Perception, emotions and delusions: Revisiting the Capgras Delusion

The paper discusses the role affective factors may play in explaining why, in Capgras'delusion, the delusional belief once formed is maintained and argues that there is an important link between the modularity of the relevant emotional system and the persistence of the delusional belief

Qualia and Representations

Dretske has recently offered a representational theory of perceptual experience - considered as paradigmatic of the qualitative and phenomenal aspects of our mental life. This theory belongs, as do his previous works, to a naturalistic approach to mental representation. I would like to highlight some difficulties that arise when this representational approach is extended to certain qualitative aspects of the mental. First, I give a general outline of Dretske's representationalist strategy, mentioning along the way certain modifications or novelties in his use of distinctions he had previously drawn. I then focus on three aspects of his theory that seem to me to involve potential problems or inconsistencies. I first concentrate on the way Dretske uses his distinction between first-order consciousness and second-order consciousness in his account of the phenomenon of blindsight. My second concern is with the problem of qualia inversion ? the theoretical possibility of which Dretske acknowledges ? and his treatment of it in representational terms. Lastly, I criticize Dretske's idea that the qualitative differences between perceptual experiences in different modalities always reduce to differences in the sensory properties the perceived scene or object is represented as having or to differences in the conceptual elaborations based on those properties. I suggest that we can get a more accurate insight into the nature of these modality-related differences if we examine their potential relations with, on the one hand, the role or function of consciousness in perception and with, on the other hand, that special character of the relation to the object in perception that Husserl described as 'Leibhaftigkeit'. Dretske a récemment proposé une théorie représentationnelle de l'expérience perceptive ? considérée comme manifestation paradigmatique des aspects qualitatifs et phénoménaux de notre vie mentale. Cette théorie s'inscrit, comme ses travaux antérieurs, dans le cadre d'une approche naturaliste des représentations mentales. Je souhaiterais mettre en évidence certaines difficultés que pose l'extension de cette approche aux aspects qualitatifs du mental. Je présente d'abord dans ses grandes lignes la stratégie représentationnaliste de Dretske et indique au passage certains infléchissements ou usages nouveaux de distinctions qu'il avait antérieurement élaborées. Je me concentre ensuite sur trois aspects de sa théorie qui me semblent problématiques. Il s'agit, premièrement, de l'application que fait Dretske de la distinction entre deux ordres de conscience dans son analyse du phénomène du blindsight. Il s'agit, deuxièmement, du problème des inversions qualitatives, dont il admet la possibilité, et du traitement qu'il en propose en termes représentationnels. Enfin, je critique l'idée de Dretske selon laquelle les différences qualitatives entre expériences perceptives associées à des modalités sensorielles distinctes ne sont jamais imputables à la seule différence des modalités prise en elle-même mais sont toujours liées soit à des différences concernant les propriétés sensorielles représentées soit à des différences d'exploitation conceptuelle. A cette occasion, j'essaie d'indiquer certains liens possibles entre la fonction de la conscience perceptive, la distinction des modalités et ce caractère spécifique du rapport à l'objet dans la perception, que Husserl désignait du nom de 'Leibhaftigkeit'

Towards a dynamic theory of intentions

In this paper, I offer a sketch of a dynamic theory of intentions. I argue that several categories or forms of intentions should be distinguished based on their different (and complementary) functional roles and on the different contents or types of contents they involve. I further argue that an adequate account of the distinctive nature of actions and of their various grades of intentionality depends on a large part on a proper understanding of the dynamic transitions among these different forms of intentions. One further benefit of this approach is to open the way to a more perspicuous account of the phenomenology of action and of the role of conscious thought in the production of action

The phenomenology of action: A conceptual framework

After a long period of neglect, the phenomenology of action has recently regained its place in the agenda of philosophers and scientists alike. The recent explosion of interest in the topic highlights its complexity. The purpose of this paper is to propose a conceptual framework allowing for a more precise characterization of the many facets of the phenomenology of agency, of how they are related and of their possible sources. The key assumption guiding this attempt is that the processes through which the phenomenology of action is generated and the processes involved in the specification and control of action are strongly interconnected. I argue in favor of a three-tiered dynamic model of intention, link it to an expanded version of the internal model theory of action control and specification, and use this theoretical framework to guide an analysis of the contents, possible sources and temporal course of complementary aspects of the phenomenology of action

Action monitoring,: lower, higher and intermediate levels

James Russell claims that executive difficulties in both autism and schizophrenia are likely to be due to impairments of action monitoring at "a fairly high level". I argue that there is room for some 'intermediate' level of action-monitoring in between the higher and lower levels he distinguishes and that impairments at this intermediate level may play an important role in explaining some of the difficulties encountered by both schizophrenic patients and subjects with autism

