Volume 19 (2006), Issue 2
Manuscripts:
Wayne Wright
Visual Stuff and Active Vision
Abstract: This paper examines the status of unattended visual stimuli in the light of recent work on the role of attention in visual perception. Although the question of whether attention is required for visual experience seems very interesting, this paper argues that there currently is no good reason to take a stand on the issue. Moreover, it is argued that much of the allure of that question stems from a continued attachment to the defective ‘inner picture view’ of experience and a mistaken notion that the ultimate goal of vision is to produce visual experience. The paper examines a promising general account of the content and structure of vision and presents reasons for not taking that account to be committed to any substantive claims about the experiential status of unattended visual stimuli. Also addressed are the active nature of vision and the role of vision in enabling our ecological success. These considerations highlight that visual experience is not the whole of vision and that a much more important question about unattended visual stimuli than whether they are consciously experienced is what contribution they make to how we interact with the world.
Jennifer Matey
Two HOTs to Handle: The Concept of State Consciousness in the Higher-Order Thought Theory of Consciousness
Abstract: David Rosenthal’s higher-order thought (HOT) hypothesis is one of the most widely argued for of the higher-order accounts of consciousness. I argue that Rosenthal vacillates between two models of the HOT theory. First, I argue that these models employ different concepts of ‘state consciousness’; the two concepts each refer to mental state tokens, but in virtue of different properties. In one model, the concept of ‘state consciousness’ is more consistent with how the term is typically used, both by philosophers and scientists, and in commonsense usage. This model, however, also has its problems. In the second part of the paper, I develop a modified version of the transitivity principle, thereby avoiding some complications that stem from the original transitivity principle. I suggest that Rosenthal occasionally employs this modified model himself, and that the inconsistency identified in the first section of this paper might really reflect Rosenthal's vacillation between these two verions of the transitivity principle. I offer one explanation for how this equivocation might have occurred. These two versions would result if articulations of the transitivity principle employed the term ‘mental state’ inconsistently, to refer on some occasions to mental state types, and on others. to refer to tokened mental state. I conclude by arguing, contrary to Rosenthal and others, that the theory is not incompatible with the view that conscious states are uniquely causal efficacious.
Jan Sleutels
Greek Zombies
Abstract: This paper explores the possibility that the human mind underwent substantial changes in recent history. Assuming that consciousness is a substantial trait of the mind, the paper focuses on the suggestion made by Julian Jaynes that the Mycenean Greeks had a "bicameral" mind instead of a conscious one. The suggestion is commonly dismissed as patently absurd, for instance by critics such as Ned Block. A closer examination of the intuitions involved, considered from different theoretical angles (social constructivism, idealism, eliminativism, realism), reveals that the idea of ‘Greek zombies’ should be taken more seriously than is commonly assumed.
Richard P. Cooper
Cognitive Architectures as Lakatosian Research Programs: Two Case Studies
Abstract: Cognitive architectures—task-general theories of the structure and function of the complete cognitive system—are sometimes argued to be more akin to frameworks or belief systems than scientific theories. The argument stems from the apparent non-falsifiability of existing cognitive architectures. Newell was aware of this criticism and argued that architectures should be viewed not as theories subject to Popperian falsification, but rather as Lakatosian research programs based on cumulative growth. Newell’s argument is undermined because he failed to demonstrate that the development of Soar, his own candidate architecture, adhered to Lakatosian principles. This paper presents detailed case studies of the development of two cognitive architectures, Soar and ACT-R, from a Lakatosian perspective. It is demonstrated that both are broadly Lakatosian, but that in both cases there have been theoretical progressions that, according to Lakatosian criteria, are pseudo-scientific. Thus, Newell’s defense of Soar as a scientific rather than pseudo-scientific theory is not supported in practice. The ACT series of architectures has fewer pseudo-scientific progressions than Soar, but it too is vulnerable to accusations of pseudo-science. From this analysis, it is argued that successive versions of theories of the human cognitive architecture must explicitly address five questions to maintain scientific credibility.
Talia Welsh
Do Neonates Display Innate Self-Awareness? Why Neonatal Imitation Fails to Provide Sufficient Grounds for Innate Self and Other-Awareness
Abstract: Until the 1970s, models of early infancy tended to depict the young child as internally preoccupied and incapable of processing visual-tactile data from the external world. Meltzoff and Moore’s groundbreaking studies of neonatal imitation disprove this kind of characterization of early life: They suggest that the infant is cognizant of its external environment and is able to control its own body. Taking up these experiments, theorists argue that neonatal imitation provides an empirical justification for the existence of an innate ability to engage in social communication. Since later imitation is taken as a benchmark for self- and other-awareness, theorists claim that a proto- or primitive self must exist in the infant. This paper takes up the issue of whether or not neonatal imitation does provide us with a ground to argue against developmental accounts that consider self-awareness to be a later acquisition. I argue that the enthusiasm over neonatal imitation is premature. Psychological studies that claim to prove neonatal imitation do not provide sufficient grounds for dismissing alternate philosophical and psychological theories about the self as being a post-birth “event” rather than an intrinsic condition. Therefore, I argue that there is no compelling reason to suppose that we come to the world with a primitive sense of self- or other-awareness.
Wan-chi Wong
Understanding Dialectical Thinking from a Cultural-Historical Perspective
Abstract: The present essay aims to throw light on the study of dialectical thinking from a cultural-historical perspective. Different forms of dialectic are articulated as ideal types, including the Greek dialectic, the Hegelian dialectic, the contemporary German negative dialectic, the Chinese dialectic, and the Indian negative dialectic. These influential cultural products in the history of the East and the West, articulated as ideal types, serve as constellations that could facilitate further empirical studies on dialectical thinking. An understanding of the complexity of these constellations reveals the pitfalls of investigating dialectical thinking without an appropriate conceptualization of the research target. With the ideal types of dialectic as ‘‘figure,’’ and Vygotsky’s thesis of the cultural- historical origin of higher psychological processes as ‘‘ground,’’ we explore possibilities for further lines of inquiry on dialectical thinking. Adhering to the Scribnerian multilevel scheme that reconstructs Vygotsky’s thesis, and returning to the core ideas of Vygotsky himself, we discover new, meaningful questions about the study of dialectical thinking. In the research area of ‘‘culture and cognition,’’ consideration of a cultural- historical perspective appears to be both necessary and promising.
Book Reviews:
Diane Proudfoot
Review of James H. Moor (Ed.), The Turing Test: The Elusive Standard of Artificial Intelligence
Reese M. Heitner
Review of Martin Hahn & Bjørn Ramberg (Eds.), Reflections and replies: Essays on the philosophy of Tyler Burge
and María J. Frápolli & Esther Romero (Eds.), Meaning, basic self-knowledge, and mind: Essays on Tyler Burge.
Constantine Sandis
Review of Scott H. Johnson-Frey (Ed.), Taking Action
Peter A. van der Helm
Review of Fredrik Sundqvist,Perceptual Dynamics: Theoretical Foundations and Philosophical Implications of Gestalt Psychology