We discuss the evolutionary transition from animals with limited experiencing to animals with unlimited experiencing and basic consciousness. This transition was, we suggest, intimately linked with the evolution of associative learning and with flexible reward systems based on, and modifiable by, learning. During associative learning, new pathways relating stimuli and effects are formed within a highly integrated and continuously active nervous system. We argue that the memory traces left by such new stimulus-effect relations form dynamic, flexible, and varied global sensory (...) states, which we call categorizing sensory states . These CSSs acquired a function: they came to act as internal “evaluators” and led to positive and negative reinforcement of new behavior. They are therefore the simplest, distinct, first-person motivational states that an animal can have. They constitute what we call basic consciousness, and are the hallmark of animals that can experience. Since associative learning has been found in many invertebrate taxa that first appeared during the Cambrian era, we propose that the processes underlying basic consciousness are phylogenetically ancient, and that their emergence may have fueled the Cambrian explosion. (shrink)

In this Introduction, I identify seven discrete aspects of attention brought to the fore by by considering the phenomenon of effortless attention: effort, decision-making, action syntax, agency, automaticity, expertise, and mental training. For each, I provide an overview of recent research, identify challenges to or gaps in current attention theory with respect to it, consider how attention theory can be advanced by including current research, and explain how relevant chapters of this volume offer such advances.

In this essay, I attempt to outline a feminist philosophical approach to the current debate concerning (allegedly) false memories of childhood sexual abuse. Bringing the voices of feminist philosophers to bear on this issue highlights the implicit and sometimes questionable epistemological, metaphysical, and ethical-political commitments of some therapists and scientists involved in these debates. It also illuminates some current debates in and about feminist philosophy.

Scholars working in philosophy of action still struggle with the freedom/determinism dichotomy that stretches back to Hellenist philosophy and the metaphysics that gave rise to it. Although that metaphysics has been repudiated in current philosophy of mind and cognitive science, the dichotomy still haunts these fields. As such, action is understood as distinct from movement, or motion. In early China, under a very different metaphysical paradigm, no such distinction is made. Instead, a notion of self-caused movement, or spontaneity, is elaborated. (...) In this article a general conception of spontaneity from early Daoism is explained, detailing its constituent aspects. Similar notions appeared from time to time in Western philosophy, and these instances are pursued, exploring how their instantiations differed from Daoist spontaneity and why. Based on these approximate examples of spontaneity and on early Daoist spontaneity, new criteria are postulated for a plausible theory of action that dispenses with presuppositions that eventuate in a freedom/determinism dichotomy, and instead the possibility is offered of a general model of action that can be applied smoothly across current philosophical and cognitive scientific subdisciplines. (shrink)

Intuitively it has seemed to many that our concepts conscious state and conscious creature are sharp rather than vague, that they can have no borderline cases. On the other hand, many who take conscious states to be identical to, or realized by, complex physical states are committed to the vagueness of those concepts. In the paper I argue that conscious state and conscious creature are sharp by presenting four necessary conditions for conceiving borderline cases in general, and showing that some (...) of those conditions cannot be met with conscious state. I conclude that conscious state is sharp, and the conclusion is then extended to conscious creature. The paper ends with a brief discussion of some implications. (shrink)

The paper assumes that the very source for an appropriate concept formation and categorization of the phenomena of consciousness is provided by pre-reflectively living through one’s own experiences (of perceiving, remembering, imagining, picturing, judging, etc.) and reflecting upon them. It tries to argue that without reflective auto-phenomenological theorizing about such phenomena, there is no prospect for a scientific study of consciousness doing fully justice to the phenomena themselves. To substantiate the point, a detailed reflective and descriptive analysis of re-presentational experiences (...) is presented, an essential property of which is their containing in themselves components that can only be individuated on the basis of reflection by the experiencing subject him- or herself. For heterophenomenology to account for them, autophenomenology is therefore presupposed. (shrink)

