This paper shows that Husserl is not guilty of Sellars’ myth of the sensory given. I firstly show that Husserl’s account of ‘sensations’ or ‘sense data’ seems to possess some of the attributes Sellars’ myth critiques. In response I show that, just as Sellars thinks that our ‘conceptual capacities’ afford us an awareness of a logical perceptual space that has a propositional structure, Husserl thinks that ‘acts of apprehension’ structure sensations to afford us perception that is similarly propositionally structured. Not (...) only this, but there is much affinity and shared motivation between Husserl and Sellars accounts of the sensory stratum. Reflection on phenomenological considerations prevents Sellars from denying phenomenal non-conceptual content, whilst Husserlian ‘sense data’ are technical designations; dependant parts of perceptual experience grasped in abstraction, necessary for providing a reflective/philosophical account of empirical knowledge. I show that both Husserl and Sellars assert that the proper description of phenomenal content affords it the function of presenting properties of spatial objects during perception, and reiterate the well-known fact that Husserl thinks that perception is of ‘conceptually’ apprehended spatiotemporal objects. (shrink)

I discuss two forms of the thesis that to have a sensation is to token a sentence in a language of thought-what I call, following Georges Rey, the sensational sentences thesis. One form of the thesis is a version of standard functionalism, while the other is a version of the increasingly popular thesis that for a sensation to have qualia is for it to have a certain kind of intentional content-that is, intentionalism. I defend the basic idea behind the sensational (...) sentences thesis, and argue that the intentionalist version is either false or collapses into the standard functionalist thesis. (shrink)

An exploration is given of neural network features now being uncovered in cortical processing which begins to go a little way to help bridge the ''Explanatory Gap'' between phenomenal consciousness and correlated brain activity. A survey of properties suggested as being possessed by phenomenal consciousness leads to a set of criteria to be required of the correlated neural activity. Various neural styles of processing are reviewed and those fitting the criteria are selected for further analysis. One particular processing style, in (...) which semiautonomous and long-lasting cortical activity ''bubbles'' are created by input, is selected as being the most appropriate. Further experimental criteria are used to help narrow the possible neural styles involved. This leads to a class of neural models underpinning phenomenal consciousness and to a related set of testable predictions. (shrink)

Many philosophers working today on the normativity of language have concluded that linguistic activity is not a matter of rule following. These conversations have been framed by a conception of linguistic normativity with roots in Wittgenstein and Kripke. In this paper I use conceptual resources developed by the classical American pragmatists and their descendants to argue that punctate linguistic acts are governed by rules in a sense that has been neglected in the recent literature on the normativity of language. In (...) the course of arguing for this conclusion I defend a Kantian conception of rationality as rule-obeying activity, and I argue that this conception is compatible with a naturalistic understanding of ourselves as rational beings governed by rules of thought and action. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:For over a century there has been a protracted effort in American philosophy to use Darwinian explanatory resources in order to make certain leading ideas in German idealism naturalistically intelligible. I trace some of the nineteenth and twentieth century contours of this effort. In doing so I outline an understanding of ourselves as norm-laden persons in a natural world. As a consequence, philosophical inquiry—understood in C. S. Peirce's sense as the practice of the ‘normative sciences’ of aesthetics, logic, and ethics—can (...) be understood as the self-conscious and rational exercise of natural and socially conditioned capacities to sense, think, and act. This leaves us with a project, by no means completed, to frame categories through which to understand thesociohistorical developmentof the notions of beauty, truth, and goodness as a process continuous with thenatural evolutionof the nervous system in its sensory, central, and motor moments. (shrink)

The measurement problem of quantum theory is discussed, and the difficulty of trying to solve it within the confines of a local, Lorentz-invariant physics is emphasised. This leads to the obvious suggestion to seek a solution beyond physics, in particular, by introducing the concept of consciousness. The resulting dualistic model, in the natural form suggested by quantum theory, is shown to differ in several respects from the classical model of Descartes, and to suggest solutions to some of the long-standing problems (...) concerning the relation of consciousness to the physical world. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is twofold. First, our purpose is to propose and motivate a novel and scientifically informed variant of cosmopsychism, namely, the view that the experiences of ordinary subjects are ultimately grounded in an all-pervading cosmic consciousness. Second, we will demonstrate that this approach generates promising avenues for addressing familiar problems of phenomenal constitution. We use stochastic electrodynamics (SED) as the physical bedrock of our approach, supplementing it with key insights about the nature of consciousness long emphasized (...) in eastern philosophy and other wisdom traditions. We proceed to show that our approach substantiates an intriguing way of thinking about the dynamical emergence of ordinary consciousness from cosmic consciousness, identifying the latter with the vacuum state of quantum field theory. Finally, we argue that the present approach is well suited to address problems of phenomenal constitution, in particular as they pertain to the qualities and structure of experience and to the generation of subjects. (shrink)

