Philosophy

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Mindreading for Cooperation: a moderately minimalist approach
(2019) Schoenher, Julius; Carruthers, Peter; Philosophy; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
This dissertation puts forth a series of arguments about the extent to which human cooperative interaction is fundamentally shaped by mindreading; i.e. the capability to reason about the psychological causes (e.g. intentions, beliefs, goals) of behavior. The introduction to this dissertation discusses the broad philosophical underpinnings that lay the foundations for more specific philosophical issues under discussion in subsequent chapters. In chapter two, I argue that a thorough interpretation of the relevant empirical evidence suggests that mindreading is fast, effortlessly deployed, and operative sub-personally. For this reason, mindreading is principally well-suited to enable most everyday cooperative interactions. In the appendix, I (in collaboration with Evan Westra ) elaborate on this picture, arguing that the cognitive mechanisms operative in social interactions are, in all relevant respects, similar to those operative in non-interactive situations. While chapter two and the appendix defend the idea that the cognitive faculties responsible for mindreading are fit to enable cooperative interactions, chapters three and four take this perspective for granted and discusses whether human cooperation is crucially dependent on a form of reciprocal attribution of mental states that is often labeled common knowledge. In chapter three of this dissertation I address, and reject, the oft defended idea that truly performing an action together with others requires that all parties commonly know their intended goals. I argue that this view is fundamentally mistaken. Successfully acting together with others often requires not knowing these goals. Chapter four explores reciprocal belief attribution in the context of coordination problems. Humans often coordinate their actions by replicating successful past choices; they reason based on precedent. Philosophers have often claimed that solving coordination problems by relying on precedent presupposes common knowledge that all parties rely on precedent in trying to coordinate their actions. Chapter four points out that this assumption is erroneous: Coordinating behavior on the basis of precedent is broadly incompatible with any higher-order knowledge (or beliefs) about the other agents’ choices.
RELATIVE AND OBJECTIVE, ON BALANCE: Detailing the Best Systems Analysis of Laws
(2017) Bialek, Max; Lyon, Aidan; Romeijn, Jan-Willem; Philosophy; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
Variations on Lewis’ Best Systems Analysis (BSA) of laws of nature have tended to emphasize the aspects of the view that allow it to accommodate the peculiarities of scientific practice. That move has allowed such views to do a lot of good work in solving old and new challenges for the BSA, but at the cost of strengthening the argument against the BSA that it is insufficiently objective. I argue that the “insufficiently objective” objection is overcome by a balance of relativity in the laws and limits to that relativity, each properly motivated by appeal to scientific practice. I then explore what relativity in the laws, and limits to it, may be required by scientific practice.
THE ARCHITECTURE AND DEVELOPMENT OF MINDREADING: BELIEFS, PERSPECTIVES, AND CHARACTER
(2017) Westra, Evan; Carruthers, Peter M; Philosophy; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
This dissertation puts forward a series of arguments and theoretical proposals about the architecture and development of the human capacity to reason about the internal, psychological causes of behavior, known as “theory of mind” or “mindreading.” Chapter 1, “Foundations and motivations,” begins by articulating the philosophical underpinnings of contemporary theory-of-mind debates, especially the dispute between empiricists and nativists. I then argue for a nativist approach to theory-of-mind development, and then go on to outline how the subsequent chapters each address specific challenges for this nativist perspective. Chapter 2, “Pragmatic development and the false-belief task,” addresses the central puzzle of the theory-of-mind development literature: why is it that children below the age of five fail standard false-belief tasks, and yet are able to pass implicit versions of the false-belief task at a far younger age? According to my novel, nativist account, while they possess the concept of BELIEF very early in development, children’s early experiences with the pragmatics of belief discourse initially distort the way they interpret standard false-belief tasks; as children gain the relevant experience from their social and linguistic environment, this distortion eventually dissipates. In the Appendix (co-authored with Peter Carruthers), I expand upon this proposal to show how it can also account for another set of phenomena typically cited as evidence against nativism: the Theory-of-Mind Scale. Chapter 3, “Spontaneous mindreading: A problem for the two-systems account,” challenges the “two-systems” account of mindreading, which provides a different explanation for the implicit/explicit false-belief task gap, and has implications for the architecture of mature, adult mindreading. Using evidence from adults’ perspective-taking abilities I argue that this account is theoretically and empirically unsound. Chapter 4, “Character and theory of mind: An integrative approach,” begins by noting that contemporary accounts of mindreading neglect to account for the role of character or personality-trait representations in action-prediction and interpretation. Employing a hierarchical, predictive coding approach, I propose that character-trait representations are rapidly inferred in order to inform and constrain our mental-state attributions. Because this is a “covering concept” dissertation, each of these chapters (including the Appendix) is written so that it is independent of all of the others; they can be read in any order, and do not presuppose one another.
