Both through his own work and that of his students, Franz Clemens Brentano had an often underappreciated influence on the course of 20 th - and 21 st -century philosophy. _The Routledge Handbook of Franz Brentano and the Brentano School_ offers full coverage of Brentano’s philosophy and his influence. It contains 38 brand-new essays from an international team of experts that offer a comprehensive view of Brentano’s central research areas—philosophy of mind, metaphysics, and value theory—as well as of the principal (...) figures shaped by Brentano’s school of thought. A General Introduction serves as an overview of Brentano and the contents of the volume and three separate bibliographies point students and researchers on to further avenues of inquiry. Systematic and detailed, _The Routledge Handbook of Franz Brentano and the Brentano School_ provides readers with a valuable reference to Brentano’s work, and to his lasting importance in the history of philosophy and in contemporary debates. (shrink)

Intentionality, or the power of minds to be about, to represent, or to stand for things, remains central in the philosophy of mind. But the study of intentionality in the analytic tradition has been dominated by discussions of propositional attitudes such as belief, desire, and visual perception. There are, however, intentional states that aren't obviously propositional attitudes. For example, Indiana Jones fears snakes, Antony loves Cleopatra, and Jane hates the monster under her bed. The present paper explores such mental states (...) in an introductory but opinionated way. (shrink)

According to Crane’s schematicity thesis (ST) about intentional objects, intentionalia have no particular metaphysical nature qua thought-of entities; moreover, the real metaphysical nature of intentionalia is various, insofar as it is settled independently of the fact that intentionalia are targets of one’s thought. As I will point out, ST has the ontological consequence that the intentionalia that really belong to the general inventory of what there is, the overall domain, are those that fall under a good metaphysical kind, i.e., a (...) kind such that its members figure (for independent reasons) in such an inventory. Negatively put, if there are no things of a certain metaphysical kind, thoughts about things of that kind are not really committed to such things. Pace Crane, however, this does not mean that the intentionalia that are really there are only those that exist. For existence, qua first-order property, is no metaphysical kind. Thus, there may really be intentionalia that do not exist, provided that they belong to good metaphysical kinds. (shrink)

Most contemporary philosophical discussions of intentionality start and end with a treatment of the propositional attitudes. In fact, many theorists hold that all attitudes are propositional attitudes. Our folk-psychological ascriptions suggest, however, that there are non-propositional attitudes: I like Sally, my brother fears snakes, everyone loves my grandmother, and Rush Limbaugh hates Obama. I argue that things are as they appear: there are non-propositional attitudes. More specifically, I argue that there are attitudes that relate individuals to non-propositional objects and do (...) so not in virtue of relating them to propositions. I reach this conclusion by not only showing that attempted analyses of apparently non-propositional attitudes in terms of the propositional fail, but that some non-propositional attitudes don’t even supervene on propositional attitudes. If this is correct, then the common discussions of intentionality that address only propositional attitudes are incomplete and those who hold that all intentional states are propositional are mistaken. (shrink)

Here the relationship between understanding and knowledge of meaning is discussed from two different perspectives: that of Dummettian semantic anti-realism and that of the semantic externalism of Putnam and others. The question addressed is whether or not the truth of semantic externalism would undermine a central premise in one of Dummetts key arguments for anti-realism, insofar as Dummetts premise involves an assumption about the transparency of meaning and semantic externalism is often taken to undermine such transparency. Several notions of transparency (...) and conveyability of meaning are distinguished and it is argued that, though the Dummettian argument for anti-realism presupposes only a weak connection between knowledge of meaning and understanding, even this much is not trivially true in light of semantic externalism, and that semantic externalism, if true, would thus represent a reason for rejecting the crucial assumption on which the Dummettian argument depends. (shrink)

Assume that water reduces to H2O. If so water is identical to H2O. At the same time, if water reduces to H2O then H2O does not reduce to water–the reduction relation is asymmetric. This generates a puzzle–if water just is H2O it is hard to see how we can account for the asymmetry of the reduction relation. The paper proposes a solution to this puzzle. It is argued that the reduction predicate generates intensional contexts and that in order to account (...) for the asymmetry, we should develop conditions on the meanings of expressions that flank the reduction predicate in true reduction statements. Finally, it is argued that if we adopt this interpretation, we can illuminate the epistemological difference between reduced and reducing item commonly referred to in the literature. (shrink)

