In this book, Daniel Hutto and Erik Myin promote the cause of a radically enactive, embodied approach to cognition that holds that some kinds of minds -- basic minds -- are neither best explained by processes involving the manipulation of ...

Established wisdom in cognitive science holds that the everyday folk psychological abilities of humans -- our capacity to understand intentional actions performed for reasons -- are inherited from our evolutionary forebears. In _Folk Psychological Narratives_, Daniel Hutto challenges this view and argues for the sociocultural basis of this familiar ability. He makes a detailed case for the idea that the way we make sense of intentional actions essentially involves the construction of narratives about particular persons. Moreover he argues that (...) children acquire this practical skill only by being exposed to and engaging in a distinctive kind of narrative practice. Hutto calls this developmental proposal the narrative practice hypothesis. Its core claim is that direct encounters with stories about persons who act for reasons supply children with both the basic structure of folk psychology and the norm-governed possibilities for wielding it in practice. In making a strong case for the as yet underexamined idea that our understanding of reasons may be socioculturally grounded, Hutto not only advances and explicates the claims of the NPH, but he also challenges certain widely held assumptions. In this way, _Folk Psychological Narratives_ both clears conceptual space around the dominant approaches for an alternative and offers a groundbreaking proposal. (shrink)

Concentrating on their treatment of folk psychology, this paper seeks to establish that, in the form advocated by its leading proponents, the Canberra project is presumptuous in certain key respects. Crucially, it presumes (1) that our everyday practices entail the existence of implicit folk theories; (2) that naturalists ought to be interested primarily in what such theories say; and (3) that the core content of such theories is adequately characterized by establishing what everyone finds intuitively obvious about the topics in (...) question. I argue these presumptions are a bad starting point for any naturalistic project and, more specifically, that in framing things in this way proponents of the Canberra plan have led us unnecessarily into philosophical quagmires. (shrink)

This paper introduces this special issue which is focused on its target paper - The Natural Origins of Content. The target paper has had a robust and considered set of fifteen replies; a literal A to Z of papers. This extended introduction explains the background thinking and challenges that motivated the target article's proposed research programme. It also provides a sneak peak preview and navigational aid to the special issue’s contents. Brief highlights of each commentary are provided and they are (...) grouped together under broad headings. We do not attempt to give detailed replies to these suggestions or answer the various critiques at this stage of the proceedings: that is for future work. (shrink)

This paper responds to Alva Noë’s general critique of Radical Enactivism. In particular, it responds to his claim that Radical Enactivism denies experience, presence and the world. We clarify Radical Enactivism’s actual arguments and positive commitments in this regard. Finally, we assess how Radical Enactvism stands up in comparison with Noë’s own version of Sensorimotor Knowledge Enactivism.

Human beings, even very young infants, and members of several other species, exhibit remarkable capacities for attending to and engaging with others. These basic capacities have been the subject of intense research in developmental psychology, cognitive psychology, comparative psychology, neuroscience, and philosophy of mind over the last several decades. Appropriately characterizing the exact level and nature of these abilities and what lies at their basis continues to prove a tricky business. The contributions to this special issue investigate whether and to (...) what extent the exercise of such capacities count as, or are best explained by, a genuine understanding of minds, where such understanding depends on the creatures in question possessing capacities for attributing a range of mental states and their contents in systematic ways. The question that takes center stage is: Do the capacities for attending to and engaging with others in question involve mindreading or is this achieved by other means? In this editorial we will review the state of the debate between mindreading and alternative accounts of social cognition. The issue is organized as follows: the first two papers review the experimental literature on mindreading in primates (Bermúdez) and children (Low & Wang), and the kinds of arguments made for mindreading and alternative accounts of social cognition. The next set of papers (Hedger & Fabricius, Lurz & Krachun, Zawidzki, and de Bruin et al.) further critique the existing experimental data and defend various mindreading and non-mindreading accounts. The final set of papers address further issues raised by phenomenological (Jacob, Zahavi), enactive (Michael), and embodied (Spaulding) accounts of social cognition. (shrink)

