Subjective Probability and the Content/Attitude Distinction

2019 ◽  
pp. 35-57
Author(s):  
Jennifer Rose Carr
Keyword(s):  
Measurement System ◽  
Subjective Probability ◽  
Measure Theory ◽  
Mental Content ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Empirical Discovery ◽  
Imprecise Credences ◽  
Mental Contents

On an attractive, naturalistically respectable theory of intentionality, mental contents are a form of measurement system for representing behavioral and psychological dispositions. This chapter argues that a consequence of this view is that the content/attitude distinction is measurement system relative. As a result, there is substantial arbitrariness in the content/attitude distinction. Whether some measurement of mental states counts as characterizing the content of mental states or the attitude is not a question of empirical discovery but of theoretical utility. If correct, this observation has ramifications in the theory of rationality. Some epistemologists and decision theorists have argued that imprecise credences are rationally impermissible, while others have argued that precise credences are rationally impermissible. If the measure theory of mental content is correct, however, then neither imprecise credences nor precise credences can be rationally impermissible.

Functionalism, Computationalism, and Mental Contents

2004 ◽  
Vol 34 (3) ◽  
pp. 375-410 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gualtiero Piccinini
Keyword(s):  
Mental State ◽  
Philosophy Of Mind ◽  
Functional Role ◽  
Mental Content ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Inferential Role ◽  
Functional Relations ◽  
Popular View ◽  
Functional Role Semantics ◽  
Mental Contents

Almost no one cites Sellars, while reinventing his wheels with gratifying regularity. (Dennett 1987, 349)In philosophy of mind, there is functionalism about mental states and functionalism about mental contents. The former — mental State functionalism — says that mentalstatesare individuated by their functional relations with mental inputs, Outputs, and other mental states. The latter — usually called functional or conceptual or inferential role semantics — says that mentalcontentsare constituted by their functional relations with mental inputs, Outputs, and other mental contents (and in some versions of the theory, with things in the environment). If we add to mental State functionalism the popular view that mental states have their content essentially, then mental state functionalism may be seen as a form of functional role semantics and a solution to theproblem of mental content,namely, the problem of giving a naturalistic explanation of mental content. According to this solution, the functional relations that constitute contents are physically realized — in a metaphysically unmysterious way — by the functional relations between mental inputs, outputs, and the mental states bearing those contents.

Postposition-like constructions

2020 ◽  
pp. 677-685
Author(s):  
Gerjan van Schaaik
Keyword(s):  
Mental Content ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Case Marker ◽  
Third Person ◽  
Instrumental Case ◽  
Linguistic Structures ◽  
Predicate Position

There are a relatively small number of linguistic structures that seemingly consists of a noun expanded by a possessive suffix third-person singular and a locative, ablative, or instrumental case marker. They are used as adverbial phrases. The possessive element, however, has no antecedent, and that is why these constructions bear the semblance of postpositions more than that of real nouns. In particular, temporal constructions based on a noun denoting some moment, period, or duration behave like real postpositions in that they allow for indefinite and finite complements. Various postposition-like structures can also be used in predicate position and thus take a person marker. These constructions are typical for the description of mental states and mental content and of instances of intention, decision, and obligation.

Disorders of consciousness, memory, and will

2018 ◽  
pp. 51-86
Author(s):  
Walter Glannon
Keyword(s):  
Psychiatric Disorder ◽  
Mental Content ◽  
Mental States ◽  
External World ◽  
The Body ◽  
Disorders Of Consciousness ◽  
Action Plans ◽  
Flexible Behavior ◽  
The Brain ◽  
Insight Into

This chapter examines major psychiatric disorders as disorders of consciousness, memory, and will. All of these disorders involve disturbances in how the brain processes and integrates information about the body and external world. Distorted mental content in these psychopathologies impairs the capacity to consider different action plans, and to form and execute particular plans in particular actions. Dysfunctional mental states correlating with dysfunctional neural states impair the capacity for flexible behavior and adaptability to the environment. This dysfunction also impairs the capacity for insight into a psychiatric disorder and understanding the need for and motivation to seek treatment.

Why the Mind Wanders

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Caitlin Mills ◽  
Arianne Herrera-Bennett ◽  
Myrthe Faber ◽  
Kalina Christoff
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Neuroscience ◽  
Mental Content ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Semantic Knowledge ◽  
Default Mode ◽  
Memory Efficiency ◽  
Random Fashion ◽  
Phenomenological Account ◽  
Episodic Memories ◽  
The Mind

This chapter offers a functional account of why the mind—when free from the demands of a task or the constraints of heightened emotions—tends to wander from one topic to another, in a ceaseless and seemingly random fashion. We propose the default variability hypothesis, which builds on William James’s phenomenological account of thought as a form of mental locomotion, as well as on recent advances in cognitive neuroscience and computational modeling. Specifically, the default variability hypothesis proposes that the default mode of mental content production yields the frequent arising of new mental states that have heightened variability of content over time. This heightened variability in the default mode of mental content production may be an adaptive mechanism that (1) enhances episodic memory efficiency through de-correlating individual episodic memories from one another via temporally spaced reactivations, and (2) facilitates semantic knowledge optimization by providing optimal conditions for interleaved learning.

The Constitution of Mental Content in the imaginatio

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ursula Renz
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Processing ◽  
Mental Content ◽  
External World ◽  
Human Thought ◽  
Mental Contents

This chapter addresses Spinoza’s concept of the imagination. It first shows that, given the usage of the term imaginatio in the Ethics, Spinoza’s understanding departs from tradition by comprising both perceptions and fantasies under one single concept. Consistently, Spinoza’s treatment of the process referred to as imaginari accounts for both the realist underpinning of any cognition and the tendency of human thought to represent the external world in a distorted manner. Finally, it is argued that Spinoza’s views on the imagination are such as to enable cultural, historical, or—more generally—semantic influences to play a considerable role in the determination of our actual mental content. In sum, the chapter shows how Spinoza’s treatment of the cognitive processing of imaginative ideas contributes to making his realist rationalism a plausible option as it allows for genetic reconstructions of mental contents in great detail.

