Hostname: page-component-6bf8c574d5-xtvcr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-02-28T04:21:48.097Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Unconscious Mind Worry: A Mechanistic-Explanatory Strategy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 April 2022

Beate Krickel Open the ORCID record for Beate Krickel [Opens in a new window]
Beate Krickel*
Affiliation:
Institute of History and Philosophy of Science, Technology, and Literature, Technical University Berlin, Berlin, Germany
*
Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Recent findings in different areas of psychology and cognitive science have brought the unconscious mind back to center stage. However, the unconscious mind worry remains: What renders unconscious phenomena mental? I suggest a new strategy for answering this question, which rests on the idea that categorizing unconscious phenomena as “mental” should be scientifically useful relative to the explanatory research goals. I argue that this is the case if by categorizing an unconscious phenomenon as “mental” one picks out explanatorily relevant similarities to a corresponding paradigmatically mental conscious phenomenon. Explanatory relevance is spelled out in terms of mechanistic norms.

Type
Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 90 , Issue 1 , January 2023 , pp. 39 - 59
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Philosophy of Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Axt, Jordan R. 2018. “The Best Way to Measure Explicit Racial Attitudes Is to Ask About Them.” Social Psychological and Personality Science 9 (8):896–906. https://doi.org/10.1177/1948550617728995.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Banaji, Mahzarin R., Bhaskar, R., and Brownstein, Michael. 2015. “When Bias Is Implicit, How Might We Think about Repairing Harm?” Current Opinion in Psychology 6 (December):183–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bargh, John A., and Morsella, Ezequiel. 2008. “The Unconscious Mind.” Perspectives on Psychological Science 3 (1):73–79. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1745-6916.2008.00064.x.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bayley, Peter J., and Squire, Larry R.. 2007. “The Neuroanatomy and Neuropsychology of Declarative and Nondeclarative Memory.” In Memories: Molecules and Circuits. Research and Perspectives in Neurosciences, edited by B. Bontempi, A. J. Silva, and Y. Christen, 1–18. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-45702-2_1.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bechtel, William, and Abrahamsen, Adele. 2005. “Explanation: A Mechanist Alternative.” Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 36 (2):421–41. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.shpsc.2005.03.010.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Berger, Jacob. 2014. “Mental States, Conscious and Nonconscious.” Philosophy Compass 9 (6):392–401. https://doi.org/10.1111/phc3.12140.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Berger, Jacob, and Nanay, Bence. 2016. “Relationalism and Unconscious Perception.” Analysis 76 (4):426–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boyd, Richard. 1989. “What Realism Implies and What It Does Not.” Dialectica 43 (1/2):5–29. http://www.jstor.org/stable/42970608.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brownstein, Michael, Madva, Alex, and Gawronski, Bertram. 2019. “What Do Implicit Measures Measure?” Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Cognitive Science 10 (5):1–13. https://doi.org/10.1002/wcs.1501.Google ScholarPubMed
Buffalo, Elizabeth A., and Squire, Larry R.. 2015. “Declarative Memory, Neural Basis Of.” In International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences, 923–26. Elsevier. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-08-097086-8.51005-8.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burge, Tyler. 2010. The Origins of Objectivity. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carruthers, Peter. 2015. The Centered Mind. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carter, J. Adam, and Rupert, Robert D.. 2021. “Epistemic Value in the Subpersonal Vale.” Synthese 198 (10):9243–72. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-020-02631-1.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clark, Andy, and Chalmers, David J.. 1998. “The Extended Mind.” Analysis 58(1):7–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Craver, Carl F. 2007. Explaining the Brain: Mechanisms and the Mosaic Unity of Neuroscience. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Craver, Carl F. 2009. “Mechanisms and Natural Kinds.” Philosophical Psychology 22 (5):575–94. https://doi.org/10.1080/09515080903238930.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Craver, Carl F., and Kaplan, David M.. 2020. “Are More Details Better? On the Norms of Completeness for Mechanistic Explanations.” The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 71 (1):287–319. https://doi.org/10.1093/bjps/axy015.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Degner, Juliane, Wentura, Dirk, Gniewosz, Burkhard, and Noack, Peter. 2007. “Hostility-Related Prejudice against Turks in Adolescents: Masked Affective Priming Allows for a Differentiation of Automatic Prejudice.” Basic and Applied Social Psychology 29 (3):245–56. https://doi.org/10.1080/01973530701503150.