E-approaches to the mind stress the embodied, embedded and enactive nature of mental phenomena. In their more radical, non-representational variants these approaches offer innovative and powerful new ways of understanding fundamental modes of intersubjective social interaction: I-approaches. While promising, E and I accounts have natural limits. In particular, they are unable to explain human competence in making sense of reasons for actions in folk-psychological terms. In this paper I outline the core features of the 'Narrative Practice Hypothesis' (NPH), showing how (...) it might take up that burden in a way which complements non-representationalist E and I accounts. I conclude by addressing a new-order eliminativist challenge from Ratcliffe that questions, inter alia, the very idea that there is anything like a well-defined folk-psychological competence that needs explaining, thereby rendering the NPH otiose. Additionally, I respond to Ratcliffe's claim that the relevant structures needed for the development of that competence do not reveal themselves in relevant narratives, rendering the NPH's developmental story impossible. (shrink)

This paper explicates Wittgenstein's vision of our place in nature and shows in what ways it is unlike and more fruitful than the picture of nature promoted by exclusive scientific naturalists. Wittgenstein's vision of nature is bound up with and supports his signature view that the task of philosophy is distinctively descriptive rather than explanatory. Highlighting what makes Wittgenstein's vision of nature special, it has been claimed that to the extent that he qualifies as a naturalist of any sort he (...) ought to be regarded as a liberal naturalist. We argue, in contrast, that focusing solely on the liberality of Wittgenstein's view of nature risks overlooking and downplaying the ways in which his philosophical clarifications can act as a platform for productively engaging with the sciences in their explanatory endeavors. We argue that Wittgenstein's vision of nature allows for a more relaxed form of naturalism in which philosophy can be a productive partner for scientific inquiry and investigation. Although this feature of Wittgenstein's vision of nature is not something that he himself emphasized, given his interests and concerns, it is an inspiring vision in an age in which philosophy must find its feet with and alongside the sciences. (shrink)

On a Dreyfusian account performers choke when they reflect upon and interfere with established routines of purely embodied expertise. This basic explanation of choking remains popular even today and apparently enjoys empirical support. Its driving insight can be understood through the lens of diverse philosophical visions of the embodied basis of expertise. These range from accounts of embodied cognition that are ultra conservative with respect to representational theories of cognition to those that are more radically embodied. This paper provides an (...) account of the acquisition of embodied expertise, and explanation of the choking effect, from the most radically enactive, embodied perspective, spelling out some of its practical implications and addressing some possible philosophical challenges. Specifically, we propose: an explanation of how skills can be acquired on the basis of ecological dynamics; and a non-linear pedagogy that takes into account how contentful representations might scaffold skill acquisition from a radically enactive perspective. (shrink)

The human world is replete with narratives - narratives of our making that are uniquely appreciated by us. Some thinkers have afforded special importance to our capacity to generate such narratives, seeing it as variously enabling us to: exercise our imaginations in unique ways; engender an understanding of actions performed for reasons; and provide a basis for the kind of reflection and evaluation that matters vitally to moral and self development. Perhaps most radically, some hold that narratives are essential for (...) the constitution of human selves. This volume brings together nine original contributions in which the individual authors advance, develop and challenge proposals of these kinds. They critically examine the place and importance of narratives in human lives and consider the underlying capacities that permit us to produce and utilise these special artifacts. All of the papers are written in a non-technical and accessible style. (shrink)

This commentary will seek to clarify certain core features of Thompson’s proposal about the enactive nature of basic mentality, as best it can, and to bring his ideas into direct conversation with accounts of basic cognition of the sort favoured by analytical philosophers of mind and more traditional cognitive scientists – i.e. those who tend to be either suspicious or critical of enactive/embodied approaches (to the extent that they confess to understanding them at all). My proposed way of opening up (...) this sort of dialogue is to concentrate on the close similarities between Thompson’s biologically-based proposal about non-representational forms of basic cognition and what I take to be a reasonable modification to the ambitions of teleosemantic theories of content. Insofar as today’s theories of mental representation are less concerned to understand content in properly semantic terms they are moving ever closer to the sorts of account proposed by enactivists of the Thompsonian stripe – close enough to have meaningful debates about the nature of basic mentality. It is against this backdrop that I put a spotlight on the true promise and value of enactivism, providing some compelling reasons for wanting to go Thompson’s way. (shrink)

