Barbara Gail Montero | Graduate Center of the City University of New York (original) (raw)
Papers by Barbara Gail Montero
Philosophia, Jun 4, 2024
Alter (The Matter of Consciousness: From the Knowledge Argument to Russellian Monism, GB: Oxford ... more Alter (The Matter of Consciousness: From the Knowledge Argument to Russellian Monism, GB: Oxford University Pres, 2023) argues for something surprising: despite being widely rejected by philosophers, including Frank Jackson himself, Jackson's knowledge argument succeeds. Alter's defense of Jackson's argument is not only surprising; it's also exciting: the knowledge argument, if it's sound, underscores the power of armchair philosophy, the power of pure thought to arrive at substantial conclusions about the world. In contrast, I aim to make a case for something unsurprising and unexciting: that the knowledge argument does not succeed, or, even less far-reaching, that Alter's defense of it is not persuasive. Mine is a classic file-drawer thesis, but what it has going for it is that it's true, or so I think, and hope to illustrate why you should too. Keywords Knowledge argument • Frank jackson • Consciousness • Reduction • A priori In The Matter of Consciousness: From the Knowledge Argument to Russellian Monism, Torin Alter argues for something surprising: despite being widely rejected by philosophers, including Frank Jackson himself (1994), Jackson's (1982, 1986) knowledge argument-in essence, that not all facts are physical facts because you cannot learn what the experience of seeing color is like from black and white information-succeeds. Alter's defense of Jackson's argument is not only surprising; it's also exciting: the knowledge argument, if it's sound, underscores the power of armchair philosophy, the power of pure thought to arrive at substantial conclusions about the world. In contrast, I aim to make a case for something unsurprising and unexciting: that the knowledge argument does not succeed, or, even less far-reaching, that
Oxford University Press eBooks, Nov 11, 2021
The final chapter synthesizes the arguments presented over the course of the book by suggesting t... more The final chapter synthesizes the arguments presented over the course of the book by suggesting that skill execution continues to be governed by conscious processes even after performers have attained a high level of expertise. It argues that skill-focused attention is necessary if experts are to eschew proceduralization and react flexibly to ‘crises’ and fine-grained changes in situational demands. In doing so, it discusses the role played by conscious control, reflection, and bodily awareness in maintaining performance proficiency. It suggests that skill maintenance and continuous improvement are underpinned by the use of both automated procedures (acknowledging that these are inherently active and flexible) and metacognitive knowledge. The chapter concludes by briefly considering how skill-focused attention needs to be applied in both training and performance contexts in order to facilitate continuous improvement.
Oxford University Press eBooks, Jan 6, 2022
‘Consciousness’ asks: what is consciousness? The concept of consciousness is the subject of much ... more ‘Consciousness’ asks: what is consciousness? The concept of consciousness is the subject of much discussion and there is much debate over whether it can be defined at all. Is it possible for a human to know what it is like to be a bat, a creature whose conscious experience is radically different from ours? There are various different forms of consciousness: creature consciousness, state consciousness, phenomenal consciousness, and access consciousness. The ‘hard problem’ is the problem of providing a scientific explanation of consciousness. What is the purpose of consciousness?
Oxford University Press eBooks, Feb 1, 2015
Oxford University Press eBooks, Nov 11, 2021
This penultimate chapter considers how athletes might develop the ability to exert attentional co... more This penultimate chapter considers how athletes might develop the ability to exert attentional control. It outlines some approaches that might help athletes to switch their focus or re-distribute patterns of attention when they realize they have adopted task-irrelevant thoughts. It evaluates the use of mindfulness, quiet-eye training, pressurized training, among other approaches, as means of training attentional control. The chapter concludes by outlining a series of methodological approaches that might be employed by researchers wishing to test some of the predictions put forth by our model of skilled action and our proposal that skilled maintenance is underpinned by the flexible deployment of attentional resources.
