Chapter 6 On the Putative Epistemic Generativity of Memory and Imagination

This book explores the structure and function of memory and imagination, as well as the relation and interaction between the two states. It is the first book to offer an integrative approach to these two emerging areas of philosophical research. The essays in this volume deal with a variety of forms of imagining and remembering. The contributors come from a range of methodological backgrounds: empirically minded philosophers, analytic philosophers engaging mainly in conceptual analysis, and philosophers informed by the phenomenological tradition. Part 1 consists of novel contributions to ontological issues regarding the nature of memory and imagination and their respective structural features. Part 2 focuses on questions of justification and perspective regarding both states. The chapters in Part 3 discuss issues regarding memory and imagination as skills or abilities. Finally, Part 4 focuses on the relation between memory, imagination, and emotion. Philosophical Perspectives on Memory and Imagination will be of interest to scholars and advanced students working in philosophy of memory, philosophy of imagination, philosophy of mind, and epistemology

Chapter 6 On the Putative Epistemic Generativity of Memory and Imagination

This book explores the structure and function of memory and imagination, as well as the relation and interaction between the two states. It is the first book to offer an integrative approach to these two emerging areas of philosophical research. The essays in this volume deal with a variety of forms of imagining and remembering. The contributors come from a range of methodological backgrounds: empirically minded philosophers, analytic philosophers engaging mainly in conceptual analysis, and philosophers informed by the phenomenological tradition. Part 1 consists of novel contributions to ontological issues regarding the nature of memory and imagination and their respective structural features. Part 2 focuses on questions of justification and perspective regarding both states. The chapters in Part 3 discuss issues regarding memory and imagination as skills or abilities. Finally, Part 4 focuses on the relation between memory, imagination, and emotion. Philosophical Perspectives on Memory and Imagination will be of interest to scholars and advanced students working in philosophy of memory, philosophy of imagination, philosophy of mind, and epistemology

Vivid Representations and Their Effects

Abstract: Sinhababu’s Humean Nature contains many interesting and important ideas, but in this short commentary I focus on the idea of vivid representations. Sinhababu inherits his idea of vivid representations from Hume’s discussions, in particular his discussion of calm and violent passions. I am sympathetic to the idea of developing Hume’s insight that has been largely neglected by philosophers. I believe that Sinhababu and Hume are on the right track. What I do in this short commentary is to raise some questions about the details. The aim of asking these questions is not to challenge Sinhababu’s proposal (at least his main ideas), but rather to point at some interesting issues arising out of his proposal. The questions are about (1) the nature of vividness, (2) the effects of vivid representations, and (3) Sinhababu’s account of alief cases.Keywords: Vivid Representation; Desire; Procrastination; Akrasia; Alief Le rappresentazioni vivide e i loro effettiRiassunto: Humean Nature di Neil Sinhababu contiene molte idee interessanti e importanti; tuttavia in questo breve commento intendo concentrarmi sulle rappresentazioni vivide. Sinhababu eredita l’idea di rappresentazione vivida dalle analisi di Hume, in particolare dall’analisi delle passioni calme e violente. Condivido l’intento di sviluppare questa intuizione di Hume, ampiamente trascurata dai filosofi. Credo che Sinhababu e Hume siano sulla strada giusta. Quanto intendo fare in questo breve commento è sollevare alcune questioni di dettaglio, il cui fine non è quello di mettere in discussione la proposta di Sinhababu (quantomeno nei suoi intenti principali), quanto piuttosto di indicare alcuni punti interessanti che emergono dalla sua proposta. Le mie questioni investono (1) la natura della vividezza, (2) gli effetti delle rappresentazioni vivide e (3) la descrizione di Sinhababu dei casi di alief.Parole chiave: Rappresentazione vivida; Desiderio; Temporeggiare; Akrasia; Cattiva volont

The Cognitive Architecture of Imaginative Resistance

Where is imagination in imaginative resistance? We seek to answer this question by connecting two ongoing lines of inquiry in different subfields of philosophy. In philosophy of mind, philosophers have been trying to understand imaginative attitudes’ place in cognitive architecture. In aesthetics, philosophers have been trying to understand the phenomenon of imaginative resistance. By connecting these two lines of inquiry, we hope to find mutual illumination of an attitude (or cluster of attitudes) and a phenomenon that have vexed philosophers. Our strategy is to reorient the imaginative resistance literature from the perspective of cognitive architecture. Whereas existing taxonomies of positions in the imaginative resistance literature have focused on disagreements over the source and scope of the phenomenon, our taxonomy focuses on the psychological components necessary for explaining imaginative resistance

