Both Putnam and Searle have argued that that every abstract automaton is realized by every physical system, a claim that leads to a reductio argument against Cognitivism or Strong AI: if it is possible for a computer to be conscious by virtue of realizing some abstract automaton, then by Putnam’s theorem every physical system also realizes that automaton, and so every physical system is conscious—a conclusion few supporters of Strong AI would be willing to accept. Dennett has suggested a criterion (...) of reverse engineering for identifying “real patterns,” and I argue that this approach is also very effective at identifying “real realizations.” I focus on examples of real-world implementations of complex automata because previous attempts at answering Putnam’s challenge have been overly restrictive, ruling out some realizations that are in fact paradigmatic examples of practical automaton realization. I also argue that some previous approaches have at the same time been overly lenient in accepting counter-intuitive realizations of trivial automata. I argue that the reverse engineering approach avoids both of these flaws. Moreover, Dennett’s approach allows us to recognize that some realizations are better than others, and the line between real realizations and non-realizations is not sharp. (shrink)

In this paper, reduction and its pragmatics are discussed in light of the development in computer science of languages to describe processes. The design of higher-level description languages within computer science has had the aim of allowing for description of the dynamics of processes in the (physical) world on a higher level avoiding all (physical) details of these processes. The higher description levels developed have dramatically increased the complexity of applications that came within reach. The pragmatic attitude of a (scientific) (...) practitioner in this area has become inherently anti-reductionist, but based on well-established reduction relations. The paper discusses how this perspective can be related to reduction in general, and to other domains where description of dynamics plays a main role, in particular, biological and cognitive domains. (shrink)

The paper aims to answer the question: «How does an electron exist at the beginning of the 21st century?» from the point of view of the general logic of the philosophy of science discourse, taking into account con­temporary philosophical concepts that explain what an «electron» is, and in what sense we could talk about the «existence» of such objects in the first quarter of the 21st century. A good concept of the existence of an object postulated by a successful scientific (...) theory should at least take into account two contexts of proper philosophical reasoning – reasoning «from science», grasping the questions of the philosophical and meth­odological justification of knowledge at the level of certain «standards of rationality» that correspond to the chosen theory, and reasoning «from metaphysics», which, in the appropriate context, interpret «elec­tron» as an element of objective reality, as if the electron of scientists «actually» existed. Our thesis is that by choosing as the main elements of the concept the Dennettian ontology of patterns project and the E.J. Lowe’s neo-Aristotelian categorical ontology project, we will be able to block the problem of pessimis­tic meta-induction (H. Putnam, L. Laudan, etc.). The electron exists as a pattern that we extract from the whole set of empirical data associated with the theoretical entity «electron», whose «real definition» right now is given by the Standard Model and the accompanying concepts from quantum mechanics. In the course of the scientific revolution, the electron, as a pattern, does not disappear anywhere, since parts of the «real definitions» of the patterns of the old «paradigm», those that can be retrospectively interpreted and functionally meaningfully coupled with the new one, will be asserted within the «real definitions» of the new patterns, which indicates on the existence of a relationship of «essential dependence» between the «old» and the «new» patterns. (shrink)

Hylomorphism provides an attractive framework for addressing issues in philosophical anthropology. After describing a hylomorphic theory that dovetails with current work in philosophy of mind and in scientific disciplines such as biology and neuroscience, I discuss how this theory meshes with Christian eschatology, the doctrine of resurrection in particular.

