Mind Ascribed

Mölder, Bruno

doi:10.1075/aicr.80

Cited by 23 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 0 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…But what kind of claim is being made here? The view we adopt here is rooted in a tradition of thinking about understanding, based on the work of Donald Davidson (1984) and Daniel Dennett (1987), that is generally known as interpretivism (for recent contributions, see Francken & Slors 2014; Mölder 2010; Thornton 2010). Interpretivism emphasizes the pragmatic nature of belief-desire talk: We ascribe mental states with specific content to others and ourselves, in order to better explain and predict behavior.…”

Section: The Content Of Mental Statesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Brain disorders? Not really: Why network structures block reductionism in psychopathology research

2018

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In the past decades, reductionism has dominated both research directions and funding policies in clinical psychology and psychiatry. However, the intense search for the biological basis of mental disorders has not resulted in conclusive reductionist explanations of psychopathology. Recently, network models have been proposed as an alternative framework for the analysis of mental disorders, in which mental disorders arise from the causal interplay between symptoms. In this paper, we show that this conceptualization can help understand why reductionist approaches in psychiatry and clinical psychology are on the wrong track. First, symptom networks preclude the identification of a common cause of symptomatology with a neurobiological condition, because in symptom networks there is no such common cause. Second, symptom network relations depend on the content of mental states and as such feature intentionality. Third, the strength of network relations is highly likely to partially depend on cultural and historical contexts as well as external mechanisms in the environment. Taken together, these properties suggest that, if mental disorders are indeed networks of causally related symptoms, reductionist accounts cannot achieve the level of success associated with reductionist disease models in modern medicine. As an alternative strategy, we propose to interpret network structures in terms of D. C. Dennett's (1987) notion of real patterns, and suggest that, instead of being reducible to a biological basis, mental disorders feature biological and psychological factors that are deeply intertwined in feedback loops. This suggests that neither psychological nor biological levels can claim causal or explanatory priority, and that a holistic research strategy is necessary for progress in the study of mental disorders.

show abstract

Section: The Content Of Mental Statesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Brain disorders? Not really: Why network structures block reductionism in psychopathology research

2018

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…In this sense, Wittgensteinians can still say that people have intentions – but having intentions is more like “having a quick temper” than like “having a car”. It should be emphasized that the approach outlined here is not a form of interpretivism, which would claim that there is no truth about the intentions ascribed independent of the ascribing (Mölder, 2010). To the contrary, ascribing to Charles an intention “to go to the party” is recognizing a pattern that is already there, independent of the ascription.…”

Section: Intentions and Patternsmentioning

confidence: 96%

No Intentions in the Brain: A Wittgensteinian Perspective on the Science of Intention

Kalis

2019

Front. Psychol.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In their paper “Why we may not find intentions in the brain,” Uithol et al. (2014) convincingly argue that “the processes underlying action initiation and control are considerably more dynamic and context sensitive than the concept of intention can allow for.” Their paper could be seen as a critical note to the widespread tendency to search for identifiable neurocorrelates of mental concepts. Their more specific suggestion is that the absence of clear neural correlates undermines the traditional understanding of intention. In this paper I will try to take their argument a step further. First of all, I will argue that our folk psychology leaves room for various understandings of intentions, and that the concept of intention discussed by Uithol et al. is an academic concept that has its roots in the causal theory of action and in functionalist approaches to cognition. I will argue that both these paradigms are contested, and that there seems to be theoretical wiggle room for alternative understandings of intention. Subsequently I outline such an alternative perspective based on Wittgensteinian philosophy of psychology, emphasizing the regulative role of intention talk. However, the proposed understanding raises the question how to think about neural realization: is intention talk “just” talk, or do intentions really exist? I will propose that intention talk should be understood as a form of pattern recognition, and that the patterns involved are extended in both space and time. The conclusion outlines some important implications for the neuroscientific investigation of intentions.

show abstract

“…1 See Schwitzgebel (2001Schwitzgebel ( , 2002Schwitzgebel ( , 2021Schwitzgebel ( , 2022. The superficial camp has previously been led by dispositionalists like Ryle (1949) andBaker (1995), as well as interpretivists like Dennett (1987), Davidson (2001), andMölder (2010). Elsewhere, I've argued that dispositionalism and interpretivism ought to be understood as two sides of the same coin (Curry 2021b(Curry , 2023 Fodor (1987), as well as teleofunctionalists like Millikan (1984) and Dretske (2000).…”

Section: E N D N O T E Smentioning

confidence: 99%

“…1616This definition marries three theories: interpretivism about belief (Dennett 1998; Davidson 2001; Molder 2010), dispositionalism about belief (Ryle 1949; Baker 1995; Schwitzgebel 2002), and a model‐theoretic approach to folk psychology (Maibom 2003, 2009; Godfrey‐Smith 2005; Spaulding 2018; Moore 2020). I've argued (Curry 2021b, 2023) that all interpretivisms are dispositionalisms (and vice versa), since interpretivists take interpretive schemes to identify beliefs with patterns of dispositions, and dispositionalists take patterns of dispositions to emerge as beliefs relative to interpretive schemes.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Morgan's Quaker gun and the species of belief

Curry

2023

Philosophical Perspectives

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In this article, I explore how researchers’ metaphysical commitments can be conducive—or unconducive—to progress in animal cognition research. The methodological dictum known as Morgan's Canon exhorts comparative psychologists to countenance the least mentalistic fair interpretation of animal actions. This exhortation has frequently been misread as a blanket condemnation of mentalistic interpretations of animal behaviors that could be interpreted behavioristically. But Morgan meant to demand only that researchers refrain from accepting default interpretations of (apparent) actions until other fair interpretations have been duly considered. The Canon backfired largely because of Morgan's background metaphysical commitment to a univocal, hierarchical, and anthropocentric account of cognitive architecture. I make the case that, going forward, comparative psychologists would do well to pair judicious use of Morgan's Canon with an openness to the existence of non‐humanlike animal minds comprising phenomena belonging to distinct cognitive and folk psychological ontologies. And I argue that this case gives us pragmatic reason to reconcile deep—e.g., psychofunctionalist—and superficial—e.g., dispositionalist—approaches to the metaphysics of belief.

show abstract

Mind Ascribed

Cited by 23 publications

References 0 publications

Brain disorders? Not really: Why network structures block reductionism in psychopathology research

Brain disorders? Not really: Why network structures block reductionism in psychopathology research

No Intentions in the Brain: A Wittgensteinian Perspective on the Science of Intention

Morgan's Quaker gun and the species of belief

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About