Recent work by philosophers of mind and psychology on nonconceptual content.

Any satisfactory model of the emotions must at once recognize their place within intentional psychology and acknowledge their uniqueness as mental causes. In the first half of the century, the James-Lange model had considerable influence on reinforcing the idea that emotions are non-intentional (see Lange 1885 and James 1890). The uniqueness of emotions was therefore acknowledged at the price of denying them a place within intentional psychology proper. More recently, cognitive reductionists (including identity theorists) like Robert Solomon and Joel Marks (...) recognize that emotions are intentional but, by reducing them to judgments, beliefs, desires, etc., fail to capture their distinctiveness as mental causes (see Solomon 1976 and Marks 1982). In other words, their place within intentional psychology is acknowledged at the price of denying them their uniqueness. (shrink)

Philosophers of mind have recently sought to establish a theoret- ical use for nonconceptual content. Although there is disagreement about what nonconceptual content is supposed to be, this much is clear. A state with nonconceptual content is mental. Hence, while one may deny that refrigerators and messy rooms have conceptual capacities, their states, as physical and not mental, do not have nonconceptual content. A state with nonconceptual content is also intentional, which is to say that it represents a feature of (...) the world for a subject. It may be tempting to think of qualitative states as having nonconceptual content since they can be experienced by indi- viduals independently of their possession of the requisite concepts, e.g. someone could experience pains, itches or tingles without possessing the concept pain, itch or tingle. But on such a view, one would have to assume that qualitative states are representational since mental states cannot be candidates for nonconceptuality unless they have intentional properties.2. (shrink)

The revived interest in the emotions has generated much discussion of late. Analyses typically begin by considering the various features that are involved in emotional experience generally, e.g., feeling, physiology, cognition, and behavior. This is often followed by explanations about the role of emotions in rationality, moral psychology, ethics, and/or society, as well as examinations of specific emotions like pride, jealousy, love, or guilt. Overall, the topic has been approached from a diversity of perspectives, including philosophy, psychology, evolutionary theory, and (...) anthropology. In fact, it’s not uncommon for a single author to assume more than one disciplinary perspective on the features and roles of emotion. (shrink)

I present an argument for the existence of nonconceptual states. A nonconceptual state is an intentional state which does not require the bearer to possess all requisite concepts in order to represent the state. I frame the debate by outlining two constraints that an argument for nonconceptuality should meet. First, successful argument must present a platitude of concepts and illustrate that there are intentional states which both actually violate this platitude and explain behavior independently of conceptual states. This ensures that (...) the notion of nonconceptuality established by the argument will have a significant part in the explanatory arsenal of the intentional psychologist. Secondly, I formulate a platitude of concepts based on the intuition that an individual can only legitimately be held responsible for behavior caused by conceptual states. After qualifying the platitude, I argue that emotional states actually violate the platitude and meet the necessary constraints. Finally, I defend my argument against two challenges: one which denies that the empirical constraint has been met and the other which denies that the robustness constraint has been met. I conclude my discussion with some general remarks on the nature of nonconceptual representation. (shrink)

In the dissertation I provide a framework for assessing arguments intended to establish nonconceptual thought and for presenting my own case based on the emotions. Drawing on the work of Frege, I motivate three principles for individuating conceptual thought which I derive from his notion of sense. For a thought to be conceptual, I claim, it must be distinct from its force, be individuated by its cognitive significance, and determine its reference or correctness conditions. The nonconceptualist's objective, I contend, is (...) to cite a thought which violates at least one of these principles and which plays an unquestionable role in explaining the actions of mature human beings. ;With the framework in place, I turn to recent arguments for nonconceptual thought presented by Peacocke, Evans, Stalnaker, Dretske and others. The point of the review is not only to map the positions of this uncharted debate but to expose contentious assumptions. For example, there is a tendency among theorists to regard nonconceptual thought as more primitive than conceptual thought, as thought through which concepts should be grounded or to which they should be reduced. However, it is apparent that such uses of 'nonconceptuality' often presuppose controversial views about the epistemology of perception and the ontology of concepts. To steer clear of these contentious assumptions, I turn to the emotions, developing a case for nonconceptual thought which does not presuppose that its explanatory value depends on controversial ontological or epistemological agendas. ;The argument I present centers on the content/force distinction. Drawing on speech act theory, I claim that emotions conflate content and force which is most clearly illustrated by the resistance of emotional contents to inferential structure and their logical basicness. The conflation not only helps to explain the arational and ineffable character of nonconceptual thought but also suggests its dependence on conceptual thought, illustrated by the way emotional experiences generally presuppose higher cognitive states like beliefs or judgements. While this reversal of dependency may seem counterintuitive to those who cling to certain epistemological and ontological assumptions, the model has far-reaching implications for theories of content and computation. (shrink)