scholarly journals Ramsey and Joyce on deliberation and prediction

Synthese ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 197 (10) ◽  
pp. 4365-4386
Author(s):  
Yang Liu ◽  
Huw Price
Keyword(s):  
Mental States ◽  
First Person

Abstract Can an agent deliberating about an action A hold a meaningful credence that she will do A? ‘No’, say some authors, for ‘deliberation crowds out prediction’ (DCOP). Others disagree, but we argue here that such disagreements are often terminological. We explain why DCOP holds in a Ramseyian operationalist model of credence, but show that it is trivial to extend this model so that DCOP fails. We then discuss a model due to Joyce, and show that Joyce’s rejection of DCOP rests on terminological choices about terms such as ‘intention’, ‘prediction’, and ‘belief’. Once these choices are in view, they reveal underlying agreement between Joyce and the DCOP-favouring tradition that descends from Ramsey. Joyce’s Evidential Autonomy Thesis is effectively DCOP, in different terminological clothing. Both principles rest on the so-called ‘transparency’ of first-person present-tensed reflection on one’s own mental states.

Seeming to Seem

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Rosenthal
Keyword(s):  
Mental States ◽  
Order Theory ◽  
Higher Order ◽  
Psychological State ◽  
Intentional Stance ◽  
First Person ◽  
Psychological States ◽  
Third Person ◽  
Higher Order Theory ◽  
The Third Person

Dennett’s account of consciousness starts from third-person considerations. I argue this is wise, since beginning with first-person access precludes accommodating the third-person access we have to others’ mental states. But Dennett’s first-person operationalism, which seeks to save the first person in third-person, operationalist terms, denies the occurrence of folk-psychological states that one doesn’t believe oneself to be in, and so the occurrence of folk-psychological states that aren’t conscious. This conflicts with Dennett’s intentional-stance approach to the mental, on which we discern others’ mental states independently of those states’ being conscious. We can avoid this conflict with a higher-order theory of consciousness, which saves the spirit of Dennett’s approach, but enables us to distinguish conscious folk-psychological states from nonconscious ones. The intentional stance by itself can’t do this, since it can’t discern a higher-order awareness of a psychological state. But we can supplement the intentional stance with the higher-order theoretical apparatus.

scholarly journals Developmental evidence for enhanced theory of mind for competitive versus cooperative contexts

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lily Tsoi ◽  
Kiley Hamlin ◽  
Adam Waytz ◽  
Andrew Scott Baron ◽  
Liane Young
Keyword(s):  
Preschool Children ◽  
Theory Of Mind ◽  
Social Interactions ◽  
Mental States ◽  
The Other ◽  
First Person ◽  
False Beliefs ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The One

There is a debate regarding the function of theory of mind (ToM), the capacity to infer, attribute, and reason about mental states. On the one hand are evolutionary and psychological work suggesting that ToM is greater for competition than cooperation. On the other hand are findings and theories promoting greater ToM for cooperation than competition. We investigate the question of whether ToM is greater for competition than cooperation or vice versa by examining the period of development during which explicit ToM comes online. In two studies, we examined preschool children’s abilities to explicitly express an understanding of false beliefs—a key marker of ToM—and ability to apply that understanding in first-person social interactions in competitive and cooperative contexts. Our findings reveal that preschool children are better at understanding false beliefs and applying that understanding in competitive contexts than in cooperative contexts.

Transparency and Self-Knowledge

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alex Byrne
Keyword(s):  
Mental State ◽  
Mental States ◽  
First Person ◽  
Unified Theory ◽  
Gareth Evans ◽  
Weak Evidence ◽  
The World ◽  
Self Knowledge ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Emotion Memory

T&SK sets out and defends a theory of self-knowledge—knowledge of one’s mental states. Inspired by Gareth Evans’ discussion of self-knowledge in his The Varieties of Reference, the basic idea is that one comes to know that one is in a mental state M by an inference from a worldly or environmental premise to the conclusion that one is in M. (Typically the worldly premise will not be about anything mental.) The mind, on this account, is “transparent”: self-knowledge is achieved by an “outward glance” at the corresponding tract of the world, not by an “inward glance” at one’s own mind. Belief is the clearest case, with the inference being from ‘p’ to ‘I believe that p.’ One serious problem with this idea is that the inference seems terrible, because ‘p’ is at best very weak evidence that one believes that p. Another is that the idea seems not to generalize. For example, what is the worldly premise corresponding to ‘I intend to ϕ‎,’ or ‘I feel a pain’? T&SK argues that both problems can be solved, and explains how the account covers perception, sensation, desire, intention, emotion, memory, imagination, and thought. The result is a unified theory of self-knowledge that explains the epistemic security of beliefs about one’s mental states (privileged access), as well as the fact that one has a special first-person way of knowing about one’s mental states (peculiar access).

