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Ramiro Glauer

Fachhochschule Potsdam University of Applied Sciences, Social and Educational Studies, Post-Doc +1Fachhochschule Potsdam University of Applied Sciences, Social and Educational Studies, Post-DocOtto-von-Guericke-Universität Magdeburg, Philosophy, Faculty Member

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Papers

Coming from a world without objects

Mind & Language, 2020

While research on object individuation assumes that even very young children are able to perceive... more While research on object individuation assumes that even very young children are able to perceive objects as particulars, we argue that the results of relevant studies can be explained in terms of feature discrimination. We propose that children start out navigating the world with a feature-based ontology and only later become able to individuate objects spatiotemporally. Furthermore , object individuation is a cognitively demanding achievement resting on a uniquely human form of enculturation, namely the acquisition of deictic demon-stratives. We conclude by outlining empirical expectations for operationalizations of our proposal. K E Y W O R D S demonstratives, infant cognition, kind-bias, object individuation, reference

No facts without perspectives

Synthese, 2020

Perner and Roessler (in: Aguilar J, Buckareff A (eds) Causing human action: new perspectives on t... more Perner and Roessler (in: Aguilar J, Buckareff A (eds) Causing human action: new perspectives on the causal theory of action, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, pp 199–228, 2010) hold that children who do not yet have an understanding of subjective perspectives, i.e., mental states, explain actions by appealing to objective facts. In this paper, we criticize this view. We argue that in order to understand objective facts, subjects need to understand perspectives. By analysing basic fact-expressing assertions, we show that subjects cannot refer to facts if they do not understand two types of perspectivity, namely, spatial and doxastic perspectivity. To avoid conceptual confusion regarding different ways of referring to facts, we distinguish between reference to facts de re and de dicto.

Sortals, bodies, and variables. A critique of Quine’s theory of reference

Synthese

Among the philosophical accounts of reference, Quine’s (1974) The Roots of Reference stands out i... more Among the philosophical accounts of reference, Quine’s (1974) The Roots of Reference stands out in offering an integrated account of the acquisition of linguistic reference and object individuation. Based on a non-referential ability to distinguish bodies, the acquisition of sortals and quantification are crucial steps in learning to refer to objects. In this article, we critically re-assess Quine’s account of reference. Our critique will proceed in three steps with the aim of showing that Quine effectively presupposes what he sets out to explain, namely, reference to objects. We are going to argue (i) that sortals do not individuate, (ii) that bodies are already objects, and (iii) that the acquisition of variables presupposes a notion of identity. The result is diagnostic of a central desideratum for any theory of reference: an explanation of spatiotemporal object individuation.

The Semantic Reading of Propositionality and Its Relation to Cognitive-Representational Explanations

Why Not Just Features? Reconsidering Infants’ Behavior in Individuation Tasks

Frontiers in Psychology

It counts as empirically proven that infants can individuate objects. Object individuation is ass... more It counts as empirically proven that infants can individuate objects. Object individuation is assumed to be fundamental in the development of infants&#39; ontology within the object-rst account. It crucially relies on an object-le (OF) system, representing both spatiotemporal (&quot;where&quot;) and categorical (&quot;what&quot;) information about objects as solid, cohesive bodies moving continuously in space and time. However, infants&#39; performance in tasks requiring them to use featural information to detect individuation violations appears to be at odds with the object-rst account. In such cases, infants do not appear to be able to develop correct expectations about the numerosity of objects. Recently, proponents of the object-rst account proposed that these individuation failures result from integration errors between the OF system and an additional physical reasoning system. We are going to argue that the predictions of a feature-based physical-reasoning (PR) system are suf cient for explaining infants&#39; behavior. The striking predictive power of the PR system calls into question the relevance of the OF system and, thereby, challenges the assumption that infants can individuate objects early on.