It is widely held that there is a problem of talking about or otherwise representing things that not exist. But what exactly is this problem? This paper presents a formulation of the problem in terms of the conflict between the fact that there are truths about non-existent things and the fact that truths must be answerable to reality, how things are. Given this, the problem of singular negative existential statements is no longer the central or most difficult aspect of the (...) problem of non-existence, despite what some philosophers say. (shrink)

According to the old feeling theory of emotion, an emotion is just a feeling: a conscious experience with a characteristic phenomenal character. This theory is widely dismissed in contemporary discussions of emotion as hopelessly naïve. In particular, it is thought to suffer from two fatal drawbacks: its inability to account for the cognitive dimension of emotion (which is thought to go beyond the phenomenal dimension), and its inability to accommodate unconscious emotions (which, of course, lack any phenomenal character). In this (...) paper, I argue that the old feeling theory is in reality only a pair of modifications removed from a highly plausible account of the nature of emotion that retains the essential connection between emotion and feeling. These modifications are, moreover, motivated by recent developments in work on phenomenal consciousness. The first development is the rising recognition of a phenomenal character proper to cognition—so-called cognitive phenomenology. The second is the gathering momentum behind various ‘connection principles’ that specify some connection that a given state must bear to phenomenally conscious states in order to qualify as mental. These developments make it possible to formulate a new feeling theory of emotion, which would overcome the two fatal drawbacks of the old feeling theory. According to the new feeling theory, an emotion is a mental state that bears the right connection to conscious experiences with the right phenomenal character (involving, among other elements, a cognitive phenomenology). (shrink)

In this article, I argue that a capacity for mindreading conceived along the line of simulation theory provides the cognitive basis for forming we-centric representations of actions and goals. This explains the plural first personal stance displayed by we-intentions in terms of the underlying cognitive processes performed by individual minds, while preserving the idea that they cannot be analyzed in terms of individual intentional states. The implication for social ontology is that this makes sense of the plural subjectivity of joint (...) actions without making group agents require either a corporate body or the unity of consciousness. (shrink)

Conceptualism is the thesis that, for any perceptual experience E, (i) E has a Fregean proposition as its content and (ii) a subject of E must possess a concept for each item represented by E. We advance a framework within which conceptualism may be defended against its most serious objections (e.g., Richard Heck's argument from nonveridical experience). The framework is of independent interest for the philosophy of mind and epistemology given its implications for debates regarding transparency, relationalism and representationalism, demonstrative (...) thought, phenomenal character, and the speckled hen objection to modest foundationalism. (shrink)

In this paper I examine William Ockham’s theory of judgment and, in particular, his account of the nature and ontological status of its objects. Commentators, both past and present, habitually interpret Ockham as defending a kind of anti-realism about objects of judgment. My aim in this paper is two-fold. The first is to show that the traditional interpretation rests on a failure to appreciate the ways in which Ockham’s theory of judgment changes over the course of his career. The second, (...) and larger, aim is to show that careful attention to these changes in Ockham’s account (and to the motivations for them) sheds new light on broader developments in his philosophy of mind—specifically, on his views about the nature of concepts and on his account of the nature and structure of intentionality itself. (shrink)

In his (2001a) and in some related papers, Tim Crane has maintained that intentional objects are schematic entities, in the sense that, insofar as being an intentional object is not a genuine metaphysical category, qua objects of thought intentional objects have no particular nature. This approach to intentionalia is the metaphysical counterpart of the later Husserl's ontological approach to the same entities, according to which qua objects of thought intentionalia are indifferent to existence. But to buy a metaphysically deflationary approach (...) does not mean to buy an ontologically deflationary approach, according to which we have to accept all the intentional objects there apparently are. Being metaphysically deflationary on intentionalia rather means that from the ontological point of view one must really allow only for those intentionalia for which one is entitled to say that there are such things; typically, for which an ontological proof is available. From metaphysical schematism plus conditional, or partial, ontological committment to intentionalia, further interesting consequences follow. First, this theoretical combination allows one to deal with the ‘too-many entities’ problem (may one fail to accept an ontological proof for an entity of a given kind if she thinks that the entity we would have to be committed to is an entity of another kind?). Second, it allows one to deal with the ‘genuinely true report’ problem (how is it that if we exercise mindreading with respect to a somehow deluded person, we want our reports to come out as really, not merely fictionally, true?). (shrink)

