Peter Carruthers
Biographic Data
| ID | 497561 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Peter Carruthers |
| GIVEN NAMES | Peter |
| FAMILY NAME | Carruthers |
| SIGNATURE | CARRUTHERS P |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Maryland, College Park |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-7149-2327 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 60 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 90 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 56 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 4 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1983 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
The motoric theory of curiosity
What is the nature of curiosity? There are two types of accounts currently in the literature. According to one, curiosity is a metacognitive desire. According to the other, curiosity is a desire‐like attitude that embeds a question as its content. The present paper proposes a third alternative, according to which curiosity directly motivates innate or learned investigative behavior. It makes such behavior seem attractive and renders subsequent le…
A content-general adaptation for tribal value-acquisition
The Contents and Causes of Curiosity
Pretend play: More imitative than imaginative
Pretense is generally thought to constitutively involve imagination. We argue that this is a mistake. Although pretense often involves imagination, it need not; nor is it a kind of imagination. The core nature of pretense is closer to imitat ion than it is to imagin a t ion, and likely shares some of its motivation with the former. Three main strands of argument are presented. One is from the best explanation of cross‐cultural data. Another is fr…
On Valence: Imperative or Representation of Value
Model-free metacognition
Explicit nonconceptual metacognition
Tracking Science: An Alternative for Those Excluded by Citizen Science
In response to recent discussion about terminology, we propose "tracking science" as a term that is more inclusive than citizen science. Our suggestion is set against a post-colonial political background and large-scale migrations, in which "citizen" is becoming an increasingly contentious term. As a diverse group of authors from several continents, our priority is to deliberate a term that is all-inclusive, so that it could be adopted by everyon…
Representing the Mind as Such in Infancy
Stop Caring about Consciousness
The best empirically grounded theory of first-personal phenomenal consciousness is global workspace theory. This, combined with the success of the phenomenal-concept strategy, means that consciousness can be fully reductively explained in terms of globally broadcast representational content. So there are no qualia (and there is no mental paint). As a result, the question of which other creatures besides ourselves are phenomenally conscious is of …
Mechanisms for constrained stochasticity
Relationships between implicit and explicit uncertainty monitoring and mindreading: Evidence from autism spectrum disorder
We examined performance on implicit (non-verbal) and explicit (verbal) uncertainty-monitoring tasks among neurotypical participants and participants with autism, while also testing mindreading abilities in both groups. We found that: (i) performance of autistic participants was unimpaired on the implicit uncertainty-monitoring task, while being significantly impaired on the explicit task; (ii) performance on the explicit task was correlated with …
Theory of Mind
Comparative psychology without consciousness
Consciousness operationalized, a debate realigned
Mindreading in adults: Evaluating two-systems views
Valence and Value
Valence is a central component of all affective states, including pains, pleasures, emotions, moods, and feelings of desire or repulsion. This paper has two main goals. One is to suggest that enough is now known about the causes, consequences, and properties of valence to indicate that it forms a unitary natural‐psychological kind, one that seemingly plays a fundamental role in motivating all kinds of intentional action. If this turns out to be t…
Perceiving mental states
Mindreading in Infancy
Various dichotomies have been proposed to characterize the nature and development of human mindreading capacities, especially in light of recent evidence of mindreading in infants aged 7 to 18 months. This article will examine these suggestions, arguing that none is currently supported by the evidence. Rather, the data support a modular account of the domain‐specific component of basic mindreading capacities. This core component is present in inf…
The Distinctively-Human Mind: The Many Pillars of Cumulative Culture
The Opacity of MindAn Integrative Theory of Self-Knowledge: An Integrative Theory of Self-Knowledge
Do we have introspective access to our own thoughts? Peter Carruthers challenges the consensus that we do: he argues that access to our own thoughts is always interpretive, grounded in perceptual awareness and sensory imagery.
