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23 results in Cambridge Elements

Page 1 of 2

Innateness in Mind

Innateness in Mind
  • Peter Carruthers
  • Coming soon
  • Expected online publication date:
    June 2026
    Print publication:
    30 June 2026
  • This Element focuses on contemporary forms of nativism (belief in innateness), which mostly concern the existence of domain-specific learning mechanisms with innate structure and content. After sketching some innate capacities that are widely believed to be shared with other animals, the Element thereafter discusses a number of (alleged) distinctively-human ones. One concerns a faculty of language, another our capacity for representing the mental states of others (and derivatively, ourselves). It then turns to discuss some proposed innate adaptations that support culture. These include a number of learning biases, as well as affective learning mechanisms that enable swift acquisition of cultural values. The final two sections then discuss 'tribal psychology.' This may include an innate disposition to stereotype social groups as well as innate 'tribal' motivations (both positive and negative). The over-arching thesis of the Element is that human nature might best be thought of as culture-enabling nature.
Agency

Agency
  • Elisabeth Pacherie
  • Coming soon
  • Expected online publication date:
    April 2026
    Print publication:
    31 May 2026
  • In trying to spell out the distinction between activity and passivity and what is special about agency, philosophers have tended to focus on human intentional action as their paradigm case. Yet taking intentional agency as a starting point makes it difficult to offer positive accounts of more elementary forms of agency. I first present this classical approach and discuss some of its limitations. I then consider simpler forms of behavior and the minimal conditions they must meet to be considered genuine forms of agency. I then turn to conscious agency, examining the nature and sources of our conscious agentive states, their reliability and the causal role they may play in shaping our actions. Finally, I discuss joint agency, the different forms of coordination among agents on which the success of joint action depends, and the sense of agency in joint action.
The Senses

The Senses
  • Perception and Experience
  • A. S. Barwich
  • Coming soon
  • Expected online publication date:
    April 2026
    Print publication:
    30 April 2026
  • This Element launches a broadside against the visual-centric approach that has dominated philosophical and scientific discourse about the senses. Considering the variety and breadth of sensory experiences, from the deceptively familiar territories of smell and taste to the frequently overlooked experience of touch and interoceptive processes, it challenges us to rethink the philosophical bedrock of our theories of mind. It advocates a shift towards a more multi-modal and embodied approach that values biological realities and cross-cultural insights. It analyses traditional criteria for classifying sensory modalities and examines how sensory augmentation technologies provide insight for theories of perception by virtue of sensorimotor learning. The Element also highlights the disconnect between current scientific advancements and philosophical inquiry, suggesting that refocusing on the senses more broadly defined, especially on kinesthetic experiences, illuminates new paths through the thorny 'hard problem' of consciousness. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.
Bayesian Models of the Mind

Bayesian Models of the Mind
  • Michael Rescorla
  • Published online:
    30 January 2025
    Print publication:
    30 January 2025
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  • Bayesian decision theory is a mathematical framework that models reasoning and decision-making under uncertain conditions. The Bayesian paradigm originated as a theory of how people should operate, not a theory of how they actually operate. Nevertheless, cognitive scientists increasingly use it to describe the actual workings of the human mind. Over the past few decades, cognitive science has produced impressive Bayesian models of mental activity. The models postulate that certain mental processes conform, or approximately conform, to Bayesian norms. Bayesian models offered within cognitive science have illuminated numerous mental phenomena, such as perception, motor control, and navigation. This Element provides a self-contained introduction to the foundations of Bayesian cognitive science. It then explores what we can learn about the mind from Bayesian models offered by cognitive scientists.
Irrationality

Irrationality
  • Ema Sullivan-Bissett
  • Published online:
    22 January 2025
    Print publication:
    20 February 2025
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  • This Element surveys contemporary philosophical and psychological work on various forms of irrationality: akrasia, strange beliefs, and implicit bias. It takes up several questions in an effort to better illuminate these more maligned aspects of human behaviour and cognition: what is rationality? Why is it irrational to act against one's better judgement? Could it ever be rational to do so? What's going wrong with beliefs in conspiracy theories, those arising from self-deception, or those which are classed as delusional? Might some of them in fact be appropriate responses to evidence? Are implicit biases irrational when they conflict with our avowed beliefs? Or might they be rational insofar as they track social realities?
Personal Identity and the Self

Personal Identity and the Self
  • Rory Madden
  • Published online:
    29 November 2024
    Print publication:
    02 January 2025
    • Element
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      • Open access
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  • What are we? What owns our thoughts and experiences? Are we anything at all? After an introduction, Section 2 assesses a 'no-bearer' theory of experience, and the 'no-self' contention that self-representations are about no real entity, before introducing a positive hypothesis about the objects of our self-representations: the 'animalist' claim that we are biological organisms. Section 3 discusses the classic challenge to animalism that brain transplantation is something we could survive but no animal could survive. This challenge introduces positive alternatives to animalism, as well as animalist responses, including one which questions the assumption that psychology is irrelevant to organism persistence. Section 4 surveys a 'thinking parts' problem and conjoined twinning and commisurotomy, also considered problematic for animalism. The interpretation of these cases revisits questions about bearers of experience, objects of self-representation, and the relation of biology and psychology. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.
Human Reasoning

Human Reasoning
  • David E Over, Jonathan St B T Evans
  • Published online:
    20 May 2024
    Print publication:
    20 June 2024
  • This Element is on new developments in the psychology of reasoning that raise or address philosophical questions. In traditional studies in the psychology of reasoning, the focus was on inference from arbitrary assumptions and not at all from beliefs, and classical binary logic was presupposed as the only standard for human reasoning. But recently a new Bayesian paradigm has emerged in the discipline. This views ordinary human reasoning as mostly inferring probabilistic conclusions from degrees of beliefs, or from hypothetical premises relevant to a purpose at hand, and as often about revising or updating degrees of belief. This Element also covers new formulations of dual-process theories of the mind, stating that there are two types of mental processing, one rapid and intuitive and shared with other animals, and the other slow and reflective and more characteristic of human beings. The final topic covered is the new developments and rationality.
Animal Minds

Animal Minds
  • Marta Halina
  • Published online:
    07 March 2024
    Print publication:
    04 April 2024
  • Animal minds are complex and diverse, making them difficult to study. This Element focuses on a question that has received much attention in the field of comparative cognition: 'Do animals reason about unobservable variables like force and mental states?' The Element shows how researchers design studies and gather evidence to address this question. Despite the many virtues of current methods, hypotheses in comparative cognition are often underdetermined by the empirical evidence. Given this, philosophers and scientists have recently called for additional behavioral constraints on theorizing in the field. The Element endorses this proposal (known as 'signature testing'), while also arguing that studies on animal minds would benefit from drawing more heavily on neuroscience and biology.
Neurolaw

Neurolaw
  • Gregg D. Caruso
  • Published online:
    27 February 2024
    Print publication:
    21 March 2024
  • Neurolaw is an area of interdisciplinary research on the meaning and implications of neuroscience for the law and legal practices. This Element addresses the potential contributions of neuroscience, and the brain sciences more generally, to criminal justice decision-making and policy. It distinguishes between three different areas and domains of investigation in neurolaw: assessment, intervention, and revision. The first concerns brain-based assessments, which may be used for predicting future violence, lie detection, judging legal insanity, and the like. The second concerns potential treatments and other interventions that aim at rehabilitating criminals and/or preventing crime before it occurs. The third investigates the ways that neuroscience may impact the law by changing or revising commonsense views about human nature and the causes of human action.
Non-physicalist Theories of Consciousness

Non-physicalist Theories of Consciousness
  • Hedda Hassel Mørch
  • Published online:
    20 December 2023
    Print publication:
    01 February 2024
    • Element
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  • Is consciousness a purely physical phenomenon? Most contemporary philosophers and theorists hold that it is, and take this to be supported by modern science. But a significant minority endorse non-physicalist theories such as dualism, idealism and panpsychism, among other reasons because it may seem impossible to fully explain consciousness, or capture what it's like to be in conscious states (such as seeing red, or being in pain), in physical terms. This Element will introduce the main non-physicalist theories of consciousness and explain the most important arguments for them, and consider how they each respond to the scientific and other arguments in support of physicalism. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.
Memory and Remembering

