We call our thoughts conscious, and we also say the same of our bodily sensations, perceptions and other sensory experiences. But thoughts and sensory experiences are very different phenomena, both from the point of view of their subject and in their functional or cognitive role. Does this mean, then, that there are very different kinds or varieties of consciousness? Philosophers do often talk about different kinds of consciousness: Christopher Hill, for example, claims that ‘it is customary to distinguish five forms (...) of consciousness’ (Hill 2009: 1). These are: agent consciousness, propositional consciousness, introspective consciousness, relational consciousness and phenomenal consciousness; to which Hill adds experiential consciousness, making six in total. (shrink)

More often than not, theories of belief and of belief ascription restrict themselves to conscious beliefs, thus obliterating a vast part of our mental life and offering extremely incomplete, unrealistic theories. Indeed, conscious beliefs are the exception, not the rule, as far as human doxastic states are concerned, and a naturalistic, realistic theory of knowledge that aspires to completeness has to take unconscious beliefs into consideration. This paper is the elaboration of such a theory of belief.

This paper defends the view that a correct analysis of knowledge must take empirical data into consideration. The data here provided is from experimental psychology, namely from phenomena involving unconscious cognition.

Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, EarlyView.

ABSTRACT: In a recent article, D. H. Finkelstein offers a new proposal about the distinction between conscious and unconscious belief On his proposal, someone’s belief is conscious if he has an ability to express it simply by self-ascribing it; and someone’s belief is unconscious if he lacks such an ability. In this article, I argue that his proposal is inadequate, and then offer a somewhat different proposal. On my proposal, someone’s belief is conscious if (...) he has self-ascribed this belief without recourse to any evidence about his behaviour; and someone’s belief is unconscious if it is not conscious.RÉSUMÉ: Dans un récent article, D. H. Finkelstein propose une nouvelle distinction entre croyance consciente et inconsciente. Suivant cette proposition, la croyance de quelqu’un est consciente s’il a la capacité de l’exprimer tout simplement en se l’attribuant; sa croyance est inconsciente s’il n’en a pas la capacité. Dans cet article, je fais valoir que cette proposition est inadéquate, et je propose ensuite une nouvelledistinction. Suivant cette distinction, la croyance de quelqu’un est consciente s’il s’attribue cette croyance sans s’appuyer sur aucun élément de preuve au sujet de son comportement; sa croyance est inconsciente si elle n’est pas consciente. (shrink)

RésuméDans un récent article, D. H. Finkelstein propose une nouvelle distinction entre croyance consciente et inconsciente. Suivant cette proposition, la croyance de quelqu'un est consciente s'il a la capacité de l'exprimer tout simplement en se l'attribuant; sa croyance est inconsciente s'il n'en a pas la capacité. Dans cet article, je fais valoir que cette proposition est inadéquate, et je propose ensuite une nouvelle distinction. Suivant cette distinction, la croyance de quelqu'un est consciente s'il s'attribue cette croyance sans s'appuyer sur aucun (...) ilement depreuve au sujet de son comportement; sa croyance est inconsciente si elle n'est pas consciente. (shrink)

Can beliefs that are not consciously formulated serve as part of an agent's evidence for other beliefs? A common view says no, any belief that is psychologically immediate is also epistemically immediate. I argue that some unconscious beliefs can serve as evidence, but other unconscious beliefs cannot. Person-level beliefs can serve as evidence, but subpersonal beliefs cannot. I try to clarify the nature of the personal/subpersonal distinction and to show how my proposal illuminates various epistemological problems and (...) provides a principled framework for solving other problems. (shrink)

The nature of consciousness has long been a central concern for philosophers of the mind. My purpose in this paper is to argue that it is the existence of some unconscious mental states which poses problems for the action theory of belief. Showing their existence to be compatible with theory is not straightforward, and requires an account of unconscious belief and desire which is at odds with that favoured by many action-theorists.

Most contemporary theorists regard the traditional thesis that perception is essentially conscious as just another armchair edict to be abandoned in the wake of empirical discovery. Here I reconsider this dramatic departure from tradition. My aim is not to recapture our prelapsarian confidence that perception is inevitably conscious (though much I say might be recruited to that cause). Instead, I want to problematize the now ubiquitous belief in unconscious perception. The paper divides into two parts. Part One is (...) more purely philosophical. It explains how standard arguments for unconscious perception rely on contentious background assumptions concerning the relation between ordinary perception and the explanatory constructs of scientific psychology. Part Two, in contrast, offers detailed engagement with relevant empirical work. It exposes how, even setting aside the concerns identified in Part One, a dilemma confronts the believer in unconscious perception. This dilemma arises because ordinary perception is an individual-level state or occurrence, yet criteria sufficiently stringent to guarantee that a putatively perceptual state is unconscious vitiate the grounds for its attribution to the individual. The dilemma foments a hypothesis, namely that the conditions for genuine, individual-level perception are sufficient conditions for perceptual consciousness. The viability of this hypothesis should unnerve anyone who thinks unconscious perception is simply an empirical given. (shrink)

Many contemporary epistemologists take rational inference to be a conscious action performed by the thinker (Boghossian 2014; 2018; Valaris 2014; Malmgren 2018). It is tempting to think that rational evaluability requires responsibility, which in turn requires conscious action. In that case, unconscious cognition involves merely associative or otherwise arational processing. This paper argues instead for deep rationalism: unconscious inference often exhibits the same rational status and richly structured logical character as conscious inference. The central case study is rationalization, (...) in which people shift their attitudes in logically structured, reason-responsive ways in response to evidence of their own incompetence or immorality. These attitude shifts are irrational in a way that reflects on the thinker. Thus rationally evaluable inference extends downward into the unconscious. Many take the sole aim of belief to be truth (Velleman 2000) or knowledge (Williamson 2000), but the prevalence of rationalization suggests that belief updating often aims instead at preserving our positive conceptions of ourselves—that is, belief updating is part of a psychological immune system (Gilbert 2006; Mandelbaum 2019). This paper argues that the psychological immune system comprises a suite of distinct cognitive mechanisms, some (ir)rational and some arational, which are united by a common function of avoiding the maladaptive predomination of negative affect and maintaining stable motivation. Other aspects of the psychological immune system include (i) a domain-general positive bias in evaluative attitudes and (ii) “terror management,” i.e., the systematic strengthening of meaning-conferring beliefs to avoid death anxiety. The multiplicity of processes underlying the psychological immune system point toward an irrational but adaptive function of cognition to keep us motivated in a world rife with negativity and death. (shrink)

Perceptual experiences justify beliefs. A perceptual experience of a dog justifies the belief that there is a dog present. But there is much evidence that perceptual states can occur without being conscious, as in experiments involving masked priming. Do unconscious perceptual states provide justification as well? The answer depends on one’s theory of justification. While most varieties of externalism seem compatible with unconscious perceptual justification, several theories have recently afforded to consciousness a special role in perceptual justification. (...) We argue that such views face a dilemma: either consciousness should be understood in functionalist terms, in which case our best current theories of consciousness do not seem to imbue consciousness with any special epistemic features, or it should not, in which case it is mysterious why only conscious states are justificatory. We conclude that unconscious perceptual justification is quite plausible. (shrink)

According to the method of transparency, genuine self-knowledge is the outcome of an inference from world to mind. A. Byrne has developed a theory in which the method of transparency consists in following an epistemic rule in order to form self-verifying second-order beliefs. In this paper, I argue that Byrne’s theory does not establish sufficient conditions for having self-knowledge of first-order beliefs. Examining a case of self-deception, I strive to show that following such a rule might not result in self-knowledge (...) when one is involved in rational deliberation. In the case under consideration, one precisely comes to believe that one believes that p without coming to believe that p. The justification for one’s not forming the belief that p with its distinctive causal pattern in mental life and behaviour, is that one already had the unconscious belief that not-p, a belief that is not sensitive to the principles governing theoretical and practical reasoning. (shrink)

According to the method of transparency, genuine self-knowledge is the outcome of an inference from world to mind. A. Byrne has developed a theory in which the method of transparency consists in following an epistemic rule in order to form self-verifying second-order beliefs. In this paper, I argue that Byrne’s theory does not establish sufficient conditions for having self-knowledge of first-order beliefs. Examining a case of self-deception, I strive to show that following such a rule might not result in self-knowledge (...) when one is involved in rational deliberation. In the case under consideration, one precisely comes to believe that one believes that p without coming to believe that p. The justification for one’s not forming the belief that p with its distinctive causal pattern in mental life and behaviour, is that one already had the unconscious belief that not-p, a belief that is not sensitive to the principles governing theoretical and practical reasoning. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 12.1 (2005) 55-57 [Access article in PDF] Unconscious Reasons Eric Matthews Keywords reason-explanation, consciousness, purpose It is argued that Church's puzzlement over the idea that we can have reasons that we do not know about is itself puzzling. In daily life, we find no difficulty in understanding this idea. The problems arise only when we try to give a theoretically satisfactory account of the (...) notion of "the unconscious" in the context of a Cartesian picture of the "mind" as synonymous with "consciousness." We need to see the difference between the rational/non-rational distinction and that between the conscious and the unconscious. We (and other animals) act for reasons, not because we have something called "consciousness," but because we have purposes: we are animals, not machines.Jennifer Church finds "something deeply puzzling" about the idea that we can have reasons that we do not know about. I find this puzzlement very surprising, as, I think, would many others. Most of our reasons for doing what we do are not, and could not be, consciously entertained, and we did not need to wait for Freud before we were aware that some of our reasons for acting are so deeply hidden that we need help from others to uncover them. Freud himself is supposed to have said about the unconscious (I'm afraid I can't give the reference for this quotation, which was dredged up from memory), "Das haben die Dichter immer gekannt"—that was always known by the poets.Because human beings are not machines, whose movements can be given a complete causal explanation in terms of the laws of physics, a reason-explanation for most of the ways they behave is called for. That is, they have reasons for doing what they do. If they had to "consciously think through," in Church's words, all of their reasons for acting, they would never get down to doing anything: before they did anything, they would have to think through their reasons for doing it; and, because thinking through is also an action for which they have reasons, they would have to think through their reasons for thinking through, and so on ad infinitum. I owe this point to Gilbert Ryle, and may as well give one of his typical examples (slightly adapted) to illustrate it. The good tennis player acts intelligently: she has reasons for the movements she makes, but of necessity she does not think through these reasons, otherwise the game of tennis would never get started, let alone finished. Indeed, she may well be unable to explain in words, even afterward, why she moves her racket this way or that.As for the "Freudian" sorts of examples, we are all familiar, both from literature and from life, with the phenomena of self-deception, or of simple lack of self-knowledge. Someone, for instance, believes himself to be motivated by the highest moral principle when he gives money to the beggar in the shop doorway: but perhaps his real reason is a desire to cultivate a certain image of himself, or to be seen by others to be doing the right thing, or a fear that the beggar might embarrass [End Page 55] him in some way if he does not give him something substantial. I am not suggesting that people always deceive themselves in this way, only that the situation described is perfectly intelligible to everyone and so not at all puzzling. Nor is it in the slightest degree unintelligible that people should sometimes act without being able to say why: "I did it on impulse," they say, or "I acted instinctively"—which is just another way of saying "I just don't know why I acted as I did."Church herself accepts that our explanations of behavior are "now replete with appeals to unconscious beliefs and desires": but why only "now"—haven't they always been? And if we resort to such appeals so commonly, if indeed, as Searle says, their explanatory power is so great, then that seems to imply that we understand perfectly well what... (shrink)

