons. The greatest disagreement with this view that I know of has been expressed by Professor Aaron in a paper published in Philosophy , XIX, 72. He claims that, since one does not really know “what it means to be a mind in one's own case,” the question (...) whether we can be certain that there are other minds is meaningless except as reducible to the question whether such propositions as “Robinson exists” are propositions which we can be certain about. And he tries to show that no more is involved in the analysis of “Robinson exists” than would be involved in the analysis of propositions of whose truth we can be perceptually certain, such as “That table over there exists” or “The Eiffel Tower exists.” My assurance that Robinson exists is not the assurance that something called Robinson's mind exists. It is the perfectly ordinary perceptual assurance that ‘the person over there’ exists. “You ask me how I am certain that Robinson exists and I answer, ‘Well, look, there he is.’ It would be absurd for anyone to say that he does not exist when I see him here before me and hear him talk and watch him move that chair.”. (shrink)

We can know some things about each others' mental lives. The view that some of this knowledge is genuinely perceptual is getting traction. But the idea that we can see any of each others' mental states themselves - the Simple Perceptual Hypothesis - remains unpopular. Very often the view that we can perceptually know, for example, that James is angry, is thought to depend either on our awareness of James' expression or on the way James appears - versions of what (...) I call the Expressive Hypothesis. The Expressive Hypothesis is intuitive. But in this chapter I argue that it does not allow us to do away with the thought that we sometimes perceive people's mental states. I take my arguments to provide some tentative support for the Simple Perceptual Hypothesis. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Movements of the Mind. A Theory of Attention, Intention and Action by Wayne WuDiego D’AngeloWU, Wayne. Movements of the Mind. A Theory of Attention, Intention and Action. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2023. 257 pp. Cloth, $80.00Wayne Wu presented a theory of attention as selection-for-action in 2014. According to this theory, given a behavioral space in which the agent has multiple inputs and outputs to choose from, attention involves (...) the selection of a particular course of action, that is, of certain outputs based on certain inputs. In the present work Wu puts to use the selection-for-action theory to shed light on the broader topic of the “movements of the mind”: intentionality and action. Action and movement are mostly not intended as bodily movement: By focusing on mental actions Wu aims to simplify philosophical explanations. His overall theoretical approach remains consistent with his work on attention, which involves a quest to develop rigorous philosophical concepts while incorporating insights from the empirical sciences. Interestingly, biology takes precedence over cognitive sciences and psychology for him; he says, “I aspire to a biology of agency” in which philosophical analysis must respond to “empirical friction.” In this framework, this book puts forth four main claims. The first concerns the general structure of action—action arises from solving a selection problem. Second, intentional actions can be differentiated from unintentional actions using the concepts of automaticity and control. Third, Wu argues that attention is a necessary aspect of every theory of action. Fourth, he claims that intention is practical memory for action. These four are woven throughout the different chapters of his book.The first part analyzes the structure of action along three axes: how the agent “takes things to be” as the basis for selection, the agent’s response to those things, and the biases that explain the link between perceptions and responses. In the second part, Wu presents a theory of intention as practical memory. The theory is surprising, as Wu himself acknowledges when he says, “The approach to intention will, I think, jar many readers.” And indeed, it does, but Wu provides strong arguments, and future work will determine if the theory is feasible. The third part of the book explores the implications of his theory of action for specific forms and aspects of action; the first chapter in this section deals with automaticity and biases, [End Page 734] the second deals with deductive reasoning, and the third deals with introspection.According to Wu’s theory, action involves a complex combination of elements. The agent is faced with many inputs and potential outputs within a behavioral space. She takes inputs in a certain way: The way she sees things is influenced by myriad aspects, such as intentions and biases of various forms. Action and intending to act are solutions to the problem of selecting appropriate inputs and outputs. Wu thematizes the role of attention in this process of selection. Attention comes in three different forms. It can be an action itself (“attending,” for example, in searching for something); it can mean “vigilance” as readiness to act; and most importantly, attention is “mental guidance.” Every action is guided by attention insofar as a selection problem must be solved: Attention is guiding when perceptual input “plays a functional role of guiding.” Attention also shapes the agent’s actions through remembering, and remembering in turn is nothing else then attending to remembered content. This attended content provides the agent with biases and reasons to select a particular course of action. Therefore, intending to act is nothing else than practical memory, that is, memory put to work in the choice of actions.One particular type of action that is crucially important for philosophical research is introspection. According to Wu, introspection, like every kind of mental action, is not entirely reliable—as some theories would have it—or entirely unreliable but, instead, depends on context. Like any other action, introspection follows the same guiding principle, attention, specifically, perceptual attention. Therefore, introspection is a particular type of perceptual experience where attention is focused on one’s own mental states. In this way, Wu establishes criteria for veridical introspective reports, such... (shrink)

In his article ‘Folk Psychological and Phenomenological Accounts of Social Perception’ (this issue), Mitchell Herschbach raises some critical questions concerning our phenomenological approach to intersubjectivity. We welcome Herschbach's comments in the spirit of constructive criticism, but also think that he has missed some crucial aspects of our argumentation. We take this opportunity to amplify and clarify our views.

Human coalitions frequently persist through multiple, overlapping membership generations, requiring new members to cooperate and coordinate with veteran members. Does the mind contain psychological adaptations for interacting within these intergenerational coalitions? In this paper, we examine whether the mind spontaneously treats newcomers as a motivationally privileged category. Newcomers—though capable of benefiting coalitions—may also impose considerable costs (e.g., they may free ride on other members, they may be poor at completing group tasks). In three experiments we show (1) that the (...) mind categorizes coalition members by tenure, including newcomers; (2) that tenure categorization persists in the presence of orthogonal and salient social dimensions; and (3) that newcomers elicit a pattern of impressions consistent with their probable ancestral costs. These results provide preliminary evidence for a specialized component of human coalitional psychology: an evolved concept of newcomer. (shrink)