Representational Content and the Science of Vision
(2015) Ritchie, John Brendan Welsh; Carruthers, Peter; Philosophy; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
The general topic of my thesis is how vision science explains what we see, and how we see it. There are two themes often found in the explanations of vision science that I focus on. The first is the Distal Object Thesis: the internal representations that underlie object vision represent properties of entities in the distal world. The second is the Transformational Thesis: the function of the vision system is to transform information that is latent in the retinal image into a representational format that makes it available for use by further perceptual or cognitive systems. The ultimate aim of my project is to show that these two themes are in tension, and to suggest how the tension may be resolved. The tension between these themes is, I argue, a result of their conflicting implications regarding the role of representational content (what a representation is ``about") in the explanations of vision science. On the one hand, the Distal Object Thesis entails that the internal representations that underlie object vision qualify as a form of mental representation, and reflect a sense in which visual perception is indeed ``objective". Furthermore, I argue at length that a commitment to the Distal Object Thesis (and its consequences) is well-founded: mental representations are indeed an indispensable posit for explanations of aspects of object vision. On the other hand, the Transformational Thesis rests on the presupposition that the content of the internal representations in the visual system are fixed by a causally reliable, information carrying relation. The tension arises because carrying information is insufficient for fixing the content of mental representations. Thus the explanations of object vision that assume the Transformational Thesis, but require a commitment the Distal Object Thesis, are seemingly inadequate. Fortunately, some philosophical theories of intentional content, or the ``aboutness" of mental representations, offer some strategies for reconciling these two themes in the explanations of vision science.
Deutsch's CTC Model and its Implications for the Foundations of Quantum Theory
(2015) Dunlap, Lucas; Bub, Jeffrey; Philosophy; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
This dissertation is an exploration of several issues surrounding David Deutsch’s CTC model first introduced in his 1991 paper “Quantum Mechanics Near Closed Timelike Lines”. Deutsch developed his model to account for the effects of quantum theory, which had been left out of classical discussions of time travel paradoxes. Deutsch’s formulation of his model in terms of quantum computational circuits lends itself to being adopted in the quantum information community. The dissertation argues that the adoption of the D-CTC model entails the existence of Nonlocal Signaling, which is in conflict with a fundamental principle of the quantum information approach. In order to motivate this argument, in Chapter 2 I introduce a distinction between Nonlocal Signaling, and Superluminal Information Transfer. In the latter case, a carrier of information physically traverses the space between the distant communicating parties faster than the speed of light. Exploiting quantum entanglement to signal, however, need not have this feature. I term this Nonlocal Signaling. Chapter 3 is where I present the argument that D-CTCs entail Nonlocal Signaling, and examine the controversy surrounding this and related results. I argue that the resistance to these kinds of predictions in the literature is motivated by a commitment to the principles of quantum information theory, which are inappropriately applied here. Chapters 4 and 5 examine details of Deutsch’s model. Chapter 4 argues that it presupposes a significant metaphysical picture that, when explicitly stated, makes a much less comfortable fit between D-CTCs and quantum information theory. Chapter 5 argues that, because of Deutsch’s commitment to this metaphysical picture, he is committed to the existence of physical situations that are in every way indistinguishable from the paradoxes he attempts to rule out by adopting the model in the first place. In Chapter 6, I make some observations about the relationship between the quantum information-theoretic approach to the interpretation of quantum theory, and the approaches focused primarily on arguing for one or another underlying ontology. Deutsch’s model is situated squarely in the latter camp. It serves as a useful example in pulling apart the implications of the two approaches. In conclusion, I argue that the quantum information-theoretic interpretation of quantum theory, in denying the fundamentality of any particular ontology, in favor of kinematical principles, is in tension with the metaphysical commitments of the Deutsch model. Deutsch’s interpretational stance is among the metaphysically-motivated positions. I argue that this element of the Deutsch model is essential to the solutions it offers to the paradoxes of time travel, and therefore the D-CTC model cannot be adopted without implicitly endorsing Deutsch’s metaphysical commitments. This feature makes the D-CTC model an uncomfortable fit with QIT.