An extended argument that cognitive phenomena—perceiving, imagining, remembering—can be best explained in terms of an interface between contentless and content-involving forms of cognition. -/- Evolving Enactivism argues that cognitive phenomena—perceiving, imagining, remembering—can be best explained in terms of an interface between contentless and content-involving forms of cognition. Building on their earlier book Radicalizing Enactivism, which proposes that there can be forms of cognition without content, Daniel Hutto and Erik Myin demonstrate the unique explanatory advantages of recognizing that only some (...) forms of cognition have content while others—the most elementary ones—do not. They offer an account of the mind in duplex terms, proposing a complex vision of mentality in which these basic contentless forms of cognition interact with content-involving ones. -/- Hutto and Myin argue that the most basic forms of cognition do not, contrary to a currently popular account of cognition, involve picking up and processing information that is then used, reused, stored, and represented in the brain. Rather, basic cognition is contentless—fundamentally interactive, dynamic, and relational. In advancing the case for a radically enactive account of cognition, Hutto and Myin propose crucial adjustments to our concept of cognition and offer theoretical support for their revolutionary rethinking, emphasizing its capacity to explain basic minds in naturalistic terms. They demonstrate the explanatory power of the duplex vision of cognition, showing how it offers powerful means for understanding quintessential cognitive phenomena without introducing scientifically intractable mysteries into the mix. (shrink)

Historically, the philosophy of language has held pride of place in the analytical tradition. In fact, it would be safe to say that for a long time it had been unquestioningly regarded as first philosophy. The reason for this is twofold. Firstly, many analytical philosophers held (and many still hold) that we could only get at the underlying nature of our world by understanding the nature of thought. And secondly, they held (and many still hold) that we could only understand (...) the nature of thought by "an analysis of its linguistic expression" (Dummett, 1993, p. 154). Dummett recently goes so far as to tells us that the latter assumption is the fundamental axiom of analytical philosophy. (shrink)

Unlike standard attempts to address the so-called ‘hard problem’ of consciousness, which assume our understanding of consciousness is unproblematic, this book begins by focusing on phenomenology and is devoted to clarifying the relations between intentionality, propositional content and experience. In particular, it argues that the subjectivity of experience cannot be understood in representationalist terms. This is important, for it is because many philosophers fail to come to terms with subjectivity that they are at a loss to provide a convincing solution (...) to the mind-body problem. In this light the metaphysical problem is revealed to be a product of the misguided attempt to incorporate consciousness within an object-based schema, inspired by physicalism. A similar problem arises in the interpretation of quantum mechanics and this gives us further reason to look beyond physicalism, in matters metaphysical. Thus the virtues of absolute idealism are re-examined, as are the wider consequences of adopting its understanding of truth within the philosophy of science. View SWIF Book forum with precis, commentaries and replies - link below. (shrink)

The Narrative Practice Hypothesis (NPH) is a recently conceived, late entrant into the contest of trying to understand the basis of our mature folk psychological abilities, those involving our capacity to explain ourselves and comprehend others in terms of reasons. This paper aims to clarify its content, importance and scientific plausibility by: distinguishing its conceptual features from those of its rivals, articulating its philosophical significance, and commenting on its empirical prospects. I begin by clarifying the NPH's target explanandum and the (...) challenge it presents to theory theory (TT), simulation theory (ST) and hybrid combinations of these theories. The NPH competes with them directly for the same explanatory space insofar as these theories purport to explain the core structural basis of our folk psychological (FP)-competence (those of the sort famously but not exclusively deployed in acts of third-personal mindreading). (shrink)

