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)

The view that it is possible for someone to think at a time without existing at that time is not only perfectly coherent but in harmony with an attractive externalist view of the mental. Furthermore, it offers plausible solutions to various puzzles of personal identity.

We consider an approach to some philosophical problems that I call the Method of Conceptual Articulation: to recognize that a question may lack any determinate answer, and to re-engineer concepts so that the question acquires a definite answer in such a way as to serve the epistemic motivations behind the question. As a case study we examine “Galileo’s Paradox”, that the perfect square numbers seem to be at once as numerous as the whole numbers, by one-to-one correspondence, and yet less (...) numerous, being a proper subset. I argue that Cantor resolved this paradox by a method at least close to that proposed—not by discovering the true nature of cardinal number, but by articulating several useful and appealing extensions of number to the infinite. Galileo was right to suggest that the concept of relative size did not apply to the infinite, for the concept he possessed did not. Nor was Bolzano simply wrong to reject Hume’s Principle (that one-to-one correspondence implies equal number) in the infinitary case, in favor of Euclid’s Common Notion 5 (that the whole is greater than the part), for the concept of cardinal number (in the sense of “number of elements”) was not clearly defined for infinite collections. Order extension theorems now suggest that a theory of cardinality upholding Euclid’s principle instead of Hume’s is possible. Cantor’s refinements of number are not the only ones possible, and they appear to have been shaped by motivations and fruitfulness, for they evolved in discernible stages correlated with emerging applications and results. Galileo, Bolzano, and Cantor shared interests in the particulate analysis of the continuum and in physical applications. Cantor’s concepts proved fruitful for those pursuits. Finally, Gödel was mistaken to claim that Cantor’s concept of cardinality is forced on us; though Gödel gives an intuitively compelling argument, he ignores the fact that Euclid’s Common Notion is also intuitively compelling, and we are therefore forced to make a choice. The success of Cantor’s concept of cardinality lies not in its truth (for concepts are not true or false), nor its uniqueness (for it is not the only extension of number possible), but in its intuitive appeal, and most of all, its usefulness to the understanding. (shrink)

One of Julian Barbour’s main aims is to solve the problem of time that appears in quantum geometrodynamics (QG). QG involves the application of canonical quantization procedure to the Hamiltonian formulation of General Relativity. The problem of time arises because the quantization of the Hamiltonian constraint results in an equation that has no explicit time parameter. Thus, it appears that the resulting equation, as apparently timeless, cannot describe evolution of quantum states. Barbour attempts to resolve the problem by allegedly eliminating (...) time from his interpretation of QG. In order to evaluate the efficacy of his solution, it is necessary to ascertain in what sense time has been eliminated from his theory. I proceed to do so by developing a form of conceptual analysis that is applicable to the concept of time in physical theories and applying this analysis to Barbour’s account. (shrink)

Este trabajo examina si la pregunta “¿puede pensar una máquina?” ha sido respondida de manera satisfactoria. La primera sección, justamente, examina el dictum cartesiano según el cual una máquina no puede pensar en principio. La segunda trata sobre una rebelión en contra de Descartes, encabezada por Babbage. A su vez, la tercera describe una segunda rebelión encabezada por Turing. En ambas se examina, primero el lenguaje mentalista/instrumentalista para describir a una máquina programada y segundo, el reemplazo de la pregunta por (...) el Juego de la Imitación. En la cuarta sección sostengo que la evidencia aportada por dicho juego nos devuelve a la pregunta, pese a Turing. Por último, la quinta sección versa sobre cómo la Habitación China de Searle, paradójicamente, apoya el dictum cartesiano, y lo hace porque tal experimento mental se basa en una capacidad mental falible: la introspección. Se concluye que la pregunta acerca de si puede pensar una máquina es derivada de otra pregunta filosófica compleja: la de la naturaleza de lo mental y el problema mente-cuerpo. (shrink)

Derek Parfit finally meets the Buddha -- on Tralfamadore! This paper is also archived at SSRN.

