Papers by Brie Gertler
Arguing about the Mind, Gertler and Shapiro (eds.), Routledge., 2007
Clark and Chalmers argue that the mind is extended – that is, its boundary lies beyond the skin. ... more Clark and Chalmers argue that the mind is extended – that is, its boundary lies beyond the skin. In this essay, I criticize this conclusion. But I also defend some of the more controversial elements of C&C’s argument. I reject their conclusion because I think that their argument shows that a seemingly innocuous assumption, about internal states and processes, is flawed. The first section of the essay outlines C&C’s argument. In Section 2, I sketch some unpalatable consequences of their conclusion. Insofar as we want to avoid these consequences, we should look for a flaw in the argument. As outlined in Section 1, the argument appears to be valid, so finding a flaw means identifying a premise that it is reasonable to reject. In Section 3, I evaluate each of the major premises of the argument and find that all but one are acceptable; I then explain why I reject the remaining premise. Section 4 briefly defends the picture of the mind that emerges from rejecting this premise.
Philosophy and Phenomenological Research
How does one know one’s own beliefs, intentions, and other attitudes? Many responses to this ques... more How does one know one’s own beliefs, intentions, and other attitudes? Many responses to this question are broadly empiricist: they take self-knowledge to be epistemically based in empirical justification or warrant. Agentialists object that empiricist approaches to self-knowledge portray us as mere observers of a passing cognitive show, and thereby neglect the fact that believing and intending are things we do, for reasons. Agentialists contend that our capacity for self-knowledge derives from our rational agency—our ability to conform our attitudes to our reasons, and to commit ourselves to those attitudes through avowals (Burge 1996; Moran 2001; Bilgrami 2006; Boyle 2009). This paper has two goals. The first is exegetical: to identify agentialism’s defining thesis and precisely formulate the agentialist challenge to empiricism. The second goal is to defend empiricism from the agentialist challenge. I propose a way to understand the role of agency in reasoning and avowals, one that does justice to what is distinctive about these phenomena yet is compatible with empiricism about self-knowledge.
Sam Coleman, ed., The Knowledge Argument Then and Now. Cambridge University Press.
Why does Mary learn something when she leaves the room? One answer, endorsed by some physicalists... more Why does Mary learn something when she leaves the room? One answer, endorsed by some physicalists as well as most dualists, is as follows. Mary learns something because phenomenal knowledge requires direct acquaintance with phenomenal properties. For this reason, there is an epistemic gap between the physical and the phenomenal: phenomenal facts cannot be deduced from physical facts. This is the acquaintance response to the Knowledge Argument. The physicalist and dualist versions of the acquaintance response diverge as to whether this epistemic gap reveals an ontological gap between the physical and the phenomenal. I argue that the acquaintance response casts doubt on two claims often made on behalf of physicalism: that physicalism is more parsimonious than dualism, and that no plausible view about mental causation is compatible with dualism. The paper has three sections. Section 1 explicates the acquaintance response and outlines Acquaintance Physicalism, the position that combines the acquaintance response with physicalism. In Section 2, I argue that physicalism's claim to greater parsimony is less straightforward than usually assumed, and that the commitments of Acquaintance Physicalism present special obstacles to invoking parsimony in an argument for physicalism. And I show that on an alternative interpretation of parsimony (Sober 2015), physicalism is not more parsimonious than dualism per se. Section 3 shows how acknowledging the phenomenon of acquaintance can ease the dualist's problems with mental causation, by dispelling three key objections to epiphenomenalism. The most challenging of these objections is that epiphenomenalism blocks an evolutionary explanation of the fact that events beneficial to the organism are generally pleasurable while harmful events are generally painful. In response, I draw on the relation of acquaintance to describe how pleasures and pains, while themselves epiphenomenal, might nonetheless explain positive and negative associations with stimuli. Because these associations affect behavior, they can contribute to fitness. I close by arguing that epiphenomenalism does not threaten human agency.