It is almost universally agreed that the main business of commonsense psychology is that of providing generally reliable predictions and explanations of the actions of others. In line with this, it is also generally assumed that we are normally at theoretical remove from others such that we are always ascribing causally efficacious mental states to them for the purpose of prediction, explanation and control. Building on the work of those who regard our primary intersubjective interactions as a form of 'embodied (...) practice', I defend a secondpersonal approach in this paper. (shrink)

Colombo (Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 2012) argues that we have compelling reasons to posit neural representations because doing so yields unique explanatory purchase in central cases of social norm compliance. We aim to show that there is no positive substance to Colombo’s plea—nothing that ought to move us to endorse representationalism in this domain, on any level. We point out that exposing the vices of the phenomenological arguments against representationalism does not, on its own, advance the case for representationalism (...) one inch—beyond establishing its mere possibility. We criticize the continual confounding of constitutive and explanatory claims and the lack of recognition of a Hard Problem of having to provide a naturalistic account of content, coupled with an inability to face up to it. We point at the inadequacy of various deflationary moves that end up driving representationalists towards the idea of neural representations with non-standard contents or without content altogether, both of which either render neural representationalism unfit for purpose or vacuous. Referring to possibilities for neural manipulation and control, or to established scientific practice does not help representationalism either. (shrink)

The middle years of the nineteenth century saw two crucial develop ments in the history of modern logic: George Boole's algebraic treat ment of logic and Augustus De Morgan's formulation of the logic of relations. The former episode has been studied extensively; the latter, hardly at all. This is a pity, for the most central feature of modern logic may well be its ability to handle relational inferences. De Morgan was the first person to work out an extensive logic of (...) relations, and the purpose of this book is to study this attempt in detail. Augustus De Morgan (1806-1871) was a British mathematician and logician who was Professor of Mathematics at the University of London (now, University College) from 1828 to 1866. A prolific but not highly original mathematician, De Morgan devoted much of his energies to the rather different field of logic. In his Formal Logic (1847) and a series of papers "On the Syllogism" (1846-1862), he attempted with great ingenuity to reformulate and extend the tradi tional syllogism and to systematize modes of reasoning that lie outside its boundaries. Chief among these is the logic of relations. De Mor gan's interest in relations culminated in his important memoir, "On the Syllogism: IV and on the Logic of Relations," read in 1860. (shrink)

According to Cicero, “all emotions spring from the roots of error: they should not be pruned or clipped here and there, but yanked out” (Cicero 2002: 60). The Stoic enthusiasm for the extirpation of emotion is radical in two respects, both of which can be expressed with the claim that emotional responses are never appropriate. First, the Stoics held that emotions are incompatible with virtue , since the virtuous man will retain his equanimity whatever his fate. Grief is always vicious, (...) both bad and bad for you, even when directed at events commonly considered tragic, such as the loss of one’s child. (shrink)

De Jaegher’s (2009) paper argues that Gallagher, who aims to replace traditional theory-of-mind accounts of social understanding with accounts based on direct perception (hereafter DP), has missed an important opportunity. Despite a desire to break faith with tradition, there is a danger that proponents of DP accounts will remain (at least tacitly) committed to an unchallenged, and perhaps unnoticed, sort of individualism inherent in traditional theories (i.e. those that regard our engagement with others as a ‘problem’ to be solved: a (...) problem of other minds). Taking a more root and branch approach, De Jaegher recommends a complete shift of focus. She proposes that a more thoroughgoing and fruitful response to traditional approaches must attend to, and seek to understand, interactional phenomena proper—for it is the nature of interactions themselves that importantly influence individuals. Hence, it is the processes of interacting which ‘span individuals’ and their specific, dynamic evolution over time that should take pride of place in research into social cognition. De Jaegher wants to put interactional processes – those that can ‘take on life of their own’ and ‘influence interactors’ – at the heart of enquiries into intersubjectivity. Citing other recent work she has done with Di Paolo, she bills this as ‘‘the central task of any account of intersubjectivity” (De Jaegher, 2009, p. 2; De Jaegher & Di Paolo, 2007). The trouble is that this way of putting matters can make it look as if there is just one task facing researchers in this area; that we are faced with an either/or choice. But it is clear that any fully illuminated understanding of interactional phenomena will require accounts of what individuals and their sub-personal processes/mechanisms are doing in this larger process and, presumably, how their mechanisms/tendencies of response constrain and shape local bouts of interacting, even if we assume it is the dynamics of such encounters that importantly influence and shape what comes next.. (shrink)

