Aronowitz
Biographic Data
| ID | 13266 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Aronowitz |
| FAMILY NAME | Aronowitz |
| SIGNATURE | ARONOWITZ |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Toronto |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-9099-3031 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 10 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 5 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 10 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2015 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 1 |
Memories as data
Evidence, in ordinary English, denotes a kind of object: something you could put in a box, or at least on a hard-drive. But recent epistemologists prefer to think of evidence as part of a thinker’s mental state, her knowledge, beliefs, or the way things appear to her. This paper argues in favor of the objectual view, by showing that in the case of memory, the very feature thought to be a weakness of this conception is in fact a strength: roughly …
How many beliefs can you fit in your head
Locating Values in the Space of Possibilities
Where do values live in thought? A straightforward answer is that we (or our brains) make decisions using explicit value representations which are our values. Recent work applying reinforcement learning to decision-making and planning suggests that, more specifically, we may represent both the instrumental expected value of actions as well as the intrinsic reward of outcomes. In this paper, I argue that identifying value with either of these repr…
Semanticization Challenges the Episodic–Semantic Distinction
Episodic and semantic memory are often taken to be fundamentally different mental systems, and contemporary philosophers often pursue research questions about episodic memory, in particular, in isolation from semantic memory. This article challenges that assumption, and puts pressure on philosophical approaches to memory that break off episodic memory as its own stand-alone topic. I present and systematize psychological and neuroscientific theori…
Subjectivity in Film
A classic and fraught question in the philosophy of film is this: when you watch a film, do you experience yourself in the world of the film, observing the scenes? In this paper, we argue that this subject of film experience is sometimes a mere impersonal viewpoint, sometimes a first-personal but unindexed subject, and sometimes a particular, indexed subject such as the viewer herself or a character in the film. We first argue for subject plurali…
A planning theory of belief
1. What does it mean to hold a belief? Some of our ways of speaking in English suggest that to hold a belief is to have something in your mind: beliefs are things we acquire, defend, recover, and so on (Abelson, 1986). That is, believing is a matter of being in a state of having a thing. In this paper, I will argue for an alternative: believing is something we do. This is not a new suggestion. For instance, Matthew Boyle (2011) defends a theory o…
The Fragmented Mind
This excellent volume contains 14 chapters exploring the idea of fragmentation: the division of a belief state into parts (“fragments”) that can represent the world in distinct, jointly incoherent ways. For instance, I might know that sea cucumbers are a type of animal related to starfish when I am asked in a biological context, but when I am at a restaurant and see them on the menu, I think that sea cucumbers are a vegetable. I have two ways of …
The problem of arbitrary requirements
Exploring by Believing
Sometimes, we face choices between actions most likely to lead to valuable outcomes, and actions which put us in a better position to learn. These choices exemplify what is called the exploration/exploitation trade-off. In computer science and psychology, this trade-off has fruitfully been applied to modulating the way agents or systems make choices over time. This article extends the trade-off to belief. We can be torn between two ways of believ…
Against Orthodoxy
Semanticization Challenges the Episodic–Semantic Distinction
Episodic and semantic memory are often taken to be fundamentally different mental systems, and contemporary philosophers often pursue research questions about episodic memory, in particular, in isolation from semantic memory. This article challenges that assumption, and puts pressure on philosophical approaches to memory that break off episodic memory as its own stand-alone topic. I present and systematize psychological and neuroscientific theori…
A planning theory of belief
1. What does it mean to hold a belief? Some of our ways of speaking in English suggest that to hold a belief is to have something in your mind: beliefs are things we acquire, defend, recover, and so on (Abelson, 1986). That is, believing is a matter of being in a state of having a thing. In this paper, I will argue for an alternative: believing is something we do. This is not a new suggestion. For instance, Matthew Boyle (2011) defends a theory o…
Exploring by Believing
Sometimes, we face choices between actions most likely to lead to valuable outcomes, and actions which put us in a better position to learn. These choices exemplify what is called the exploration/exploitation trade-off. In computer science and psychology, this trade-off has fruitfully been applied to modulating the way agents or systems make choices over time. This article extends the trade-off to belief. We can be torn between two ways of believ…
Against Orthodoxy
The problem of arbitrary requirements
Exploring by Believing
Sometimes, we face choices between actions most likely to lead to valuable outcomes, and actions which put us in a better position to learn. These choices exemplify what is called the exploration/exploitation trade-off. In computer science and psychology, this trade-off has fruitfully been applied to modulating the way agents or systems make choices over time. This article extends the trade-off to belief. We can be torn between two ways of believ…
A planning theory of belief
1. What does it mean to hold a belief? Some of our ways of speaking in English suggest that to hold a belief is to have something in your mind: beliefs are things we acquire, defend, recover, and so on (Abelson, 1986). That is, believing is a matter of being in a state of having a thing. In this paper, I will argue for an alternative: believing is something we do. This is not a new suggestion. For instance, Matthew Boyle (2011) defends a theory o…
The Fragmented Mind
This excellent volume contains 14 chapters exploring the idea of fragmentation: the division of a belief state into parts (“fragments”) that can represent the world in distinct, jointly incoherent ways. For instance, I might know that sea cucumbers are a type of animal related to starfish when I am asked in a biological context, but when I am at a restaurant and see them on the menu, I think that sea cucumbers are a vegetable. I have two ways of …
Subjectivity in Film
A classic and fraught question in the philosophy of film is this: when you watch a film, do you experience yourself in the world of the film, observing the scenes? In this paper, we argue that this subject of film experience is sometimes a mere impersonal viewpoint, sometimes a first-personal but unindexed subject, and sometimes a particular, indexed subject such as the viewer herself or a character in the film. We first argue for subject plurali…
Locating Values in the Space of Possibilities
Where do values live in thought? A straightforward answer is that we (or our brains) make decisions using explicit value representations which are our values. Recent work applying reinforcement learning to decision-making and planning suggests that, more specifically, we may represent both the instrumental expected value of actions as well as the intrinsic reward of outcomes. In this paper, I argue that identifying value with either of these repr…
Semanticization Challenges the Episodic–Semantic Distinction
Episodic and semantic memory are often taken to be fundamentally different mental systems, and contemporary philosophers often pursue research questions about episodic memory, in particular, in isolation from semantic memory. This article challenges that assumption, and puts pressure on philosophical approaches to memory that break off episodic memory as its own stand-alone topic. I present and systematize psychological and neuroscientific theori…
Memories as data
Evidence, in ordinary English, denotes a kind of object: something you could put in a box, or at least on a hard-drive. But recent epistemologists prefer to think of evidence as part of a thinker’s mental state, her knowledge, beliefs, or the way things appear to her. This paper argues in favor of the objectual view, by showing that in the case of memory, the very feature thought to be a weakness of this conception is in fact a strength: roughly …
How many beliefs can you fit in your head
Epistemology (8 works) · Philosophy (8 works) · Computer Science (4 works) · Psychology (4 works) · Epistemology, Ethics, and Metaphysics (3 works) · Philosophy (2 works) · Action (physics) (1 works) · Aesthetics (1 works) · American Constitutional Law and Politics (1 works) · Arbitrariness (1 works)