The psychofunctionalist claim that psychological terms can be defined through the use of an experimental theory has been criticized on the grounds that it is "chauvinistic": that it denies mentality to any creature of which the selected theory is false. I analyze the "argument from science fiction" that is thought to establish this conclusion, and show that its plausibility rests on a scope ambiguity in formulations of functional definitions. One formulation is indeed chauvinistic, but an alternative rendering is not, and (...) is perfectly consistent with ascribing mentality to creatures of which the selected psychological theory is false. This alternative interpretation of psychofunctionalism is set out in detail, defended from several objections, and finally tied to the semantics of ordinary language psychological terms. (shrink)

I have proposed wedding the theories of belief known as dispositionalism and interpretivism. Krzysztof Poslajko objects that dispositionalism does just fine on its own and, moreover, is better off without interpretivism’s metaphysical baggage. I argue that Poslajko is wrong: in order to secure a principled criterion for individuating beliefs, dispositionalism must either collapse into psychofunctionalism (or some other non-superficial theory) or accept interpretivism’s hand in marriage.

Type materialism is a theory of the place of states of phenomenal consciousness in nature. It is the theory that qualitative mental states are type identical with certain neuroscientific states. This chapter examines this theory and discusses some required background details. There are currently a number of scientific projects that are aimed at finding the neural correlates of states of phenomenal consciousness. Whether any of these projects will succeed is of course an empirical issue. Type materialism for phenomenal consciousness is (...) the view that types of states of phenomenal consciousness are identical with their strict neuroscientific correlates. If type materialism is true, then states of phenomenal consciousness are causally efficacious; for they are neuroscientific states with causal effects. Type materialism allows that there can be phenomenal consciousness in actual “absent folk role” cases. The chapter distinguishes type materialism from representationalism and psychofunctionalism. (shrink)

In this article, I explore how researchers’ metaphysical commitments can be conducive—or unconducive—to progress in animal cognition research. The methodological dictum known as Morgan’s Canon exhorts comparative psychologists to countenance the least mentalistic fair interpretation of animal actions. This exhortation has frequently been misread as a blanket condemnation of mentalistic interpretations of animal behaviors that could be interpreted behavioristically. But Morgan meant to demand only that researchers refrain from accepting default interpretations of (apparent) actions until other fair interpretations have been (...) duly considered. The Canon backfired largely because of Morgan’s background metaphysical commitment to a univocal, hierarchical, and anthropocentric account of cognitive architecture. I make the case that, going forward, comparative psychologists would do well to pair judicious use of Morgan’s Canon with an openness to the existence of non-humanlike animal minds comprising phenomena belonging to distinct cognitive and folk psychological ontologies. And I argue that this case gives us pragmatic reason to reconcile deep—e.g., psychofunctionalist—and superficial—e.g., dispositionalist—approaches to the metaphysics of belief. (shrink)

This is the second of four online Companions to Velmans, M. (ed.) (2018) Consciousness (Critical Concepts in Psychology), a 4-volume collection of Major Works on Consciousness commissioned by Routledge, London. -/- The Companion to Volume 2 Part 1 focuses on the detailed relationship of phenomenal consciousness to mental processing described either functionally (as human information processing) or in terms of neural activity, in the ways typically explored by cognitive psychology and cognitive neuroscience. Beginning with reviews of functional differences between unconscious, (...) preconscious and conscious processing and the different senses in which mental processing can be said to be “conscious”, the readings turn to seminal work on blindsight and related phenomena, experimental evidence of perception without awareness, ways to combine “subjective” and “objective” measures of awareness, evidence for distinct neural pathways governing visual awareness and visual control of motor acts, and the complex ways in which consciousness of action relates to both voluntary and involuntary acts. The readings then focus on the intimate links between attention and consciousness, starting with the writings of William James and surveying the extensive work on this subject over the last 60 years that explores the relationships between and attended and non-attended processing, preconscious and conscious processing, and attention, primary (working, short-term) memory and consciousness. The readings go on to survey the evidence that attention contributes to the “neural binding” required for an integrated conscious experience and evidence that attention (in humans) is dissociable from consciousness, necessary for consciousness, but not sufficient for consciousness. The readings then turn to research on “inattentional blindness”, and conclude with a review of Baars’ global workspace theory, which integrates many theories and findings in this area into a coherent, global model. The Companion then summarises seminal readings on learning, memory and consciousness; the extensive research on mental imagery, long thought to epitomize private, subjective conscious experience—and consequently ruled out of science by reductive, materialist philosophies of mind; the complex relations of consciousness to sleep and dreaming; the development of consciousness in human infants; and the debates surrounding, and extensive evidence for consciousness in non-human animals, with attendant consequences for their humane treatment. -/- As with the other Companions to these Volumes there are many links to background resources (marked in pink) and to the selected readings themselves (marked in blue). (shrink)

