Self-Interpretation as First-Person Mindshaping: Implications for Confabulation Research

Derek Strijbos,Leon de Bruin

doi:10.1007/s10677-015-9579-3

Abstract

It is generally acknowledged that confabulation undermines the authority of self-attribution of mental states. But why? The mainstream answer is that confabulation misrepresents the actual state of one’s mind at some relevant time prior to the confabulatory response. This construal, we argue, rests on an understanding of self-attribution as first-person mindreading. Recent developments in the literature on folk psychology, however, suggest that mental state attribution also plays an important role in regulating or shaping future behaviour in conformity with normative expectations. We explore an analogue understanding of self-attribution of mental states in terms of first-person mindshaping. The main aim of this paper is to explore how this insight alters the implications of empirical confabulation studies on first-person authority. We also indicate how this sheds new light on the phenomenon of confabulation itself.

Highlights

We often attribute beliefs, desires, emotions and intentions to other people
We turn to Victoria McGeer’s (2008) account of self-regulation. We argue that this account of first-person mindshaping is better suited to account for authoritative self-attribution of mental states in light of the confabulation studies
How should we interpret the experimental findings on confabulation when we apply the idea of mindshaping to self-attribution of mental states? That is, how does confabulation affect first-person authority if self-attribution is regarded as a capacity for ‘self-shaping’? In order to answer this question, we will examine two different accounts of self-attribution found in the philosophical literature: Moran’s (2001) understanding of first-person authority as ‘deliberative avowal’ and McGeer’s (2008) account of self-regulation

Summary

Introduction

Desires, emotions and intentions to other people. For example, we readily understand that Sarah takes the exit because she wants to avoid the traffic jam ahead, and that John carries an umbrella because he believes it is going to rain soon. We want to explore the implications of a complementary view of self-interpretation as first-person mindshaping On this view the (in)adequacy of self-interpretation is not merely determined by the mental states instantiated at some previous time, and by one’s future behaviour, i.e., to what extent one is able to live up to the interpretation one has given. We argue that this view partly mitigates the undermining effect of confabulation on first-person authority. We turn the tables and explore what this self-regulatory aspect of first-person authority implies for a fuller account of confabulation

Confabulation as Failed Self-Interpretation

Self-Interpretation

First-Person Mindshaping as Deliberative Avowal

First-Person Mindshaping as Self-Regulation

Confabulation Reconsidered

Conclusion