What is the relationship between unconscious and conscious intentionality? Contemporary philosophy of mind treats the contents of conscious 10 intentional mental states as the same kind of thing as the contents of un- conscious mental states. According to the standard view that beliefs and desires are propositional attitudes, for example, the contents of these states are propositions, whether or not the states are conscious or unconscious. I dispute this way of thinking of conscious and unconscious content, and (...) propose an alternative, which helps to explain why the various mental things that are called unconscious deserve that label. (shrink)

Some of the topics presented in this volume of original essays on contemporary approaches to belief include the problem of misrepresentation and false belief, conscious versus unconscious belief, explicit versus tacit belief, and the durable versus ephemeral question of the nature of belief. The contributors, Fred Dretske, Keith Lehrer, William Lycan, Stephen Schiffer, Stephen P. Stich, and the editor, Radu Bogdan, focus on the mental realization of belief, its cognitive and behavioral aspects, and (...) the semantic aspects of its content. This interdisciplinary study takes advantage of many new theories in what has become an important area of research. (shrink)

Tim Crane maintains that beliefs cannot be conscious because they persist in the absence of consciousness. Conscious judgments can share their contents with beliefs, and their occurrence can be evidence for what one believes; but they cannot be beliefs, because they don’t persist. I challenge Crane’s premise that belief attributions to the temporarily unconscious are literally true. To say of an unconscious agent that she believes that p is like saying that she sings well. To say she (...) sings well is to say that when she sings, her singing is good. To say that she believes that p is to say that when she consciously considers the content that p she consciously affirms it. I also argue that the phenomenal view of intentional content Crane appears to endorse prima facie commits him to the view, at least controversial, perhaps incoherent, that there is unconscious phenomenology. Keywords : Belief; Consciousness; Unconscious; Intentional Content; Judgment. Credenze coscienti Riassunto: Tim Crane sostiene che le credenze non possano essere coscienti, dal momento che perdurano anche in assenza di coscienza. I giudizi formulati consapevolmente possono condividere i loro contenuti con le credenze e il loro verificarsi può essere una forma di evidenza a supporto di quanto uno crede. E tuttavia essi non possono essere credenze, dal momento che non perdurano. Nel commento metto in discussione la premessa di Crane secondo cui porre l’attribuzione di credenze su un piano temporaneamente inconscio sia vero in senso letterale. Dire di un agente non cosciente che esso creda che p è come dire che canti bene. Dire che canti bene è dire che quando canta, il suo canto è buono. Dire che crede che p è dire che quando considera consapevolmente il contenuto p costui lo afferma consapevolmente. Inoltre intendo affermare che la visione fenomenica del contenuto intenzionale che Crane sembra abbracciare lo impegni prima facie nei confronti della prospettiva, quantomeno controversa e probabilmente incoerente, secondo cui esisterebbe una dimensione fenomenica inconscia. Parole chiave: Credenza; Coscienza; Inconscio; Contenuto intenzionale; Giudizio. (shrink)

Daniel Weiskopf has recently raised an apparently powerful objection against the so-called “extended mind thesis” with regard to beliefs. His argument is that since alleged cases of “extended beliefs” lack a characteristic feature of beliefs properly so called (newly acquired beliefs are usually integrated with already existing beliefs rapidly, automatically and unconsciously), they do not count as genuine beliefs properly so called. We defend the extended mind thesis by arguing that Weiskopf is wrong. First, we suggest an alternative account of (...) informational integration that is compatible with externally stored beliefs’ being beliefs properly so called, emphasizes the crucial role action plays for cognition, and stresses the embodied and situationally embedded nature of human cognizers. Second, we argue that even if informational integration were usually rapid, automatic, and unconscious, this would not be an essential feature of beliefs. Third, we argue that even if rapid, automatic, and unconscious informational integration were characteristic of our commonsense conception of beliefs, externally stored “beliefs” would still be sufficiently similar to beliefs properly so called for them to be grouped together for all practical and scientific purposes. (shrink)

Studies have shown that a person can consciously believe that they value racial equality and desire not to perpetuate racial stigmas, but unwittingly exhibit racist attitudes and beliefs. In order to explain this discrepancy between conscious beliefs and behavior, scholars have turned their attention to unconscious racial prejudice. One approach that is gaining wide acceptance is the Implicit Bias Model, which appeals to distinct implicit and explicit cognitive processes, coupled with an account of the ways in which people unconsciously (...) internalize widespread stereotypes and stigmas. This article claims that although the Implicit Bias Model is in many respects useful, it leaves out a central aspect of unconscious racial prejudice: the underlying motivations and incentives for harboring racist attitudes and beliefs, which generate psychological resistances to knowing about or changing prejudices. A more complete account of unconscious racial prejudice can be developed by turning to theories of active ignorance, which contribute to what this article calls the Resistance Model. (shrink)

