Personalism has brought new important elements concerning the way human person is seen, but the vocational dimension has not received as much interest as other elements. By understanding vocation as the call received by every human being to exist and give his/her own existence a meaning, we propose this element as one of the fundamentals of personalist bioethics. This vocational dimension analysis of the person allows a better understanding of the primacy of responsibility, the untransferable value of identity, the (...) attention to others and the role of health professionals as transmitters of such call. -/- El personalismo ha presentado novedades importantes sobre la mirada a la persona humana, pero no se le ha dado tanto interés a su dimensión vocacional como a otros elementos. Entendida la vocación como la llamada que recibe todo ser humano a existir y a dar sentido a su propia existencia, proponemos este elemento como uno de los fundamentos de la bioética personalista. Este análisis de la dimensión vocacional de la persona nos permite comprender mejor la primacía de la responsabilidad, el valor intransferible de la identidad, la atención por el otro y el papel del profesional de la salud como transmisor de esa llamada. (shrink)

When you hallucinate an object, you are not in the normal sort of concurrent causal sensory interaction with that object. It's standardly further inferred that the hallucinated object does not actually exist. But the lack of normal concurrent causal sensory interaction does not imply that there does not exist an object that is hallucinated. It might be a past‐perceived object. In this paper, I argue that this claim holds for at least some interesting cases of hallucination. Hallucinations generated by misleading (...) cues (e.g. ‘seeing’ Kanizsa triangles), hallucinations of Charles Bonnet Syndrome patients, and dreams are experiences of past‐perceived objects. (shrink)

One of the newest research areas in moral philosophy is moral phenomenology: the dedicated study of the experiential dimension of moral mental life. The idea has been to bring phenomenological evidence to bear on some central issues in metaethics and moral psychology, such as cognitivism and noncognitivism about moral judgment, motivational internalism and externalism, and so on. However, moral phenomenology faces certain foundational challenges, pertaining especially to the existence, describability, and importance of its subject matter. This paper addresses these (...) foundational challenges, arguing that moral experiences – in the phenomenal, what-is-like sense of the term – exist, are informatively describable, and are central for the concerns of moral philosophy at large. (shrink)

The question of whether or not beauty exists in nature is a philosophical problem. In particular, there is the question of whether artworks, persons, or nature has aesthetic qualities. Most people say that they care about their own beauty. Moreover, they judge another person's appearance from an aesthetic point of view using aesthetic concepts. However, aesthetic judgements are not objective in the sense that the experience justifies their objectivity. By analysing Monroe C. Beardsley's theory of the objectivity of aesthetic (...) qualities, I examine whether there are really beautiful and ugly persons in the world. I will criticize the way analytic philosophers judge people and art from an aesthetic perspective. If there are no aesthetic qualities in the world, nobody can judge someone beautiful or ugly without oppression. Aesthetic judgement is exercise of power. (shrink)

This paper questions the idea that theism can function as an explanatory hypothesis to account for the nature and origins of the cosmos. Invoking God cannot dissolve the mystery of existence, and the characteristic religious response here is one of awe and humility. I then address David E. Cooper’s challenge of showing how a ”doctrine of mystery’ can have any discursible content. It is argued that certain aspects of our human experience afford us glimpses of the divine nature (...) -- intimations of the transcendent, which shine through from the ineffable source of our being to the human world we inhabit. (shrink)

This article takes as its subject matter the juridico-political space of the prisoner of war (POW) camp. It sets out to determine the nature of this space by looking at the experience of war captivity by Jewish members of the Western forces in World War II, focusing on the experience of Emmanuel Levinas, who spent 5 years in German war captivity. On the basis of a historical analysis of the conditions in which Levinas spent his time in captivity, (...) it argues that the POW camp was a space of indifference that was determined by the legal exclusion of prisoners from both war and persecution. Held behind the stage of world events, prisoners were neither able to exercise their legal agency nor released from law into a realm of extra-legal violence. Through a close reading of Levinas’s early concept of the ‘there is’ [il y a], the article seeks to establish the impact on prisoners of prolonged confinement in such a space. It sets out how prisoners’ subjectivity dissolved in the absence of meaningful relations with others and identifies the POW camp as a space in which existence was reduced to indeterminate, impersonal being. (shrink)

The conceptualizations of meanings of existence started with the ontological or metaphysical debates in philosophy. Then at the peak of modern times, the school of existentialism dealt with the issue of human existence particularly by citing individual freedom. In all these series of philosophizing, the human being was considered as a singular type entity who thinks and acts in the same way. So, the historical development of philosophical thinking has not brought enough solutions, with regard to the existential (...) issues of human females and other genders. It is through the end of the modern period only, the identities of caste, class, religion, region, ethnicity, gender etc. were taken into serious scrutiny to see the intersectional issues while conceptualizing the ontic status of humans. This article is a look at these aspects of philosophizing in general, and in particular, it analyses the issues of gendered experiences of human beings in cultures. This will lead to examining the meanings of existence for women as a category with reference to the modern writings of Simone de Beauvoir. The possible existence of many genders and the issues in conceiving an essentialist category called woman or man, are being scrutinized in this article through the postmodern writings of Judith Butler. To analyze the experience of genders, this study draws references from various feminist philosophers and concentrates on the existentialist phenomenological writings of Simone de Beauvoir and the deontological phenomenology of Judith Butler. (shrink)