The Sense of Control and the Sense of Agency

The now growing literature on the content and sources of the phenomenology of first-person agency highlights the multi-faceted character of the phenomenology of agency and makes it clear that the experience of agency includes many other experiences as components. This paper examines the possible relations between these components of our experience of acting and the processes involved in action specification and action control. After a brief discussion of our awareness of our goals and means of action, it will focus on the sense of agency for a given action, understood as the sense the agent has that he or she is the author of that action. I argue that the sense of agency can be analyzed as a compound of more basic experiences, including the experience of intentional causation, the sense of initiation and the sense of control. I further argue that the sense of control may itself be analysed into a number of more specific, partially dissociable experiences

Holophobia

Holophobia can be defined as the "neurotic" fear that semantic holism, if not instantly extirpated by the most radical means, might be a deadly threat to intentional realism. I contend that Fodor exaggerates the threat that meaning holism poses to intentional realism and to a viable account of narrow content in terms of conceptual roles. He particular, he overestimates the relevance for intentional psychology of Quine's demonstration that a substantial analytic/synthetic distinction is out of reach.I argue that all that is needed to defeat the more radical varieties of meaning holism is a weaker distinction than the full-blown and allegedly inexistent analytic/synthetic distinction - namely, a distinction between what is treated as if it were analytic by a cognitive system and what is treated as if it were synthetic

Action

In recent years, the integration of philosophical with scientific theorizing has started to yield new insights. This chapter surveys some recent philosophical and empirical work on the nature and structure of action, on conscious agency, and on our knowledge of actions

Peut-on penser l'objectivité sans l'espace?

Les notions d'espace et d'objectivité sont si intimement liées dans notre schème conceptuel qu'il semble quasiment impossible d'avoir une conception d'un monde objectif, dont l'existence soit indépendante de l'expérience que nous en avons, qui ne soit pas un monde d'objet pris dans un système de relations spatiales. Selon la formule kantienne, l'espace est la forme du sens externe. Mais l'idée d'espace et celle d'objectivité sont-elles vraiment inséparables et si oui, quelle est exactement la nature de cette connexion intime qui les lie? Je voudrais ici essayer de poursuivre la réflexion sur le caractère nécessaire et premier de cette relation entre espace et objectivité, en prenant pour fil-conducteur une approche développée par le philosophe britannique Peter Strawson. Dans son ouvrage Individuals, Strawson se propose de décrire et d'analyser la structure générale de notre schème conceptuel. Il soutient que notre conception d'un monde objectif, dont l'existence soit indépendante de l'expérience que nous en avons, est celle d'un monde constitué d'objets matériels ? de particuliers objectifs réidentifiables ? pris dans un système de relations spatio-temporelles. Strawson se demande toutefois s'il est possible d'imaginer un schème conceptuel qui pourrait nous procurer un système de particuliers objectifs et réidentifiables, mais qui, à la différence du nôtre, ne ferait pas intervenir de schème spatial et n'aurait pas les particuliers matériels comme particuliers de base. Strawson a tenté de répondre à cette question en considérant le cas d'êtres dont l'expérience serait purement auditive Ainsi que le souligne Strawson, le but d'un tel exercice n'est pas de se livrer à des spéculations ésotériques sur des êtres hypothétiques mais de clarifier et d'approfondir notre compréhension de notre propre schème conceptuel. Strawson lui-même soutient que l'idée d'un monde objectif ne pourrait recevoir d'application dans l'expérience purement auditive de tels êtres hypothétiques à moins que cette expérience ne leur fournisse au moins un analogue de l'espace. L'analyse des conditions que doit satisfaire un tel analogue devrait nous éclairer sur la force du lien entre objectivité et espace et nous permettre de distinguer entre ce qui dans notre propre schème conceptuel présente un caractère nécessaire et ce qui est simplement contingent. Je commence par retracer dans ses grandes lignes l'analyse que Strawson propose de notre schème conceptuel dans le premier chapitre de son ouvrage. J'examine ensuite sa proposition sur ce en quoi pourrait consister un analogue de l'espace dans une expérience purement auditive et j'essaierai de montrer que cette proposition n'est pas satisfaisante. Je suggère alors une autre manière de construire l'analogie désirée et j'essaie d'en tirer un certain nombre d'enseignements quant à la nature de la relation entre espace et objectivité

The content of intentions

By distinguishing between prior intentions and intentions in action, Searle has helped solve a number of difficulties confronted by the earlier versions of the causal theory of actions. Yet this distinction also raises important new issues. In particular, once a distinction is posited between two types of intentions, one must specify what the exact nature of their respective contents is and explain how the two types of intentions are connected. I suggest that in addressing those issues we could benefit from the insights provided by recent work in the cognitive neuroscience of action. I try to show how this work can help us give a more precise characterization of the content of intentions in action and bridge the gap between prior intentions and intentions in action