While we might associate ‘the unconscious’ with repression and the psychodynamic theories of Freud, 1 it has a more general sense and application that mean it is an important concept for contemporary ethics. Paying attention to the significance of associations, beliefs, presumptions and emotions that we have, but are not consciously attending to, is important for a more nuanced understanding of autonomy. Unconscious bias is an important issue for health education and clinical ethics, while beliefs and desires that (...) are not yet fully formed can be very important issues in therapy with younger people. The _Journal of Medical Ethics_ has published a number of papers over recent years that discuss the ways we frame clinical interactions and make decisions in the light of the unconscious. The recognition that we all have implicit, or unconscious biases should be acknowledged in health education and learning opportunities for addressing it created.... (shrink)

Does neuroscience show that free will is an illusion? No, it shows that unconscious mental states are causally effective in action. Because free will includes initiation by both conscious and unconscious states, the self as free agent should be characterized in terms of more than her conscious deliberations to range over unconscious beliefs, memories and feelings. Further, the ways social relations influence action and the ways actions influence the social environment are relevant to a full account of (...) free will. Given this broader perspective, it is clear that recent neuroscientific studies only show that the conscious feeling of volition does not play the agential role it seems to play. Consciousness is nonetheless causally effective in planning and monitoring actions to ensure they conform to goals. This causal process unfolds over a span of time and encompasses a wide array of factors. (shrink)

In this paper it is claimed that beliefs, feelings, and actions are typically complex phenomena which have simpler components. In particular, beliefs often involve feelings and actions, while actions involve feelings and beliefs, and feelings involve beliefs and actions. It is then suggested that unconscious beliefs and commitments, both ontological and otherwise, may be discovered by the examination of actions and feelings. While these will vary from one individual to another, it is suggested that it may be possible to (...) form certain generalizations which are of philosophical interest. (shrink)

This paper argues against the view that the Freudian unconscious can be understood as an extension of ordinary belief-desire psychology. The paper argues that Freud’s picture of the mind challenges the paradigm of folk psychology, as it is understood by much contemporary philosophy of psychology and cognitive science. The dynamic unconscious postulated by psychoanalysis operates according to rules and principles which are distinct in kind from those rules that organise rational and conscious thought. Psychoanalysis offers us a (...) radical reconception of our ordinary way of thinking about our own minds. (shrink)

I clarify and defend the hypothesis that human belief formation is sensitive to social rewards and punishments, such that beliefs are sometimes formed based on unconscious expectations of their likely effects on other agents – agents who frequently reward us when we hold ungrounded beliefs and punish us when we hold reasonable ones. After clarifying this phenomenon and distinguishing it from other sources of bias in the psychological literature, I argue that the hypothesis is plausible on theoretical grounds (...) and I show how it illuminates and unifies a range of psychological phenomena, including confabulation and rationalisation, positive illusions, and identity-protective cognition. (shrink)

This paper argues for the claim that belief is involuntary. Evidence in favour of it comes from various thought experiments. However, other thought experiments might be taken to indicate that belief is not involuntary (thought experiments regarding such policies as the policy to consider only evidence in favour of a claim and to neglect contrary evidence, or the policy to join a group of believers in a claim, or the policy to apply some form of self-suggestion). It is (...) argued that none of these thought experiments should lead one to reject the main claim of this paper. Some evidence from empirical psychology, viz. the evidence in favour of the phenomenon of “motivated reasoning”, may be thought to undermine some of my arguments in favour of the claim that belief is involuntary. It is argued that this is not the case. Some other type of evidence from psychology, viz. the evidence related to the unconscious, by contrast, may be thought to support the claim that belief is involuntary. It is argued that this is only partially so. (shrink)

I argue for two theses: 1) An unconscious belief that p is not the same attitude as a conscious belief that p (here I am disagreeing with David Finkelstein and Richard Moran). 2) An unconscious belief that p is the attitude it is on account of its rational connection with the conscious belief that p (taking issue with Georges Rey). I defend parallel theses for emotions. I then argue that Wittgenstein can be understood as (...) accepting both theses and that this shows – contrary to the interpretations of Jacques Bouveresse and Donald Levy – that Wittgenstein can accept talk not only of descriptive but also dynamic unconscious states (in Freud's terminology). (shrink)

In this chapter we discuss the role of conscious and unconscious inference in theories of delusion formation. Two competing accounts aim to shed light on the formation of delusions: according to explanationism, the delusional belief is offered as an explanation for anomalous experience; according to the endorsement theory, the delusional belief is an acknowledgement that the anomalous experience is veridical. Whereas explanationists argue that the delusional belief is inferred from experience, endorsement theorists argue that there need (...) be no inference from the experience to the delusional belief. Here we put pressure on the idea that the two accounts can be distinguished on the basis of whether inference is involved in delusion formation and argue that they are both compatible with the increasingly influential idea that Bayesian inference is responsible for the adoption of the delusional belief. One of the models of delusion formation focusing on Bayesian inference is the Coltheart model (Coltheart, Menzies, and Sutton, 2010) which we discuss in detail in the chapter. We show that, given its features, the model does not fit neatly under either explanationism or the endorsement theory. (shrink)

O'Brien & Opie do not address the question of the psychotherapeutic role of unconscious representational states such as beliefs. A dilemma is proposed: if they accept the legitimacy of such states then they should modify what they say about dissociation, and if they do not, they owe us an account of why.