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dennett, Daniel C. 2007. “Philosophy as Naive Anthropology: Comment on Bennett and Hacker.” In Neuroscience and Philosophy: Brain, Mind, and Language, edited by Maxwell Bennett, Daniel C. Dennett, Peter M. S. Hacker, and John R. & Searle, 73–96. New York, Chichester, West Sussex: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Dijksterhuis, Ap, and Nordgren, Loran F.. 2006. “A Theory of Unconscious Thought.” Perspectives on Psychological Science 1 (2):95–109. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1745-6916.2006.00007.x.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Drayson, Zoe. 2012. “The Uses and Abuses of the Personal/Subpersonal Distinction.” Philosophical Perspectives 26 (1):1–18. https://doi.org/10.1111/phpe.12014.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Feest, Uljana. 2020. “Construct Validity in Psychological Tests—the Case of Implicit Social Cognition.” European Journal for Philosophy of Science 10 (1):4. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13194-019-0270-8.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Figdor, Carrie. 2018. Pieces of Mind. The Proper Domain of Psychological Predicates. Vol. 1. Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198809524.001.0001.Google Scholar
Gawronski, Bertram, Hofmann, Wilhelm, and Wilbur, Christopher J.. 2006. “Are ‘Implicit’ Attitudes Unconscious?” Consciousness and Cognition 15 (3):485–99. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.concog.2005.11.007.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Glennan, Stuart. 2017. The New Mechanical Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Greenwald, Anthony G., Mcghee, Debbie E., and Schwartz, Jordan L. K.. 1998. “Measuring Individual Differences in Implicit Cognition: The Implicit Association Test.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 74 (6):1464–80. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.74.6.1464.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hahn, Adam, Judd, Charles M., Hirsh, Holen K., and Blair, Irene V.. 2014. “Awareness of Implicit Attitudes.” Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 143 (3):1369–92. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0035028.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hassin, Ran R. 2013. “Yes It Can: On the Functional Abilities of the Human Unconscious.” Perspectives on Psychological Science 8 (2):195–207. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691612460684.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Illari, Phyllis McKay, and Williamson, Jon. 2012. “What Is a Mechanism? Thinking about Mechanisms across the Sciences.” European Journal for Philosophy of Science 2 (1):119–35. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13194-011-0038-2.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jiang, Y., Costello, P., Fang, F., Huang, M., and He, S.. 2006. “A Gender- and Sexual Orientation-Dependent Spatial Attentional Effect of Invisible Images.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 103 (45):17048–52. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0605678103.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Johnson, Gabbrielle M. 2019. “The Structure of Bias.” Mind 129 (516):1193–1236. https://doi.org/10.1093/mind/fzaa011.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kaplan, David M. 2012. “How to Demarcate the Boundaries of Cognition.” Biology and Philosophy 27 (4):545–70. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10539-012-9308-4.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kästner, Lena, and Andersen, Lise Marie. 2018. “Intervening into Mechanisms: Prospects and Challenges.” Philosophy Compass 13 (11):e12546. https://doi.org/10.1111/phc3.12546.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Klink, P. Christiaan, and Roelfsema, Pieter R.. 2016. “Binocular Rivalry Outside the Scope of Awareness.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 113 (30):8352–54. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1609314113.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kohár, Matej, and Krickel, Beate. 2021. “Compare and Contrast: How to Assess the Completeness of Mechanistic Explanation.” In Neural Mechanisms—New Challenges in the Philosophy of Neuroscience, edited by Calzavarini, Fabrizio and Viola, Marco, 395–424. Cham: Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-54092-0_17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kouider, Sid, Dehaene, Stanislas, Jobert, Antoinette, and Le Bihan, Denis. 2007. “Cerebral Bases of Subliminal and Supraliminal Priming during Reading.” Cerebral Cortex 17 (9):2019–29. https://doi.org/10.1093/cercor/bhl110.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Krickel, Beate. 2020. “Extended Cognition, the New Mechanists’ Mutual Manipulability Criterion, and the Challenge of Trivial Extendedness.” Mind & Language 35 (4):539–61. https://doi.org/10.1111/mila.12262.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lau, Hakwan, and Rosenthal, David. 2011. “Empirical Support for Higher-Order Theories of Conscious Awareness.” Trends in Cognitive Sciences 15 (8):365–73. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2011.05.009.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Luo, Canhuang, VanRullen, Rufin, and Alamia, Andrea. 2021. “Conscious Perception and Perceptual Echoes: A Binocular Rivalry Study.” Neuroscience of Consciousness 2021 (1):1–8. https://doi.org/10.1093/nc/niab007.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Mandelbaum, Eric. 2016. “Attitude, Inference, Association: On the Propositional Structure of Implicit Bias.” Nous 50 (3):629–58. https://doi.org/10.1111/nous.12089.