Emergent Mechanisms

Emergent Mechanisms

Emergent mechanisms

PsycEXTRA Dataset, 2000

Emergent Mechanisms

Emergent Mechanisms

Why Not Just Features? Reconsidering Infants' Behavior in Individuation Tasks

by Ramiro Glauer and Hildebrandt Frauke

Frontiers in Psychology, 2020

It counts as empirically proven that infants can individuate objects. Object individuation is ass... more It counts as empirically proven that infants can individuate objects. Object individuation is assumed to be fundamental in the development of infants' ontology within the object-rst account. It crucially relies on an object-le (OF) system, representing both spatiotemporal ("where") and categorical ("what") information about objects as solid, cohesive bodies moving continuously in space and time. However, infants' performance in tasks requiring them to use featural information to detect individuation violations appears to be at odds with the object-rst account. In such cases, infants do not appear to be able to develop correct expectations about the numerosity of objects. Recently, proponents of the object-rst account proposed that these individuation failures result from integration errors between the OF system and an additional physical reasoning system. We are going to argue that the predictions of a feature-based physical-reasoning (PR) system are suf cient for explaining infants' behavior. The striking predictive power of the PR system calls into question the relevance of the OF system and, thereby, challenges the assumption that infants can individuate objects early on.

No facts without perspectives

by Ramiro Glauer and Frauke Hildebrandt

Synthese, 2020

Perner and Roessler (in: Aguilar J, Buckareff A (eds) Causing human action: new perspectives on t... more Perner and Roessler (in: Aguilar J, Buckareff A (eds) Causing human action: new perspectives on the causal theory of action, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, pp 199-228, 2010) hold that children who do not yet have an understanding of subjective perspectives , i.e., mental states, explain actions by appealing to objective facts. In this paper, we criticize this view. We argue that in order to understand objective facts, subjects need to understand perspectives. By analysing basic fact-expressing assertions, we show that subjects cannot refer to facts if they do not understand two types of per-spectivity, namely, spatial and doxastic perspectivity. To avoid conceptual confusion regarding different ways of referring to facts, we distinguish between reference to facts de re and de dicto.

Coming from a world without objects

Mind & Language, 2020

While research on object individuation assumes that even very young children are able to perceive... more While research on object individuation assumes that even very young children are able to perceive objects as particulars, we argue that the results of relevant studies can be explained in terms of feature discrimination. We propose that children start out navigating the world with a feature-based ontology and only later become able to individuate objects spatiotemporally. Furthermore , object individuation is a cognitively demanding achievement resting on a uniquely human form of enculturation, namely the acquisition of deictic demon-stratives. We conclude by outlining empirical expectations for operationalizations of our proposal. K E Y W O R D S demonstratives, infant cognition, kind-bias, object individuation, reference

How Much Philosophy in the Philosophy of Science?

Journal for General Philosophy of Science, 2014

The Semantic Reading of Propositionality and Its Relation to Cognitive-Representational Explanations - A Commentary on Andreas Bartels & Mark May

Bartels and May propose an explanation of the difference between practical and theoretical knowle... more Bartels and May propose an explanation of the difference between practical and theoretical knowledge in terms of the involvement of non-conceptual and concep- tual representations, respectively. They thereby want to alleviate a shortcoming of Stanley’s intellectualist theory of knowledge-how that cannot explain this differ- ence. In this paper it is argued that an appreciation of the fact that both Stanley and Bartels and May employ a semantic reading of propositionality makes clear that their endeavors follow quite different goals. While Stanley gives an analysis of how we talk about knowledge-how, Bartels and May are interested in underly- ing cognitive representations. From Stanley’s analysis of knowledge-how, nothing can be inferred about cognitive representations. The semantic reading of proposi- tionality is then spelled out with the help of the idea that ascriptions of proposi- tional attitudes are (like) measurement statements. Some considerations from measurement theory show how propositions can be used to reason about psycho- logical states without themselves having to play any role in a person’s psycho- logy.