There are few moral convictions that enjoy the same intuitive plausibility and level of acceptance both within and across nations, cultures, and traditions as the conviction that, normally, it is morally wrong to kill people. Attempts to provide a philosophical explanation of why that is so broadly fall into three groups: Consequentialists argue that killing is morally wrong, when it is wrong, because of the harm it inflicts on society in general, or the victim in particular, whereas personhood and human (...) dignity accounts see the wrongness of killing people in its typically involving a failure to show due respect for the victim and his or her intrinsic moral worth. I argue that none of these attempts to explain the wrongness of killing is successful. Consequentialism generates too many moral reasons to kill, cannot account for deeply felt and widely shared intuitions about the comparative wrongness of killing, and gives the wrong kind of explanation of the wrongness of killing. Personhood and human dignity accounts each draw a line that is arbitrary and entirely unremarkable in terms of empirical reality, and hence ill-suited to carry the moral weight of the difference in moral status between the individuals below and above it. Paying close attention to the different ways in which existing accounts fail to convince, I identify a number of conditions that any plausible account of the wrongness of killing must meet. I then go on to propose an account that does. I suggest that the reason that typically makes killing normal human adults wrong equally applies to atypical human beings and a wide range of non-human animals, and hence challenge the idea that killing a non-human animal is normally easier to justify than killing a human being. This idea has persisted in Western philosophy from Aristotle to the present, and even progressive moral thinkers and animal advocates such as Peter Singer and Tom Regan are committed to it. I conclude by discussing some important practical implications of my account. (shrink)

When I say that I am a lot of things, I mean it literally and metaphysically speaking. The Self, or so I shall argue, is a plurality (notwithstanding the fact that ordinary language takes "the Self" to be a singular term – but, after all, language is only language). It is not a substance or a substratum, and it is not a collection or a bundle. The view I wish to advocate for is a kind of reductionism, in line with (...) some – but not all – broadly Humean ideas. In short, I will defend the view there are the experiences and mental states we have, and that's it: no additional substances, and no bundles. This does not mean, however, that there is no Self – the Self simply is the experiences. I will try to articulate and defend this view by showing that it can accommodate what I take to be the three main desiderata for any theory of the Self to satisfy: first, that the Self is the subject of experience (a subject of mental states, in general); second, that there is a unity to the Self in the sense that our (conscious, phenomenal) experience is at least partly continuous or 'stream-like'; and third, that we do not die when we go to sleep or when we otherwise don't have any (conscious, phenomenal) experiences. (shrink)

The subject of this paper is the epistemology of identity: a general theory of knowledge, evidence and justification for the claim that one thing is identical to another. Although identity figures significantly in our epistemic lives, this is a topic that, to the best of my knowledge, has gone entirely unexplored. Initial attempts to integrate such an epistemology into existing theories of evidence---many of which are tailor-made for contingent propositions---are confounded by the necessity of identity. I defend a restricted form (...) of skepticism according to which the only knowable identity claims are trivial. (shrink)

In order to understand consciousness one would benefit from developing a more eclectic intellectual style. Consciousness is, as proposed by almost everyone except the stubborn reductionists, a truly mysterious concept. Its study and dissection merits a multidisciplinary approach. Waving this multidisciplinary flag has positively enlarged the discussion and neurologists, psychiatrists, mathematicians, and so on, have moved to the philosophy of mind arena, first with caution and now with a more powerful voice. Identifying what we mean by consciousness is a first (...) step even when we want to deny its existence. The link between consciousness and some other mental activity is a logical next step and there is abundant literature doing this, but not all of them differentiate among associated yet different phenomena. (shrink)

Existem dois tipos de criterio de identidade pessoal, criterios de continuidade mental (geralmente memoria) e criterios de continuidade fisica (como continuidade corporal). Depois de examinar os papeis desempenhados pelos criterios principais, 0 autor sugere uma regra criterial (RECIP) que quando aplicada a urn conjunto de criterios fundamentais fisicos e mentais parece adequar-se a nossas intuicoes acerca do que e ou nao ser a mesma pessoa.