Events are center stage in several fields of psychological research. There is a long tradition in the study of event perception, event recognition, event memory, event conceptualization and segmentation. There are studies devoted to the description of events in language and to their representation in the brain. There are also metapsychological studies aimed at assessing the nature of mental events or the grounding of intentional action. Outside psychology, the notion of an event plays a prominent role in various areas of (...) philosophy as well as in such diverse disciplines as linguistics, probability theory, artifical intelligence, physics, and�of course� history. This plethora of concerns and applications is indicative of the prima facie centrality of the notion of an event in our conceptual scheme, but it also gives rise to some important methodological questions. Can we identify a core notion that is preserved across disciplines? Does this notion, or some such notion, correspond to the pre-theoretical conception countenanced by common sense? Does it correspond to a genuine metaphysical category? (shrink)

Today, many philosophers think that perceptual experiences are conscious mental states with representational content and phenomenal character. Subscribers to this view often go on to construe experience more precisely as a propositional attitude sui generis ascribing sensible properties to ordinary material objects. I argue that experience is better construed as a kind of belief ascribing 'phenomenal' properties to such objects. A belief theory of this kind deals as well with the traditional arguments against doxastic accounts as the sui generis view. (...) Moreover, in contrast to sui generis views, it can quite easily account for the rational or reason providing role of experience. (shrink)

In their excellent book The Phenomenological Mind Shaun Gallagher and Dan Zahavi demonstrate that analytic philosophy of mind and cognitive science have much to learn from work conducted in the phenomenological tradition. In particular, they show how discussions about embodied cognition, about the self, and about mind-reading could be greatly enhanced if the lessons of phenomenology were heeded to. However, their discussion of the structure of intentionality is, in my view, less successful in this regard.

The issue of downward causation (and mental causation in particular), and the exclusion problem is discussed by taking into account some recent advances in the philosophy of science. The problem is viewed from the perspective of the new interventionist theory of causation developed by Woodward. It is argued that from this viewpoint, a higher-level (e.g., mental) state can sometimes truly be causally relevant, and moreover, that the underlying physical state which realizes it may fail to be such.

Increasingly prominent in the recent literature on the philosophy of perception, Intentionalism holds that sensory experience is inherently intentional, where to be intentional is to be about, or directed on, something. This article explores Intentionalism's prospects as a viable ontological and epistemological alternative to the traditional trinity of theories of sensory experience: the Sense-Datum Theory, the Adverbial Theory, and the Theory of Appearing.

Brentano (1874) described intentionality in a number of different ways: as ‘the intentional inexistence of an object’, ‘reference to a content’, ‘direction towards an object’, and ‘immanent objectivity’. All these phrases were intended to mean the same thing, but such elegant variation can give rise to confusion. In my Elements of Mind (2001) I tried to give a simpler description: intentional states all involve directedness upon an object and what I call (following Searle 1992) aspectual shape. My aim in doing (...) this was to introduce an understanding of intentionality that (a) allows theorists of intentionality to agree on the fundamentals of the phenomenon, but disagree about the details; and (b) leaves the question open whether all mental states are intentional. (shrink)

'Propositionalism' is the widely held view that all intentional mental relations-all intentional attitudes-are relations to propositions or something proposition-like. Paradigmatically, to think about the mountain is ipso facto to think that it is F, for some predicate 'F'. It seems, however, many intentional attitudes are not relations to propositions at all: Mary contemplates Jonah, adores New York, misses Athens, mourns her brother. I argue, following Brentano, Husserl, Church and Montague among others, that the way things seem is the way they (...) are, and that propositionalism must be abandoned. (shrink)

The ontology of (merely) intentional objects is a can of worms. If we can avoid ontological commitment to such entities, we should. In this paper, I offer a strategy for accomplishing that. This is to reject the traditional act-object account of intentionality in favor of an adverbial account. According to adverbialism about intentionality, having a dragon thought is not a matter of bearing the thinking-about relation to dragons, but of engaging in the activity of thinking dragon-wise.

