Thinking things and feeling things: on an alleged discontinuity in folk metaphysics of mind

Phelan, Mark; Arico, Adam; Nichols, Shaun

doi:10.1007/s11097-012-9278-7

Cited by 35 publications

(37 citation statements)

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“…9. Evidence for this can be found, among others, in Phelan, Arico, and Nichols (2013). They found that when people were thinking of groups in distributive terms, they were more inclined to use…”

Section: Notesmentioning

confidence: 79%

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“The Group Knobe Effect”: evidence that people intuitively attribute agency and responsibility to groups

Michael

Szigeti

2018

Philosophical Explorations

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In the current paper, we present and discuss a series of experiments in which we investigated people's willingness to ascribe intentions, as well as blame and praise, to groups. The experiments draw upon the so-called "Knobe Effect". Knobe [2003. "Intentional action and side effects in ordinary language." Analysis 63: [190][191][192][193][194] found that the positiveness or negativeness of side-effects of actions influences people's assessment of whether those side-effects were brought about intentionally, and also that people are more willing to assign blame for negative side-effects of actions than they are to assign praise for positive side-effect of actions. Building upon this research, we found evidence that the positiveness or negativeness of side-effects of group actions influences people's willingness to attribute intentions to groups (Experiment 1a), and that people are more willing to assign blame to groups for negative side-effects of actions than they are to assign praise to groups for positive side-effects of actions (Experiment 1b). We also found evidence (Experiments 2a, 2b, 3 and 4) that the "Group Knobe Effect" persists even when intentions and blame/ praise are attributed to groups non-distributively, indicating that people tend not to think of group intentions and group blame/praise in distributive terms. We conclude that the folk are collectivist about group intentions, and also about the blameworthiness and praiseworthiness of groups.

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Section: Notesmentioning

confidence: 79%

“…8. While people tended to use the singular pronoun "it" when referring to groups non-distributively (Phelan, Arico, and Nichols 2013). 9.…”

Section: Notesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“The Group Knobe Effect”: evidence that people intuitively attribute agency and responsibility to groups

Michael

Szigeti

2018

Philosophical Explorations

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“…But at any rate, the availability of alternative, more or less equivalent expressions does not indicate that the original expressions do not signify something real. The same goes for the tendency (demonstrated by Phelan et al 2012) to replace group names with plural pronouns. So as long as our attributions of group knowledge seem to be on par with our individual knowledge attributions, they can be assumed to be sufficiently (putatively) real to merit philosophical analysis.…”

Section: The Reality Of Group Knowledgementioning

confidence: 72%

“…This is still significantly weaker than the full reflexivity requirement. 12 Phelan et al (2012) claim that there is a significant difference between attributions of mental states to groups and to individuals, because in the latter case, people do not tend to paraphrase statements about an individual's mental states into e.g. statements about her neurons.…”

Section: Desiderata and Expectationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Group knowledge: a real-world approach

Klausen

2014

Synthese

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In spite of the booming interest in social epistemology, explicit analyses of group knowledge remain rare. Most existing accounts are based on theories of joint intentionality. I argue that this approach, though not without merit or useful applications, is inadequate both when it comes to accounting for actual group knowledge attributions and for purposes of meliorative social epistemology. As an alternative, I outline a liberal, de-intellectualized account, which allows for the complex distribution of epistemic states typical of most real-world collectives, and makes minimal requirements as to the psychological underpinnings of collective states of knowing and the formal features of groups. The account is inspired by theories of distributed and extended cognition. It is guided by the principle that we should use the same standard when dealing with social and individual epistemology. Careful attention to what is normally required-and, in particular, not required-for attributing knowledge to individuals lends support the more liberal view.

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“…10 Gray, Gray, and Wegner 2007; Knobe and Prinz 2008;Huebner, Bruno, and Sarkissian 2010;Sytsma and Machery 2010;Buckwalter and Phelan 2011;Fiala, Arico, and Nichols 2011;Phelan, Arico, and Nichols forthcoming. For example: Fiala, Arico, and Nichols argue for a dual-process explanation of the folk psychology of consciousness attribution.…”

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confidence: 99%

The Crazyist Metaphysics of Mind

Schwitzgebel

2014

Australasian Journal of Philosophy

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Abstract:Crazyism about X is the view that something that it would be crazy to believe must be among the core truths about X. In this essay, I argue that crazyism is true of the metaphysics of mind. A position is "crazy" in the intended sense if it is contrary to common sense and we are not epistemically compelled to believe it. Crazyism about the metaphysics of mind can thus be treated as the conjunction of two sub-theses: (1.) that something contrary to common sense must be among the core truths of the metaphysics of mind and (2.) that whatever that true thing is, we are not epistemically compelled to believe it. I defend the first thesis on grounds of the probable incoherence of folk metaphysics, from which follows that any fully fleshed-out metaphysics will inevitably conflict with some piece of that incoherent story. I defend the second thesis on three grounds: peer disagreement, lack of a compelling method for resolving metaphysical disputes about the mind, and the dubiousness of the general cosmological claims with which metaphysical claims about the mind are entangled. SchwitzgebelJuly 12, 2013Crazy Mind, p. 3 The Crazyist Metaphysics of MindMysterians about the mind -Colin McGinn (1989McGinn ( , 2004 commonsensical metaphysics ought to be attractive to at least a certain portion of philosophers.At least it ought to command attention as a foil. It oughtn't be so downmarket as to be entirely invisible.1 For example, Frege 1884/1953, 1918/1956 (though see Reck 2005; Lewis 1986; Yablo 1987. Schwitzgebel July 12, 2013Crazy Mind, p. 5Second possible explanation. Metaphysics is very difficult. A thoroughly commonsensical metaphysics is out there to be discovered; we simply haven't found it yet. If all goes well, someday someone will piece it all together, top to bottom, with no serious violence to common sense anywhere in the system. I fear this is wishful thinking against the evidence. In the next several sections I will discuss the case of the metaphysics of mind in particular.Third possible explanation. Common sense is incoherent in matters of metaphysics.Contradictions thus inevitably flow from it, and no coherent metaphysical system can respect it all. Although ordinary common sense serves us fairly well in practical maneuvers through the social and physical world, common sense has proven an unreliable guide in cosmology and probability theory and microphysics and neuroscience and macroeconomics and evolutionary biology and structural engineering and medicine and topology. If, as it seems to, metaphysics more closely resembles these latter endeavors than it resembles reaching practical judgments, we might excusably doubt the dependability of common sense as a guide to metaphysics. 2Undependability doesn't imply incoherence, of course. But it seems a natural next step in this case, and it would tidily explain the historical fact at hand.On the first explanation, we could easily enough invent a thoroughly commonsensical metaphysical system if we wanted one, but we don't want one. On the second explanation, ...

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Thinking things and feeling things: on an alleged discontinuity in folk metaphysics of mind

Cited by 35 publications

References 25 publications

“The Group Knobe Effect”: evidence that people intuitively attribute agency and responsibility to groups

“The Group Knobe Effect”: evidence that people intuitively attribute agency and responsibility to groups

Group knowledge: a real-world approach

The Crazyist Metaphysics of Mind

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