In this paper it is analyzed from the informational perspective the relation between mind and body, an ancient philosophic issue defined as a problem, which still did not receive up to date an adequate solution. By introducing/using the concept of information, it is shown that this concept includes two facets, one of them referring to the common communications and another one referring to a hidden/structuring matter-related information, effectively acting in the human body and in the living systems, which determines the (...) dynamic inter-change of information between specific structures of the organism by electric/electronic/chemical agents and genetic/epigenetic processes. It is shown that the maintenance of body, permanently and obligatory depending on the external matter (foods, air, water) resources, needed to provide both the structuring/restructuring basic material and energy, determines the necessary existence of an info-managing system, administrating the internal mechano-chemical/physical processes. As a natural consequence, such a system should organize and assure own survival by an effective informational operability to detect the external food resources, to select the appropriate interest information and to decide as a function of circumstances. One important component in such an informational system is memory, allowing to dispose of the reference informational data for analysis/comparison and the selection between good and bad binary possible decisions. The memory receives and stores therefore signals from external reality and from the body itself, referring to the emotional reaction, digestion status, creation, and inherited predilections, within specific info-neural communication circuits between the brain and body execution/sensitive organs, the human body appearing as an integrated info-matter self-managed dynamic system. The specific body components memorize information with different degrees of info-integration: short/long-term integration, emotive/action reaction, info-abilities, culminating with the integration in the chromosomal structures by epigenetic processes. The new acquired information is transgenerationally transmissible, and is manifested as new traits, showing the adaptation capability of the human and close relation between mind and body. Analyzing the results of such a mind-body informational model in comparison with the earlier assumed/proposed/asserted archaic, Greek and Occidental philosophies, which represent only partial aspects of this relation, it is shown that this informational model, elaborated in terms of information on the basis of scientific reasons and arguments, constitutes a general, realist, and coherent model of the mind-body relation, able to integrate and/or explain most of the others. (shrink)

Georg Cantor's absolute infinity, the paradoxical Burali-Forti class Ω of all ordinals, is a monstrous non-entity for which being called a "class" is an undeserved dignity. This must be the ultimate vexation for mathematical philosophers who hold on to some residual sense of realism in set theory. By careful use of Ω, we can rescue Georg Cantor's 1899 "proof" sketch of the Well-Ordering Theorem––being generous, considering his declining health. We take the contrapositive of Cantor's suggestion and add Zermelo's choice function. (...) This results in a concise and uncomplicated proof of the Well-Ordering Theorem. (shrink)

The goal of this short chapter, aimed at philosophers, is to provide an overview and brief explanation of some central concepts involved in predictive processing (PP). Even those who consider themselves experts on the topic may find it helpful to see how the central terms are used in this collection. To keep things simple, we will first informally define a set of features important to predictive processing, supplemented by some short explanations and an alphabetic glossary. -/- The features described here (...) are not shared in all PP accounts. Some may not be necessary for an individual model; others may be contested. Indeed, not even all authors of this collection will accept all of them. To make this transparent, we have encouraged contributors to indicate briefly which of the features are necessary to support the arguments they provide, and which (if any) are incompatible with their account. For the sake of clarity, we provide the complete list here, very roughly ordered by how central we take them to be for “Vanilla PP” (i.e., a formulation of predictive processing that will probably be accepted by most researchers working on this topic). More detailed explanations will be given below. Note that these features do not specify individually necessary and jointly sufficient conditions for the application of the concept of “predictive processing”. All we currently have is a semantic cluster, with perhaps some overlapping sets of jointly sufficient criteria. The framework is still developing, and it is difficult, maybe impossible, to provide theory-neutral explanations of all PP ideas without already introducing strong background assumptions. (shrink)

This paper defends the view that one's own mental states are metaphysically privileged vis-à-vis the mental states of others, even if only subjectively so. This is an instance of a more general view called Subjectivism, according to which reality is only subjectively the way it is. After characterizing Subjectivism in analogy to two relatively familiar views in the metaphysics of modality and time, I compare the Subjectivist View of the Mental with Egocentric Presentism, a version of Subjectivism recently advocated by (...) Caspar Hare. I argue that the Subjectivist View of the Mental goes a considerable way towards solving certain long-standing philosophical puzzles having to do with the unity of consciousness, the contents of self-awareness and the intransmissibility of experiential knowledge through testimony. (shrink)

In developing a theory of consciousness, one of the main problems has to do with determining what distinguishes conscious states from non-conscious ones—the delimitation problem. This paper explores the possibility of solving this problem in terms of self-awareness. That self-awareness is essential to understanding the nature of our conscious experience is perhaps the most widely discussed hypothesis in the study of consciousness throughout the history of philosophy. Its plausibility hinges on how the notion of self-awareness is unpacked. The idea that (...) consciousness involves self-awareness has been understood in two different ways: either as awareness of oneself—the subject of experience—or as awareness of the conscious episode itself. In this paper I argue (i) that every experience concerns the subject in a very specific way, involving what I will call ‘perspectival de se representation’, and (ii) that there is no need to appeal to the experience itself in order to characterize the awareness within that experience. The view I articulate explains the subjective nature of experience without over-intellectualizing it, accommodates the phenomenology of experience, and dispels any doubt about the need to find the self in introspection. (shrink)

