Opacity Of Mind Research Articles

Who Is He to Speak of My Sorrow?

This article suggests that comparative literature scholars may benefit from the awareness that different communities around the world subscribe to different models of mind and that works of fiction can thus be fruitfully analyzed in relation to those local ideologies of mind. Taking as her starting point the “opacity of mind” doctrine, found in the South Pacific and Melanesia, the author compares cultural practices originating in communities in which people think but do not talk publicly about others’ internal states, to those originating in communities in which people both think and talk about them, indeed, in which public speculation about other people’s intentions is (mostly) rewarded. While the immediate analysis centers on a very specific and limited set of case studies from English, Chinese, and Russian novels and Bosavi performance genres, the author’s larger goal is to begin to articulate opportunities and challenges of using research in theory of mind for the comparative study of literature.

Confabulation does not undermine introspection for propositional attitudes

According to some, such as Carruthers (Behav Brain Sci 32:121–138, 2009; Philos Phenomenol Res 80:76–111, 2010; The opacity of mind: an integrative theory of self-knowledge, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2011; The centered mind: what the science of working memory shows us about the nature of human thought, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2015), the confabulation data (experimental data showing subjects making false psychological self-ascriptions) undermine the view that we can know our propositional attitudes by introspection. He believes that these data favour his interpretive sensory-access (ISA) theory—the view that self-knowledge of our propositional attitudes always involves self-interpretation of our sensations, behaviour, or situational cues. This paper will review some of the confabulation data and conclude that the presence and pattern of these data do not substantiate the claim that we cannot introspect our propositional attitudes. As a consequence of this discussion, I conclude that the ISA theory is not well supported by the empirical data.

Putting Your Money Where Your Mouth is: Examining Metacognition in ASD Using Post-decision Wagering

It has been argued that metacognition and mindreading rely on the same cognitive processes (Carruthers in The opacity of mind: an integrative theory of self-knowledge, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2011). It is widely accepted that mindreading is diminished among individuals diagnosed with autism (Brunsdon and Happé in Autism 18(1):17–30, 2014), however, little is known about metacognition. This study examined metacognition in relation to mindreading and autism using post-decision wagering. Results from a student sample showed negative associations between autism traits and metacognitive accuracy, and metacognitive reaction times and mindreading. These findings were replicated in a general population sample, providing evidence of a reliable association between metacognition, mindreading and autism traits. However, adults diagnosed with autism showed equivalent levels of metacognitive accuracy to age- and IQ-matched comparison participants, albeit only with an overall increase in meta-level processing time.

From conscious experience to a conscious self

In his book The Opacity of Mind, Peter Carruthers (2011) presents the Interpretive Sensory Awareness theory (“ISA”), which holds that while we have direct access to our own sensory states, our access to “self-knowledge” is almost always interpretive. In presenting his view, Carruthers also claims that his account is the first of its kind; after a cursory examination of major theories of mind, he concludes that “transparent access” accounts of self-knowledge—the alternative to ISA—have been endorsed throughout history. This paper challenges this latter claim. Contrary to Carruthers’ view, the paper argues that Buddhist theories of mind are not “transparent access” accounts. Instead, they not only have an analysis of sensory processing and conscious experience similar to that of ISA, but also share what Carruthers sees as ISA’s central tenet: individuals lack transparent, conscious access to most of their propositional attitudes. Given this fundamental alignment, the Buddhist perspective can offer us fresh responses to ISA’s critics, as well as approaches to ethics and free will that are aligned with ISA’s conclusions.

The Opacity of Mind: An Integrative Theory of Self-Knowledge By PETER CARRUTHERS

The Opacity of Mind: An Integrative Theory of Self-Knowledge By PETER CARRUTHERS

Carruthers and Constitutive Self-Knowledge

In his recent book, The Opacity of Mind, Peter Carruthers advances a skeptical theory of self-knowledge, integrating results from experimental psychology and cognitive science.1 In this essay, I want to suggest that the situation is not quite as dire as Carruthers makes it out to be. I respond to Carruthers by advancing a constitutive theory of self-knowledge. I argue that self-knowledge, so understood, is not only compatible with the empirical research that Carruthers utilizes, but also helps to make sense of these results.