In this article I develop Heidegger's phenomenology of poetry, showing that it may provide grounds for rejecting claims that he lapses into linguistic idealism. Proceeding via an analysis of the three concepts of language operative in the philosopher's work, I demonstrate how poetic language challenges language's designative and world-disclosive functions. The experience with poetic language, which disrupts Dasein's absorption by emerging out of equipmentality in the mode of the broken tool, brings Dasein to wonder at the world's existence (...) in such a way that doubt about its reality cannot enter the picture. (shrink)

The concept of modes of existence of semiotic entities underlies (post)Greimasian semiotics, yet it seems to have received little attention. Modes of existence can be used in different senses. For Greimas, from the perspective of narrative semiotics, when Michelangelo first receives a block of marble and decides to sculpt the David, his intention is in a virtual mode; as Michelangelo progresses he ends up bringing the David into existence, and his intention comes to the realized mode. In (...) Fontanille’s tensive semiotics, however, modes of existence can have to do with how one can narrow or broaden the scope of our apprehension of the David as our eyes look at it in order to produce a meaningful experience. In this work, the perspectives of narrative and tensive semiotics are contrasted both theoretically and practically applying both to a number of examples. In order to identify all possible modes of existence and all the possibilities of transitioning from one to the other in the examples presented, we resort to the method of finite-state automata from computer science. In the end, we propose a robust narrative account of modes of existence that relies on narrative semiotics for its definition, but into which intent and apprehension from tensive semiotics can be integrated. This work calls for the need of establishing a syntax of modes of existence, since both Greimas and Fontanille construe them as being necessary to account for the production of signification. (shrink)

In this essay, I investigate one aspect of Kant’s larger theory of the transcendental self. In the Prolegomena, Kant says that the transcendental self can be represented as a feeling of existence. In contrast to the view that Kant errs in describing the transcendental self in this fashion, I show that there exists a strand in Kant’s philosophy that permits us to interpret the representation of the transcendental self as a feeling of existence—as the obscurely conscious and temporally (...) inaccessible modification of the state of the discursive subject, which is built into all the representations of such a subject. I also provide an account of how the transcendental self can be legitimately understood both as an epistemic condition for the possibility of experience as well as the representation of a non-naturalistic feeling of existence. (shrink)

The passage of Mill’s Utilitarianism that sets out the condition in which one pleasure has a superior quality than another stokes interpretive controversy. According to the Lexical Interpretation, Mill takes one pleasure, P1, to be of a superior quality than another, P2, if, and only if, the smallest quantity of P1 is more valuable than any finite quantity of P2. This paper argues that, while the Lexical Interpretation may be supported with supplementary evidence, the passage itself does not rule out (...) qualitative superiority without lexical dominance, as it only requires P1 to be more valuable than any quantity of P2 that it is possible for someone to experience. Some will object that this concession to opponents of the Lexical Interpretation still renders Mill’s condition for qualitative superiority too demanding to be plausible. However, if Mill’s qualitative rankings apply to higher-order pleasures taken in modes of existence as such rather than to the pleasures of different activities chosen from within these modes, the objection loses much of its force. One upshot is that Mill may have more to contribute to debates in contemporary population axiology than is usually acknowledged. (shrink)

Despite being a women's problem for a long time, catcalling has recently attracted lawmakers' attention. In 2019, the Philippine government enacted Republic Act 11313, or the Safe Spaces Act, which prohibits and punishes gender-based sexual harassment. However, despite the existence of the law, catcalling continues to be rampant. This study aims to explore the experiences of women in Quezon City who have been subjected to catcalling and to provide answers regarding the effects of catcalling on the victims, the locations (...) where catcalling is most prevalent, the most common perpetrators, and the victim's views on the Safe Spaces Act. This research uses a qualitative descriptive approach. Purposive sampling was used to select respondents, and respondents were interviewed using an interview guide to gather information. The findings indicate that women are most vulnerable to catcalling in public spaces, and the perpetrators are strangers or bystanders. Victims went through mental, emotional, and behavioral changes after the incident. Moreover, not all victims think that the law effectively addresses the problem because catcalling is still prevalent, and public awareness campaigns are lacking. (shrink)

