Dans le cadre général de la réception des Principles of Psychology dans les pays germanophones, on examine l’influence de cet ouvrage sur la philosophie de la culture d’Ernst Cassirer. Le concept de flux de conscience a notamment aidé Cassirer à résoudre ce que l’on peut appeler le problème de l’articulation : comment décrire la transition entre le flux continu de sensations et la création de formes culturelles capables de durer dans le temps? Pour répondre à cette question il faut faire (...) face à un problème auquel James n’avait pas donné de réponse définitive, celui de la relation entre les composantes dynamiques ou transitoires du flux de la conscience et ses composantes statiques : concepts, symboles, images. (shrink)

Opponents to consciousness in fish argue that fish do not feel pain because they do not have a neocortex, which is a necessary condition for feeling pain. A common counter-argument appeals to the multiple realizability of pain: while a neocortex might be necessary for feeling pain in humans, pain might be realized differently in fish. This paper argues, first, that it is impossible to find a criterion allowing us to demarcate between plausible and implausible cases of multiple realization of pain (...) without running into a circular argument. Second, opponents to consciousness in fish cannot be provided with reasons to believe in the multiple realizability of pain. I conclude that the debate on the existence of pain in fish is impossible to settle by relying on the multiple realization argument. (shrink)

James developed an evolutionary objection to epiphenomenalism that is still discussed today. Epiphenomenalists have offered responses that do not grasp its full depth. I thus offer a new reading and assessment of James’s objection. Our life-essential, phenomenal pleasures and pains have three features that suggest that they were shaped by selection, according to James: they are natively patterned, those patterns are systematically linked with antecedent brain states, and the patterns are “universal” among humans. If epiphenomenalism were true, phenomenal patterns could (...) not have been selected (because epiphenomenalism precludes phenomenal consciousness affecting reproductive success). So epiphenomenalism is likely false. (shrink)

I start by defining sentience and giving an analysis of the epistemological problems that plague its scientific study; this consists mainly in justifying that the attribution of sentience is underdetermined by the data. Second I show that as a result of this situation of underdetermination, most of the types of arguments used to infer sentience from the data are inconclusive and lead to a stalemate. Third, I argue that the stalemates arise from a foundationalist epistemology which needlessly leads to skeptical (...) conclusions; as an alternative, I propose to adopt a coherentist framework and defend a process of ‘epistemic iteration’ (Chang 2004) within that framework, which I argue gives us a way out of the underdetermination. (shrink)