In this paper, I contend that there are at least two essential traits that commonly define being an I: self-identity and self-consciousness. I argue that they bear quite an odd relation to each other in the sense that self-consciousness seems to jeopardize self-identity. My main concern is to elucidate this issue within the range of the transcendental philosophies of Immanuel Kant and Edmund Husserl. In the first section, I shall briefly consider Kant’s own rendition of the problem of the Egosplitting. (...) My reading of the Kantian texts reveals that Kant himself was aware of this phenomenon but eventually deems it an unexplainable fact. The second part of the paper tackles the same problematic from the standpoint of Husserlian phenomenology. What Husserl’s extensive analyses on this topic bring to light is that the phenomenon of the Ego-splitting constitutes the bedrock not only of his thought but also of every philosophy that works within the framework of transcendental thinking. (shrink)

Kant's philosophy promises to explain various synthetic a priori claims. Yet, as several of his commentators have noted, it is hard to see how these explanations could work unless they themselves rested on unexplained synthetic a priori claims. Since Kant appears to demand explanations for all synthetic a priori claims, it would seem that his project fails on its own terms. I argue, however, that Kant holds that explanations are required only for synthetic a priori claims about (purportedly) experience-independent entities, (...) and that his project rests on a rationalist method of reflection that justifies certain basic synthetic a priori claims. (shrink)

Kant is often considered to have argued that perceptual awareness of objects in one's environment depends on the subject's possession of conceptual capacities. This conceptualist interpretation raises an immediate problem concerning the nature of perceptual awareness in non-rational, non-concept using animals. In this paper I argue that Kant’s claims concerning animal representation and consciousness do not foreclose the possibility of attributing to animals the capacity for objective perceptual consciousness, and that a non-conceptualist interpretation of Kant’s position concerning perceptual awareness can (...) actively endorse this attribution. Kant can consistently allow that animals have a point of view on the objective world which possesses a distinctive phenomenal character while denying what seems most important to him – viz. that animals have the capacity to take cognitive attitudes towards, and thus self-ascribe, their own representational states. (shrink)

In attempts to come to grips with Kant’s thought, the influence of the philosophy of Christian Wolff (1679-1754) is often neglected. In this paper, I consider three topics in Kant’s philosophy of mind, broadly construed, where Wolff’s influence is particularly visible: consciousness, self-consciousness, and psychology. I argue that we can better understand Kant’s particular arguments and positions within this context, but also gain a more accurate sense of which aspects of Kant’s accounts derive from the antecedent traditions and which constitute (...) genuine philosophical innovations. (shrink)

This thesis examines the relation between self-deception and self-consciousness. It has been argued that, if we follow the literalist and take self-deception at face value – as a deception that is intended by, and imposed on, one and the same self-conscious subject – then self-deception is impossible. It will incur the Dynamic Problem that, being aware of my intention to self-deceive, I shall see through my projected self-deceit from the outset, thereby precluding its possibility. And it will incur the following (...) Static Problem. Qua self-deceiver, I shall believe not-P, but – qua self-deceived – I shall believe P. We shall then have to explain how I can sustain contradictory beliefs in full self-awareness. I argue that this rejection of literalism about self-deception rests on error. First, it misunderstands what literalism holds. Properly understood, literalism does not require the simultaneous commitment to contradictory beliefs. Second, it misunderstands the relation between self-deception and self-consciousness – and that is my primary focus. The phenomenology of self-deception reveals that the self-deceiver experiences the following tension. She is somehow aware of her self-deception as such. Yet also, she misrepresents that self-deception to herself as being a sincere commitment to the truth – so, in that sense, she is not aware of her self-deceit as such. To capture this tension, we require a theory of self-consciousness – independently defensible in its own right – that will meet this twofold requirement, of permitting the self-deceiver not to see what is right before her gaze. The rejection of literalism presupposes that no theory of self-consciousness can meet this twofold requirement.I argue that this twofold requirement can be met. The first part of this thesis offers a detailed defence of a theory of self-consciousness. The second part shows how this theory of self-consciousness can faithfully capture the tension of self-deception, while eschewing the Dynamic and Static Problems. It thereby claims to vindicate the literalist's position. (shrink)

The article defends Heidegger’s view that the main question of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason is the question of being. It is also argued that Heidegger special understanding of the level and method of KrV deserves serious attention. Finally it is argued that Heidegger’s phenomenological reading of the KrV is best seen as representative of an hermeneutical conception of phenomenology.

This article shows that Rabbi Pinchas Elijah Hurwitz, a major eighteenth-century kabbalist, Orthodox rabbi and Enlightenment thinker, who merged Lurianic Kabbalah with Kantian philosophy, attempted to describe God and the world in terms of formal grammars and abstract information processes. He resolves a number of Kant's dualistic views by introducing prophecy as a tool that allows a mystic's mind to perform transfinite hypercomputation and to obtain a priori knowledge about things usually known only a posteriori. According to Hurwitz, the reality (...) consists of Divine names, which generate an infinite network of recursive string rewriting systems, some of which are identical to what is known today as Lindenmayer systems. Hurwitz is also one of the first thinkers, who raised questions about non-human and artificial intelligence. (shrink)

This article responds to Johan Dahlbeck’s ‘Towards a pure ontology: Children’s bodies and morality’, 2014, pp. 8–23). His arguments from Nietzsche and Spinoza do not carry the weight he supposes, and the conclusions he draws from them about pedagogy would be ill-advised in practice.