How we know our own minds: The relationship between mindreading and metacognition
Four different accounts of the relationship between third-person mindreading and first-person metacognition are compared and evaluated. While three of them endorse the existence of introspection for propositional attitudes, the fourth (defended here) claims that our knowledge of our own attitudes results from turning our mindreading capacities upon ourselves. Section 1 of this target article introduces the four accounts. Section 2 develops the “m…
Introspection: Divided and Partly Eliminated
This paper will argue that there is no such thing as introspective access to judgments and decisions. It won't challenge the existence of introspective access to perceptual and imagistic states, nor to emotional feelings and bodily sensations. On the contrary, the model presented in Section 2 presumes such access. Hence introspection is here divided into two categories: introspection of propositional attitude events, on the one hand, and introspe…
The Innate Mind, Volume 3: Foundations and the Future
This book is the third of a three-volume set on the innate mind. It provides an assessment of nativist thought and definitive reference point for future inquiry. Nativists have long been interested in a variety of foundational topics relating to the study of cognitive development and the historical opposition between nativism and empiricism. Among the issues here are questions about what it is for something to be innate in the first place; how in…
Evolution and the Possibility of Moral Realism
Valence and Value
Valence is a central component of all affective states, including pains, pleasures, emotions, moods, and feelings of desire or repulsion. This paper has two main goals. One is to suggest that enough is now known about the causes, consequences, and properties of valence to indicate that it forms a unitary natural‐psychological kind, one that seemingly plays a fundamental role in motivating all kinds of intentional action. If this turns out to be t…
Evolution and the Human Mind: Modularity, Language and Meta-Cognition
List of contributors Preface 1. Introduction Peter Carruthers and Andrew Chamberlain 2. Massively modular minds: evolutionary psychology and cognitive architecture Richard Samuels 3. Individual differences in early understanding of mind: genes, non-shared environment and modularity Claire Hughes and Robert Plomin 4. Darwin in the madhouse: evolutionary psychology and the classification of mental disorders Dominic Murphy and Stephen Stich 5. Evolu…
Human Creativity: Its Cognitive Basis, its Evolution, and its Connections with Childhood Pretence
This paper defends two initial claims. First, it argues that essentially the same cognitive resources are shared by adult creative thinking and problem‐solving, on the one hand, and by childhood pretend play, on the other—namely, capacities to generate and to reason with suppositions (or imagined possibilities). Second, it argues that the evolutionary function of childhood pretence is to practice and enhance adult forms of creativity. The paper g…
Theories of Theories of Mind
Theories of Theories of Mind brings together contributions by a distinguished international team of philosophers, psychologists, and primatologists, who between them address such questions as: what is it to understand the thoughts, feelings, and intentions of other people? How does such an understanding develop in the normal child? Why, unusually, does it fail to develop? And is any such mentalistic understanding shared by members of other specie…
Introspection: Divided and Partly Eliminated
This paper will argue that there is no such thing as introspective access to judgments and decisions. It won't challenge the existence of introspective access to perceptual and imagistic states, nor to emotional feelings and bodily sensations. On the contrary, the model presented in Section 2 presumes such access. Hence introspection is here divided into two categories: introspection of propositional attitude events, on the one hand, and introspe…
The illusion of conscious will
Phenomenal Concepts and Higher‐Order Experiences
Relying on a range of now‐familiar thought‐experiments, it has seemed to many philosophers that phenomenal consciousness is beyond the scope of reductive explanation. (Phenomenal consciousness is a form of state‐consciousness, which contrasts with creature‐consciousness, or perceptual ‐consciousness. The different forms of state‐consciousness include various kinds of access‐consciousness, both first‐order and higher‐order–see Rosenthal, 1986; Blo…