In his paper "Wittgenstein and Idealism" Professor Williams proposed a 'model' for reading Wittgenstein's later philosophy which he claimed exposed its transcendental idealist character. By this he roughly meant that Wittgenstein's later position was idealistic to the extent that it disallowed the possibility of there being any independent reality that was not contaminated by our view things. And he thought it was transcendental in the sense that 'our view of things' is not something that we can explain or can locate (...) in the world. I argue that even if we accept Williams' interpretation of Wittgenstein it does not follow that the latter sponsored any form of transcendental idealism. I make this case in several stages and on two different platforms. Firstly, I give a brief description of the underlying basis of Williams' interpretation. Secondly, I defend the general thrust of it against a critique which issued from Malcolm. Finally, I argue that the views ascribed to Wittgenstein by Williams do not make him into a transcendental idealist. On the one hand, this case is made by showing that there is a non-trivial resemblance between Williams' Wittgenstein and Donald Davidson who is a self-styled realist. On the other hand, I set out exegetical reasons for thinking that if the continuity that Williams sees between the Tractatus and the later writings actually exists then it provides reason in itself not to regard Wittgenstein as an idealist. (shrink)

The most common corporate reaction to public concern over the ethics of their business practices and the sensitivity of their organization to social expectations is to promote policies and rules designed to bring about a set of socially responsive behaviours and actions. The result of this corporate deontological approach is to create a teleopathic culture that relieves decision makers from the personal responsibil ity for the consequences of their actions and widens the gap between how society expects business to behave (...) and their actual behaviour. The corporate use of a deontological approach effectively allows the substitution of corporate conscience for the moral values of individual decision makers and thus weakens the linkage between individual personal values and behaviour. The creation of teleopathological behaviour in an organization is explored through a juxtaposition of the parables of the Sadhu and the Good Samaritan. The consequences of teleopathic behaviour are then illustrated through an examination of Dow Corning's silicon gel product liability case. (shrink)

The binary divide between traditional cognitivist and enactivist paradigms is tied to their respective commitments to understanding cognition as based on knowing that as opposed to knowing how. Using O’Regan’s and No¨e’s landmark sensorimotor contingency theory of perceptual experience as a foil, I demonstrate how easy it is to fall into conservative thinking. Although their account is advertised as decidedly ‘skill-based’, on close inspection it shows itself to be riddled with suppositions threatening to reduce it to a rules-and-representations approach. To (...) remain properly enactivist it must be purged of such commitments and indeed all commitment to mediating knowledge: it must embrace a more radical enactivism. (shrink)

Drawing heavily on Aristotle, Tabensky attempts to establish ‘an ethic that flows from the very structure of our being’, but he also calls on Davidson’s arguments about the essentially social character of rationality to shore up Aristotle’s claim that we are essentially social beings. This much of his project, I argue is successful. However Tabensky takes this a step further and proposes a pluralist ethic on the grounds that a ‘fully’ or ‘properly’ instantiated account of the ‘ideal’ conditions for rationality (...) requires encountering innumerable other points of view. Firstly, while confronting alternatives is essential to truth-seeking it hardly follows that an unconstrained pluralism represents an ideal condition for this kind of inquiry, since such an approach risks falling into mere clash of perspectives on practical grounds. Secondly, it is unclear how confronting more and more perspectives is supposed to help in enabling us to lead our lives well. In conclusion, picking up on this theme and looking again at Aristotle, I give reasons for questioning that the kind of rational choice involved in leading the good life, for reasons in part highlighted by Tabensky, benefits from analogy with the modes of conceptual rational inquiry in other domains in any case. (shrink)