In this paper, I argue that the relationship between belief and credence is a central question in epistemology. This is because the belief-credence relationship has significant implications for a number of current epistemological issues. I focus on five controversies: permissivism, disagreement, pragmatic encroachment, doxastic voluntarism, and the relationship between doxastic attitudes and prudential rationality. I argue that each debate is constrained in particular ways, depending on whether the relevant attitude is belief or credence. This means that epistemologists should pay attention (...) to whether they are framing questions in terms of belief or in terms of credence and the success or failure of a reductionist project in the belief-credence realm has significant implications for epistemology generally. (shrink)

I discuss here a number of different kinds of diachronic emergence, noting that they differ in important ways from synchronic conceptions. I argue that Bedau’s weak emergence has an essentially historical aspect, in that there can be two indistinguishable states, one of which is weakly emergent, the other of which is not. As a consequence, weak emergence is about tokens, not types, of states. I conclude by examining the question of whether the concept of weak emergence is too weak and (...) note that there is at present no unifying account of diachronic and synchronic concepts of emergence. (shrink)

Since 1969, when Dennett introduced a distinction between personal and sub- personal levels of explanation, many philosophers have used 'sub- personal ' very loosely, and Dennett himself has abandoned a view of the personal level as genuinely autonomous. I recommend a position in which Dennett's original distinction is crucial, by arguing that the phenomenon called mental causation is on view only at the properly personal level. If one retains the commit-' ments incurred by Dennett's early distinction, then one has a (...) satisfactory anti-physicalistic, anti-dualist philosophy of mind. It neither interferes with the projects of sub- personal psychology, nor encourages ; instrumentalism at the personal level. (shrink)

When laws or legal principles mention mental states such as intentions to form a contract, knowledge of risk, or purposely causing a death, what parts of the brain are they speaking about? We argue here that these principles are tacitly directed at our prefrontal executive processes. Our current best theories of consciousness portray it as a workspace in which executive processes operate, but what is important to the law is what is done with the workspace content rather than the content (...) itself. This makes executive processes more important to the law than consciousness, since they are responsible for channeling conscious decision-making into intentions and actions, or inhibiting action.We provide a summary of the current state of our knowledge about executive processes, which consists primarily of information about which portions of the prefrontal lobes perform which executive processes. Then we describe several examples in which legal principles can be understood as tacitly singling out executive processes, including principles regarding defendants’ intentions or plans to commit crimes and their awareness that certain facts are the case, as well as excusatory principles which result in lesser responsibility for those who are juveniles, mentally ill, sleepwalking, hypnotized, or who suffer from psychopathy. (shrink)

Studying the origin of semiosis is a task obscured by terminological and metaphysical issues which create an ambiguous set of definitions for biosemiotics when referring to the concept of emergence. The question is, how emergent can semiosis be? And what are the conditions for semiosis to be an emergent of a certain type? This paper will attempt to briefly deal with the general terminology of emergence from a philosophical point of view and will discuss the characterization of semiosis as an (...) emergent phenomenon based on the distinctions made by Bedau, Kim and Chalmers. Accordingly, we will consider the possibility of strong and weak emergence in an attempt to bring some clarity to what it means for something in biosemiotics to be an emergent and how the philosophical concepts play out when applied to biosemiotic research. In inquiring into the metaphysical status of semiosis, we change our semiotic theories to correspond to the assumptions contained in the elementary objects of our theories. This being the case, the way semiosis–the constitutive element that it is for semiotics–is taken to be with regards to its possible ontology, will conduct to different research objects for the long-term investigation of its origins and necessary conditions. (shrink)

Moderate holists like French, Copp :369–388, 2007), Hess, Isaacs and List and Pettit argue that certain collectives qualify as moral agents in their own right, often pointing to the corporation as an example of a collective likely to qualify. A common objection is that corporations cannot qualify as moral agents because they lack free will. The concern is that corporations are effectively puppets, dancing on strings controlled by external forces. The article begins by briefly presenting a novel account of corporate (...) moral agency and then demonstrates that, on this account, qualifying corporations do possess free will. Such entities possess and act from their own “actional springs”, in Haji’s :292–308, 2006) phrase, and from their own reasons-responsive mechanisms. When they do so, they act freely and are morally responsible for what they do. (shrink)

We start by very briefly describing the measurement problem in quantum mechanics and its solution by the Many Worlds Interpretation. We then describe the preferred basis problem, and the role of decoherence in the MWI. We discuss a number of approaches to the preferred basis problem and argue that contrary to the received wisdom, decoherence by itself does not solve the problem. We address Wallace’s emergentist approach based on what he calls Dennett’s criterion, and we compare the logical structure of (...) Wallace’s argument that the Hilbert space structure and the unitary dynamics should be considered a complete description of the physics of the universe with the logical structure of the EPR argument against the completeness of quantum mechanics. Then, we consider the nature of so-called “high level emergent facts” and Dennett’s criterion in Wallace’s approach and we discuss the implications of its non-reductive nature. Finally, we conclude that the MWI is not a straightforward interpretation of pure quantum mechanics that doesn't add anything to it. Whether or not it is more parsimonious than other quantum mechanical theories depends on the details of the additions. (shrink)

Genuine agents are able to engage in activity because they find it worth pursuing—because they care about it. In this respect, they differ from what might be called “mere intentional systems”: systems like chess-playing computers that exhibit merely goal-directed behavior mediated by instrumental rationality, without caring. A parallel distinction can be made in the domain of social activity: plural agents must be distinguished from plural intentional systems in that plural agents have cares and engage in activity because of those cares. (...) In this paper, I sketch an account of what it is for an individual to care about things in terms of her exhibiting a certain pattern of emotions. After extending this account to make sense of an individual's caring about other agents, I then show how a certain sort of emotional connectedness among a group of people can make intelligible the group's having cares and thereby constitute that group as a plural agent. Alternative accounts of social action, by ignoring the difference between mere intentional systems and genuine agents, and so by leaving out these emotional entanglements from their accounts of social action, thereby fail to capture a whole range of social phenomena involving plural agents. (shrink)

Dennett's intended rapprochement between physical realism and intentional relativism fails because it is premised upon conflicting arguments governing the status of design. Indeed, Dennett's remarks on design serve to highlight tensions buried deep within his theory. For inasmuch as Dennett succeeds in objectifying attributions of design, attributions of intentionality readily follow suit, leading to a form of intentional realism. But inasmuch as Dennett is successful in relativizing attributions of design, scientific realism at large is subject to renewed anti-realistic criticism. Dennettian-inspired (...) considerations of adaptationism substantiate the former move towards intentional realism, while considerations of the relativity of artifactual design encourage the latter move towards physical relativism. The ambivalence intrinsic to Dennett's ``mild realism'' can be viewed as a function of these two conflicting positions on design, for Dennett can no more avoid objectifying intentionality when he is realistic about design than he can avoid relativizing physical causality when relativistic about design. (shrink)

Cet article envisage deux types de fondements possibles pour une « économie du bien-être néo-samuelsonnienne ». On défend l’idée que l’approche néo-samuelsonnienne en économie mène à un problème de réconciliation entre l’économie positive et l’économie normative, en raison du fait que l’agent économique n’est plus nécessairement l’unité normativement pertinente. Deux formes de réconciliation ayant des implications radicalement différentes pour le statut de l’économie normative sont envisagées. La première consiste à adopter une approche normative en termes de « welfarisme formel » (...) prétendant à une complète neutralité quant à l’identité du sujet et l’unité de mesure de l’analyse normative. L’implication principale est de faire de l’économie du bien-être une branche de l’économie positive. Une seconde approche consiste à une donner une importance axiologique particulière aux personnes, non parce qu’elles sont des prototypes d’agents économiques, mais parce qu’elles sont dotées de la capacité de se représenter, auprès des autres et d’elles-mêmes, comme des entités raisonnables au travers de processus de construction narrative. Cette capacité donne une justification à la vision selon laquelle le bien-être est constituée des préférences d’une personne, dans le sens où ces préférences sont fondées sur des raisons et valeurs définissant l’identité personnelle. (shrink)