Oxford University Press eBooks, Jan 6, 2022
‘Intentionality’ asks: what is distinctive about the mind? Some philosophers have argued that the... more ‘Intentionality’ asks: what is distinctive about the mind? Some philosophers have argued that the mark of the mental is intentionality: the mind’s ability to represent things in the world. Beliefs, perceptions, desires, and hopes are intentional since they are about, or in some sense point to, things in the world. Different intentional states are thought to have distinct ‘directions of fit’. There are four interrelated puzzling features of intentionality. In addition, there are three theories of intentionality (the pictorial, causal, and teleological). Does intentionality pose a problem for physicalism?
Oxford University Press eBooks, Jan 6, 2022
Highlighting key philosophical thought experiments, Philosophy of Mind: A Very Short Introduction... more Highlighting key philosophical thought experiments, Philosophy of Mind: A Very Short Introduction considers the strengths and weaknesses of physicalism, dualism, and behaviourism and explores the philosophical conundrums associated with sensation, perception, cognition, and emotion. It probes some of the great philosophical questions about the mind: What is the relationship between mind and body? Can science unravel the mystery of consciousness? How can our thoughts represent things in the world? Are computers genuinely intelligent? And it also touches on philosophy of mind’s cross-cultural roots and connections to psychology, neuroscience, and physics.
The Encyclopedia of Philosophy of Religion, Nov 16, 2021
Journal of Consciousness Studies, 2020
Oxford University Press eBooks, Jan 6, 2022
‘Emotions’ asks: how ought we to understand the emotions? There are a number of body-based theori... more ‘Emotions’ asks: how ought we to understand the emotions? There are a number of body-based theories of the emotions, according to which an emotion is an awareness of certain bodily processesWilliam James presents an ‘subtraction argument’, which is the thought experiment which asks us to imagine what is left of an emotion if we subtract the relevant bodily processes from an emotion. Body-based theories can be contrasted with judgement-based theories, which align emotions with judgements. There are also a number of theories of emotions put forward by proponents of the embodied mind thesis, who see the somatic nervous system, which controls voluntary actions such as reaching and walking, as playing a crucial role in emotion.
Oxford University Press eBooks, Jan 6, 2022
‘Dualism’ asks: is the mind distinct from the body? Dualism is the theory of mind that answers th... more ‘Dualism’ asks: is the mind distinct from the body? Dualism is the theory of mind that answers this question in the affirmative. Looking into Dualism’s ancient origins show us some of the key arguments for dualism. Dualism is thought, by its proponents, to solve one of the great problems in philosophy: the mind‒body problem. Cartesian dualism and René Descartes’s arguments are based on the premise that it is possible to imagine one’s mind existing without one’s body and one’s body without one’s mind. There are also two contemporary arguments for dualism: the knowledge argument, according to which dualism must be true because knowledge of all physical facts does not suffice for understanding conscious experience, and the so-called ‘zombie’ argument according to which the mind must be distinct from the body since a bodily duplicate of a human would not have conscious experiences. Can conceivability be a guide to possibility? In other words, whether one’s ability to imagine a certain situation is reason to believe that such a situation is possible.
Oxford University Press eBooks, Jan 6, 2022
‘Behaviourism’ looks at the view that mental states—beliefs, desires, emotions, and so forth—are ... more ‘Behaviourism’ looks at the view that mental states—beliefs, desires, emotions, and so forth—are merely sets of behaviours. What is the motivation for and feasibility of the view? Gilbert Ryle criticised Cartesian dualism, which is based on the idea that dualists are making a ‘category mistake’. He put forward his own behaviouristic theory of mind. Behaviourism avoids ‘the problem of other minds’. If the mind is behaviour, it is clear that other people have minds, but if the mind is an inner experience, then the only person who can be certain of having a mind is the person having the experience. Behaviourism has a number of theories relating to intelligence and conceptions of dispositions.
