Alessandra Tanesini
- Published in print:
- 2021
- Published Online:
- July 2021
- ISBN:
- 9780198858836
- eISBN:
- 9780191890932
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198858836.003.0002
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Metaphysics/Epistemology
This chapter sets out the philosophical foundations of the proposed account of virtues and vices of intellectual self-appraisal. It explains the nature of intellectual vices in general by ...
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This chapter sets out the philosophical foundations of the proposed account of virtues and vices of intellectual self-appraisal. It explains the nature of intellectual vices in general by distinguishing between sensibilities, thinking styles, and character traits. Subsequently, it describes the specific features of the epistemic vices of self-appraisal. The chapter supplies an account of what makes epistemic vices vicious, and argues in favour of a motivational view. In the author’s view the vices of intellectual self-appraisal are impairments of epistemic agency caused by motivations, such as those of self-enhancement or impression management, that also bring other epistemically bad motives in their trail. Such motivations bias epistemic evaluations of one’s cognitive abilities, processes, and states. These appraisals, in turn, have widespread negative influences on agents’ epistemic conduct as a whole.Less
This chapter sets out the philosophical foundations of the proposed account of virtues and vices of intellectual self-appraisal. It explains the nature of intellectual vices in general by distinguishing between sensibilities, thinking styles, and character traits. Subsequently, it describes the specific features of the epistemic vices of self-appraisal. The chapter supplies an account of what makes epistemic vices vicious, and argues in favour of a motivational view. In the author’s view the vices of intellectual self-appraisal are impairments of epistemic agency caused by motivations, such as those of self-enhancement or impression management, that also bring other epistemically bad motives in their trail. Such motivations bias epistemic evaluations of one’s cognitive abilities, processes, and states. These appraisals, in turn, have widespread negative influences on agents’ epistemic conduct as a whole.
Joëlle Proust
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- February 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199225989
- eISBN:
- 9780191710339
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199225989.003.0013
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind
Does awareness of agency entitle a subject to believe that she is performing a mental action? Two sorts of fact suggest a sceptical answer: the conflicting intuitions of normal (unimpaired) thinkers, ...
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Does awareness of agency entitle a subject to believe that she is performing a mental action? Two sorts of fact suggest a sceptical answer: the conflicting intuitions of normal (unimpaired) thinkers, and the phenomenon of thought insertion in schizophrenia. Various theories of mental action might respond to the sceptic's worries, in particular John Campbell's and Christopher Peacocke's. The first takes thinking to be a covert type of motor activity, which engages substantially the same kind of mechanisms. The second aims to identify mental actions based on their ‘trying’ structure. Trying to judge causes in a thinker a non-perceptual awareness of judging. Problems with both theories are discussed. An alternative proposal is offered, where mental tryings necessarily involve predictive and retrodictive evaluations of adequacy. The metacognitive feelings produced in these evaluations provide the basis of a sense of mental agency.Less
Does awareness of agency entitle a subject to believe that she is performing a mental action? Two sorts of fact suggest a sceptical answer: the conflicting intuitions of normal (unimpaired) thinkers, and the phenomenon of thought insertion in schizophrenia. Various theories of mental action might respond to the sceptic's worries, in particular John Campbell's and Christopher Peacocke's. The first takes thinking to be a covert type of motor activity, which engages substantially the same kind of mechanisms. The second aims to identify mental actions based on their ‘trying’ structure. Trying to judge causes in a thinker a non-perceptual awareness of judging. Problems with both theories are discussed. An alternative proposal is offered, where mental tryings necessarily involve predictive and retrodictive evaluations of adequacy. The metacognitive feelings produced in these evaluations provide the basis of a sense of mental agency.
Frank Esken
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- January 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199646739
- eISBN:
- 9780191745867
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199646739.003.0009
- Subject:
- Psychology, Cognitive Psychology, Developmental Psychology
The focus of this chapter concerns the question whether human children develop early forms of metacognition before they develop full fledged, language-bound metacognitive abilities of the form ‘I ...
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The focus of this chapter concerns the question whether human children develop early forms of metacognition before they develop full fledged, language-bound metacognitive abilities of the form ‘I believe that p’ at around 4 –5 years of age. While there is a lively, although highly controversial, debate about so-called metacognitive feelings, i.e. non-conceptualized metacognitive abilities in monkeys ( Kornell et al. 2007), the research on metacognition in preverbal children is just starting. This chapter summarizes some recent findings from developmental psychology which concern rather precursors of what is called declarative metacognition than epistemic feelings and risks the hypothesis that there is some good evidence that human children develop early forms of metacognition at around the age of 2 years, but that these abilities develop quite differently from the assumed metacognitive abilities in non-human primates: ontogenetically early forms of metacognition in humans seem to evolve from basic forms of inner speech (i.e. internalized rules and instructions), rather than from epistemic feelings.Less
The focus of this chapter concerns the question whether human children develop early forms of metacognition before they develop full fledged, language-bound metacognitive abilities of the form ‘I believe that p’ at around 4 –5 years of age. While there is a lively, although highly controversial, debate about so-called metacognitive feelings, i.e. non-conceptualized metacognitive abilities in monkeys ( Kornell et al. 2007), the research on metacognition in preverbal children is just starting. This chapter summarizes some recent findings from developmental psychology which concern rather precursors of what is called declarative metacognition than epistemic feelings and risks the hypothesis that there is some good evidence that human children develop early forms of metacognition at around the age of 2 years, but that these abilities develop quite differently from the assumed metacognitive abilities in non-human primates: ontogenetically early forms of metacognition in humans seem to evolve from basic forms of inner speech (i.e. internalized rules and instructions), rather than from epistemic feelings.
Jody Azzouni
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- October 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780197508817
- eISBN:
- 9780197508848
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780197508817.003.0006
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Metaphysics/Epistemology
How we easily slip between metacognitive thought and assertion and ground-floor thought and assertion is illustrated; how, as a result, we easily confuse the two is also illustrated. “Do you know the ...
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How we easily slip between metacognitive thought and assertion and ground-floor thought and assertion is illustrated; how, as a result, we easily confuse the two is also illustrated. “Do you know the time?” is often speaker-meant merely as a request for information as opposed to what it literally conveys, a question about the auditor’s knowledge state. Distinctions between having concepts, grasping one’s own concepts, and metacognizing one’s propositional attitudes (in various ways) are distinguished. Why it is so easy to confuse being aware of being in pain and being in pain is explained; that it seems it isn’t possible to be in pain without being aware of it illustrates metacognitive confusions. Similarly, kinds of justifications are distinguished that are often confused, ones that involve metacognition and ones that don’t. How “level confusions” bedevil philosophical arguments is illustrated.Less
How we easily slip between metacognitive thought and assertion and ground-floor thought and assertion is illustrated; how, as a result, we easily confuse the two is also illustrated. “Do you know the time?” is often speaker-meant merely as a request for information as opposed to what it literally conveys, a question about the auditor’s knowledge state. Distinctions between having concepts, grasping one’s own concepts, and metacognizing one’s propositional attitudes (in various ways) are distinguished. Why it is so easy to confuse being aware of being in pain and being in pain is explained; that it seems it isn’t possible to be in pain without being aware of it illustrates metacognitive confusions. Similarly, kinds of justifications are distinguished that are often confused, ones that involve metacognition and ones that don’t. How “level confusions” bedevil philosophical arguments is illustrated.