Memory and Remembering
  • Felipe De Brigard
  • Published online:
    13 November 2023
    Print publication:
    21 December 2023
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  • This Element surveys research on three central and interrelated issues about the nature of memory and remembering. The first is about the nature of memory as a cognitive faculty. This part discusses different strategies to distinguish memory from other cognitive faculties as well as different proposed taxonomies to differentiate distinct kinds of memory. The second issue concerns what memory does, which is traditionally thought to have a simple answer: remembering. As it turns out, philosophers not only disagree as to how to characterize remembering but also whether the function of memory is indeed to remember. Finally, the third issue is about the nature of what we remember-a question that may refer to the object of our memories but also to their content, with different views disagreeing on how to characterize the relationship between the two.
The Computational Theory of Mind

The Computational Theory of Mind
  • Matteo Colombo, Gualtiero Piccinini
  • Published online:
    13 November 2023
    Print publication:
    07 December 2023
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  • The Computational Theory of Mind says that the mind is a computing system. It has a long history going back to the idea that thought is a kind of computation. Its modern incarnation relies on analogies with contemporary computing technology and the use of computational models. It comes in many versions, some more plausible than others. This Element supports the theory primarily by its contribution to solving the mind-body problem, its ability to explain mental phenomena, and the success of computational modelling and artificial intelligence. To be turned into an adequate theory, it needs to be made compatible with the tractability of cognition, the situatedness and dynamical aspects of the mind, the way the brain works, intentionality, and consciousness.
Affective Bodily Awareness

Affective Bodily Awareness
  • Frédérique de Vignemont
  • Published online:
    28 September 2023
    Print publication:
    12 October 2023
    • Element
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      • Open access
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  • Most accounts of bodily self-awareness focus on its sensory and agentive dimensions, tracking the origins of our special relationship with our own body in the way we gain information about it and in the way we act with it. However, they often neglect a fundamental dimension of our subjective bodily life, namely, its affective dimension. This Element will discuss bodily self-awareness through the filter of its affective significance. It is organized around four core themes: (i) the relationship between bodily awareness and action in instrumental and protective contexts, (ii) the motivational role of pain and interoception, (iii) the sense of bodily ownership and its relation to the value of the body for survival, and (iv) bodily anchoring in peripersonal and egocentric awareness. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.
Mental Content

Mental Content
  • Peter Schulte
  • Published online:
    12 August 2023
    Print publication:
    31 August 2023
    • Element
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  • This Element provides a comprehensive introduction to contemporary theories of mental content. After clarifying central concepts and identifying the questions that dominate the current debate, it presents and discusses the principal accounts of the nature of mental content (or mental representation), which include causal, informational, teleological and structuralist approaches, alongside the phenomenal intentionality approach and the intentional stance theory. Additionally, it examines anti-representationalist accounts which question either the existence or the explanatory relevance of mental content. Finally, the Element concludes by considering some recent developments in the debate about mental content, specifically the “explanatory turn” and its implications for questions about representations in basic cognitive systems and the representational character of current empirical theories of cognition.
Embodied and Enactive Approaches to Cognition

Embodied and Enactive Approaches to Cognition
  • Shaun Gallagher
  • Published online:
    11 July 2023
    Print publication:
    03 August 2023
    • Element
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      • Open access
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  • This Element discusses contemporary theories of embodied cognition, including what has been termed the '4Es' (embodied, embedded, extended and enactive cognition). It examines diverse approaches to questions about the nature of the mind, the mind's relation to the brain, perceptual experience, mental representation, sense making, the role of the environment, and social cognition, and it considers the strengths and weaknesses of the theories in question. It contrasts embodied and enactive views with classic cognitivism, and discusses major criticisms and their possible resolutions. This element also provides a strong focus on enactive theory and the prospects for integrating enactive approaches with other embodied and extended theories, mediated through recent developments in predictive processing and the free energy principle. It concludes with a brief discussion of the practical applications of embodied cognition. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.
Biological Cognition

