92,021 research outputs found

    Two Kinds of Introspection

    Get PDF
    One of David Rosenthal’s many important contributions to the philosophy of mind was his clear and unshirking account of introspection. Here we argue that while there is a kind of introspection (we call it “reflective introspection”) that Rosenthal’s account may be structurally fit to accommodate, there is also a second kind (“primitive introspection”) that his account cannot recover. We introduce Rosenthal’s account of introspection in §1, present the case for the psychological reality of primitive introspection in §2, and argue that Rosenthal’s account lacks the resources to accommodate it in §3

    Introspection without Judgment

    Get PDF
    The focus of this paper is introspection of phenomenal states, i.e. the distinctively first-personal method through which one can form beliefs about the phenomenology of one’s current conscious mental states. I argue that two different kinds of phenomenal state introspection should be distinguished: one which involves recognizing and classifying the introspected phenomenal state as an instance of a certain experience type, and another which does not involve such classification. Whereas the former is potentially judgment-like, the latter is not. I call them, respectively, reflective introspection and primitive introspection. The purpose of this paper is to argue that primitive introspection is a psychologically real phenomenon. I first introduce the distinction and provide some preliminary motivation to accept it (§1). After some set-up considerations (§2), I present my central argument for the existence of a non-classificatory kind of introspective state (§3), what I call the ‘argument from phenomenal-concept acquisition’. Finally, I briefly present some reasons why my distinction may be important for various philosophical debates (§4)

    A Model of Noisy Introspection

    Get PDF
    This paper presents a theoretical model of noisy introspection designed to explain behavior in games played only once. The equilibrium determines layers of beliefs about others' beliefs about ..., etc., but allows for surprises by relaxing the equilibrium requirement that belief distributions coincide with decision distributions. The paper contains a convergence proof and reports estimated introspection and error parameters for data from 37 one-shot matrix games. The accuracy of the model is compared with that of two alternative approaches: the Nash equilibrium and the logit quantal response equilibrium.game theory, introspection, Nash equilibrium, experiments.

    Making a case for introspection

    Get PDF
    Defending first-person introspective access to own mental states, we argue against Carruthers' claim of mindreading being prior to meta-cognition and for a fundamental difference between how we understand our own and others' mental states. We conclude that a model based on one mechanism but involving two different kinds of access for self and other is sufficient and more consistent with the evidence

    Belief Elicitation: A Horse Race among Truth Serums

    Get PDF
    In survey studies, probabilistic expectations about uncertain events are typically elicited by asking respondents for their introspective beliefs. If more complex procedures are feasible, beliefs can be elicited by incentive compatible revealed preference mechanisms (“truth serums”). Various mechanisms have been proposed in the literature, which differ in the degree to which they account for respondents’ deviations from expected value maximization. In this paper, we pit non-incentivized introspection against five truth serums, to elicit beliefs in a simple two-player game. We test the internal validity (additivity and predictive power for own behavior), and the external validity (predictive power for other players’ behavior, or accuracy) of each method. We find no differences among the truth serums. Beliefs from incentivized methods are better predictors of subjects’ own behavior compared to introspection. However, introspection performs equally well as the truth serums in terms of accuracy and additivity.belief measurement;subjective probability;scoring rules;outcome matching;probability matching;internal validity;external validity

    Brief Mood Introspection Scale (BMIS): Open-Source Code

    Get PDF
    This is computer code for analyzing the Brief Mood Introspection Scale (BMIS) data files for the R Statistical Environment open source software

    Concepts, Introspection, and Phenomenal Consciousness: An Information-Theoretical Approach

    Get PDF
    This essay is a sustained information-theoretic attempt to bring new light on some of the perennial problems in the philosophy of mind surrounding phenomenal consciousness and introspection. Following Dretske (1981), we present and develop an informational psychosemantics as it applies to what we call <em>sensory concepts</em>, concepts that apply, roughly, to so-called secondary qualities of objects. We show that these concepts have a special informational character and semantic structure that closely tie them to the brain states realizing conscious qualitative experiences. We then develop an account of introspection which exploits this special nature of sensory concepts. The result is a new class of concepts, which, following recent terminology, we call <em>phenomenal concepts</em>: these concepts refer to phenomenal experience itself and are the vehicles used in introspection. On our account, the connection between sensory and phenomenal concepts is very tight: it consists in different semantic uses of the same cognitive structures underlying the sensory concepts, like RED. Contrary to widespread opinion, we show that information theory contains all the resources to satisfy internalist intuitions about phenomenal consciousness, while not offending externalist ones. A consequence of this account is that it explains and predicts the so-called conceivability arguments against physicalism on the basis of the special nature of sensory and phenomenal concepts. Thus we not only show why physicalism is not threatened by such arguments, but also demonstrate its strength in virtue of its ability to predict and explain away such arguments in a principled way. However, we take the main contribution of this work to be what it provides in addition to a response to those conceivability arguments, namely, a substantive account of the interface between sensory and conceptual systems and the mechanisms of introspection as based on the special nature of the information flow between them
    • …
    corecore