Biological brains are increasingly cast as ‘prediction machines’: evolved organs whose core operating principle is to learn about the world by trying to predict their own patterns of sensory stimulation. This, some argue, should lead us to embrace a brain-bound ‘neurocentric’ vision of the mind. The mind, such views suggest, consists entirely in the skull-bound activity of the predictive brain. In this paper I reject the inference from predictive brains to skull-bound minds. Predictive brains, I hope to show, can be (...) apt participants in larger cognitive circuits. The path is thus cleared for a new synthesis in which predictive brains act as entry-points for ‘extended minds’, and embodiment and action contribute constitutively to knowing contact with the world. (shrink)

The present article is a slightly revised version of my article in Journal of Chinese Philosophy 39, no. 2 (2012): 174–91. I appreciate the opportunity to republish with very minor corrections. This article highlights sympathies between Wang Yangming’s notion of zhenzhi (real knowing) and Stanley Cavell’s concept of acknowledgment. I begin by noting a problem in interpreting Wang on the unity of knowing and acting, which leads to considering how our suffering pain figures in our “real knowing” of another’s pain. (...) I then turn to Cavell’s description of a related problem in modern skepticism, where Cavell argues that knowing another’s pain requires acknowledging it. Cavell’s concept of acknowledgment answers to Wang’s insistence that knowing and acting are one, and corrects Antonio Cua’s very different appropriation of “acknowledgment” to explain Wang’s doctrine. (shrink)

Reexamines the Western philosophical tradition, looking at the basic concepts of the mind, time, causation, morality, and the self.

Uses the thought of Wang Yang-ming, John Dewey, and Alfred North Whitehead to explain a more coherent theory of knowledge.

This article highlights sympathies between Wang Yangming's notion of zhenzhi (real knowing) and Stanley Cavell's concept of acknowledgment. I begin by noting a problem in interpreting Wang on the unity of knowing and acting, which leads to considering how our suffering pain figures in our “real knowing” of another's pain. I then turn to Cavell's description of a related problem in modern skepticism, where Cavell argues that knowing another's pain requires acknowledging it. Cavell's concept of acknowledgment answers to Wang's insistence (...) that knowing and acting are one, and corrects Antonio Cua's very different appropriation of “acknowledgment” to explain Wang's doctrine. (shrink)

No one denies the importance of applying knowledge to actions. But claiming identity (unity) of knowledge and action is quite another thing. There seem to be two problems with the claim: (1) the identity claim implies that the sole cause for one to fail to act on what one judges to be right is ignorance, but it is obviously false that the sole cause of failure in moral actions is ignorance. (2) The identity statement implies non-separation of knowledge and action. (...) But knowledge does not necessarily lead to action. However, the identity of knowledge and action is what a famous Ming Confucian scholar, W ang Yang-ming, proposed and the concept became the central doctrine of his teaching. Though there are several major interpretations of Wang’s doctrine in contemporary literature, it is not clear to me how they deal with the above mentioned difficulties. In this article, I will discuss these interpretations of the doctrine and propose a new interpretation. My purpose is to give an interpretation of Wang’s doctrine that has the capacity of dealing with these challenges to the doctrine and also captures the essence of his teaching. (shrink)

This book presents a systematic account of the role of the personal spiritual ideal of wu-wei--literally "no doing," but better rendered as "effortless action"--in early Chinese thought. Edward Slingerland's analysis shows that wu-wei represents the most general of a set of conceptual metaphors having to do with a state of effortless ease and unself-consciousness. This concept of effortlessness, he contends, serves as a common ideal for both Daoist and Confucian thinkers. He also argues that this concept contains within itself a (...) conceptual tension that motivates the development of early Chinese thought: the so-called "paradox of wu-wei," or the question of how one can consciously "try not to try." Methodologically, this book represents a preliminary attempt to apply the contemporary theory of conceptual metaphor to the study of early Chinese thought. Although the focus is upon early China, both the subject matter and methodology have wider implications. The subject of wu-wei is relevant to anyone interested in later East Asian religious thought or in the so-called "virtue-ethics" tradition in the West. Moreover, the technique of conceptual metaphor analysis--along with the principle of "embodied realism" upon which it is based--provides an exciting new theoretical framework and methodological tool for the study of comparative thought, comparative religion, intellectual history, and even the humanities in general. Part of the purpose of this work is thus to help introduce scholars in the humanities and social sciences to this methodology, and provide an example of how it may be applied to a particular sub-field. (shrink)

In treating cognition as problem solving, Andy Clark suggests, we may often abstract too far from the very body and world in which our brains evolved to guide...

Linking the process of rational decision making to emotions, an award-winning scientist who has done extensive research with brain-damaged patients notes the dependence of thought processes on feelings and the body's survival-oriented regulators. 50,000 first printing.

A key to modern studies of 18th century Western philosophy, the Treatise considers numerous classic philosophical issues, including causation, existence, freedom and necessity and morality. This abridged edition has an introduction which explain's Hume's thought and places it in the context of its times.

This article is an extension of my previous article, which describes pure knowing as the ability and criteria for making moral judgment.1 Due to apparent contradictions among Wang Yangming's statements, there are controversies over the evaluation and interpretation of Wang's idea of the relation between moral knowledge 2 and moral action. Generally, on the one hand, Wang admits that there are people who commit wrong actions even though they recognize that these actions are wrong. He claims not only that sages (...) possess pure knowing, but also that robbers feel ashamed to be called "robbers" through the working of pure knowing.3 On the other hand, he explicitly states that "There have never... (shrink)

One of Hume's most well-known works and a masterpiece of philosophy, A Treatise of Human Nature is indubitably worth taking the time to read.

This dissertation reinterprets the notion commonly translated as "human nature" (renxing in the Mencius by appealing to philosophical assumptions common to Warring States thought. Taking advantage of recently unearthed archeological finds from the Mencian school, the argument is made that renxing in the Mencius is most adequately understood as a dynamic disposition shaped by cultural and historical conditions, not as an a-historical "nature" common to all humans at all times. The notion of "becoming human" in the Mencius that results from (...) this re-reading brings the text as a whole into focus. The central themes of the Mencius - the role of family, personal growth, moral development, and human advancement - are each understood within the framework of this alternative reading. (shrink)