The desire for the inner feeling of existence was central to Heidegger’s later philosophy. During the 1930s in works like the Contributions to Philosophy, he began to search for the direct experience, rather than the mere knowledge, of existential power. I characterize such feelings as post-Lutheran. Luther taught his followers to feel the presence of an existentially creative God within themselves. Such feelings, as evidence of one’s salvation, became endemic. After the Enlightenment and despite the rise of secularism, (...) the desire for the inner feeling of existence remained within portions of German culture. Heidegger rejected the idea of God as the foundation of existence, which he called an ontotheology, but he retained the desire to experience the coming-to-be of existence as an inner activity. In the Contributions, Heidegger repeatedly describes Being or “Seyn” as the “trembling” or “oscillation” between existence and nothingness. He tells us that nothingness always remains central to Being, which is what distinguishes Being from mere beings. The latter belong only to what has come-to-be; what Heidegger wanted to experience, not intellectually but as an inner feeling, was the power of coming-to-be. In short, Heidegger sought the inner experience of coming into being from nothingness. (shrink)

The current literature suggests that the use of Husserl’s and Heidegger’s approaches to phenomenology is still practiced. However, a clear gap exists on how these approaches are viewed in the context of constructivism, particularly with non-traditional female students’ study of mathematics. The dissertation attempts to clarify the constructivist role of phenomenology within a transcendental framework from the first-hand meanings associated with the expression of the relevancy as expressed by interviews of six nontraditional female students who have studied undergraduate mathematics. Comparisons (...) also illustrate how the views associated with Husserl’s stance on phenomenology inadvertently relate to the stances of the participants interviewed as part of the study. The research questions focus on the emotional association with studying mathematics and how pre-conceived opinions regarding the study of mathematics may have influenced the essences of the experiences of the participants who have studied collegiate-level mathematics. The essences of the experiences of the participants are analyzed using bracketing and epoché to ensure personal biases of the researcher do not affect the interpretation of the expressed essences of the participants. Data collection is accomplished through two series of qualitative interviews seeking the participants’ firsthand impressions of how they view the way instructional design is oriented with regard to mathematics. Additional questions seek to illuminate the participants’ point of view regarding their emotional association with mathematics as well as their opinions and theoretical perspectives on the study of mathematics. (shrink)

Consciousness is connected with the fact that a subject is aware and open to the manifestation of whatever appears. Existence, by contrast, is used to express the fact that something is given in experience, is present, or is real. Usually, the two notions are taken to be somehow related. This chapter suggests that existence is at best introduced as a metaphysical (or meta-experiential) concept that inevitably escapes the domain of conscious experience. In order to illustrate this (...) claim, two case studies are considered. The first case is provided by Descartes’s famous treatment of consciousness and existence in his Meditations on First Philosophy. The second case is meant to contrast the Cartesian approach by taking the opposite route, as delineated by Emanuele Severino (1929–2020) in his ‘fundamental ontology’. (shrink)

Understanding the mechanics of consciousness remains one of the most important challenges in modern cognitive science. One key step toward understanding consciousness is to associate unconscious physiological processes with subjective experiences of sensory, motor, and emotional contents. This article explores the role of various cellular membrane potential differences and how they give rise to the dynamic infrastructure of conscious experience. This article explains that consciousness is a body-wide, biological process not limited to individual organs because the mind and body (...) are unified as one entity; therefore, no single location of consciousness can be pinpointed. Consciousness exists throughout the entire body, and unified consciousness is experienced and maintained through dynamic repolarization during inhalation and expiration. Extant knowledge is reviewed to provide insight into how differences in cellular membrane potential play a vital role in the triggering of neural and non-neural oscillations. The role of dynamic cellular membrane potentials in the activity of the central nervous system, peripheral nervous system, cardiorespiratory system, and various other tissues (such as muscles and sensory organs) in the physiology of consciousness is also explored. Inspiration and expiration are accompanied by oscillating membrane potentials throughout all cells and play a vital role in subconscious human perception of feelings and states of mind. In addition, the role of the brainstem, hypothalamus, and complete nervous system (central, peripheral, and autonomic)within the mind-body space combine to allow consciousness to emerge and to come alive. This concept departs from the notion that the brain is the only organ that gives rise to consciousness. (shrink)

