Mind wandering is a pervasive feature of experience. But why does the mind wriggle about rather than stay focused? The answer depends on understanding mind wandering as task‐unrelated thought. Despite being the standard view of mind wandering in cognitive psychology, there has been no systematic elaboration of the task‐unrelated thought view of mind wandering. I argue for the task‐unrelated thought view by showing how mind wandering reflects a distinctive form of non‐vigilant thinking. This argument defuses several objections to the task‐unrelated thought view. The account of mind wandering defended here is also compatible with a naturalistic account of subjectivity.
{"title":"Vigilance and mind wandering","authors":"Samuel Murray","doi":"10.1111/mila.12526","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/mila.12526","url":null,"abstract":"Mind wandering is a pervasive feature of experience. But why does the mind wriggle about rather than stay focused? The answer depends on understanding mind wandering as task‐unrelated thought. Despite being the standard view of mind wandering in cognitive psychology, there has been no systematic elaboration of the task‐unrelated thought view of mind wandering. I argue for the task‐unrelated thought view by showing how mind wandering reflects a distinctive form of non‐vigilant thinking. This argument defuses several objections to the task‐unrelated thought view. The account of mind wandering defended here is also compatible with a naturalistic account of subjectivity.","PeriodicalId":51472,"journal":{"name":"Mind & Language","volume":"185 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2024-09-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142227539","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Perceptual experience is self‐locating. This claim aligns with our intuitions and is the dominant view in philosophy. To defend the claim, some philosophers have advanced perspectival accounts and others have advanced agentive accounts. Here, I explore tensions between the two accounts and propose a novel, integrative account: the top‐down view, which defends that visual experience is self‐locating in virtue of cognitive maps that modulate visual processing in a top‐down fashion. I assess recent neuroscientific evidence of spatial modulation in the visual cortex and show how it turns existing notions of self‐location upside‐down, shifting the focus from bottom‐up to top‐down processes.
{"title":"Self‐location in perceptual experience: A top‐down account","authors":"Pablo Fernandez Velasco","doi":"10.1111/mila.12525","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/mila.12525","url":null,"abstract":"Perceptual experience is self‐locating. This claim aligns with our intuitions and is the dominant view in philosophy. To defend the claim, some philosophers have advanced perspectival accounts and others have advanced agentive accounts. Here, I explore tensions between the two accounts and propose a novel, integrative account: the top‐down view, which defends that visual experience is self‐locating in virtue of cognitive maps that modulate visual processing in a top‐down fashion. I assess recent neuroscientific evidence of spatial modulation in the visual cortex and show how it turns existing notions of self‐location upside‐down, shifting the focus from bottom‐up to top‐down processes.","PeriodicalId":51472,"journal":{"name":"Mind & Language","volume":"57 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2024-08-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141936201","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Emotion terms such as “sad”, “happy”, and “joyful” apply to a wide range of entities. We use them to refer to mental states of sentient beings, and also to describe features of non‐mental things such as comportment, nature, events, artworks and so on. Drawing on the literature on polysemy, this article provides an in‐depth analysis of emotion descriptions. It argues that emotion terms are polysemous and distinguishes seven related senses. In addition, the article applies the analysis to shed light on a long‐standing debate in philosophy of music concerning emotion descriptions of music.
{"title":"Emotion descriptions and musical expressiveness","authors":"Michelle Liu","doi":"10.1111/mila.12524","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/mila.12524","url":null,"abstract":"Emotion terms such as “sad”, “happy”, and “joyful” apply to a wide range of entities. We use them to refer to mental states of sentient beings, and also to describe features of non‐mental things such as comportment, nature, events, artworks and so on. Drawing on the literature on polysemy, this article provides an in‐depth analysis of emotion descriptions. It argues that emotion terms are polysemous and distinguishes seven related senses. In addition, the article applies the analysis to shed light on a long‐standing debate in philosophy of music concerning emotion descriptions of music.","PeriodicalId":51472,"journal":{"name":"Mind & Language","volume":"50 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2024-07-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141867391","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
There are two main approaches within classical cognitive science to explaining how humans can entertain mental states that integrate contents across domains. The language‐based framework states that this ability arises from higher cognitive domain‐specific systems that combine their outputs through the language faculty, whereas the language‐independent framework holds that it comes from non‐language‐involving connections between such systems. This article turns on its head the most influential empirical argument for the language‐based framework, an argument that originates from research on spatial reorientation. I make the case that neuroscientific findings about spatial reorientation in rodents and humans bolster the language‐independent framework instead.