The problem of mental causation is discussed by taking into account some recent developments in the philosophy of science. The problem is viewed from the perspective of the new interventionist theory of causation developed by Woodward. The import of the idea that causal claims involve contrastive classes in mental causation is also discussed. It is argued that mental causation is much less a problem than it has appeared to be.

Visual space can be distinguished from physical space. The first is found in visual experience, while the second is defined independently of perception. Theorists have wondered about the relation between the two. Some investigators have concluded that visual space is non-Euclidean, and that it does not have a single metric structure. Here it is argued that visual space exhibits contraction in all three dimensions with increasing distance from the observer, that experienced features of this contraction are not the same as (...) would be the experience of a perspective projection onto a fronto-parallel plane, and that such contraction is consistent with size constancy. These properties of visual space are different from those that would be predicted if spatial perception resulted from the successful solution of the inverse problem. They are consistent with the notion that optical constraints have been internalized. More generally, they are also consistent with the notion that visual spatial structures bear a resemblance relation to physical spatial structures. This notion supports a type of representational relation that is distinct from mere causal correspondence. The reticence of some philosophers and psychologists to discuss the structure of phenomenal space is diagnosed in terms of the simple materialism and the functionalism of the 1970s and 1980s. (shrink)

Qualia inversion thought experiments are ubiquitous in contemporary philosophy of mind. The most popular kind is one or another variant of Locke's hypothetical case of.

endorsed one kind of inverted spectrum hypothesis and rejected another. This paper argues that the kind of inverted spectrum hypothesis that Wittgenstein endorsed is the thin end of the wedge that precludes a Wittgensteinian critique of the kind of inverted spectrum hypothesis he rejected. The danger of the dangerous kind is that it provides an argument for qualia, where qualia are contents of experiential states which cannot be fully captured in natural language. I will pinpoint the difference between the innocuous (...) and dangerous scenarios that matters for the argument for qualia, give arguments in favor of the coherence and possibility of the dangerous scenario, and try to show that some standard arguments against inverted spectra are ineffective against the version of the dangerous scenario I will be advocating. The leading idea of the paper is that an argument for qualia based on spectrum inversion does not require that the inversion be behaviorally indistinguishable. At one crucial point, I will rely on a less controversial version of an argument I gave in Block. Wittgenstein's views provide a convenient starting point for a paper that is much more about qualia than about Wittgenstein. (shrink)

Higher-Order Representational theories of consciousness — HORs — primarily seek to explain a mental state’s being conscious in terms of the mental state’s being represented by another mental state. First-Order Representational theories of consciousness — FORs — primarily seek to explain a property’s being phenomenal in terms of the property being represented in experience. Despite differences in both explanans and explananda, HORs and FORs share a reliance on there being such a property as being represented. In this paper I develop (...) an argument — the Unicorn Argument — against both HORs and FORs. The core of the Unicorn is that since there are mental rep- resentations of things that do not exist, there cannot be any such prop- erty as being represented, and thus no such property with which to identify either being conscious or being phenomenal. (shrink)

I am very sympathetic to Dan Hutto’s view that in our experience of the emotions of others “we do not neutrally observe the outward behaviour of another and infer coldly, but on less than certain grounds, that they are in such and such an inner state, as justifi ed by analogy with our own case. Rather we react and feel as we do because it is natural for us to see and be moved by specifi c expressions of emotion in (...) others” (Hutto section 4). Th is seems to me to be a good starting point for any account of the ascription and epistemology of emotions, an excellent description of data that any theory of the emotions has to take into account. What I fi nd puzzling is that Hutto seems to believe that this view is in opposition to certain widely accepted metaphysical assumptions about mental phenomena, and that these assumptions must be dispensed with if we are to give a proper account of emotion and avoid the problems which philosophy has traditionally had with the emotions. This collection of assumptions about the mental is what Hutto calls the ‘object-based schema.’ Th e details of these assumptions will be discussed below; but the points I want to make in this note are (a) that Hutto is wrong in thinking that the plausible claims he makes about emotion (quoted above) require us to deny the object-based schema; and (b) that he is wrong in his claim that the object-based schema is entirely mistaken. Having established this, I will then make some remarks about Hutto’s attack on my view of intentionality. (shrink)