Religious experience is one of the fundamental problems of the philosophy of religion. Although it has entered the literature as a proof of God; discussions focus on its nature. The basic approaches to the nature of religious experience are: religious experience as a feeling, religious experience as a perception, religious experience as a comment. The main reason that makes the nature of religious experience controversial is that it consists of two concepts that have a (...) wide range of meaning, such as religion and experience. The meanings that individuals and traditions attach to these two concepts determine the understanding of religious experience. The beginning of religious experience as a term corresponds to the periods of Protestantism. With the emphasis of Enlightenment on the mind, the meanings attributed to religious experience have been reduced and narrowed. In the literature, religious experience is unclear, cannot be transferred to others, instant and extraordinary experiences. The preliminary acceptance of this article is that the meanings attributed to the term religious experience are narrowed and it is wrong to use the term in the same sense for different traditions. This article assumes that the reader knows the current discussion of the problem. Rather than reacting to the concerns of current debate, it takes a more proactive and pre-opener approach. Rather than reacting to the concerns of the current debate, it takes a more proactive approach to the subject. This paper will present a different reading of religious experience than the literature as a problem of the Philosophy of Religion. In this context, the concept of God, universe and human being in al-Ghazali will be firstly revealed as the ontological background of religious experience; then a description of the concept of religious experience will be proposed on this ontological basis. If you mean an experience related to religion, which is within religious boundaries with religious experience; Islam for a Muslim, that all experiences that cater to all aspects of human existence and religious boundaries cannot be the person to enter into any human experience that is experienced throughout the religious life. Certainly, here we can talk about the experiences that religion has ordered and forbidden, or in other words, experiences that religion regards as positive or negative. If an experience related to God is meant for religious experience, here are two cases: when the truth comes to the essence and attributes of God, the human experience does not reach there and in this sense, a religious experience is not possible. If the acts of God are mentioned; all the experiences that people live in are religious in this sense, because everything outside of their own is a deed of God, and whatever happens in the world of being, takes place within God's deeds. Here, too, whether or not people are aware of it, can be mentioned in other words, from conscious and unconscious religious experiences, which is the deciding factor. Faith, then, can be regarded as the first step of the conscious religious experience. If you are referring to experiences that seem to be unusual for those who are religious and have no religious experience, it is an extraordinary experience to go on a journey itself, compared to not going on a journey. That is to say, the faith itself, which is to ascend to a journey to perfection, is an extraordinary experience compared to those who are not on this path, that is, those who do not have it. For instance for children, the experiences of the elders are extraordinary, and therefore being ordinary and extraordinary is a relative concept. It is necessary to acknowledge the differences in conscious religious experiences mentioned above in the meaning of intense and deep living in themselves. There is a deeper and more intense experience that expresses progress in a journey that leads to God in the sense of the strengthening of faith. This is the kind of experience that most people have not experienced in this sense that the task of the person who is experienced in his own journey is not to stick to them and continue on their way. So living out of order for a Muslim is seen as a barrier that must be encountered and which should not be lingered on, while experiencing something extraordinary has a distinctive place for religious experience in current debates. The issue is not that they cannot be explained but they are not deliberately explained due to the fear of misunderstanding. This can be regarded as a method of education that older adults use to train minors. As a result, if we would define a religious experience according to al-Ghazali, we can say that religion is a journey made towards God, and religious experience is the experience of traveling to God. Traveling to him means to get close to Him, but this approach is not in spatial means but in perfection means. So, religious experience is the journey to perfection of the man himself. Man's perfection is to have the attributes of God who have absolute perfection. These attributes are present in man's own essence. What a person must do, is to place an effort to make these virtual adjectives real. This journey is basically an existential necessity as it provides the happiness that is essential to human existence. In this journey, which can be understood as becoming a human being who was born as a human being. It should also be added that it is not possible to be absolutely perfect and to reach the reality of God himself in this endless journey of perfection. Therefore, the absolute perfection belongs to God, and it is necessary to understand the concept of perfect human being as a person who has traveled in the journey to perfection. (shrink)

In the act of knowing consciousness, the experience (experience) of a thing by another individual is put into it. All the components of the environment that manifest themselves in movement, sound, light, resistance, etc. become a source of introjection in the experience. As a result of animism, what exists outside of man is divided into an external world and an extra-world existence, and knowledge is differentiated into sensuous and non-empirical. The original naive empirical duality becomes a (...) metaphysical dualism. (shrink)

This essay is divided into two parts, deeply intermingled. Part I examines not only the origin of conscious experience but also how it is possible to ask of our own consciousness how it came to be. Part II examines the origin of experience itself, which soon reveals itself as the ontological question of Being. The chief premise of Part I is that symbolic communion and the categorizations of language have enabled human organisms to distinguish between themselves as actually (...) existing entities and their own immediate experience of themselves and their world. This enables them to reflect upon abstract concepts, including “self,” “experience,” and “world.” Symbolic communication and conceptualization grow out of identification, the act of first observing conscious experiencing and intimating what it is like, mimesis, a gestural protolanguage learned through imitation, and reflection, seeing oneself through the eyes of others. The step into actual intentional speech is made through self-assertion, narrative, and intersubjectivity. These three become the spiral of human cultural development that includes not only the adaptive satisfaction of our biological needs, but also the creativity of thought. With the mental-conceptual separation of subject and object – of self and world – the human ability to witness the universe (and each other) is the ground of our genuinely human quality. Consciousness gives human life its distinctively human reality. It is, therefore, one and the same ability that enables us to shape planet Earth by means of conceptual representations (rather than by means of our hands alone) while also awakening us to the significance of being. -/- Looking beyond human self-consciousness to investigate the origin and nature of awareness itself in Part 2, reductive objective materialism is found to be of little use. Direct experience also falls short in that, in order to be transformed into objective knowledge about itself, it must always be interpreted through and limited by the symbolic contexts of culture and the idiosyncratic conceptualizations of the individual. Awareness-in-itself must thus be considered ultimately unexplainable, but this may more indicate its inexpressible transcendence of all symbolic qualifiers than its nonexistence. It is suggested that awareness is not “self-aware” (as in deity) but is instead unknowing yet identical with the only true universal: the impetus of creative unfolding. Our human knowledge, as an expression of this unfolding, is seen to emerge from our conscious experiencing and, in turn, to have the power – and enormous responsibility – of directing that experience. Our underlying symbolic worldviews are found to be autopoietic: They limit or open our conscious experience, which, in turn, confirms those worldview expectations. As we explore a future of unforeseeable technological breakthroughs on an ailing planet who patiently copes with our “success,” truly vital decisions about the nature, meaning, extent, and future of conscious experience will have to be made. (shrink)