The Integrated Information Theory is a leading scientific theory of consciousness, which implies a kind of panpsychism. In this paper, I consider whether IIT is compatible with a particular kind of panpsychism, known as Russellian panpsychism, which purports to avoid the main problems of both physicalism and dualism. I will first show that if IIT were compatible with Russellian panpsychism, it would contribute to solving Russellian panpsychism’s combination problem, which threatens to show that the view does not avoid the main (...) problems of physicalism and dualism after all. I then show that the theories are not compatible as they currently stand, in view of what I call the coarse-graining problem. After I explain the coarse-graining problem, I will offer two possible solutions, each involving a small modification of IIT. Given either of these modifications, IIT and Russellian panpsychism may be fully compatible after all, and jointly enable significant progress on the mind–body problem. (shrink)

In the last two decades, there has been a great deal of interest in providing an intentional criterion of the psychological. Of the various ones proferred, it seems to me that the best was the earliest, which was Chisholm’s initial criterion in his 1955 essay “Sentences about Believing.” In this present paper I first single out a basic misconception pervading the recent literature on intentionality and suggest that a consequence of this misconception has been the futile attempt to use the (...) notion of intentionality to provide a kind of definition of “mind”; that is, to use intentionality to provide a necessary and sufficient condition for the psychological. Secondly, I point out how intentionality as captured by my own criterion is indispensable in that it is an essential property of certain particulars which are basic to our conceptual scheme and apparently basic to any conceptual scheme whatsoever. (shrink)

In this paper I wish to propose and defend a form of the Representative Theory of Perception. According to this version of the theory, when a subject perceives some object x to be in a state P1 he does so by being aware of some modfication M1 of some object E. The subject's way of perceiving any one of a range of objects x,y,z, … is that of being aware of some modification of E. It will be a necessary condition (...) of someone's perceiving x to have property P1 that E be modified in some way. And in order for the modifications of E to be representations, a given property P1 will need to be causally related, characteristically, to one or more specific modifications, M1,M2, … Mn, of E. symbolized by ‘X'.). (shrink)

In this paper I wish to propose and defend a form of the Representative Theory of Perception. According to this version of the theory, when a subject perceives some object x to be in a state P1 he does so by being aware of some modfication M1 of some object E. The subject's way of perceiving any one of a range of objects x,y,z, … is that of being aware of some modification of E. It will be a necessary condition (...) of someone's perceiving x to have property P1 that E be modified in some way. And in order for the modifications of E to be representations, a given property P1 will need to be causally related, characteristically, to one or more specific modifications, M1,M2, … Mn, of E. symbolized by ‘X'.). (shrink)

I argue against a class of philosophical views of color perception, especially insofar as such views posit the existence of color sensations. I argue against the need to posit such nonconceptual mental intermediaries between the stimulus and the eventual conceptualized perceptual judgment. Central to my arguments are considerations of certain color illusions. Such illusions are best explained by reference to high-level, conceptualized knowledge concerning, for example, object identity, likely lighting conditions, and material composition of the distal stimulus. Such explanations obviate (...) the need to appeal to nonconceputal mental links in the causal chains eventuating in conceptualized color discriminations. (shrink)

It is widely thought that mind–body substance dualism is implausible at best, though mere “property” dualism is defensible and even flourishing. This paper argues that substance dualism is no less plausible than property dualism and even has two advantages over it.