P.F. Strawson argued that ‘mature sensible experience (in general) presents itself as … an immediate consciousness of the existence of things outside us’ (1979: 97). He began his defence of this very natural idea by asking how someone might typically give a description of their current visual experience, and offered this example of such a description: ‘I see the red light of the setting sun filtering through the black and thickly clustered branches of the elms; I see the dappled deer (...) grazing in groups on the vivid green grass…’ (1979: 97). In other words, in describing experience, we tend to describe the objects of experience – the things which we experience – and the ways they are when we are experiencing them. Some go further. According to Heidegger. (shrink)

One of Mark Textor’s main aims in Brentano’s Mind is to refute Brentano’s claim that intentionality – the capacity our mental acts have for being of, about, or directed on something – is the mark of the mental. I defend the view that Brentano analysed intentionality in terms of intentional inexistence (and so wasn’t an intentionality primitivist as Textor suggests). And I argue that we can regard intentionality as being the mark of the mental, but only if we give a (...) non-relational analysis of the idea of intentional inexistence. Textor objects to an analysis of intentionality in terms of intentional inexistence for failing to account for the relationship between the object our mental act is directed on, and the ‘immanent’ or ‘inexistent’ object which all mental acts contain. I claim that this problem doesn’t arise if the object our mental act is directed on just is the immanent/ inexistent object. I argue that Brentano (at least sometimes) seems to identify the two. I then offer my own view of intentionality according to which our mental acts are directed on immanent/ inexistent objects, and that ‘directedness’ should be understood non-relationally. (shrink)

Laura Gow, Uriah Kriegel, Hamid Taieb, and David Woodruff Smith raised help – and insightful points of criticism about my book Brentano’s Mind. In this paper, I will defend and expand on the main claims of the book. My responses are organized around four topics: Psychology without a Soul, Plural Intentionality (and Conceptual Parts), Intentionality and Intentionality Primitivism, Mark of Mental.

Once one draws a distinction between loyal non-existent items, which do not exist in a non-universal sense of the first-order existence predicate, and non-items, which fail to exist in a universal sense of that predicate, one may allow for the former but not for the latter in the overall ontological domain, so as to adopt a form of soft Parmenideanism. There are both theoretical and empirical reasons for this distinction.

Representationalism is a philosophical position which reduces all phenomenal conscious states to intentional states. However, starting from the phenomenal consciousness, the phenomenal intentionality theory provides an explanation of all sorts of intentionality. Against Michael Shim's interpretation, I argue that, although Hussserl's phenomenology is certainly considered as an antipode of strong representationalism, Husserl does not stand in opposition the weak representationalists, because Husserl maintains an essential connection between the senses of noemata and the hyletic data. In addition, Husserl's phenomenology is also (...) consistent with the phenomenal theory of intentionality. According to him, statically and genetically, all non-phenomenal intentional states take a recourse to phenomenal intentional states and eventually to sensual perceptions. (shrink)

This paper is a contribution to the philosophical debate on visual blur from a relationalist perspective. At the same time, it offers a methodological reflection on the adequacy of explanations of phenomenal similarities and differences among perceptual experiences. The debate on seeing blurrily has been shaped by two implicit assumptions concerning our explanations of differences and similarities between experiences of seeing blurrily and other experiences. I call those assumptions into question, and argue that we do not need to provide a (...) unified explanation of the character of blurry experiences for our account to be adequate. The diversity of blurry experiences supports a different, pluralist approach to explanations of how things appear to subjects. (shrink)