Affective Forecasting and Substantial Self-Knowledge

This chapter argues that our self-knowledge is often mediated by our affective self-knowledge. In other words, we often know about ourselves by knowing our own emotions. More precisely, what Cassam has called “substantial self-knowledge” (SSK), such as self-knowledge of one's character, one's values, or one's aptitudes, is mediated by affective forecasting, which is the process of predicting one's emotional responses to possible situations. For instance, a person comes to know that she is courageous by predicting her own emotional reactions to possible risks and dangers. This hypothesis explains why attaining substantive self-knowledge tends to be difficult. Attaining substantive self-knowledge is difficult because, first, SSK is mediated by affective forecasting and, second, we tend to be wrong about predicting the intensity and duration of our own emotional reactions. As a result, we can identify what is common to central cases of SSK: such cases require knowledge about complex dispositions whose manifestations involve affective responses that one is not sufficiently familiar with. One thus needs to resort to the highly fallible method of affective forecasting

Recent work on the nature and development of delusions

In this paper we review two debates in the current literature on clinical delusions. One debate is about what delusions are. If delusions are beliefs, why are they described as failing to play the causal roles that characterise beliefs, such as being responsive to evidence and guiding action? The other debate is about how delusions develop. What processes lead people to form delusions and maintain them in the face of challenges and counter‐evidence? Do the formation and maintenance of delusions require abnormal experience alone, or also reasoning biases or deficits? We hope to show that the focus on delusions has made a substantial contribution to the philosophy of the mind and continues to raise issues that are central to defining the concept of belief and gaining a better understanding of how people process information and learn about the world

Being one of us. Group identification, joint actions, and collective intentionality

Within social psychology, group identification refers to a mental process that leads an individual to conceive of herself as a group member. This phenomenon has recently attracted a great deal of attention in the debate about shared agency. In this debate, group identification is appealing to many because it appears to explain important forms of intentionally shared actions in a cognitively unsophisticated way. This paper argues that, unless important issues about group identification are not illuminated, the heuristic function ascribed to this notion for an understanding of shared agency remains dubious at best and unfulfilled at worst. This paper offers such a clarification by distinguishing and describing two different mental processes that constitute group identification: adoption of the group perspective and transformation in self-understanding. It is claimed that the latter process consists in the production of what Ruth Millikan labels â Pushmi-Pullyu representationsâ and that it is developmentally prior with respect to the ability of adopting the group perspective

信念の機能不全としての妄想 : 生物学的な観点から妄想の信念主義を擁護する

学位の種別: 課程博士審査委員会委員 : (主査)東京大学教授 一ノ瀬 正樹, 東京大学教授 榊原 哲也, 東京大学准教授 鈴木 泉, 東京大学准教授 オデイ ジョンウィリアム, 東京大学講師 ディーツ リチャードUniversity of Tokyo(東京大学

The Ethics of Delusional Belief

In this paper we address the ethics of adopting delusional beliefs and we apply consequentialist and deontological considerations to the epistemic evaluation of delusions. Delusions are characterised by their epistemic shortcomings and they are often defined as false and irrational beliefs. Despite this, when agents are overwhelmed by negative emotions due to the effects of trauma or previous adversities, or when they are subject to anxiety and stress as a result of hypersalient experience, the adoption of a delusional belief can prevent a serious epistemic harm from occurring. For instance, delusions can allow agents to remain in touch with their environment overcoming the disruptive effect of negative emotions and anxiety. Moreover, agents are not blameworthy for adopting their delusions if their ability to believe otherwise is compromised. There is evidence suggesting that no evidence-related action that would counterfactually lead them to believe otherwise is typically available to them. The lack of ability to believe otherwise, together with some other conditions, implies that the agents are not blameworthy for their delusions. The examination of the epistemic status of delusions prompts us to acknowledge the complexity and contextual nature of epistemic evaluation, establish connections between consequentialist and deontological frameworks in epistemology, and introduce the notion of epistemic innocence into the vocabulary of epistemic evaluatio