Oxford University Press eBooks, Nov 11, 2021
Prominent theories of skill acquisition posit that the performing body is absent during ‘habitual... more Prominent theories of skill acquisition posit that the performing body is absent during ‘habitualized’ or well-learned action. This chapter challenges this position by arguing that the body is never forgotten during skilled movement. Instead, it possesses what might be termed an enduring presence. Drawing on Colombetti’s (2011) taxonomy of the bodily self, the chapter shows how skilled performers may experience either a reflective or pre-reflective mode of bodily awareness depending on what they attend to during online skill execution. It proposes that while the body is always lived through as the subject of experience, performers will often have little choice but to take the body as the intentional object of their awareness. The chapter concludes by arguing that it is the dynamic interplay of various forms of bodily awareness that facilitates optimal performance and allows skilled performers to confront the challenges (e.g. injury, performance slumps) that are a ubiquitous feature of competitive environments.
Journal of Consciousness Studies, 2017
Susan Schneider argues that physicalism must be false if abstracta are part of the physicalist&am... more Susan Schneider argues that physicalism must be false if abstracta are part of the physicalist's dependence base. In opposition to her view, here I set out some reasons to think that abstracta in general, including abstracta that are woven into the dependence base, are something physicalists can countenance with consistency. Everyone has their demons. For some, it's addictions. For others, it's the failure to live up to parental expectations. For me, it's my thighs: why are they so big? But perhaps I digress. Already. Physicalists have their demons too; for them, it's abstract entities, in particular, the abstract, mathematical relations that, as some have argued, are an inextricable part of the physical base, that is to say, an inextricable part of the fundamental properties and entities upon which the rest of the world is built. Physicalists may have other demons too; if they're like the rest of us, they've got to. But at least this much is clear: physicalism is true only if the things we know and love — our tables, our chairs, our minds, our bodies, and most ardently our phones — are somehow all ultimately built out of or dependent on entirely concrete aspects of the world. The intrusion of abstracta ravages everything. Or at least, this is the view espoused by Susan Schneider in her paper, 'Does the Mathematical Nature of Physics Undermine Physicalism?', in which she argues that physicalism must be false if abstracta are part of the dependence base of chairs, tables, phones, and so forth. Here, in my own divagating way, I beg to differ: one can be a veritable physicalist and countenance abstracta too. Or at least I'd like to set out some reasons to think that abstracta in general, including the abstracta woven into the dependence base (base-abstracta), are something physicalists can accept with consistency.
Journal of Consciousness Studies, 2020
Handbook of Embodied Cognition and Sport Psychology
A large body of experimental evidence is commonly cited in support of a view called “the attentio... more A large body of experimental evidence is commonly cited in support of a view called “the attentional focus effect,” which is the hypothesis that focusing on the body (typically designated as an “internal” focus of attention) leads to suboptimal results relative to focusing on the consequences of bodily actions (commonly regarded as an “external” focus of attention). In this chapter, after spending some time unfolding the nature and scope of the attentional focus effect, we look into the difficulty of eliminating confounds in experiments testing the effect and examine four situations in which an internal attentional focus appears, at least sometimes, to be preferable to an external one. These situations, we suggest, are worthy of further empirical investigation before we can accept that the attentional focus effect applies to all types of skills, all skill levels, and all measures of performance quality.
Philosophy of Mind: A Very Short Introduction
‘Digital minds’ asks: what might the human‒digital interface and the prospects of artificial inte... more ‘Digital minds’ asks: what might the human‒digital interface and the prospects of artificial intelligence reveal about the mind‒body problem? The extended mind hypothesis states that our memories can be stored on external devices, such as our phones. The parity principle states that a process in the external world counts as part of our minds if it is the case that if this process were to occur inside the head, the process would be part of our minds. Can computers think? The Turing test is thought by some to test for computer thought or intelligence. The Mayan language room argument is a variation of John Searle’s much-discussed argument that aims to show that computers cannot understand language, or in other words that ‘syntax is not sufficient for semantics’. There are many other questions that reside in the intersection of ethics and artificial intelligence.