There has been a long-standing interest in the putative roles that various so-called ‘theory of mind’ abilities might play in enabling us to understand and enjoy narratives. Of late, as our understanding of the complexity and diversity of everyday psychological capacities has become more nuanced and variegated, new possibilities have been articulated: (i) that our capacity for a sophisticated, everyday understanding of actions in terms of reason (our folk psychology) may itself be best characterized as a kind of narrative practice (...) and (ii) that acquiring the capacity for supplying and digesting reasons explana- tions might (at least normally) depend upon having a special training with narratives. This introductory paper to the volume situates the claims of those who support the narrative approach to folk psychology against the backdrop of some traditional and new thinking about intersubjectivity, social cognition and ‘theory of mind’ abilities. Special emphasis is laid on the different reasons for being interested in these claims about narrative practice and folk psychology in light of various empirical and philosophical agendas. (shrink)

This paper promotes the view that our childhood engagement with narratives of a certain kind is the basis of sophisticated folk psychological abilities —i.e. it is through such socially scaffolded means that folk psychological skills are normally acquired and fostered. Undeniably, we often use our folk psychological apparatus in speculating about why another may have acted on a particular occasion, but this is at best a peripheral and parasitic use. Our primary understanding and skill in folk psychology derives from and (...) has its primary application in special kinds of second-personal engagements. (shrink)

The harmonious growth and cell‐to‐cell uniformity of steady‐state bacterial populations indicate the existence of a well‐regulated cell cycle, responding to a set of internal signals. In Escherichia coli, the key events of this cycle are the initiation of DNA replication, nucleoid segregation and the initiation of cell division. The replication initiator is the DnaA protein. In nucleoid segregation, the MukB protein, required for proper partitioning, may be a member of the myosin‐kinesin superfamily of mechanoenzymes. In cell division, the FtsZ protein (...) has a tubulin motif, is a GTPase and polymerizes in a ring around midcell during septation; the FtsA protein has an actin‐like structure. The nature of the internal signals triggering these events is not known but candidates include cell mass, the superhelical density of the chromosome and the concentration of two regulatory nucleotides, cyclic AMP and ppGpp. The involvement of cytoskeletal‐like proteins in key cycle events encourages the notion of a fundamental biological unity in cell cycle regulation in all organisms. (shrink)

This paper argues that deciding on whether the cognitive sciences need a Representational Theory of Mind matters. Far from being merely semantic or inconsequential, the answer we give to the RTM-question makes a difference to how we conceive of minds. How we answer determines which theoretical framework the sciences of mind ought to embrace. The structure of this paper is as follows. Section 1 outlines Rowlands’s argument that the RTM-question is a bad question and that attempts to answer it, one (...) way or another, have neither practical nor theoretical import. Rowlands concludes this because, on his analysis, there is no non-arbitrary fact of the matter about which properties something must possess in order to qualify as a mental representation. By way of reply, we admit that Rowlands’s analysis succeeds in revealing why attempts to answer the RTM-question simpliciter are pointless. Nevertheless, we show that if specific formulations of the RTM-question are stipulated, then it is possible, conduct su... (shrink)

