Papers by Yair Levy
The Journal of Philosophy (forthcoming), 2024
Mind wandering has been a target of a fast-expanding area of research in cognitive science and ph... more Mind wandering has been a target of a fast-expanding area of research in cognitive science and philosophy. One of the central puzzles that researchers have been grappling with is whether this mental process should be thought of as passive or active in nature. Intuitively, a wandering mind seems passive but mounting empirical evidence suggests otherwise. Irving (2021) defends a prominent account of mind wandering as unguided attention, which aims inter alia to resolve the puzzle. However, I present counterexamples that reveal Irving’s account to be both too weak and too strong. I then develop the alternative proposal that (stated roughly) mind wandering consists in voluntarily passive attention. After unpacking and defending this idea, I show how it helps to eliminate the conflicting appearance of mind wandering as both passive and active.
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The Philosophical Quarterly (forthcoming)
Philosophical orthodoxy has it that intentional action consists in one's intention appropriately ... more Philosophical orthodoxy has it that intentional action consists in one's intention appropriately causing a motion of one's body, placing the latter as (conceptually and/or metaphysically) prior to the former. Here I argue that this standard schema should be reversed: acting intentionally is at least conceptually prior to intending. The argument is modelled on a Williamsonian argument for the priority of knowledge developed by Jenifer Nagel. She argues that children acquire the concept KNOWS before they acquire BELIEVES, building on this alleged developmental priority of knowledge to establish its conceptual priority. I start by taking a closer look at Nagel's argument, canvassing extant objections to do both with the empirical adequacy of her claims and their philosophical implications. Doing so allows me in the second part of the paper to draw lessons that inform the construction of a revamped parallel argument for the priority of ACTS INTENTIONALLY.
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Inquiry (forthcoming)
The paper aims to defend the standard view of what it dubs ‘Self-understanding' — i.e., (very rou... more The paper aims to defend the standard view of what it dubs ‘Self-understanding' — i.e., (very roughly) our knowledge of why we behave as we do — from the threat posed to it by Neo-Ryleanism. While the standard, entrenched view regards self-understanding as special in kind and status, the Neo-Rylean agrees with Gilbert Ryle that our method of understanding ourselves is much the same as our method of understanding others, involving self-interpretation on the basis of the available evidence. Neo-Ryleanism has been gaining ground in recent decades, fueled by a wide range of empirical results which allegedly demonstrate that subjects confabulate items of self-understanding. The paper rejects this attack on the received view. After critically examining one extant response to the Neo-Rylean, which gratuitously accuses her of equivocation, the paper proceeds to offer its own response, casting doubt over the suggestion that the experimental results actually demonstrate widespread confabulation.
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Mental Action and The Conscious Mind (Routledge, forthcoming)
This chapter contributes to the ongoing debate over how to understand attention. It spells out an... more This chapter contributes to the ongoing debate over how to understand attention. It spells out and defends a novel account according to which attending is the most general type of mental act, that which one performs on some object if one performs any mental act on it at all. On this view, all mental acts are (to a first, rough approximation) species of attending. The view is novel in going against the grain of virtually all extant accounts, which work by identifying the purported unique functional role of attention. It is inspired by Timothy Williamson’s account of knowledge as the most general factive mental state (Williamson, 2001: ch. 1). Beyond the Williamsonian thin explanation of knowledge, the account of attention as the most general mental act is animated by two striking pre-theoretical features of attention, dubbed Ubiquity and Heterogeneity. The hope of accommodating these twin features seems to drive at least two other extant accounts of attention, very different from the one proposed here, offered by Mole and Wu, respectively. However, as the chapter explains, both Mole’s and Wu’s accounts fall short, leaving room for the novel account defended here, which does adequately capture both features.
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Ratio, 2020
The paper proposes a novel solution to the problem of the time of a killing (ToK), which persiste... more The paper proposes a novel solution to the problem of the time of a killing (ToK), which persistently besets theories of act-individuation. The solution proposed claims to expose a crucial wrong-headed assumption in the debate, according to which ToK is essentially a problem of locating some event that corresponds to the killing. The alternative proposal put forward here turns on recognizing a separate category of dynamic occurents, viz. processes. The paper does not aim to mount a comprehensive defense of process ontology, relying instead on extant defenses. The primary aim is rather to put process ontology to work in diagnosing the current state of play over ToK, and indeed in solving it.
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American Philosophical Quarterly, 2021
The overwhelmingly predominant view in philosophy sees intending as a mental state, specifically ... more The overwhelmingly predominant view in philosophy sees intending as a mental state, specifically a plan-like state. This paper rejects the predominant view in favour of a starkly opposed novel alternative. After criticizing both the predominant Bratman-esque view of intention, and an alternative view inspired by Michael Thompson, the paper proceeds to set out and defend the idea that acting with an intention to V should be understood disjunctively, as (roughy) either one's V-ing intentionally or one's performing some kind of failed intentional V-ing, where the two disjuncts share no common state of intention. Instructive structural parallels to perceptual disjunctivism are pointed out, and the view is shown, unlike its rivals, to successfully extend to capture both prospective and present intention, thereby unifying the three different guises of intention.