Philosophia, Jun 4, 2024
Alter (The Matter of Consciousness: From the Knowledge Argument to Russellian Monism, GB: Oxford ... more Alter (The Matter of Consciousness: From the Knowledge Argument to Russellian Monism, GB: Oxford University Pres, 2023) argues for something surprising: despite being widely rejected by philosophers, including Frank Jackson himself, Jackson's knowledge argument succeeds. Alter's defense of Jackson's argument is not only surprising; it's also exciting: the knowledge argument, if it's sound, underscores the power of armchair philosophy, the power of pure thought to arrive at substantial conclusions about the world. In contrast, I aim to make a case for something unsurprising and unexciting: that the knowledge argument does not succeed, or, even less far-reaching, that Alter's defense of it is not persuasive. Mine is a classic file-drawer thesis, but what it has going for it is that it's true, or so I think, and hope to illustrate why you should too. Keywords Knowledge argument • Frank jackson • Consciousness • Reduction • A priori In The Matter of Consciousness: From the Knowledge Argument to Russellian Monism, Torin Alter argues for something surprising: despite being widely rejected by philosophers, including Frank Jackson himself (1994), Jackson's (1982, 1986) knowledge argument-in essence, that not all facts are physical facts because you cannot learn what the experience of seeing color is like from black and white information-succeeds. Alter's defense of Jackson's argument is not only surprising; it's also exciting: the knowledge argument, if it's sound, underscores the power of armchair philosophy, the power of pure thought to arrive at substantial conclusions about the world. In contrast, I aim to make a case for something unsurprising and unexciting: that the knowledge argument does not succeed, or, even less far-reaching, that
Oxford University Press eBooks, Nov 11, 2021
The final chapter synthesizes the arguments presented over the course of the book by suggesting t... more The final chapter synthesizes the arguments presented over the course of the book by suggesting that skill execution continues to be governed by conscious processes even after performers have attained a high level of expertise. It argues that skill-focused attention is necessary if experts are to eschew proceduralization and react flexibly to ‘crises’ and fine-grained changes in situational demands. In doing so, it discusses the role played by conscious control, reflection, and bodily awareness in maintaining performance proficiency. It suggests that skill maintenance and continuous improvement are underpinned by the use of both automated procedures (acknowledging that these are inherently active and flexible) and metacognitive knowledge. The chapter concludes by briefly considering how skill-focused attention needs to be applied in both training and performance contexts in order to facilitate continuous improvement.
Oxford University Press eBooks, Jan 6, 2022
‘Consciousness’ asks: what is consciousness? The concept of consciousness is the subject of much ... more ‘Consciousness’ asks: what is consciousness? The concept of consciousness is the subject of much discussion and there is much debate over whether it can be defined at all. Is it possible for a human to know what it is like to be a bat, a creature whose conscious experience is radically different from ours? There are various different forms of consciousness: creature consciousness, state consciousness, phenomenal consciousness, and access consciousness. The ‘hard problem’ is the problem of providing a scientific explanation of consciousness. What is the purpose of consciousness?
Oxford University Press eBooks, Feb 1, 2015
Oxford University Press eBooks, Nov 11, 2021
This penultimate chapter considers how athletes might develop the ability to exert attentional co... more This penultimate chapter considers how athletes might develop the ability to exert attentional control. It outlines some approaches that might help athletes to switch their focus or re-distribute patterns of attention when they realize they have adopted task-irrelevant thoughts. It evaluates the use of mindfulness, quiet-eye training, pressurized training, among other approaches, as means of training attentional control. The chapter concludes by outlining a series of methodological approaches that might be employed by researchers wishing to test some of the predictions put forth by our model of skilled action and our proposal that skilled maintenance is underpinned by the flexible deployment of attentional resources.