Theological study and teaching at Oxford prior to the First World War have been characterized as unambitious and lacking in critical rigour. In contrast to the constructive theological endeavours of biblical scholars at Cambridge or the bold revisionism of F.D. Maurice at King's College London, Oxford's theological teaching and research are perceived through the lens of E.B. Pusey and his High Church colleagues. Prior to the First World War, however, circumstances and personalities coincided to produce a radical set of proposals (...) from the Board of the Faculty of Theology under the leadership of Henry Scott Holland, Regius Professor of Divinity from 1910 until his death in 1918. Had Oxford's graduate legislative assembly, Convocation, not comprehensively rejected the reforms approved by the resident MAs, Oxford's Faculty might have been transformed into an influential centre of comparative religion. In this article, the prevailing accounts of Oxonian ‘narrowness’ are challenged through an account of this seminal moment in the history of the Faculty. Using correspondence from the Bodleian Library Special Collections, minutes and reports from the Oxford University Archives, pamphlet material and national, ecclesiastical, and University journals, the article seeks to identify the reasoning behind the proposed reforms and the significance of that reasoning for the history of modern theology in England. In so doing, it is suggested that the standard characterization of theological life at Oxford in the ‘long nineteenth century’ merits revision and further clarification. (shrink)

Background: Scientific research entails systematic investigation. Publishing the findings of research in peer reviewed journals implies a high level of confidence by the authors in the veracity of their interpretation. Therefore it stands to reason that researchers should be prepared to share their raw data with other researchers, so that others may enjoy the same level of confidence in the findings. Method: In a prospective study, 29 corresponding authors of original research articles in a medical journal (the British Medical Journal) (...) were contacted to ascertain their preparedness to share the data from their research. The email contact was in one of two forms, a general request and a specific request. The type of request a researcher received was randomly allocated. Findings: Researchers receiving specific requests for data were less likely, and slower, to respond than researchers receiving general requests. Only one researcher released data. Most researchers were reluctant to release their data. Some required further information, clarification, or authorship. Interpretation: The general reluctance of researchers to consider requests for their data is of concern. It raises questions about the level of confidence that should be placed on their interpretations of the data. It also highlights an unfortunate situation where researchers are more concerned with losing an advantage than advancing science. (shrink)

Getting clear about the nature and basis of interpersonal relating is a central concern of many recent debates in the philosophy of mind. The first section of this chapter highlights some basic facts about the complexity and multifaceted character of interpersonal relating and briefly overviews some of its most prominent dysfunctions. Popular mind-minding hypotheses which claim that the dysfunctions in question are rooted in impaired capacities for attending to and attributing mental states to others are then introduced. Next, recent evidence (...) from cognitive psychology and neuroscience with which these mind-minding hypotheses must be made compatible is summarized. The important differences between two main philosophical frameworks-frameworks that offer opposing ways of understanding the nature of mind minding capacities are then highlighted. Focusing on these differences, the final section highlights how adoption of these philosophical frameworks matters to thinking about the prognosis and strategies for the treatment of certain mental disorders. (shrink)

Professor Davidson's anomalous monism has been subject to the criticism that, despite advertisements to the contrary, if it were true mental properties would be epiphenomenal. To this Davidson has replied that his critics have misunderstood his views concerning the extensional nature of causal relations and the intensional character of causal explanations. I call this his 'extension reply'. This paper argues that there are two ways to read Davidson's 'extension reply'; one weaker and one stronger. But the dilemma is that: (i) (...) the weak extension reply on its own isn't sufficient to support the principle of the nomological character of causality, (ii) anything strong enough to support that principle under the weak extension reply would be strong enough to warrant the strong extension reply; but (iii) the strong extension reply threatens the very stability of anomalous monism by threatening the causal potency and reality of the mental. For these reasons, I claim that either version of the 'extension reply' is bad news for anomalous monism. I conclude by suggesting that a form of absolute idealism circumvents the very assumptions that generate these kinds of difficulty for committed monists. (shrink)

