VOLUME 17 (2004), ISSUE 2

Editorial:

WILLIAM BECHTEL & CEES van LEEUWEN, editors
New developments

Manuscripts:

SONIA SEDIVY
Minds: Contents without vehicles

• Abstract: This paper explores a new understanding of mind or mental representation by arguing that contents at the personal level are not carried by vehicles. Contentful mental states at the personal level are distinctive by virtue of their vehicle-less nature: the subpersonal physiological or functional states that are associated with and enable personal level contents cannot be understood as their vehicles, neither can the sensations or the sensory conditions associated with perceptual contents. This result is obtained by first extending the interpretationist ideas of Davidson and Dennett to show that subpersonal physiological or functional states cannot be construed as the vehicles of personal level contents. Then the anti-foundationalist arguments of Sellars are extended to show that sensory states cannot stand as vehicles to perceptual contents. The line of argumentation extended from Sellars also provides a critique of the current trend to posit nonconceptual contents.

MARK BEVIR
The unconscious in social explanation

• Abstract: The proper range and content of the unconscious in the human sciences should be established by reference to its conceptual relationship to the folk psychology that informs the standard form of explanation therein. A study of this relationship shows that human scientists should appeal to the unconscious only when the language of the conscious fails them, that is typically when they find a conflict between people's self-understanding and their actions. This study also shows that human scientists should adopt a broader concept of the unconscious than the one developed by Freud, that is, one free from his ahistorical concept of the instincts and his ahistorical emphasis on the sexual experiences of childhood. The unconscious, understood in this way, has an ambiguous relationship to more recent linguistic and narrativist strands of psychoanalysis.

PETER WALLIS
Intention without representation

• Abstract: A mechanism for planning ahead would appear to be essential to any creature with more than insect level intelligence. In this paper it is shown how planning, using full means–ends analysis, can be had while avoiding the so called symbol grounding problem. The key role of knowledge representation in intelligence has been acknowledged since at least the enlightenment, but the advent of the computer has made it possible to explore the limits of alternate schemes, and to explore the nature of our everyday understanding of the world around us. In particular artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics has forced a close examination, by people other than philosophers, of what it means to say for instance that "snow is white." One interpretation of the "new AI" is that it is questioning the need for representation altogether. Brooks and others have shown how a range of intelligent behaviours can be had without representation, and this paper goes one step further showing how intending to do things can be achieved without symbolic representation. The paper gives a concrete example of a mechanism in terms of robots that play soccer. It describes a Belief, Desire, and Intention (BDI) architecture that plans in terms of activities. The result is a situated agent that plans to do things with no more ontological commitment than the reactive systems Brooks described in his seminal paper, "Intelligence without Representation."

LIAM P. DEMPSEY
Conscious experience, reduction, and identity: Many explanatory gaps, one solution

• Abstract: This paper considers the so-called explanatory gap between brain activity and conscious experience. A number of different, though closely related, explanatory gaps are distinguished and a monistic account of conscious experience, a version of Herbert Feigl’s “dual-access theory,” is advocated as a solution to the problems they are taken to pose for physicalist accounts of mind. Although dual-access theory is a version of the mind-body identity thesis, it in no way “eliminates” conscious experience; rather, it provides a parsimonious and explanatorily fruitful theory of the consciousness-body relation which faithfully preserves the nature of conscious experience while going quite far in “bridging” the various explanatory gaps distinguished below.

JING ZHU
Understanding volition

• Abstract: The concept of volition has a long history in Western thought, but is looked upon unfavourably in contemporary philosophy and psychology. In this paper I propose and elaborate a unifying conception of volition, which views volition as a mediating executive mental process that bridges the gaps between an agent’s deliberation, decision, and voluntary bodily action. Then I critically examine three major skeptical arguments against volition: volition is a mystery, volition is an illusion, and volition is a fundamentally flawed conception that leads to infinite regress. I show that all these charges are untenable and the arguments are far from decisive to dismiss the concept of volition. In addition, I suggest that a naturalistic approach, which takes philosophical inquiry as continuous with the scientific study of volition, is a promising way to demystify volition.

Review Essays:

HUIB LOOREN DE JONG, SACHA BEM, & MAURICE SCHOUTEN
Theory in psychology: A review essay of ANDRE KUKLA’s Methods of theoretical psychology

• Abstract: In this review essay we critically discuss Andre Kukla’s Methods of theoretical psychology. We argue that Kukla mistakenly tries to build his case for theorizing in psychology as a separate discipline on a dubious distinction between theory and observation. He then argues that the demise of empiricism implies a return of some form of rationalism, that entails an autonomous role for theorizing in psychology. Having shown how this theory-observation dichotomy goes back to traditional and largely abandoned ideas in epistemology, we present an alternative in the guise of the pragmatist or functionalist tradition, where the interdependence of theory, observation and action is emphasized and the positivist dichotomy of pure observations and pure theory is rejected. Furthermore, we show how recent work on “active” perception supports the functionalist approach. Although we agree with Kukla that theory has a legitimate place in psychology, we suggest that he needlessly limits its scope to autonomous domain-neutral theorizing, and that broadening its perspective to analyzing the presuppositions and implications of empirical work is a more fruitful approach. In fact, the attempt to find the epistemological and philosophical implications of empirical work in perception we sketch in this review essay is in our view a case of theorizing in psychology.

ROBERT W. LURZ
In search of the metaphor of the mind: a critical review of Baars' in the theater of consciousness

• Abstract: Metaphors of the mind abound. The mind has been metaphorically described as an aviary, a telephone switchboard, a ghost in a machine, and a computer--to name but a few. Bernard Baars, in his In the theater of consciousness, adds to this venerable list, arguing that the mind can be instructively thought of as a working theater. Baars argues for the aptness of his theater metaphor by showing how it can be used to tell "a unified story" of all the currently available scientific data on consciousness. This paper argues that Baars' theater metaphor is not entirely apt, that once it is unpacked, it suggests a certain relation between consciousness and attention that does not appear to be supported by the currently available data.

Book Reviews:

NIALL SHANKS
Review of GARY CZIKO's The things we do: Using the lessons of Bernard and Darwin to understand the what, how, and why of our behavior

VICTOR DANIELS
Review of STEVEN LEHAR's The world in your head: A gestalt view of the mechanism of conscious experience

HEIDI MAIBOM
Review of RADU J. BOGDAN's Minding minds

NICOLA SCHUTTE
Review of GERALD MATTHEWS, MOSHE ZEIDNER, & RICHARD D. ROBERTS' Emotional intelligence: Science and myth

PHILIP ROBBINS
Review of DAVID J. CHALMERS' Philosophy of mind: Classical and contemporary readings