Measuring Propositional Attitudes via an Enriched Minimal Theory of Mind

In the late 1970ies it was proposed that ascriptions of propositional at- titudes (PA ascriptions... more In the late 1970ies it was proposed that ascriptions of propositional at- titudes (PA ascriptions) share their semantic structure with measurement statements. Subsequently, the idea came up that PA ascriptions might actually be the result of proper measurements (cf. Matthews 2007). Ac- cording to standard measurement theory, a measurement structure consists of two formal structures one of which can provably be homomorphically mapped into the other (Krantz et al. 1971). For fundamental measure- ment, one of these structures consists of a number of qualitative, i.e. non- numerical, empirical laws characterizing the domain that is to be measured (Krantz 1972). If PA ascriptions are to be measurements, there should be such an empirical, non-propositional structure that can be homomor- phically mapped into the propositional structure of PA ascriptions. It is suggested that an appropriately enriched minimal Theory of Mind (But- terfill and Apperly 2013) could serve as such an empirical structure for a measurement account of PA ascriptions. Whether a proper measurement theory for PA ascriptions can be formulated on this basis remains to be seen and no attempt at a formalization of a mToM structure is made.

Emergence - A Scientific and Philosophical Notion (extended abstract)

Instant MessagingNeue Räume im Cyperspace

München: …, Jan 1, 2005

2.1 Zugang zur Nutzung des Instant Messagings . . . . . . . . . . . 15 2.2 Die Anbieter des Insta... more 2.1 Zugang zur Nutzung des Instant Messagings . . . . . . . . . . . 15 2.2 Die Anbieter des Instant Messagings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 2.3 Eigenschaften des Mediums &#x27;Instant Messaging&#x27; . . . . . . . . . . 17 2.4 Instant Messaging als netzwerkorientiertes Medium . . . . . . . 20 2.5 ...

What are Reasons? The Current Debate about Justification Externalism and Internalism (Master Thesis)

Talks

Poster - The Non-reductionistic Aspects of Mechanistic Explanation

Emergente Mechanismen

Emergent Mechanism

Bechtel and Richardson (1993) introduce the notion of emergent mechanism as a limit case of mecha... more Bechtel and Richardson (1993) introduce the notion of emergent mechanism as a limit case of mechanistic explanation. With some adjustments concerning the criteria for when a system is to count as emergent, this notion is indeed fruitful and helps us to get clear about the limits of mechanistic explanation. Using Bedau's notion of weak emergence I argue that system properties that are in principle irreducible in practice for finite epistemic agents are beyond mechanistic explainability. To the extent that there are such systems global reductionism fails.

Coming from a world without objects

Mind & Language, 2020

While research on object individuation assumes that even very young children are able to perceive... more While research on object individuation assumes that even very young children are able to perceive objects as particulars, we argue that the results of relevant studies can be explained in terms of feature discrimination. We propose that children start out navigating the world with a feature-based ontology and only later become able to individuate objects spatiotemporally. Furthermore , object individuation is a cognitively demanding achievement resting on a uniquely human form of enculturation, namely the acquisition of deictic demon-stratives. We conclude by outlining empirical expectations for operationalizations of our proposal. K E Y W O R D S demonstratives, infant cognition, kind-bias, object individuation, reference

No facts without perspectives

Synthese, 2020

Perner and Roessler (in: Aguilar J, Buckareff A (eds) Causing human action: new perspectives on t... more Perner and Roessler (in: Aguilar J, Buckareff A (eds) Causing human action: new perspectives on the causal theory of action, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, pp 199–228, 2010) hold that children who do not yet have an understanding of subjective perspectives, i.e., mental states, explain actions by appealing to objective facts. In this paper, we criticize this view. We argue that in order to understand objective facts, subjects need to understand perspectives. By analysing basic fact-expressing assertions, we show that subjects cannot refer to facts if they do not understand two types of perspectivity, namely, spatial and doxastic perspectivity. To avoid conceptual confusion regarding different ways of referring to facts, we distinguish between reference to facts de re and de dicto.

Sortals, bodies, and variables. A critique of Quine’s theory of reference

Synthese

Among the philosophical accounts of reference, Quine’s (1974) The Roots of Reference stands out i... more Among the philosophical accounts of reference, Quine’s (1974) The Roots of Reference stands out in offering an integrated account of the acquisition of linguistic reference and object individuation. Based on a non-referential ability to distinguish bodies, the acquisition of sortals and quantification are crucial steps in learning to refer to objects. In this article, we critically re-assess Quine’s account of reference. Our critique will proceed in three steps with the aim of showing that Quine effectively presupposes what he sets out to explain, namely, reference to objects. We are going to argue (i) that sortals do not individuate, (ii) that bodies are already objects, and (iii) that the acquisition of variables presupposes a notion of identity. The result is diagnostic of a central desideratum for any theory of reference: an explanation of spatiotemporal object individuation.

The Semantic Reading of Propositionality and Its Relation to Cognitive-Representational Explanations

Why Not Just Features? Reconsidering Infants’ Behavior in Individuation Tasks

Frontiers in Psychology

It counts as empirically proven that infants can individuate objects. Object individuation is ass... more It counts as empirically proven that infants can individuate objects. Object individuation is assumed to be fundamental in the development of infants&#39; ontology within the object-rst account. It crucially relies on an object-le (OF) system, representing both spatiotemporal (&quot;where&quot;) and categorical (&quot;what&quot;) information about objects as solid, cohesive bodies moving continuously in space and time. However, infants&#39; performance in tasks requiring them to use featural information to detect individuation violations appears to be at odds with the object-rst account. In such cases, infants do not appear to be able to develop correct expectations about the numerosity of objects. Recently, proponents of the object-rst account proposed that these individuation failures result from integration errors between the OF system and an additional physical reasoning system. We are going to argue that the predictions of a feature-based physical-reasoning (PR) system are suf cient for explaining infants&#39; behavior. The striking predictive power of the PR system calls into question the relevance of the OF system and, thereby, challenges the assumption that infants can individuate objects early on.

Emergent Mechanisms

Emergent Mechanisms

Emergent mechanisms

PsycEXTRA Dataset, 2000

Emergent Mechanisms

Emergent Mechanisms

Why Not Just Features? Reconsidering Infants' Behavior in Individuation Tasks

by Ramiro Glauer and Hildebrandt Frauke

Frontiers in Psychology, 2020

It counts as empirically proven that infants can individuate objects. Object individuation is ass... more It counts as empirically proven that infants can individuate objects. Object individuation is assumed to be fundamental in the development of infants' ontology within the object-rst account. It crucially relies on an object-le (OF) system, representing both spatiotemporal ("where") and categorical ("what") information about objects as solid, cohesive bodies moving continuously in space and time. However, infants' performance in tasks requiring them to use featural information to detect individuation violations appears to be at odds with the object-rst account. In such cases, infants do not appear to be able to develop correct expectations about the numerosity of objects. Recently, proponents of the object-rst account proposed that these individuation failures result from integration errors between the OF system and an additional physical reasoning system. We are going to argue that the predictions of a feature-based physical-reasoning (PR) system are suf cient for explaining infants' behavior. The striking predictive power of the PR system calls into question the relevance of the OF system and, thereby, challenges the assumption that infants can individuate objects early on.

No facts without perspectives

by Ramiro Glauer and Frauke Hildebrandt

Synthese, 2020

Perner and Roessler (in: Aguilar J, Buckareff A (eds) Causing human action: new perspectives on t... more Perner and Roessler (in: Aguilar J, Buckareff A (eds) Causing human action: new perspectives on the causal theory of action, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, pp 199-228, 2010) hold that children who do not yet have an understanding of subjective perspectives , i.e., mental states, explain actions by appealing to objective facts. In this paper, we criticize this view. We argue that in order to understand objective facts, subjects need to understand perspectives. By analysing basic fact-expressing assertions, we show that subjects cannot refer to facts if they do not understand two types of per-spectivity, namely, spatial and doxastic perspectivity. To avoid conceptual confusion regarding different ways of referring to facts, we distinguish between reference to facts de re and de dicto.

Coming from a world without objects

Mind & Language, 2020

While research on object individuation assumes that even very young children are able to perceive... more While research on object individuation assumes that even very young children are able to perceive objects as particulars, we argue that the results of relevant studies can be explained in terms of feature discrimination. We propose that children start out navigating the world with a feature-based ontology and only later become able to individuate objects spatiotemporally. Furthermore , object individuation is a cognitively demanding achievement resting on a uniquely human form of enculturation, namely the acquisition of deictic demon-stratives. We conclude by outlining empirical expectations for operationalizations of our proposal. K E Y W O R D S demonstratives, infant cognition, kind-bias, object individuation, reference

How Much Philosophy in the Philosophy of Science?