Cet article envisage deux types de fondements possibles pour une « économie du bien-être néo-samuelsonnienne ». On défend l’idée que l’approche néo-samuelsonnienne en économie mène à un problème de réconciliation entre l’économie positive et l’économie normative, en raison du fait que l’agent économique n’est plus nécessairement l’unité normativement pertinente. Deux formes de réconciliation ayant des implications radicalement différentes pour le statut de l’économie normative sont envisagées. La première consiste à adopter une approche normative en termes de « welfarisme formel » (...) prétendant à une complète neutralité quant à l’identité du sujet et l’unité de mesure de l’analyse normative. L’implication principale est de faire de l’économie du bien-être une branche de l’économie positive. Une seconde approche consiste à une donner une importance axiologique particulière aux personnes, non parce qu’elles sont des prototypes d’agents économiques, mais parce qu’elles sont dotées de la capacité de se représenter, auprès des autres et d’elles-mêmes, comme des entités raisonnables au travers de processus de construction narrative. Cette capacité donne une justification à la vision selon laquelle le bien-être est constituée des préférences d’une personne, dans le sens où ces préférences sont fondées sur des raisons et valeurs définissant l’identité personnelle. (shrink)

A new theory that naturalizes biological function is explained and compared with earlier etiological and causal role theories. Etiological theories explain functions from how they are caused over their evolutionary history. Causal role theories analyze how functional mechanisms serve the current capacities of their containing system. The new proposal unifies the key notions of both kinds of theories, but goes beyond them by explaining how functions in an organism can exist as factors with autonomous causal efficacy. The goal-directedness and normativity (...) of functions exist in this strict sense as well. The theory depends on an internal physiological or neural process that mimics an organism’s fitness, and modulates the organism’s variability accordingly. The structure of the internal process can be subdivided into subprocesses that monitor specific functions in an organism. The theory matches well with each intuition on a previously published list of intuited ideas about biological functions, including intuitions that have posed difficulties for other theories. (shrink)

In recent years the cognitive science community has witnessed the rise of a new, dynamical approach to cognition. This approach entails a framework in which cognition and behavior are taken to result from complex dynamical interactions between brain, body, and environment. The advent of the dynamical approach is grounded in a dissatisfaction with the classical computational view of cognition. A particularly strong claim has been that cognitive systems do not rely on internal representations and computations. Focusing on this claim, we (...) take as a starting point a question recently raised by Cliff and Noble: " if evolution did produce a design that used internal representations, how would we recognize it?" (Knowledge-based vision and simple visual machines, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society: Biological Sciences, 352 , 1165-1175, 1997). We will argue that cognitive science lacks a proper operationalization of the notion of representation, and therefore is unable to fruitfully discuss whether a particular system has representations or not. A basic method to detect representations in a physical system, grounded in isomorphism, turns out to be quite unconstrained. We will look at a practical example of this problem by examining the debate on whether or not van Gelder's (What might cognition be, if not computation? Journal of Philosophy, 92 , 345-381, 1995) controversial example of the Watt Governor is representational. We will conclude that cognitive science, as of yet, has no empirically applicable means to answer Cliff and Noble's question unequivocally. This makes the recent representationalism vs. anti-representationalism debate a debate for the sake of appearance. (shrink)

This paper examines methodological issues raised by revealed preference theory in economics: particularly contemporary revealed preference theory. The paper has three goals. First, to make the case that revealed preference theory is a broad research program in choice theory—not a single theory—and understanding this diversity is essential to any methodological analysis of the program. Second, to explore some of the existing criticisms of revealed preference theory in a way that emphasizes how the effectiveness of the critique depends on the particular (...) version of revealed preference under consideration. Finally, three additional criticisms are presented that are aimed specifically at contemporary revealed preference theory. (shrink)