Tracking Science: An Alternative for Those Excluded by Citizen Science
In response to recent discussion about terminology, we propose "tracking science" as a term that is more inclusive than citizen science. Our suggestion is set against a post-colonial political background and large-scale migrations, in which "citizen" is becoming an increasingly contentious term. As a diverse group of authors from several continents, our priority is to deliberate a term that is all-inclusive, so that it could be adopted by everyon…
On Valence: Imperative or Representation of Value
Language, Thought and Consciousness
The Contents and Causes of Curiosity
Mechanisms for constrained stochasticity
Mindreading in adults: Evaluating two-systems views
Evolution and the Possibility of Moral Realism
Conceptual pragmatism
Philosophical Relativity
Journal Article Book Reviews Get access Philosophical Relativity. By Peter Unger. (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1984. Pp. x + 132. Price £14.00) Peter Carruthers Peter Carruthers The Queen’s University of Belfast Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Philosophical Quarterly, Volume 35, Issue 139, April 1985, Pages 207–210, https://doi.org/10.2307/2219350 Published: 01 April 1985
Baker and Hacker's Wittgenstein
Understanding Names
Journal Article Understanding Names Get access Peter Carruthers Peter Carruthers The Queen’s University of Belfast Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Philosophical Quarterly, Volume 33, Issue 130, January 1983, Pages 19–36, https://doi.org/10.2307/2219201 Published: 01 January 1983
On concept and object
Understanding Names
Journal Article Understanding Names Get access Peter Carruthers Peter Carruthers The Queen’s University of Belfast Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Philosophical Quarterly, Volume 33, Issue 130, January 1983, Pages 19–36, https://doi.org/10.2307/2219201 Published: 01 January 1983
Baker and Hacker's Wittgenstein
Eternal Thoughts
Journal Article Eternal Thoughts Get access Peter Carruthers Peter Carruthers The Queen’s University of Belfast Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Philosophical Quarterly, Volume 34, Issue 136, July 1984, Pages 186–204, https://doi.org/10.2307/2218756 Published: 01 July 1984
Philosophical Relativity
Journal Article Book Reviews Get access Philosophical Relativity. By Peter Unger. (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1984. Pp. x + 132. Price £14.00) Peter Carruthers Peter Carruthers The Queen’s University of Belfast Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Philosophical Quarterly, Volume 35, Issue 139, April 1985, Pages 207–210, https://doi.org/10.2307/2219350 Published: 01 April 1985
Assertion and Conditionals
Conceptual pragmatism
Nothing is Hidden: Wittgenstein's Criticism of his Early Thought
Journal Article Book Reviews Get access Nothing is Hidden: Wittgenstein's Criticism of his Early Thought. BY Norman Malcolm. (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1986. Pp. xii + 252. Price: £22.50.) Peter Carruthers Peter Carruthers University of Essex Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Philosophical Quarterly, Volume 37, Issue 148, July 1987, Pages 328–331, https://doi.org/10.2307/2220405 Published: 01 July 1987
Investigating Wittgenstein
Journal Article Book Reviews Get access Investigating Wittgenstein. By Merrill Hintikka and Jaakko Hintikka. (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1986. Pp. xx+326. Price £27.50.) Peter Carruthers Peter Carruthers University of Essex Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Philosophical Quarterly, Volume 38, Issue 151, April 1988, Pages 244–249, https://doi.org/10.2307/2219929 Published: 01 April 1988
Wittgenstein: Rules, Grammar and Necessity
Journal Article Book Reviews Get access Wittgenstein: Rules, Grammar and Necessity. By G. P. Baker and P. M. S. Hacker. (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1985. Pp. xvi + 352. Price £29.50) Peter Carruthers Peter Carruthers University of Essex Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Philosophical Quarterly, Volume 38, Issue 150, January 1988, Pages 131–134, https://doi.org/10.2307/2220278 Published: 01 January 1988
Meaning and Mental Representation