Many current neurophysiological, psychophysical, and psychological approaches to vision rest on the idea that when we see, the brain produces an internal representation of the world. The activation of this internal representation is assumed to give rise to the experience of seeing. The problem with this kind of approach is that it leaves unexplained how the existence of such a detailed internal representation might produce visual consciousness. An alternative proposal is made here. We propose that seeing is a way of (...) acting. It is a particular way of exploring the environment. Activity in internal representations does not generate the experience of seeing. The out- side world serves as its own, external, representation. The experience of seeing occurs when the organism masters what we call the gov- erning laws of sensorimotor contingency. The advantage of this approach is that it provides a natural and principled way of accounting for visual consciousness, and for the differences in the perceived quality of sensory experience in the different sensory modalities. Sev- eral lines of empirical evidence are brought forward in support of the theory, in particular: evidence from experiments in sensorimotor adaptation, visual “filling in,” visual stability despite eye movements, change blindness, sensory substitution, and color perception. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to demonstrate that adjusting Stump and Kretzmann’s “atemporal duration” with la durée, a key concept in the philosophy of Henri Bergson, can respond to the most significant objections aimed at Stump and Kretzmann’s re-interpretation of Boethian eternity. This paper deals with three of these objections: the incoherence of the notion of “atemporal duration,” the impossibility of this duration being time-like, and the problems involved in conceiving it as being related to temporal duration by a (...) relation of analogy. I conclude that “atemporal duration” — when combined with Bergson’s durée to become an “atemporal durée” — is a coherent understanding of divine eternity. (shrink)

In this article, I argue that consciousness is a unique way of processing information, in that: it produces information, rather than purely transmitting it; the information it produces is meaningful for us; the meaning it has is always individuated. This uniqueness allows us to process information on the basis of our personal needs and ever-changing interactions with the environment, and consequently to act autonomously. Three main basic cognitive processes contribute to realize this unique way of information processing: the self, attention (...) and working memory. The self, which is primarily expressed via the central and peripheral nervous systems, maps our body, the environment, and our relations with the environment. It is the primary means by which the complexity inherent to our composite structure is reduced into the “single voice” of a unique individual. It provides a reference system that (albeit evolving) is sufficiently stable to define the variations that will be used as the raw material for the construction of conscious information. Attention allows for the selection of those variations in the state of the self that are most relevant in the given situation. Attention originates and is deployed from a single locus inside our body, which represents the center of the self, around which all our conscious experiences are organized. Whatever is focused by attention appears in our consciousness as possessing a spatial quality defined by this center and the direction toward which attention is focused. In addition, attention determines two other features of conscious experience: periodicity and phenomenal quality. Self and attention are necessary but not sufficient for conscious information to be produced. Complex forms of conscious experiences, such as the various modes of givenness of conscious experience and the stream of consciousness, need a working memory mechanism to assemble the basic pieces of information selected by attention. (shrink)

This morning I intended to get out of bed when my alarm went off. Hearing my alarm, I formed the intention to get up now. Yet, for a time, I remained in bed, irrationally lazy. It seems I irrationally failed to execute my intention. Such cases of execution failure pose a challenge for Mentalists about rationality, who believe that facts about rationality supervene on facts about the mind. For, this morning, my mind was in order; it was my action that (...) apparently made me irrational. What, then, should Mentalists say about the phenomenon of execution failure? The phenomenon of execution failure, and the puzzle it raises for Mentalists, have rarely been discussed. This paper addresses the puzzle in two parts. First, it argues that execution failure is a real phenomenon. It is possible for agents to irrationally fail to act on their present-directed intentions. It follows that Mentalists in the philosophy of action must solve the puzzle of explaining what is irrational about cases of execution failure. Second, this paper begins the search for such a solution. It considers six possible resolutions to the puzzle, arguing that none is obviously the most attractive. These resolutions include a requirement of overall conative consistency, an appeal to the norm of intention consistency, a form of Volitionalism, an appeal to factive mental states, and a proposal due to Garrett Cullity, and a novel requirement of proper functioning. (shrink)