In this article I revisit earlier stages of the discussion of personal identity, before Neo-Lockean psychological continuity views became prevalent. In particular, I am interested in Bernard Williams’ initial proposal of bodily identity as a necessary, although not sufficient, criterion of personal identity. It was at this point that psychological continuity views came to the fore arguing that bodily identity was not necessary because brain transplants were logically possible, even if physically impossible. Further proposals by Shoemaker of causal relations between (...) mental states in our memory and Parfit’s discussion of branching causal chains created additional complications. My contention in this paper is that psychological continuity views deflected our attention from what should have remained in the spotlight all the time: the intersubjective character (or not) of criteria proposed to decide personal identity in our language game, and ultimately our form of life concerning ourselves as persons. B. Williams’ emphasis on the body was not just common sense. It was also recognition of the importance of giving priority to criteria that could be kept under intersubjective control. (shrink)

Decisions are made under uncertainty when there are distinct outcomes of a given action, and one is uncertain to which the act will lead. Decisions are made under indeterminacy when there are distinct outcomes of a given action, and it is indeterminate to which the act will lead. This paper develops a theory of (synchronic and diachronic) decision-making under indeterminacy that portrays the rational response to such situations as inconstant. Rational agents have to capriciously and randomly choose how to resolve (...) the indeterminacy relevant to a given choice-situation, but such capricious choices once made constrain how they will choose in the future. The account is illustrated by the case of self-interested action in situations where it is indeterminate whether you yourself will survive to benefit or suffer the consequences. The conclusion emphasizes some distinctive anti-hedging predictions of the account. (shrink)

In this article I explore a number of questions that have not been adequately investigated in philosophy of mind circles: are minds located in the same place as the brains (or other computing machinery) supporting them? Must they exist at the same location as the body? Must they exist at the same time? Could a single mind be implemented in multiple brains, or multiple minds in a single brain? Under what conditions might a single mind persist despite being implemented successively (...) in different brains? What contributions do features of the computing machinery make to these questions, compared to the contribution made by the body and embedded point of view? Some of these questions have been touched on previously, but there hasn’t been any attempt at a systematic analysis of the various consequences that different approaches in the philosophy of mind have for how the spatiotemporal location, synchronic individuation and diachronic identity of minds relates to the spatiotemporal location, synchronic individuation, and diachronic identity of both the implementing computational machinery and the embodied embedded point of view. I make a first stab at such an analysis by discussing a variety of thought experiments in which such questions of location, individuation, and identity arise, and I explore how various approaches to understanding the mind – identity theoretic, functionalist, contentualist, embodied/embedded/extended, and so forth – would respond to such situations. A number of novel issues emerge, and some surprising affinities are revealed. (shrink)

The study of reference often leads to addressing fundamental issues in semantics, metaphysics and epistemology; this suggests that reference is closely linked to the three realms. The overall purpose of this study is to elucidate the structure of some of these links, through a close examination of the “mechanism” of reference. As in many other enquiries, considering the possible (i.e., the modal,) in addition to the actual proves very helpful in clarifying and explicating insights. The reference of a term with (...) respect to possible worlds is commonly called “intension”; so this is a study of intensions. The main contribution of the study is an outline for a “calculator” of intensions. It is argued that the intension of a term is a function of three variables: (a) the way in which the term “picks out” its referent in different possible worlds (semantics); (b) criteria of identity (metaphysics); and (c) the actual state of affairs (actuality). While considering different possible values for these variables, it is demonstrated how the variables combine to generate the term’s intension. In other words, the result is a calculator that when provided with the required values, yields the reference of the term in different possible worlds. By taking into account the possible gap between what we take the values of these variables to be and what they may in fact be, we also gain important insights into the epistemic aspect of reference. In addition, since a rigid designator is a term with constant intension, the proposed thesis provides an elaborate account of rigidity. The first chapter is devoted to the development of the calculator of intensions. Each of the following three chapters elaborates on one aspect of intensions, namely, the semantic, metaphysical and epistemic aspects. In the course of these chapters, various familiar puzzles pertaining to the respective philosophical realms are addressed (many of these puzzles are discussed in Kripke’s Naming and Necessity – a work that considerably inspired this study). In the fifth and last chapter the analysis of intensions is applied to two case-studies from relatively recent philosophical literature: the Kripke-Lewis debate over the identity theory of mind, and the debate over the significance of Donnellan’s referential/attributive distinction. The novel accounts that these applications generate purport to illustrate the importance and originality of the proposed thesis. (shrink)

This is a draft for a revised edition of Mark Sharlow's book "From Brain to Cosmos." It includes most of the material from the first edition, two shorter pieces pertaining to the book, and a detailed new introduction.

