What is the relation between a reason and an action when the reason explains the action by giving the agent's reason for doing what he did? We may call such explanations rationalizations, and say that the reason rationalizes the action. In this paper I want to defend the ancient - and common-sense - position that rationalization is a species of ordinary causal explanation. The defense no doubt requires some redeployment, but not more or less complete abandonment of the position, as (...) urged by many recent writers. (shrink)

What is a human person, and what is the relation between a person and his or her body? In her third book on the philosophy of mind, Lynne Rudder Baker investigates what she terms the person/body problem and offers a detailed account of the relation between human persons and their bodies. Baker's argument is based on the 'Constitution View' of persons and bodies, which aims to show what distinguishes persons from all other beings and to show how we can be (...) fully material beings without being identical to our bodies. The Constitution View yields answers to the questions 'What am I most fundamentally?', 'What is a person?', and 'What is the relation between human persons and their bodies'? Baker argues that the complex mental property of first-person perspective enables one to conceive of one's body and mental states as one's own. (shrink)

Breaking new ground in the debate about the relation of mind and body, David Armstrong's classic text - first published in 1968 - remains the most compelling and comprehensive statement of the view that the mind is material or physical. In the preface to this new edition, the author reflects on the book's impact and considers it in the light of subsequent developments. He also provides a bibliography of all the key writings to have appeared in the materialist debate.

What if Britain had stayed out of the First World War? What if Germany had won the Second? Historians have traditionally refused to ask questions of the past, preferring to assume that whatever happened was inevitable. ButVirtual Historychallenges this complacency as leading historians apply "counterfactual" arguments to decisive moments in modern history.

Hempel's proposal of covering laws which explain historical events has a certain plausibility, but can never be actually realized due to the chaotic nature of history. The natural laws that would govern both individual lives and greater history would be nonlinear; consequently, in the terminology of chaos theory, the final states of both are extremely sensitive to initial conditions. Initial conditions would need to be exactly known in order to account correctly for historic phenomena, especially for causes and effects which (...) span long, historically interesting, lengths of time. Covering-law history therefore fails because the details of initial conditions are generally unknowable. Since this constraint diminishes as the time over which covering laws operate is divided into smaller consecutive intervals of scenes, covering-law explanations resolve into those having a narrative temporal structure. (shrink)

The studies reported in the following articles are aimed at providing a comprehensive, detailed, and quantitative picture of cognition in human dreaming. Our main premises are that waking, REM sleep, and non-REM sleep represent physiologically distinct and identifiable brain states and that the differences between waking, REM, and NREM mentation reflect these physiological differences. We have studied dreams at a formal level of analysis and, in these papers, have studied the specific dream properties of emotions, bizarre transformations, scene shifts, and (...) plot coherence, in adults and 4- to 10-year-old children, as part of a larger effort to map state-dependent mental phenomena back onto the varying neurobiological processes that must underlie them. We believe that such efforts will enhance our understanding not only of dreaming and its neurophysiological substrates, but also of the cognitive processes that dreaming shares with other unusual mental states. (shrink)

This volume is devoted to Lewis's work in metaphysics and epistemology. Topics covered include properties, ontology, possibility, truthmaking, probability, the mind-body problem, vision, belief, and knowledge. The purpose of this collection, and the volumes that precede and follow it, is to disseminate more widely the work of an eminent and influential contemporary philosopher. The volume will serve as a useful work of reference for teachers and students of philosophy.

The Idea of History is the best-known book of the great Oxford philosopher, historian, and archaeologist R.G. Collingwood. It was originally published posthumously in 1946, having been mainly reconstructed from Collingwood's manuscripts, many of which are now lost. For this revised edition, Collingwood's most important lectures on the philosophy of history are published here for the first time. These texts have been prepared by Jan van der Dussen from manuscripts that have only recently become available. The lectures contain Collingwood's first (...) comprehensive statement of his philosophy of history; they are therefore essential for a full understanding of his thought, and in particular for a correct interpretation of The Idea of History itself. Van der Dussen contributes a substantial introduction in which he explains the background to this new edition and surveys the scholarship of the last fifty years. (shrink)

Toward theory a homuncular of believing For years and years, philosophers took thoughts and beliefs to be modifications of incorporeal Cartesian egos. ...