Explorations in Systems Phenomenology in Relation to Ontology, Hermeneutics and the Meta-dialectics of Design -/- SYNOPSIS A Phenomenological Analysis of Emergent Design is performed based on the foundations of General Schemas Theory. The concept of Sign Engineering is explored in terms of Hermeneutics, Dialectics, and Ontology in order to define Emergent Systems and Metasystems Engineering based on the concept of Meta-dialectics. -/- ABSTRACT Phenomenology, Ontology, Hermeneutics, and Dialectics will dominate our inquiry into the nature of the Emergent Design of the (...) System and its inverse dual, the Meta-system. This is an speculative dissertation that attempts to produce a philosophical, mathematical, and theoretical view of the nature of Systems Engineering Design. Emergent System Design, i.e., the design of yet unheard of and/or hitherto non-existent Systems and Metasystems is the focus. This study is a frontal assault on the hard problem of explaining how Engineering produces new things, rather than a repetition or reordering of concepts that already exist. In this work the philosophies of E. Husserl, A. Gurwitsch, M. Heidegger, J. Derrida, G. Deleuze, A. Badiou, G. Hegel, I. Kant and other Continental Philosophers are brought to bear on different aspects of how new technological systems come into existence through the midwifery of Systems Engineering. Sign Engineering is singled out as the most important aspect of Systems Engineering. We will build on the work of Pieter Wisse and extend his theory of Sign Engineering to define Meta-dialectics in the form of Quadralectics and then Pentalectics. Along the way the various ontological levels of Being are explored in conjunction with the discovery that the Quadralectic is related to the possibility of design primarily at the Third Meta-level of Being, called Hyper Being. Design Process is dependent upon the emergent possibilities that appear in Hyper Being. Hyper Being, termed by Heidegger as Being (Being crossed-out) and termed by Derrida as Differance, also appears as the widest space within the Design Field at the third meta-level of Being and therefore provides the most leverage that is needed to produce emergent effects. Hyper Being is where possibilities appear within our worldview. Possibility is necessary for emergent events to occur. Hyper Being possibilities are extended by Wild Being propensities to allow the embodiment of new things. We discuss how this philosophical background relates to meta-methods such as the Gurevich Abstract State Machine and the Wisse Metapattern methods, as well as real-time architectural design methods as described in the Integral Software Engineering Methodology. One aim of this research is to find the foundation for extending the ISEM methodology to become a general purpose Systems Design Methodology. Our purpose is also to bring these philosophical considerations into the practical realm by examining P. Bourdieu’s ideas on the relationship between theoretical and practical reason and M. de Certeau’s ideas on practice. The relationship between design and implementation is seen in terms of the Set/Mass conceptual opposition. General Schemas Theory is used as a way of critiquing the dependence of Set based mathematics as a basis for Design. The dissertation delineates a new foundation for Systems Engineering as Emergent Engineering based on General Schemas Theory, and provides an advanced theory of Design based on the understanding of the meta-levels of Being, particularly focusing upon the relationship between Hyper Being and Wild Being in the context of Pure and Process Being. (shrink)

Most philosophers believe that we have experiences as of temporally extended phenomena like change, motion, and succession. Almost all theories of time consciousness explain these temporal experiences by subscribing to the doctrine of the specious present, the idea that the contents of our experiences embrace temporally extended intervals of time and are presented as temporally structured. Against these theories, I argue that the doctrine is false and present a theory that does not require the notion of a specious present. Furthermore, (...) I argue that the different aspects of temporal experiences arise from different mechanisms operating separately. If the theory is true, then temporal experiences do not tell us anything special about the nature of consciousness and its temporal properties per se. (shrink)

The realm of intentionality is definitive of phenomenology as a reflective methodology. Yet it is precisely the focus on the intentionalgiventhat has been condemned recently.Speculative realism argues that phenomenology is unsatisfactory since the reduction to the intentional realm excludes the ‘external’, i.e. reality independent of consciousness. This criticism allows me to clarify the nature of intentionality.Material phenomenologyfinds, in contrast, that the intentional realm excludes the ‘inner’. This criticism allows me to discuss the way in whichipseityenters as an element of experience. (...) Intentionality, viewed psychologically, is rightly the distinct arena of phenomenological psychology. However, there is no doubting the difficulty of maintaining a research focus precisely on the realm of intentionality; there areaporiasof the reduction. I discuss some of the difficulties. (shrink)

As a result of vocal autism activists pushing against traditional views of autism, there is a bilateral debate that reflects a deeper philosophical divide between medical and social definitions of disability. Both sides seek to determine the manner in which autistics and their communities view autism, and thus influence the manner in which cures or treatments are sought, dispensed and taken up. Through an investigation of this debate, this project will explore the practical benefits and ethical obligations of accommodating autistic (...) differences. One side of this debate, which we will call the cure theory approach, seeks treatments that will eradicate or at least minimize autistic symptoms. The philosophical assertion that lies behind this objective is that autistic differences, particularly disruptive autistic differences, ought to be removed. The other side of the debate, which we will call the neurodiverse perspective, seeks to define autism as neurological difference, that is relationally determined, rather than a disorder or a syndrome. The neurodiversity movement recommends educating autistics and their communities regarding how to fully accommodate autistic differences. The underlying philosophical commitment of the neurodiverse perspective is that it is in the best interests of autistics and their communities to accommodate differences, rather than seek treatments that encourage conformity. I will argue that these two sides are not mutually exclusive. Through a synthesis of the neurodiverse and cure theory points of view I will enable the development of a method, which facilitates justice for autistics and their communities. This synthesis garners the maximum capabilities that the expression of autistic differences can offer, and maintains the freedom for all community members to actualize their capabilities. (shrink)