This paper answers a philosophical challenge that emerges when we problematize the seemingly trivial "fact" that, on the one hand, through our senses we are presented with a realm that is not of our own making; while, on the other hand, various perceivers are acquainted with diverse presentations of this realm, depending on their perspective and cognitive machinery. The challenge is dubbed here the problem of presentations. The paper draws on the idea of situation-dependent properties proposed by Susanna Schellenberg. However, (...) the paper takes the notion of situation more seriously and introduces a number of basic notions borrowed from situated cognition—a cluster of ideas that have recently emerged in the philosophy of mind. These make it possible to introduce the perceiver in such a way as not to endanger the objective character of situation-dependent properties. Thought of this way, situation-dependent properties are in turn described as the building blocks of presentations. (shrink)

Brentano’s suggestion that intentionality is the mark of the mental is typically spelled out in terms of the thesis that all and only mental states are intentional. An influential objection is that intentionality is not necessary for mentality. What about the idea that only mental states are intentional? In his 2008 paper published in Analysis, Nes shows that on a popular characterization of intentionality, notably defended by Crane, some non-mental states come out as intentional. Crane replies that the concept of (...) representation solves the problem. In this paper, I argue that no representational account of intentionality meets Nes’s challenge. After distinguishing between two notions of representation, I contend that there are two versions of Crane’s representational account, but neither of them is able to solve the problem posed by Nes. (shrink)

I argue that Kroedel's 'Simple Argument' for downward causation fails and that this failure has consequences for any attempt to establish the reality of downward causation by appealing to counterfactual theories thereof. A central premise in Kroedel's argument equivocates. On one reading, it is true but renders the argument invalid; on another, it renders the argument valid but is likely false. I dedicate most of my efforts to establishing the second of these two claims. I show that the purported physical (...) effects of mental properties do not counterfactually depend upon the total realizers of these properties. If counterfactual dependence is necessary for causation, it follows that mental properties are not causes. If counterfactual dependence is merely sufficient for causation, it follows that no appeal to counterfactuals will by itself succeed in showing that mental properties are causes. (shrink)

A serious problem for adverbialism about intentionality is the many-property problem, one major aspect of which is the claim that natural inferences between thought contents are blocked if adverbia...

This paper addresses the title question and provides an argument for the conclusion that so-called phenomenal intentionality, in both its relational and non-relational construals, cannot be identified with intentionality meant as the property for a mental state to be about something. A main premise of the argument presented in support of that conclusion is that a necessary requirement for a property to be identified with intentionality is that it satisfy the features taken to be definitory of it, namely: the possible (...) non-existence of the intentional object and aspectuality. By taking this premise on board, I attempt to show that phenomenal intentionality cannot be identified with intentionality because, appearances notwithstanding, it ultimately satisfies neither of the two above mentioned features. (shrink)

This article explores self-esteem as an episodic self-conscious emotion. Episodic self-esteem is first distinguished from trait self-esteem, which is described as an enduring state related to the subject’s sense of self-worth. Episodic self-esteem is further compared with pride by claiming that the two attitudes differ in crucial respects. Importantly, episodic self-esteem—but not pride—is a function of social esteem: in episodic self-esteem, the subject evaluates herself in the same way in which others evaluate her. Furthermore, social esteem elicits episodic self-esteem if (...) the values at the basis of the others’ evaluation are shared by the subject. Such sharing of values suggests that only the evaluations of those others that the subject frames as her in-group members are relevant to episodic self-esteem. (shrink)

It is widely accepted that supervenience is a minimal commitment of physicalism. In this article, however, I aim to argue that physicalism should be exempted from the supervenience requirement. My arguments rely on a parallel between ontological dependence and causal dependence. Since causal dependence does not require causal determination, ontological dependence should not require ontological determination either. Moreover, my approach has a significant theoretical advantage: if physicalism is not committed to supervenience, then the metaphysical possibility of zombies—which is still wide (...) open after all these years—would pose no challenge to physicalism. (shrink)

Ramsification is a well-known method of defining theoretical terms that figures centrally in a wide range of debates in metaphysics. Prior's puzzle is the puzzle of why, given the assumption that that-clauses denote propositions, substitution of "the proposition that P" for "that P" within the complements of many propositional attitude verbs sometimes fails to preserve truth, and other times fails to preserve grammaticality. On the surface, Ramsification and Prior's puzzle appear to have little to do with each other. But Prior's (...) puzzle is much more general than is ordinarily appreciated, and Ramsification requires a solution to the generalized form of Prior's puzzle. Without such a solution, a wide range of theories will either fail to imply their Ramsey sentences, or have Ramsey sentences that are ill-formed. As a consequence, definitions of theoretical terms given using the Ramsey sentence will be either incorrect or nonsensical. I present a partial solution to the puzzle that requires making use of a neo-Davidsonian language for scientific theorizing, but the would-be Ramsifier still faces serious challenges. (shrink)

