The Fragmented Mind
- Length: 400 pages
- Edition: 1
- Language: English
- Publisher: Oxford University Press
- Publication Date: 2021-09-29
- ISBN-10: 0198850670
- ISBN-13: 9780198850670
- Sales Rank: #4328211 (See Top 100 Books)
Mental fragmentation is the thesis that the mind is fragmented, or compartmentalized. Roughly, this means that an agent’s overall belief state is divided into several sub-states-fragments. These fragments need not make for a consistent and deductively closed belief system. The thesis of mental fragmentation became popular through the work of philosophers like Christopher Cherniak, David Lewis, and Robert Stalnaker in the 1980s, and has recently attracted increased attention.
This volume is the first collection of essays devoted to the topic of mental fragmentation. It features important new contributions by leading experts in the philosophy of mind, epistemology, and philosophy of language. Opening with an accessible introduction providing a systematic overview of the current debate, the fourteen essays cover a wide range of issues: foundational issues and motivations for fragmentation, the rationality or irrationality of fragmentation, fragmentation’s role in language, the relationship between fragmentation and mental files, and the implications of fragmentation for the analysis of implicit attitudes.
Cover page Halftitle page Title page Copyright page Contents Acknowledgments List of Contributors The Fragmented Mind An Introduction 1. Unity and Fragmentation 2. Motivations for Fragmentation 3. Fragmentation and Cognitive Architecture 4. Theories of Fragmentation 5. Open Questions and Overview of the Volume Part I. FragmentationFoundational Issues and Motivation 1. Fragmentation and Information Access 1. Introduction 2. Limitations on Information Access: Motivating Idea 3. Imperfect Recall: Jack’s Memory 4. ‘Aha!’ Moments: A Word Puzzle and a Meta-Puzzle 5. Access Tables 6. Individuating Elicitation Conditions 7. Is Indexing Necessary? 8. Access Tables and Belief 9. Mental Fragmentation 10. Indexing and Abilities 2. Fragmentation and Coarse-Grained Content 1. Possibilities 2. The Fragmentation Response 3. Why Fragmentation Is Not Ad Hoc 3. The Fragmentation of Belief 1. How Are Beliefs Stored? 2. The Web and Its Discontents 3. Evidence for Fragmentation 4. The Functional Profile of Fragments 5. Conclusion: The End of the Beginning 4. Fragmented Models of Belief 1. Introduction 2. Troublemaking Phenomena 3. Response: Fragmented Belief 4. Complications and Research Questions: Constructing a Fragmented Framework 5. Complications and Research Questions: Normative Questions about Fragmented Belief States 6. Conclusion Part II. Rationality And Fragmentation 5. Rationality in Fragmented Belief Systems 1. Introduction 2. A Basic Case of Irrationality 3. The Fragmentation Picture of Belief 4. Davidson versus Cherniak on Rationality Requirements 5. Beyond Coherence 6. Application to Cases 7. Conclusions and Future Work 6. Fragmented but Rational 1. Introduction 2. Fragmentation as Tied to Inquiry 3. Rationality Requirements in a Fragmentation Setting 4. Interfragmentary Coherence? 5. A Failure of Responsiveness to Evidence? 6. Practically Self-Undermining? 7. The Diversity of Inquiry Part III. Fragmentation And Language 7. Fragmentation and Singular Propositions 1. The Problem of Necessary A Posteriori Truth 2. The Problem of Singular Propositions 3. The Diagonalization Strategy 4. The Fragmentation Strategy 5. Conclusion 8. On the Availability of Presuppositions in Conversation 1. Introduction 2. Presupposition and Conversational Common Ground 3. Problems of Availability 4. Presuppositions as Available Relative to Conversational Tasks 5. FCG+ and Availability, or Do We Really Need Fragmentation? 6. Why the Fragmentation of Individual Doxastic States Isn’t Enough 7. On Availability Part IV. Fragmentation And Mental Files 9. Do Mental Files Obey Strawson’s Constraint? 1. Frege Cases and Fragmentation 2. Mental Files 3. Informational Segregation 4. The Link/Merge Debate 5. In Defence of the Segregation Principle 6. In Defence of Strawson’s Constraint 7. Conclusion 10. Belief Fragments and Mental Files 1. Introduction 2. Totalism 3. Fragmentationalism 4. Mental Files 5. A Common Dilemma for Fragments and Files 6. Conclusion Part V. Fragmentation And Implicit Attitudes 11. Implicit Attitudes Are (Probably) Beliefs 1. Why Care? 2. Idealizations and Assumptions 3. A Menu 4. The Standard Argument 5. The Standard Argument Redux 6. A General Dilemma 7. The First Horn 8. The Second Horn: Implicit Attitudes Meet WSS/WDD/WN 9. Residual Worries and Fragmentation 10. What Does Fragmentation Explain? 11. Conclusion 12. Implicit Bias and the Fragmented Mind 1. Introduction 2. Dispositionalism and Fragmentation 3. Representationalism and Fragmentation 4. Content Awareness and Fragmentation 5. Context, Interaction, and Affection 13. Rational Agency and the Struggle to Believe What Your Reasons Dictate 1. Introduction 2. Recalcitrant Beliefs and Rationality 3. Rational Agency 4. Struggling with a Recalcitrant Attitude: The Case of Diane 5. Is Diane’s Recalcitrant Attitude a Belief? 6. Diane’s Attitude Revision Is Rational 7. Diane Is Responsible for Her Revised Belief 8. Diane’s Attitude Revision Is First-Personal 9. Is Rational Agency Required to Avoid a Regress? 10. Must We Assume That Deliberation Will Directly Shape Our Attitudes? 11. Conclusion 14. The Pragmatic Metaphysics of Belief 1. Introduction 2. Pragmatic Metaphysics Generally 3. Intellectual Endorsement versus Spontaneous Lived Behavior: The Case of Daniel 4. Situating Intellectualism 5. The Trunk-and-Branch Argument against Intellectualism 6. Two Roles for Belief Attribution 7. Is This Too Harsh? 8. Two Kinds of Fragmentation 9. Five Objections 10. Conclusion Index
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