Here I present a sympathetic but critical analysis of Damasio's latest book. I begin with a brief exposition of his neurobiological theory of emotion and then take issue with him on the cognitive and representational nature of emotional states. I discuss his view of consciousness as a second-order set of neural activations, which are allegedly intimately related to, and even necessary for, elementary emotional and homeodynamic processes. I find Damasio's account wanting in at least two respects. First, the relationship between (...) emotional states and the consciousness thereof is left ambiguous. Second, Damasio lacks a clear psychological hypothesis about the hierarchy of first-, second-, and possibly third-order mental/neural states. The result is that a wealth of neurobiological information fails to be organized in a coherent conceptual scheme, and the whole account is ultimately unsatisfactory. (shrink)

Chapter 1 is devoted to taking care of some preliminary issues. I begin by distinguishing those states of awareness in virtue of which we’re acquainted with the phenomenal characters of our experiences from those states of awareness some claim are at the very nature of experience. Then I reconcile the idea that experience is transparent with the claim that we can be acquainted with phenomenal character. -/- In Chapter 2 I set up a dilemma that is the primary focus of (...) the dissertation. In the first part of this chapter I argue that phenomenal acquaintance has three key features, what I call its ‘directness’, ‘thickness’, and ‘infallibility’. In the second part I argue, however, that it’s really quite puzzling how thoughts about phenomenal character (or any thoughts, for that matter) could have them. In the next two chapters I consider how we might resolve the dilemma described above. -/- I begin in Chapter 3 by considering an account of phenomenal acquaintance inspired by Bertrand Russell’s discussion of acquaintance. The general idea here is to excise mental representation from phenomenal acquaintance, and I ultimately reject the proposal. -/- Chapter 4 is the core chapter of the dissertation. In it I propose an account of phenomenal acquaintance that doesn’t excise mental representation. My account is comprised of three theses. First, token experiences are complex and have instances of phenomenal properties as components. Second, instances of phenomenal properties are mental representations, and they represent themselves. Third, the attention relevant to phenomenal acquaintance is underwritten by self-representation. I argue that my account explains how phenomenal acquaintance is direct, thick, and infallible, thereby resolving our dilemma. -/- I argue in Chapter 5 that my account of phenomenal acquaintance explains why there is an explanatory gap between the phenomenal and non-phenomenal truths. Accordingly, I conclude that the explanatory gap doesn’t pose a problem for physicalism. Here I implement what has come to be called the ‘phenomenal concept strategy’ for responding to the challenge posed by the explanatory gap. (shrink)

Baars affirms Crick and Koch's position that the timidity most cognitive scientists show in the face of consciousness is ridiculous. Unfortunately, all three succumb to a variation on the timidity they deprecate. Furthermore, Baars' own method, ``contrastic analysis,'' is at odds with the computational conception of mind that dominates contemporary cognitive science.

Purple Haze: The Puzzle of Consciousness, by Joseph Levine, is reviewed. The position that Levine takes in the current philosophical debate about consciousness is identified and the general approach of the essay outlined. I focus on two of the more important issues in the book - the conceivability argument against materialism, and the explanatory gap argument against dualism - and argue that Levine's argument against the former is unconvincing and his diagnosis of the source of the latter leads him into (...) problems. I suggest a more promising route. (shrink)

This paper explores the enactive approach in cognitive science with an eye on the later Wittgenstein’s philosophy. The aim is not that of answering the question: was Wittgenstein an ante litteram enactivist? He was not, because he was not an ante litteram (cognitive) scientist of any kind. The aim, conversely, is that of answering the question: can enactivism be Wittgensteinian? In answering positively, it will be argued that a Wittgensteinian framework can help enactive cognitive scientists in dissolving certain old problems (...) which they sometimes seem not to be able to get rid of. After the Introduction, the first two sections of the paper concern the Wittgensteinian standpoint on psychological concepts (Section 2) and the enactivist approach in its general terms (Section 3). Section 4 attempts a closer examination of some key concepts – chiefly representations, the inner, the “explanatory gap”, the “hard problem” of consciousness – considering both the enactivists’ and Wittgenstein’s attitude towards them. The Conclusion surmises the benefits of a Wittgensteinian perspective also hinting at some other problems which it can help to clarify. (shrink)

Context: The enactive paradigm in the cognitive sciences is establishing itself as a strong and comprehensive alternative to the computationalist mainstream. However, its own particular historical roots have so far been largely ignored in the historical analyses of the cognitive sciences. Problem: In order to properly assess the enactive paradigm’s theoretical foundations in terms of their validity, novelty and potential future directions of development, it is essential for us to know more about the history of ideas that has led to (...) the current state of affairs. Method: The meaning of the disappearance of the field of cybernetics and the rise of second-order cybernetics is analyzed by taking a closer look at the work of representative figures for each of the phases: Rosenblueth, Wiener and Bigelow for the early wave of cybernetics, Ashby for its culmination, and von Foerster for the development of the second-order approach. Results: It is argued that the disintegration of cybernetics eventually resulted in two distinct scientific traditions, one going from symbolic AI to modern cognitive science on the one hand, and the other leading from second-order cybernetics to the current enactive paradigm. Implications: We can now understand that the extent to which the cognitive sciences have neglected their cybernetic parent is precisely the extent to which cybernetics had already carried the tendencies that would later find fuller expression in second-order cybernetics. (shrink)

In recent years, a central debate in the philosophy of mind and cognitive science concerns the role of the body in perception and cognition. For many contemporary philosophers, not only cognition but also perception is connected mainly with the brain, where the processing of input from the senses takes place; whereas for the proponents of ‘embodied cognition’ other aspects of the body beyond the brain, including the environment, play a constitutive role in cognitive processes. In terms of perception, a new (...) theory has emerged which stresses perception’s active character and claims that the embodied subject and the environment, with which it interacts, form a dynamic system. Supporters of ‘enactive perception’ such as Susan Hurley and Alva Noë maintain that the physical substrate or the supervenience basis of perceptual experience and phenomenal consciousness may include besides the brain and the nervous system other bodily and environmental features. Yet, it will be argued in this paper that the interaction between the subject and the environment forms a system of causal relations, so we can theoretically interfere in the causal chains and create hallucinations, which cannot be distinguished from veridical perception, or a virtual reality as in the film Matrix (1999). This kind of argument and its related thought experiments aim to stress the primacy of the brain in determining phenomenal states, and show that the body and certain interactions with the environment have a causal, but not a constitutive or essential role, in forming phenomenal consciousness. (shrink)

> Context • The alleged dichotomy between mind and matter is pervasive. Therefore, the attempt to explain mat- ter in terms of mind (idealism) is often considered a mirror image of that of explaining mind in terms of mat- ter (mainstream physicalism), in the sense of being structurally equivalent despite being reversely arranged. > Problem • I argue that this is an error arising from language artifacts, for dichotomies must reside in the same level of abstraction. > Method • I (...) show that, because matter outside mind is not an empirical observation but rather an explanatory model, the epistemic symmetry between the two is broken. Consequently, matter and mind cannot reside in the same level of abstraction. > Results • It then becomes clear that attempting to explain mind in terms of matter is epistemically more costly than attempting to explain matter in terms of mind. > Implications • The qualities of experience are suggested to be not only epistemically, but also ontologically primary. > Constructivist content • I high- light the primacy of perceptual constructs over explanatory abstraction on both epistemic and ontic levels. > Key words • Idealism, physicalism, pancomputationalism, anti-realism, hard problem of consciousness, epistemic symmetry, explanatory abstraction, levels of abstraction. (shrink)

This is a bibliography of books and articles on consciousness in philosophy, cognitive science, and neuroscience over the last 30 years. There are three main sections, devoted to monographs, edited collections of papers, and articles. The first two of these sections are each divided into three subsections containing books in each of the main areas of research. The third section is divided into 12 subsections, with 10 subject headings for philosophical articles along with two additional subsections for articles in cognitive (...) science and neuroscience. Of course the division is somewhat arbitrary, but I hope that it makes the bibliography easier to use. This bibliography has first been compiled by Thomas Metzinger and David Chalmers to appear in print in two philosophical anthologies on conscious experience . From 1995 onwards it has been continuously updated by Thomas Metzinger, and now is freely available as a PDF-, RTF-, or HTML-file. This bibliography mainly attempts to cover the Anglo-Saxon and German debates, in a non-annotated, fully formatted way that makes it easy to "cut and paste" from the original file. To a certain degree this bibliography also contains items in other languages than English and German - all submissions in other languages are welcome. Last update of current version: July 13th, 2001. (shrink)

In a recent paper in this journal, David Chalmers introduced the meta-problem of consciousness as “the problem of explaining why we think consciousness poses a hard problem” (Chalmers, 2018, p. 6). A solution to the meta-problem could shed light on the hard problem of consciousness. In particular, it would be relevant to elucidate whether people’s problem intuitions (i.e. intuitions holding that conscious experience cannot be reduced to physical processes) are driven by factors related to the nature of consciousness, or rather (...) by factors that are independent of consciousness. Whether people hold problem intuitions, and what factors drive those intuitions, are largely empirical questions. However, there is a lack of empirical research on these issues to date. The results of four studies will show that (1) problem intuitions are not widespread, and (2) when they arise, they do so because of factors that are unrelated to the nature of consciousness. This suggests that consciousness is, after all, not so problematic. (shrink)

Non-reductivists about phenomenal consciousness believe that physical facts are insufficient to ground the existence of phenomenal consciousness. It will be argued that if one is going to be a non-reductivist, then one should not limit oneself to expanding one’s catalogue of the world’s basic features, as recommended in the paradigmatic non-reductivist approach developed by David Chalmers. One should rather take a realist stance towards subjectivity. A realist about subjectivity thinks that at least some of the propositions needed to state how (...) things are in reality are such that their truth-value is capable of changing ‘from one subject to another’. Realism about subjectivity will be introduced by means of an analogy with the so called ‘A-theory’ of time. An A-theorist claims that at least some of the propositions needed to state how things are in reality are such that their truth-value is capable of changing ‘from one time to another’. It turns out that a robust notion of metaphysical reality is necessary to make sense of both realism about subjectivity and the A-theories of time. (shrink)

Panpsychism is the view that every concrete and unified thing has some form of phenomenal consciousness or experience. It is an age-old doctrine, which, to the surprise of many, has recently taken on new life. In philosophy of mind, it has been put forth as a simple and radical solution to the mind–body problem (Chalmers 1996, 2003;Strawson 2006; Nagel 1979, 2012). In metaphysics and philosophy of science, it has been put forth as a solution to the problem of accounting for (...) the intrinsic nature of the physical itself (Strawson 2006, Seager 2006). In this thesis, I show that panpsychism can also be defended on the basis of an argument from our (arguable) acquaintance with the nature of causation in agency. This argument has made frequent appearances throughout the history of philosophy, with philosophers such as Leibniz, Schopenhauer and James, and I construct and defend an updated version of it. Furthermore, I offer a solution to the combination problem: how can complex (human and animal-type) consciousness result from simple (fundamental particle-type) consciousness? This is generally regarded as the most serious problem facing contemporary panpsychism. I propose that mental combination can be construed as kind causal process culminating in a fusion, and show how this avoids the main difficulties with accounting for mental combination. (shrink)

It is often thought that sensible qualities such as colours do not exist as properties of physical objects. Focusing on the case of colour, I discuss two views: the Galilean view, according to which colours do not exist as qualities of physical objects, and the naive view, according to which colours are, as our perception presents them to be, qualities instantiated by physical objects. I argue that it is far from clear that the Galilean view is better than the naive (...) view. Given the arguments in this paper, the naive view ought to be taken seriously. The discussion here appeals especially to theorists who, like Goff, are already convinced that the quantitative language of physical science fails to capture all qualities. (shrink)

This paper is both systematic and historical in nature. From a historical viewpoint, I aim to show that to establish Wittgenstein’s claim that “an ‘inner process’ stands in need of outward criteria” there is an enthymeme in Wittgenstein’s private language argument overlooked in the literature, namely Wittgenstein’s suggestion that both perceptual and bodily experiences are _transparent_ in the relevant sense that one cannot point to a mental state and wonder “What is that?” From a systematic viewpoint, I aim to show (...) that Wittgenstein’s PLA teaches us that the prevailing picture of the nature of phenomenal concepts is upside down: we can only introspectively know what is going on inside our heads, after we learn of what is going on outside. In this regard, I aim to defend two associate claims against the prevailing view of PCs on the basis of PLA. First, by means of transparency, I aim to show that there is no _de re_ awareness of our private sensation that could determine the meaning of sensation-words; for example, I am never aware _of _the phenomenal blueness of my experience of something blue. The second associated claim is that introspective self-knowledge of our private sensation is always _de dicto_. We can only know introspectively that phenomenal blueness is the phenomenal character of the experience we are undergoing after we have learned _that _ blue is the color that usually causes in us that kind of experience. Likewise, we can only introspectively know that pain is the phenomenal character of the experience we are undergoing after we have learned that pain is what usually causes some typical pain behavior. (shrink)

Artikkelissa tarkastellaan perusteellisesti ja kriittisesti David Chalmersin vaikutusvaltaista fenomenaaliseen tietoisuuden liittyvää argumenttia materialismia vastaan. Argumentissa tunnistetaan useampikin kuin yksi heikko lenkki.

This PhD thesis concerns introspective approaches to the study of the mind. Across three standalone papers, I examine the significance of introspective data and advise on appropriate kinds of training for the production of such data. An overview document first introduces major themes, methods and arguments of the thesis. Paper 1 then begins the argumentative work, interrogating the constraining function of introspection in cognitive science. Here, I evaluate “enactivist” claims about the significance of introspection, clarifying central enactivist suggestions to draw (...) out the broader importance of introspection in science and philosophy. Paper 2 then examines the proposed employment of Buddhist meditation practices in the production of rigorous introspective data. I defend such proposals against concerns that meditators yield ungeneralizable data, given the transformative character of these attention-training techniques. I argue that some meditation-trained transformations are actually epistemically-beneficial, undermining popular associations between transformation and “distortion”. Paper 3 then reviews difficulties involved in integrating meditative training into research. I emphasise the importance of specific contextual supports to meditation as critical ingredients of introspective proficiency, showing how difficulties replicating these threaten to limit the scope of meditation’s scientific benefits. I layout methodological responses to this that can maximise meditation’s positive impact going forwards. (shrink)

This thesis has, as its primary target, the neo-cartesianism, or property dualism of certain philosophers of mind: David Chalmers, Tim Bayne, and others. All begin with a pre-theoretic commitment to the view that all perceptual states are conscious. They define consciousness by saying that it is synonymous with having ‘qualia’ – a term directed at phenomenal properties which defy reduction to physical states. The thesis argues that this position is challenged by certain neurological conditions, - blindsight, visual form agnosia etc- (...) which we can generalise as ‘dissociations’: conditions in which functions are separated from awareness. The thesis holds that these are examples of unconscious perception, which present the case for a different pre-theoretic position, and a redefinition of concepts used in the vicinity. Insofar as the neo-cartesians recognise the empirical, their inclination to reject the dissociations is challenged with new cases and paradigms which have emerged in recent years. It is contended that the dissociations disrupt Chalmers’ coherence between the phenomenal and the psychological, Bayne’s commitment to the Unity of Consciousness, and Phillips’ campaign against unconscious perception. In addition, synaesthesia is advanced as a problem case for Bayne’s unity contention. I argue that the dissociations are not easily dismissed, and present a real challenge for neo-cartesianism. In exploring this challenge, the thesis contributes to the case for a different philosophy of mind – a Higher Order Thought approach. The notion of unconscious perception – it is contended - much more easily finds an accommodation in HOT theories, so this thesis contributes to existing arguments for that position. HOT theories also have an advantage in being receptive to reduction, in giving a developmental account of consciousness, and in being more open to the accommodation of empirical discoveries. In each respect, there is an advantage over the respective positions taken by Chalmers and Bayne. (shrink)

This paper is an edited transcription of a talk at the 1997 Montreal symposium on "Consciousness at the Frontiers of Neuroscience". There's not much here that isn't said elsewhere, e.g. in "Facing Up to the Problem of Consciousness" and "How Can We Construct a Science of Consciousness?"]].

Ordinary Language Philosophy has largely fallen out of favour, and with it the belief in the primary importance of analyses of ordinary language for philosophical purposes. Still, in their various endeavours, philosophers not only from analytic but also from other backgrounds refer to the use and meaning of terms of interest in ordinary parlance. In doing so, they most commonly appeal to their own linguistic intuitions. Often, the appeal to individual intuitions is supplemented by reference to dictionaries. In recent times, (...) Internet search engine queries for expressions of interest have become quite popular. Apparently, philosophers attempt to surpass the limits of their own linguistic intuitions by appealing to experts or to factual uses of language. I argue that this attempt is commendable but that its execution is wanting. Instead of appealing to dictionaries or Internet queries, philosophers should employ computer-based linguistic corpora in order to confirm or falsify hypotheses about the factual use of language. This approach also has some advantages over methods employed by experimental philosophers. If the importance of ordinary language is stressed, the use of linguistic corpora is hardly avoidable. (shrink)

Distributive egalitarians believe that distributive justice is to be explained by the idea of distributive equality (DE) and that DE is of intrinsic value. The socio-relational critique argues that distributive egalitarianism does not account for the “true” value of equality, which rather lies in the idea of “equality as a substantive social value” (ESV). This paper examines the socio-relational critique and argues that it fails because – contrary to what the critique presupposes –, first, ESV is not conceptually distinct from (...) DE, and second, the idea of ESV cannot serve as a “foundation” or “root” of distributive egalitarianism. (shrink)

This paper is an overview of recent discussions concerning the mind–body problem that have been taking place at the interface between philosophy and neuroscience. In it I focus on phenomenal consciousness or “qualia”, which I distinguish from various related issues (sections 1-2). I then discuss various influential skeptical arguments that question the possibility of reductive explanations of qualia in physicalist terms: knowledge arguments, conceivability arguments, the argument from multiple realizability and the explanatory gap argument. None of the arguments is found (...) entirely convincing (section 3). It does not necessarily follow that reductive physicalism is the only option, but it is defensible. However, constant conceptual and methodological reflection is required alongside ongoing research, to keep such a view free from dogmatism and naivety (section 4). (shrink)

The Integrated Information Theory (IIT) formulated for the first time in 2004 by the neuroscientist Giulio Tononi, is a theoretical framework aiming to scientifically explain phenomenal consciousness. The IIT is presented in the first part of this work. Broadly speaking, integrated information is an abstract quantitative measure of the causal power a system has on itself. The main claim of IIT is the identity between informational structures and experience. The nature of this identity will be the subject of the second (...) part. One can interpret the IIT as a fundamental law of nature connecting the physical domain to the mental domain. The philosophical implications of such a claim are numerous and they are subject to criticism. This will be the main concern of the third and last part. (shrink)

Is it possible to build a conscious machine, an artifact that has qualitative experiences such as feeling pain, seeing the redness of a flower or enjoying the taste of coffee ? What makes such experiences conscious is their phenomenal character: it is like something to have such experiences. In contemporary philosophy of mind, the question of the qualitative aspect of conscious experiences is often addressed in terms of qualia. In a pre-theoretical and intuitive sense, qualia refer to the phenomenal character (...) or “what-it’s-like-ness” of a conscious experience: the painfulness of a pain experience or the redness of a visual experience of a red object. The problem of artificial qualia is the question of the theoretical possibility of the realization of qualia by artifacts. In this work, this problem will serve as a methodological tool to address what is arguably the most fundamental question of philosophy of mind: what exactly is consciousness? (shrink)

Discussions of the mind-body problem often refer to an.

Philosophers have always taken an interest not only in what is actually the case, but in what is necessarily the case and what could possibly be the case. These are questions of modality. Epistemologists of modality enquire into how we can know what is necessary and what is possible. This dissertation concerns the meta-epistemology of modality. It engages with the rules that govern construction and evaluation of theories in the epistemology of modality, by using modal empiricism – a form of (...) modal epistemology – as a running example. In particular, I investigate the assumption that it is important to be able to meet the integration challenge. Meeting the integration challenge is a source of serious difficulty for many approaches, but modal empiricism is supposed to do well in this respect. But I argue that once we have a better grasp of what the integration challenge is, it is not obvious that it presents no problem for modal empiricism. Moreover, even if modal empiricism could be said to be in a relatively good position with respect to integration, it comes at the cost of a forced choice between far-reaching partial modal scepticism and non-uniformism about the epistemology of modality. Non-uniformism is the view that more than one modal epistemology will be correct. While non-uniformism might not in itself be unpalatable, it must be defined and defended in a way which squares with the modal empiricist’s other commitment. I explore two ways of doing so, both involving a revised idea of the integration challenge and its role for the epistemology of modality. One involves a bifurcation of the integration challenge, and the other a restriction of the integration challenge’s relevance. Both ways are interesting, but neither is, as it turns out, a walk in the park. (shrink)

Physicalism demands an explication of what it means for something to be physical. But the most popular way of providing one—viz., characterizing the physical in terms of the postulates of a scientifically derived physical theory—is met with serious trouble. Proponents of physicalism can either appeal to current physical theory or to some future physical theory (preferably an ideal and complete one). Neither option is promising: currentism almost assuredly renders physicalism false and futurism appears to render it indeterminate or trivial. The (...) purpose of this essay is to argue that attempts to characterize the mental encounter a similar dilemma: currentism with respect to the mental is likely to be inadequate or contain falsehoods and futurism leaves too many significant questions about the nature of mentality unanswered. This new dilemma, we show, threatens both sides of the current debate surrounding the metaphysical status of the mind. (shrink)