People cannot contemplate a proposition without believing that proposition. A model of belief fixation is sketched and used to explain hitherto disparate, recalcitrant, and somewhat mysterious psychological phenomena and philosophical paradoxes. Toward this end I also contend that our intuitive understanding of the workings of introspection is mistaken. In particular, I argue that propositional attitudes are beyond the grasp of our introspective capacities. We learn about our beliefs from observing our behavior, not from introspecting our stock beliefs. -/- The model (...) of belief fixation offered in the dissertation poses a novel dilemma for theories of rationality. One might have thought that the ability to contemplate ideas while withholding assent is a necessary condition on rationality. In short, it seems that rational creatures shouldn‘t just form their beliefs based on whatever they happen to think. However, it seems that we are creatures that automatically and reflexively form our beliefs based on whatever propositions we happen to consider. Thus, either the rational requirement that states that we must have evidence for our beliefs must be jettisoned or we must accept the conclusion that we are necessarily irrational. (shrink)

In this essay I defend meaning holism against certain criticisms that Jerry Fodor has presented against it. In "Psychosemantics" he argued that meaning holism is incompatible with the development of scientific psychology given the ways in which scientific psychology adverts to intentional content. In his recent book "Holism" (co-authored with Ernest Lepore) he indicates that he still upholds this argument. I argue that Fodor's argument fails, and argue in favor of the compatibility of meaning holism with scientific psychology. I also (...) argue positively in favor of meaning holism, arguing in part that, contrary to Fodor's claims, psychofunctionalism provides a strong basis for defending meaning holism. As part of this argument, I contend, contrary to Fodor, that narrow content, as derived from psychofunctionalism, should be construed as semantic. (shrink)

One job for theories of mental representation is to distinguish between different kinds of mental representation: beliefs, desires, intentions, perceptual states, etc. What makes a mental state a belief that p rather than a desire that p or a visual representation that p? Functionalism is a leading approach for doing so: for individuating mental states. Functionalism is designed to allow that psychological states can be multiply realized. Mark Sprevak has argued that, for a functionalist account of psychological states to apply (...) to creatures that are organised in a very different way to humans (call them Martians), the way a psychological state is functionally individuated has to be relatively coarse-grained (Sprevak 2009). Psychological research might show that human beliefs are directly available to consciousness, that they are formed as the result of deliberate judgement, and so on, but theorists would be precluded from including these roles in their account of belief, if Sprevak is right. The argument for coarse-grained individuation fails if we distinguish functionalism about what it takes to be a psychological state in general from functionalism about a particular state type such as belief. Functionalism individuates a psychological state like believing that p partly by reference to its relations to other psychological states: desiring that p, perceiving that p, intending that p, etc. Functionalist motivations do indeed suggest that Martians with a functional organisation and physical substrate quite unlike humans could have psychological states, but not that they should have states with the interrelated collection of functional roles to count as beliefs, desires, intentions, etc. Thus, theorists are not precluded from including functional relations to consciousness or deliberate judgement in their account of (human) belief, consistent with allowing that Martians would have their own collection of functionally interrelated psychological states. Sprevak’s coarse-grained functionalism implies an implausibly liberal form of extended cognition. The point about functional interrelations allows us to avoid that conclusion without jettisoning functionalism (as Sprevak suggests we should): records in a human notebook may not enter into the right interrelations with other human psychological states to count as beliefs; nor do they enter into any interrelations with Martian psychological states. Functionalism can therefore allow that Martians have psychological states while holding that few if any of the beliefs we humans have are, as a matter of fact, extended. (shrink)

A commentary on a target article by Alison Gopnik (1993) How we know our minds: the illusion of first-person knowledge of intentionality. Focusing on evidence of how children acquire a theory of mind, this commentary argues that there are internal inconsistencies in theories that both argue for the functional role of conscious experiences and the irreducibility of those experiences to third-person viewable information processing.

An evaluation of the strengths, weaknesses, and originality of Chalmer's book.