{"title":"In defense of language‐independent flexibility, or: What rodents and humans can do without language","authors":"Alexandre Duval","doi":"10.1111/mila.12522","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/mila.12522","url":null,"abstract":"There are two main approaches within classical cognitive science to explaining how humans can entertain mental states that integrate contents across domains. <jats:italic>The language‐based framework</jats:italic> states that this ability arises from higher cognitive domain‐specific systems that combine their outputs through the language faculty, whereas <jats:italic>the language‐independent framework</jats:italic> holds that it comes from non‐language‐involving connections between such systems. This article turns on its head the most influential empirical argument for the language‐based framework, an argument that originates from research on spatial reorientation. I make the case that neuroscientific findings about spatial reorientation in rodents and humans bolster the language‐independent framework instead.","PeriodicalId":51472,"journal":{"name":"Mind & Language","volume":"19 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2024-07-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141609787","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The image of craving as a desire of unimaginable and irresistible force is poised to solve the puzzle of addiction: persistent drug use despite severe negative consequences. But the image is flawed. Drawing on science, philosophy, and first‐person testimony, I argue against irresistibility and develop a more nuanced, heterogeneous account of craving for drugs. Craving comes in three varieties, each corresponding to a kind of answer to the question why people crave drugs: cue‐induced, goal‐focused, and attachment‐based. This in turn grounds an approach to addressing addiction that is humane and heterogeneous, moving beyond strategies that are fundamentally controlling.
{"title":"Craving for drugs","authors":"Hanna Pickard","doi":"10.1111/mila.12502","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/mila.12502","url":null,"abstract":"The image of craving as a desire of unimaginable and irresistible force is poised to solve the puzzle of addiction: persistent drug use despite severe negative consequences. But the image is flawed. Drawing on science, philosophy, and first‐person testimony, I argue against irresistibility and develop a more nuanced, heterogeneous account of craving for drugs. Craving comes in three varieties, each corresponding to a kind of answer to the question why people crave drugs: cue‐induced, goal‐focused, and attachment‐based. This in turn grounds an approach to addressing addiction that is humane and heterogeneous, moving beyond strategies that are fundamentally controlling.","PeriodicalId":51472,"journal":{"name":"Mind & Language","volume":"56 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2024-06-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141502034","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Cognitive science gives computational explanations of the brain. Philosophers have treated these explanations as if they simply claim that the brain computes. We have therefore assumed that to understand how and why computational explanation works, we must understand what it is to compute. In contrast, I argue that we can understand computational explanation by describing the resources it brings to bear on the study of the brain. Specifically, I argue that it introduces concepts and formalisms that complement cognitive science's modeling goals. This allows us to understand computational explanation without having to debate what it is to compute.
{"title":"How computation explains","authors":"Andrew Richmond","doi":"10.1111/mila.12521","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/mila.12521","url":null,"abstract":"Cognitive science gives <jats:italic>computational explanations</jats:italic> of the brain. Philosophers have treated these explanations as if they simply claim that the brain computes. We have therefore assumed that to understand how and why computational explanation works, we must understand what it is to compute. In contrast, I argue that we can understand computational explanation by describing the resources it brings to bear on the study of the brain. Specifically, I argue that it introduces concepts and formalisms that complement cognitive science's modeling goals. This allows us to understand computational explanation without having to debate <jats:italic>what it is</jats:italic> to compute.","PeriodicalId":51472,"journal":{"name":"Mind & Language","volume":"45 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2024-06-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141502035","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Polysemy has recently emerged as a popular topic in philosophy of language. While much existing research focuses on the relatedness among senses, this article introduces a novel perspective that emphasizes the continuity of sense individuation, sense regularity, and sense productivity. This new perspective has only recently gained traction, largely due to advancements in computational linguistics. It also poses a serious challenge to semantic minimalism, so I present three arguments against minimalism from the continuous perspective that touch on the minimal concept, the distinction from homonymy, and the quasi‐rule‐like nature of polysemy. Last, I provide an account of polysemy that incorporates this continuous perspective.