When the Antidote is the Poison: Ironic Mental Control Processes

1997 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 148-150 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel M. Wegner
Keyword(s):  
Mental States ◽  
Mental Load ◽  
Mental Control ◽  
Operating Process ◽  
Monitoring Process ◽  
Ironic Processes ◽  
State Of Mind ◽  
Automatic Search ◽  
Time Urgency ◽  
Mental Contents

The theory of ironic processes of mental control holds that both the most and the least desired effects of attempts to control one's own mental states accrue from two processes an intentional operating process (a conscious, effortful search for mental contents that will produce a desired state of mind) and an ironic monitoring process (an unconscious, automatic search for mental contents that signal a failure to produce the desired state of mind) Although the monitoring process usually functions just to activate the operating process, during stress, distraction, time urgency, or other mental load, the monitor's effects on mind can supersede those of the operator, producing the very state of mind that is least desired An individual's attempts to gain mental control may thus precipitate the unwanted mental states they were intended to remedy

scholarly journals Subjetividad y privacidad

1994 ◽  
Vol 26 (76-77) ◽  
pp. 185-203
Author(s):  
Guillermo Hurtado
Keyword(s):  
Mental State ◽  
Mental Content ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Direct Access ◽  
Mental Life ◽  
Unified Consciousness ◽  
Traditional Doctrine

The traditional doctrine of the privacy of the mental describes our mental lives as corridors without doors or windows. According to this view a mental state is private if: (1) one and only one person has direct access to that mental state, and (2) that person is the authority with respect to the content and character of such a mental state (i.e., has an incorregible and infallible knowledge of it). (2) has been rejected on the basis of externalist arguments concerning the nature of mental content. However, very few have put (1) into doubt. The purpose of this essay is to claim that (1) is not a necessary feature of our mental lives. Hence the traditional doctrine of the privacy of the mental must be rejected not only for being grounded on a false conception of mental content, but also for being grounded on a false conception of the nature of subjectivity. My argument is based on a Parfitian conception of persons and on a metaphysical distinction between persons and subjects of consciousness. I claim that if a momentary fusion of the streams of consciousness of two people is possible, the mental states that occur in that unified consciousness will be mental states of those two people —even if there is only one subject of consciousness involved. Hence, we can conclude that if two people can have the same mental state, they will also have the same direct access to that mental state. Finally, I suggest that the rejection of (1) —and hence of the view of mental life as a corridor— should be welcomed as liberating.

What Do Theory-of-Mind Tasks Actually Measure? Theory and Practice

2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 384-396 ◽  
Author(s):  
François Quesque ◽  
Yves Rossetti
Keyword(s):  
Social Cognition ◽  
Theory Of Mind ◽  
Mental State ◽  
Cognitive Neuroscience ◽  
Measure Theory ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Present Review ◽  
Functional Architecture

In recent decades, the ability to represent others’ mental states (i.e., theory of mind) has gained particular attention in various disciplines ranging from ethology to cognitive neuroscience. Despite the exponentially growing interest, the functional architecture of social cognition is still unclear. In the present review, we argue that not only the vocabulary but also most of the classic measures for theory of mind lack specificity. We examined classic tests used to assess theory of mind and noted that the majority of them do not require the participant to represent another’s mental state or, sometimes, any mental state at all. Our review reveals that numerous classic tests measure lower-level processes that do not directly test for theory of mind. We propose that more attention should be paid to methods used in this field of social cognition to improve the understanding of underlying concepts.

Linguistic Convention and Shared Mental Content

2020 ◽  
pp. 133-147
Author(s):  
J. Robert G. Williams
Keyword(s):  
Mental Representation ◽  
Mental Content ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Radical Interpretation ◽  
Linguistic Representation ◽  
Linguistic Convention ◽  
Shared Content ◽  
First Case ◽  
Belief Attributions

This chapter is the second of three that sets out a metaphysics of linguistic representation, and here I turn to the key ingredient of linguistic convention. The focus is on a tension between the apparently individualistic character of the metaphysics of mental representation given by Radical Interpretation, and the presupposition of shared mental content apparently presupposed by appeals to linguistic convention. By considering the way in which beliefs about others’ beliefs influence the metaphysics of mental representation, the apparent tension is resolved. Either belief-attributions characterize others’ mental states indirectly, as having content somehow related to the contents used to characterize them, or they don’t. In the first case, there is no presupposition of shared mental content in the characterization of conventions. In the second case, there is such a presupposition, but Radical Interpretation will predict that there is metasemantic pressure to attribute shared content.

The Definition of the Human Mind in Its Derivation

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ursula Renz
Keyword(s):  
Mental Content ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
The Body ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Finite Minds

This chapter analyzes the passages in which Spinoza develops his definition of the human mind. It begins by reading 2p11 as denying that the mind is something like a bearer of mental states. Next, the chapter argues that, in claiming that the mind is part of the infinite intellect, Spinoza is not referring to the mind’s activity but rather defending holism with respect to mental content. Through an examination of the wording of 2p12, the chapter shows that, contrary to most interpretations, Spinoza does not assume that the human mind perceives any affections of the body. The chapter concludes by showing how, by identifying the mind with the idea of the body, Spinoza solves the problem of the numerical difference between finite minds. Altogether, the chapter shows that, for Spinoza, the human mind is not an idea that God cognizes but the awareness by which we identify our own body.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document