Consciousness in animals

2019 ◽  
pp. 140-164
Author(s):  
Peter Carruthers
Keyword(s):  
Phenomenal Consciousness ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
First Person ◽  
Nonhuman Animals ◽  
Global Workspace ◽  
Asking Questions ◽  
Global Workspace Theory

This chapter argues that if a global workspace theory of phenomenal consciousness is correct, and is fully reductive in nature, then we should stop asking questions about consciousness in nonhuman animals. But this is not because those questions are too hard to answer, but because there are no substantive facts to discover. The argument in support of this conclusion turns on the idea that while global broadcasting is all-or-nothing in the human mind, it is framed in terms that imply gradations across species. Yet our concept of phenomenal consciousness doesn’t permit mental states to be to some degree conscious. Moreover, the first-person concepts that give rise to the problem of consciousness cannot intelligibly be projected into minds significantly different from our own.

scholarly journals Christian Materialism and the Quest for Human Personhood

Perichoresis ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 83-100
Author(s):  
Mikael Leidenhag
Keyword(s):  
Mental States ◽  
Imago Dei ◽  
First Person ◽  
Property Dualism ◽  
Intentional States ◽  
Person Perspective ◽  
Critical Exploration ◽  
First Person Perspective

AbstractThis paper offers a critical exploration of philosopher Kevin Corcoran’s proposed Christian Materialism. Corcoran’s constitution view claimsthat we human persons are constituted by our bodies without being identical with the bodies that constitute us. I will critically evaluate this view and argue that Corcoran has not successfully managed to ground a first-person perspective and intentional states in materialism. Moreover, Corcoran’s property dualism about mental states and the idea of the causally efficacy of such states seem incompatible with materialism. Corcoran’s view ofimago Deiis also explored and evaluated. Towards the end of the paper I put forward a brief defense of dualism in light of Corcoran’s critique.

Interpreting self-ascriptions

1995 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 393-395
Author(s):  
J. van Brakel
Keyword(s):  
Mental States ◽  
First Person ◽  
Way Of Knowing

AbstractI argue that the same general principles apply in ascribing mental states and their contents to self and to others. Nevertheless Goldman is right that there is such a thing as FPA (First Person Authority). But Gopnik is right that FPA cannot be explained by reference to a special way of knowing or a special land of knowledge.

scholarly journals First-person Folk Psychology: Mindreading or Mindshaping?

2017 ◽  
pp. 170-183 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leon De Bruin
Keyword(s):  
Folk Psychology ◽  
Mental States ◽  
First Person ◽  
Behavior Prediction ◽  
The Core ◽  
Third Person

Proponents of mindshaping argue that third-person folk psychology (i.e., the ascription of mental states to others) is not primarily about "reading" mental states for the purpose of behavior prediction and explanation. Instead, they claim that third-person folk psychology is first and foremost a regulative practice -- one that "shapes" mental states in accordance with the norms of a shared folk psychological framework. This paper investigates to what extent the core assumptions behind the mindshaping hypothesis are compatible with an account of first-person folk psychology (i.e., the ascription of mental states to ourselves) that is based on the notion of "self-regulative agency."

scholarly journals Constructing a Narrative in the Standard Unexpected Transfer Test in Adolescence and Adulthood

2010 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 29-43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marta Białecka-Pikul ◽  
Marta Rynda ◽  
Daria Syrecka
Keyword(s):  
Theory Of Mind ◽  
Transfer Test ◽  
Transfer Task ◽  
Mental States ◽  
The Other ◽  
First Person ◽  
Person Perspective ◽  
Adolescents And Adults ◽  
First Person Perspective ◽  
Way Of Thinking

Constructing a Narrative in the Standard Unexpected Transfer Test in Adolescence and Adulthood The aim of the presented research was the replication and extension of the research by Nelson, Plesa and Henseler (1998), which was the basis for examining the nature of the theory of mind or mentalizing ability (that is, the ability to attribute mental states to other people in order to explain and predict their behaviors) in adolescents and adults. Specifically, its experience-like versus theory-like character. The test, an unexpected transfer task (the Max story), was completed by 827 people aged 13 to 75 (average 21.9). Half of them were supposed to solve the task with a shorter version of the story (including only the facts), and the other half were given the longer version (including descriptions of emotions, beliefs of the protagonist and explanations of ongoing events). All of the answers were then categorized applying Nelson's classification and two other types of analysis. Gender, age and fields of interest were taken into account during analysis of the participants' answers. The Polish respondents rarely answered in a narrative way (only 13%, in contrast to Nelson's result of 46%). Despite the fact that age was not a factor corresponding to a narrative answer, it was proven that older respondents did indeed assume the first person perspective when justifying Max's behavior. Women, more often than men, appealed to the knowledge and the protagonist's way of thinking. The respondents' fields of interest did not seem to diversify the obtained results, nor did the version of the story. The results do not allow us to draw unambiguous conclusions about the nature of the adult's theory of mind, but they form the basis for analyzing the methodology of research on theory of mind.

scholarly journals Making a case for introspection

2009 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 163-164 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexandra Zinck ◽  
Sanne Lodahl ◽  
Chris D. Frith
Keyword(s):  
Mental States ◽  
Fundamental Difference ◽  
First Person ◽  
Self And Other ◽  
Model Based

AbstractDefending first-person introspective access to own mental states, we argue against Carruthers' claim of mindreading being prior to meta-cognition and for a fundamental difference between how we understand our own and others' mental states. We conclude that a model based on one mechanism but involving two different kinds of access for self and other is sufficient and more consistent with the evidence.

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