This monograph is an in-depth and engaging discourse on the deeply cognitive roots of human scientific quest. The process of making scientific inferences is continuous with the day-to-day inferential activity of individuals, and is predominantly inductive in nature. Inductive inference, which is fallible, exploratory, and open-ended, is of essential relevance in our incessant efforts at making sense of a complex and uncertain world around us, and covers a vast range of cognitive activities, among which scientific exploration constitutes the pinnacle. Inductive (...) inference has a personal aspect to it, being rooted in the cognitive unconscious of individuals, which has recently been found to be of paramount importance in a wide range of complex cognitive processes. One other major aspect of the process of inference making, including the making of scientific inferences, is the role of a vast web of beliefs lodged in the human mind, as also of a huge repertoire of heuristics, that constitute an important component of ‘unconscious intelligence’. Finally, human cognitive activity is dependent in a large measure on emotions and affects, that operate mostly at an unconscious level. Of special importance in scientific inferential activity is the process of hypothesis making, which is examined in this book, along with the above aspects of inductive inference, at considerable depth. The book focuses on the inadequacy of the viewpoint of naive realism in understanding the contextual nature of scientific theories, where a cumulative progress towards an ultimate truth about Nature appears to be too simplistic a generalization. It poses a critique to the commonly perceived image of science which is seen as the last word in logic and objectivity, the latter in the double sense of being independent of individual psychological propensities and, at the same time, approaching a correct understanding of the workings of a mind-independent nature. Adopting the naturalist point of view, it examines the essential tension between the cognitive endeavours of individuals and scientific communities, immersed in belief systems and cultures, on the one hand, and the engagement with a mind-independent reality on the other. In the end, science emerges as an interpretation of nature, which is perceived by us only contextually, as successively emerging cross-sections of limited scope and extent. Successive waves of theory building in science appear as episodic and kaleidoscopic changes in perspective as certain in-built borders are crossed, rather than as a cumulative progress towards some ultimate truth. While written in an informal and conversational style, the book raises a number of deep and intriguing questions located at the interface of cognitive psychology and philosophy of science, meant for both the general lay reader and the specialist. Of particular interest is the way it explores the role of belief (aided by emotions and affects) in making the process of inductive inference possible since belief is a subtle though all-pervasive cognitive factor not adequately investigated in the current literature. (shrink)

This paper gives a sketch for a reconstruction of the Freudian unconscious, and an argument for its existence. The strategy followed attempts to side-step the extended debates about the validity of Freud's methods and conclusions, by basing itself on the desire/belief schema for understanding and explaining human behaviour – a schema neither folk psychology nor scientific psychology can do without. People are argued to have, as ideal types, two fundamental modes of fulfilling their desires: engaging with reality, and (...) wishful thinking. The first mode tries to acknowledge the constraints reality imposes on the satisfaction of desires, while the second mode tries to ignore, deny or disguise these constraints, inasmuch as they threaten to make such satisfaction impossible or unfeasible. Crucially, wishful thinking can be used so as to ignore or deny any desire that is incompatible with other strong desires. Thus we end up unaware of the existence or nature of some of our desires, of the fact that they are in flu enc ing our thought and be hav iour, and of the process our own mind has used to thwart awareness of them. Once we acknowledge this possibility, we are already seriously entertaining the possibility of the Freudian unconscious, or something fairly close to it. The more aware the subject is that her wishful thinking is just that, the less effective it becomes. Wishful thinking thus requires an unconscious; it is inimical to a clear, complete and unambiguous acknowledgement of its own status. Next, various aspects of my account (and Freud's) that allow a conception of the unconscious in non-Cartesian terms are emphasised: the unconscious is largely constituted by semantic phenomena of a particular type: forms of representation which would conceal their meaning even if the full light of 'attention', Cartesian 'consciousness' or 'introspection' were cast upon them. If wishful thinking is an integral part of mental life, philosophers and others wishing to “educate humanity” will have to proceed differently from what would have been appropriate had rational thought and action been the only available option for satisfying desires. Mankind cannot bear too much reality – T.S. Eliot S. Afr. J. Philos. Vol.22(4) 2003: 361-377. (shrink)

Many philosophers as well as psychologists hold that implicit biases are due to unconscious attitudes. The justification for this unconscious-claim seems to be an inference to the best explanation of the mismatch between explicit and implicit attitudes, which is characteristic for implicit biases. The unconscious-claim has recently come under attack based on its inconsistency with empirical data. Instead, Gawronski et al. (2006) analyze implicit biases based on the so-called Associative-Propositional Evaluation (APE) model, according to which implicit attitudes (...) are phenomenally conscious and accessible. The mismatch between the explicit and the implicit attitude is explained by the Cognitive Inconsistency Approach (CIA) (as I will call it): implicit attitudes are conscious but rejected as basis for explicit judgments because the latter lead to cognitive inconsistency with respect to other beliefs held by the subject. In this paper, I will argue that the CIA is problematic since it cannot account for the fact that implicit attitudes underlying implicit biases typically are unconscious. I will argue that a better explanation of the attitude-mismatch can be given in terms of a Neo-Freudian account of repression. I will develop such an account, and I will show how it can accommodate the merits of the APE model while avoiding the problems of the CIA. (shrink)

What should advocates of phenomenal intentionality say about unconscious intentional states? I approach this question by focusing on a recent debate between Tim Crane and David Pitt, about the nature of belief. Crane argues that beliefs are never conscious. Pitt, concerned that the phenomenal intentionality thesis coupled with a commitment to beliefs as essentially unconscious embroils Crane in positing unconscious phenomenology, counter-argues that beliefs are essentially conscious. I examine and rebut Crane’s arguments for the essential unconsciousness (...) of beliefs, some of which are widely endorsed. On the way I sketch a model of how belief states could participate in the stream of consciousness. I then consider Pitt’s position, arguing in reply, along Freudian lines, that we should posit not just dispositional but occurrent unconscious beliefs. This result, I argue, indeed requires advocates of phenomenal intentionality to posit unconscious qualia to fix these unconscious occurrent thoughts, and I defend the coherence of the notion of unconscious qualia against some common attacks. Ultimately, I claim, the combination of taking seriously the occurrent unconscious, and a commitment to phenomenal intentionality, should lead us to expand William James’s conception of the stream of consciousness to encompass, additionally, a stream of unconscious mental life—or, perhaps better, to posit a single partly conscious partly unconscious qualia-stream of mental goings-on. (shrink)

