This is a review of Mind and Supermind. By KEITH FRANKISH. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004. Pp xiv + 255. Price £45.00 (US $75.00). ISBN 0521 812038 (hardback).

I argue that findings in support of Adams and Kveraga’s functional forecast model of emotion expression processing help settle the debate between rich and sparse views of the content of perceptual experience. In particular, I argue that these results in social vision suggest that the distinctive phenomenal character of experiences involving high-level properties such as emotions and social traits is best explained by their being visually experienced as opposed to being brought about by perceptual judgments.

This paper concerns the role of the structural properties of representations in determining the nature of their content. I take as a starting point Fodor's (2007) and Heck's (2007) recent arguments making the iconic structure of perceptual representations essential in establishing their content as content of a different (nonconceptual) kind. I argue that the prima facie state–content error this strategy seems to display is nothing but a case of “state–content error error,” i.e., the mistake of considering that the properties that (...) characterize the type of content certain representations have are indeed independent of their structural properties. I also consider another objection to the general strategy, namely that it falls short of showing that the nonconceptual content of perceptual experiences thus established is the kind of content that figures in true explanations of intentional behavior. I concede this point in respect of Fodor's version of the strategy, while denying that it has any bearing on Heck's approach. The success of this objection in Heck's case ultimately depends, I argue, upon an unjustified commitment to a certain empirically suspect model of perception. (shrink)

In this paper I display a general metaphysical assumption that characterizes basic naturalistic views and that is inherited, in a residual form, by their leading teleological rivals. The assumption is that intentional states require identifiable inner vehicles and that to explain intentional properties we must develop accounts that bind specific contents to specific vehicles. I show that this assumption is deeply rooted in representationalist and reductionist theories of content and I argue that it is deeply inappropriate. I sketch the main (...) features of plausible alternatives: such alternatives are either anti-representationalist (Dynamical Systems' models) or anti-reductionist (institution-based approaches), and are not committed to any such metaphysical premise. (shrink)

ESPAÑOL: Aunque Aristóteles llegó a calificar como «revolución» el cambio violento de las politeias griegas y Arendt, al revisar el uso moderno del término, ve a ésta como el surgimiento de una inevitable y desconocida forma de gobierno que, a través también de la violencia, busca la libertad e igualdad política de todos los ciudadanos, fue Ortega quien se atrevió a aseverar que lo menos esencial de las revoluciones es la violencia, apuntando con ello a la aparición de un discurso (...) y una narrativa que quebranta y modifica nuestra percepción del mundo. Sin embargo, a pesar de mantener dicha intención quebrantadora, el discurso revolucionario parece haberse convertido en ciertas zonas de Latinoamérica en un arte factus lingüístico —término que usó también Ortega— que sirve a la concentración del poder y la ideología ( en el sentido usado por Teun van Dijk) de un grupo social específico. ENGLISH: Although Aristotle came to qualify as a «revolution» violent change of the Greek polity and Arendt, reviewing the modern use of the term, sees this as the emergence of an inevitable and unknown form of government, also through violence, seek freedom and political equality of all citizens, was Ortega who dared to assert that the least essential of revolutions is the violence, pointing to the emergence of this discourse and narrative breaks and changes our perception of the world. However, despite this intention to keep disruptive, revolutionary discourse seems to have become in parts of Latin America in a language factus art — a term also used by Ortega — serving concentration of power and ideology (in the sense used by Teun van Dijk) of a particular social group. (shrink)

Connectionism and classicism, it generally appears, have at least this much in common: both place some notion of internal representation at the heart of a scientific study of mind. In recent years, however, a much more radical view has gained increasing popularity. This view calls into question the commitment to internal representation itself. More strikingly still, this new wave of anti-representationalism is rooted not in armchair theorizing but in practical attempts to model and understand intelligent, adaptive behavior. In this paper (...) we first present, and then critically assess, a variety of recent anti-representationalist treatments. We suggest that so far, at least, the sceptical rhetoric outpaces both evidence and argument. Some probable causes of this premature scepticism are isolated. Nonetheless, the anti-representationalist challenge is shown to be both important and progressive insofar as it forces us to see beyond the bare representational/non-representational dichotomy and to recognize instead a rich continuum of degrees and types of representationality. (shrink)

Le pari de cet ouvrage est d'explorer les facettes multiples à travers lesquelles se donne le soi. Parler de soi plutôt que de moi implique une rupture franche avec les philosophies qui placent le sujet humain en position fondatrice. Le soi est encore moins une « chose » mais un mode d'être ; le soi n'est pas une donnée mais une conquête dont le devenir est en partie indéterminé. C'est donc sous le signe des épreuves qu'il faut penser les variations (...) phénoménologiques et herméneutiques sur le soi. Si la philosophie reste la discipline dominante des réflexions qui parcourent les contributions du volume, l'originalité de cet ouvrage est d'offrir en même temps au lecteur d'autres variations par lesquelles se décline le soi. (shrink)