Philosophical Perspectives: Philosophy of Mind., 2012
Externalism about mental content is now widely accepted. It is therefore surprising that there is... more Externalism about mental content is now widely accepted. It is therefore surprising that there is no established definition of externalism. I believe that this is a symptom of an unrecognized fact: that the labels 'mental content externalism'-and its complement 'mental content internalism'-are profoundly ambiguous. Under each of these labels falls a hodgepodge of sometimes conflicting claims about the organism's contribution to thought contents, the nature of the self, relations between the individual and her community, and the epistemic availability of thoughts. This situation stems from the fact that contributors to debates about externalism differ in how they understand 'internal property'; these differences reveal (or, perhaps, generate) disparate conceptions of what is at issue in these debates. I argue that this situation is irremediable. There is no way to understand 'internal property' that will conform with prevailing beliefs about the nature of internalism and externalism, and with the usual taxonomy of leading positions. This ambiguity carries a heavy price: participants in these debates often argue at cross-purposes, disagreeing even on the nature of the evidence that could settle the question of externalism. Progress on the broad range of issues associated with these debates requires that we abandon the categories 'internalism' and 'externalism'. I close by suggesting a promising avenue for future research related to these issues.
Introspection and Consciousness, edited by Declan Smithies and Daniel Stoljar. Oxford University Press., 2012
I elaborate and defend a set of metaphysical and epistemic claims that constitute what I call the... more I elaborate and defend a set of metaphysical and epistemic claims that constitute what I call the acquaintance approach to introspective knowledge of the phenomenal qualities of experience. The hallmark of this approach is the thesis that, in some introspective judgments about experience, (phenomenal) reality intersects with the epistemic, that is, with the subject’s grasp of that reality. This thesis—or something close to it—is implied by the claim that we sometimes grasp our experiences directly, by using an experience’s defining phenomenal quality to form an epistemically substantive conception of the experience itself. I am especially concerned to correct a mistaken conception of acquaintance accounts as epistemically ambitious, by showing that the epistemic commitments of the acquaintance approach are in fact relatively modest.
Self-Knowledge, Hatzimoysis, ed. Oxford University Press, 2011
In this paper, I argue that the method of transparency --determining whether I believe that p by ... more In this paper, I argue that the method of transparency --determining whether I believe that p by considering whether p -- does not explain our privileged access to our own beliefs. Looking outward to determine whether one believes that p leads to the formation of a judgment about whether p, which one can then self-attribute. But use of this process does not constitute genuine privileged access to whether one judges that p. And looking outward will not provide for access to dispositional beliefs, which are arguably more central examples of belief than occurrent judgments. First, one’s dispositional beliefs as to whether p may diverge from the occurrent judgments generated by the method of transparency. Second, even in cases where these are reliably linked — e.g., in which one’s judgment that p derives from one’s dispositional belief that p — using the judgment to self-attribute the dispositional belief requires an ‘inward’ gaze.
Philosophical Issues, 2007
Our fundamental conception of the self seems to be, broadly speaking, epistemic: selves are thing... more Our fundamental conception of the self seems to be, broadly speaking, epistemic: selves are things that have thoughts, undergo experiences, and possess reasons for action and belief. In this paper, I evaluate the consequences of this epistemic conception for the widespread view that properties like thinking that arthritis is painful are relational features of the self.
Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 2001
This paper defends a novel account of how we introspect phenomenal states, the Demonstrative Atte... more This paper defends a novel account of how we introspect phenomenal states, the Demonstrative Attention account (DA). First, I present a set of necessary and sufficient conditions for phenomenal state introspection which are not psychological, but purely metaphysical and semantic. Next, to explain how these conditions can be satisfied, I describe how demonstrative reference to a phenomenal content can be achieved through attention done. This sort of introspective demonstration differs from perceptual demonstration in being non-causal. DA nicely explains key intuitions about phenomenal self-knowledge, makes possible an appealing diagnosis of blindsight cases, and yields a highly plausible view as to the extent of our first-person epistemic privilege. Because these virtues stem from construing phenomenal properties as non-relational features of states, my defense of DA constitutes a challenge to relational construals of phenomenal properties, including functionalism and representationalism. And I provide reason to doubt that they can meet this challenge.
