Publications of Farkas, K.

Know-wh does not reduce to know-that

Know-wh (knowing what, where etc) ascriptions are ubiquitous in many languages. One standard analysis of know-wh is this: someone knows-wh just in case she knows that p, where p is an answer to the question included in the wh-clause. Additional conditions have also been proposed, but virtually all analyses assume that propositional knowledge of an answer is at least a necessary condition for knowledge-wh (even if it is not sufficient). This paper challenges this assumption, by arguing that there are cases where we have knowledge-wh without knowledge-that of an answer, for example in the cases familiar from arguments for the Extended Mind hypothesis.

Two versions of the extended mind thesis

According to the Extended Mind thesis, the mind extends beyond the skull or the skin: mental processes can constitutively include external devices, like a computer or a notebook. The Extended Mind thesis has drawn both support and criticism. However, most discussions – including those by its original defenders, Andy Clark and David Chalmers – fail to distinguish between two very different interpretations of this thesis. The first version claims that the physical basis of mental features can be located spatially outside the body. Once we accept that the mind depends on physical events to some extent, this thesis, though not obvious, is compatible with a large variety of views on the mind. The second version applies to standing states only, and has to do with how we conceive the nature of such states. This second version is much more interesting, because it points to a potential tension in our conception of minds or selves. However, without properly distinguishing between the two theses, the significance of the second is obscured by the comparative triviality of the first.

Phenomenal intentionality without compromise

In recent years, several philosophers have defended the idea of phenomenal intentionality: the intrinsic directedness of certain conscious mental events which is inseparable from these events’ phenomenal character. On this conception, phenomenology is usually conceived as narrow, that is, as supervening on the internal states of subjects, and hence phenomenal intentionality is a form of narrow intentionality. However, defenders of this idea usually maintain that there is another kind of, externalistic intentionality, which depends on factors external to the subject. We may ask whether this concession to content externalism is obligatory. In this paper, I shall argue that it isn’t. I shall suggest that if one is convinced that narrow phenomenal intentionality is legitimate, there is nothing stopping one from claiming that all intentionality is narrow.

Indiscriminability and the Sameness of Appearance

How exactly should the relation between a veridical perception and a corresponding hallucination be understood? I argue that the epistemic notion of 'indiscriminability', understood as a lack of evidence for the distinctness of things, is not suitable for defining this relation. Instead, we should say that a hallucination and a veridical perception involve the same phenomenal properties. This has further consequences for attempts to give necessary and sufficient conditions for the identity of phenomenal properties in terms of indiscriminability, and for considerations about the phenomenal sorites.

The unity of Descartes's thought

Dualism--that the world divides to the mental and the corporeal--is a central tenet in Descartes's philosophy. It is therefore puzzling that Descartes sometimes suggests that certain phenomena--including perceptions, sensations, emotions, called the 'special modes'--belong to neither mind nor body alone, but specifically to the union of the two. It has been suggested that accordingly, we should regard Descartes as a 'trialist' rather than a dualist. I criticize the 'trialist' interpretation, and offer an explanation of the theory of the special modes which reveals it to be perfectly compatible with Descartes's dualism.

The Threefold Cord: Mind, Body and World

Reviews the book "The Threefold Cord: Mind, Body, and World," by Hilary Putnam.

What is externalism?

The content of the externalist thesis about the mind depends crucially on how we define the distinction between the "internal" and the "external". According to the usual understanding, the boundary between the internal and the external is the skull or the skin of the subject. In this paper I argue that the usual understanding is inadequate, and that only the new understanding of the external/internal distinction I suggest helps us to understand the issue of the compatibility of externalism and privileged access.