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The Sense of Agency and the Epistemology of Thinking

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Abstract

This paper motivates a constraint on how to explain the “sense of agency” for conscious thinking. It argues that a prominent model fails to satisfy the constraint before sketching an alternative that does. On the alternative, punctate acts of conscious thinking, such as episodes of inner speech, are recognizable as our deeds because they are recognizable as parts of complex cognitive activities, which we know non-observationally in virtue of holding intentions to perform them.

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Notes

  1. The literature on the senses of ownership and agency is extensive. For ownership see Martin (1995), the essays collected in Roessler and Eilan (2003), Zahavi (2005), and Musholt (2015). For the sense of agency, in addition to the essays discussed below, see Bayne (2008).

  2. For an opposing view, see Machery (2018), who argues that because inner speech is communication, and so governed by pragmatic norms, it isn’t an instance of thinking.

  3. This is consistent with denying, as I did in the last paragraph, that we can get a grip on the idea of a sense of agency for conscious thinking through reflection on phenomenal contrast cases, as we might for intentional bodily action.

  4. See Saks (2007) for a compelling memoir about schizophrenia and Mellor (1970) for discussion of its symptoms.

  5. That leaves open the question whether we are in fact justified in taking our conscious thinking as our own doing. Perhaps we are under an illusion. I assume we are not, and am inclined to assume that an account of the sense of agency ought to explain our objective justification for taking thinking as our deed. But I won’t pursue that here.

  6. So-named for John Campbell, whose 1998 argued for the thesis and influenced much of the contemporary work that tries to answer the normative question about the sense of agency by a backwards inference from reflection on the inserted thought delusion.

  7. This is a point made familiar by so-called “two-factor” accounts of delusions. See Davies et al. (2001).

  8. This assumes delusions are beliefs, of course. But nothing here hangs on that assumption. See Bortolotti (2009) for discussion.

  9. I remain neutral here on the explanation of the positive content of delusions of thought insertion. Karl Jaspers notoriously claimed that delusions are “ununderstandable” (1913). Much of the literature on delusions has denied this, and aimed to make sense of how delusions arise (what Jaspers calls achieving “genetic understanding” or empathy, ibid. 17) (see Thornton 2007 for discussion.) But one thing that Jaspers might be taken to mean is that the specific positive content of delusions cannot be given an empathetic, rationalizing explanation. (I’m indebted to a conversation with Matt Parrott for this.).

  10. Thanks to an anonymous referee for help clarifying how best to capture the view.

  11. Thanks to an anonymous referee for this.

  12. Furthermore, if you think that we come to know our attitudes by introspecting inner speech (Machery 2018), then it looks like the agency as endorsement model has things backwards.

  13. It is rare, of course, for one’s inner speech to be so elaborate. Fernyhough (2016) points out that inner speech is often compressed, akin to personal notes. But presumably anything one can say in outer speech one can mutter in inner speech. So there is no harm imagining a case like this, even if it is atypical in certain respects.

  14. See McDowell (2011) and Bratman’s rejection of the “simple view” in his 1987.

  15. Other purported counterexamples are obsessive thoughts and mind-wandering. See O’Brien (2013) for a compelling defense of the claim that obsessive thoughts are active phenomena. See Metzinger (2013) for the view that mind-wandering involves a loss of autonomy and Irving (2016) for the view that it is unguided thinking. Finally, see Shepherd (2019) for the claim that mind-wandering is a search for a more rewarding goal guided by the cognitive control system. Although his view is more amenable to the present account, Shepherd notes that in the relevant cases subjects do not report an intention to engage in mind-wandering. One question to consider here is whether we possess practical knowledge of the constituent elements of mind-wandering. One may not intend to wander, but one may have practical knowledge of recalling this or and that, and then imagining something, and so on. One’s action isn’t intentional under the description “mind-wandering”, but its constituent elements are. (See my discussion of O’Shaughnessy on daydreaming for this option.) Unfortunately, I don’t have the space to consider this here. Thanks to an anonymous referee for raising this issue.

  16. Or, as Brian O’Shaughnessy puts it: “…the main processive constituents of the stream of consciousness of the conscious are intentionally active phenomena” (2000, 200).

  17. You might think such cases of “idle active drift” are not subject to Anscombe’s special sense of the question “why?” where an answer gives the agent’s reasons (1957). That’s because it isn’t clear that such actions are performed for reasons at all, at least normative practical reasons. Again, O’Shaughnessy is on to something when he writes that: “just why these rather than those intentions arose as the process advanced is a matter upon which one may lack authority and insight” (2000, 219). However, if answering the question why involves citing the activity of which a particular stretch of thinking formed is a part, then it would seem that this question can be answered even in cases of daydreaming. (See Thompson 2007 on such “naïve” action explanation.).

  18. Thanks to an anonymous referee for raising this issue.

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Acknowledgements

Thanks to Anita Avramides, Christian Coseru, an audience at St Hilda’s College, Oxford, and two anonymous referees for helpful feedback on this paper.

Funding

This article was supported by the project “International mobilities for research activities of the University of Hradec Králové”, CZ.02.2.69/0.0/0.0/16_027/0008487.

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    Casey Doyle

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Doyle, C. The Sense of Agency and the Epistemology of Thinking. Erkenn 87, 2589–2608 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10670-020-00317-1

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