In the Third Antinomy of the Critique of Pure Reason (1781) [Kritik der reinen Vernunft], Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) associates freedom with infinity. According to the definition given in this book, only an infinite being not subject to causality can be defined as free. However, the fact that a finite being, such as a human, is always subject to the laws of nature implies that they are perpetually bound by causality, which hinders their freedom. Freedom devoid of causality cannot be theoretically (...) justified. Another reason for this is Kant’s assertion in the Second Analogy of Critique of Pure Reason, where he states that everything in the phenomenal world is subject to causality. Accordingly, freedom can be conceived not in the phenomenal world but only in the noumenal world. In the First Critique, freedom, defined as a cause without a cause, a cause without being the result of another cause, later be characterized as negative freedom in the third section of the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (1785) [Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten]. Such conceptualization of freedom cannot be determined by any other cause than itself. While there may be a theoretical foundation for accepting such a cause as uncaused, we have moral reasons to believe in it. This moral foundation in question guides us toward the notion of positive freedom. Here, unlike negative freedom, we are subject to moral laws, and as long as we comply with these, we can experience freedom as a finite being. This is because adhering to the laws we set for ourselves enables us to be morally the cause of our own actions. Thus, Kant renders freedom through positive freedom. Following this line of argument, negative freedom appears meaningful to us only within the framework of positive freedom. Jean-Luc Nancy (1940-2021) finds a problematic Kantian account of freedom as an uncaused cause in his book The Experience of Freedom (1988) [L’expérience de la liberté]. Because, according to this perspective, humans are not only subject to the laws of nature but also to moral cause-and-effect relationships with others, they exist at the ix limit of freedom. By this means, considering freedom as a duty imposed on the subject leads to ambiguous analyses such as negative/positive freedom in Kantian philosophyーIn post-Kantian philosophy, the ambiguity persists until Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling (1775-1854)1 , who finds the solution by negating freedom. Therefore, according to Nancy, freedom should be considered not as a Kantian Idea but through its relationship with human finitude and experience. Thus, through the criticism directed at Kant in Martin Heidegger’s (1889-1976) Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics (1929) [Kant und das Problem der Metaphysik], Nancy attempts to resolve the confusion created by the concept of freedom, which despite being associated with infinity in Kant, is made possible in the practical world through respect for the moral law. In this direction, Nancy finds the solution in the freedom that becomes conceptually elusive, transforming it into an act that goes beyond being a mere duty and which permeates all our experiences. In this book, Nancy introduces the initial stages of “community” and “singularity” concepts, which he would later develop further. For this, he begins the book's introductory section by emphasizing Martin Heidegger’s statement in §9 of Being and Time (1927) [Sein und Zeit], where “freedom” is mentioned as another name for existence. As a justification, he refers to the concept of Da-sein [being-there] and states that every being [être] is a being-in-common [être-en-commun], and freedom should be thought of through this. Namely, the problem of freedom is approached not as a political or ethical issue but as an ontological matter. Within the framework of beingin-common, this situation transforms into an ontological “generosity [générosité ontologique].” -/- 1 Philosophical Investigations into the Essence of Human Freedom [Philosophische Untersuchungen über das Wesen der menschlichen Freiheit und die damit zusammenhängenden Gegenstände], Schelling, approaches freedom not through infinity but rather through finitude. While Heidegger and Nancy pursue different paths, they both adhere to the idea of finitude freedom in Schelling. x Despite primarily emphasizing Heidegger’s thought in writing this text as his aggrégation thesis, Jean-Luc Nancy desires to transcend it and maintain a certain distance. This transcendence and distancing include authors from the French Phenomenological tradition, such as Georges Bataille (1897-1962), Maurice Blanchot (1907-2003), and Jean-François Lyotard (1924-1998), and also incorporate the emphasis from Hannah Arendt (1906-1975) that death cannot be thought of independently of life. Referencing many philosophers from the continental philosophy tradition and developing a thematic reading through freedom, this bookーlike Nancy’s other worksーseeks ways to experience philosophy and thought freely in this own writing experience. So much so that this book, unlike Nancy’s other works like The Inoperative Community (1986) [La communauté désoeuvrée] ve Being Singular Plural (1996) [Être Singulier Pluriel], which is not widely discussed in secondary sources, is challenging to follow. Therefore, in examining this book as my Master’s research thesis and addressing the idea of freedom in Nancy, I found it appropriate to adopt a close reading method. Certainly, this research should not be considered independent of works such as The Discourse of Syncope (1976) [Le discours de la syncope], The Categorical Imperative (1983) [L’impératif catégorique], as they serve as examples of while engaging in philosophy, how Nancy refers and relates to the works within the philosophical tradition. (shrink)