Biological Cognition
  • Bryce Huebner, Jay Schulkin
  • Published online:
    23 November 2022
    Print publication:
    22 December 2022
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  • This Element introduces a biological approach to cognition, which highlights the significance of allostatic regulation and the navigation of challenges and opportunities. It argues that cognition is best understood as a juggling act, which reflects numerous ongoing attempts to minimize disruptions while prioritizing the sources of information that are necessary to satisfy social and biological needs; and it provides a characterization of the architectural constraints, neurotransmitters, and affective states that shape visual perception, as well as the regulatory capacities that sustain flexible patterns of thought and behavior.
Attention and Mental Control

Attention and Mental Control
  • Carolyn Dicey Jennings
  • Published online:
    10 November 2022
    Print publication:
    08 December 2022
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  • Mental control refers to the ability to control our own minds. Its primary expression, attention has become a popular topic for philosophers in the past few decades, generating the need for a primer on the concept. It is related to self-control, which typically refers to the maintenance of preferred behavior in the face of temptation. While a distinct concept, criticisms of self-control can also be applied to mental control, such as that it implies the existence of an unscientific homunculus-like agent or is not a natural kind. Yet, as this Element suggests, a scientifically-grounded account of mental control remains possible. The Element is organized into five main sections, which cover the concept of mental control, the relationship between mental control and attention, the phenomena of meditation and mind-wandering, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and emergence-based accounts of mental control, including an original account by the author.
Imagination and Creative Thinking

Imagination and Creative Thinking
  • Amy Kind
  • Published online:
    08 July 2022
    Print publication:
    28 July 2022
  • This Element explores the nature of both imagination and creative thinking in an effort to understand the relation between them and also to understand their role in the vast array of activities in which they are typically implicated, from art, music, and literature to technology, medicine, and science. Focusing on the contemporary philosophical literature, it will take up several interrelated questions: What is imagination, and how does it fit into the cognitive architecture of the mind? What is creativity? Is imagination required for creativity? Is creativity required for imagination? Is a person simply born either imaginative or not (and likewise, either creative or not), or are imagination and creativity skills that can be cultivated? And finally, are imagination and creativity uniquely human capacities, or can they be had by nonbiological entities such as AI systems?
Mental Illness

Mental Illness
  • Tim Thornton
  • Published online:
    13 May 2022
    Print publication:
    02 June 2022
  • The very idea of mental illness is contested. Given its differences from physical illnesses, is it right to count it, and particular mental illnesses, as genuinely medical as opposed to moral matters? One debate concerns its value-ladenness, which has been used by anti-psychiatrists to argue that it does not exist. Recent attempts to define mental illness divide both on the presence of values and on their consequences. Philosophers and psychiatrists have explored the nature of the general kinds that mental illnesses might comprise, influenced by psychiatric taxonomies such as the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual and the International Classification of Diseases, and the rise of a rival biological 'meta-taxonomy': the Research Domain Criteria (RDoC). The assumption that the concept of mental illness has a culturally invariant core has also been questioned. This Element serves as a guide to these contested debates.
The Metaphysics of Mind

The Metaphysics of Mind
  • Janet Levin
  • Published online:
    10 February 2022
    Print publication:
    10 March 2022
  • The Metaphysics of Mind presents and discusses the major contemporary theories of the nature of mind, including Dualism, Physicalism, Role-Functionalism, Russellian Monism, Panpsychism, and Eliminativism. Its primary goal is to examine the strengths and weaknesses of the theories in question, including their prospects for explaining the special qualitative character of sensations and perceptual experiences, the special outer-directedness of beliefs, desires, and other intentional states, and—more generally—the place of mind in the world of nature, and the relation between mental states and the behaviors that they (seem to) cause. It also discusses, briefly, some further questions about the metaphysics of mind, namely, whether groups of individuals, or entire communities, can possess mental states that cannot be reduced to the mental states of the individuals in those communities, and whether the boundaries between mind and world are as sharp as they may seem.

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