Gardiner approaches the idea of a philosophy of history by first giving an outline of the "regularity" interpretation of explanation. "How far it is possible to regard all historical explanations, or even some, as approximating this pattern, how far the objections philosophers have marshalled against such an assimilation are justified, how far the alternative interpretations suggested correspond to the historian's actual procedure in certain cases; these represent the kind of questions that will have to be considered." By keeping the actual (...) practice of historians constantly in view, he believes that the reader will be able to see some of the disputes that have raged concerning the "philosophy of history"in better perspective. (shrink)

Recent neuropsychological data indicating that an absence of dreaming follows lesions of frontal subcortical white matter have been interpreted by Solms as supportive of Freud's wish-fulfillment, disguise-censorship dream theory. The purpose of this commentary is to call attention to Solms's commitment to Freud and to challenge and contrast his specific arguments with the simpler and more complete tenets of the activation-synthesis hypothesis. [Hobson et al.; Nielsen; Solms].

§1.1 What m otivated the perpetrators of the holocaust? Christopher Browning and Daniel Goldhagen differ in their analysis of Reserve Police Battalion 101 (Browning 1992, Goldhagen 1996). The battalion consisted of around 500 ‘ordinary’ Germ ans who, during the period 1942-44, killed around 40,000 Jews and who deported as m any to the death cam ps. Browning and Goldhagen differ over the m otivation wit h which the m en killed. I want to com m ent on a central aspect (...) of this debate. (shrink)

The classic logical positivist account of historical explanation, putting forward what is variously called the "regularity interpretation" (#Gardiner, The Nature of Historical Explanation), the "covering law model" (#Dray, Laws and Explanation in History), or the "deductive model" (Michael #Scriven, "Truisms as Grounds for Historical Explanations"). See also #Danto, Narration and Knowledge, for further criticisms of the model. Hempel formalizes historical explanation as involving (a) statements of determining (initial and boundary) conditions for the event to be explained, and (b) statements of (...) general laws that imply that whenever events of the kind described in (a) occur, an event of the kind to be explained will take place. He admits that in practice historians rarely explain historical events in this way, but instead give only fragmentary "explanation sketches." Such sketches can, however, be "scientifically acceptable," providing it points to where "more specific statements" are to be found (351). An interesting aspect of the article is its "late" positivist, proto‑Kuhnian assertion that "the separation of 'pure description' and 'hypothetical generalization and theory construction' in empirical science is unwarranted" (356). But Hempel does not work out the wider implications of this important conclusion. It is also worth noting that he himself was not much interested in the philosophy of history; other authors took up his model and discussed it within that context. Usefully discussed by #Ricoeur, Time and Narrative, 1:112‑17. (shrink)

Sleep researchers in different disciplines disagree about how fully dreaming can be explained in terms of brain physiology. Debate has focused on whether REM sleep dreaming is qualitatively different from nonREM (NREM) sleep and waking. A review of psychophysiological studies shows clear quantitative differences between REM and NREM mentation and between REM and waking mentation. Recent neuroimaging and neurophysiological studies also differentiate REM, NREM, and waking in features with phenomenological implications. Both evidence and theory suggest that there are isomorphisms between (...) the phenomenology and the physiology of dreams. We present a three-dimensional model with specific examples from normally and abnormally changing conscious states. Key Words: consciousness; dreaming; neuroimaging; neuromodulation; NREM; phenomenology; qualia; REM; sleep. (shrink)

In the beginning, there was the DN (Deductive Nomological) model of explanation, articulated by Hempel and Oppenheim (1948). According to DN, scientific explanation is subsumption under natural law. Individual events are explained by deducing them from laws together with initial conditions (or boundary conditions), and laws are explained by deriving them from other more fundamental laws, as, for example, the simple pendulum law is derived from Newton's laws of motion.

The Mind-Body Problem Questions: What is the mind? What is its connection to the body? Most basic division of answers: Dualist and Materialist (or Physicalist) responses.

Suppose that we want to frame a conception of reasons that isn't relativized to the inclinations of particular agents. That is, we want to identify particular things that count as reasons for acting simpliciter and not merely as reasons for some agents rather than others, depending on their inclinations. One way to frame such a conception is to name some features that an action can have and to say that they count as reasons for someone whether or not he is (...) inclined to care about them. The problem with the resulting conception, as we have seen, is that it entails the normative judgment that one ought to be inclined to care about the specified features, on pain of irrationality, and this normative judgment requires justification. The advantage of internalism is that it avoids these normative commitments. It says that things count as reasons for someone only if he is inclined to care about them, and so it leaves the normative question of whether to care about them entirely open. Yet if we try to leave this question open, by defining things as reasons only for those inclined to care about them, we'll end up with a definition that's relativized to the inclinations of particular agents—won't we? Not necessarily. For suppose that all reasons for acting are features of a single kind, whose influence depends on a single inclination. And suppose that the inclination on which the influence of reasons depends is, not an inclination that distinguishes some agents from others, but rather an inclination that distinguishes agents from nonagents. In that case, to say that these features count as reasons only for those who are inclined to care about them will be to say that they count as reasons only for agents—which will be to say no less than that they are reasons for acting, period, since applying only to agents is already part of the concept of reasons for acting. The restriction on the application of reasons will drop away from our definition, since it restricts their application, not to some proper subset of agents, but rather to the set of all agents, which is simply the universe of application for reasons to act. (shrink)