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Morgan, Alex, and Piccinini, Gualtiero. 2018. “Towards a Cognitive Neuroscience of Intentionality.” Minds and Machines 28 (1):119–39. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11023-017-9437-2.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Newell, Ben R., and Shanks, David R.. 2014. “Unconscious Influences on Decision Making: A Critical Review.” Behavioral and Brain Sciences 38 (01):1–19. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X12003214.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Persuh, Marjan. 2018. “The Fata Morgana of Unconscious Perception.” Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 12 (April):1–5. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2018.00120.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Peters, Megan A. K., Kentridge, Robert W., Phillips, Ian, and Block, Ned. 2017. “Does Unconscious Perception Really Exist? Continuing the ASSC20 Debate.” Neuroscience of Consciousness 31 (1):nix015. https://doi.org/10.1093/nc/nix015.Google Scholar
Phillips, Ian. 2018. “Unconscious Perception Reconsidered.” Analytic Philosophy 59 (4):71–514. https://doi.org/10.1111/phib.12135.Google Scholar
Phillips, Ian, and Block, Ned. 2016. “Debate on Unconscious Perception.” In Current Controversies in Philosophy of Perception, edited by Nanay, Bence, 165–92. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Piccinini, Gualtiero, and Craver, Carl F.. 2011. “Integrating Psychology and Neuroscience: Functional Analyses as Mechanism Sketches.” Synthese 183 (3):1–58. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-011-9898-4.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pothos, Emmanuel M. 2007. “Theories of Artificial Grammar Learning.” Psychological Bulletin 133 (2): 227–44. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.133.2.227.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Prinz, Jesse. 2015. “Unconscious Perception.” In The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Perception, edited by Matthen, Mohan, 371–91. Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199600472.013.033.Google Scholar
Quilty-Dunn, Jake, and Mandelbaum, Eric. 2018. “Against Dispositionalism: Belief in Cognitive Science.” Philosophical Studies 175 (9):2353–72. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-017-0962-x.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Railo, Henry, Salminen-Vaparanta, Niina, Henriksson, Linda, Revonsuo, Antti, and Koivisto, Mika. 2012. “Unconscious and Conscious Processing of Color Rely on Activity in Early Visual Cortex: A TMS Study.” Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 24 (4):819–29. https://doi.org/10.1162/jocn_a_00172.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Rupert, Robert D. 2018. “The Self in the Age of Cognitive Science: Decoupling the Self from the Personal Level.” Philosophic Exchange 47 (1):1–36.Google Scholar
Rupert, Robert D. 2019. “Group Minds and Natural Kinds.” Avant 10 (3):1–28. https://doi.org/10.26913/avant.2019.03.08.Google Scholar
Saul, Jennifer. 2013. “Implicit Bias, Stereotype Threat, and Women in Philosophy.” In Women in Philosophy, 39–60. Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199325603.003.0003.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Searle, John R. 1992. The Rediscovery of the Mind. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. https://doi.org/10.1016/0004-3702(95)90037-3.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shepherd, Joshua, and Mylopoulos, Myrto. 2021. “Unconscious Perception and Central Coordinating Agency.” Philosophical Studies 178 (12):3869–93. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-021-01629-w.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, Ryan, and Lane, Richard D.. 2016. “Unconscious Emotion: A Cognitive Neuroscientific Perspective.” Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews 69 (October): 16–38. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neubiorev.2016.08.013.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Stanley, Damian, Phelps, Elizabeth, and Banaji, Mahzarin. 2008. “The Neural Basis of Implicit Attitudes.” Current Directions in Psychological Science 17 (2):164–70. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8721.2008.00568.x.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Taylor, Henry. 2020. “Fuzziness in the Mind: Can Perception Be Unconscious?” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 101 (2):383–98. https://doi.org/10.1111/phpr.12592.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thomson, Eric, and Piccinini, Gualtiero. 2018. “Neural Representations Observed.” Minds and Machines 28 (1):191–235. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11023-018-9459-4.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Uhlmann, Ericluis, and Cohen, Geoffrey L.. 2005. “Constructed Criteria: Redefining Merit to Justify Discrimination.” Psychological Science 16 (6):74–80. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0956-7976.2005.01559.x.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Weiskrantz, Lawrence. 1995. “Blindsight: Not an Island Unto Itself.” Current Directions in Psychological Science 4 (5):46–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yang, Eunice, Zald, David H., and Blake, Randolph. 2007. “Fearful Expressions Gain Preferential Access to Awareness during Continuous Flash Suppression.” Emotion 7 (4):882–86. https://doi.org/10.1037/1528-3542.7.4.882.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed