The demise of Cartesianism as an animating force in conceptualizing mind and body relations has opened up the field to a wider variety of perspectives, like the "embodiment" of phenomenological thinkers. However, because of Cartesianism's deeply rooted psychic legacy it still makes its presence felt in various places in everyday life. This paper will explore two facets of everyday life, sports and contemplation, which lend themselves to a mind‐body cognitive dissonance affected by latent Cartesian thinking. As an alternative, we will (...) propose a more phenomenologically oriented interpretation based on what has been revealed by historical precedents as well as our empirical investigations. Keywords: Flow, Contemplation, Phenomenofogy, Sports. (shrink)

"Rationality: Contexts and Constraints" is an interdisciplinary reappraisal of the nature of rationality. In method, it is pluralistic, drawing upon the analytic approaches of philosophy, linguistics, neuroscience, and more. These methods guide exploration of the intersection between traditional scholarship and cutting-edge philosophical or scientific research. In this way, the book contributes to development of a suitably revised, comprehensive understanding of rationality, one that befits the 21st century, one that is adequately informed by recent investigations of science, pathology, non-human thought, emotion, (...) and even enigmatic Chinese texts that might previously have seemed to be expressions of irrationalism. Addresses recent challenges and Identifies a direction for future research on rationalityInvestigates the relationship between rationality and mental disorders, such as delusion and depressionAssesses reasoning in artificial intelligence and nonhuman animalsReflects on ancient Chinese Philosophy and possible cultural differences in human psychology Employs philosophical reflection, along with linguistic, probabilistic, and logical techniques. (shrink)

In the search for the foundations of cognition philosophers often encounter a familiar problem - the problem of content. The problem of content is essentially the problem of how content, whether experiential or intentional, is possible. In practice providing a response to this problem involves providing an account of how an active self-consciousness is able to conceive/perceive, or in some way be consciousness ofx. The unique nature of this problem imposes significant constraints on the field of explanatory possibilities. Since the (...) x which is to be accounted for is essentially the possibility of absolutely any x there is no y which is not also an x. Hence, nothing remains outside of the explanandum which can be appealed to in order to account for it without, to some extent, presupposing that which needs to be explained. In many of the theories we will examine overcoming this problem involves appealing to a transcendental “structure of awareness” which more often than not is composed of “universal-like” transcendental “entities” of indeterminate nature and ontological status. A major appeal of transcendental entities is that they can at least appear to provide a way of supplying the power of objective “determinateness” necessary to account for the possibility of determination without themselves being determinates. The general strategy of appealing to such transcendental “entities” has, however, for some time been suspiciously regarded as it is unclear how such an appeal is able to avoid the aforementioned presupposition of content. But if the appeal to transcendental cognizing intermediates is to be ‘ dismissed we may be left to face up to the fact that content simply “happens”- that the process of determination, of “judgment”, is a mysterious talent that can neither be taught nor understood. Through a critical examination of both Western and Eastern philosophical approaches to the problem of content this dissertation identifies and describes, insofar as is possible, “that” through which content is rendered possible. In so doing it draws attention to previously neglected points of contact between major philosophical traditions and clarifies the central issues surrounding the problem. The dissertation supports the conclusion that, although there is a need to acknowledge a particular role for a transcendental “self- consciousness” in providing a coherent response to the problem of content, the attempt to articulate a mechanism through which this role is fulfilled most likely misguided. Although it appears to be possible both to know something about this “self-consciousness”, and even to know it more directly, it cannot be understood in the usual sense. (shrink)

This thesis is the attempt to find a logical model for, and trace the history of, the catuṣkoṭi as it developed in the Indo-Tibetan milieu and spread, via China, to Japan. After an introduction to the history and key-concepts of Buddhist philosophy, I will finish the first chapter with some methodological considerations about the general viability of comparative philosophy. Chapter §2 is devoted to a logical analysis of the catuṣkoṭi. Several attempts to model this fascinating piece of Buddhist philosophy with (...) the tools of classical logic shall be debunked. A paraconsistent alternative will be discussed but eventually dismissed. As a rejoinder, I shall propose a model for the catuṣkoṭi with the help of speech-acts. The remainder of this chapter will look at Chinese and Japanese forms of the catuṣkoṭi which I shall model in a quasi-recursive system. The third and final chapter will look at the Kyoto School's soku-hi dialectics which ties together the different threads of this essay. I will criticise an established, classical model of the soku-hi dialectics and offer an alternative with a second-order paraconsistent semantics. (shrink)