In their cognitive theory of emotion, Schachter and Singer proposed that feelings are separable from what they are about. As a test, they induced feelings of arousal by injecting epinephrine and then molded them into different emotions. They illuminated how feelings in one moment lead into the next to form a stream of conscious experience. We examine the construction of emotion in a similar spirit. We use the sensory integration process to understand how the brain combines disparate sources of information (...) to construct both perceptual and emotional models of the world even as the world continues to change. We emphasize two processes: affect segmentation and affect integration. (shrink)

How does Richard Shusterman’s Thinking Through the Body apply to the issues of everyday aesthetics? As it turns out, many chapters contribute significantly to everyday aesthetics, in particular the work on architecture, self-styling, the body as background, lovemaking, and the process of making a photographic portrait. Shusterman’s concentration on the art of living has special importance to everyday aesthetics. Current debates within the field of everyday aesthetics also raise problems for somaesthetics. I also question the limits of somaesthetics and Shusterman’s (...) rejection of defamiliarization in making the ordinary extraordinary. (shrink)

In this paper, I describe and discuss two mental phenomena which are somewhat neglected in the philosophy of mind: focused daydreaming and mind-wandering. My aim is to show that their natures are rather distinct, despite the fact that we tend to classify both as instances of daydreaming. The first difference between the two, I argue, is that, while focused daydreaming is an instance of imaginative mental agency, mind-wandering is not—though this does not mean that mind-wandering cannot involve mental agency at (...) all. This personal-level difference in agency and purposiveness has, furthermore, the consequence that instances of mind-wandering do not constitute unified and self-contained segments of the stream of consciousness—in stark contrast to focused daydreams. Besides, the two kinds of mental phenomena differ in whether they possess a narrative structure, and in how we may make sense of the succession of mental episodes involved. (shrink)

The principal aim of my thesis is to provide a unified theory of imagining, that is, a theory which aspires to capture the common nature of all central forms of imagining and to distinguish them from all paradigm instances of non-imaginative phenomena. The theory which I intend to put forward is a version of what I call the Agency Account of imagining and, accordingly, treats imaginings as mental actions of a certain kind. More precisely, it maintains that imaginings are mental (...) actions that aim at the formation of episodic representations, the content of which is directly determined by what we want them to represent. My defence of this version of the Agency Account happens in two stages. On the one hand, I try to show that it is both extensionally adequate and explanatorily illuminating with respect to those mental states or projects which are clear instances of either imaginative or non- imaginative phenomena. And on the other hand, I seek to demonstrate that the most plausible alternative to the Agency Account - namely the Cognitive Account according to which it is distinctive of imaginings that they are non-cognitive phenomena and thus to be contrasted with perceptions, judgements, and so on - is bound to fail as a unified theory of imagining. The dissertation contains five main parts. In the first, I specify in more detail what a unified account of imagining has to achieve and, in particular, which phenomena it is supposed to capture. The second part presents the Cognitive Account, thereby focussing on Brian O'Shaughnessy's sophisticated version of it while the third part is reserved for the evaluation and rejection of the Cognitive Account. In the fourth part, I develop my version of the Agency Account of imagining. And the fifth and last part is concerned with the accommodation of potential counterexamples to it. (shrink)

Alfred Schütz is often credited with providing sociology with a firm ground derived from phenomenology of science and justifying it as a science operating within natural attitude. Although his project of social science draws extensively on Edmund Husserl’s theory of attitudes, it would be incorrect to assume that Schütz shares with the founder of phenomenology his conception of science. This paper compares Husserl’s and Schütz’s views on the structure and meaning of science and traces the roots of their radical divergence. (...) Whereas Husserl increasingly emphasises the importance of phenomenological reduction for the genuine human science, Schütz eventually rejects reduction and restricts the social science to a specific system of relevancies within the reality of the lifeworld. This paper presents the argument that Schütz’s conception eliminates the possibility of a phenomenological justification of social science, as it implies that there are no rationally justifiable grounds to pursue science. In this way, Schütz’s views substantially differ from the phenomenological theory of science and become open to the phenomenological critique of naivety. (shrink)

Parts of the genome of a single individual can have conflicting interests, depending on which parent they were inherited from. One mechanism by which these conflicts are expressed in some taxa, including mammals, is genomic imprinting, which modulates the level of expression of some genes depending on their parent of origin. Imprinted gene expression is known to affect body size, brain size, and the relative development of various tissues in mammals. A high fraction of imprinted gene expression occurs in the (...) brain. Biologists including Hamilton, Trivers and Haig have proposed that this may explain some intrapersonal conflict in humans. This speculation amounts to an inference from conflict within the genome to conflict within the brain or mind. This is a provocative proposal, which deserves serious attention. In this paper I assess aspects of Haig’s version of the proposal. I argue, first, that the notion that intragenomic conflict predicts personal inconsistency should be rejected. Second, while it is unlikely that it credibly predicts sub-personal agents representing conflicting genetic interests, it is plausible that it predicts that the division of cognitive labour could be exploited to turn sub-systems into proxies for conflicting interests. (shrink)

Applying Bernard Lonergan's (1957/1992, 1972) analysis of intentional consciousness and its concomitant epistemology, this paper highlights epistemological confusion in contemporary consciousness studies as exemplified mostly in David Chalmers's (1996) position. In ideal types, a first section outlines two epistemologies-sensate-modeled and intelligence-based-whose difference significantly explains the different positions. In subsequent sections, this paper documents the sensate-modeled epistemology in Chalmers's position and consciousness studies in general. Tellingly, this model of knowing is at odds with the formal-operational theorizing in twentieth-century science. This paper (...) then links this epistemology with functionalism and its focus on descriptive efficient causality in external behaviors and its oversight of explanatory formal causality; highlights the theoretical incoherence of the understanding of science in the functionalist approach; connects it with the construal of consciousness as primarily intentional (i.e., directed toward an object) to the neglect of consciousness as conscious (i.e., constituted by a non-objectified self-presence); and relates this outcome to the reduction of human consciousness to animal-like perception and mechanistic interactions. A brief conclusion summarizes these multiple, subtle, and interconnected considerations and suggests how only an intellectual epistemology would be adequate to the intellectual nature of human consciousness and the world of meaning, not of mere bodies, in which humans exist. (shrink)

Mirror neuron research has come a long way since the early 1990s, and many theorists are now stressing the heterogeneity and complexity of the sensorimotor properties of fronto-parietal circuits. However, core aspects of the initial ‘ mirror mechanism ’ theory, i.e. the idea of a symmetric encapsulated mirroring function translating sensory action perceptions into motor formats, still appears to be shaping much of the debate. This article challenges the empirical plausibility of the sensorimotor segregation implicit in the original mirror metaphor. (...) It is proposed instead that the teleological organization found in the broader fronto-parietal circuits might be inherently sensorimotor. Thus the idea of an independent ‘purely perceptual’ goal understanding process is questioned. Further, it is hypothesized that the often asymmetric, heterogeneous and contextually modulated mirror and canonical neurons support a function of multisensory mapping and tracking of the perceiving agents affordance space. Such a shift in the interpretative framework offers a different theoretical handle on how sensorimotor processes might ground various aspects of intentional action choice and social cognition. Mirror neurons would under the proposed “social affordance model” be seen as dynamic parts of larger circuits, which support tracking of currently shared and competing action possibilities. These circuits support action selection processes—but also our understanding of the options and action potentials that we and perhaps others have in the affordance space. In terms of social cognition ‘ mirror ’ circuits might thus help us understand not only the intentional actions others are actually performing—but also what they could have done, did not do and might do shortly. (shrink)

In order to defend mental explanations dualists may appeal to dispositions (powers). By accepting a powers theory of causation, a dualist can more plausibly defend mental explanations that are given independently of physical explanations. Accepting a power-based theory still comes with a price. Absences and double preventers are not causes in a powers theory, and solutions based on them can only defend their explanatory relevance in mental explanations. There is still a chance that such mental explanations can be causal explanations, (...) though they do not refer to real causes. (shrink)

Metaphysically speaking, just what is trying? There appear to be two options: to place it on the side of the mind or on the side of the world. Volitionists, who think that to try is to engage in a mental act, perhaps identical to willing and perhaps not, take the mind-side option. The second, or world-side option identifies trying to do something with one of the more basic actions by which one tries to do that thing. The trying is then (...) said to be identical with the physical action. -/- After carefully stating the second, world-side view, I produce two arguments against it. The first relies on the fact that if a=b and b=c, then a=c, sometimes put colloquially as: if something is identical to two things, then the two things must be identical to one another. In the case of trying, one might try to do something by performing a plurality of simultaneous actions, a sure sign that the relation between the trying and the plurality of actions by which one tries must be some relation other than identity. -/- The second argument discusses two cases, recorded in William James’ The Principles of Psychology, of a patient who tries but who performs no action whatever. This is sometimes called ‘naked trying’. A recent attempt at denying that there can be such cases of naked trying is examined and dismissed. (shrink)

Investigates the roles of temporal concepts and self-consciousness in the development of episodic memory. According to some theorists, types of long-term memory differ primarily in the degree to which they involve or are associated with self-consciousness (although there may be no substantial differences in the kind of event information that they deliver). However, a known difficulty with this view is that it is not obvious what motivates introducing self-consciousness as the decisive factor in distinguishing between types of memory and what (...) role it is supposed to play in remembering. The authors argue that distinctions between different kinds of memory should be made initially on the basis of the ways in which they represent events. In particular, it is proposed that the way in which remembered events are located in time provides an important criterion for distinguishing between different types of memory. According to this view, if there is a link between memory development and self-consciousness, it is because some temporal concepts emerge developmentally only once certain self-conscious abilities are in place. (shrink)

Is Present Time a Precondition for the Existence of the Material and Public World?. . ???aop.label???. doi: 10.1080/02691728.2013.782591.

The author explains that his background was in experimental psychology but that he wanted to study the whole person and not fragmented psychological processes. He also desired a non-reductionistic method for studying humans. Fortunately he came across the work of Edmund Husserl and discovered in the latter’s thought a way of researching humans that met the criteria he was seeking. Eventually he developed a phenomenological method for researching humans in a psychological way based upon the work of Husserl and Merleau-Ponty. (...) This article briefly describes the method. (shrink)

Awareness is a two-place determinable relation some determinates of which are seeing, hearing, etc. Abstract objects are items such as universals and functions, which contrast with concrete objects such as solids and liquids. It is uncontroversial that we are sometimes aware of concrete objects. In this paper I explore the more controversial topic of awareness of abstract objects. I distinguish two questions. First, the Existence Question: are there any experiences that make their subjects aware of abstract objects? Second, the Grounding (...) Question: if an experience makes its subject aware of an abstract object, in virtue of what does it do so? I defend the view that intuitions, specifically mathematical intuitions, sometimes make their subjects aware of abstract objects. In defending this view, I develop an account of the ground of intuitive awareness. (shrink)

It is a characteristic feature of our mental make-up that the same perceptual input situation can simultaneously elicit conflicting mental perspectives. This ability pervades our perceptual and cognitive domains. Striking examples are the dual character of pictures in picture perception, pretend play, or the ability to employ metaphors and allegories. I argue that traditional approaches, beyond being inadequate on principle grounds, are theoretically ill equipped to deal with these achievements. I then outline a theoretical perspective that has emerged from a (...) theoretical convergence of perceptual psychology, ethology, linguistics, and developmental research. On the basis of this framework, I argue that corresponding achievements are brought forth by a specific type of functional architecture whose core features are as follows: (1) a perceptual system that is biologically furnished with a rich system of conceptual forms, (2) a triggering relation between the sensory input and conceptual forms by which the same sensory input can be exploited by different types or systems of conceptual forms, and (3) computational principles for handling semantically underspecified conceptual forms. Characteristic features of the proposed theoretical framework are pointed out using the Heider–Simmel phenomenon as an example. (shrink)

Ambiguous figures pose a problem for representationalists, particularly for representationalists who believe that the content of perceptual experience is non-conceptual (MacPherson in Nous 40(1):82–117, 2006). This is because, in viewing ambiguous figures, subjects have perceptual experiences that differ in phenomenal properties without differing in non-conceptual content. In this paper, I argue that ambiguous figures pose no problem for non-conceptual representationalists. I argue that aspect shifts do not presuppose or require the possession of sophisticated conceptual resources and that, although viewing ambiguous (...) figures often causes a change in phenomenal properties, this change is accompanied by a change in non-conceptual content. I illustrate the case by considering specific examples. (shrink)

Philosophical cognitivists have argued for more than four decades that emotions are special types of judgments. Anti-cognitivists have provided a series of counterexamples aiming to show that identifying emotions with judgments overintellectualizes the emotions. I provide a novel counterexample that makes the overintellectualization charge especially vivid. I discuss neurophysiological evidence to the effect that the fear system can be activated by stimuli the subject is unaware of seeing. To emphasize the analogy with blind sight , I call this phenomenon blind (...) fright . Cognitivists may reply that blindfright is nothing but an unconscious judgment subcortically elicited. This reply is in line with the strategy commonly employed by cognitivists against their critics. I call it the Elastic Strategy, because it consists of ‘stretching’ the notion of judgment in order to accommodate counterexamples. This strategy, I argue, turns cognitivism into a theory that is at worst unfalsifiable and at best trivially true. The final portion of my article aims to rescue cognitivism from the damage done by the Elastic Strategy. I distinguish three varieties of cognitivism, one concerned with what emotions essentially are (Constitutive Cognitivism), one concerned with what causes emotions (Etiological Cognitivism) and one concerned with what emotions represent (Representational Cognitivism). I conclude that what cognitivism has to offer to emotion theory are primarily insights concerning the causes and representational content of emotions. The constitutive identification of emotions with judgments, on the other hand, does more harm than good. (shrink)

The universality, invariance, and elegance of principles governing the universe may be reflected in principles of the minds that have evolved in that universe – provided that the mental principles are formulated with respect to the abstract spaces appropriate for the representation of biologically significant objects and their properties. (1) Positions and motions of objects conserve their shapes in the geometrically fullest and simplest way when represented as points and connecting geodesic paths in the six-dimensional manifold jointly determined by the (...) Euclidean group of three-dimensional space and the symmetry group of each object. (2) Colors of objects attain constancy when represented as points in a three-dimensional vector space in which each variation in natural illumination is canceled by application of its inverse from the three-dimensional linear group of terrestrial transformations of the invariant solar source. (3) Kinds of objects support optimal generalization and categorization when represented, in an evolutionarily-shaped space of possible objects, as connected regions with associated weights determined by Bayesian revision of maximum-entropy priors. Key Words: apparent motion; Bayesian inference; cognition; color constancy; generalization; mental rotation; perception; psychological laws; psychological space; universal laws. (shrink)

Viewers have a way of using their somatosensory system to create temporary boundary changes that bring them into intimate relationships with art objects. Spectators experience this imaginary fusion when simultaneously attending to their own somatosensory sensations, which occur inside the body, and to qualities of the artwork, which exist in the external world. At such moments viewers reinterpret their somatosensory sensations as a quality of the artwork. When inside and outside are reinterpreted, viewers cross the conventional boundary between self and (...) object. This effect can be illustrated in first person reports and supported by current research in the neurosciences and the humanities. (shrink)

Studies that compare human and animal behaviour suspend prejudices about mind, body and their relation, by approaching thinking in terms of behaviour. Yet comparative approaches typically engage another prejudice, motivated by human social and bodily experience: taking the lone animal as the unit of comparison. This prejudice informs Heidegger’s and Merleau-Ponty’s comparative studies, and conceals something important: that animals moving as a group in an environment can develop new sorts of “sense.” The study of animal group-life suggests a new way (...) of thinking about the creation of sense, about the body, the brain, and the relation between thinking and nature. (shrink)

The objective of this paper is to articulate a distinction between habit and bodily skill as different ways of acting without deliberation. I start by elaborating on a distinction between habit and skill as different kinds of dispositions. Then I argue that this distinction has direct implications for the varieties of automaticity exhibited in habitual and skilful bodily acts. The argument suggests that paying close attention to the metaphysics of agency can help to articulate more precisely questions regarding the varieties (...) of automaticity exhibited in overt action. (shrink)

Skinner has been criticized for advancing essentialist interpretations of meaning in which meaning is treated as the property of a word or a grammatical form. Such a practice is consistent with a "words and things" view that sought to advance an ideal language as well as with S-R views that presented meaning as the property of a word form. These views imply an essentialist theory of meaning that would be consistent with Skinner's early S-R behaviorism. However, Skinner's more developed account (...) of meaning is based on his later selectionist behaviorism, and this account of meaning is aligned in many respects with the views of Darwin, Peirce, F. C. S. Schiller, Dewey, and Wittgenstein. After adopting a selectionist theory of meaning, it was inconsistent for Skinner to maintain essentialist practices although Skinner did so in response to influences that had little to do with his selectionist theory. Skinner's particular contribution to this pragmatic-selectionist tradition of meaning is the integration of meaning within his three-term contingency for operant behavior. In this account, meaning lies in the probabilistic functional relations of verbal behavior rather than in its form. (shrink)

Organisms change their shape and behavior during ontogenesis in response to incentives—what biologists call “phenotypic plasticity” or what is called here more specifically “behavioral plasticity.” Such plasticity is usually in the direction of enhancing welfare or fitness. In light of basic concepts in economics, such behavioral plasticity is nothing but rationality. Such rationality is not limited to organisms with neural systems. It also characterizes brainless organisms such as plants, fungi, and unicellular organisms. The gist of the article is the distinction (...) between rationality and intelligence. Whereas rationality is ubiquitous in all organisms, intelligence varies in degrees depending on division of labor that may involve the evolution of a neural system. This article aims to defend the universality of rationality—the Organismus oeconomicus hypothesis. It argues that neither the notion of bounded rationality of behavioral economics nor Herbert Simon’s “procedural rationality” can ultimately undermine the Organismus oeconomicus hypothesis. (shrink)