Qualia, Sensa and absolute Processes. In this paper, the development of Sellars' thoughts concerning the mind-body-problem is reconstructed. Starting from an elaborate critique of the identity theory, Sellars claims that the ultimate 'Scientific Image' must contain a concept of sensa as the bearers of certain properties of manifest sense impressions. In his later work Sellars' notion of absolute processes leads him to a new monism and thus to an extended critique of rival theories. It is argued that these Sellarsian thoughts (...) can be helpful in the actual discussion of the mind-body-problem. (shrink)

Qualia, Sensa and absolute Processes. In this paper, the development of Sellars' thoughts concerning the mind-body-problem is reconstructed. Starting from an elaborate critique of the identity theory, Sellars claims that the ultimate 'Scientific Image' must contain a concept of sensa as the bearers of certain properties of manifest sense impressions. In his later work Sellars' notion of absolute processes leads him to a new monism and thus to an extended critique of rival theories. It is argued that these Sellarsian thoughts (...) can be helpful in the actual discussion of the mind-body-problem. (shrink)

Life Science Library now claims to examine ‘the most complex of all biological organs: the human mind’, and scientists quite commonly make no distinction between mind and brain — they delight in talking about the brain classifying, decoding, perceiving, deciding or giving orders. And while resisting the conceptual muddle involved in talking of the brain doing what persons do, the identity hypothesis tries to provide a philosophically respectable basis for the equation of mind and brain, maintaining that ‘mind’ is just (...) a term for a group of activities and dispositions, and that these in turn are in some sense to be identified with brain activities or traces. On the other hand, from the point of view of religion and traditional philosophy the suggestion is completely unplausible — creative or inventive thought, and aesthetic, moral or religious experiences seem so far removed from mechanical or physiological processes that a good deal of softening up is necessary if any kind of identity theory is to get a fair hearing. This softening up is best carried out by considering the difficulties in the main rival philosophical view, interactionism. (shrink)

Life Science Library now claims to examine ‘the most complex of all biological organs: the human mind’, and scientists quite commonly make no distinction between mind and brain — they delight in talking about the brain classifying, decoding, perceiving, deciding or giving orders. And while resisting the conceptual muddle involved in talking of the brain doing what persons do, the identity hypothesis tries to provide a philosophically respectable basis for the equation of mind and brain, maintaining that ‘mind’ is just (...) a term for a group of activities and dispositions, and that these in turn are in some sense to be identified with brain activities or traces. On the other hand, from the point of view of religion and traditional philosophy the suggestion is completely unplausible — creative or inventive thought, and aesthetic, moral or religious experiences seem so far removed from mechanical or physiological processes that a good deal of softening up is necessary if any kind of identity theory is to get a fair hearing. This softening up is best carried out by considering the difficulties in the main rival philosophical view, interactionism. (shrink)

Many philosophers, both past and present, object to materialism not from any romantic anti-scientific bent, but from sheer inability to understand the thesis. It seems utterly inconceivable to some that qualia should exist in a world which is entirely material. This paper investigates the grain objection, a much neglected argument which purports to prove that sensations could not be brain events. Three versions are examined in great detail. The plausibility of the first version is shown to depend crucially on whether (...) one holds a direct or non-direct theory of perception. Only on the latter is this version plausible. An analysis of the second "semantic" version concludes that a materialist description and explanation of the world should not be expected to transparently convey all that would be of interest or importance to human beings. The final version explicitly makes use of Grover Maxwell's non-direct perceptual theory of structural realism. Although a confusion is charged to Maxwell between phenomenal and objective properties, the critical difficulty for the grain objection is its failure to characterize "structure" from a non-percipient point of view. As the grain objection is ultimately found wanting, the real difficulty for materialism crystallizes as its irreconciliability with the mere existence of sentience, which seems to force some sort of emergence upon us. (shrink)

Some materialists argue that we can eliminate mental entities such as sensations because, like electrons, they are theoretical entities postulated as parts of scientific explanations, but, unlike electrons, they are unnecessary for such explanations. As Quine says, any explanatory role of mental entities can be played by "correlative physiological states and events instead." But sensations are not postulated theoretical entities. This is shown by proposing definitions of the related terms, 'observation term,' and 'theoretical term,' and then classifying the term 'sensation.' (...) The result is that although 'sensation' is a theoretical term, it is also a reporting term because it is used to refer to phenomena we are aware of. Consequently sensations are not postulated and cannot be eliminated merely because they are unnecessary for explanation. (shrink)