Robust self-deception, in Funkhouser and Barrett’s sense, consists in the strategic pursuit of the goal of misleading oneself with respect to some proposition. Funkhouser and Barrett’s thesis is that an evaluation of the relevant empirical literatures reveals that the unconscious mind engages in robust self-deception. If Funkhouser and Barrett are correct, the psychological evidence vindicates an account of self-deception that challenges the orthodox motivationalist approach and makes clear the distinction between self-deception and other forms of motivated belief formation (...) such as wishful thinking. The aim of this paper is to show that the evidence adduced by Funkhouser and Barrett fails to establish the existence of robust, unconscious self-deception. (shrink)

The pervasive dispositional model of belief is misguided. It fails to acknowledge the authority of first‐person ascriptions or avowals of belief, and the “decision principle”– that having decided the question whether p, there is, for me, no further question whether I believe that p. The dilemma is how one can have immediate knowledge of a state extended in time; its resolution lies in the expressive character of avowals – which does not imply a non‐assertoric thesis – and their (...) non‐cognitive status. The common claim that there are higher‐order beliefs concerning ones present beliefs is rejected as unintelligible. The decision principle is defended against claims of “unconscious belief”; there is no interesting such category, since all beliefs are liable at some time to be considered, but mostly to be out of mind. Belief is not constituted by a disposition, but is connected with dispositions – it is an “attitude concept”. (shrink)

This essay first introduces the moral sense theories of Francis Hutcheson, David Hume, and Adam Smith, and clarifies important differences between them. It then examines whether moral judgment based on the moral sense or moral sentiments varies according to one's metaphysical beliefs. For this, the essay mainly applies those theories to such issues as stem cell research, abortion, and active euthanasia. In all three theories, false religious beliefs can distort moral judgment. In Hutcheson's theory, answers to stem cell research, abortion, (...) and active euthanasia do not change according to the spectator's metaphysical beliefs. Yet answers to those issues can change according to the agent's metaphysical beliefs. Hume's theory cannot provide answers to stem cell research and abortion where the embryo or fetus is the receiver (the one affected by the agent's action) and to active euthanasia where the patient is unconscious. It may provide answers to abortion where the pregnant woman is the receiver and to active euthanasia where the patient is conscious. Yet the answers can vary depending on the woman's or the patient's metaphysical beliefs. Smith's theory can provide answers to stem cell research, abortion, and active euthanasia. But the answers can vary depending on the agent's metaphysical beliefs. These show that the moral sense or moral sentiments in those theories alone cannot identify appropriate morals. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 12.1 (2005) 1-7 [Access article in PDF] Clinical Practice, Science, and the Unconscious Douglas McConnell Neil Pickering Keywords psychotherapy, cognitive science, neuroscience, computational view of mind. This volume of Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology is devoted to questions about the unconscious mind. The philosophical complexities and difficulties associated with the unconscious are many and, despite widespread confusion and disagreement as to the nature (...) of the unconscious mind, it is used as a concept informing psychotherapy. It is therefore not surprising that papers in a special edition on the unconscious might be weighted heavily toward uncovering a justifiable conceptual niche for the unconscious and elaborating on some of the main conceptual connections. Although this makes for a slightly more philosophical edition of PPP than usual, those perhaps less interested in philosophy and more interested in actual psychiatric practice can incorporate the concepts and insights developed in these papers into their practice as they see fit.The three main articles take three quite distinct approaches to the unconscious. Schechtman (2005) addresses the need for a theory of personal identity to incorporate the unconscious and presents one that does so by developing some central Lockian intuitions. Church (2005) investigates whether the kinds of things happening in the unconscious can be explained by cognitive operations not normally associated with consciousness, specifically, spatial structuring of experience. McConnell and Gillett (2005) clarify some of Lacan's ontology of the mind where the language encountered and used by the subject provides the structure for their unconscious.The aim of this introduction is to ask and try to answer a question that logically precedes those raised in the articles in the light of the therapeutic use of the unconscious. When dealing with psychoanalysis or psychoanalytic concepts in an Anglo-American context, the struggle that psychoanalysis has had and continues to have in a psychiatric domain ruled by science is never far from the spotlight. Indeed Hinshelwood (2005) also picks up the importance of this conflict when replying to McConnell and Gillett. It seems to be historically true that the unconscious has fallen out of favor in scientific and psychiatric circles (it is no surprise that psychiatric training is largely based in "hard," that is, biological and biochemical science) particularly over the last 50 years or so. But is the scientific skepticism to be found about the use of the unconscious well-founded? And how does the continued utilization [End Page 1] of the unconscious by the therapist fit into current practice given this skepticism? Psychotherapy and the Unconscious In psychotherapy, the therapist and the client together construct a story that explains why the client is having some form of difficulty in his or her life. The stated aim is to enable the client to overcome this difficulty by gaining an understanding of what has generated it. Doing so may be a first step to dealing with that conflict. For example, an office worker who is scared of the boss and whose life at work is a misery as result may come to think that the boss is a reminder of some threatening figure from childhood and that the reaction is a regression to infantile behavior. Knowing this, the fear of the boss can be revisited—perhaps reconfigured, perhaps overcome—and life may improve. In the process of therapy, the relation of the figure from childhood to the boss is made conscious. But it was still operative before it was made explicit, even though the client did not realize it and some would say that the client's unconscious had somehow buried the memory from childhood or hidden from the client the relation of this memory of a threatening figure to the boss.A description of the content of the unconscious is, then, an intentional description involving the client's thought life, one made to help an individual understand otherwise unintelligible (to that individual) feelings, beliefs, desires, actions, and so on. Subjects' intentions are their normatively structured mental representations of, and attitudes toward, the world (e.g., "He is my boss"; "I am afraid of him"). An intentional unconscious description then takes an intentional form... (shrink)

