Does Confabulation Pose a Threat to First-Person Authority? Mindshaping, Self-Regulation and the Importance of Self-Know-How

Abstract

Empirical evidence suggests that people often confabulate when they are asked about their choices or reasons for action. The implications of these studies are the topic of intense debate in philosophy and the cognitive sciences. An important question in this debate is whether the confabulation studies pose a serious threat to the possibility of self-knowledge. In this paper we are not primarily interested in the consequences of confabulation for self-knowledge. Instead, we focus on a different issue: what confabulation implies for the special status of self-attributions, i.e. first-person authority (FPA). In the first part of the paper, we propose that FPA is based on a capacity for self-regulation. Accordingly, FPA depends on the extent to which we are able to bridge the gap between our sayings and doings by aligning our actions with our avowed self-ascriptions and vice versa. FPA is withheld when we (systematically) fail at such realignment. In the second part of the paper, we contrast our view with the accounts of Scaife (Acta Anal 29:469-485, 2014) and Bortolotti (Rev Philos Psychol 9(2):227-249, 2018). We claim (contra Scaife) that the apparent fact that we cannot reliably distinguish, from a first-person perspective, when we are confabulating and when we are not, does not necessarily undermine FPA. We argue (contra Bortolotti) that a systematic failure to align our actions with our self-ascriptions and vice-versa is a genuine threat to FPA. In the last part of the paper, we introduce the concept of self-know-how-the know-how embodied in the way one is disposed to relate to oneself in making sense of oneself with or in the face of others-and briefly explored the importance of diminished or absent self-know-how in clinical cases.

Explainable AI lacks regulative reasons: why AI and human decision-making are not equally opaque

“…But several philosophers have called for a revision to this approach to self-knowledge. They have emphasized that ascriptions of mental states and reasons to oneself often do not only serve an epistemic but also a "regulative" [39,45] or "mindshaping" function [13,64], which can indirectly provide self-knowledge. The thought is that in ascribing a mental state to oneself, one often does not just describe what one detects in one's own mind (e.g., through introspection or interpretation), but one commits oneself to thinking and acting in ways that confirm the ascriptions and make oneself more predictable by other people [39].…”

“…The goal here is to critically assess the equal opacity argument by relating it to a particular area of philosophical research on the nature of people's ascriptions of mental states and reasons to themselves. In that research, it has been argued that when individuals ascribe mental states or reasons to themselves, this often does not involve the detection of pre-existing mental states but rather serves "mindshaping" [37], i.e., it functions to commit and govern oneself so as to think and act in ways that align with one's selfascriptions [13,39,64]. While research on mindshaping has not yet been brought to bear on the debate on whether ADM and HDM are equally opaque, the claim here is that doing so is fruitful because it offers a novel and important insight for that debate.…”

Self-Regulation and Political Confabulation

“…These attitudes are complex in that they equip the individual with the disposition to behave in the relevant ways when required (for 3 Leon DeBruin and Derek Strijbos (2019) suggest that in order to close this gap, it helps if people have certain self-directed attitudes that make up a sort of skilful 'know-how' (as opposed to propositional knowledge of selfrelated facts). I also draw on their idea that how one goes about closing the gap is more important (and what we value more in others) than the gap itself, whether this be a large gap, as in cases of people with poor self-regulation, or a very small gap.…”

“… 1 The attitudes which I outline as contributing to the virtue of self-regulation draw on ideas by DeBruin and Strijbos (2019) about attitudes which make up what they term ‘self-know-how’; a skillset which enables individuals to preserve first person authority of their self-ascriptions despite confabulation.…”

How does social cognition shape enculturation?

“…Insofar, as our social success is about cultural niche construction, it has to involve the construction or shaping of people. Other people do not only scaffold our capacity to acquire norms and conventions, but they actively transform our behavioral dispositions and mental states by shaping them to respect the prevailing norms and stereotypes (De Bruin & Strijbos 2020; Zawidzki 2013). Although this idea seems to be implicit in Veissière et al, the thinking through other minds (TTOM) hypothesis could shed more light on the dynamics by which perception, action, and niche construction led to the acquisition and production of cultural habits, and to the inference and learning about other minds (Fig.…”