The domain of agential powers is marked by a contrast that does not arise in the case of dispositions of inanimate objects: the contrast between propensities or tendencies on the one hand, and capacities or abilities on the other. According to Ryle (1949), this contrast plays an important role in the ‘logical geography’ of the dispositional concepts used in the explanation and assessment of action. However, most subsequent philosophers use the terms of art ‘power’ or ‘disposition’ indiscriminately in formulating central (...) metaphysical claims about human agency, assuming that an adequate account of inanimate dispositions can safely be used for such purposes. As a result, the distinctive features of propensities and capacities drop out of view. This is bound to obscure distinctions of crucial importance to the understanding of human agency. In order to show this, I undertake to articulate some central differences between propensities and capacities. Propensities and capacities have a different relation to value, as well as a concomitant difference in their metaphysical structure. The argument points to an explanation of why the distinction between propensities and capacities does not arise in the case of non-agential powers. This explanation takes us back to questions about the nature of human agency. (shrink)

The study explored the role of moral identity in the civic engagement of youth through ethical ideology. A total of 217 individuals comprising of 104 girls and 113 boys completed three scales, namely, moral identity scale, ethics position questionnaire and civic engagement scale.The results showed that moral identity internalization significantly predicted civic engagement attitude and moral identity symbolization significantly predicted civic engagement behaviour. Furthermore, idealism partially mediated the relationship between moral identity and civic engagement.

The ArgumentMichael Polanyi is placed in the ongoing Enlightenment-reform tradition as one of the first twentieth-century scientists to propose a program to correct the gravest internal conflict of the modern Enlightenment project of radical criticism: scientific detachment and moral nihilism in conflict with humanist values. He held that radical criticism leads not to truth but to destructive doubt. Only the inclusion of the “personal element,” the judicial attitude of reasonable doubt and the acknowledgment of belief in the regulative principle of (...) truth can overcome this end. Freedom — to reason, to criticize the method of doubt, and freedom of scientific thinking — is a precondition to reach truth. His epistemology of nonsubjective personal knowledge has redefined scientific knowing and objectivity as grounded in tacit knowing. Debate is continuing on objectivity and freedom versus the social duty of science. Polanyi's Hungarian correspondence highlights his commitment to truth and the contemporary cultural-political situation of Jewish intellectuals. (shrink)

This is the first of two papers in which we propose an evolutionary route for the transition from sensory processing to unlimited experiencing, or basic consciousness. We argue that although an evolutionary analysis does not provide a formal definition and set of sufficient conditions for consciousness, it can identify crucial factors and suggest what evolutionary changes enabled the transition. We believe that the raw material from which feelings were molded by natural selection was a global sensory state that we call (...) overall sensation, which is a by-product of the incessant activity of the highly interconnected nervous systems that characterize all neural animals. We argue that global sensory states generated limited experiencing once they became coupled to the simplest kinds of nervous-system-mediated learning, a coupling that occurred in the most ancient taxa of neural animals, which were similar to present-day cnidarians and ctenophores. In such animals, limited experiencing involves a small number of persistent global sensory states. These sensory states, however, do not have a function and do not act as motivational states. As we argue in the next paper, with the evolution of associative learning they evolved into systems that gave animals basic consciousness. (shrink)

First, we discuss issues raised with respect to the Theory of Event Coding (TEC)'s scope, that is, its limitations and possible extensions. Then, we address the issue of specificity, that is, the widespread concern that TEC is too unspecified and, therefore, too vague in a number of important respects. Finally, we elaborate on our views about TEC's relations to other important frameworks and approaches in the field like stages models, ecological approaches, and the two-visual-pathways model. Footnotes1 We acknowledge the precedence (...) of both Freud¹s Instincts and Their Vicissitudes (1915) and Neisser¹s Stimulus Information and Its Vicissitudes (a term Neisser borrowed from Freud for his monograph “Cognitive psychology,” 1967). (shrink)

I sketch a line of thought about consciousness and physics that gives some motivation for the hypothesis that conscious observers deviate—perhaps only very subtly and slightly—from quantum dynamics. Although it is hard to know just how much credence to give this line of thought, it does add motivation for a stronger and more comprehensive programme of quantum experiments involving quantum observers.

It is often maintained that practical freedom is a capacity to act on our view of what we ought to do and in particular on our view of what it would be best to do. Here, I discuss an important exception to that claim, namely habitual agency. Acting out of habit is widely regarded as a form of reflex or even as compulsive behaviour but much habitual agency is both intentional and free. Still it is true that, in so far (...) as we act out of habit, we have no capacity to determine what we do by making a judgement about whether we ought to be doing it. Habitual agency is nonetheless free because we have the capacity to determine whether we act out of habit by making a judgement about whether or not the habit is a virtue. I develop this view of habit by contrasting habitual agency with action on policy and I argue that much virtuous agency is best understood as a form of habitual agency rather than as a form of action on policy. (shrink)