How should an agent decide what to do when she is uncertain not just about morally relevant empirical matters, like the consequences of some course of action, but about the basic principles of morality itself? This question has only recently been taken up in a systematic way by philosophers. Advocates of moral hedging claim that an agent should weigh the reasons put forward by each moral theory in which she has positive credence, considering both the likelihood that that theory is (...) true and the strength of the reasons it posits. The view that it is sometimes rational to hedge for one's moral uncertainties, however, has recently come under attack both from those who believe that an agent should always be guided by the dictates of the single moral theory she deems most probable and from those who believe that an agent's moral beliefs are simply irrelevant to what she ought to do. Among the many objections to hedging that have been pressed in the recent literature is the worry that there is no non-arbitrary way of making the intertheoretic comparisons of moral value necessary to aggregate the value assignments of rival moral theories into a single ranking of an agent's options. -/- This dissertation has two principal objectives: First, I argue that, contra these recent objections, an agent's moral beliefs and uncertainties are relevant to what she rationally ought to do, and more particularly, that agents are at least sometimes rationally required to hedge for their moral uncertainties. My principal argument for these claims appeals to the enkratic conception of rationality, according to which the requirements of practical rationality derive from an agent's beliefs about the objective, desire-independent value or choiceworthiness of her options. Second, I outline a new general theory of rational choice under moral uncertainty. Central to this theory is the idea of content-based aggregation, that the principles according to which an agent should compare and aggregate rival moral theories are grounded in the content of those theories themselves, including not only their value assignments but also the metaethical and other non-surface-level propositions that underlie, justify, or explain those value assignments. (shrink)

This thesis is about the conceptualization of persistence of physical, middle-sized objects within the theoretical framework of the revisionary ‘B-theory’ of time. According to the B-theory, time does not flow, but is an extended and inherently directed fourth dimension along which the history of the universe is ‘laid out’ once and for all. It is a widespread view among philosophers that if we accept the B-theory, the commonsensical ‘endurance theory’ of persistence will have to be rejected. The endurance theory says (...) that objects persist through time by being wholly present at distinct times as numerically the same entity. Instead of endurantism, it has been argued, we have to adopt either ‘perdurantism’ or the ‘stage theory’. Perdurantism is the theory that objects are four-dimensional ‘space-time worms’ persisting through time by having distinct temporal parts at distinct times. The stage theory says that objects are instantaneous temporal parts (stages) of space-time worms, persisting by having distinct temporal counterparts at distinct times. In the thesis, it is argued that no good arguments have been provided for the conclusion that we are obliged to drop the endurance theory by acceptance of the B-theory. This conclusion stands even if the endurance theory incorporates the claim that objects endure through intrinsic change. It is also shown that perdurantism and the stage theory come with unwelcome consequences. -/- Paper I demonstrates that the main arguments for the view that objects cannot endure in B-time intrinsically unchanged fail. Papers II and III do the same with respect to the traditional arguments against endurance through intrinsic change in B-time. Paper III also contains a detailed account of the semantics of the tenseless copula, which occurs frequently in the debate. The contention of Paper IV is that four-dimensional space-time worms, as traditionally understood, are not suited to take dispositional predicates. In Paper V, it is shown that the stage theory needs to introduce an overabundance of persistence-concepts, many of which will have to be simultaneously applicable to a single object (qua falling under a single sortal), in order for the theory to be consistent. The final article, Paper VI, investigates the sense in which persistence can, as is sometimes suggested, be a ‘conventional matter’. It also asks whether alleged cases of ‘conventional persistence’ create trouble for the endurance theory. It is argued that conventions can only enter at a trivial semantic level, and that the endurance theory is no more threatened by such conventions than are its rivals. (shrink)