Journal for General Philosophy of Science, 2014

The Semantic Reading of Propositionality and Its Relation to Cognitive-Representational Explanations - A Commentary on Andreas Bartels & Mark May

Bartels and May propose an explanation of the difference between practical and theoretical knowle... more Bartels and May propose an explanation of the difference between practical and theoretical knowledge in terms of the involvement of non-conceptual and concep- tual representations, respectively. They thereby want to alleviate a shortcoming of Stanley’s intellectualist theory of knowledge-how that cannot explain this differ- ence. In this paper it is argued that an appreciation of the fact that both Stanley and Bartels and May employ a semantic reading of propositionality makes clear that their endeavors follow quite different goals. While Stanley gives an analysis of how we talk about knowledge-how, Bartels and May are interested in underly- ing cognitive representations. From Stanley’s analysis of knowledge-how, nothing can be inferred about cognitive representations. The semantic reading of proposi- tionality is then spelled out with the help of the idea that ascriptions of proposi- tional attitudes are (like) measurement statements. Some considerations from measurement theory show how propositions can be used to reason about psycho- logical states without themselves having to play any role in a person’s psycho- logy.

Measuring Propositional Attitudes via an Enriched Minimal Theory of Mind

In the late 1970ies it was proposed that ascriptions of propositional at- titudes (PA ascriptions... more In the late 1970ies it was proposed that ascriptions of propositional at- titudes (PA ascriptions) share their semantic structure with measurement statements. Subsequently, the idea came up that PA ascriptions might actually be the result of proper measurements (cf. Matthews 2007). Ac- cording to standard measurement theory, a measurement structure consists of two formal structures one of which can provably be homomorphically mapped into the other (Krantz et al. 1971). For fundamental measure- ment, one of these structures consists of a number of qualitative, i.e. non- numerical, empirical laws characterizing the domain that is to be measured (Krantz 1972). If PA ascriptions are to be measurements, there should be such an empirical, non-propositional structure that can be homomor- phically mapped into the propositional structure of PA ascriptions. It is suggested that an appropriately enriched minimal Theory of Mind (But- terfill and Apperly 2013) could serve as such an empirical structure for a measurement account of PA ascriptions. Whether a proper measurement theory for PA ascriptions can be formulated on this basis remains to be seen and no attempt at a formalization of a mToM structure is made.

Emergence - A Scientific and Philosophical Notion (extended abstract)

Instant MessagingNeue Räume im Cyperspace

München: …, Jan 1, 2005

2.1 Zugang zur Nutzung des Instant Messagings . . . . . . . . . . . 15 2.2 Die Anbieter des Insta... more 2.1 Zugang zur Nutzung des Instant Messagings . . . . . . . . . . . 15 2.2 Die Anbieter des Instant Messagings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 2.3 Eigenschaften des Mediums &#x27;Instant Messaging&#x27; . . . . . . . . . . 17 2.4 Instant Messaging als netzwerkorientiertes Medium . . . . . . . 20 2.5 ...

What are Reasons? The Current Debate about Justification Externalism and Internalism (Master Thesis)

Poster - The Non-reductionistic Aspects of Mechanistic Explanation

Emergente Mechanismen

Emergent Mechanism

Bechtel and Richardson (1993) introduce the notion of emergent mechanism as a limit case of mecha... more Bechtel and Richardson (1993) introduce the notion of emergent mechanism as a limit case of mechanistic explanation. With some adjustments concerning the criteria for when a system is to count as emergent, this notion is indeed fruitful and helps us to get clear about the limits of mechanistic explanation. Using Bedau's notion of weak emergence I argue that system properties that are in principle irreducible in practice for finite epistemic agents are beyond mechanistic explainability. To the extent that there are such systems global reductionism fails.

Reductive Mechanism

The arguments Craver and Bechtel give for the anti-reductionistic character of mechanistic explan... more

Emergent Mechanisms - Reductive Explanation for Limited Beings