Social metacognition and its potential diversity: a puzzle

An individualist viewpoint is arguably justified in the philosophy of metacognition, for classical reasons: it is mainly at the level of the individual organism that it makes sense to analyze mechanisms, feelings, and representational contents constituting epistemic sensitivity. As recognized in the conclusion of The Philosophy of Metacognition, however, metacognition …

New issue of Emotion Researcher on “Varieties of Guilt and their Functions”

Andrea Scarantino (GSU), editor of Emotion Researcher, wrote to let me know of a new issue on the subject of guilt. The essays, written by a mix of philosophers and psychologists, concern four main questions: First, what is guilt? Second, when and how does guilt develop in children? Third, what are …

Metacognition: Central Philosophical issues

Why is metacognition central for contemporary philosophy? A first reason is that it is an essential ingredient in cognitive actions, i.e. actions that one performs in order to decide whether it’s worth trying to remember, solve a problem, and whether the result you obtained is valid or not. Metacognition offers …

The Unexplained Intellect: The Mind’s Dynamic Foundations

One theme of this week’s posts has been the claim that dynamic entities are among the most metaphysically basic of the things in the mental domain.  I’ve made only the vaguest gestures towards saying what I mean by this (in response to Gualtiero’s earlier comment). By dynamic entities, I mean …

The Unexplained Intellect: Consequences of Imperfection

The previous post argued that Theoretical Computer Science can show things to be naturalistically inexplicable—(where this is much stronger than showing them to be inexplicable with a Classically Computational Theory)—by showing those things to require more time than the universe allows.  I’ve not yet said anything about which things might …

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