According to so-called “thin” views about the content of experience, we can only visually experience low-level features such as colour, shape, texture or motion. According to so-called “rich” views, we can also visually experience some high-level properties, such as being a pine tree or being threatening. One of the standard objections against rich views is that high-level properties can only be represented at the level of judgment. In this paper, I first challenge this objection by relying on some recent studies (...) in social vision. Secondly, I tackle a different but related issue, namely, the idea that, if the content of experience is rich, then perception is cognitively penetrable. Against this thesis, I argue that the very same criteria that help us vindicate the truly sensory nature of our rich experiences speak against their being cognitively penetrable. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue against the view that the representational structure of the implicit attitudes responsible for implicitly biased behaviour is propositional—as opposed to associationist. The proposal under criticism moves from the claim that implicit biased behaviour can occasionally be modulated by logical and evidential considerations to the view that the structure of the implicit attitudes responsible for such biased behaviour is propositional. I argue, in particular, against the truth of this conditional. Sensitivity to logical and evidential considerations, I (...) contend, proves to be an inadequate criterion for establishing the true representational structure of implicit attitudes. Considerations of a different kind, which emphasize the challenges posed by the structural social injustice that implicit attitudes reflect, offer, I conclude, better support for deciding this issue in favour of an associationist view. (shrink)

While the term ‘nihilism’ has become increasingly widespread throughout the past two centuries, not only in academic discourses but in popular culture more widely, there is a surprising lack of con...

Cet ouvrage propose une réinterprétation originale du rôle cognitif du Je pense kantien qui se veut pertinente pour la phénoménologie et pour la philosophie actuelle de l’esprit. L’étude du rapport entre temporalité phénoménale et cognition catégoriale constitue le fil conducteur de cette recherche. Elle mène à la question capitale du statut ultime du Moi, du sens du Je du Je pense. Que désigne-t-il : un épiphénomène contingent, une représentation sui generis, une métareprésentation, un acte indéconstructible, un événement fonctionnel, une forme (...) logique ? Recèle-t-il une véritable unité ou plutôt une multiplicité productrice d’unité ? Représente-t-il une identité réelle ou un changement identifiable, un référent vide ou ‘saturé’ ? La réponse à toutes ces questions dépend notamment de la façon de concevoir l’efficacité du Je, c’est-à-dire de l’articulation entre inconscient cognitif, conscience de soi et conscience de quelque chose en général. En pensant Kant avec la philosophie moderne et contemporaine, l’auteur tente d’élucider l’instabilité inévitable du passage critique à un Cogito postmétaphysique. (shrink)

It has recently been pointed out that perceptual nonconceptualism admits of two different and logically independent interpretations. On the first (content) view, perceptual nonconceptualism is a thesis about the kind of content perceptual experiences have. On the second (state) view, perceptual nonconceptualism is a thesis about the relation that holds between a subject undergoing a perceptual experience and its content. For the state nonconceptualist, it thus seems consistent to hold that both perceptual experiences and beliefs share the same (conceptual) content, (...) but that for a subject to undergo a perceptual experience, the subject need not possess the concepts involved in a correct characterization of such content. I argue that the consistency of this position requires a non-Fregean notion of content that fails to capture the way the subject grasps the world as being. Hence state nonconceptualism leaves perceptual content attribution unsupported. Yet, on a characterization of content along the relevant (neo-Fregean) lines, this position would become incoherent, as it would entail that a subject could exercise cognitive abilities she doesn’t possess. I conclude that, given the notion of content demanded by the debate, the state view does entail the content view after all. (shrink)

Is action-guiding vision cognitively penetrable? More specifically, is the visual processing that guides our goal-directed actions sensitive to semantic information from cognitive states? This paper critically examines a recent family of arguments whose aim is to challenge a widespread and influential view in philosophy and cognitive science: the view that action-guiding vision is cognitively impenetrable. I argue, in response, that while there may very well be top–down causal influences on action-guiding vision, they should not be taken to be an instance (...) of cognitive penetration. Assuming otherwise is to assign a computational role to the influencing states that they cannot perform. Although questions about cognitive penetrability are ultimately empirical, the issues addressed in this paper are largely philosophical. The discussion here highlights an important set of considerations that help better understand the relations between cognition, vision, and action. (shrink)

