We discuss two models of virtue cultivation that are present throughout the Republic: the self-mastery model and the harmony model. Schultz (2013) discusses them at length in her recent book, Plato’s Socrates as Narrator: A Philosophical Muse. We bring this Socratic distinction into conversation with two modes of intentional regulation strategies articulated by James J. Gross. These strategies are expressive suppression and cognitive reappraisal. We argue that that the Socratic distinction helps us see the value in cognitive reappraisal and that (...) the contemporary neurological research supports the wide range of attitudes toward the value of emotional experience that mirror those found in the Republic. (shrink)

Presento la trascendencia de la neurociencia para el estudio de la relación entre determinismo y libre albedrío. Diversos trabajos vinculan la actividad de ciertas áreas nerviosas con el desempeño de las funciones volitivas, el trabajo de Benjamin Libet y de Daniel Wegner otorga gran importancia al inconsciente en nuestros actos, y hay pruebas de influencia causal del entorno sociocultural sobre el cerebro del individuo. Todo esto sugiere una concepción determinista de nuestra voluntad, pero sostengo que ni esta ni la indeterminista (...) están claras actualmente y que se debe profundizar en la neuroplasticidad, las decisiones distales y la deliberación. (shrink)

What is Consciousness For? Lee Pierson and Monroe Trout Copyright © 2005 Abstract: The answer to the title question is, in a word, volition. Our hypothesis is that the ultimate adaptive function of consciousness is to make volitional movement possible. All conscious processes exist to subserve that ultimate function. Thus, we believe that all conscious organisms possess at least some volitional capability. Consciousness makes volitional attention possible; volitional attention, in turn, makes volitional movement possible. There is, as far as we (...) know, no valid theoretical argument that consciousness is needed for any function other than volitional movement and no convincing empirical evidence that consciousness performs any other ultimate function. Consciousness, via volitional action, increases the likelihood that an organism will direct its attention, and ultimately its movements, to whatever is most important for its survival and reproduction. (shrink)

The scientific relationship among self, mind and brain is still not clearly known. Self’s subjective experience of perception and cognition of words, feelings, thoughts etc. is supported by the integrity of human brain. Consequently, neuroscientists, psychologists, psychiatrists, physicists and philosophers have been investigating to find the scientific relationship between mind and brain, consciousness and quantum physics. Recent experimental evidence suggests that the neural correlate of consciousness is located in certain parts of the cortico-thalamic system. But it is not known specifically (...) which parts of the human brain are involved in the human cognitive activity. In this study, the author proposed a tree-pattern architecture of the cerebral neural substrate in cognitive understanding of words, feelings, and thoughts on the basis of the author’s hypothesis of the ultron-logotron theory to explain the neural correlate of consciousness. (shrink)

We propose a functional model based on Theravada Buddhist texts and practices to show how the mind works in relation to both our senses and how we perceive the external world. Our model suggests that the mind acts as a common internal sense organ, receiving all sensory data from the five external senses. It shows how contact plays a central role in both the generation and continual reconstitution of feelings, perceptions and thoughts. This model suggests how previous memories can influence (...) one’s thoughts, by actively editing each cognitive pathway to create a distorted perception of what is experienced in the present moment. We also illustrate how individuals proliferate and cling to thoughts as a result of craving, and address how this can lead to suffering within the context of dependent origination. We believe this model could function as a basic conceptual map of the mind to facilitate a deeper phenomenological understanding of ongoing, complex mental interactions, within the context of Theravada Buddhist theory and practice. (shrink)

Evangelical scholars have recently offered criticisms of mind-body dualism from the disciplines of theology, philosophy, and neuroscience. We offer several arguments as to why these reasons for abandoning mind-body dualism fail. Additionally, we offer a positive thesis, a dualism that brings together the best aspects of the Cartesian view and the Thomistic view of human persons. The result is a substance dualism that treats the nature of embodiment quite seriously. This view explains why we, as souls, require a resurrected body (...) as well as accounting for the great good of our embodiment in general. A human person is at the same time wholly soul and yet fully bodily. (shrink)

With the aid of some Scotistic conceptual distinctions, I develop a way of meeting the apparent deterministic sway of neurobiology. I make a careful distinction between formal and material freedom. Formal freedom, the ability to will or not to will a certain state of affairs regardless of whether it can be effectuated, remains, even if our material freedom to effectuate it is hampered by neurobiological mechanisms. These conceptual findings are linked with contemporary empirical research on obsessive-compulsive disorder and the possibility (...) of volitional modulation of cerebral function. (shrink)