The commentary argues that we cannot be sure that human consciousness has survival value and that in order to understand the origins and, perhaps, the function of consciousness, we should examine the behavioural and neural precursors to consciousness in nonhumans. An example is given of research on the role of context in decisions regarding fleeing from probable predators in the Mongolian gerbil.

Gray mistakenly thinks I have rejected the sort of theoretical enterprise he is undertaking, because, according to him, I think that "more data" is all that is needed to resolve all the issues. Not at all. My stalking horse was the bizarre (often pathetic) claim that no amount of empirical, "third-person point-of-view" science (data plus theory) could ever reduce the residue of mystery about consciousness to zero. This "New Mysterianism" (Flanagan, 1991) is one that he should want to combat as (...) vigorously as I have done. (shrink)

Robust theories concerning the connection between consciousness and brain function should derive not only from empirical evidence but also from a well grounded inind-body ontology. In the case of the comparator hypothesis, Gray develops his ideas relying extensively on empirical evidence, but he bounces irresolutely among logically incompatible metaphysical theses which, in turn, leads him to excessively skeptical conclusions concerning the naturalization of consciousness.

I propose a framework for pragmatic reliability in-the-limit criteria, extending the epistemic reliability framework. I identify some common scientific contexts that complicate the application or i...

Segmentalized consciousness in schizophrenia reflects a loss of the normal Gestalt organization and contextualization of perception. Grays model explains such segmentalization in terms of septohippocampal dysfunction, which is consistent with known neuropsychological impairment in schizophrenia. However, other considerations suggest that everyday perception and its failure in schizophrenia also involve prefrontal executive mechanisms, which are only minimally elaborated by Gray.

Using information on students’ past participation in economic experiments, we analyze whether behavior in public goods games is affected by experience and history. We find that: on average, the amount subjects contribute and expect others to contribute decreases with experience; at the individual level, the proportion of unconditional cooperators decreases with experience, while the proportion of selfish people increases. Finally, history influences behavior less than experience. Researchers are urged to control for subjects’ experience and history to improve the external validity (...) and replicability of results. (shrink)

Interoception, the ability to feel the body’s internal sensations, is an essential aspect of emotional experience. There is mounting evidence that interoception is impaired in common mental health disorders and that poor interoceptive awareness is a major contributor to emotional reactivity, calling for clinical interventions to address this deficit. The manuscript presents a comprehensive theoretical review, drawing on multidisciplinary findings to propose a metatheory of reinforcement mechanisms applicable across a wide range of disorders. We present a reconsideration of operant conditioning (...) through the co-emergence model of reinforcement, which is a neurophenomenological account of the interaction between cognition and interoception, and its consequences on behavior. The model suggests that during memory processing, the retrieval of autobiographical memory (including maladaptive cognition) is dependent upon its co-emerging interoceptive cues occurring at the encoding, consolidation and reconsolidation stages. Accordingly, “interoceptive reinforcement” during emotional distress is a common factor to all emotional disorders and a major cause for relapse. We propose that interoceptive desensitization has transdiagnostic benefits, readily achievable through the cultivation of equanimity during mindfulness training and can be integrated in cognitive and behavioral interventions to permit a transdiagnostic applicability. We summarize the contributions of this approach into 10 specific and testable propositions. (shrink)

A recent scientifically and historically grounded theory on human genetic and cultural evolution suggests why the religious elements of culture became the primary source of both peaceful cooperation within societal ingroups and at the same time of destructive wars with outgroups. It also describes the role of religion in the evolution of ape‐men into humans. The theory indicates why human societal life is not long viable without the underpinning of a healthy, noncoercive, religious faith; why sound religious faith is weak (...) now; and why we may hope both for better morals and for worldwide cooperation in peace. (shrink)

This paper aims to argue for a lawful, intentional approach to human behavior. Donald Davidson’s idea that an event is mental according to the way it is described is here accepted. However, his nonlawful conception of psychology, in its turn, is rejected. Rather, based on Howard Rachlin’s teleological behaviorism, a lawful, externalist approach to explaining human behavior is adopted, according to which a bit of behavior is to be interpreted in connection with other ones, within a certain social context. It (...) is argued here also that Rachlin’s perspective amounts to a sort of externalization of intentionality. (shrink)

For behavior analysis, ontological concerns are linked with pragmatism, rather than any stance on the inherent nature of the thing studied. Thus, behavior analysis regards as troublesome ontological commitments that formulate certain covert events as "mental" rather than behavioral because those commitments are antithetical to the effective prediction and control of natural phenomena. Moreover, a helpful recognition is that neither behavior nor environment need be publicly observable. Rather, they may be accessible to only one, but nevertheless in the behavioral dimension.