{"title":"Semantic minimalism and the continuous nature of polysemy","authors":"Jiangtian Li","doi":"10.1111/mila.12509","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/mila.12509","url":null,"abstract":"Polysemy has recently emerged as a popular topic in philosophy of language. While much existing research focuses on the relatedness among senses, this article introduces a novel perspective that emphasizes the <jats:italic>continuity</jats:italic> of sense individuation, sense regularity, and sense productivity. This new perspective has only recently gained traction, largely due to advancements in computational linguistics. It also poses a serious challenge to semantic minimalism, so I present three arguments against minimalism from the continuous perspective that touch on the minimal concept, the distinction from homonymy, and the quasi‐rule‐like nature of polysemy. Last, I provide an account of polysemy that incorporates this continuous perspective.","PeriodicalId":51472,"journal":{"name":"Mind & Language","volume":"11 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2024-04-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140577207","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In Talking about, Unnsteinsson defends an intentionalist theory of reference by arguing that confused referential intentions degrade reference. Central to this project is a “belief model” of both identity confusion and unconfused thought. By appealing to a well‐known argument from Campbell, I argue that this belief model falls short, because it fails to explain the inferential behavior it promises to explain. Campbell's argument has been central in the contemporary literature on Frege's puzzle, but Unnsteinsson's account of confusion provides an opportunity for more clarity about how the argument is best interpreted, and what it shows.
{"title":"Confusion and explanation","authors":"Rachel Goodman","doi":"10.1111/mila.12510","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/mila.12510","url":null,"abstract":"In <jats:italic>Talking about</jats:italic>, Unnsteinsson defends an <jats:italic>intentionalist</jats:italic> theory of reference by arguing that confused referential intentions degrade reference. Central to this project is a “belief model” of both identity confusion and unconfused thought. By appealing to a well‐known argument from Campbell, I argue that this belief model falls short, because it fails to explain the inferential behavior it promises to explain. Campbell's argument has been central in the contemporary literature on Frege's puzzle, but Unnsteinsson's account of confusion provides an opportunity for more clarity about how the argument is best interpreted, and what it shows.","PeriodicalId":51472,"journal":{"name":"Mind & Language","volume":"84 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2024-04-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140576960","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article introduces a new pragmatic framework for dual character concepts and their expressions, offering an alternative to the received lexical-semantic view. On the prevalent lexical-semantic view, expressions such as “philosopher” or “scientist” are construed as lexical polysemes, comprising both a descriptive and a normative dimension. Thereby, this view prioritizes established norms, neglecting normative expressions emerging in specific contexts. In contrast, the pragmatic view integrates pragmatic modulation as a central element in explaining context-dependent dual character concepts and expressions. This not only accounts for a wider range of phenomena but also addresses several theoretical shortcomings of the lexical view.
{"title":"The pragmatic view on dual character concepts and expressions","authors":"Lucien Baumgartner","doi":"10.1111/mila.12505","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/mila.12505","url":null,"abstract":"This article introduces a new pragmatic framework for dual character concepts and their expressions, offering an alternative to the received lexical-semantic view. On the prevalent lexical-semantic view, expressions such as “philosopher” or “scientist” are construed as lexical polysemes, comprising both a descriptive and a normative dimension. Thereby, this view prioritizes established norms, neglecting normative expressions emerging in specific contexts. In contrast, the pragmatic view integrates pragmatic modulation as a central element in explaining context-dependent dual character concepts and expressions. This not only accounts for a wider range of phenomena but also addresses several theoretical shortcomings of the lexical view.","PeriodicalId":51472,"journal":{"name":"Mind & Language","volume":"82 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2024-04-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140576965","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Recent studies on mind-wandering reveal its potential role in goal exploration and planning future actions. How to understand these explorative functions and their impact on planning remains unclear. Given certain conceptions of intentions and beliefs, the explorative functions of mind-wandering could lead to regular reconsideration of one's intentions. However, this would be in tension with the stability of intentions central to rational planning agency. We analyze the potential issue of excessive reconsideration caused by mind-wandering. Our response resolves this tension, presenting a model that aligns the roles of mind-wandering in planning with empirical evidence and the sustained stability of intentions.
{"title":"Is the wandering mind a planning mind?","authors":"Frederik Tollerup Junker, Thor Grünbaum","doi":"10.1111/mila.12503","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/mila.12503","url":null,"abstract":"Recent studies on mind-wandering reveal its potential role in goal exploration and planning future actions. How to understand these explorative functions and their impact on planning remains unclear. Given certain conceptions of intentions and beliefs, the explorative functions of mind-wandering could lead to regular reconsideration of one's intentions. However, this would be in tension with the stability of intentions central to rational planning agency. We analyze the potential issue of excessive reconsideration caused by mind-wandering. Our response resolves this tension, presenting a model that aligns the roles of mind-wandering in planning with empirical evidence and the sustained stability of intentions.","PeriodicalId":51472,"journal":{"name":"Mind & Language","volume":"15 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2024-03-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140181907","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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