The hard problem of consciousness is the problem of explaining the existence of subjective experience in a world that is purely physical. As the usual theories fail to provide an adequate explanation, many philosophers started looking for alternatives. One of such alternatives is panpsychism, which has been increasingly gaining attention in the past few decades. Panpsychism is the view that fundamental entities of the world—fundamental particles, for example—have some form of very simple consciousness. And, in the theory, it is that (...) spark that allows for the existence of more complex consciousness, such as in humans. However, panpsychism faces a major difficulty with what is called ‘the combination problem’. This is the problem that, even if we accept that fundamental entities have some form of simple consciousness, it is not clear how one could go from a plurality of micro consciousness to a complex unified macro consciousness. If we think that an atom is conscious, for example, this seems to imply that it is a subject, a conscious subject. But how do we get to a human subject, with a complex human brain? It seems difficult to understand how putting together many conscious subjects—e.g. atoms—could lead to a further conscious subject—e.g. a human. In this thesis I discuss panpsychism and some of the arguments that support it. In addition, I explain the combination problem and its different aspects, as well as how it relates to panpsychism and the hard problem of consciousness. Finally, I discuss a solution to the combination problem that I believe has not been given proper attention in contemporary philosophy, which is one provided by the philosopher Ken Wilber. His solution involves changing the conceptual framework of how we understand the relation between macro and micro subjects. I also apply his theory to the variations of the combination problem, discussing how we could approach these issues under a single coherent view. Although Wilber prefers the term pan-interiorism, his theory can be considered a type of holarchical panpsychism. (shrink)

Provides a certain conception of the target of a theory of intentionality in terms of five properties (aboutness, non-existence, aspectuality, generality, and semantic normativity) and provides a guided tour of how different styles of theories of intentionality can meet up these requirements.

Disertační práce se zabývá problematikou připisování myšlení jiným entitám, a to pomocí imitační hry navržené v roce 1950 britským filosofem Alanem Turingem. Jeho kritérium, známé v dějinách filosofie jako Turingův test, je podrobeno detailní analýze. Práce popisuje nejen původní námitky samotného Turinga, ale především pozdější diskuse v druhé polovině 20. století. Největší pozornost je věnována těmto kritikám: Lucasova matematická námitka využívající Gödelovu větu o neúplnosti, Searlův argument čínského pokoje konstatující nedostatečnost syntaxe pro sémantiku, Blockův návrh na použití brutální síly pro (...) řešení imitační hry, Frenchova teorie subkognitivních informací a Michieho skepticismus ohledně možnosti umělého vědomí. Závěr práce zachycuje současný stav recepce Turingova testu a představuje pokusy o jeho praktickou realizaci, například v každoroční soutěži o Loebnerovu cenu. Autor práce zastává názor, že ani po více než šedesáti letech od uveřejnění Turingova paradigmatického eseje stále neexistují žádné vážné důvody pro zamítnutí jeho tvrzení. Tradiční komputační funkcionalismus možná není ideální teorií vysvětlující činnost myslí a jako slibnější se může jevit vývoj v neurálních vědách, ale Turingův test je přesto užitečným a snad i jediným nástrojem pro detekci inteligence u lidmi vytvořených strojů. (shrink)

In this dissertation, I address the question of how to construct scientific theories of emotions that are both conceptually sound and empirically fruitful. To do this, I offer an analysis of the main challenges scientific theories of emotions face, and I propose a meta-theoretical framework to construct scientific concepts of emotions as explications of folk emotion concepts. Part I discusses the main challenges theories of emotions in psychology and neuroscience encounter. The first states that a proper scientific theory of emotions (...) must explain all and only the phenomena under the vernacular term ‘emotion’ with a common set of conceptual resources and under an overarching generic concept of emotion. The second demands that each emotion category corresponds to well-coordinated sets of neural, physiological, and behavioral patterns of responses. I argue that none of the best contemporary theories of emotions in psychology and neuroscience overcomes these challenges. As a result, a new theory of emotions is required. In Part II, I develop the meta-theoretical framework to construct a theory of emotions that overcomes the challenges above. First, I propose a pluralistic account of scientific kinds based on different patterns of projection that various disciplines may take to justify inductive inferences. These are essentialist, historical, and social patterns. Each of these patterns provides a framework to construct different types of scientific concepts. I argue that among the frameworks for scientific kinds available, the one that is best suited to explicate emotion concepts is a functional framework. Consequently, I conclude by recommending scientists pursue functionalist theories of emotions over essentialist, historical, or social theories. (shrink)

A powerful reply to a range of familiar anti-physicalist arguments has recently been developed. According to this reply, our possession of phenomenal concepts can explain the facts that the anti-physicalist claims can only be explained by a non-reductive account of phenomenal consciousness. Chalmers (2006) argues that the phenomenal concept strategy is doomed to fail. This article presents the phenomenal concept strategy, Chalmers' argument against it, and a defence of the strategy against his.