This thesis explores the possibility of composite consciousness: phenomenally conscious states belonging to a composite being in virtue of the consciousness of, and relations among, its parts. We have no trouble accepting that a composite being has physical properties entirely in virtue of the physical properties of, and relations among, its parts. But a long­standing intuition holds that consciousness is different: my consciousness cannot be understood as a complex of interacting component consciousnesses belonging to parts of me. I ask why: (...) what is it about consciousness that makes us think it so different from matter? And should we accept this apparent difference? (shrink)

En What Emotions Really Are y en otros artículos, Griffiths afirma que las clases naturales de los organismos vivos en Biología son cladistas. La afirmación está inmersa en una nueva teoría acerca de las clases naturales. En este trabajo examinaré los argumentos esgrimidos por Griffiths para sostener el estatus privilegiado de las clasificaciones cladistas frente a otras clasificaciones. No se discutirá la teoría de las clases naturales ofrecida, de cuyos méritos no dudo, sino su capacidad para ofrecer una solución en (...) la cuestión particular de qué sistema de clasificación de organismos debería utilizarse en Biología. In What emotions really are and in other papers Griffiths states that in Biology, natural classes ofliving organisms are clades. This assertion is made within the bounds of a new theory of natural classes. In this paper I wiIl consider the arguments employed by Griffiths to support the privileged status of the cladistic classification over other classifications. It is not Griffith's theory of natural classes what will be discussed, but his ability to offer a solution to the particular issue ofwhich classification system of organisms should be used in Biology. (shrink)

This Dissertation argues for a care-centrically grounded account of relational personhood and widely realized diachronic personal identity. The moral distinction between persons and non-persons is arguably one of the most salient ethical lines we can draw since many of our most fundamental rights are delineated via the bounds of personhood. The problem with drawing such morally salient lines is that the orthodox, rationalistic definition of personhood, which is widespread within philosophical, medical, and colloquial spheres, excludes, and thereby de-personifies, a large (...) number and a great variety of human beings such as neonates, young children, the elderly who suffer from dementia, individuals with severe cognitive disabilities, and patients in vegetative states. The reconceptualization of personhood necessary for a more inclusive definition ought to originate with an appropriate moral grounding. To this end, this Dissertation grounds the notion of personhood in the care ethical sphere, thereby emphasizing the role of care relations in the maintenance of the moral consideration of vulnerable individuals. This Dissertation argues that grounding the concept of a person in care relations entails a relational account of personhood, which, along with the insights of the Extended Mind and Social Manifestation Theses, leads to an extended and externalized understanding of diachronic identity, which allows fragile people to be held in their personal identities even if they themselves lack the capacities usually associated with moral personhood. As we trace a person’s identity through time, we track the various relational properties, which constitute personal narratives and thus act as a glue that binds such dynamic and often unique properties into stable, trackable narratives. Since care relations are morally relevant on a care-centric account of personhood, what is lost in cases where such care relating ceases is not merely of sentimental value, but of great moral importance as well. Morally meaningful care relations are not replaceable, and, by extension, neither are the narratives that are constituted by such unique and irreplaceable instances of relating. This Dissertation argues that the constitutive care relational nature of personal narratives makes such narratives irreplaceable and is precisely what makes persons so morally precious. (shrink)

In this paper I will analyse the relationship between metaphor and imagination. This issue has been recently studied by cognitive linguists who appreciate its importance, while other semantic perspectives neglect it. I will analyse the thesis which affirms that metaphors are based on cognitive components which are not logical-propositional but imaginative: the “image schemata” are recurrent models of corporeal experiences, centres of knowledge organization which structure – in a non-propositional form – an amount of salient information. This information emerges from (...) the sensorimotor activities such as: manipulation of objects, spatial orientation and focusing perceptive attention on different goals. According to this theory, imagination is the drive of the entire cognitive experience and, through metaphorical projection, it activates and coordinates the schemata from which the very linguistic activity originates. Starting with empirical studies about the cognitive and neurobiological plausibility of image schemata, I will assert the function of imagination as the trait d’union between experience and cognitive use of the metaphor, through the use of sensory and synesthetic metaphors as mediators among perceptive, physical and linguistic dimensions. I hope future research will concentrate on the relationship between synesthesia and image schemata because of their strong connection with human perceptive, cognitive and neural structures. (shrink)