Philosophical Studies, 1999
[On] “the top-down approach” . . . one starts with our current understanding of what intelligent ... more [On] “the top-down approach” . . . one starts with our current understanding of what intelligent creatures do, and then asks what sort of underlying operations could possibly produce or account for such cognitive activities. In sharp contrast, [methodological materialism] starts at the ...
Dialogue-canadian Philosophical Review, 2002
Abstract: I defend one leading strand of Descartes's thought against feminist criticism. I w... more Abstract: I defend one leading strand of Descartes's thought against feminist criticism. I will show that Descartes's first-person approach to our knowledge of minds, which has been criticized on feminist grounds, is at least compatible with key feminist views. My argument suggests ...
Philosophical Studies
It is a real pleasure to discuss this book, which makes a significant contribution to consciousne... more It is a real pleasure to discuss this book, which makes a significant contribution to consciousness studies. Self-Representationalism is a bold and promising new theory. While the theory builds on some key insights of familiar theories of consciousness, especially higher-order ...
Nous, 2002
The current stand-off between reductionists and anti-reductionists about the mental has sparked a... more The current stand-off between reductionists and anti-reductionists about the mental has sparked a long-overdue reexamination of key issues in philosophical methodology. 1 The resulting debate promises to advance our understanding of how empirical discoveries bear on the numerous philosophical problems which involve the analysis or reduction of kinds. The parties to this debate disagree about how, and to what extent, conceptual facts contribute to justifying explanatory reductions.
Mind, 2001
The claim that there is an 'explanatory gap' between physical and phe- nomenal properti... more The claim that there is an 'explanatory gap' between physical and phe- nomenal properties is perhaps the leading current challenge to materi- alist views about the mind. Tye tries to block this challenge, not by providing an explanation to bridge the gap but by denying that phe- ...
Philosophical Quarterly, 2009
Southern Journal of Philosophy, 2007
In this commentary, I examine John Tienson's argument that reflection on the epistemic situation ... more In this commentary, I examine John Tienson's argument that reflection on the epistemic situation of the Cartesian meditator suggests that intentional content is narrow. My aim is to show how his argument is closely connected to another prominent objection to externalism — the McKinsey argument.
Southern Journal of Philosophy, 2000
... Functionalism's Methodological Predicament. Brie Gertler ,. Article first published onl... more ... Functionalism's Methodological Predicament. Brie Gertler ,. Article first published online: 26 MAR 2010. DOI: 10.1111/j.2041-6962.2000.tb00891.x. ... College of William and Mary. 2 BrieGertler is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the College of William and Mary. ...
Book Reviews by Brie Gertler
With this provocative book, Quassim Cassam aspires to reorient the philosophical study of self-kn... more With this provocative book, Quassim Cassam aspires to reorient the philosophical study of self-knowledge so as to bring its methodology and subject matter into line with recognizably human concerns. He pursues this reorientation on two fronts. He proposes replacing what he sees as the field's standard subject, an ideally rational being he calls Homo Philosophicus, with a more realistic Homo Sapiens. And he proposes shifting the field's primary focus from 'narrow epistemological concerns' to issues reflecting 'what matters to humans', such as knowledge of one's own character and the moral significance of self-knowledge. Cassam also contributes to this field: he advances an inferentialist account of self-knowledge and a moderate instrumentalism about self-knowledge's value. The book's signal virtue is its unwavering insistence that philosophical views about self-knowledge should be judged by their fidelity to what self-knowledge actually is: an untidy phenomenon in the lives of cognitively limited creatures. Cassam's realist outlook is sensible and refreshing, and his effort to bring philosophical attention to neglected issues about self-knowledge is commendable. But I have reservations about the book's framing conceits, namely, that taking seriously how humans actually think amounts to a 'radical reorientation of the philosophy of self-knowledge' (11), and that the field's current focus on epistemological issues is indefensible. T
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Papers by Brie Gertler
Book Reviews by Brie Gertler