An influential view in the epistemology of testimony is that typical or paradigmatic beliefs formed through testimonial uptake are noninferential. Some epistemologists in particular defend a causal version of this view: that beliefs formed from testimony (BFT) are generated by noninferential processes. This view is implausible, however. It tends to be elaborated in terms that do not really bear it out – e.g. that BFT is fixed directly, immediately, unconsciously or automatically. Nor is causal noninferentialism regarding BFT plausibly expressed in (...) terms of belief-independent belief formation; the complex cognitive details of BFT fixation do not accord well with such a view. But perhaps the most significant issue is that the relevant causal notion of inference itself is not particularly well-defined, at least with respect to BFT. Causal noninferentialism in this domain is obscure as a result, but this does not in turn clearly vindicate any interesting version of inferentialism. (shrink)

The pervasive dispositional model of belief is misguided. It fails to acknowledge the authority of first‐person ascriptions or avowals of belief, and the “decision principle”– that having decided the question whether p, there is, for me, no further question whether I believe that p. The dilemma is how one can have immediate knowledge of a state extended in time; its resolution lies in the expressive character of avowals – which does not imply a non‐assertoric thesis – and their (...) non‐cognitive status. The common claim that there are higher‐order beliefs concerning ones present beliefs is rejected as unintelligible. The decision principle is defended against claims of “unconscious belief”; there is no interesting such category, since all beliefs are liable at some time to be considered, but mostly to be out of mind. Belief is not constituted by a disposition, but is connected with dispositions – it is an “attitude concept”. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Buddhist Unconscious: The Ālaya-vijñāna in the Context of Indian Buddhist ThoughtMark SideritsThe Buddhist Unconscious: The Ālaya-vijñāna in the Context of Indian Buddhist Thought. By William S. Waldron. New York: RoutledgeCurzon, 2003. Pp. xvi + 269. $90.00.The Buddhist Unconscious: The Ālaya-vijñāna in the Context of Indian Buddhist Thought by William S. Waldron is an examination of the origins of the Yogācāra concept of ālaya-vijñāna, or (...) "storehouse-consciousness." Where orthodox Buddhist psychology speaks of six types of consciousness (one for each external sense modality, plus one for "inner sense" or manas), the Yogācāra school of Mahāyāna Buddhism posits an additional kind of consciousness to serve as the substratum of the seeds thought to be engendered by karma. This is sometimes seen as tantamount to admitting a self, a criticism the author seeks to rebut. His chief concern, however, is to show how this posit grew out of a set of problems inherited from pre-Yogācāra Abhidharma. He discusses the conception of consciousness that is to be found in early Buddhist sources, describes how orthodox Abhidharma sought to deal with a variety of mental continuities, and then traces the development of the notion of ālaya-vijñāna through the early Yogācāra texts Saṃdhinirmocanasūtra, Yogācārabhūmi and Mahāyānasaṃgraha.The story that the author tells is basically this. Early Buddhism explains suffering as derived from false belief in an enduring subject, the "I," where there is really just a multiplicity of ephemeral psychophysical factors in causal succession. Actions based [End Page 358] on this false belief lead to a further strengthening of those factors that perpetuate the belief, resulting in the round of rebirth. Abhidharma set about trying to catalog these factors and their multifarious causal connections. But it encountered a seemingly insuperable difficulty in trying to account for a variety of psychological continuities in terms of a model that lacks mental continuants. The Yogācāra posit of ālaya-vijñāna solves this difficulty by supplying a mental continuum that is not (ordinarily) accessible to introspection.Yogācāra is best known, of course, for its denial of external objects (cittamātra), but that claim is largely ignored here. Instead the author focuses on continuities with earlier Abhidharma thought concerning the nature of the mental continuum. Waldron is no doubt correct to see the Yogācāra enterprise as itself a (Mahāyāna) form of Abhidharma. But while the concept of ālaya-vijñāna might perhaps be seen as growing out of Abhidharma controversies concerning how best to explain continuities in mental dispositions and karma, it at least facilitates an account of sensory experience that renders the external object superfluous and thus paves the way for subjective idealism. For ālaya-vijñāna becomes the receptacle for the seeds deposited by prior action the ripening of which results in sensory cognitions. Since the author claims (p. xiii) to be writing for a nonspecialist audience, it might have been useful to make this point at the outset rather than near the end of the study (p. 161 ). There is also some tension between Waldron's reading of the concept's origins and that of Schmithausen, and more might have been said on that score.Waldron seems to take a sympathetic stance toward the defense of ālaya-vijñāna that he discerns in the texts. This is only to be expected given that the best hermeneutical strategy should involve substantial doses of interpretive charity. Still, greater critical distance might have led to a more useful discussion of the topic. For instance, a more probing investigation of the claim that only ālaya-vijñāna can explain karmic and mental-dispositional continuities might have yielded a deeper understanding of the overall view. The problem faced by Abhidharma theories is clear. One phenomenon that any theory of persons must accommodate is the intermittent recurrence of similar behaviors all of which seem traceable to an event at some remove in the past: having learned in my early childhood that fire is hot, from time to time I intentionally avoid... (shrink)

