Online research in philosophy

The very clever studies reviewed by Smith et al. convincingly demonstrate metacognitive skills in animals. However, interpreting the findings on metacognitive monitoring as showing conscious cognitive processes in animals is not warranted, because some metacognitive monitoring observed in humans appear to be automatic rather than controlled.

Anosognosia is literally ‘unawareness of or failure to acknowledge one’s hemi- plegia or other disability’ (OED). Etymology would suggest the meaning ‘lack of knowledge of disease’ so that anosognosia would include any denial of impairment, such as denial of blindness (Anton’s syndrome). But Babinski, who introduced the term in 1914, applied it only to patients with hemiplegia who fail to acknowledge their paralysis. Most commonly, this is failure to acknowledge paralysis of the left side of the body following damage to the right hemisphere of the brain. In this paper, we shall mainly be concerned with anosognosia for hemiplegia. But we shall also use the term ‘anosognosia’ in an inclusive way to encompass lack of knowledge or acknowledgement of any impairment. Indeed, in the construction ‘anosognosia for X’, X might even be anosognosia for some Y.

Conscious awareness of intentionality is considered to be a product of specialized monitoring processes which distinguish intentional, goal-directed actions from unintentional, passive/ reactive actions. When goals are not met or unfavourable conditions arise, this ability to distinguish intentional and unintentional enables us to direct adaptive efforts towards either changing plans and goals or towards altering the environment. The formulation is discussed in relation to monitoring theories of consciousness and the concept of 'locus of control', and is developed to explain several common psychological disorders in terms of dysfunctional monitoring of intentions. It is suggested that it could provide a theoretical basis for psychological treatment methods.