I defend the view that strong psychophysical superveniences is necessary and sufficient to explain the causal efficacy of mental properties. I employ factual and counterfactual conditionals as defeasible criteria of causal efficacy. And I also deal with certain problems arising from disjunctive and conjunctive properties.

Jaegwon Kim is one of the most preeminent and most influential contributors to the philosophy of mind and metaphysics. This collection of essays presents the core of his work on supervenience and mind with two sets of postscripts especially written for the book. The essays focus on such issues as the nature of causation and events, what dependency relations other than causal relations connect facts and events, the analysis of supervenience, and the mind-body problem. A central problem in the philosophy (...) of mind is the problem of explaining how the mind can causally influence bodily processes. Professor Kim explores this problem in detail, criticizes the nonreductionist solution of it, and offers a modified reductionist solution of his own. Both professional philosophers and their graduate students will find this an invaluable collection. (shrink)

This book is largely a reconsideration of the arguments that are supposed to ground this consensus.

What is the difference between belief and desire? In order to explain the difference, recent philosophers have appealed to the metaphor of.

This paper explores the sense in which belief "aims at the truth". In this course of this exploration, it discusses the difference between belief and make-believe, the nature of psychoanalytic explanation, the supposed "normativity of meaning", and related topics.

For three decades the writings of Jaegwon Kim have had a major influence in philosophy of mind and in metaphysics. Sixteen of his philosophical papers, together with several new postscripts, are collected in Kim [1993]. The publication of this collection prompts the present essay. After some preliminary remarks in the opening section, in Section 2 I will briefly describe Kim's philosophical 'big picture' about the relation between the mental and the physical. In Section 3 I will situate Kim's approach on (...) the larger philosophical landscape, vis-à-vis various other approaches frequently discussed in contemporary philosophy of mind. This comparative discussion will further illuminate Kim's own position, and also will serve as groundwork for subsequent discussion. In Section 4 I will point out certain persistent internal tensions in Kim's philosophical position on the mind--body problem, tensions that emerge especially clearly against the backdrop of Section 3's comparative discussion of Kim's position relative to various competing positions. In the remainder of the paper I will focus on two issues at the heart of his position, with particular attention to what he says about them in some of the more recent papers and the postscripts in Kim [1993]. First, how should a materialist understand the notion that the mental is 'determined' by the physical? More specifically, what role, if any, should be played by the concept of supervenience in explicating this kind of determination relation? Kim's views on this matter have recently changed, and I will discuss the issue with particular attention to his own latest remarks on it. This is the business of Section 5. Second, need a viable materialism assert that mentalistic psychology is reducible to neurobiology? More specifically, should a materialist insist on reducibility, despite the currently influential line of argument used by non-reductive materialists, the 'multiple realization' argument? On this matter too, Kim's views have changed somewhat; again, I will discuss the issue with particular attention to his recent thinking. This is the business of Section 6. (shrink)

I think, therefore I am. The legendary pronouncement of philosopher René Descartes lingers as accepted wisdom in the Western world nearly four centuries after its author's death. But does thought really come first? Who actually runs the show: we, our thoughts, or the neurons firing within our brains? Walter J. Freeman explores how we control our behavior and make sense of the world around us. Avoiding determinism both in sociobiology, which proposes that persons' genes control their brains' functioning, and in (...) neuroscience, which posits that their brains' disposition is molded by chemistry and environmental forces, Freeman charts a new course--one that gives individuals due credit and responsibility for their actions. Drawing upon his five decades of research in neuroscience, Freeman utilizes the latest advances in his field as well as perspectives from disciplines as diverse as mathematics, psychology, and philosophy to explicate how different human brains act in their chosen diverse ways. He clarifies the implications of brain imaging, by which neural activity can be observed during the course of normal movements, and shows how nonlinear dynamics reveals order within the fecund chaos of brain function. (shrink)