It has recently been argued that beliefs formed on the basis of implicit biases pose a challenge for accessibilism, since implicit biases are consciously inaccessible, yet they seem to be relevant to epistemic justification. Recent empirical evidence suggests, however, that while we may typically lack conscious access to the source of implicit attitudes and their impact on our beliefs and behaviour, we do have access to their content. In this paper, I discuss the notion of accessibility required for this argument (...) to work vis-à-vis these empirical results and offer two ways in which the accessibilist could meet the challenge posed by implicit biases. Ultimately both strategies fail, but the way in which they do, I conclude, reveals something general and important about our epistemic obligations and about the intuitions that inform the role of implicit biases in accessibilist justification. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue against the view that the representational structure of the implicit attitudes responsible for implicitly biased behaviour is propositional—as opposed to associationist. The proposal under criticism moves from the claim that implicit biased behaviour can occasionally be modulated by logical and evidential considerations to the view that the structure of the implicit attitudes responsible for such biased behaviour is propositional. I argue, in particular, against the truth of this conditional. Sensitivity to logical and evidential considerations, I (...) contend, proves to be an inadequate criterion for establishing the true representational structure of implicit attitudes. Considerations of a different kind, which emphasize the challenges posed by the structural social injustice that implicit attitudes reflect, offer, I conclude, better support for deciding this issue in favour of an associationist view.En este artículo cuestiono la tesis de que la estructura representacional de las actitudes implícitas responsables del comportamiento implícitamente sesgado es proposicional—en lugar de asociacionista. De acuerdo con la propuesta criticada, si la conducta implícita sesgada puede ocasionalmente ser modulada por consideraciones lógicas y evidenciales, entonces la estructura de las actitudes implícitas responsables de esa conducta es proposicional. Cuestiono, en particular, la verdad de este condicional. Sostengo que la sensibilidad de las actitudes implícitas a consideraciones lógicas y evidenciales resulta ser un criterio inadecuado para establecer su verdadera estructura representacional. Consideraciones de otro tipo, que enfatizan los desafíos planteados por la injusticia social estructural que las actitudes implícitas reflejan, ofrecen, concluyo, un mejor apoyo para decidir esta cuestión a favor de una visión asociacionista. (shrink)

Nonconceptualists maintain that there are ways of representing the world that do not reflect the concepts a creature possesses. They claim that the content of these representational states is genuine content because it is subject to correctness conditions, but it is nonconceptual because the creature to which we attribute it need not possess any of the concepts involved in the specification of that content. Appeals to nonconceptual content have seemed especially useful in attempts to capture the representational properties of perceptual (...) experiences, the representational states of pre-linguistic children and non-human animals, the states of subpersonal visual information-processing systems, and the subdoxastic states involved in tacit knowledge of the grammar of a language. Nonconceptual content is also invoked in the explanation of concept possession, concept acquisition, sensorimotor behaviour, and in the analysis of the notion of self-consciousness. The notion of nonconceptual content plays an important role in many discussions about the relationships between perception and thought. (shrink)

Este artículo se enmarca en una línea de investigación que pretende analizar el humor como estrategia creativa en el ensayo audiovisual español. Para ilustrar el objetivo propuesto, se han revisado tres largometrajes que, a pesar de su diversidad, encajan, de una u otra forma y con diversos objetivos, en esta manera de enunciación cinematográfica: La casa Emak Bakia (Oskar Alegria, 2012), Mapa (Elías León Siminiani, 2012) y Muchos hijos, un mono y un castillo (Gustavo Salmerón, 2017). Los tres comparten algunas (...) características del ensayo audiovisual (la reflexividad, la escritura del yo y una preocupación estética que llega al cuestionamiento de las propias formas de expresión) y recurren al humor como un recurso para construir sus relatos. Por ello, se han revisado algunas de las características del ensayo audiovisual, se ha analizado el humor como elemento narrativo que se consigue a través de diversas instancias enunciativas y se ha pasado revista a dos recursos al servicio del humor. (shrink)

In this paper I argue on two fronts. First, I press for the view that judging is a type of mental action, as opposed to those who think that judging is involuntary and hence not an action. Second, I argue that judging is specifically a type of non-voluntary mental action. My account of the non-voluntary nature of the mental act of judging differs, however, from standard non-voluntarist views, according to which ‘non-voluntary’ just means regulated by epistemic reasons. In addition, judging (...) is non-voluntary, I contend, because it is partially constituted by the exercise of a non-reason-governed skill. This skill, which I call ‘critical pop-out’, consists of an unreflective, often unconscious, ability to detect the kind of situations in which the reflective abilities that also partially constitute our acts of judging should be deployed. We are responsible for our judgments, I conclude, because in identifying such reflection-inviting situations, we reveal the kind of epistemic agents we are. (shrink)

O'Regan and Noe present a wonderfully detailed and comprehensive defense of a position whose broad outline we absolutely and unreservedly endorse. They are right, it seems to us, to stress the intimacy of conscious content and embodied action, and to counter the idea of a Grand Illusion with the image of an agent genuinely in touch, via active exploration, with the rich and varied visual scene. This is an enormously impressive achievement, and we hope that the comments that follow will (...) be taken in a spirit of constructive questioning. Overall, we have two main reservations. (shrink)

I raise some doubts about the plausibility of Stanley and Williamson's view that all knowledge-how is just a species of propositional knowledge. By tackling the question of what is involved in entertaining a proposition, I try to show that Stanley and Williamson's position leads to an uncomfortable dilemma. Depending on how we understand the notion of contemplating a proposition, either intuitively central cases of knowing-how cannot be thus classified or we lose our grip on the very idea of propositional knowledge, (...) which then fails to demarcate any clear class of cases. I conclude with a brief discussion of the nature and role of knowledge-how, and its relation to the important, but less explored, notion of expertise. (shrink)