Interpretive sensory-access theory and conscious intentions

It is typically assumed that while we know other people's mental states by observing and interpreting their behavior, we know our own mental states by introspection, i.e., without interpreting ourselves. In his latest book, The opacity of mind: An integrative theory of self-knowledge, Peter Carruthers [2011. The opacity of mind: An integrative theory of self-knowledge. Oxford: Oxford University Press] argues against this assumption. He holds that findings from across the cognitive sciences strongly suggest that self-knowledge of conscious propositional attitudes such as intentions, judgments, and decisions involves a swift and unconscious process of self-interpretation that utilizes the same sensory channels that we employ when working out other people's mental states. I provide an overview of Carruthers’ book before discussing a pathological case that challenges his account of self-knowledge and mentioning empirical evidence that undermines his use of a particular kind of data in his case against introspection of conscious attitudes.

The Opacity of Mind: An Integrative Theory of Self-Knowledge, by Peter Carruthers.

Peter Carruthers began his career studying Wittgenstein, writing his first two books on the Tractatus. It is hard to imagine a book more distant in style and emphasis from the Wittgensteinian legacy than The Opacity of Mind, but the ghost of the Philosophical Investigations is floating in the vicinity of Carruthers’s most recent book. Carruthers offers a robust antidote to dominant views about self-knowledge. In particular, Carruthers bracingly takes aim at any theory of self-knowledge on which we have transparent introspective access even to our current propositional attitudes and affective states. Instead, he claims, our access to our own minds is sensory and interpretive. We tell a story about our beliefs, desires, and emotions ultimately derived from mental images, fragments of inner speech, and other denizens of the stream of consciousness (including outwardly-directed sensory experience). The raw materials are different for the stories we tell about the mental states of others, but in both cases we have an exercise of interpretation based on sensory data.

Carruthers and Constitutive Self-Knowledge

In his recent book, The Opacity of Mind, Peter Carruthers advances a skeptical theory of self-knowledge, integrating results from experimental psychology and cognitive science. In this essay, I want to suggest that the situation is not quite as dire as Carruthers makes it out to be. I respond to Carruthers by advancing a constitutive theory of self-knowledge. I argue that self-knowledge, so understood, is not only compatible with the empirical research that Carruthers utilizes, but also helps to make sense of these results.

The opacity of mind: an integrative theory of self-knowledge

List of Figures and Tables Preface Acknowledgements 1. Introduction 2. The Mental Transparency Assumption 3. The ISA Theory: Foundations and Elaborations 4. Transparent Sensory Access to Attitudes? 5. Transparent Sensory Access to Affect 6. Intermediate-Strength Transparent-Access Theories 7. Inner Sense Theories 8. Mindreading in Mind 9. Metacognition and Control 10. Dissociation Data 11. Self-Interpretation and Confabulation 12. Conclusion and Implications References Index of Names Index of Subjects

The Opacity of Mind: An Integrative Theory of Self-Knowledge. By PeterCarruthers. (Oxford UP, 2011. Pp. 456. Price £30.00.)

The Opacity of Mind: An Integrative Theory of Self-Knowledge. By PeterCarruthers. (Oxford UP, 2011. Pp. 456. Price £30.00.)

Transparency and Opacity of Mind

Analysis of talk-in-interaction, which attempts to consider everything to be locally achieved in and through the actual course of interaction, often encounters the following criticism : It cannot take into account anything outside the local operations of interaction. The criticism implies that (a) analysis of talk-in-interaction ignores possibilities for interaction to be influenced from the outside and that (b) it eliminates from the start the possibility of any existence outside interaction. The aim of this paper is to show, against this criticism, that (1) existence of the outside is as such irrelevant to analysis of interaction, that (2) appearance of such existence to be relevant is based on a kind of delusion originated in conceptual confusions, and that (3) existence outside interaction is also interactively achieved as such. Here, metal phenomena, which tend to be considered hidden from interaction, are taken as an example. In the analysis of some conversational materials, it is shown that mental phenomena are interactive phenomena to be investigated in their own right.