Institutional Agency: Department of Philosophy, University of Bristol (UK) [website of the Department]

Principal Investigator: Dr. Finn Spicer [homepage]

Internal collaborators:

• Prof. A. Bird
• Prof. I. Gilchrist
• Dr. J. Ladyman
• Dr. H. Leitgeb
• Dr. S. Okasha
• Dr. A. Everett

External collaborator:

• Prof. A. Noë (UC Berkeley, USA)

National Funding Agency: Arts and Humanities Research Council [website of the AHRC]

Notice: The death of former Principal Investigator Prof. Susan Hurley was a sad blow for the CONTACT network, and for Bristol University Philosophy Department. Dr Finn Spicer will be taking on the role of Principal Investigator for IP-02. Susan achieved a huge amount in her six-months as PI for IP-02; those who attended the PPNB conference or the Two Visual Systems International Conference will agree what a success they were. It is hoped that the CONTACT project IP-02 can continue in Susan’s vigorous spirit at Bristol.

• The influential two-visual systems (2VS) theory of Milner & Goodale (1995), recently updated by Jacob & Jeannerod (2005), may appear to conflict with SMD views. The latter link perceptual experience closely to action, while the former separates ventral processes for conscious visual perception from dorsal processes for nonconscious visuo-motor control. But this appearance may be misleading. The apparent challenge of 2VS views to SMD views needs assessment in light of recent challenges (Franz, 2001; Glover and Scott, 2002; Milner and Goodale 2003) to the 2VS view itself, including with regard to the perception of action (Jacob & Jeannerod, 2005). This article will be developed in collaboration with Clark and Noë, with input from Metzinger and others in the CRP, and in light of the preceding conference (1-3 July 2007, Bristol) on Perception, Action and Consciousness. It is intended for the volume resulting from the international conference "Perception, Action Consciousness: the sensorimotor dynamics view and two visual system view of perceptual consciousness".
  
• What are the relations between two important distinctions: instrumental vs. classical responses, and explicit vs. implicit uses of information (as in conscious vs. blindsighted or other ‘covert’ uses of information)? Clarifying these relations will contribute to progress on nonverbal paradigms for assessing consciousness in animals, via comparisons of meta-cognitive report paradigms used by Cowey & Stoerig (1997) to study animal blindsight with potential alternatives utilizing the distinction between classical and instrumental responses. More generally, it will shed light on relations between consciousness and control of action. With input from IP-03.
• An argument for interactionist externalism will be developed, based on variable neural correlates of given phenomenal qualities within one brain, in normal development (Huntelocher, 2002) as well as in pathological and adaptation cases. Patterns of SMD interactions will be invoked to explain why such cases can share phenomenal qualities despite varying neural correlates. Since such explanatory externalism is compatible with neural supervenience, rejection of the latter does not provide an appropriate criterion for externalism. With Input from IP-03, AP-01, and Ladyman and Spicer at Bristol. Synaesthesia and sensorimotor dynamics.
  • Note: the above objectives are those of Susan Hurley, and all have either been met or are close to having been met during her time as PI.

Interactive consciousness. To advance understanding of the relationships between consciousness and social cognition.

• Priming effects on metacognition and folk epistemological judgment. Social psychologists (Bargh and Chartrand, 1999; Hassin, Uleman and Bargh, 2004) have documented robust, automatic priming effects of social environments on human judgement. I have already published papers suggesting that such priming effects could be responsible for certain well-documented patterns in subjects’ folk epistemological judgements—judgements about what others believe and know (Spicer: 2006, 2007a; Nichols et al, 2003). This paper continues that work, and develops collaborative, interdisciplinary work begun with Prof. Norman Freeman (Psychology, University of Bristol). Input from IP-01 will be valuable here.
  
• The place of folk epistemics in social cognition. This paper opens up new avenues of research—why would tracking and classifying what agents know deliver advantages for social cognition over and above tracking what agents believe? I also investigate further how the priming influences investigated above might ramify into our social cognition and our judgements about agency, influencing the accuracy of our judgements about what others are doing, why they are doing what they are doing and about the likelihood of success Papineau (2000). Input from IP-01 will also be valuable here.
  