The central fact in the delineation of radical behaviorism is its conceptual avoidance of propositional content. This eschewal of the intentional stance sets it apart not only from cognitivism but from other non-behaviorisms. Indeed, the defining characteristic of radical behaviorism is not that it avoids mediating processes per se but that it sets out to account for behavior without recourse to propositional attitudes. Based, rather, on the contextual stance, it provides definitions of contingency-shaped, rule-governed verbal and private behaviors which are (...) non-intentional. However, while the account provided by radical behaviorism fulfills the pragmatic criteria of prediction and control of its subject matter, it has problems of explanation that stem from the failure of radical behaviorist interpretation to address the personal level of analysis, to provide for the continuity of behavior, and to show how its accounts can be delimited in the face of causal equifinality. This leaves gaps in its explanation that radical behaviorists choose either to ignore or to fill with the very intentional locutions that they formally abhor but which I argue are essential. As a result, many psychologists who style themselves radical behaviorists have already moved beyond radical behaviorism as a philosophy of science. They have done so primarily as a result of adopting the language of intentional psychology in order to explain behavior; where they have not done this, they have resorted to the unscientific assumption that somewhere there is a learning history that explains their data. While it is indeed the case that a learning history precedes all operant behavior, the explanatory gap that is revealed by the search for this unobtainable information reveals the inescapability of intentionality. Hence, psychologists, including radical behaviorists, are right to employ it. The challenge is to understand why this is so and to celebrate rather than denigrate the resulting extension of behavioral science. In this response, I first raise and seek to answer two questions: what is radical behaviorism, and what is intentional explanation? I go on to discuss the incompleteness of radical behaviorism. There follows a summary of the argument with respect to intentional behaviorism and super-personal cognitive psychology. And, finally, I bring the discussion back to Daniel Dennett, the philosopher who initiated so much of it. (shrink)

This thesis arises out of a critique of the way language is decontextualized and presented from a reductively linguistic viewpoint in foreign language instruction. In particular, it focuses on the weaknesses of the broad approach known as Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) and highlights the disparity between its theoretical assumptions and practical applications. With this in mind, the thesis identifies and explores three foundational premises that should be considered as part of an attempt to design a theoretically coherent framework for foreign (...) language instruction. By applying three sets of principles based on these premises, the thesis goes on to outline such a framework. After providing a background to the study, the first consideration is the nature of cultural and communicative performance. The study turns to sociological concepts regarding cultural organization and production, in order to better conceptualize how 'culture' can be understood in the context of foreign language learning. The second part of this area focuses on meaning and communication in order to undermine current treatments of 'language' in foreign language pedagogy. The second area of interest is that of learning and thus considers a number of theories of how people learn. The focus here is on learning-in-general rather than learning languages specifically. What emerges from this are a number of principles that should be borne in mind when creating conditions favorable to language learning. Finally, one largely overlooked area in foreign language learning and applied linguistics more broadly, is how the field of foreign language pedagogy constructs and legitimizes its practices, as well as suppresses its foundational theoretical assumptions in its activities (including research, methodology and teaching). A chapter is therefore devoted to this issue, and a set of principles is formulated in order to ensure that the design of any instructional framework is honest and ethical. Thus furnished with the triangulation of principles, an attempt is made to outline how a learner-focused, ethical pedagogical framework that stresses culture might look. This thesis is theoretical in nature and relies on arguments and positions from diverse and less commonly considered academic fields in foreign language instruction. Its main theoretical inspiration comes from concepts and claims generally considered 'poststructural' or 'postmodern'. However, there is no exclusive devotion to any particular author or theory. It is hoped that this thesis can make a genuine, if not controversial, contribution to the field of foreign language teaching by initiating a dialogue concerning the (lack of) philosophical and epistemological reflexivity in the field. (shrink)