If Australasian philosophers constitute the kind of group to which a collective identity or broadly shared self-image can plausibly be ascribed, the celebrated history of Australian materialism rightly lies close to its heart. Jack Smart’s chapter in this volume, along with an outstanding series of briefer essays in A Companion to Philosophy in Australia and New Zealand (Forrest 2010; Gold 2010; Koksvik 2010; Lycan 2010; Matthews 2010; Nagasawa 2010; Opie 2010; Stoljar 2010a), effectively describe the naturalistic realism of Australian philosophy (...) of mind. In occasional semi-serious psychogeographic speculation, this long-standing and strongly-felt intellectual attitude has been traced back to the influences of our light, land, or lifestyle (Devitt 1996, x; compare comments by Chalmers and O’Brien in Mitchell, 2006). Australasian work in philosophy of mind and cognition has become more diverse in the last 40 years, but is almost all still marked, in one way or another, by the history of these debates on materialism. (shrink)

Este artículo examina cómo la separabilidad y unidad mente-cuerpo resultan clave para poner de manifiesto lo inapropiado del “teatro cartesiano”, metáfora creada por Daniel Dennett para criticar la experiencia consciente unificada en Descartes. La primera sección introduce al problema de la separabilidad cartesiana. La segunda examina cómo mente y cuerpo, separables mediante lo concebible según Descartes, resultan ser cosas metafísicamente distintas. La tercera enfatiza como separables no implica separados. La última sección enfatiza el argumento de la dis-analogía del piloto y (...) el navío, y cómo, según el filósofo francés, aunque separables, mente y cuerpo son substancias estrechamente unidas, formando un ens per se. En vista de este, criticamos la metáfora del “teatro cartesiano” de Dennett: es imposible que la mente sea un espectador, puesto que la experiencia consciente ya es unificada e incluso somatizada. Notamos, por último, que pese a Dennett, hay investigadores de la Ciencia Cognitiva que coinciden con Descartes en relación con la estrecha unión mente-cuerpo, i.e., quienes defienden que la mente es encarnada, incrustada o incluso extendida. (shrink)

I argue that a distinction made in recent literature in the philosophy of mind between self-organizing and self-governing systems can serve as the basis of a principled distinction between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ determination on the part of the compatibilist with respect to freedom or control. I first consider two arguments for the claim that causal determinism undermines control: the Consequence Argument as presented by Peter van Inwagen, and the Four Case Argument of Derk Pereboom. I then elucidate the difference between (...) a self-organizing and self-governing system, and argue that the capacity for self-representation that is constitutive of the latter allows for agential control. This difference, I argue, can provide the basis of a principled distinction between good and bad determination. I subsequently show how the framework presented undermines the Consequence and Four Case Arguments in their attempt to establish the claim that causal determinism undermines control, and I discuss the application of this framework to manipulation arguments in general. Finally, I consider and respond to Galen Strawson’s Basic Argument and the general rejoinder to my account that one is not responsible for the particular way in which one exercises one’s capacity for self-representation, and that this undermines any claim to agential control and responsibility. (shrink)