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The Journal of Value Inquiry, 2019
I describe a new problem for metaethical constructivism. The problem arises when agents make conf... more I describe a new problem for metaethical constructivism. The problem arises when agents make conflicting judgments, so that the constructivist is implausibly committed to denying they have any reason for any of the available options. The problem is illustrated primarily with reference to Sharon Street's version of constructivism. Several possible solutions to the problem are explained and rejected.
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Philosophical Psychology, 2019
There has been a resurgence of interest lately within philosophy of mind and action in the catego... more There has been a resurgence of interest lately within philosophy of mind and action in the category of mental action. Against this background, the present paper aims to question the very possibility, or at least the theoretical significance, of teasing apart mental and bodily acts. After raising some doubts over the viability of various possible ways of drawing the mental act/bodily act distinction, the paper draws some lessons from debates over embodied cognition, which arguably further undermine the credibility of the distinction. The insignificance of the distinction is demonstrated in part by showing how the focus on 'inner' acts hampers fruitful discussion of Galen Strawson's skepticism of mental agency. Finally, the possibility is discussed that a distinction between covert and overt action should supplant the one between mental and bodily action.
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Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 2020
Evolutionary debunking arguments appeal to selective etiologies of human morality in an attempt t... more Evolutionary debunking arguments appeal to selective etiologies of human morality in an attempt to undermine moral realism. But is morality actually the product of evolution by natural selection? Although debunking arguments have attracted considerable attention in recent years, little of it has been devoted to whether the underlying evolutionary assumptions are credible. In this paper, we take a closer look at the evolutionary hypotheses put forward by two leading debunkers, namely Sharon Street and Richard Joyce. We raise a battery of considerations, both empirical and theoretical, that combine to cast doubt on the plausibility of both hypotheses. We also suggest that it is unlikely that there is in the vicinity a plausible alternative hypothesis suitable for the debunker's cause.
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Mind & Language, 2019
The nature of attention has been the topic of a lively research programme in psychology for over ... more The nature of attention has been the topic of a lively research programme in psychology for over a century. But there is widespread agreement that none of the theories on offer manage to fully capture the nature of attention. Recently, philosophers have become interested in the debate again after a prolonged period of neglect. This paper contributes to the project of explaining the nature of attention. It starts off by critically examining Christopher Mole's prominent " adverbial " account of attention, which traces the failure of extant psychological theories to their assumption that attending is a kind of process. It then defends an alternative, process-based view of the metaphysics of attention, on which attention is understood as an activity and not, as psychologists seem to implicitly assume, an accomplishment. The entrenched distinction between accomplishments and activities is shown to shed new light on the metaphysics of attention. It also provides a novel diagnosis of the empirical state of play.
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Canadian Journal of Philosophy, 2018
Intention Cognitivism – the doctrine that intending to V entails, or even consists in, believing ... more Intention Cognitivism – the doctrine that intending to V entails, or even consists in, believing that one will V – is an important position with potentially wide-ranging implications, such as a revisionary understanding of practical reason, and a vindicating explanation of 'Practical Knowledge'. In this paper, I critically examine the standard arguments adduced in support of IC, including arguments from the parity of expression of intention and belief; from the ability to plan around one's intention; and from the explanation provided by the thesis for our knowledge of our intentional acts. I conclude that none of these arguments are compelling, and therefore that no good reason has been given to accept IC.
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Synthese , 2018
Rationality requires that our mental attitudes exhibit specific patterns of coherence. Do we have... more Rationality requires that our mental attitudes exhibit specific patterns of coherence. Do we have reason to comply? 'Prichardian Quietists' regard this question as fundamentally confused: the only reasons to comply with rational requirements are the ones given by the requirements themselves. In this paper, I argue that PQ fails. I proceed by granting that Prichard's own position, from which PQ draws inspiration, is defensible, while identifying three serious problems with the parallel position about rationality. First, as I argue, PQ is not plausibly combined with either the narrow-scope or the wide-scope formulations of rational requirements. Second, PQ implies that the reasons to comply with rational requirements are reasons of the wrong kind. And finally, PQ lacks a crucial component of its explanation, viz. a plausible theory of what constitutes being rationally required to V.
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Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy, 2016
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The Philosophical Quarterly, 2016
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Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy, 2014
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Philosophical Studies , 2015
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the Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 2013
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Book Reviews by Yair Levy
Mind, 2015
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Papers by Yair Levy
Book Reviews by Yair Levy