The thesis reconstructs Hume’s conception of character. Character is not just an ethical concern in Hume’s philosophy: Hume emphasises the importance of character in his ethics, aesthetics and history. The reconstruction therefore pays attention to Hume’s usage of the concept of character in his clearly philosophical works, the Treatise of Human Nature and the two Enquiries, as well as his less obviously philosophical works, the Essays, Moral, Political and Literary and the History of England. The first main thesis is that (...) Hume’s conception of character includes multiple heterogeneous elements. These include passions, habits, natural abilities and possibly general rules. These elements are combined to form a coherent character through social organisation and conventions. The elements underpin character attributions, but it is argued that Hume is not concerned with identifying elements with character traits, as he is interested in characters as a whole rather than individual traits. The second main thesis is that the character of judges is central to Hume’s philosophy. Hume’s most sustained character of a judge is to be found in the essay ‘Of the Standard of Taste’. Close examination of this essay with particular attention to the character of the true judge reveals that such judges should not be conceived of as ideal, as some commentators on the essay have supposed. It is further argued that the true judge can be used, with some modifications, as a template for the moral judge, which Hume requires for his moral philosophy but never fully articulates. The two theses are mutually supporting in that the judges examined in accord with the second thesis are conceived of in terms of the first thesis, i.e. they are conceived of by Hume as characters constituted by heterogeneous elements. The first thesis receives support from the second thesis, as the reality of the elements supposed in the first thesis is undermined by a failure to appreciate the importance of judges as characters in Hume’s philosophy. (shrink)

The purpose of this study is to explore early Buddhist ethics in comparison with classical Confucianist ethics and to show similarities. The study suggests that the popular belief that the two ethical systems are radically different from each other needs to be reconsidered. When a focus is given to the development, transformation, and realization of the self, a similar framework is revealed in the two ethical systems. Furthermore, this study intends to reject the popular thesis: early Buddhism is only self-liberation-concerned (...) soteriology and classical Confucianism is only society-concerned thought requiring self-effacement. ;My understanding of the core virtue of self-transformation is as compassion in early Buddhism and benevolence in classical Confucianism. So this study is focused on the analysis of compassion and benevolence by examining their metaphysical grounds, their functional mechanisms, their applications, and their meta-ethical nature. ;The metaphysical groundworks of morals are explained in terms of the rebirth and kamma theory, and the theory of Mandate of Heaven. For a person to develop and achieve these core virtues, this study shows the significant role of self-restraining or self-overcoming, the principle of extension from near to far, self-oriented motivation for the core virtue, both-regarding position , and the important role of both sympathetic feeling and reason. In the domain of social interaction, compassion and benevolence appear in the area of education and politics as tools for achieving happiness for both oneself and others. In politics, the paradigmatic model is adopted: a ruler as an embodiment of the virtue rules a country by being a moral example to the people. ;The analysis of the core virtues in terms of moral objective shows the inseparability of factual knowledge from moral practice, the universal acceptability of the virtue, and the possibility of maintaining objectivity by taking both-regarding action. (shrink)

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2004.

Human consciousness usually displays a striking unity. When one experiences a noise and, say, a pain, one is not conscious of the noise and then, separately, of the pain. One is conscious of the noise and pain together, as aspects of a single conscious experience. Since at least the time of Immanuel Kant (1781/7), this phenomenon has been called the unity of consciousness . More generally, it is consciousness not of A and, separately, of B and, separately, of C, but (...) of A-and-B- and-C together, as the contents of a single conscious state. (shrink)