The first part of this thesis articulates and defends the Subjectivist View of the Mental. According to this view, my mental states are essentially different from the mental states of everyone else, but the fact that they are is a subjective fact, rather than an objective one. Chapter 1 explains what it takes for a fact to be subjective, what kind of difference holds between my mental states and everyone else's mental states and what kind of intuitions lead me to (...) believe that there is such a difference. Chapter 2 defends the Subjectivist View of the Mental from objections and discusses some of its most significant implications. In the second part of the thesis, I explore the advantages that the Subjectivist View of the Mental offers when it comes to accounting for three basic features of our knowledge of the mental. Chapter 3 deals with the asymmetry between self-knowledge and knowledge of other minds. It is argued that, if the Subjectivist View of the Mental is true, we can explain why this asymmetry holds without assuming that self-knowledge and knowledge of other minds are involved with substantially different ways of knowing. Chapter 4 focuses on the immunity to error through misidentification of mental self-ascriptions. I show that, while there has been a temptation to explain this phenomenon by following Lichtenberg and Wittgenstein in taking the content of mental self-ascriptions to be general rather than particular, this proposal cannot be made to work unless something like the Subjectivist View of the Mental is true. Chapter 5 is concerned with experiential knowledge. I argue that, if experiential truths are taken to be objective truths, it is not easy to see why experiential knowledge should have the peculiar 'first-hand' character it has. The problem disappears if experiential truths are regarded as subjective rather than objective. (shrink)

Llamamos “conocimiento fenoménico” al conocimiento de nuestras experiencias conscientes: al saber cómo es tener una determinada experiencia. Los conceptos fenoménicos son aquellos asociados a este conocimiento y refieren, de modo introspectivo y directo, a las propiedades fenoménicas de nuestras experiencias. El papel que juegan estos conceptos es esencial en la filosofía de la mente contemporánea en la medida que muchos de sus defensores creen que una explicación adecuada de su naturaleza nos permitirá disipar un sinfín de rompecabezas epistemológicos (sobre la (...) relación de los individuos con sus estados fenoménicos) y metafísicos (que giran en torno a la naturaleza de la consciencia). Estos problemas son dos caras de la misma moneda y una respuesta a uno conlleva, necesariamente, implicaciones para el otro. Mi objetivo en este artículo es ofrecer una introducción al papel que desempeñan los conceptos fenoménicos en el debate metafísico en torno a la naturaleza de la consciencia. En especial, esta exposición se centra en la Estrategia de los Conceptos Fenoménicos, una de las respuestas fisicistas a los argumentos dualistas cuya conclusión es que no es posible acomodar una explicación de la consciencia en un marco fisicista. Para ello, en §1 describo la tesis central del fisicismo y presento uno de los más célebres argumentos en su contra: el argumento del conocimiento. Enseguida, en §2 expongo qué son los conceptos fenoménicos y en qué difieren de otro tipo de conceptos, en §3 explico el modus operandi de la Estrategia de los Conceptos Fenoménicos en respuesta a los retos dualistas señalados en §1, y en §4 menciono algunas de las objeciones más frecuentes en contra de esta estrategia. Finalmente, en §5 hago una síntesis de los puntos esenciales discutidos en este artículo. (shrink)

Visual phenomenology is highly elusive. One attempt to operationalize or to measure it is to use ‘cognitive accessibility’ to track its degrees. However, if Ned Block is right about the overflow phenomenon, then this way of operationalizing visual phenomenology is bound to fail. This thesis does not directly challenge Block’s view; rather it motivates a notion of cognitive accessibility different from Block’s one, and argues that given this notion, degrees of visual phenomenology can be tracked by degrees of cognitive accessibility. (...) Block points out that in the psychology literature, ‘cognitive accessibility’ is often regarded as either all or nothing. However, the notion motivated in the thesis captures the important fact that accessibility comes in degrees (consider the visual field from fovea the periphery). Different legitimate notions of accessibility might be adopted for different purposes. The notion of accessibility motivated here is weaker than Block’s ‘identification’ (2007) but is stronger than Tye’s ‘demonstration’ (2007). The moral drawn from the discussion of Block can be applied to the debate between Dretske and Tye on the speckled-hen style examples. Dretske’s view is even stronger than Block’s, but his arguments from various figures he provides do not support his conclusion since he does not have right ideas about fixation and attention. Tye’s picture is more plausible but his notion of accessibility is so weak that he reaches the excessive conclusion that accessibility overflows phenomenology. Three ramifications might be considered in the final part of the thesis. The first is the relation between this debate and the one concerning higher-order/same-order theories of consciousness. The second is about John McDowell’s early proposal about demonstrative concepts in visual experiences. The third is the relation between the interpretation of the Sperling case proposed here and McDowell new view of experiential contents, i.e., his story about how we carve out conceptual contents out of intuitional contents without falling pray to the Myth of the Given. (shrink)