In the late 19th century Husserl studied our internal sense of time passing, maintaining that its deep connections into experience represent prima facie evidence for it as the basis for all investigations in the sciences: Phenomenology was born. Merleau-Ponty focused on perception pointing out that any theory of experience must in accord with established aspects of biology i.e. embodied. Recent analyses suggest that theories of experience require non-reductive, integrative information, together with a specific property connecting them to (...) experience. Here we elucidate a new class of information states with just such properties found at the loci of control of complex biological systems, including nervous systems. Complexity biology concerns states satisfying self-organized criticality. Such states are located at critical instabilities, commonly observed in biological systems, and thought to maximize information diversity and processing, and hence to optimize regulation. Major results for biology follow: why organisms have unusually low entropies; and why they are not merely mechanical. Criticality states form singular self-observing systems, which reduce wave packets by processes of perfect self-observation associated with feedback gain g=1. Analysis of their information properties leads to identification of a new kind of information state with high levels of internal coherence, and feedback loops integrated into their structure. The major idea presented here is that the integrated feedback loops are responsible for our ‘sense of self’, and also the feeling of continuity in our sense of time passing. Long-range internal correlations guarantee a unique kind of non-reductive, integrative information structure enabling such states to naturally support phenomenal experience. Being founded in complexity biology, they are ‘embodied’; they also fulfill the statement that ‘The self is a process’, a singular process. High internal correlations and RenéThom-style catastrophes support non-digital forms of information, gestalt cognition, and information transfer via quantum teleportation. Criticality in complexity biology can ‘embody’ cognitive states supporting gestalts, and phenomenology’s senses of ‘self,’ time passing, existence and being. (shrink)

According to the BSM- Supergravitation Unified Theory (BSM-SG), the energy is indispensable feature of matter, while the matter possesses hierarchical levels of organization from a simple to complex forms, with appearance of fields at some levels. Therefore, the energy also follows these levels. At the fundamental level, where the primary energy source exists, the matter is in its primordial form, where two super-dense fundamental particles (FP) exist in a classical pure empty space (not a physical vacuum). They are associated with (...) the Planck scale parameters of frequency and distance and interact by Supergravitational forces. These forces are inverse proportional to the cube of distance at pure empty space and they are based on frequency interactions. Since the two FPs have different intrinsic frequencies, the SG forces appear different for interactions between the like and unlike FPs and may change the sign. This primordial form of matter exists in the super-heavy black holes located in the center of each well formed galaxy. The next upper level of matter organization includes the underlying structure of the physical vacuum, called a Cosmic Lattice, and the structure of elementary particles. They have common substructure elements obtained by specific crystallization process preceding the formation of the observable galaxies. The Cosmic Lattice, forming a space known as a physical vacuum, is responsible for the existence and propagation of the physical fields: electrical, magnetic, Newtonian gravity and inertia. The energy of physical vacuum is in two forms: Static (enormous) and Dynamic (weak). The Static energy is directly related to the Newtonian mass by the Einstein equation E = mc^2 and it is a primary source of the nuclear energy. The Dynamic energy is responsible for the existence of the electric and magnetic fields, the constant speed of light and the quantum mechanical properties of the physical vacuum. The next upper energy level is the dynamical energy of excited atoms and molecules. At this level a hidden energy wells exit, such as the internal energy of the electron and the internal energy of atoms with more than one electron. The next upper energy level is at some organic molecules and particularly in the biomolecules that contain ring atomic structures. In such a structure, some quantum states are not emitted immediately, but rotating in the ring. While in organic molecules the energy stored in such a ring is released by a chemical process, in the long chain molecule of proteins in the living organism the stored energy can be released simultaneously by triggering. A huge number of atomic rings are contained in the DNA strands. The release of the energy stored in DNA, for example, is an avalanche process that causes an emission of entangled photons possessing a strong penetrating capability. A sequence of entangled photons emitted by DNA should carry the genetic information encoded by the cordons. This mechanism, predicted in BSM-SG theory, is very important for intercommunication between the cells of the living organism. The next upper level of energy organization may exist in the brain. The brain is an organ of a most abundant number of atomic rings, while its tissue environment might permit complex energy interactions. The human brain contains billions of atomic rings. The next hypothetical upper level of energy organization is an information field, physically existed outside, but connected with the living brain. It corresponds to a specific field known as aura, while the possibility of its existence is still not accepted by the main stream science. The problem is that this field could not be detected by the currently existing technical means used for EM communications. The BSM-SG predicts that this field might differ from the EM field we use for communication, but it is a subject of a further theoretical development that must be supported by experiments using specifically designed technical means. According to the BSM-SG theory, the energy conversion from the primary energy source to the complex levels of matter and field organization is a permanent syntropic process based on complex resonance interactions. (shrink)