Oxford University Press eBooks, Jan 6, 2022
‘Intentionality’ asks: what is distinctive about the mind? Some philosophers have argued that the... more ‘Intentionality’ asks: what is distinctive about the mind? Some philosophers have argued that the mark of the mental is intentionality: the mind’s ability to represent things in the world. Beliefs, perceptions, desires, and hopes are intentional since they are about, or in some sense point to, things in the world. Different intentional states are thought to have distinct ‘directions of fit’. There are four interrelated puzzling features of intentionality. In addition, there are three theories of intentionality (the pictorial, causal, and teleological). Does intentionality pose a problem for physicalism?
Oxford University Press eBooks, Jan 6, 2022
Highlighting key philosophical thought experiments, Philosophy of Mind: A Very Short Introduction... more Highlighting key philosophical thought experiments, Philosophy of Mind: A Very Short Introduction considers the strengths and weaknesses of physicalism, dualism, and behaviourism and explores the philosophical conundrums associated with sensation, perception, cognition, and emotion. It probes some of the great philosophical questions about the mind: What is the relationship between mind and body? Can science unravel the mystery of consciousness? How can our thoughts represent things in the world? Are computers genuinely intelligent? And it also touches on philosophy of mind’s cross-cultural roots and connections to psychology, neuroscience, and physics.
The Encyclopedia of Philosophy of Religion, Nov 16, 2021
Journal of Consciousness Studies, 2020
Oxford University Press eBooks, Jan 6, 2022
‘Emotions’ asks: how ought we to understand the emotions? There are a number of body-based theori... more ‘Emotions’ asks: how ought we to understand the emotions? There are a number of body-based theories of the emotions, according to which an emotion is an awareness of certain bodily processesWilliam James presents an ‘subtraction argument’, which is the thought experiment which asks us to imagine what is left of an emotion if we subtract the relevant bodily processes from an emotion. Body-based theories can be contrasted with judgement-based theories, which align emotions with judgements. There are also a number of theories of emotions put forward by proponents of the embodied mind thesis, who see the somatic nervous system, which controls voluntary actions such as reaching and walking, as playing a crucial role in emotion.
Oxford University Press eBooks, Jan 6, 2022
‘Dualism’ asks: is the mind distinct from the body? Dualism is the theory of mind that answers th... more ‘Dualism’ asks: is the mind distinct from the body? Dualism is the theory of mind that answers this question in the affirmative. Looking into Dualism’s ancient origins show us some of the key arguments for dualism. Dualism is thought, by its proponents, to solve one of the great problems in philosophy: the mind‒body problem. Cartesian dualism and René Descartes’s arguments are based on the premise that it is possible to imagine one’s mind existing without one’s body and one’s body without one’s mind. There are also two contemporary arguments for dualism: the knowledge argument, according to which dualism must be true because knowledge of all physical facts does not suffice for understanding conscious experience, and the so-called ‘zombie’ argument according to which the mind must be distinct from the body since a bodily duplicate of a human would not have conscious experiences. Can conceivability be a guide to possibility? In other words, whether one’s ability to imagine a certain situation is reason to believe that such a situation is possible.
Oxford University Press eBooks, Jan 6, 2022
‘Behaviourism’ looks at the view that mental states—beliefs, desires, emotions, and so forth—are ... more ‘Behaviourism’ looks at the view that mental states—beliefs, desires, emotions, and so forth—are merely sets of behaviours. What is the motivation for and feasibility of the view? Gilbert Ryle criticised Cartesian dualism, which is based on the idea that dualists are making a ‘category mistake’. He put forward his own behaviouristic theory of mind. Behaviourism avoids ‘the problem of other minds’. If the mind is behaviour, it is clear that other people have minds, but if the mind is an inner experience, then the only person who can be certain of having a mind is the person having the experience. Behaviourism has a number of theories relating to intelligence and conceptions of dispositions.