Dan Dennett and Jerry Fodor have recently offered diametrically opposed estimations of the relevance of the theory of natural selection to an adequate theory of intentionality. In this paper, I show, first, how this opposition can be traced largely to differences both in their respective understandings of what the theory of natural selection includes, and in their respective ‘pre-theoretic’ takes on the datum to be explained by a theory of intentionality. These differences, in turn, have been ‘pre-selected’ by contrasting outlooks (...) on the general nature of the explanatory enterprise. While no final adjudication of these large issues is attempted, I argue, second, that it is important to distinguish two rather different questions about the relevance of natural selection to the nature of intentionality, and that, having done so, one can see that, from standpoints purely internal to their respective projects, Dennett and Fodor each in his own way misconstrues the relevance of natural selection. (shrink)

Dan Dennett and Jerry Fodor have recently offered diametrically opposed estimations of the relevance of the theory of natural selection to an adequate theory of intentionality. In this paper, I show, first, how this opposition can be traced largely to differences both in their respective understandings of what the theory of natural selection includes, and in their respective ‘pre-theoretic’ takes on the datum to be explained by a theory of intentionality. These differences, in turn, have been ‘pre-selected’ by contrasting outlooks (...) on the general nature of the explanatory enterprise. While no final adjudication of these large issues is attempted, I argue, second, that it is important to distinguish two rather different questions about the relevance of natural selection to the nature of intentionality, and that, having done so, one can see that, from standpoints purely internal to their respective projects, Dennett and Fodor each in his own way misconstrues the relevance of natural selection. (shrink)

I argue that there are two distinct approaches to understanding reduction: the ontology-first approach and the theory-first approach. They concern the relation between ontological reduction and inter-theoretic reduction. Further, I argue for the significance of this distinction by demonstrating that either one or the other approach has been taken as an implicit assumption in, and has in fact shaped, our understanding of what statistical mechanics is. More specifically, I argue that the Boltzmannian framework of statistical mechanics assumes and relies on (...) the ontology-first approach, whereas the Gibbsian framework should assume the theory-first approach. -/- . (shrink)

Brandom’s inferentialism offers, in many ways, a radically new approach to old issues in semantics and the theory of intentionality. But, in one respect at least, it clings tenaciously to the mainstream philosophical tradition of the middle years of the twentieth century. Against the theory’s natural tendencies, Brandom aligns it with the ’linguistic turn’ that philosophy took in the middle of the last century by insisting, in the face of considerable opposing evidence, that intentionality is the preserve of those who (...) can offer and ask for reasons and thus of language users alone. In this paper, I argue that there is no good reason for giving inferentialism a linguistic twist, and that, in doing so, Brandom is forced to make claims which are implausible in themselves and lead him, in the attempt to mitigate them, to a number of doubtful expedients. (shrink)

Within analytic philosophy, induction has been seen as a problem concerning inferences that have been analysed as relations between sentences. In this article, we argue that induction does not primarily concern relations between sentences, but between properties and categories. We outline a new approach to induction that is based on two theses. The first thesis is epistemological. We submit that there is not only knowledge-how and knowledge-that, but also knowledge-what. Knowledge-what concerns relations between properties and categories and we argue that (...) it cannot be reduced to knowledge-that. We support the partition of knowledge by mapping it onto the long-term memory systems: procedural, semantic and episodic memory. The second thesis is that the role of inductive reasoning is to generate knowledge-what. We use conceptual spaces to model knowledge-what and the relations between properties and categories involved in induction. (shrink)

Within analytic philosophy, induction has been seen as a problem concerning inferences that have been analysed as relations between sentences. In this article, we argue that induction does not primarily concern relations between sentences, but between properties and categories. We outline a new approach to induction that is based on two theses. The first thesis is epistemological. We submit that there is not only knowledge-how and knowledge-that, but also knowledge-what. Knowledge-what concerns relations between properties and categories and we argue that (...) it cannot be reduced to knowledge-that. We support the partition of knowledge by mapping it onto the long-term memory systems: procedural, semantic and episodic memory. The second thesis is that the role of inductive reasoning is to generate knowledge-what. We use conceptual spaces to model knowledge-what and the relations between properties and categories involved in induction. (shrink)