Journal Article Book Reviews Get access Meaning and Mental Representation. By Robert Cummins. (Cambridge, Ma.: MIT Press, 1989. Pp. 180. Price £20.25.) Peter Carruthers Peter Carruthers University of Essex Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Philosophical Quarterly, Volume 40, Issue 161, October 1990, Pages 527–530, https://doi.org/10.2307/2220119 Published: 01 October 1990
Tractarian Semantics
Journal Article Book Reviews Get access Tractarian Semantics. By Peter Carruthers. (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1989. Pp. xii + 232. Price £27.50.) William Child William Child University College, Oxford Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Philosophical Quarterly, Volume 41, Issue 164, July 1991, Pages 354–358, https://doi.org/10.2307/2220040 Published: 01 July 1991
The Animals Issue: Moral Theory in Practice
Do animals have moral rights? In contrast to the philosophical gurus of the animal rights movement, whose opinion has held moral sway in recent years, Peter Carruthers here claims that they do not. He explores a variety of moral theories, arguing that animals lack direct moral significance. This provocative but judiciously argued book will appeal to all those interested in animal rights, whatever their initial standpoint. It will also serve as a …
Crisis on the family farm: Ethics or economics? Reading, UK 30–31 March 1993
The Animals Issue: Moral Theory in Practice
Theories of Theories of Mind
Theories of Theories of Mind brings together contributions by a distinguished international team of philosophers, psychologists, and primatologists, who between them address such questions as: what is it to understand the thoughts, feelings, and intentions of other people? How does such an understanding develop in the normal child? Why, unusually, does it fail to develop? And is any such mentalistic understanding shared by members of other specie…
Human Knowledge and Human Nature: A New Introduction to an Ancient Debate
Introduction: Modes of Knowledge Knowledge out of Reason: Platonism The Empiricist Case against Platonism The Empiricist Case against Nativism Is Innate Knowledge even Possible? The Case for Innate Mental Structure The Case for Innate Concepts The Case for Innate Knowledge Powers of Mind: The Core of Empiricism Evolutionary Nativism and A Priori Knowledge Our Knowledge of the External World Knowledge by Best Explanation Conclusion
Language, Thought and Consciousness: An Essay in Philosophical Psychology
Tractarian Semantics
Edward Stein, Without Good Reason: The Rationality Debate in Philosophy and Cognitive Science , Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1996. Jonathan St. B. T. Evans and David E. Over, Rationality and Reasoning , H…
Language, Thought and Consciousness: An Essay in Philosophical Psychology
Language and Thought: Interdisciplinary Themes
1. Introduction: opening up options Peter Carruthers and Jill Boucher Part I: Language, development and evolution 2. Thought before language: the expression of motion events prior to the impact of a conventional language model Susan Goldin-Meadow and Ming-Yu Zheng 3. The prerequisites for language acquisition: evidence from cases of anomalous language development Jill Boucher 4. Some thoughts about the evolution of lads, with special reference to…
The Philosophy of Psychology
What is the relationship between common-sense, or 'folk', psychology and contemporary scientific psychology? Are they in conflict with one another? Or do they perform quite different, though perhaps complementary, roles? George Botterill and Peter Carruthers discuss these questions, defending a robust form of realism about the commitments of folk psychology and about the prospects for integrating those commitments into natural science. Their focu…
Language, Thought and Consciousness
Phenomenal Consciousness: A Naturalistic Theory
How can phenomenal consciousness exist as an integral part of a physical universe? How can the technicolour phenomenology of our inner lives be created out of the complex neural activities of our brains? Many have despaired of finding answers to these questions; and many have claimed that human consciousness is inherently mysterious. Peter Carruthers argues, on the contrary, that the subjective feel of our experience is fully explicable in natura…
Philosophy (47 works) · Epistemology (43 works) · Psychology (37 works) · Cognitive science (26 works) · Cognition (22 works) · Computer Science (21 works) · Cognitive psychology (19 works) · Child and Animal Learning Development (13 works) · Consciousness (11 works) · Neuroscience (11 works)