# Deflating Deflationism: A Critical Perspective on Debunking Arguments Against LLM Mentality

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.13403 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.13403/

## Key facts

- Cited by 1 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 22 of its 76 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 16 Jun 2025.

## Builds on (most cited first, 22 of 22)

- [Language Models (Mostly) Know What They Know](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2207.05221/) (2022)
- [Ethical and social risks of harm from Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.04359/) (2021)
- [GSM-Symbolic: Understanding the Limitations of Mathematical Reasoning in Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.05229/) (2024)
- [Large Language Models Fail on Trivial Alterations to Theory-of-Mind Tasks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.08399/) (2023)
- [Evaluating the Moral Beliefs Encoded in LLMs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.14324/) (2023)
- [Talking About Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2212.03551/) (2022)
- [Language Models as Agent Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2212.01681/) (2022)
- [The Ethics of Advanced AI Assistants](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.16244/) (2024)
- [Consciousness in Artificial Intelligence: Insights from the Science of Consciousness](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.08708/) (2023)
- [Could a Large Language Model be Conscious?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.07103/) (2023)
- [From task structures to world models: What do LLMs know?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.04276/) (2023)
- [Why Do Large Language Models (LLMs) Struggle to Count Letters?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.18626/) (2024)
- [Standards for Belief Representations in LLMs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.21030/) (2024)
- [Multi-turn Evaluation of Anthropomorphic Behaviours in Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.07077/) (2025)
- [Towards Evaluating AI Systems for Moral Status Using Self-Reports](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.08576/) (2023)
- [Chatbots as social companions: How people perceive consciousness, human likeness, and social health benefits in machines](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.10599/) (2023)
- [Simulacra as Conscious Exotica](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.12422/) (2024)
- [Can LLMs make trade-offs involving stipulated pain and pleasure states?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2411.02432/) (2024)
- [Propositional Interpretability in Artificial Intelligence](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2501.15740/) (2025)
- [Recognizing Artificial Minds: A Philosophical Defense of AI Cognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2504.13988/) (2025)
- [On the attribution of confidence to large language models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.08388/) (2024)
- [LLMs are Not Just Next Token Predictors](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.04666/) (2024)

## Built on by (most cited first, 1 of 1)

- [A Model of Understanding in Deep Learning Systems](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.04171/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Many people feel compelled to interpret, describe, and respond to Large Language Models (LLMs) as if they possess inner mental lives similar to our own. Responses to this phenomenon have varied. Inflationists hold that at least some folk psychological ascriptions to LLMs are warranted. Deflationists argue that all such attributions of mentality to LLMs are misplaced, often cautioning against the risk that anthropomorphic projection may lead to misplaced trust or potentially even confusion about the moral status of LLMs. We advance this debate by assessing two common deflationary arguments against LLM mentality. What we term the 'robustness strategy' aims to undercut one justification for believing that LLMs are minded entities by showing that putatively cognitive and humanlike behaviours are not robust, failing to generalise appropriately. What we term the 'etiological strategy' undercuts attributions of mentality by challenging naive causal explanations of LLM behaviours, offering alternative causal accounts that weaken the case for mental state attributions. While both strategies offer powerful challenges to full-blown inflationism, we find that neither strategy provides a knock-down case against ascriptions of mentality to LLMs simpliciter. With this in mind, we explore a modest form of inflationism that permits ascriptions of mentality to LLMs under certain conditions. Specifically, we argue that folk practice provides a defeasible basis for attributing mental states and capacities to LLMs provided those mental states and capacities can be understood in metaphysically undemanding terms (e.g. knowledge, beliefs and desires), while greater caution is required when attributing metaphysically demanding mental phenomena such as phenomenal consciousness.