scholarly journals Ockham on Judgment, Concepts, and The Problem of Intentionality

2007 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
pp. 67-109 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan Brower-Toland
Keyword(s):  
Mental State ◽  
Propositional Attitudes ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Propositional Content ◽  
Ontological Status

Introduction In this paper I examine William Ockham's theory of judgment — in particular, his account of the nature and ontological Status of its objects. ‘Judgment’ (Latin iudicio) is the expression Ockham and other medieval thinkers use to refer to a certain subset of what philosophers nowadays call ‘propositional attitudes’. Judgments include all and only those mental states in which a subject not only entertains a given propositional content, but also takes some positive stance with respect to its truth. For Ockham, therefore, as for other medievals, a judgment is a type of mental State that includes attitudes such as belief, knowledge, opinion, doubt, faith, and so on.

Davidson on the Ontology and Logical Form of Belief

Philosophy ◽  
1998 ◽  
Vol 73 (1) ◽  
pp. 81-96 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. M. S. HACKER
Keyword(s):  
Mental State ◽  
Logical Form ◽  
Propositional Attitudes ◽  
Formal System ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Ordinary Sense ◽  
Technical Sense ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Many ◽  
Conceptual Confusion

1. Belief and mental statesDavidson holds that intentional verbs occurring in the form ‘A Vs that p’ signify propositional attitudes. These are, he claims, (i) mental states (MS 160; KOM passim), and (ii) dispositions (FPA 103). Davidson does not conceive of himself as introducing a special technical sense of the common intentional verbs. He insists that ‘the mental states in question are beliefs, desires, intentions, and so on, as ordinarily conceived' (KOM 51f.). Consequently he contends that believing that p is a mental state, disposition or dispositional state. These ontological claims about the nature of belief inform his account of the logical form of belief sentences. I shall address the question of whether believing that p can justly be deemed a mental state, a disposition or dispositional state. Subsequently I shall examine Davidson's account of the logical form of belief sentences.Our concept of a mental state, like so many of the concepts which philosophers treat as categorial, is none too sharply defined. It has a respectable use, which can be described. But, like other such general psychological terms, e.g. ‘mental process’, ‘mental activity’, far from being the ‘hardest of the hard’ - a sharply circumscribed categorial term akin to a variable in a well-constructed formal system — it has blurred boundaries and is elastic. Like all our ordinary psychological concepts, it evolved in order to meet everyday needs. As Wittgenstein observed, ‘The concepts of psychology are just everyday concepts. They are not concepts newly fashioned by science for its own purposes, as are the concepts of physics and chemistry.’Although our ordinary concepts can be replaced by technical ones for specialized purposes, they cannot be abused without generating conceptual confusion and incoherence. If the expression ‘mental state’ is being employed in its ordinary sense, then it is wrong to hold that believing that p is to be in any mental state. If it is being employed in a special technical sense, then those who employ it thus owe us an account of what it means and how it is to be used. This Davidson and the many other philosophers who subscribe to the view that believing is a mental state have not done. Until such an account is forthcoming, one may presume that they think of themselves as deploying our ordinary concept of a mental state. And if so, I shall argue, they are misusing it.

Content, non-conceptual

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tim Crane
Keyword(s):  
Information Processing ◽  
Visual System ◽  
Mental State ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Propositional Content ◽  
Intentional Content ◽  
Cognitive Information Processing ◽  
The World ◽  
Cognitive Information ◽  
The Subject

A mental state has intentional content when it represents features of the world. The intentional content of a belief can be characterized in terms of concepts: the content of the belief that fish swim is characterized by the concept of fish and the concept of swimming. The contents of beliefs are, for this reason, often described as conceptual. One way to explain this idea is to say that to have a belief, one has to possess the concepts which characterize the belief’s content. Another way to explain it is to say that the propositional content of the belief is made up of concepts. Some philosophers believe that certain mental states have non conceptual contents: either in the sense that these states represent the world without the subject having to possess the relevant concepts, or in the sense that their propositional contents are not made up of concepts. The main examples of these putative mental states with nonconceptual contents are conscious perceptual experiences and the nonconscious states of cognitive information-processing systems (such as the visual system).

