Philosophy Stack Exchange
Philosophy Stack Exchange

Questions tagged [cognition]

19 questions
9
votes
5 answers

What is the name of this phenomenon?

If you don't know anything about trees and plants, all you see in the forest is a bunch of trees. But if you know the names and appearances of different plants, you might see oaks, elms, pines etc. Similarly, when you hear a foreign language, you…
JonB
  • 316
  • 1
  • 9
5
votes
1 answer

Has any philosopher discussed pre-cognitive or pre-linguistic conceptualization?

To get an idea of what I'm talking about one may pay close attention to their own thought process. It may become evident that one can gain awareness of certain conceptual assemblages. If awareness at this level is sustained one would (very quickly)…
christo183
  • 2,347
  • 4
  • 13
  • 33
4
votes
2 answers

What are the main oppositions to the extended mind thesis? and who presents them?

Andy Clark and David Chalmers are huge in promoting the extended mind thesis but who/what is their main opposition?
officialbird
  • 49
  • 2
4
votes
2 answers

What relevance, if any, does collective memory in ants have to John Searle's Chinese Room argument?

In his Chinese room argument, Searle dismisses the possibility that a system of separate agents can possess collective knowledge even if the individuals don't have it. Yet, it's possible that ant colonies know things that individual ants (See this…
James Grossmann
  • 485
  • 5
  • 10
3
votes
4 answers

Brain states, morality and free will: What can we discern from the case of the schoolteacher who became a pedophile post-brain tumor?

Roughly 20 years ago, a disturbing story hit the news media: Nightmare experience for man whose cancer turned him into a pedophile. The presence of an egg-sized brain tumour is claimed to have correlated with a relatively sudden shift in the man's…
Futilitarian
  • 3,981
  • 1
  • 7
  • 38
3
votes
1 answer

Does instrumental corruption constitute extra-will multi-agency?

Through my previous question on ideology and instinct, a more fundamental query was encountered. In both individual and collective minds, semantic decay can result in mental threads out of alignment with the being's instinct. This effect is perhaps…
Michael
  • 1,221
  • 1
  • 7
  • 13
3
votes
2 answers

Does sensation/ perception count as knowledge according to Aristotle? And what word does he use to denote this kind of knowledge?

When one wants to take a synoptic view of the history of epistemology, one notices that Aristotle's contribution is almost always explained in terms of scientific knowledge resting on demonstration. What Aristotle says about cogniton in De Anima…
Floridus Floridi
  • 872
  • 2
  • 8
2
votes
0 answers

"Truth" as a description of our cognition versus "truth" as a description of reality

In reading about the feud of foundationalism, infinitism and coherentism, there seems to be some arguments based on how cognition/reasoning works. However, an argument of the form (vaguely put by me) because it aligns with our cognition, it aligns…
user1113719
  • 101
  • 6
2
votes
4 answers

What does it mean for a proposition to be without cognitive content?

As the title states, am wondering what it means for a proposition to be without cognitive content. It seems to me that somehow all propositions are produced by the mind, and therefore cognition is somehow necessary for any proposition. This seems…
LootHypothesis
  • 489
  • 3
  • 10
2
votes
0 answers

Allais' paradox

Theories of practical rationality have usually taken it for granted that given a choice, people will prefer a maximum of expected utility. The Allais' paradox states that there are many situations in which perfectly reasonable people do not prefer a…
user43163
  • 47
  • 3
1
vote
0 answers

Can/"should" the simple epistemic operator be decomposed into two different operators?

Typically, in epistemic logic, you have a k-operator for, "It is known that..." however often accompanied by a b-operator for, "It is believed that..." (and also often enough, these are indexed to specifiable epistemic agents as in, "It is…
Kristian Berry
  • 9,561
  • 1
  • 12
  • 33
1
vote
1 answer

Is ideological dogma an example of exogenous instinct?

By my current understanding: Individual instinct is instantiated primarily by lower brain systems, which provide motivations of attraction and repulsion toward particular internal and external objects and states. Through middle systems, these basic…
Michael
  • 1,221
  • 1
  • 7
  • 13
1
vote
1 answer

Is there an existing assessment to determine a person's stance on the nature of mind, cognition, consciousness, etc.?

There are a lot of different theories about the nature of consciousness, cognition, and the mind. I'm looking for a set of questions that a person could answer that would then give them some kind of feedback about the degree of alignment between…
user10108
  • 11
  • 1
0
votes
0 answers

Are brains geometrically equivalent to three-dimensional Venn diagrams?

I had a coworker who was kind of obsessed with Christopher Langan's supposed "theory of everything," and one article of evidence he introduced was his thought that the way our eyes are circular and they cross their information to produce our…
Kristian Berry
  • 9,561
  • 1
  • 12
  • 33
0
votes
0 answers

Does Kant implicitly (or maybe even explicitly?) hold to a propositional-operator gloss of aesthetics?

Now sometimes it is said that knowledge is primarily knowledge-that, i.e. some elementary epistemic operator is a propositional operator/"attitude report". Or at least there is an invoked distinction between descriptive knowledge and…
Kristian Berry
  • 9,561
  • 1
  • 12
  • 33
1
2