• Animal deception and folk epistemics. In order to deceive someone, perhaps you need to know about what they know and what they do not know, and you need to form intentions concerning the knowledge of others. Cognitive ethologists and primatologists (Byrne and Whiten, 1988; Whiten and Byrne, 1997) have documented cases of deception among non-humans; Primatologists have debated the question of the extent to which we can ascribe metacognitive skills to non-human primates (Heyes 1993; Povinelli 1994; Tomasello 1999). In this paper I question whether there are grounds for ascribing the capacity to credit non-humans with the capacity to track the epistemic states of others from their ability to engage in deception. Input from IP-01 will again be valuable here; this work connects also highly with work being done within IP-01 and IP-07 of the METACOGNITION project of CNCC.
  
• The role of emotions in metacognition and social cognition. The role of emotions in cognition generally has received careful attention (Frijda et al. 2000). One radical suggestion from philosophers is that emotions might solve the problem of other minds (Brewer 2002; Pickard 2003). Biologists too have suggested a close connection between social cognition and emotions (Darwin 1872/1998; Panksepp 1998). I argue that the role of emotions in social cognition is deep, and is best understood in strategic terms (Griffiths 2003; Byrne and Whiten 1988). Input from IP-04 will also be valuable here
  
• Simulation and the cognition/meta-cognition gap. Numerous experiments seem to show that we do not reason in accord with our cannons of rationality (Nisbett and Ross, 1980; Tversky and Kahneman, 1982; Wason and Johnson-Laird, 1972). Further experiments show that our reflective judgements about how we reason are more the product of our self-conception of ourselves as rational than a reflection of the less-than-rational processes we actually use (Wason, 1960; Kornblith, 1989). I use these pieces of data to build an argument that makes problems for attempts to defend a simulation account of these reflective judgments. Input from IP-01 will be valuable here.
  
• Pathologies of belief and self-knowledge. Bortolotti and Broome (draft) argue that some pathologies of belief (such as thought-insertion in schizophrenia—Coltheart and Davies, 2000) can be understood as deficits in the authorship of belief—a component of self-knowledge. Fernandez (draft) agrees that they are pathologies of self-knowledge, but argues that they can be better explained as a different self-knowledge deficit: as a disruption of the causal chain leading from the evidential ground of a belief to its self-ascription. I argue that both of these accounts implies untenable consequences about self-knowledge in the non-pathological case. I offer an alternative explanation. This work connects highly with work being done within IP-03 of the METACOGNITION project of CNCC; it also connects with the work of the BASIC project of CNCC, in particular with work done by Chris Frith (PI at UCL) Dan Zahavi (PI at Copenhagen) and Shaun Gallagher (PI at the University of Central Florida).
  

Theoretical and conceptual issues. To advance understanding of theoretical and conceptual issues related to active and interactive consciousness.

• Intuitions about externalism. Externalism about the content of mental states is usually motivated by appeal to our intuitions about thought-experiment scenarios (Burge, 1979; Putnam, 1975). Externalism about the vehicles of mental states (Clark, 1997; Hurley, 1998) is usually motivated by arguments of a different form—arguing that a taxonomy of radically broad mental states delivers a better explanatory system for explaining behaviour than a taxonomy of narrow states. This paper defends the latter methodology as offering the only viable defence of externalism. The intuitions that are sometimes used to support externalism are examined and shown to be the by-product of certain features of our metacognitive patterns of reasoning that make them an unreliable foundation for theorising about the mind. Input from IP-03 will be valuable here.
  
• Knowledge as a broad mental state and as a natural kind. Williamson (2000) has argued that knowledge is a mental state; Kornblith (2002) has argued that that knowledge is a natural kind. Kornblith’s argument is that cognitive ethologists employ the term ‘knowledge’ as a theoretical term that does indispensable work in explaining what animals can do in terms of what they know. This paper combines these theses to argue that knowledge is a paradigm of the kind of externalist state defended by Clark (1997) and Hurley (1998). Kornblith’s critics have attacked him at a number of points: they suggest that the term ‘knowledge’ is only metaphorically/dispensably used, or that the term ‘knowledge’ as used theoretically is not the same term as (or even coreferential with) our everyday term ‘knowledge’, or that knowledge fragments into two kinds—animal knowledge and human knowledge. I respond to each criticism in detail.
  
