This week the seminar group will be discussing a paper by Johan Heemskerk. The abstract is below:

Seeking the source: metacognition, introspection and abstract concepts

Abstract

This paper explores a puzzle which arises if one holds any kind of neo-empiricist doctrine of concept acquisition but is sensitive to evidence and arguments against direct-access accounts of metacognition. Specifically, I consider Carruthers’ argument against introspection for propositional attitudes. I argue that while we can grant much to Carruthers, his arguments do not, despite the prima facie challenge they present, disrupt the neo-empiricist project. In particular, Carruthers successfully argues against attributive metacognitive access to propositional attitudes but leaves open the possibility of evaluative metacognitive access. This is sufficient to ground propositional attitude concepts and hence serve as components in abstract concepts.

Please contact Johan Heemskerk for further information about joining the seminar.