If one examines the sky at sunset on a clear night, one seems to see a continuum of colors from reds, oranges and yellows to a deep blue-black. Between any two colored points in the sky there seem to be other colored points. Furthermore, the changes in color across the sky appear to be continuous. Although the colors at the zenith and the horizon are obviously distinct, nowhere in the sky can one see any color borders, and every sufficiently small (...) region of the sky is made up of regions that all seem to be of the same color. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to properly situate and contrast McDowell’s and Sellars’ views on intuitional content and relate them to their corresponding views on the myth of the Given. Although McDowell’s and Sellars’ views on what McDowell calls ‘intuitional’ content seem at first strikingly similar, at a deeper level they are radically different. It will be suggested that this divergence is intimately related to their different understanding of what the myth of the Given consists in and how it (...) should be best avoided. It will also be argued that certain McDowell-inspired objections against the viability of the Sellarsian concept of the Categorial Given actually misconstrue the place of this notion in Sellars’ system. If the myth of the Categorial Given can be considered as a genuine version of the Myth then McDowell’s account of intuitional content does indeed fall prey to it. I shall further argue that a McDowell-inspired objection against Sellars to the effect that his account of proper sensibles compromises the openness of intuitional content to the world ultimately fails, and, finally, I shall suggest that Sellars’ views on proper sensibles and intuitional content provide a more promising account of the way our thought and experience can be rationally open to the world itself than McDowell’s position. (shrink)

In a recent article Sachs suggests that the concept of somatic intentionality is the key to understanding how the conceptual order is externally constrained by something outside itself which is nonetheless fully intentional in nature. Sachs claims that his proposal fares better than Sellars’ view on the issue of how our experience can so much as be about objective reality. In this paper, I shall argue that this is not the case because Sellars’ view is in crucial respects misdescribed. Sachs (...) suggests that Sellars’ view is problematic because 1) conceptual intentionality cannot objectively constrain the conceptual order due to its essential discursive form, and 2) a non-intentional consciousness cannot provide an objective worldly constraint on conceptual intentionality because it is not world-directed. However neither of these points succeeds in capturing Sellars’ actual position. Further I will suggest the deepest problem which phenomenological views of a Merleau-Pontyan stripe face in the.. (shrink)

Philosophers have been talking about brain states for almost 50 years and as of yet no one has articulated a theoretical account of what one is. In fact this issue has received almost no attention and cognitive scientists still use meaningless phrases like 'C-fiber firing' and 'neuronal activity' when theorizing about the relation of the mind to the brain. To date when theorists do discuss brain states they usually do so in the context of making some other argument with the (...) result being that any discussion of what brain states are has a distinct en passant flavor. In light of this it is a goal of mine to make brain states the center of attention by providing some general discussion of them. I briefly look at the argument of Bechtel and Mundale, as I think that they expose a common misconception philosophers had about brain states early on. I then turn to briefly examining Polger's argument, as I think he offers an intuitive account of what we expect brain states to be as well as a convincing argument against a common candidate for knowledge about brain states that is currently "on the scene." I then introduce a distinction between brain states and states of the brain: Particular brain states occur against background states of the brain. I argue that brain states are patterns of synchronous neural firing, which reflects the electrical face of the brain; states of the brain are the gating and modulating of neural activity and reflect the chemical face of the brain. (shrink)

Consideration of the counting and reidentification of particulars leads naturally enough to the orthodox doctrine that, “on pain of indefiniteness,” an identity statement in some way involves or presupposes a general term or “covering concept”: i.e., that the principium individuationis or criterion of identity implied depends upon the kind of thing in question. Thus it is said that an auditor understands the question whether A is the same as B only in so far as he knows, however informally or implicitly, (...) the answer to the supplementary question, “The same what?”. (shrink)

Paul Russell argues that the interpretation of Hume as a classical compatibilist is misguided. Russell defends a naturalistic reading of Humean freedom and moral responsibility. On this account, Hume holds two theses: that moral responsibility is a product of our moral sentiments, and that our concept of moral freedom is derived from our considerations of moral responsibility. Russell claims that Hume’s theory of the passions is non-cognitivist, and thus that his account of moral judgment fails to distinguish between voluntary and (...) involuntary actions or qualities of mind. He concludes that Hume’s account of moral responsibility is inadequate. I argue that Hume has a cognitivist account of the passions. For Hume, our character is judged to be a proper object of praise or censure on account of our ability to partake in a moral community with our fellows. I conclude that Hume does not naturalize freedom and moral responsibility, but socializes it. (shrink)