This article uses Memo Akten’s art installation Learning to See to challenge the belief that machine learning and machine vision are neutral and objective technologies. Furthermore, this article follows Bernard Stiegler to contend that not only machine vision but also human vision is the result of constant training processes that rely directly on technology. From this perspective, human vision is always already technical. Likewise, in an age dominated growingly by machine learning technologies, it is possible to speak not only (...) of machine vision but also of a machinic imagination and a machinic unconscious, two notions that can be illustrated through Akten’s art installation. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 12.1 (2005) 49-54 [Access article in PDF] In Search for Normativity of Unconscious Reasoning Gerrit Glas Keywords emotion, practical reason, reasoning, normativity, unconscious, appropriation Puzzles Church Is "deeply" puzzled by "the idea that we can be ignorant of our own rea-sons" (2005, 31). I was, at first sight, puzzled by this puzzlement.There is no question that we, indeed, are ignorant of many of (...) our reasons. In cases of routine behavior, for instance, we are often not, or only dimly, aware of the reasons for doing something. When I use the indicator when taking a turn to the left with my car, I have no conscious reason for doing so. It has become routine behavior, acquired during my lessons in car driving. My non-awareness may even be considered as sign of my excellence as a driver. This non-awareness is most noteworthy in all those cases in which we, again routinely, withdraw from a particular action. Education and training not only teach us how and why to perform certain activities, they also give us reasons to refrain from all sorts of other actions. There are many reasons to do certain things; there seem to be many more reasons for not doing other things. To suppose that having reasons would by necessity involve conscious awareness of these reasons would life make impossible to live.So, ignorance seems to be very common, not to say trivial. This raises the question whether there is anything nontrivial in the attempt to make sense of ignorance of our reasons. What element or aspect of ignorance is it that may evoke philosophical interest? Jennifer Church seems to have in mind different overlapping concerns. In the first part of her paper, she addressesthe issue of legitimacy; that is, the specification of conditions under which attributions of unconscious content are legitimate or illegitimate; andthe issue of normativity; that is, the question how and why unconscious reasons can be normative for me.The first question can be discussed without reference to a self; the second question cannot. In the second part of the paper there arise new concerns:the issue of having reasons that can not be recognized as reasons by oneself, "strange reasons" so to say, with spatial reasoning as a paradigm case; andthe issue of being moved by ones reasons through the visceral connection between desires and beliefs on the one hand and motor activity (external or internal) on the other hand; this connection is secured by our emotions.[End Page 49] Recapitulation Let me try to recapitulate some of the main issues. Church makes, first, a distinction between having access to one's reasons and recognizing one's reasons as reasons. She proceeds by discussing the no-access problem in terms of a functionalist metaphysics of mental states. Then she suggests that ascribing unconscious content (or reason) to a person, in fact, boils down to the evaluation of the appropriateness of the ascription of a specimen of practical reasoning to the subject. Practical reasoning involves the structured connection and interaction between beliefs and desires. This structure can be studied at the level of animal psychology; however, there are some important differences between humans and animals: humans can withhold assent, they can lie, and they may recognize mistakes, whereas animals cannot. The possibility of being mistaken about one's reasons leads from the issue of legitimacy to the issue of normativity. For a reason to become my reason, the belief–desire network should make sense, I should feel normatively compelled in some way. So the issue of normativity cannot be studied apart from the possibility of recognition. To recognize a reason as one's reason, one has—at some level of understanding—to assent with its content, even if this occurs implicitly.In the second part the conditions for recognition are investigated in the form of an analysis of unconscious reasons that are strange. Strange reasons are not recognized because they function in some different way compared to normal conscious reasoning. Strangeness is defined here in terms of a different way of... (shrink)

Vlastos’ famous characterization of the Socratic elenchus focuses on two main aspects of this method: its epistemic roots and its dialogical nature. Our aim is to lay the groundwork to formally capture this characterization. To do so, first, we outline an epistemic framework in which the elenchus can be inscribed. More precisely, we focus our analysis on the passage from unconscious ignorance to conscious (or Socratic) ignorance and provide new insights about the epistemic outcome of an elenctic argument. Secondly, (...) from a logical perspective, we consider the elenchus as a dynamic exchange allowing Socrates’ respondents to revise their beliefs, on pain of inconsistency. By stressing this point, we represent this method as a process of belief revision in dynamic epistemic logic and provide a new logical solution to what Vlastos called the problem of the elenchus. (shrink)

Pioneers in psychology discovered, then repudiated, the traumatic origins of dissociation. Recent scientific research is showing how genetic predisposition plus trauma cause dissociation along with observable changes in the brain. EEG and PET scans have demonstrated that distinct neural networks lie at the base of dissociative states, with differences as striking as blindness vs. sight. Research is pointing as well to the role of the right hemisphere in developing a core sense of self through the mother-infant bond and dividing it (...) in response to childhood trauma and later stressors. Analysts from the nineteenth through the twenty-first century have witnessed frequent paranormal claims, such as telepathy, in mediums and dissociative patients, and wondered at the knowledge they displayed. This paper reports case studies of an empathic therapeutic matrix where unconscious transfers of information occurred with surprising revelations and imaginative constructs that both healed the patient and changed the therapist's own beliefs. (shrink)