The appropriate methodology for psychological research depends on whether one is studying mental algorithms or their implementation. Mental algorithms are abstract specifications of the steps taken by procedures that run in the mind. Implementational issues concern the speed and reliability of these procedures. The algorithmic level can be explored only by studying across-task variation. This contrasts with psychology's dominant methodology of looking for within-task generalities, which is appropriate only for studying implementational issues.The implementation-algorithm distinction is related to a number of (...) other “levels” considered in cognitive science. Its realization in Anderson's ACT theory of cognition is discussed. Research at the algorithmic level is more promising because it is hard to make further fundamental scientific progress at the implementational level with the methodologies available. Protocol data, which are appropriate only for algorithm-level theories, provide a richer source than data at the implementational level. Research at the algorithmic level will also yield more insight into fundamental properties of human knowledge because it is the level at which significant learning transitions are defined.The best way to study the algorithmic level is to look for differential learning outcomes in pedagogical experiments that manipulate instructional experience. This provides control and prediction in realistically complex learning situations. The intelligent tutoring paradigm provides a particularly fruitful way to implement such experiments.The implications of this analysis for the issue of modularity of mind, the status of language, research on human/computer interaction, and connectionist models are also examined. (shrink)

I suggest that most discussions of intentional systems have overlooked an important aspect of living organisms: the intrinsic goal-directedness inherent in the behaviour of living eukaryotic cells. This goal directedness is nicely displayed by a normal cell’s ability to rearrange its own local material structure in response to damage, nutrient distribution or other aspects of its individual experience. While at a vastly simpler level than intentionality at the human cognitive level, I propose that this basic capacity of living things provides (...) a necessary building block for cognition and high-order intentionality, because the neurons that make up vertebrate brains, like most cells in our body, embody such capacities. I provisionally dub the capacities in question “nano-intentionality”: a microscopic form of “aboutness”. The form of intrinsic intentionality I propose is thoroughly materialistic, fully compatible with known biological facts, and derived non-mysteriously through evolution. Crucially, these capacities are not shared by any existing computers or computer components, and thus provide a clear, empirically-based distinction between brains and currently existing artificial information processing systems. I suggest that an appreciation of this aspect of living matter provides a potential route out of what may otherwise appear to be a hopeless philosophical quagmire confronting information-processing models of the mind. (shrink)

In this paper I present an account of musical arousal that takes into account key demands of formalist philosophers such as Peter Kivy and Nick Zangwill. Formalists prioritise our understanding and appreciation of the music itself. As a result, they demand that any feelings we have in response to music must be directed at the music alone, without being distracted by non-musical associations. To accommodate these requirements I appeal to a mechanism of contagion which I synthesize with the expectation-based arousal (...) mechanism proposed by Leonard Meyer. This account connects musical expressivity and arousal in a way that formalists have rejected, but I argue that it provides the best explanation of our observations of listener responses while also focusing on the music itself. (shrink)

The fear of death resists philosophical attempts at reconciliation. Building on theories of emotion, I argue that we can understand our fear as triggered by a de se mode of thinking about death which comes into conflict with our will to live. The discursive mode of philosophy may help us to avoid the de se mode of thinking about death, but it does not satisfactorily address the problem. I focus instead on the voluntary diminishment of one’s will to live. I (...) argue that we can encourage a natural tendency for the will to live to decline as we approach death. I then consider two objections: Is not the will to live too fundamental for us to control? And even if we can control it, would not a declining will to live result in a general despair that it is better to resist? I argue that both of these objections can be overcome. (shrink)

This article begins by examining the bad reputation humor traditionally had in philosophy and education. Two of the main charges against humor—that it is hostile and irresponsible—are linked to the Superiority Theory. That theory is critiqued and two other theories of laughter are presented—the Relief Theory and the Incongruity Theory. In the Relief Theory, laughter is a release of pent-up nervous energy. In the Incongruity Theory, humor is the enjoyment of something that violates ordinary mental patterns and expectations. The development (...) of the Incongruity Theory is traced in thinkers like Aristotle, Kant, Schopenhauer and Kierkegaard, and refinements are suggested to the theory. The Incongruity Theory, it is argued, helps us to appreciate the affinity between philosophy and humor, especially the genre known as stand-up comedy. The article concludes by using Robert Nozick’s analysis of wisdom to show how dramatic comedy embodies practical lessons for living well. (shrink)

This paper aims to examine the awesome, almost spiritual feeling I experience as an?extreme spectator? while watching Kelly Slater ride the monstrous waves of Pipeline. Drawing on the aesthetics of Kant and Schopenhauer, I examine the experience of the sublime and how it, in conjunction with the perceived kinetic melody of Slater's movements and his karmic connection to the environment in which he thrives, gives rise to the deeply felt awe of the extreme spectator. My intention is to use Slater's (...) case as a paradigm that can be applied to many other athletic performances which share the characteristics discussed in the paper. (shrink)

Quite often the compatibility of the EPR correlations with the relativity theory has been questioned; it has been stated that “the first in time of two correlated measurements instantaneously collapses the other subsystem”; it has been suggested that a causal asymmetry is built into the Feynman propagator. However, the EPR transition amplitude, as derived from the S matrix, is Lorentz andCPT invariant; the correlation formula is symmetric in the two measurements irrespective of their time ordering, so that the link of (...) the correlations is the Feynman zigzag, and that causality isCPT invariant at the microlevel; finally, although the Feynman propagator has theP andCT symmetries, no causal asymmetry follows from that. As for Stapp's views concerning “process” and “becoming,” and his Whiteheadean concept of an advancing front, I object that they belong to “factlike macrophysics,” and are refuted at the microlevel by the EPR phenomenology, which displays direct Fokker-like space-time connections. The reason for this is a radical one. The very blending of a space-time picture and of a probability calculus is a paradox. The only adequate paradigm is one denying objectivity to space-time—but this, of course, is also required by the complementary of the x and the k pictures, which only “look” compatible at the macrolevel. Therefore, the classical “objectivity” must yield in favor of “intersubjectivity.” Only the macroscopic preparing and measuring devices have “factlike” objectivity; the “transition” of the “quantal system” takes place beyond both thex and thek 4-spaces. Then, the intrinsic symmetries between retarded and advanced waves, and statistical prediction and retrodiction, entails that the future has no less (but no more) existence than the past. It is the future that is significant in “creative process,” the “elementary” forms of which should be termed “precognition” or “psychokinesis”—respectively symmetric to the factlike taboos that “we can neither know into the future nor act into the past.” It is gratifying that Robert Jahn, at the Engineering School of Princeton University, is conducting (after others) conclusive experiments demonstrating “low level psychokinesis”—a phenomenon implied by the very symmetry of the negentropy-information transition. So, what pierces the veil of “maya” is the (rare) occurrence of “paranormal phenomena.” The essential severance between “act” and “potentia” is not a spacelike advancing front, but the “out of” and the “into” factlike space-time. Finally, I do not feel that an adequate understanding of the EPR phenomenology requires going beyond the present status of relativistic quantum mechanics. Rather, I believe that the potentialities of this formalism have not yet been fully exploited. (shrink)

Critical thinking, considered as a version of informallogic, must consider emotions and personal attitudesin assessing assertions and conclusions in anyanalysis of discourse. It must therefore presupposesome notion of the self. Critical theory may be seenas providing a substantive and non-neutral positionfor the exercise of critical thinking. It thereforemust presuppose some notion of the self. This paperargues for a Foucauldean position on the self toextend critical theory and provide a particularposition on the self for critical thinking. Thisposition on the self is (...) developed from moretraditional accounts of the self from Descartes toSchopenhauer, Nietzsche and Wittgenstein. (shrink)

In this article, we argue that there is an essential difference between social intelligence and creative intelligence, and that they have their foundation in human sexuality. For sex differences, we refer to the vast psychological, neurological, and cognitive science research where problem-solving, verbal skills, logical reasoning, and other topics are dealt with. Intelligence tests suggest that, on average, neither sex has more general intelligence than the other. Though people are equals in general intelligence, they are different in special forms of (...) intelligence such as social intelligence and creative intelligence, the former dominant in women, the latter dominant in men. The dominance of creative intelligence in men needs to be explained. The focus of our research is on the strictly anthropological aspects, and consequently our explanation for this fact is based on the male-female polarity in the mating systems. Sexual dimorphism does not only regard bodily differences but implies different forms of sex life. Sex researchers distinguish between two levels of sexual intercourse: procreative sex and recreational sex, and to these we would add “creative sex.” On all three levels, there is a behavioral difference between men and women, including the subjective experience. These differences are as well attributed to culture as genetically founded in nature. Sexual reproduction is only possible if females cooperate. Their biological inheritance makes females play a decisive role in mate choice. Recreational sex for the purpose of pleasure rather than reproduction results from female extended sexual activity. Creative sex, on the contrary, is a specifically male performance of sexuality. We identify creative sex with eroticism. Eroticism evolved through the transformation of the sexual drive into a mental state of expectation and fantasizing. Hence, sex differences (that nowadays are covered up by cultural egalitarianism) continue to be the evolutionary origin of the difference between social and creative intelligence. (shrink)

This paper addresses the project of philosophical autobiography, using two different perspectives. On the one hand, the societal, economic, and family contexts of William James are addressed, and connected a modern academic context of business ethics research, marketing and purchasing decision making, and the continuing financial crisis. The concepts of “stream of consciousness” and “acting as-if” are connected to recent literature on William James. On the other hand, the significance of family context, and the possible connection between the William James (...) family and the author, is addressed through shared family narratives interspersed throughout the paper. (shrink)

The aim of this dissertation is to offer a new theory of humor that takes seriously both the universality and power of humor in culture. In the first chapter, I summarize historical and contemporary theories, and show how each either 1) fails to give any definition of humor, 2) fails as a theory of humor, and/or 3) underappreciates, dismisses, or does not consider the power of humor in experience. The second chapter explains the failures of prior theories by understanding the (...) problem in terms of Ernst Cassirer’s philosophy of symbolic forms. These forms of culture are perspectives through which we express and understand our world, and each presents its own unique perspectives through which we can understand ourselves and the world. In the third chapter, I argue that humor is one of these necessary and universal symbolic forms of culture. I argue that confusions in the philosophy of humor stem from approaches to humor that understand it as part of some other symbolic form rather than as a form itself. In the fourth chapter, I argue for the function of humor as that which reveals and exposes epistemic vices –laziness, arrogance, and closed-minded thinking about ourselves and the world. I support this argument by showing not only that all previous theories of humor have within them epistemic revelation as a consistent commonality, but also by showing that this revelation is necessary to the form of humor while it is, at best, accidental to other forms. In my final chapter, I suggest that we ought to approach humor objectively, and that the normativity of the symbolic forms guides us toward such an approach. I offer two objective questions to ask about a given instance of humor: 1) does the humor idealize a liberated end? and 2) does the humor fulfil the cultural function of the symbolic form it represents by disrupting epistemically vicious thinking? If the answer to both of these questions is affirmative, then it is likely that the humor in question is morally praiseworthy. I conclude by offering suggestions for further study. (shrink)

Immanuel Kant and his work occupied a space at the crossroads of several important movements in philosophy. In this essay, I look at two important crossroads in aesthetics. First, the subjective turn in aesthetics, when the focus on aesthetic objects was rebalanced with the focus on the subject’s experience of such objects, the weight shifting from the objective to the subjective. Second, after many years and many theories advancing the view that universality of judgment could be achieved, at least in (...) part, through adoption of the appropriate perspective – or attitude – when considering a particular aesthetic object, Kant offers us perhaps the most sophisticated view of disinterestedness of any, and as he does so he solidifies that tradition, bringing it to its culmination, and ushers in the beginning of its end. (shrink)

This paper attempts to understand the relationships among the various elements of the human person: body, mind, spirit, soul, ego, consciousness, and self as viewed from the Western philosophical tradition. The paper argues that in order to know the soul, one should know the self because it is the self – not the mind or body – that represents the human person. Moreover, it is important to understand the spiritual underpinnings of the self for the purpose of reconciliation.

To what extent can humorism be a legitimate disposition toward the Absurd? The Absurd is born from the insurmountable contradiction between one’s ceaseless striving and the absence of an ultimate resolution – or, as I prefer to call it, the ‘dissolution of resolution’. Humoristic Absurdism is the commitment to a pattern of humorous responses to the Absurd, which regard this absurd condition, as well as its manifestation in absurd situations, as a comical phenomenon. Although the humoristic disposition seems promising, by (...) virtue of humor’s recognition of incongruity and its denial of an ultimate resolution, and succeeds in countering three major objections, it falls prey to the claim that comprehensive humorism portrays as frivolous what is earnest, thereby renouncing the gravity of the desire for ultimate resolution, which is fundamental to the notion of the Absurd. In an attempt to explore alternative roles for humor in a legitimate disposition toward the Absurd, Metamodern Absurdism is suggested, which revolves around a post-ironic oscillation between humor and earnestness. In short, only in a role limited to one pole of an oscillatory pattern of responses can humor be integrated in a legitimate disposition toward the Absurd. (shrink)

Globalization consists of global interculture strengthening local cultures as it depends on them. Globality and locality are interdependent, and “universal” must be replaced by “inter-versal” as existence inter-exists. Chinese thinking thus must be Chinese, not Western, as Western thinking must be Western, not “universal”; China must help the West be Western, as the West must help China be Chinese. As Mrs. Tu speaks English in Chinese syntax, so “sinologists” logicize in Chinese phrases. English speakers parse her to realize the distinctness (...) of English; Chinese thinkers parse Western “sinologists” to realize the distinctness of China. Inter-versal parsing toward cultural inter-enrichment occurs in three stages. This is intercultural globalization. (shrink)

Keskityn siihen miten Leibnizilla yksittäiset mielihyvän tai mielipahan tiedostamattomat havainnot voivat kasautua tai tiivistyä ja muodostaa vähitellen tunteita, joista tulemme tietoisiksi.

We discuss three aspects of the intuitionistic reformulation of Mally’s deontic logic that was recently proposed ). First, this reformulation is more similar to Standard Deontic Logic than appears at first sight: like Standard Deontic Logic, it is Kanger reducible and Anderson reducible to alethic logic and it has a semantical interpretation that can be read in deontic terms. Second, this reformulation has an extension that provides 100% of the theorems stated by Mally himself. Third, it is interesting to view (...) Mally’s original deontic logic as an extension of this reformulation. (shrink)

My research into Virtual Reality technology and its central property of immersion has indicated that immersion in Virtual Reality (VR) electronic systems is a significant key to the understanding of contemporary culture as well as considerable aspects of previous culture as detected in the histories of philosophy and the visual arts. The fundamental change in aesthetic perception engendered by immersion, a perception which is connected to the ideal of total-immersion in virtual space, identifies certain shifts in ontology which are relevant (...) to a better understanding of the human being. This understanding was achieved through a broad inquiry into the histories of Virtual Reality, philosophy, and the visual arts and has lead to the formulation of an aesthetic theory of immersive consciousness indicative of immersive culture. The primary subject of this discourse is immersion then: an experience which will be identified within the dissertation as the indispensable characteristic of Virtual Reality. The understanding of immersion arrived at here will be used to fashion a synchronous theory of art particularly informed by encounters and concepts of immersion into virtuality. To sufficiently address this subject in a scholarly fashion, I have researched, found and accumulated aesthetic and philosophic examples of immersive tendencies, as found within the histories of art and philosophy, which subsequently contributed towards the articulation of what I have come to call immersive consciousness. As a result of formulating such an immersive consciousness, a good deal of the basis for the questioning of the Western ontological tradition has been found in the Western tradition itself when we look with new eyes and ask new uncertain questions. Moreover, this immersive consciousness will be used to propose some abstract questions encircling today's electronic-based culture. Through the structuring of the argument within the thesis - and overtly within the conclusion - I have articulated a non-teleological creative strategy which provides the basis for an unconstraining integration of noologies (ways of semblancing the thinking process). This strategy provides a means of exemplifying - and for honoring - various methods of thinking. This structuring strategy is consistent with the 'hacker ethic' as defined by Steven Levy, as a demand that access to computers - and anything which might teach us something about the way the world works - should be unlimited and total. To follow this strategy, this dissertation has set out to understand how topical conceptions of virtual immersion connect to pre-existing systems of thought as revealed in art as they have extended out of antecedent ontological self-understandings, historical human self-understandings which have evidenced themselves in the elaboration of technological objectives. To do this I have forged a certain rhizomatic paternity/maternity for Virtual Reality within this dissertation by joining choice immersive examples of simulacra technology into mental connections with the relevant examples culled from the histories of art, architecture, information-technology, sex, myth, space, consciousness and philosophy. (shrink)