This paper argues that the many and various conceptions of consciousness propounded by cognitive scientists and philosophers can all be understood as constituted with reference to four fundamental sorts of criterion: epistemic (concerned with kinds of consciousness), semantic (dealing with orders of consciousness), physiological (reflecting states of consciousness), and pragmatic (seeking to capture types of consciousness). The resulting four-fold taxonomy, intended to be exhaustive, suggests that all of the distinct varieties of consciousness currently encountered in cognitive neuroscience, the philosophy of (...) mind, clinical psychology, and other related fields ultimately refer to a unified natural process, analysed under four general aspects. The proposed taxonomy will, it is hoped, possess sufficient clarity to serve as a sound theoretical framework for further scientific studies, and to count as a significant step in the direction of a properly formulated unified concept of consciousness. (shrink)

Mind-body problemet analyseras i ett reduktionistiskt perspektiv. Genom att kombinera emergensbegreppet med algoritmisk informationsteori visas i ett tankeexperiment att ett starkt epistemiskt emergent system kan konstrueras utifrån en relativt enkel, ickelinjär process. En jämförelse med hjärnans avsevärt mer komplexa neurala nätverk visar att även medvetandet kan karakteriseras som starkt epistemiskt emergent. Därmed är reduktionistisk förståelse av medvetandet inte möjlig; mind-body problemet har alltså inte en reduktionistisk lösning. Medvetandets ontologiskt emergenta karaktär kan därefter konstateras utifrån en kombinatorisk analys; det är därmed (...) principiellt oreducerbart till lägre-nivå-fenomen. I perspektivet av en modifierad definition av fri vilja diskuteras den fysiska växelverkan som äger rum i hjärnans neurala system. Trots att enskilda neurala lägre-nivå-processer är deterministiska, kan globala processer visas vara icke- deterministiska i ontologisk mening. Vi argumenterar för att detta leder till viljans frihet. (shrink)

I propose an idealist ontology that makes sense of reality in a more parsimonious and empirically rigorous manner than mainstream physicalism, bottom-up panpsychism, and cosmopsychism. The proposed ontology also offers more explanatory power than these three alternatives, in that it does not fall prey to the hard problem of consciousness, the combination problem, or the decombination problem, respectively. It can be summarized as follows: there is only cosmic consciousness. We, as well as all other living organisms, are but dissociated alters (...) of cosmic consciousness, surrounded by its thoughts. The inanimate world we see around us is the extrinsic appearance of these thoughts. The living organisms we share the world with are the extrinsic appearances of other dissociated alters. (shrink)

There are a number of different matters that come under the heading of ‘consciousness’. One of them is phenomenality, the feeling of say a sensation of red or a pain, that is what it is like to have such a sensation or other experience. Another is reflection on phenomenality. Imagine two infants, both of which have pain, but only one of which has a thought about that pain. Both would have phenomenal states, but only the latter would have a state (...) of reflexive consciousness. This entry will start with phenomenality, moving later to reflexivity and then to one other kind of consciousness. (shrink)

In this paper it is argued that existing ‘self-representational’ theories of phenomenal consciousness do not adequately address the problem of higher-order misrepresentation. Drawing a page from the phenomenal concepts literature, a novel self-representational account is introduced that does. This is the quotational theory of phenomenal consciousness, according to which the higher-order component of a conscious state is constituted by the quotational component of a quotational phenomenal concept. According to the quotational theory of consciousness, phenomenal concepts help to account for the (...) very nature of phenomenally conscious states. Thus, the paper integrates two largely distinct explanatory projects in the field of consciousness studies: (i) the project of explaining how we think about our phenomenally conscious states, and (ii) the project of explaining what phenomenally conscious states are in the first place. (shrink)

O artigo investiga a concepçáo de reduçáo de Searle no que se refere à compatibilidade entre redutibilidade causal e simultânea irredutibilidade ontológica da consciência à atividade cerebral. A reduçáo causal da consciência – a explanabilidade causal de suas características por processos cerebrais e a identidade de suas capacidades causais (seçáo 2) – é incompatível com a irredutibilidade ontológica (seçáo 3), porque a diferença ontológica entre características subjetivas e objetivas torna a identidade das capacidades causais incompreensível (seçáo 4). O principal problema (...) é que a teoria de Searle afirma e nega simultaneamente a identidade entre consciência e processos cerebrais (seçáo 5). (shrink)