The Aristotelian Society’s Virtual Issue is a free, online publication, made publically available on the Aristotelian Society website. Each volume is theme-based, collecting together papers from the archives of the Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society and the Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume that address the chosen theme. This year's Virtual Issue includes a selection of papers from across the Society’s fourteen decades, each accompanied by a specially commissioned present-day response. The aim of the volume is to aid reflection (...) on how to go about doing moral and political philosophy, by bringing together papers that bear on their epistemology and methodology. In some cases this involves pieces whose declared focus is on one of those areas, as is the case with Margaret MacDonald’s 1941 essay ‘The Language of Political Theory’ and Mary Midgley’s 1974 article ‘The Neutrality of the Moral Philosopher’. In other cases the editor, Ben Colburn, selected papers whose primary focus is elsewhere, but which include some interesting epistemological or methodological reflections or implications along the way. The contributions from our present-day commentators vary similarly in how far their explicit attention is methodological. Nevertheless, there is throughout a concern on how to ‘be an honest reasoner’, to borrow a phrase from the late Dudley Knowles. (shrink)

Models of memory in cognitive science and philosophy have traditionally explained human remembering in terms of storage and retrieval. This tendency has been entrenched by reliance on computationalist explanations over the course of the twentieth century; even research programs that eschew computationalism in name, or attempt the revision of traditional models, demonstrate tacit commitment to computationalist assumptions. It is assumed that memory must be stored by means of an isomorphic trace, that memory processes must divide into conceptually distinct systems and (...) phases, and that human remembering consists in inner, cognitive processes that are implemented by distinct neural processes. This dissertation draws on recent empirical work, and on philosophical arguments from Ludwig Wittgenstein and others, to demonstrate that this latent computationalism in the study of memory is problematic, and that it can and should be eliminated. Cognitive psychologists studying memory have encountered numerous data in recent decades that belie archival models. In cognitive neuroscience, establishing the neural basis of storage and retrieval processes has proven elusive. A number of revised models on offer in memory science, that have taken these issues into account, fail to sufficiently extricate the archival framework. Several impasses in memory science are products of these underlying computationalist assumptions. Wittgenstein and other philosophers offer a number of arguments against the need for, and the efficacy of, the storage and retrieval of traces in human remembering. A study of these arguments clarifies the ways that these computationalist assumptions are presently impeding the science of memory, and provides ways forward in removing them. We can and should characterize and model human memory without invoking the storage and retrieval of traces. A range of work in connectionism, dynamical systems theory, and recent philosophical accounts of memory demonstrate how the science of memory can proceed without these assumptions, toward non-archival models of remembering. (shrink)

In this paper, I delineate a variety of questions related to personal identity and ontology. I develop and compare the Confucian conception of the person and the view of the person developed throughout Derek Parfit’s work on personal identity and ontology. I will demonstrate that the Confucian conception of the person has numerous instructive similarities with Parfit’s work on personal identity, despite a number of differences. I argue, briefly, that this project is worthwhile as a piece of comparative philosophy. One (...) of the final two sections of the paper develop a new hybrid account of personal identity and ontology that combine the Confucian and Parfitian views of personal identity and personal ontology. The last section of the paper goes into detail developing this view in response to potential questions, and responds to some objections to this hybrid account, including objections based on a similarity between the Confucian account and the narrative account of personal identity. (shrink)

The purpose of this thesis is to provide a brief examination of the historical accounts of philosophical theories of personal identity and show the influence that each has had on the development of contemporary theories. In doing so, the thesis explores the problems associated with these theories, attempting to establish a meta-theory of personal identity. What is demonstrated is that the fundamental problems of personal identity arise from issues related to the use of language, as well as assumptions involving the (...) concept of personhood. By demonstrating that our understanding of personhood is relative to frameworks of understanding based on assumption, the meta-theory states that propositions made about persons are not factual statements, but are, rather, matters of contingency. As such, propositions about persons contain truth-value only within a particular frame of reference that is based on these assumptions. Therefore, the problems that traditionally arise in theories of personal identity -- problems with dualism, the mental criterion, and bodily criterion -- result from a flawed approach to the problem altogether. The conclusion is that it is possible to construct a theory of personal identity, but not the theory of personal identity. (shrink)