Oxford University Press eBooks, Nov 11, 2021
Prominent theories of skill acquisition posit that the performing body is absent during ‘habitual... more Prominent theories of skill acquisition posit that the performing body is absent during ‘habitualized’ or well-learned action. This chapter challenges this position by arguing that the body is never forgotten during skilled movement. Instead, it possesses what might be termed an enduring presence. Drawing on Colombetti’s (2011) taxonomy of the bodily self, the chapter shows how skilled performers may experience either a reflective or pre-reflective mode of bodily awareness depending on what they attend to during online skill execution. It proposes that while the body is always lived through as the subject of experience, performers will often have little choice but to take the body as the intentional object of their awareness. The chapter concludes by arguing that it is the dynamic interplay of various forms of bodily awareness that facilitates optimal performance and allows skilled performers to confront the challenges (e.g. injury, performance slumps) that are a ubiquitous feature of competitive environments.
Journal of Consciousness Studies, 2017
Susan Schneider argues that physicalism must be false if abstracta are part of the physicalist&am... more Susan Schneider argues that physicalism must be false if abstracta are part of the physicalist's dependence base. In opposition to her view, here I set out some reasons to think that abstracta in general, including abstracta that are woven into the dependence base, are something physicalists can countenance with consistency. Everyone has their demons. For some, it's addictions. For others, it's the failure to live up to parental expectations. For me, it's my thighs: why are they so big? But perhaps I digress. Already. Physicalists have their demons too; for them, it's abstract entities, in particular, the abstract, mathematical relations that, as some have argued, are an inextricable part of the physical base, that is to say, an inextricable part of the fundamental properties and entities upon which the rest of the world is built. Physicalists may have other demons too; if they're like the rest of us, they've got to. But at least this much is clear: physicalism is true only if the things we know and love — our tables, our chairs, our minds, our bodies, and most ardently our phones — are somehow all ultimately built out of or dependent on entirely concrete aspects of the world. The intrusion of abstracta ravages everything. Or at least, this is the view espoused by Susan Schneider in her paper, 'Does the Mathematical Nature of Physics Undermine Physicalism?', in which she argues that physicalism must be false if abstracta are part of the dependence base of chairs, tables, phones, and so forth. Here, in my own divagating way, I beg to differ: one can be a veritable physicalist and countenance abstracta too. Or at least I'd like to set out some reasons to think that abstracta in general, including the abstracta woven into the dependence base (base-abstracta), are something physicalists can accept with consistency.
Journal of Consciousness Studies, 2020
Handbook of Embodied Cognition and Sport Psychology
A large body of experimental evidence is commonly cited in support of a view called “the attentio... more A large body of experimental evidence is commonly cited in support of a view called “the attentional focus effect,” which is the hypothesis that focusing on the body (typically designated as an “internal” focus of attention) leads to suboptimal results relative to focusing on the consequences of bodily actions (commonly regarded as an “external” focus of attention). In this chapter, after spending some time unfolding the nature and scope of the attentional focus effect, we look into the difficulty of eliminating confounds in experiments testing the effect and examine four situations in which an internal attentional focus appears, at least sometimes, to be preferable to an external one. These situations, we suggest, are worthy of further empirical investigation before we can accept that the attentional focus effect applies to all types of skills, all skill levels, and all measures of performance quality.
Philosophy of Mind: A Very Short Introduction
‘Digital minds’ asks: what might the human‒digital interface and the prospects of artificial inte... more ‘Digital minds’ asks: what might the human‒digital interface and the prospects of artificial intelligence reveal about the mind‒body problem? The extended mind hypothesis states that our memories can be stored on external devices, such as our phones. The parity principle states that a process in the external world counts as part of our minds if it is the case that if this process were to occur inside the head, the process would be part of our minds. Can computers think? The Turing test is thought by some to test for computer thought or intelligence. The Mayan language room argument is a variation of John Searle’s much-discussed argument that aims to show that computers cannot understand language, or in other words that ‘syntax is not sufficient for semantics’. There are many other questions that reside in the intersection of ethics and artificial intelligence.