This paper spells out just how the Narrative Practice Hypothesis, if true, undercuts any need to appeal to either theory or simulation when it comes to explaining the basis of folk psychological understanding: these heuristics do not come into play other than in cases of in which the framework is used to speculate about why another may have acted. To add appropriate force to this observation, I first say something about why we should reject the widely held assumption that the (...) primary business of folk psychology is to provide third-personal predictions and explanations. I then go on to demonstrate how the NPH can account for (i) the structural features of folk psychology and (ii) its staged acquisition without buying into the idea that it is a theory, or that it is acquired by means of constructing one. This should expose the impotence of the standard reasons for believing that folk psychology must be a kind of theory. In the concluding postscript, I acknowledge that we need more than the folk psychological framework to understand how we understand reasons, but I deny that this something more takes the form of a theory about propositional attitudes or simulative procedures for manipulating them. For example, I claim it rests in part on a capacity for co-cognition, inter alia, since that ability is necessary for understanding another’s thoughts. Nevertheless, I deny that co-cognition equates to simulation proper or that it plays anything more than a supporting role in understanding reasons for action. (shrink)

Predictive Processing accounts of Cognition, PPC, promise to forge productive alliances that will unite approaches that are otherwise at odds. Can it? This paper argues that it can’t—or at least not so long as it sticks with the cognitivist rendering that Clark and others favor. In making this case the argument of this paper unfolds as follows: Sect. 1 describes the basics of PPC—its attachment to the idea that we perceive the world by guessing the world. It then details the (...) reasons why so many find cognitivist interpretations to be inevitable. Section 2 examines how prominent proponents of cognitivist PPC have proposed dealing with a fundamental problem that troubles their accounts—the question of how the brain is able to get into the great guessing game in the first place. It is argued that on close inspection Clark’s solution, which he calls bootstrap heaven is—once we take a realistic look at the situation of the brain—in fact bootstrap hell. Section 3 argues that it is possible to avoid dwelling in bootstrap hell if one adopts a radically enactive take on PPC. A brief sketch of what this might look like is provided. (shrink)

The core claim of this paper is that mind minding of the sort required for the simplest and most pervasive forms of joint attentional activity is best understood and explained in non-representational, enactivist terms. In what follows I will attempt to convince the reader of its truth in three steps. The first step, section two, clarifies the target explanandum. The second step, section three, is wholly descriptive. It highlights the core features of a Radically Enactivist proposal about elementary mind minding, (...) revealing it to be at least a possible explanans. The final step is to consider the comparative virtues of the contending proposals; section four. The exercise is to decide which of the possible explanations is best. Various evidential appeals and theoretical considerations that might aid us in this choice are reviewed. The conclusion is that the scales would be tipped in favour of the Radical Enactivist option, decisively, if it should turn out that there is (1) no reason to believe that basic forms of mentality are representational (in a semantically contentful way) and (2) if no good theory is likely to explain how they could be so. It is concluded that all that we need for understanding basic forms of intentional (with a ‘t’) mentality and what it takes to attend to basic cases of mind minding. (shrink)

We review the current state of play in the game of naturalizing content and analyse reasons why each of the main proposals, when taken in isolation, is unsatisfactory. Our diagnosis is that if there is to be progress two fundamental changes are necessary. First, the point of the game needs to be reconceived in terms of explaining the natural origins of content. Second, the pivotal assumption that intentionality is always and everywhere contentful must be abandoned. Reviving and updating Haugeland’s baseball (...) analogy in the light of these changes, we propose ways of redirecting the efforts of players on each base of his intentionality All-Star team, enabling them to start functioning effectively as a team. Only then is it likely that they will finally get their innings and maybe, just maybe, even win the game. (shrink)

Any adequate account of emotion must accommodate the fact that emotions, even those of the most basic kind, exhibit intentionality as well as phenomenality. This article argues that a good place to start in providing such an account is by adjusting Prinz’s (2004) embodied appraisal theory (EAT) of emotions. EAT appeals to teleosemantics in order to account for the world-directed content of embodied appraisals. Although the central idea behind EAT is essentially along the right lines, as it stands Prinz’s proposal (...) needs tweaking in a number of ways. This article focuses on one—the need to free it from its dependence on teleosemantics. EAT, so modified, becomes compatible with a truly enactivist understanding of basic emotions. (shrink)

According to mentalism some existing things are endowed with (subjectively) conscious minds. According to physicalism all existing things consist entirely of physical particles in fields of force. Searle holds that mentalism and physicalism are compatible and true.