• The explanatory gap and intuitive dualism. Levine (2001) has argued that the explanatory gap between consciousness and any physicalist attempt to explain it is both inevitable and a deep problem for those seeking to solve the problem of consciousness. Papineau (forthcoming) agrees with the first claim (while disagreeing with the second) arguing that the gap is the inevitable product of a certain feature of the way we mentalise: we are ‘intuitive dualists’ in our thinking about the mind. This paper defends and extends Papineau’s conclusion, explores a disagreement between Papineau and Bloom (2004) over the developmental origins of intuitive dualism.
  
• Simulation and metacognitive judgement. Simulation theories of mentalising (Hurley, 2005; Ravenscroft, 1998; Gordon, 1986) do well at explaining how we predict behaviour and coordinate behaviour on the basis of mentalising. But it is also part of our mentalising ability that we are able to make explicit metacognitive judgements—judgements abut what others believe, want or think. Traditionally, Theory Theorists (Gopnik and Wellman, 1992) are on stronger ground in accounting for such explicit judgements—they are the explicit output of pieces of implicit theoretical reasoning. In this paper a detailed story about the process of metacogntive judgement is offered on which is it shown how an offline simulation process can reliably produce judgements that refer to the mental states of others. Input from Rome IP-01 and from Leitgeb and the METACOGNITION CRP will be valuable here. This work will also connect with work from within the BASIC CRP.
  
• Kim on mental causation. Finn Spicer has been working on this topic with James Ladyman (Bristol IP participant) and Robin Brown (their PhD student); this work will be drawn into a paper arguing that Kim’s causal exclusion argument fails. Input from Ladyman (Ross and Ladyman 2007), Bird (forthcoming) and Leitgeb will be important here. Input from IP-03 will be valuable here too.
  

Events

The PPNB conference and the Two Visual Systems International Conference, held in Bristol in 2007, were both a great success (for details, see the section on events). In addition to these there will be a workshop on:

• Self-knowledge, mentalising and pathologies of belief. This workshop will be an interdisciplinary one, involving collaborators from across the CONTACT project IPs and the wider CNCC network (especially the BASIC project). The hope will be to invite Chris Frith (PI of the BASIC IP at UCL), Dan Zahavi (PI of the BASIC IP at Copenhagen) and Shaun Gallagher (PI at the BASIC IP at University of Central Florida), and/or their collaborators to this workshop.
  

There will be a second workshop on:

• Knowledge as a broad mental state and as a natural kind (details to follow).
  

Other conferences will follow hosted by CONTACT partners in Edinburgh, Italy, etc.

The main methodology remains unchanged; it will be analytical and synthetic argument, based on familiarity with past and current scientific and philosophical work and discussions with scientists.

Year 1: Conference on Perception, Action Consciousness. PPNB graduate/post-doc conference—both achieved. Plus Spicer articles on:

• Simulation and metacognitive judgement
• The explanatory gap and intuitive dualism

Year 2: Editing (by post-doc) of volume on Perception, Action, and Consciousness.
Workshop on:

• Self-knowledge, mentalising and pathologies of belief

Plus Spicer articles on:

• Priming effects on metacognition and folk epistemological judgment
• The place of folk epistemics in social cognition
• Animal deception and folk epistemics
• Pathologies of belief and self-knowledge

Year 3: Final editing and writing introduction (by post-doc) of volume on Perception, Action, Consciousness, sending it to press.
Workshop on:

• Knowledge as a broad mental state and as a natural kind

Plus Spicer articles on:

• The role of emotions in metacognition and social cognition
• Simulation and the cognition/meta-cognition gap
• Intuitions about externalism
• Kim on mental causation
• Knowledge as a broad mental state and as a natural kind

Throughout: related articles for journals by post-doc each year. Post-doc and PhD will be continue to work collaboratively on above topics, and be encouraged to present their own research for commentary by others at CRP events and invited to comment on work by others. An exchange for Zoe Drayson (project PhD student) to the Edinburgh IP arranged for 09/07 to 01/08.

Deliverables and/or milestones

The primary deliverables will be articles in journals and in appropriate, high profile edited volumes on above topics. Some planned topics may evolve or merge as work progresses.
An early milestone was the international interdisciplinary conference, successfully held on 01-03.07.07 on Sensory-motor Dynamic theories versus Two Visual Systems theories of perceptual consciousness. This conference brought together the leading players making up the current state of play.
A major deliverable emerging from this is the edited volume Perception, Action Consciousness. The second milestone was the PPNB graduate/post-doc conference. The smaller workshops outlined above are also milestones in the project.