The Fragmented Mind

Description

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 The Fragmented Mind Copyright Contents Acknowledgments List of Contributors The Fragmented Mind: An Introduction 1. Unity and Fragmentation 2. Motivations for Fragmentation 2.1. Logical Omniscience and Closure 2.2. Lewis on Inconsistent Beliefs 2.3. Idealization and Explanatory Power 2.4. Memory and Information Access 2.5. The Preface Paradox 2.6. Cognitive Dissonance and Implicit Bias 3. Fragmentation and Cognitive Architecture 3.1. Horizontal Fragmentation 3.2. Fragmentation, Cognitive Processes, Modularity 4. Theories of Fragmentation 4.1. Cherniak on Memory and Cognitive Architecture 4.2. Stalnaker and the Possible Worlds Framework 4.3. Recent Developments 5. Open Questions and Overview of the Volume 5.1. Fragmentation: Foundational Issues and Motivation 5.2. Rationality and Fragmentation 5.3. Fragmentation and Language 5.4. Fragmentation and Mental Files 5.5. Fragmentation and Implicit Attitudes References Part I: Fragmentation: Foundational 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 References 2: Fragmentation and Coarse-Grained Content 1. Possibilities 1.1. Problems of Coarse Grain 2. The Fragmentation Response 3. Why Fragmentation Is Not Ad Hoc 3.1. Belief and Action 3.2. Fragmentation as Modest Modeling References 3: The Fragmentation of Belief 1. How Are Beliefs Stored? 2. The Web and Its Discontents 3. Evidence for Fragmentation 3.1. Redundancy 3.1.1. Extinction and Reinstatement 3.1.2. Implicit Bias 3.2. Inconsistency 3.2.1. Ballistic Believing 3.2.2. Retraction 3.2.3. Choice Blindness 3.2.4. Illusory Truth and Fluency 3.3. The Crowd Within 3.4. Structuring Beliefs: The Self as the Center of Doxastic Gravity 4. The Functional Profile of Fragments 4.1. Fragment Activation 4.2. Fragment Genesis 4.3. Fragment Synchronization and Merge 4.4. Inconsistent Beliefs and Practical Action 5. Conclusion: The End of the Beginning References 4: Fragmented Models of Belief 1. Introduction 2. Troublemaking Phenomena 2.1. Recognition vs. Recall 2.2. Ignorance vs. Failure to Bring to Bear 2.3. Inconsistent Belief 3. Response: Fragmented Belief 4. Complications and Research Questions: Constructing a Fragmented Framework 4.1. Specifying Spheres of Behavior Guidance 4.2. Synchronic Fragmentation 4.3. Constraining the Fine-Grainedness of Spheres of Behavior Guidance to Avoid Triviality 4.4. Updating Fragmented Doxastic States 5. Complications and Research Questions: Normative Questions about Fragmented Belief States 5.1. First Normative Question: The Rationality of Fragmentation 5.2. Second Normative Question: What Should We Say about the (Absolute and Comparative) Rationality of Different Fragmented Doxastic States? 5.3. Third Normative Question: What Should We Say about the (Absolute and Comparative) Rationality of Different Transitions between Fragmented States? 5.4. Fourth Normative Question: What Should We Say about the Role of Fragmented States in Rationalizing Behavior? 6. Conclusion References 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 6.1. Self-Deception 6.2. Assertion–Behavior Dissonance Involving Implicit Biases 6.3. Mild Cases of Irrationality: Lewis’s Case 7. Conclusions and Future Work References 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 References 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 References 8: On the Availability of Presuppositions in Conversation 1. Introduction 2. Presupposition and Conversational Common Ground 3. Problems of Availability 3.1. Availability of Information Relative to Questions 3.2. Availability for Presupposition Accommodation in Disagreement 3.3. Availability and Re-Introducing Shared Information 4. Presuppositions as Available Relative to Conversational Tasks 4.1. Fragmentation 4.2. The Fragmented Common Ground (FCG) 4.3. The Fragmented Common Ground and Availability 4.4. The Fragmented Common Ground and Questions Guiding Conversation: FCG+ 5. FCG+ and Availability, or Do We Really Need Fragmentation? 5.1. FCG+ and the Availability of Information Relative to Questions 5.2. FCG+ and Presupposition Accommodation in Disagreement 5.3. FCG+ and Re-Introducing Shared Information 6. Why the Fragmentation of Individual Doxastic States Isn’t Enough 7. On Availability References 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 References 10: Belief Fragments and Mental Files 1. Introduction 2. Totalism 2.1. The Map Model of Belief 2.2. Motivations for the Map Model 2.3. Problems for the Map Model 3. Fragmentationalism 3.1. The Atlas Model of Belief 3.2. Problems for the Atlas Model 3.3. Why Fragments Alone Are Not Enough 4. Mental Files 4.1. Why We Need Non-Descriptive Concepts 4.2. Non-Descriptive Concepts as Mental Files 4.3. Files and Fragments Compared and Combined 5. A Common Dilemma for Fragments and Files 5.1. A Dilemma for Fragments 5.2. A Parallel Dilemma for Mental Files 5.3. A Psychofunctionalist Response to the Dilemma? 6. Conclusion References 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 References 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 References 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 4.1. The Case of Diane 4.2. Diane’s Shift in Attitude Is Not an Expression of Rational Agency 5. Is Diane’s Recalcitrant Attitude a Belief? 6. Diane’s Attitude Revision Is Rational 6.1. Diane’s Attitude Revision Appears to Be Rational 6.2. The Role of Practical Reasoning 6.3. The Wrong Kind of Reasons? 6.4. Practical vs. Epistemic Rationality 6.5. Why Diane’s Attitude Revision Is Rational 7. Diane Is Responsible for Her Revised Belief 7.1. Accounts of Responsible Agency 7.2. Why Diane’s Attitude Revision Is Agential 8. Diane’s Attitude Revision Is First-Personal 8.1. Control and the First Person 8.2. Considering a Belief as a Belief 8.3. Why 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? 10.1. Moran’s Requirement 10.2. Why We Needn’t Assume That Deliberation Directly Shapes Our Beliefs or Intentions 10.3. Why We Deliberate 11. Conclusion References 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 References Index