Intuitively, there is a close link between moral status and phenomenal consciousness. Taking the link seriously can serve as the basis of a proposal that appears to have a surprising number of theoretical benefits. This proposal is the moral option, according to which moral status is partly determinative of phenomenal consciousness, and phenomenal consciousness is sufficient for possession of a moral property I refer to as “moral status.” I argue for this view on the basis of its ability to shed (...) light on the distribution problem of determining which systems are phenomenally conscious. I explicate it by drawing on a theory of attributions of phenomenal consciousness, and considering its relationship to positions on the metaphysics of consciousness. I defend it against a series of objections, including three based on previous theories of the link between phenomenal consciousness and moral status. The moral option should, in my view, be a serious contender among theories of phenomenal consciousness. (shrink)

The central mission of cognitive science is to reveal the real nature of the mind, however familiar or foreign that nature may be to naive preconceptions. The existence of naive conceptions is also important, however. Prescientific thought and language contain concepts of the mental, and these concepts deserve attention from cognitive science. Just as scientific psychology studies folk physics (McCloskey 1983, Hayes 1985), viz., the common understanding (or misunderstanding) of physical phenomena, so it must study folk psychology, the common understanding (...) of mental states. This subfield of scientific psychology is what I mean by the phrase 'the psychology of folk psychology'. (shrink)

The ordinary understanding and ascription of mental states is a multiply complex subject. Widely discussed approaches to the subject, such as functionalism and the theory-theory (TT), have many variations and interpretations. No surprise, then, that there are misunderstandings and disagreements, which place many items on the agenda. Unfortunately, the multiplicity of issues raised by the commentators and the limitations of space make it impossible to give a full reply to everyone. My response is divided into five topics: (1) Which version(s) (...) of functionalism are candidates for an account of folk psychology, and is any such version satisfactory? (2) Where does TT stand in light of the two target articles and commentaries? (3) Does a phenomenological story provide a promising account of mental states, and is there special first-person authority about them? (4) What are suitable methodological assumptions for our subject matter? (5) How well does the simulation theory fare as an account of third-person mentalistic ascription? (shrink)

Natural kinds, real kinds, or, following J.S Mill simply, Kinds, are thought to be an important asset for scientific realists in the non-fundamental (or “special”) sciences. Essential natures are less in vogue. I show that the realist would do well to couple her Kinds with essential natures in order to strengthen their epistemic and ontological credentials. I argue that these essential natures need not however be intrinsic to the Kind’s members; they may be historical. I concentrate on assessing the merits (...) of historical essential natures in a paradigm case of Kinds in the non-fundamental sciences: species. I specify two basic jobs for essential natures: 1) offering individuation criteria, and 2) providing a causal explanation of the Kind’s multiple projectable properties. I argue that at least in the case of species historical essences are fit for both tasks. The principled resistance to Kinds with historical essences should also be cleared. (shrink)

In this article I examine some of the issues involved in taking psychiatric disorders as natural kinds. I begin by introducing a permissive model of natural kind-hood that at least prima facie seems to allow psychiatric disorders to be natural kinds. The model, however, hinges on there in principle being some grounding that is shared by all members of a kind, which explain all or most of the additional shared projectible properties. This leads us to the following question: what grounding (...) do psychiatric disorders qua natural kinds have? My principal method for examining the issue is a case study of a particular psychiatric disorder: the so-called “apathetic children.” I argue that there appear to be at least two competing models that both appeal to non-organic a grounding of the disorder. However, for other psychiatric disorders, such as Alzheimer’s disease, the evidence points toward an organic explanation of the disorder. I contend that what unites psychiatric disorders is not a distinctive type of grounding that all psychiatric disorders share, but the distinctive set of determinable properties that is shared by all psychiatric disorders. (shrink)