This entry concerns dualism in the philosophy of mind. The term ‘dualism’ has a variety of uses in the history of thought. In general, the idea is that, for some particular domain, there are two fundamental kinds or categories of things or principles. In theology, for example a ‘dualist’ is someone who believes that Good and Evil — or God and the Devil — are independent and more or less equal forces in the world. Dualism contrasts with monism, which is (...) the theory that there is only one fundamental kind, category of thing or principle; and, rather less commonly, with pluralism, which is the view that there are many kinds or categories. In the philosophy of mind, dualism is the theory that the mental and the physical — or mind and body or mind and brain — are, in some sense, radically different kinds of thing. Because common sense tells us that there are physical bodies, and because there is intellectual pressure towards producing a unified view of the world, one could say that materialist monism is the ‘default option’. Discussion about dualism, therefore, tends to start from the assumption of the reality of the physical world, and then to consider arguments for why the mind cannot be treated as simply part of that world. (shrink)

Simulation Theory says we need not rely exclusively on prepositional knowledge of other minds in order to explain the actions of others. Seeking to know what you will do, I imagine myself in your situation, and see what decision I come up with. I argue that this conception of simulation naturally generalizes: various bits of our mental machine can be run‘off‐line’, fulfilling functions other than those they were made for. In particular, I suggest that visual imagery results when the visual (...) system is run off‐line. I briefly review the empirical evidence and consider the philosophical implications, particularly concerning the mode of mental representation in imagery. (shrink)

Both perception and imagination seem to play a crucial role in our engagement with fiction films but whether they really do so, and which role they possibly play, is controversial. On the one hand, a fiction film, as film, is a depiction that invites us to perceive the events portrayed. On the other hand, as fiction, it invites us to imagine the story told. Thus, after watching the film Alien, one might say that one saw Ripley fighting the monster but (...) one might also say that one imagined Ripley fighting the monster. Are these two reports compatible? If they are, how can we combine them so to make sense of them? If, instead, they are not, which of them should we give up? (shrink)

In the visual system, the represented features of individual objects (shape, colour, movement, and so on) are distributed both in space and time within the brain. Representations of inner and outer event sequences arrive through different sense organs at different times, and are likewise distributed. Objects are nevertheless perceived as integrated wholes - and event sequences are experienced to form a coherent "consciousness stream." In their thoughtful article, Dennett & Kinsbourne ask how this is achieved.

Common wisdom tells us that we have five senses: sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch. These senses provide us with a means of gaining information concerning objects in the world around us, including our own bodies. But in addition to these five senses, each of us is aware of our own body in way in which we are aware of no other thing. These ways include our awareness of the position, orientation, movement, and size of our limbs (proprioception and kinaesthesia), (...) our sense of balance, and our awareness of bodily sensations such as pains, tickles, and sensations of pressure or temperature. We can group these together under the title. (shrink)

A number of writers have deployed the notion of a point of view as a key to the allegedly theory-resistant subjective aspect of experience. I examine that notion more closely than is usually done and find that it cannot support the anti-objectivist's case. Experience may indeed have an irreducibly subjective aspect, but the notion of a point of view cannot be used to show that it does.

Often in our everyday lives, for instance, in decision-taking, empathizing with others, and engaging with fictions, we are able to imagine what a particular emotion feels like. This chapter analyzes the structure of these imaginings as a kind of experiential imagining. After introducing the topic (section 1), I argue that these imaginings cannot be explained exclusively by their content and that a focus on the mode of imagining is required. We not only imagine having emotions, but we also imagine them (...) experientially, and this means that we imagine feeling them (section 2). I proceed to analyze the content of such imaginings in terms of the phenomenal properties of emotions undergone from a particular subjective perspective within the imagined scenario (section 3). Next, I argue that the mode in which such emotions are experientially imagined requires other-oriented perspective-shifting and the recreation of an emotion-like state (section 4). I examine how we recreate emotion-like states in two cases: when the emotion has been previously felt (section 5) and when it has not been previously experienced (section 6). The main findings are summarized in the conclusion (section 7). (shrink)

Folk psychology is the psychology deployed by ordinary folk and by scientists in ordinary life. At its most basic level, it consists of deploying the concept of mind to explain and predict behavior. This article (i) considers how folk psychology may have begun, by considering an imaginary race of primitive folk deploying the rudimentary nucleus of the psychology, or a rudimentary concept of mind, and (ii) examines one argument for the evolutionary emergence and adaptivity of folk psychology. The crucial issue (...) emerging from this is how primitive folk could have competently deployed the concept or the psychology in such a way as to survive and proliferate in consequence of successfully predicting behavior. Dennett and others are on the right track when they regard folk psychology as adaptive. But care and caution are needed in resolving the issue of competent deployment. (shrink)

We offer a framework for assessing what the structure of episodic memory might be, if one accepts the Buddhist denial of persisting selves. This paper is a response to Jonardon Ganeri's paper "Mental time travel and attention", which explores Buddhaghosa's ideas about memory. (It will eventually be published with a reply by Ganeri).

Many candidates have been tried out as proximate causes of actions: belief-desire pairs, volitions, motives, intentions, and other kinds of pro-attitudes. None of these mental states or events, however, seems to be able to do the trick, that is, to get things going. Each of them may occur without an appropriate action ensuing. After reviewing several attempts at closing the alleged “causal gap”, it is argued that on a correct analysis, there is no missing link waiting to be discovered. On (...) the counterfactual account of singular causation, the onset of belief or desire may perfectly well cause an action, although no kind of mental antecedent is ever a causally sufficient condition for a specific kind of action to occur. (shrink)

This article selectively surveys recent work touching consciousness. It discusses some recent arguments and positions with a view to throwing light on a working principle of much influential philosophical psychology, namely that the first‐person point of view is theoretically redundant. The discussion is divided under a number of headings corresponding to specific functions that have been attributed to the first‐person viewpoint, from the experience of something it is like to undergo physical processes, to the presence of selfhood, mental substance, meaning, (...) understanding, and value. Arguments indicating limitations of the working principle are adduced, as well as arguments indicating possible exploitations of those limitations by first‐personalist positions. Although some of the latter also have limitations, the direction in which the examination tends is that of a progressive widening of the concept of consciousness. (shrink)