From Social Choice to System Choice: A Problem for Lewis’s Best System Analysis
(2015) Woo, Sungwon; Lyon, Aidan; Philosophy; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
One of the most important results in social choice theory is Kenneth Arrow’s impossibility theorem (1951/1963), according to which there cannot exist any rational procedure of aggregating individual preferences into a social preference. In this dissertation, I argue that the analogue of Arrow’s theorem threatens David Lewis’s Best System Account (BSA) of laws of nature, as the BSA invokes the procedure of aggregating different system-choice criteria into a resultant choice of the best system. First, I examine the formal conditions of Arrow’s impossibility theorem and its theory-choice variant. In the domain of theory choice, statistical model selection methods make different theory-choice standards commensurable. This inter-standard comparability may open up an escape route from the Arrovian impossibility for theory choice. Conducting a rigorous examination of those statistical methods, in particular, Akaike Information Criterion (AIC) and Bayesian Information Criterion (BIC), I show that these methods assume the existence of true status of nature, and that their inter-standard comparability serves as an epistemic constraint. I then argue that there is a formal analogy between social choice and system choice for the BSA and the Arrovian impossibility threatens the BSA. After rejecting various possible attempts to escape from the Arrovian impossibility for the BSA, I propose the variants of the BSA implemented with AIC and BIC as an attempt to make a case for inter-criterial comparability in system choice. I argue that, however, the proposed variants will inevitably fail to pick the best system. The failure is explained by the results in my investigation of the statistical methods. Finally, I suggest different ways in which the BSA might be able to escape from the Arrovian impossibility: a non-harmful dictatorship, a threshold-prior criterion, and the statistical method called Minimum Description Length Principle. I close the dissertation by suggesting that the BSA might have to give up the notion of ‘balancing’ in its analysis of laws of nature in order to avoid the Arrovian result in a way that is consistent with the Humean perspective on laws of nature.
Innateness in the Sciences: Separating Nature, Nurture, and Nativism
(2015) Engelbert, Mark; Rey, Georges; Philosophy; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
Scientists across the life sciences routinely appeal to notions of "innate" or "genetic" traits to explain developmental phenomena, and the idea of "innate" differences among people has figured prominently in some explanations of observed social inequality. This dissertation is an analysis of these concepts, which proceeds in two parts. Part I explores various philosophical issues related to the use of innateness as an explanatory concept, while Part II examines controversial claims that genetic differences among racial groups account for observed social inequality. I argue throughout that much disagreement about innateness arises from innocuous differences in explanatory goals and interests among different scientific research programs. Nevertheless, some proponents of genetic racial differences rely on understandings of "genetic" traits that conflict with the moral commitments of a just society. Part I begins with arguments for a contextual and pragmatic approach to scientific explanation: in order for an explanation to be a good one, it must cite causes that are relevant to our interests in the explanatory context. I then apply this framework to biology and psychology, showing how different contexts call for different interpretations of innateness. I conclude Part I by responding to arguments that aim to establish a single meaning for "innate"/"genetic" across all explanatory contexts. Part II examines the use of "innate" and "genetic" concepts in developmental biology and population genetics, and applies the lessons of this examination to debates about alleged racial differences in genes for intelligence. I show that "hereditarians," who argue for innate racial differences, employ an explanatory framework that abstracts away from substantial complexity in developmental interactions between genes and environments. While this framework is adequate for certain purposes, it is poorly suited to designing interventions capable of eliminating racial IQ differences and attendant social inequality. I propose an alternative, mechanistic framework that promotes understanding of developmental complexity and design of effective interventions. I argue that a full commitment to racial equality demands that we adopt this latter framework, and to the extent that hereditarians resist doing so, their work exhibits some racist tendencies.
Mechanism and Chance: Toward an Account of Stochastic Mechanism for the Life Sciences
(2014) DesAutels, Lane Thomas; Darden, Lindley; Philosophy; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
In this dissertation, my aim is to develop some important new resources for explaining probabilistic phenomena in the life sciences. In short, I undertake to articulate and defend a novel account of stochastic mechanism for grounding probabilistic generalizations in the life sciences. To do this, I first offer some brief remarks on the concept of mechanism in the history of philosophical thought. I then lay out some examples of probabilistic phenomena in biology for which an account of stochastic mechanism seems explanatorily necessary and useful: synaptic transmission in the brain, protein synthesis, DNA replication, evolution by natural selection, and Mendelian inheritance. Next, I carefully examine the concept of regularity as it applies to mechanisms--building on a recent taxonomy of the ways mechanisms may (or may not) be thought to behave regularly. I then employ this taxonomy to sort out a recent debate in the philosophy of biology: is natural selection regular enough to count as a mechanism? I argue that, by paying attention to the forgoing taxonomy, natural selection can be seen to meet the regularity requirement just fine. I then turn my attention to the question of how we should understand the chance we ascribe to stochastic mechanisms. To do this, I form a list of desiderata that any account of stochastic mechanism must meet. I then explore how mechanisms fit with several of the going philosophical accounts of chance: subjectivism, frequentism (both actual and hypothetical), Lewisian best-systems, and propensity. I argue that neither subjectivism, frequentism, nor best-system-style accounts of chance will meet all of the proposed desiderata, but some version of propensity theory can. Borrowing from recent propensity accounts of biological fitness and drift, I then go on to explore the prospects for developing a propensity interpretation of stochastic mechanism (PrISM) according to which propensities are (i) metaphysically analyzable and operationally quantifiable via a function of probability-weighted ways a mechanism might fire and (ii) not causally efficacious but nonetheless explanatorily useful. By appealing to recent analyses of deterministic and emergent chance, I argue further that this analysis need not be vulnerable to the threat of metaphysical determinism.
