This is a study of a problem in the logic of belief revision. On the assumption of a number of fairly traditional views concerning the relationship between mind and world, the mechanics of perception, and the nature of belief, an argument is made to the effect that revision of extant beliefs is impossible even in the light of new perceptual experience. The argument turns on the ability of a cognitive system to recognize conflict among its thoughts and perceptions. A number of models of the mechanics of perceptual interpretation are explored, all of which are revealed to share a susceptibility to the problem as posed. Certain objections are taken up, the responses to which modify the scope of the original argument; although the problem may yet be said to arise in a number of crucial contexts where its presence is undesirable, some situations are found in which the problem can be dissolved. The problem is then reexamined in light of the epistemological position called fallibilism, with an eye to demonstrating that it arises notwithstanding the highly cautious perspective embodied in that position. A solution to the problem is then offered in the form of a family of model cognitive systems with certain properties. Because the problem is a feature of belief-based cognitive systems, the family of systems offered in arguing for a resolution of the problem is constructed on the notion that cognition, construed as information processing, normally proceeds without any epistemic evaluations being attached either to perceptions in particular or thoughts in general. The non-evaluative propositional attitude employed in normal cognition should, I argue, be what I call acceptance. The propositional attitude of belief, traditionally conceived of as occupying the role now given to acceptance, is accorded an extremely limited scope of application. Epistemic evaluation in general is itself restricted to contexts of decision only, its application arising only

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Thesis (M.A.) -- University of Adelaide, School of Humanities, Discipline of Philosophy, 20045. / Includes bibliographical references. Also available in print.

This essay deals with certain problems in the theory of singular reference. The following question is taken as central: What role is to be assigned to nonempty and syntactically simple singular terms in fixing the semantic contents of utterances of declarative sentences in which they may occur? I focus on those aspects of the current dispute between Millian and neo-Fregean approaches to singular reference which are related to issues about the cognitive significance of language use; the following two issues are singled out as crucial: the issue about (alleged) potential differences in informativeness between sentences constructed out of co-referential singular terms; and the issue about (alleged) failures of substitutivity salva veritate of co-referential singular terms in propositional-attitude contexts. The general direction of my arguments is as follows. On the one hand, I argue that "notational variance" claims recently advanced on both sides of the dispute should be deemed unsound; and hence that one is really confronted with separate accounts of singular content. On the other, I argue that Milllanism does not provide us with a satisfactory solution to the problems about cognitive significance; and hence that a framework of singular senses is Indispensable to deal with such problems in an adequate way. I also discuss the problem of Cognitive Dynamics, i.e. the issue of attitude-retention and persistence of mental content, in connection with the individuation of indexical thought. I argue that the standard Intuitive Criterion of Difference for thoughts might be reasonably extended to the diachronic case, allowing thus the possibility of discriminating between thoughts entertained by a thinker at different times.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Georgetown University, 2009. / Includes bibliographical references.

Understanding intentionality, i.e. coding the object directedness of agents towards objects, is a fundamental component of Theory of Mind abilities. Yet it is unclear how it is perceived and coded in different species. In this thesis, we present a series of comparative studies to explore human adults' and Capuchin monkeys' ability to infer intentional objects from actions. First we studied whether capuchin monkeys and adult humans infer a potential object from observing an object-directed action. With no direct information about the goal-object, neither species inferred the object from the action. However, when the object was revealed, the monkeys retrospectively encoded the directedness of the object-directed action; unexpectedly, in an adapted version of the task adult humans did not show a similar ability. We then adapted another paradigm, originally designed by Kovács et al (2010), to examine whether the two species implicitly register the intentional relation between an agent and an object. We manipulated an animated agent and the participants' belief about a ball's presence behind a hiding screen. We found no evidence showing that humans or monkeys coded object-directedness or belief. More importantly, we failed to replicate the original results from Kovács et al's study, and through a series of follow up studies, we questioned their conclusions regarding implicit ToM understanding. We suggested that, instead of implicit ToM, results like Kovacs et al's might be interpreted as driven by “sub-mentalizing” processes, as suggested by Heyes (2014). We conclude that so called ‘implicit ToM' may be based upon the computation of intentional relations between perceived agents and objects. But, these computations might present limitations, and some results attributed to implicit ToM may in fact reflect “sub-mentalizing” processes.

7 Abstract The aim of this thesis is to clear up the role of human in Schopenhauer's philosophical thinking. This goal could have been achieved only by clarifying the world's metaphysical substance. This substance proved to be the cruel will that manifests itself through the platonic ideas. It was shown that each human being is part of this eternal substance. Intellect, as explained in the thesis, is primarily mere instrument of the will designed to deliver motives. For this reason, the majority of people in different ways continually keep satisfying thein needs, therefore almost everyone enjoys the opinion of will affirmation. People constantly succumb to disilusion, which proved to be egoism. Therefore, what appears to be the greatest good for most of us is actually only good for the evil substance. Blind will plays with us so fraudulent and truly perverse game that most of us can never win. However, I have pointed out that there were some individuals who had been endowed by excessively developed intellect power. Only this paradoxically almost unnaturally developed power of intellect can lead to knowledge that the blind will in its game with people plays unfairly. I also presented three groups of people who are capable of that kind of knowledge. The first group are genius people who can plunge into a...

Thesis (DPhil (Philosophy))--University of Stellenbosch, 2006. / This thesis gives an historical overview of some of the issues connecting philosophy of mind and philosophy of langauge in the twentieth century, especially with regard to the relevance of both disciplines to theories of cognition. Specifically, the interrelation between the theories of Peirce,Chomsky, Derrida, and Deacon are discussed. Furthermore, an overview of twentieth century views on mind in both philosophy and the cognitive sciences is given. The argument is made that many of the apparently insurmountable issues that plague theories on mind and cognition today can be traced back to the metaphysical mould into which the philosophical questions at issue here were cast. Also, despite current resistance to the idea from many philosophical quarters, a case is made for approaching language and mind in terms of neo-Darwinist evolutionary theory.