This article begins with some common or well-known sentiments about the present pandemic era and our experience of it, and moves by way of these toward discussion of the concepts of human existence and the “world” in the broadest sense of both terms. Departing from but also radicalizing the notion that “everything changed” in this pandemic time, I discuss certain logical difficulties that pertain to conceiving of or coherently talking about strict totalities which would include our own selves. (...) This will have significant consequences for our conception of the world (when taken in its absolute or broadest sense), and in what sense there are or could be multiple such immersive wholes of experience. Ultimately, I will suggest that in being able to name such pervasive or all encompassing phenomena, phenomena which are “always more” than what it is possible for us to indicate, that human existence is fundamentally liminal, or essentially between and borderline. Being essential or fundamental, this liminality or betweenness will form the basis which precedes and makes possible the apparently simple activities of, for instance, counting time or comparing and contrasting ordinary things, activities which would otherwise seem to require no outside support or conditions. (shrink)

The author challenges both the eliminative idealist's contention that physical objects do not exist and the phenomenalist idealist's view that statements about physical objects are translatable into statements about private mental experiences. Firstly, he details how phenomenalist translations are parasitic on the realist assumption that physical objects exist independently of experience. Secondly, the author confronts eliminative idealism head on by exposing its heuristic sterility in contrast with realism's predictive success.

This paper explores how transformative experience generates decision-making problems of particular seriousness in medical settings. Potentially transformative experiences are especially likely to be encountered in medicine, and the associated decisions are confronted jointly by patients and clinicians in the context of an imbalance of power and expertise. However in such scenarios the principle of informed consent, which plays a central role in guiding clinicians, is unequal to the task. We detail how the principle’s assumptions about autonomy, rationality and information (...) handle transformative experiences poorly, appealing to several difficult cases for medical decision-making to illustrate the resulting problem, and we consider how the existing literature on complications with consent fails to offer a resolution. We argue that recognition of the problem has a role to play in achieving a more effective response to transformative decisions. In Sect. 1 we introduce several representative cases of challenging patient decision-making that clinicians might face. In Sect. 2 we detail how transformative experience has been analysed in the recent literature, before outlining in Sect. 3 the theoretical basis of the principle of informed consent, which plays a central role in how clinicians are expected to support decision-making. In Sect. 4, having laid the groundwork for a clear description, we return to the cases given in Sect. 1 to confirm how their transformative nature presents a problem: either clinicians treat the decisions faced by these patients as ‘normal’, encouraging them to focus on information provision that patients may be unable to act on, or they treat them as transformative, in which case they lack the resources to recognise whether they are helping patients make (subjectively) good decisions. In Sect. 5 we argue that the existing literature does not offer any escape from this problem. We close in Sect. 6 by noting the significant impact that appreciating the problem of transformative experience could have on supporting transformative decisions in medicine and briefly suggesting how we might aim to develop new approaches to dealing with these. (shrink)

This chapter discusses the reception of Avicenna’s well-known “flying man” thought experiment in twelfth- and thirteenth-century Latin philosophy. The central claim is that the argumentative role of the thought experiment changed radically in the latter half of the thirteenth century. The earlier authors—Dominicus Gundissalinus, William of Auvergne, Peter of Spain, and John of la Rochelle—understood it as an ontological proof for the existence and/or the nature of the soul. By contrast, Matthew of Aquasparta and Vital du Four used the (...) flying man as an argument for the soul’s ability to be directly aware of itself. A detailed analysis of the views of these authors shows interesting philosophical differences between them and reveals how one of the crucial premises of the original thought experiment—namely that the flying man is unaware of his body—loses its importance due to the changes in the argumentative role that is assigned to it. The most radical example of a new way of understanding bodily self-awareness is Peter Olivi’s so-called ‘man before the creation.’. (shrink)