Este artículo defiende la relevancia de la filosofía en el estudio contemporáneo de conceptos. Con el desarrollo de la ciencia cognitiva, la teorización naturalista e interdisciplinaria acerca de los conceptos ha cobrado impulso. En este contexto, se ha argumentado recientemente que las teorías filosóficas de conceptos no son acerca del tipo de cosas que interesan a los psicólogos, descartando así la pertinencia científica de la contribución filosófica mencionada. Presentamos y discutimos dos casos que sugieren lo contrario, como un intento de (...) reivindicar el papel crucial que tiene la filosofía en el desarrollo de teorías empíricas de conceptos. (shrink)

Nonreductive physicalists endorse the principle of mental causation, according to which some events have mental causes: Sid climbs the hill because he wants to. Nonreductive physicalists also endorse the principle of physical causal completeness, according to which physical events have sufficient physical causes: Sid climbs the hill because a complex neural process in his brain triggered his climbing. Critics typically level the causal exclusion problem against this nonreductive physicalist model, according to which the physical cause is a sufficient cause of (...) the behavioural effect, so the mental cause is excluded from causally influencing Sid’s behaviour. In this paper I demonstrate how numerous nonreductive physicalists have responded to the causal exclusion problem by weakening the principle of physical causal completeness in numerous ways. The result: either numerous nonreductive physicalist solutions fail on account of the fact that they do not satisfy a robustly defined principle of physical causal completeness, or there is an accelerating trend of solving the causal exclusion problem by suitably weakening the principle of physical causal completeness. (shrink)

This paper shows why qualia constitute a problem for any theory of mental phenomena. We use the term ‘qualia’ in reference to non-intentional features of mental states which are eminently qualitative, i.e. perceptions, emotions, moods and body sensations. These non-intentional features are usually described as intrinsic, ineffable, infallible, atomic, private, direct and irreducible to the physical. The paper also explains the absent qualia argument which is addressed as a critique to functionalism.

The term “consciousness” is very often, though not always, interchangeable with the term “awareness,” which is more colloquial to many ears. We say things like “are you aware that ...” often. Sometimes we say “have you noticed that ... ?” to express similar thoughts, and this indicates a close connection between consciousness (awareness) and attention (noticing), which we will come back to later in this chapter. Ned Block, one of the key figures in this area, provides a useful characterization of (...) what he calls “phenomenal consciousness.” For him, phenomenal consciousness is experience. Experience covers perceptions, e.g., when we see, hear, touch, smell, and taste, we typically have experiences, such as seeing colors and smelling odors. It also covers bodily awareness, e.g., we typically have experiences of our own bodily temperature and positions of limbs. Consciousness is primarily about this experiential aspect of our mental lives. (shrink)

Kriegel described the problem of intentional inexistence as one of the ‘perennial problems of philosophy’, 307–340, 2007: 307). In the same paper, Kriegel alluded to a modal realist solution to the problem of intentional inexistence. However, Kriegel does not state by name who defends the kind of modal realist solution he has in mind. Kriegel also points out that even what he believes to be the strongest version of modal realism does not pass the ‘principle of representation’ and thus modal (...) realism is not an adequate solution to the problem of intentional inexistence. In this paper, I respond to Kriegel by defending a modal realist solution that he did not consider in 2007, called ‘extended modal realism’. EMR is a version of modal realism where possible worlds are not completely isolated as they are under the Lewisian model. Rather, under EMR worlds are, in a way, spatiotemporally related. The fact EMR worlds are related allows EMR to sufficiently pass the principle of representation and thus can be deemed a legitimate solution to the problem of intentional inexistence. I conclude that either EMR can pass the principle of representation in some cases or, and I think the more sensible option, we give up on the principle of representation altogether. (shrink)