The Look of Another Mind

Mind 126 (504):1023-1061 (2017)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

According to the perceptual model, our knowledge of others' minds is a form of perceptual knowledge. We know, for example, that Jones is angry because we can literally see that he is. In this essay, I argue that mental states do not have the kind of distinctive looks that could sufficiently justify perceptual knowledge of others’ mentality. I present a puzzle that can arise with respect to mental states that I claim does not arise for non-mental properties like being an apple and argue that this is explained by the fact that the looks of non-mental properties adhere to a certain explanatory principle that does not hold for mental states. This shows, I argue, that, even if we think mental states do have looks, these cannot offer sufficient grounds for perceptual knowledge of others' minds. In the final section of the essay, I suggest an alternative way of thinking about our knowledge of others' minds and about the sorts of looks or appearances that might be associated with mental states.

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 90,221

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

The myth of the hidden.William E. S. McNeill - 2009 - Dissertation, University College London
Embodiment and the Perceptual Hypothesis.William E. S. McNeill - 2012 - Philosophical Quarterly 62 (247):569 - 591.
Seeing Other People.Joel Smith - 2010 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 81 (3):731-748.
Perceptual Content.Michael George Idinopulos - 1998 - Dissertation, University of California, Berkeley
Perceptual content and the content of mental imagery.Bence Nanay - 2015 - Philosophical Studies 172 (7):1723-1736.
Bar-on on self-knowledge and expression.Matthew Boyle - 2010 - Acta Analytica 25 (1):9-20.
On Direct Social Perception.Shannon Spaulding - 2015 - Consciousness and Cognition 36:472-482.
Other minds and perceived identity.Anil Gomes - 2009 - Dialectica 63 (2):219-230.
Speaking My Mind: Expression and Self-Knowledge.Dorit Bar-On - 2004 - Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press UK.

Analytics

Added to PP
2016-01-12

Downloads
164 (#107,821)

6 months
15 (#111,322)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Matthew Parrott
King's College London

Citations of this work

Perceiving agency.Mason Westfall - 2023 - Mind and Language 38 (3):847-865.
Other minds are neither seen nor inferred.Mason Westfall - 2020 - Synthese 198 (12):11977-11997.
Toward a Perceptual Account of Mindreading.Somogy Varga - 2018 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 100 (2):380-401.
Perception, Evidence, and our Expressive Knowledge of Others' Minds.Anil Gomes - 2019 - In Matthew Parrott & Anita Avramides (eds.), Knowing Other Minds. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

View all 10 citations / Add more citations

References found in this work

Knowledge and its limits.Timothy Williamson - 2000 - New York: Oxford University Press.
Grounding in the image of causation.Jonathan Schaffer - 2016 - Philosophical Studies 173 (1):49-100.
Guide to Ground.Kit Fine - 2012 - In Fabrice Correia & Benjamin Schnieder (eds.), Metaphysical Grounding. Cambridge University Press. pp. 37--80.
Knowledge and Its Limits.Timothy Williamson - 2000 - Philosophy 76 (297):460-464.

View all 65 references / Add more references