Consciousness and Mental Quotation: An intrinsic higher-order approach
(2013) Picciuto, Vincent; Carruthers, Peter; Philosophy; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
The guiding thought of this dissertation is that phenomenally conscious mental states consist in an appropriate pair of first-order and higher-order representations that are uniquely bound together by mental quotation. In slogan form: to be conscious is to be mentally quoted. Others before me have entertained the idea of mental quotation, but they have done so with the aim of putting mental quotation to work as part of the "phenomenal concept strategy" (Papineau, 2000; Balog, Block, 2006; Balog 2012). Their purpose was importantly different from mine. According to those theorists, mental quotation is entirely introspective. On their views, a mental quotation is supposed to be a unique concept that we sometimes use to think about our own conscious states. Conscious states are assumed to be already conscious in virtue of some independent factor, or factors. Mental quotations are not supposed to be that in virtue of which conscious states are conscious. In contrast, this dissertation proposes that mentally quoting an appropriate first-order state is what makes a conscious state conscious in the first-place. Treating consciousness as existing in a higher-order thought that mentally quotes first-order sensory contents has immediate explanatory dividends. It explains several of the classic puzzles of consciousness as well as solving a set of puzzles to which existing higher-order theorists fail to respond. This includes what many see as an insurmountable problem for existing views: the problem of higher-order misrepresentation. If the higher-order component of a conscious state is quotation-like, the gap is filled between the state represented and the higher-order state that makes the state conscious. Rather than targeting a numerically distinct state from afar, as an extrinsic higher-order representation does, a mental quotation latches onto the very target state itself. The target state is enveloped and thereby becomes a component of the higher-order state, and it is the complex, the quotational state as a whole, that is the conscious state. What emerges from the guiding thought is a novel self-representational (or intrinsic higher-order) model of consciousness, described at the intentional level, which is immune to challenges facing existing views.
The Metaphysics of Multi-Level Explanation
(2013) McElhoes, David; Frisch, Mathias; Philosophy; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
It is widely presumed that the world exhibits hierarchical structure: that the objects of science can be arranged into levels and that some of those levels are higher than others. Organisms, on this view, are at a higher level than cells, which are at a higher level than molecules, which are at a higher level than atoms. Although it is popular, this "layered worldview" faces notable challenges. Some critics contend that it is hopelessly idealized or even ultimately incoherent. Others contend that it makes no difference to our explanatory practices and has no metaphysical or epistemic significance. I argue that these critics are mistaken. By undertaking a comprehensive analysis of the logical and metaphysical nature of hierarchical structures and their application within contemporary philosophy and ecology, I argue for three claims: that hierarchies exist (insofar as the objects of scientific discourse exist); that the domain of ecological interests is hierarchically structured in a way that is incompatible with ontological reductionism - the idea that everything in the scientific domain is, in fact, contained within the "fundamental level of reality"; and that the hierarchical structure of the world often (but not always) justifies the practice of describing, explaining, and analyzing things using hierarchical terms. My analysis begins with a review of the existing accounts of hierarchies in ecology, biology, sociology, and economics. Arguing that these accounts are inadequate, I then develop an improved account called Core Hierarchy Theory (CHT). CHT, I argue, is an improvement over its predecessors in two respects: generality and simplicity. Other accounts are either too narrow (e.g., failing to count branching hierarchies as genuine hierarchies) or make unnecessary theoretical commitments. Using a formalized version of CHT, I then prove four theorems that are relevant to well-known philosophical debates that involve hierarchies. For example, I show that two of the core metaphysical commitments of the ontological reductionist - that the higher level sciences reduce to fundamental science and that all of reality is, in fact, contained within the fundamental level - are in fact inconsistent with the most basic and unrestricted conception of hierarchical structures provided by CHT.

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