Extended Minds and Prime Mental Conditions

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zoe Drayson
Keyword(s):  
Mental State ◽  
Philosophy Of Mind ◽  
Propositional Attitudes ◽  
Extended Cognition ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Methodological Principle ◽  
Ceteris Paribus

The purpose of this chapter is to explore hitherto unconsidered parallels between two forms of externalism. In epistemology, Williamson argues for the indispensability of externalist propositional attitudes to make his case for knowledge as a mental state; in philosophy of mind, Clark and Chalmers argue for the indispensability of externally realized mental states to make their case for extended cognition. In this chapter, it is proposed that both arguments are attempts to reject the methodological principle of psychological internalism (PI), and that both arguments rely on the same appeal to the explanatory generality of their theories in the process. If one is persuaded of the existence of externalist propositional attitudes by Williamson’s argument then, ceteris paribus, one should also be persuaded of the existence of externally realized mental states by Clark and Chalmers’ argument—and vice versa.

Stable neural representations of mental states across target people and stimulus modalities

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Miriam E. Weaverdyck ◽  
Mark Allen Thornton ◽  
Diana Tamir
Keyword(s):  
Mental State ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Brain Regions ◽  
The Self ◽  
Similarity Analysis ◽  
Multiple Modalities ◽  
Neural Representations ◽  
Conceptual Core ◽  
Stimulus Modalities ◽  
Huge Variety

Each individual experiences mental states in their own idiosyncratic way, yet perceivers are able to accurately understand a huge variety of states across unique individuals. How do they accomplish this feat? Do people think about their own anger in the same ways as another person’s? Is reading about someone’s anxiety the same as seeing it? Here, we test the hypothesis that a common conceptual core unites mental state representations across contexts. Across three studies, participants judged the mental states of multiple targets, including a generic other, the self, a socially close other, and a socially distant other. Participants viewed mental state stimuli in multiple modalities, including written scenarios and images. Using representational similarity analysis, we found that brain regions associated with social cognition expressed stable neural representations of mental states across both targets and modalities. This suggests that people use stable models of mental states across different people and contexts.

Mental state dynamics explain the origin of mental state concepts

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Allen Thornton ◽  
Milena Rmus ◽  
Diana Tamir
Keyword(s):  
Neural Network ◽  
Artificial Neural Network ◽  
Mental State ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Social World ◽  
The Social ◽  
Artificial Neural ◽  
Ebb And Flow

People’s thoughts and feelings ebb and flow in predictable ways: surprise arises quickly, anticipation ramps up slowly, regret follows anger, love begets happiness, and so forth. Predicting these transitions between mental states can help people successfully navigate the social world. We hypothesize that the goal of predicting state dynamics shapes people’ mental state concepts. Across seven studies, when people observed more frequent transitions between a pair of novel mental states, they judged those states to be more conceptually similar to each other. In an eighth study, an artificial neural network trained to predict real human mental state dynamics spontaneously learned the same conceptual dimensions that people use to understand these states: the 3d Mind Model. Together these results suggest that mental state dynamics explain the origins of mental state concepts.

People represent their own mental states more distinctly than others’

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Allen Thornton ◽  
Miriam E. Weaverdyck ◽  
Judith Mildner ◽  
Diana Tamir
Keyword(s):  
Mental State ◽  
Social Distance ◽  
Activity Patterns ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Direct Access ◽  
Social Brain ◽  
Privileged Access ◽  
Behavioral Studies ◽  
The Social ◽  
External Cues

One can never know the internal workings of another person – one can only infer others’ mental states based on external cues. In contrast, each person has direct access to the contents of their own mind. Here we test the hypothesis that this privileged access shapes the way people represent internal mental experiences, such that they represent their own mental states more distinctly than the states of others. Across four studies, participants considered their own and others’ mental states; analyses measured the distinctiveness of mental state representations. Two neuroimaging studies used representational similarity analyses to demonstrate that the social brain manifests more distinct activity patterns when thinking about one’s own states versus others’. Two behavioral studies support these findings. Further, they demonstrate that people differentiate between states less as social distance increases. Together these results suggest that we represent our own mind with greater granularity than the minds of others.