In this paper, I outline a theory of social kinds. A general theory of social kinds has to set out at least three conditions: existence conditions, persistence conditions, and identity conditions. For the sake of expediency, I focus on the existence and persistence conditions. The paper is organized just as life: first with existence, then persistence. I argue that anti-realism is more attractive than realism as an account of the existence conditions, despite the fact that realism has been under-appreciated. Then (...) I argue for a particular theory of the persistence conditions, which I call the basic overlapping traits theory (BOTT), based on an analogy to an approach to personal identity. The upshot of the argument is that from an anti-realist metaphysics we have the capacity to discuss a wider diversity of social phenomena. (shrink)

Argues that persons have determinate conditions of diachronic identity, but not material things do not. That is evidence for the soul.

Privileged-perspective realism (PPR) is a version of metaphysical realism that takes certain irreducibly perspectival facts to be partly constitutive of reality. PPR asserts that there is a single metaphysically privileged standpoint from which these perspectival facts obtain. This chapter discusses several views that fall under the category of privileged-perspective realism. These include presentism, which is PPR about tensed facts, and non-multiverse interpretations of quantum mechanics, which the chapter argues, constitute PPR about world-indexed facts. Using the framework of the bird perspective (...) and the frog perspective, it argues that PPR views methodologically treat the frog perspective as metaphysically primary. This chapter considers case studies of metaphysical interpretations of special relativity and quantum mechanics in order to demonstrate that such motivations for PPR are non-naturalistic. Further, it considers psychological factors that motivate the appeal of PPR views and offers naturalistic explanations of why we should not expect them to produce an adequate metaphysics of science. (shrink)

Consider a specific type of fission where psychological continuity takes a branching form, and one of the offshoots comes into being later than the other offshoot. Let us say that the earlier offshoot comes into being in the left branch at t, and the later offshoot comes into being in the right branch at t+1. With regard to the question how many persons are involved in this case, three answers are worth considering: (i) The original subject persists up to t; (...) a distinct person comes into being immediately after t and continues to exist in the left branch; and the third person comes into being in the right branch at t+1. (ii) The original subject persists up to the moment immediately before t+1; a distinct person comes into being at t+1 and continues to exist in the left branch; and the third person comes into being in the right branch at t+1. (iii) The original subject continues to exist in the left branch; a distinct person comes into being in the right branch at t+1. For those who hold that personal identity consists in psychological continuity of some sort, the aforementioned three options exhaust the sensible ways of understanding how one persists in delayed fission. However, I argue that complications arise for each answer. Hence, delayed fission poses a challenge for the psychological approach to personal identity. (shrink)

The sci-fi premise of the 2002 film Solaris allows director Steven Soderbergh to tell a compelling and distinctly philosophical love story. The “visitors” that appear to the characters in the film present us with a vivid thought experiment, and the film naturally prods us to dwell on the following possibility: If confronted with a duplicate (or near duplicate) of someone you love, what would your response be? What should your response be? The tension raised by such a far-fetched situation reflects (...) a tension that exists in real life: that between an attraction to qualities possessed by a person and attraction to the person in a manner that transcends such an attachment to qualities. In short, this cinematic thought-experiment challenges us to reflect on what we really attach to when we fall in love: is it the person, or is it merely the cluster of characteristics the person manifests? Which sort of attachment is appropriate? Which is philosophical defensible? The protagonist Chris Kelvin’s ambivalence at encountering this bizarre possibility is gripping because it tracks our own ambivalence about such matters. Frankly most of us don’t know just how we would react to such a situation. The thought that accepting and embracing such a “visitor” involves a violation to the original person is natural and pervasive, especially if the acceptance comes with a failure to acknowledge the distinction between the original person and the “visitor”. At the same time, a deep attraction to such a person would surely also be entirely natural and perhaps even inescapable. We, like Kelvin, are torn in different directions by this (thankfully) far-fetched possibility. One philosopher who affirms that accepting a duplicate as though it were the original is the rational thing to do is Derek Parfit. His argument for “the unimportance of identity” is both powerful and radical, and though I’ll be critical of his approach, in the final section of the paper I suggest that it does offer up the resources for an intriguing interpretation of the end of this complex and ambiguous film. (shrink)