In a 1961 interview, Beckett warded off philosophical interpretations of his work: ‘I’m no intellectual. All I am is feeling’. Despite the emotional intensity of Beckett’s post-war writing, Beckett criticism has tended to ignore this claim, preferring the kinds of philosophical readings that Beckett here rejects. In particular, Beckett criticism underestimates the element of rage in his work. This paper argues that Beckett’s post-war breakthrough is enabled by a radical reconsideration of the nature of feeling and of rage in particular. (...) It involves the rejection of the idea of rage as pathological and the embrace of a positive conception of rage as drive or compulsion, a locus of energy and even pleasure.This paper reads the ‘Moran’ section of Molloy as a kind of ‘rage fable’, drawing on the ancient Greek concept of thymos, of anger as a virtue. It draws on Alfred Adler’s theory of the ‘masculine protest’, with which Beckett was familiar from his extensive note-taking on Adler in 1934-5, and Sianne Ngai’s discussion of the distinction between irritation and rage. According to this reading, Moran’s report charts a narrative of thymotic liberation from the irritations of servitude, prefiguring the Unnamable’s abandonment to impersonal affective intensities. It ends by suggesting that the prose of the Trilogy might be better understood, not as a ‘syntax of weakness’ but as a ‘syntax of rage’, a stylistic correlative of the imperious drive of thymos. We might then begin to understand the Trilogy as the epic of a heroic, impersonal, implacable and liberated rage. (shrink)

<P>While there are many books on the romantics, and many books on Heidegger, there has been no book exploring the connection between the two. Pol Vandevelde’s new study forges this important link. </P> <P>Vandevelde begins by analyzing two models that have addressed the interaction between literature and philosophy: early German romanticism (especially Schlegel and Novalis), and Heidegger’s work with poetry in the 1930s. Both models offer an alternative to the paradigm of mimesis, as exemplified by Aristotle’s and Plato’s discussion of (...) poetry, and both German romanticism and Heidegger owe a deep debt to Plato. The study goes on to defend the view that Heidegger was influenced by romanticism. The author’s project is thus both historical, showing the specificity of the romantic and Heideggerean works, and systematic, defending aspects of their alternative mode of thinking while also pointing to their weaknesses. </P>. (shrink)

This dissertation focuses on the social philosophy of humor from the viewpoint of Erich Fromm’s critical humanistic thinking. The work consists of an introduction and four individual articles. The introduction discusses Fromm’s theories in relation to the phenomenon of humor to provide a basis for the articles. The central aim is to understand the dynamic nature of humor and how it is related to the problem of being a paradoxical creature, that is, a human being. It is claimed that humor (...) has to be analyzed and interpreted in a unique historical and cultural situation. The first article discusses Fromm’s concept of social character to offer a theoretical tool to understand how deeply humor is a social phenomenon. It is argued that the social character is a crucial component if we are to reach beyond jokes and laughter, and to grasp their deeper social significance. The second article furthers this thought by developing a critical standpoint on the phenomenon of laughing at oneself. It calls into question the prevailing optimism about the capability to ridicule oneself. Following Fromm, it is claimed that humor needs a serious backbone from which the perceived oddities are evaluated. The third article brings forth the debate of humor and freedom. In opposition to the widely shared idea that humor should be absolutely free, it is argued that humor cannot be separated from the sphere of humanity, and this basic fact sets the ground for the freedom of humor. Freedom has to be obtained within the limits of humanity. This leads to the notion that it is untenable to claim that we should be always able to laugh at everything. The fourth article elaborates the influence of social circumstances for humor, and the competitive nature of contemporary humor is taken under critical scrutiny. It is argued that humor and laughter reflect the current historical situation and, eventually, ourselves. Therefore, from a humanistic perspective, it is concerning how natural and popular humor competitions appear to be. As a whole, the dissertation is a philosophical study, and it aims more at philosophical understanding than to concrete empirical research settings. However, the conducted research is empirically inspired philosophy, and thus intimately connected to the living phenomena of humor and laughter. (shrink)