A novel "dream splicing" technique allows the objective evaluation of thematic coherence in dreams. In this study, dream reports were cut into segments and segments randomly recombined to form spliced reports. Judges then attempted to distinguish spliced reports from intact ones. Five judges correctly scored 22 spliced and intact reports 82% of the time ; 13 of the 22 reports were correctly scored by all five judges . We conclude that most dream reports contain sufficient coherence to allow judges to (...) distinguish intact from spliced reports. In contrast, abridged reports, which had all but their first and last five lines removed, were correctly identified in only 10 of 38 reports, suggesting that thematic continuity does not normally extend from the beginning to the end of dreams. The continuity identified in this minority of the reports depended on easily identifiable features, such as specific characters, objects, locations, and emotions, rather than on "latent" themes. (shrink)

In this paper, a new method of quantitatively assessing continuity and discontinuity of visual attention is developed. The method is based on representing narrative information using graph theory. It is applicable to any type of narrative report. Since dream reports are often described as bizarre, and since bizarreness is partially characterized by discontinuities in plot, we chose to test our method on a set of dream data. Using specific criteria for identifying and arranging objects of visual attention, dream narratives from (...) 10 subjects were obtained and mapped onto graphs. The interrater reliabilities were 76% and 91% . Discontinuities in visual attention were quantified by plotting transitions from one part of a graph to another, which provided a spatiotemporal map of attention shifts within a narrative. This procedure was compared with other approaches to discontinuity and also applied to a set of 10 fantasy reports from the same subjects. The results showed that our method includes but transcends other approaches and has the capability to distinguish dream and fantasy reports. To our knowledge, the method provides the most rigorous and reliable measure to date of continuity and discontinuity of attention in narrative reports. (shrink)

Using the concepts of chaotic dynamical systems, we present an interpretation of dynamic neural activity found in cortical and subcortical areas. The discovery of chaotic itinerancy in high-dimensional dynamical systems with and without a noise term has motivated a new interpretation of this dynamic neural activity, cast in terms of the high-dimensional transitory dynamics among “exotic” attractors. This interpretation is quite different from the conventional one, cast in terms of simple behavior on low-dimensional attractors. Skarda and Freeman (1987) presented evidence (...) in support of the conclusion that animals cannot memorize odor without chaotic activity of neuron populations. Following their work, we study the role of chaotic dynamics in biological information processing, perception, and memory. We propose a new coding scheme of information in chaos-driven contracting systems we refer to as Cantor coding. Since these systems are found in the hippocampal formation and also in the olfactory system, the proposed coding scheme should be of biological significance. Based on these intensive studies, a hypothesis regarding the formation of episodic memory is given. Key Words: Cantor coding; chaotic itinerancy; dynamic aspects of the brain; dynamic associative memory; episodic memory; high-dimensional dynamical systems; SCND attractors. (shrink)

Sleep researchers in different disciplines disagree about how fully dreaming can be explained in terms of brain physiology. Debate has focused on whether REM sleep dreaming is qualitatively different from nonREM (NREM) sleep and waking. A review of psychophysiological studies shows clear quantitative differences between REM and NREM mentation and between REM and waking mentation. Recent neuroimaging and neurophysiological studies also differentiate REM, NREM, and waking in features with phenomenological implications. Both evidence and theory suggest that there are isomorphisms between (...) the phenomenology and the physiology of dreams. We present a three-dimensional model with specific examples from normally and abnormally changing conscious states. Key Words: consciousness; dreaming; neuroimaging; neuromodulation; NREM; phenomenology; qualia; REM; sleep. (shrink)

This is a collection of twenty-five papers and reviews by the leading analytic philosopher of our time. It adds to the papers on metaphysics and epistemology to be found in his previous two-volume collection published by Oxford University Press. One previously unpublished paper—“Why Conditionalize?”—is included. Australasian philosophers may note with some pride that eleven of the pieces were first published in the Australasian Journal of Philosophy.

I describe and defend the view in a philosophy of mind that I call 'Normative Essentialism', according to which propositional attitudes have normative essences. Those normative essences are 'horizontal' rational requirements, by which I mean the requirement to have certain propositional attitudes given other propositional attitudes. Different propositional attitudes impose different horizontal rational requirements. I distinguish a stronger and a weaker version of this doctrine and argue for the weaker version. I explore the consequences for knowledge of mind, and I (...) then consider objections to the view from mental causation, from empirical psychology, and from animals and small children. (shrink)