Empirical arguments for materialism are highly circumstantial—based, as they are, upon inductions from our knowledge of the physical and upon the fact that mental phenomena have physical correlates, causes and effects. However, the qualitative characteristics of first-person conscious experience are empirically distinct from uncontroversially physical phenomena in being—at least on our present knowledge—thoroughly resistant to the kind of abstract, formal description to which the latter are always, to some degree, readily amenable. The prima facie inference that phenomenal qualities are, most (...) probably, non-physical may be resisted either by denying their existence altogether or by proposing that they are properties of some peculiar sort of mysterious physical complexity, located, for example, within the functioning of the brain. It is argued here, however, that the first, eliminative hypothesis is empirically absurd—while the second is extravagant, vague, ad hoc and (for various additional reasons) profoundly implausible. Taken together, these considerations provide a compelling empirical case against materialism—yet its converse, mentalism, is usually regarded as subject to serious difficulties of its own. I conclude by suggesting empirical and theoretical desiderata, respectively, for the vindication of materialism and alternatively, for the development and defense of a potentially robust and viable mentalist theory of consciousness. (shrink)

Russellian panpsychism puts basic conscious properties at the bottom level and then grounds lowestlevel physical entities in them. This paper offers arguments against the view. The explanatory gap cuts both ways, making it as hard to get the physical out of consciousness as to get consciousness out of the physical. Russellian panpsychism can't explain how basic conscious properties yield high-level consciousness. Other non-physicalist views can evade the causal argument for physicalism at least as well as Russellian panpsychism. Simplicity and beauty (...) don't supply reasons for Russellian panpsychism. (shrink)

This thesis evaluates and compares two versions of neutral monism, one developed by William James and the other by Bertrand Russell. Both argued against Cartesianism in favour of a "subjectless given" as the basic stuff which constitutes both mind and matter. My evaluation will demonstrate that James’s and Russell's supposedly neutral entities are not neutral as their exponents claim because they fail to satisfy important criteria set for a theory to be genuinely neutral. There are two fundamental elements within my (...) discussion of the neutral entities. Firstly, I shall demonstrate that although James's initial repudiation of dualistic epistemology of subject and object, knower and known, led him to avoid metaphysical dualism of mental and physical, in Cartesian sense, by committing him to the view that there is one kind of entity called "experience", his final analysis admitted an internal distinction within the supposedly simple neutral entities. I shall call this covert dualism. Accepting James’s radical empiricism as an archetype, Russell’s early commitment to neutral monism led him to assert three distinctive kinds of entities, sensation, image and unperceived, and was therefore not complete as that of James. In order to bring his theory in line with James, Russell, in his mature version, entirely repudiated the dualistic view of perception which, following Moore, he accepted, to reject idealism. Russell declared percept as the neutral entity, which is both mental and material at once. But by re-introducing epistemological dualism, as James did, Russell admitted that a percept is not simple but complete bundle of compresent qualities and relations. 1 shall argue that like James’ his theory also collapses into covert dualism. Secondly, I shall argue that to produce a genuinely explanatory theory of neutral entities James and Russell exploited science to justify their theories. In course of their analysis they produced various arguments which has been considered as circular. An attempt will be made to show that the apparent circularity of their analysis is really part of a sophisticated programme, now known as bootstrapping. The notion of a bootstrap strategy has recently been developed in philosophy of science, and suggests a way in which the same evidence can be used to generate both a general and specific hypothesis. The thesis is divided into eight chapters. Chapters one, two and four are largely exegetical and chronological, and discuss the development of neutral monism especially in James and Russell’s philosophy together with the general characteristics of the theory as distinguished from other theories explaining mind and matter. Chapters three, five and six critically analyse James’s and Russell’s versions respectively to show their theories collapse into covert dualism. In chapter seven we argue that the alleged circularities in their theory are non- viscious and their employment of a bootstrap strategy introduced a profound innovation in epistemology. (shrink)

Neuroscience investigates how neuronal processing circuits work, but it has problems explaining experiences this way. For example, it hasn’t explained how colour and shape circuits bind together in visual processing, nor why colours and other qualia are experienced so differently yet processed by circuits so similarly, nor how to get from processing circuits to pictorial images spread across inner space. Some theorists turn from these circuits to their electromagnetic fields to deal with such difficulties concerning the mind’s qualia, unity, privacy, (...) and causality. They include Kohler, Libet, Popper, Lindahl, Arhem, Charman, Pockett, John, McFadden, Fingelkurts, Maxwell, and Jones. They’re classifiable as computationalist, reductionist, dualist, realist, interactionist, epiphenomenalist, globalist, and localist. However, they’ve never been analysed together as a whole, which hinders evaluations of them. This article tries to rectify this. It concludes that while field theories face challenges, they aren’t easily dismissed, for they draw on considerable evidence and may avoid serious problems in neuroscience concerning the mind’s qualia, unity, causality, and ontology. (shrink)