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The Opacity of Mind: An Integrative Theory of Self-Knowledge Reprint edition by Carruthers, Peter (2013) Paperback
It is widely believed that people have privileged and authoritative access to their own thoughts, and many theories have been proposed to explain this supposed fact. The Opacity of Mind challenges the consensus view and subjects the theories in question to critical scrutiny, while showing that they are not protected against the findings of cognitive science by belonging to a separate 'explanatory space'. The book argues that our access to our own thoughts is almost always interpretive, grounded in perceptual awareness of our own circumstances and behavior, together with our own sensory imagery (including inner speech). In fact our access to our own thoughts is no different in principle from our access to the thoughts of other people, utilizing the conceptual and inferential resources of the same 'mindreading' faculty, and relying on many of the same sources of evidence. Peter Carruthers proposes and defends the Interpretive Sensory-Access (ISA) theory of self-knowledge. This is supported through comprehensive examination of many different types of evidence from across cognitive science, integrating a diverse set of findings into a single well-articulated theory. One outcome is that there are hardly any kinds of conscious thought. Another is that there is no such thing as conscious agency.Written with Carruthers' usual clarity and directness, this book will be essential reading for philosophers interested in self-knowledge, consciousness, and related areas of philosophy. It will also be of vital interest to cognitive scientists, since it casts the existing data in a new theoretical light. Moreover, the ISA theory makes many new predictions while also suggesting constraints and controls that should be placed on future experimental investigations of self-knowledge.
- GenresPhilosophy
Paperback
First published September 15, 2011
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
April 4, 2012
In this book Carruther defends the ISA theory of self-knowledge, which states that our only access to our propositional attitudes is interpretive. Thus, we have no direct introspective access to our propositional attitudes.
This is a bold thesis, and it's interesting. However, this book is also fraught with errors. He makes some bag arguments early on, relies on controversial interpretations of the empirical data, and attacks straw men at critical junctures. All of this is quite annoying.
This is a bold thesis, and it's interesting. However, this book is also fraught with errors. He makes some bag arguments early on, relies on controversial interpretations of the empirical data, and attacks straw men at critical junctures. All of this is quite annoying.
September 23, 2023
Too much speculation based on other speculation, not enough speculation based on data; the phrase "house of cards" comes to mind, but that's too harsh. There's something here, but the author needs to spend a little more time in the lab and perhaps a little less time in his armchair.
April 21, 2020
Why the rating:
The book gets 5 stars for compellingly introducing and defending a novel theory of self and other-knowledge. The book gets 3 stars because it is dense as can be at times, with an occasional absence of underlying concept explanation for the reader. Fortunately the book goes to great lengths to summarize every sub-section, section and chapter so a reader is never lost on what the point is; hence a four star review.
What is the book about in two sentences:
As the preface lays out, this isn't self-knowledge as "Wisdom" but self-knowledge as a more fundamental and intuitively transparent knowledge of what one believes or judges (standing state propositional attitudes), what one feels towards something (affective attitudes). Carruthers argues that this intuition of transparency is mistaken, that we actually smoothly (and sometimes incorrectly) interpret our own attitudes through the same pathway that we interpret the attitudes of others.
Is it worth reading:
Yes, if you're not afraid of severe non-fiction and would appreciate a guided tour of current cognitive science - as well as the arguments for a truly remarkable theory on a fundamental aspect of our internal lives.
The book gets 5 stars for compellingly introducing and defending a novel theory of self and other-knowledge. The book gets 3 stars because it is dense as can be at times, with an occasional absence of underlying concept explanation for the reader. Fortunately the book goes to great lengths to summarize every sub-section, section and chapter so a reader is never lost on what the point is; hence a four star review.
What is the book about in two sentences:
As the preface lays out, this isn't self-knowledge as "Wisdom" but self-knowledge as a more fundamental and intuitively transparent knowledge of what one believes or judges (standing state propositional attitudes), what one feels towards something (affective attitudes). Carruthers argues that this intuition of transparency is mistaken, that we actually smoothly (and sometimes incorrectly) interpret our own attitudes through the same pathway that we interpret the attitudes of others.
Is it worth reading:
Yes, if you're not afraid of severe non-fiction and would appreciate a guided tour of current cognitive science - as well as the arguments for a truly remarkable theory on a fundamental aspect of our internal lives.
July 28, 2020
Academic text.
Tldr: The main claim of the theory proposed and defended here is that people do not have a direct access to their own beliefs, judgements, etc. They cannot know _directly_ what they think/feel about X, they can only turn their theory of mind mechanisms (which are built for inferring other people's thoughts/feelings) on themselves and make a sort of very educated guess about. Obviously, we have access to way more information about ourselves than about any other person, so the guessing can be pretty good, especially if the person has a lot of practice reflecting and has useful cultural knowledge that can help the reflecting.
The author goes over some alternative theories that he argues are not as good and some available evidence and how it affects the standing of all the theories he's evaluating. Hard to say how accurate all of this is without a deeper dive into the field and a more careful analysis of the relevant studies. As always, one cannot have an exhaustive literature on every point one wishes to demonstrate. Also the book is from 2011, things might have shifted one way or another.
Tldr: The main claim of the theory proposed and defended here is that people do not have a direct access to their own beliefs, judgements, etc. They cannot know _directly_ what they think/feel about X, they can only turn their theory of mind mechanisms (which are built for inferring other people's thoughts/feelings) on themselves and make a sort of very educated guess about. Obviously, we have access to way more information about ourselves than about any other person, so the guessing can be pretty good, especially if the person has a lot of practice reflecting and has useful cultural knowledge that can help the reflecting.
The author goes over some alternative theories that he argues are not as good and some available evidence and how it affects the standing of all the theories he's evaluating. Hard to say how accurate all of this is without a deeper dive into the field and a more careful analysis of the relevant studies. As always, one cannot have an exhaustive literature on every point one wishes to demonstrate. Also the book is from 2011, things might have shifted one way or another.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews