Content and Metacognition

(outline)

William S. Larkin

Southern Illinois University Edwardsville

wlarkin@siue.edu

I. Introduction

A. Metacognition

1. Capacity for making direct (and epistemically privileged) judgments about the contents of our own occurrent propositional attitude states.

2. Occurrent = Active and Available

B. Theme: Metaphysical implications of content externalism regarding the production and content of introspective higher-order judgments.

C. Theses:

1. Content Externalism strictly implies the possibility of acquiring a new concept as the result of an unwitting switch of environments.

2. This intuitively compels us to accept the possibility of someone possessing a concept without being aware that she does.

3. This possibility strictly favors causal models of meta-cognition over constitution models.

4. The possibility of possessing a concept unawares suggests that the contents of metacognitive judgments are constituted by concepts of a different order than those that constitute the targets of those judgments.

II. Two Broad Models of Metacognition

A. Causal: In the absence of any malfunction or interference occurrent thoughts cause wholly distinct meta-cognitive judgments about those thoughts.

1. There is a merely contingent causal connection between meta-cognitive judgments and their targets.

2. The very same concepts that constitute the contents of occurrent thoughts are not simply redeployed in meta-cognitive judgments about those thoughts.

3. Brute error with respect to the contents of occurrent thoughts is possible.

B. Constitution: Occurrent thoughts or their contents are partly constitutive of the meta-cognitive judgments about them.

1. There is a metaphysically necessary connection between meta-cognitive judgments and their targets.

2. The very same concepts deployed in occurrent thoughts are simply redeployed in meta-cognitive judgments about them.

3. Brute error with respect to the contents of occurrent thoughts is not possible.

C. Three Versions of Constitution:

1. Shoemaker: One ‘forms’ a meta-cognitive judgment about an occurrent thought simply by thinking that thought with certain background rationality, intelligence, and conceptual competence conditions met.

“What I am inclined to say is that second-order belief, and the knowledge it typically embodies, is supervenient on first order beliefs and desires—or rather, it is supervenient on these plus a certain degree of rationality, intelligence, and conceptual capacity. By this I mean that one has the former in having the latter—that having the former is nothing over and above having the latter.”

[“On Knowing One’s Own Mind”, p. 34 in Shoemaker 1996]

2. Burge: One ‘forms’ a meta-cognitive judgment about an occurrent thought by thinking that thought while exercising certain self-ascriptive powers.

“One knows one’s thought to be what it is simply by thinking it while exercising second-order, self-ascriptive powers”

[“Individualism and Self-Knowledge”, p.118 in Ludlow 1998]

“When one knows that one is thinking that p, one is not taking one’s thought that p merely as an object… It is thought and thought about in the same mental act.” [Ibid., p. 116]

3. Conceptual Redeployment: Occurrent thoughts and meta-cognitive judgments about them may be distinct, causally related states; but the contents of occurrent thoughts are re-used as constitutents of meta-cognitive judgments about them.

Peacocke:

“I have been emphasizing the fact that when a thinker self-ascribes an attitude with an intentional content, he redeploys the very same [my emphasis] concepts which are constituents of the intentional content of the first-order attitude.”

[“Our Entitlement to Self-Knowledge”, p. 278 in Ludlow 1998]

III. Main Argument

A. Concepts

1. Minimally/trivially, a concept C is an ability to think de dicto C-thoughts.

2. Minimally/trivially, the ability to think de dicto C-thoughts is the ability to non-demonstratively think about (refer to) c-stuff as such.

3. More substantially, to possess a concept C is to have a reliable partial belief-forming mechanism that has the function of providing information about c-stuff.

4. Might be able to construe this further as an ability to discriminate c-stuff from non-c-stuff across some significant range of relevant contexts.

B. Concept Awareness

1. To be aware of a concept C in the sense I intend is simply to be aware of the ability to think C-thoughts; and to be aware of that ability in the sense I intend is simply to be aware of one’s C-thoughts.

2. So if a properly functioning rational agent S is aware of her C-thoughts, then she is aware of having the concept C.

3. And if S is aware that she is thinking C-thoughts, then she is aware that she has the concept C.

4. S is aware that she is thinking a C-thought if she is aware of that C-thought partly in virtue of a thought that correctly represents the content of the C-thought.

C. Content Externalism and Concept Awareness

1. Content Externalism (CE) =df Certain of our actual concepts are wide in the sense that possessing those concepts in particular requires being appropriately related to a relatively specific physical or social environment.

2. Sub-Argument (I)

P1: If CE is true, then a difference in environment is sufficient for a difference in conceptual repertoire—a pair of intrinsically identical individuals can possess distinct concepts C and C* solely in virtue of being related to distinct external environments.

P2: If a difference in environment is sufficient for a difference in conceptual repertoire, then a properly functioning rational individual S can acquire a new concept C# (either as a replacement for or as an addition to her old concept C, where C# is either C* or some relevant amalgam/disjunctive concept) as the result of an unwitting switch to a new environment.

P3: If S is unaware that she has switched environments, then S will not be aware that there has been any change in her conceptual repertoire.

P4: If S is unaware that there has been a change in her conceptual repertoire, then either she is unaware that she has C# or she is aware that she has C# but systematically mistakes it for some other concept.

P5: It cannot be the case that S is aware that she has C# but systematically mistakes it for some other concept.

5a: Being aware that one has C# requires being able to think of C# as such.

5a*: Being aware that one has C# requires the ability to re-identify C# across a significant range of relevant contexts.

5b: If S systematically mistakes C# for some other concept, then she is unable to think of C# as such.

5b*: If S systematically mistakes C# for some other concept, then she cannot re-identify C# across any significant range of relevant contexts.

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L1: So CE implies that a properly functioning rational agent S can possess a concept C# without being aware that she does.

D. Constitution Models and Concept Awareness

1. Since S is a properly functioning rational agent, there is nothing wrong with her general introspective capacities.

2. As a properly functioning rational agent, S will also:

a. Possess normal adult human rationality, intelligence, and conceptual competencies

b. Possess self-ascriptive powers

c. Possess the capacity for conceptual redeployment

3. Sub-Argument (II)

P6: S is aware of her C#-thoughts.

P7: If constitution models are correct and S is a properly functioning rational agent, then there is nothing stopping her from forming judgments that correctly represent the content of her C#-thoughts.

P8: If S is aware that she is thinking C#-thoughts, then she is aware that she has C#.

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L2: So constitution models imply that a properly functioning rational agent S cannot possess a concept C# without being aware that she does.

E. Main Argument

L1: CE implies that a properly functioning rational agent S can possess a concept C# without being aware that she does.

L2: Constitution models imply that a properly functioning rational agent S cannot possess a concept C# without being aware that she does.

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L3: So CE is incompatible with constitution models of meta-

cognition.

IV. Causal Models and Possessing Concepts Unawares

A. Interim Summary

1. CE implies that S can possess a concept C# but be unaware that she does.

2. Since S is a properly functioning rational agent who is aware of her C#-thoughts, what prevents her from being aware that she has C# must be that she cannot correctly represent the content of her C#-thoughts.

3. Constitution models cannot allow for this.

4. Can causal models account for it?

B. Meta-Concepts

1. If higher-order contents are constituted by the same type of concepts as first-order thoughts, then causal models have to say that S cannot deploy C# at higher-orders.

2. But why should S be barred from using C# at higher-orders? Any satisfying answer seems to rely on a ‘faulty picture of the mind’.

3. If higher-order contents are constituted by meta-concepts, then the causal model can say that though S possesses the concept C#, she lacks a meta-concept of C#.

4. A meta-concept is a concept of a concept.

a. If to have a concept C is to have the ability to think C-thoughts, or the ability to think about c-stuff as such; then to have the relevant meta-concept is to have the ability to think about C-thoughts as such.

b. If a concept is thought of as an ability to distinguish/re-identify some stuff/object across a range of relevant contexts, then a meta-concept is the ability to re-identify a concept across a range of relevant thoughts.

5. It is natural to describe S’s situation as one in which she has the ability to think C#-thoughts and think about c#-stuff as such), but lacks the ability to think about her C#-thoughts as such and is unable to re-identify C# across any significant range of thoughts.

C. Final Lemma

P9: Causal models of introspection allow for the possibility of meta-concepts.

P10: Meta-concepts allow that a properly functioning rational agent S can possess a concept C# without being aware that she does.

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L4: CE is compatible with causal models of meta-cognition.

D. CONCLUSION:

Content externalism favors causal models of meta-cognition over constitution models.

V. Worries

A. How, without redeployment, do we attribute attitudes involving perceptual demonstratives?

B. How exactly can one acquire a concept without acquiring the corresponding meta-concept?

C. Is CE compatible with privileged access?

D. Can a causal model of introspection account for the privileged epistemic status of introspective judgments?