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2017
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(2017): Social cognition. From brains to culture. Third edition. Los Angeles; London; New Delhi; Singapore; Washington, DC; Melbourne: Sage
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(2017): The future of social cognition. Paradigms, concepts and experiments. In: Synthese 194 (3), S. 655-672. DOI: 10.1007/s11229-016-1162-5
Abstract: Since the publication of Premack and Woodruff's classic paper introducing the notion of a 'theory of mind' (Premack and Woodruff in Behav Brain Sci 1(4):515-526, 1978), interdisciplinary research in social cognition has witnessed the development of theory-theory, simulation theory, hybrid approaches, and most recently interactionist and perceptual accounts of other minds. The challenges that these various approaches present for each other and for research in social cognition range from adequately defining central concepts to designing experimental paradigms for testing empirical hypotheses. But is there any approach that promises to dominate future interdisciplinary research in social cognition? Is social cognition witnessing a gradual paradigm shift where hitherto grounding notions such as theory of mind are no longer viewed as explanatorily necessary? Or have we simply lost our way in attempting to devise adequate experimental setups that could sway the debate in favour of one of the contending accounts? This special issue addresses these questions in an attempt to discover what the future holds for interdisciplinary research in social cognition.
Keywords: adequate social interaction, deutsche Community, Disziplin, Erkenntnistheorie, Kognitive Skills/Social Cognition, Philosophie, philosophy of mind, Postkasten, Psychologie, Social Cognition, Soziale Angemessenheit, soziale Kognition, Überblick, Voraussetzungen für sozial angemessenes Verhalten 2016
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Albers, Irene; Franke, Anselm (Hg.) (2016): Animismus. Revisionen der Moderne. Neuauflage. Zürich: Diaphanes
Abstract: Der 'Animismus' ist eine Erfindung der Ethnologie des 19. Jahrhunderts, geprägt auf dem Höhepunkt des europäischen Kolonialismus. Animisten bevölkern die unbelebte Natur mit Seelen und Geistern. Das erklärt man als eine die materielle Realität verkennende 'Projektion', durch die den Dingen und der Natur Leben und Handlungsmacht zugeschrieben wird. Animismus wird so zum Gegenbild moderner Wissenschaft, zum Ausdruck eines 'Naturzustands', in dem Psyche und Natur als ungeschieden gelten. Wenn sich letzthin ein neues Interesse am Animismus herausgebildet hat, liegt das nicht daran, dass der Begriff als wissenschaftliche Kategorie rehabilitiert wurde. Vielmehr ist die kategorische Trennung von subjektiver und objektiver Welt selbst in Bewegung geraten.
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(2016): Die epistemologischen Jahre. Dissertation. Zürich, Schweiz: Chronos Verlag (Interferenzen)
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(2016): Hegel's social and political philosophy. Recent debates. In: Philosophy Compass 11 (12), S. 804-817. DOI: 10.1111/phc3.12384
Abstract: This article discusses three topics that have been the subject of debate in recent scholarship on Hegel's social and political philosophy: first, the relevance of Hegel's systematic metaphysics for interpreting Hegel's social and political writings; second, the relation between recognition (Anerkennung), social institutions, and rational agency; and third, the connection between the constellation of institutions and norms that Hegel calls ethical life (Sittlichkeit) and Hegel's theory of freedom. This article provides a critical overview of the positions in these three debates. In the case of the first debate, I clarify the conceptual terrain by distinguishing between several kinds of systematicity that are at issue. In the case of the second debate, I argue that the views of two of the major participants, Axel Honneth and Robert Pippin, are in fact compatible. In the case of the third debate, I seek to clarify the connection in Hegel between two different ideas of freedom in ethical life, each of which has been emphasized by different interpreters of Hegel: the idea of freedom as non-alienation and the idea of freedom as social freedom. I conclude with a discussion of the ways in which ethical life, for Hegel, enables the freedom of individuals.
2015
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(2015): Hegelian recognition. In: Thesis Eleven 126 (1), S. 100-122. DOI: 10.1177/0725513614567342
Abstract: If we think of recognition as the practical relation consciously enacted by concerned individual subjects as social actors, which allows them to fulfil their intersubjectively valid social roles, this by no means exhausts the significance that recognition is accorded by Hegel. In fact the problem of recognition is central to the understanding and evaluation of Hegel's metaphysical system. Thus a close scrutiny of the presentation of self-consciousness in Phenomenology of Spirit and the interpretative difficulties it poses leads on to the question of the subject and Hegel's distinction between finite, accidental individuals and the true subject in his system: the concept of Spirit, understood not as a separate entity but as a system of relations, objectified in the historical forms of the Absolute Spirit. But what is the price of Hegel's metaphysics of subjectivity? Hegelian recognition signifies the recognition by individuals of recognition in its truth, that is, the self-recognition by finite individuals that they participate in Spirit as the true universal subject to the degree that they recognize their shared world of actions as the world of their own making. Modernity is therefore defined for Hegel as the recognition and realization of 'conscious freedom', whose telos lies in the actualization of universal reciprocal recognition that brings the unfreedom of history to an end. The idea of freedom and the thesis of the 'end of history' remain, however, the preserve of the thinking few. Hegelian recognition and with it Hegel's whole metaphysical system founders on the rock of finitude, on the unfreedom of finite human beings.
2014
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(2014): Inference or Familiarity? The Embodied Roots of Social Cognition. In: SYNTHESIS PHILOSOPHICA 29 (2), S. 253-272
Abstract: I consider two distinct deflationary theories in social cognition that aim to explain action understanding without demanding meta-representational or mindreading processes: the first one is the 'teleological stance hypothesis' (TSH), claiming that we infer the intended goal of a certain observed action based on the mere perception of its effects and of its situational constraints; I decided to dub the second one 'the embodied familiarity hypothesis' (EFH) to comprise all the theories claiming that we recognize the intended goal of a certain action based on the perceptual or motoric expertise developed within the sensorimotor contingencies associated to that action's context. TSH's main requirement is that the observer could ascribe efficiency, and therefore rationality, to the observed agent's movement, while EFH's main requirement is that the observer were somehow exposed to the perceptual or motoric details of the observed agent's action. I argue that EFH describes a more primitive and fundamental form of action understanding, i.e. one that is necessarily presupposed by TSH: in fact, while recognizing efficiency is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for detecting goal-relatedness, some kind of perceptual or motoric familiarity with the details of the observed action's context is always necessary for any ascription of efficiency, and therefore of rationality, to the observed agent. I conclude that, while TSH might certainly be effective in describing certain rational forms of action understanding, it implicitly requires EFH to be true, as its inferential system would be groundless without an assumed familiar background of embodied expertise.
2013
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(2013): Intimacy and the Possibility for Self-Knowledge in Hegel's Dialectic of Recognition. In: Idealistic Studies 43 (3), S. 133-152. DOI: 10.5840/idstudies201411710
Abstract: Abstract The achievement of self-consciousness in Hegel's Phenomenology hinges on establishing a relationship with another self-conscious being. How this is accomplished, and even that it is accomplished in Hegel's text, are topics of dispute and misunderstanding in the literature. I show how Hegel argues for this intersubjective origin of self-consciousness, first, by comparing Hegel's analysis of lord and bondsman to Sartre's analysis of intimacy. Second, I focus on two interpretive challenges. First, I argue that the staking of life comes from an other-oriented epistemological relation, and not simply from an immediate concern with dominating the other. Second, contrary to many interpretations which see the bondsman's development arising out of an isolated activity merely between himself and the products of his labor, I argue that the slave's ability to gain knowledge of himself as a self is only possible by establishing a relationship with the lord. This point is essential because, if readings of the bondsman's development as isolated from the lord are correct, then Hegel has in fact not succeeded in showing that self-consciousness only develops out of intersubjective recognition.
2009
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(2009): A strange hand. On self-recognition and recognition of another. In: Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 8 (3), S. 321-342. DOI: 10.1007/s11097-009-9127-5
Abstract: This article provides a phenomenological analysis of the difference between self-recognition and recognition of another, while referring to some contemporary neuroscientific studies on the rubber hand illusion. It examines the difference between these two forms of recognition on the basis of Husserl's and Merleau-Ponty's work. It argues that both phenomenologies, despite their different views on inter-subjectivity, allow for the specificity of recognition of another. In explaining self-recognition, however, Husserl's account seems less convincing. Research concerning the rubber hand illusion has confirmed that self-recognition involves more than an immediate experience of oneself. Merleau-Ponty's later work, describing self-recognition as the result of assimilative identification, will be used to explain the possibility of illusion between one's "hereness" and "thereness". The possibility of this illusion is inherent to self-recognition, while it is lacking in recognition of another.
Keywords: Anderkennung des Anderen, Anerkennung, Anerkennung des Selbst und des Anderen (Phänomenologie), Disziplin, Erkenntnistheorie, Favoriten, Husserl, IDENTIFICATION, Konstitutionen des Selbst (Anerkennung), Merleau-Ponty, Mirror image, Modelle/Theorien, Ontologie, Phänomenologie, Philosophie, RECOGNITION, Recognition of another, Rubber hand illusion, Selbst, Selbst-Anerkennung, Self-recognition, Soziale Angemessenheit, Sozialphilosophie 2008
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(2008): Cultural Neuroscience of Consciousness. In: Journal of Consciousness Studies 15 (10-11), S. 58-69
Abstract: Philosophical inquiries into the nature of consciousness have long been intrinsically tied to questions regarding the nature of the self. Although philosophers of mind seldom make reference to the role of cultural context in shaping consciousness, since antiquity culture has played a notable role in philosophical conceptions of the self. Western philosophers, from Plato to Locke, have emphasized an individualistic view of the self that is autonomous and consistent across situations, while Eastern philosophers, such as Lao Tzu and Confucius, have argued for a collectivistic view of the self, one that is interconnected to others and embedded within specific social contexts and situations. Here we argue that a comprehensive theory of consciousness needs to account for the role of cultural context and its bidirectional interaction with neural and genetic mechanisms in shaping a variety of conscious phenomena, from visual perception to self-awareness. We review recent evidence of cultural variation in neurobiological mechanisms underlying these phenomena and discuss the implications of these cultural neuroscience findings for the study of consciousness.
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(2008): How Collective Representations Can Change the Structure of the Brain. In: Journal of Consciousness Studies 15 (10-11), S. 43-57
Abstract: Culture not only influences human psychology and perceptions of self, others and reality, it also, in certain contexts, influences the quality and degree of consciousness itself. If the brain gives shape to consciousness, then we would expect culture to have a corresponding impact on the functional anatomy and microstructure of the brain. The concept of ‘collective representations’, as developed by Durkheim, refers to the often crucial components of human life that have meaningful existence only because we agree that they do — such as customs, money, religion, cosmology, language, games, laws, power structures and artistic genres. We present recent imaging research which illuminates the feedback relationship between these two types of representation — the collective and the cortical — and which demonstrates that collective representations can have well-defined cortical representations.
Keywords: Bewusstsein, Culture, Durkheim, Erkenntnistheorie, Gehirnstruktur, Kognitionswissenschaft/Social Sciences/Humanities, Kultur, kulturspezifisch, microstructure of the brain, Neurologie, Neuroscience, Neurowissenschaften, Plastizität des Gehirns in Bezug auf Kulturvarianz, Psychologie, Theorie der Normen und Kollektive Repräsentationen (Durkheim) 2005
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(2005): Hegel's Concept of Mutual Recognition. The Limits of Self-Determination. In: The Philosophical Forum 36 (2), S. 213-220. DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9191.2005.00201.x
2004
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(2004): The brain as hardware, culture as software. In: Inquiry 47 (3), S. 219-235. DOI: 10.1080/00201740410006348
Abstract: For the last fifty years or so there has been a struggle going on between the heirs of Carnap's 'unified science'movement and the followers of the later Wittgenstein. The differences between these two kinds of philosophers are best grasped, nowadays, by
2003
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(2003): Virtual Machines and Consciousness. (Special Issue on Machine Consciousness). In: Journal of Consciousness Studies 10 (4-5), S. 133-172
Abstract: Replication or even modelling of consciousness in machines requires some clarifications and refinements of our concept of consciousness. Design of, construction of, and interaction with artificial systems can itself assist in this conceptual development. We start with the tentative hypothesis that although the word 'consciousness' has no well-defined meaning, it is used to refer to aspects of human and animal information processing. We then argue that we can enhance our understanding of what these aspects might be by designing and building virtual- machine architectures capturing various features of consciousness. This activity may in turn nurture the development of our concepts of consciousness, showing how an analysis based on information processing virtual machines answers old philosophical puzzles as well enriching empirical theories. This process of developing and testing ideas by developing and testing designs leads to gradual refinement of many of our pre-theoretical concepts of mind, showing how they can be construed as implicitly 'architecture-based' concepts. Understanding how human-like robots with appropriate architectures are likely to feel puzzled about qualia may help us resolve those puzzles. The concept of 'qualia' turns out to be an 'architecture-based' concept, while individual qualia concepts are 'architecture-driven'.
2002
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(2002): Social Moral Epistemology. In: Social Philosophy and Policy 19 (2), S. 126-152. DOI: 10.1017/S0265052502192065
Abstract: The distinctive aim of applied ethics is to provide guidance as to how we ought to act, as individuals and as shapers of social policies. In this essay, I argue that applied ethics as currently practiced is inadequate and ought to be transformed to incorporate what I shall call social moral epistemology. This is a branch of social epistemology, the study of the social practices and institutions that promote (or impede) the formation, preservation, and transmission of true beliefs. For example, social epistemologists critically evaluate the comparative advantages of adversarial versus inquisitorial criminal proceedings as mechanisms for the discovery of truth. 2 Social moral epistemology, at its most inclusive, is the study of the social practices and institutions that promote (or impede) the formation, preservation, and transmission of true beliefs so far as true beliefs facilitate right action or reduce the incidence of wrong action. A special department of social moral epistemology is the study of the social practices and institutions that promote (or impede) the functioning of moral virtues so far as their functioning depends upon true beliefs. For example, the virtue of respect does not function properly in an individual if he believes that blacks or Jews are not truly human and are hence unworthy of the respect owed to human beings. (Whether one calls what this person has a truncated form of respect or denies that it is the virtue of respect at all is irrelevant for present purposes.) Without social moral epistemology, I shall argue, applied ethics cannot provide sufficient guidance for right action.
2001
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(2001): Social Cognition, Language Acquisition and The Development of the Theory of Mind. In: Mind and Language 16 (5), S. 494-541. DOI: 10.1111/1468-0017.00180
Abstract: Theory of Mind (ToM) is the cognitive achievement that enables us to report our propositional attitudes, to attribute such attitudes to others, and to use such postulated or observed mental states in the prediction and explanation of behavior. Most normally developing children acquire ToM between the ages of 3 and 5 years, but serious delays beyond this chronological and mental age have been observed in children with autism, as well is in those with severe sensory impairments. We examine data from Studies of ToM in normally developing children and those with deafness, blindness, autism and Williams syndrome, as well as data from lower primates, in a search for answers to key theoretical questions concerning the origins, nature and representation of knowledge about the mind. In answer to these, we offer a framework according to which ToM is jointly dependent upon language and social experience, and is produced by a conjunction of language acquisition with children's growing social understanding, acquired through conversation and interaction with others. We argue that adequate language and adequate social skills are jointly causally sufficient, and individually causally necessary, for producing ToM. Thus our account supports a social developmental theory of the genesis of human cognition, inspired by the work of Sellars and Vygotsky.
Keywords: adequate social interaction, AUTISTIC-CHILD, Communication, DEAF-CHILDREN, DEFICIT, Disziplin, Erkenntnistheorie, FALSE BELIEF, INDIVIDUALS, KNOWLEDGE, Kognitive Skills/Social Cognition, Linguistik, MODULARITY, performance, Philosophie, philosophy of mind, Postkasten, Psychologie, Social Cognition, Social Skills, Soziale Angemessenheit, soziale Kognition, theory of mind, Voraussetzungen für sozial angemessenes Verhalten, WILLIAMS-SYNDROME 1995
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(1995): Emotion as a natural kind. Towards a computational foundation for emotion theory. In: Philosophical Psychology 8 (1), S. 59-84. DOI: 10.1080/09515089508573145
Abstract: In this paper I link two hitherto disconnected sets of results in the philosophy of emotions and explore their implications for the computational theory of mind. The argument of the paper is that, for just the same reasons that some computationalists have thought that cognition may be a natural kind, so the same can plausibly be argued of emotion. The core of the argument is that emotions are a representation‐governed phenomenon and that the explanation of how they figure in behaviour must as such be undertaken in those terms. I conclude with some interdisciplinary reflections in defence of the hypothesis that emotions might be more fundamental in the organization of behaviour than cognition; that, in effect, we may be emoters before we are cognizers. The aim of the paper is: (1) to introduce a number of promising results in philosophical and empirical emotion theory to a wider audience; and (2) to begin the task of organizing those results into a computational theoretical framework.
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