Dehumanization and Mentalizing Animals

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
T.J. Kasperbauer
Keyword(s):  
Moral Psychology ◽  
Mental State ◽  
Moral Status ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Psychological Research ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Mental State Attribution ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Phenomenal States

This chapter applies the psychological account from chapter 3 on how we rank human beings above other animals, to the particular case of using mental states to assign animals moral status. Experiments on the psychology of mental state attribution are discussed, focusing on their implications for human moral psychology. The chapter argues that attributions of phenomenal states, like emotions, drive our assignments of moral status. It also describes how this is significantly impacted by the process of dehumanization. Psychological research on anthropocentrism and using animals as food and as companions is discussed in order to illuminate the relationship between dehumanization and mental state attribution.

scholarly journals Propositionalism and Questions that do not have Correct Answers

Erkenntnis ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Giulia Felappi
Keyword(s):  
Mental State ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Prima Facie ◽  
Mental Life ◽  
Do So

AbstractAs the label suggests, according to propositionalism, each intentional mental state, attitude or event is or involves a relation to a proposition. In this paper, I will discuss a case that seems prima facie not to be accountable for by propositionalism. After having presented the case, I will show why it is different from others that have been discussed in the literature as able to show that propositionalism cannot be correct. I will then consider what the propositionalist can say to fix the problem and I will show that no strategy that is genuinely propositionalist seems promising. I will not conclude that propositionalism is doomed. But I will show that if propositionalism can account for our case at all, it can only do so by losing its main appeal, i.e. its elegance and simplicity. But then propositionalism seems to have lost its advantage with respect to its obvious alternative, i.e. a pluralist account according to which mental states, attitudes and events are not all homogeneously relations to propositions, but rather our mental life should be accounted for in terms of a plurality of kinds of relata.

scholarly journals Understanding the Links between Inferring Mental States, Empathy, and Burnout in Medical Contexts

Healthcare ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 158
Author(s):  
Naira Delgado ◽  
Helena Bonache ◽  
Moisés Betancort ◽  
Yurena Morera ◽  
Lasana T. Harris
Keyword(s):  
Adverse Effects ◽  
Patient Care ◽  
Emotional Exhaustion ◽  
Mental State ◽  
Perspective Taking ◽  
Healthcare Professionals ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Empathic Concern ◽  
Personal Accomplishment ◽  
Personal Distress

It is generally accepted that empathy should be the basis of patient care. However, this ideal may be unrealistic if healthcare professionals suffer adverse effects when engaging in empathy. The aim of this study is to explore the effect of inferring mental states and different components of empathy (perspective-taking; empathic concern; personal distress) in burnout dimensions (emotional exhaustion; depersonalization; personal accomplishment). A total of 184 healthcare professionals participated in the study (23% male, Mage = 44.60; SD = 10.46). We measured participants’ empathy, the inference of mental states of patients, and burnout. Correlation analyses showed that inferring mental states was positively associated with perspective-taking and with empathic concern, but uncorrelated with personal distress. Furthermore, emotional exhaustion was related to greater levels of personal distress and greater levels of inferences of mental states. Depersonalization was associated with greater levels of personal distress and lower levels of empathic concern. Personal accomplishment was associated with the inference of mental states in patients, lower levels of personal distress, and perspective-taking. These results provide a better understanding of how different components of empathy and mental state inferences may preserve or promote healthcare professionals’ burnout.

Methodological solipsism considered as a research strategy in cognitive psychology

1980 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 63-73 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. A. Fodor
Keyword(s):  
Theory Of Mind ◽  
Mental Representations ◽  
Propositional Attitudes ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Research Strategy ◽  
Computational Theory Of Mind ◽  
Mental Processes ◽  
Computational Theory ◽  
Methodological Solipsism ◽  
Semantic Properties

AbstractThe paper explores the distinction between two doctrines, both of which inform theory construction in much of modern cognitive psychology: the representational theory of mind and the computational theory of mind. According to the former, propositional attitudes are to be construed as relations that organisms bear to mental representations. According to the latter, mental processes have access only to formal (nonsemantic) properties of the mental representations over which they are defined.The following claims are defended: (1) That the traditional dispute between “rational” and “naturalistic” psychology is plausibly viewed as an argument about the status of the computational theory of mind. Rational psychologists accept a formality condition on the specification of mental processes; naturalists do not. (2) That to accept the formality condition is to endorse a version of methodological solipsism. (3) That the acceptance of some such condition is warranted, at least for that part of psychology which concerns itself with theories of the mental causation of behavior. This is because: (4) such theories require nontransparent taxonomies of mental states; and (5) nontransparent taxonomies individuate mental states without reference to their semantic properties. Equivalently, (6) nontransparent taxonomies respect the way that the organism represents the object of its propositional attitudes to itself, and it is this representation which functions in the causation of behavior.The final section of the paper considers the prospect for a naturalistic psychology: one which defines its generalizations over relations between mental representations and their environmental causes, thus seeking to account for the semantic properties of propositional attitudes. Two related arguments are proposed, both leading to the conclusion that no such research strategy is likely to prove fruitful.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document