The odds of encountering a senior citizen selling on the street have increased. The claim that they have no choice but to work and sell on the street, despite the dangers, illnesses, and psychological issues they may face, to provide for their family’s needs is very evident. Therefore, this study explores the quality of life, lived experiences, challenges, and coping mechanisms of senior citizen street vendors in Bulacan, Philippines. The study employed Heideggerian Phenomenology and Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA). Moreover, the (...) following themes arise (1) Golden years, (2) Socially connected, and (3) Unknown journey. These themes highlighted the experiences and challenges faced by the participants. Moreover, it is highly suggested that local government agencies enhance and strictly monitor the existing program that alleviates mental and physical health concerns and senior citizens' safety and financial assistance. (shrink)

Science is a crowning glory of the human spirit and its applications remain our best hope for social progress. However, there are limitations to existing science and perhaps to any science. The general mind-body problem is known to be currently intractable and mysterious (8). This is one of many deep problems that are generally agreed to be beyond the present purview of Science, including many quantum phenomena, etc. However, all of these famous unsolved problems are either remote from everyday (...) class='Hi'>experience (entanglement, dark matter) or are hard to even define sharply (phenomenology, consciousness, etc.). In this note, we will consider some computational problems in vision that arise every time that we open our eyes and yet are demonstrably inconsistent with current theories of neural computation. The focus will be on two famous related phenomena, known as the neural binding problem and the experience of a detailed stable visual world. I, among many others, have struggled with these issues for more than fifty years (1, 2, 3). Somewhat paradoxically, the continuing progress in scientific methods and knowledge reveals that these are both unsolvable within existing neuroscience. By considering some basic facts about how the brain processes image input, we will show that, under the standard theory, there are not nearly enough brain neurons to compute what we experience as vision. Inconsistencies like the ones shown here have had a profound effect on paradigm change in the sciences. More directly, the discussions below suggest possible new theories and experiments. (shrink)

Higher-Order Representational theories of consciousness — HORs — primarily seek to explain a mental state’s being conscious in terms of the mental state’s being represented by another mental state. First-Order Representational theories of consciousness — FORs — primarily seek to explain a property’s being phenomenal in terms of the property being represented in experience. Despite differences in both explanans and explananda, HORs and FORs share a reliance on there being such a property as being represented. In this paper I (...) develop an argument — the Unicorn Argument — against both HORs and FORs. The core of the Unicorn is that since there are mental rep- resentations of things that do not exist, there cannot be any such prop- erty as being represented, and thus no such property with which to identify either being conscious or being phenomenal. (shrink)

It is widely accepted that there is a visual field, but the analogous notion of an auditory field is rejected by many philosophers on the grounds that the metaphysics or phenomenology of audition lack the necessary spatial or phenomenological structure. In this paper, I argue that many of the common objections to the existence of an auditory field are misguided and that, contrary to a tradition of philosophical scepticism about the spatiality of auditory experience, it is as richly (...) spatial as visual experience—and in some ways even more so. By carefully considering the spatiality and boundedness of audition, along with how sounds or their sources are experienced as occurring within the surrounding acoustic environment, we can gain a better understanding of (i) our auditory experience of space and (ii) the conditions for the existence of spatial sensory fields in general in a way that does not privilege vision over the other senses. (shrink)

Contemporary philosophical and scienti .c discussions of mind developed from a 'proto-concept of mind ',a mythical,tradition- alistic,animistic and quasi-sensory theory about what it means to have a mind. It can be found in many di .erent cultures and has a semantic core corresponding to the folk-phenomenological notion of a 'soul '.It will be argued that this notion originates in accurate and truthful .rst-person reports about the experiential content of a special neurophenomenological state-class called 'out-of-body experiences '.They can be undergone by (...) every human being and seem to possess a culturally invariant cluster of functional and phenomenal core properties similar to the proto-concept of mind. The common causal factor in the emergence and development of the notion of the soul and the proto-concept of mind may consist in a yet to be determined set of properties realized by the human brain, underlying the cluster of phenomenal properties described in the relevant first-person reports. This hypothesis suggests that such a neurofunctional substrate ed human beings at different times, and in widely varying cultural contexts, to postulate the existence of a soul and to begin developing a theory of mind. (shrink)

The questions concerning “who we are”, “where we go to”, and “where we come from”, preoccupied the humanity from immemorial times. During the last few decades, with the accelerated improvement of the investigation methods and of the advanced successful interventions allowing the life salvation, there have been reported some attempts to correlate the psychic phenomena with the body status by the recuperation, analysis and explanation of the symptoms recorded during the near-death experiences. Such special situations, in which the heart and (...) the brain, the support of mental activities, cease their activity, has become a fundamental tool to investigate the consciousness associated phenomena during the arrest status of the fundamental processes of the life. The fundamental question actually is whether consciousness really continues to exist even if the body has ceased its function by stopping the heartbeat and brain support activities [1,2]. An answer to such a question goes toward even further questions: can there be “life” beyond the death [3]? This exciting question includes also several aspects: what is consciousness and which is its nature [4]? Could consciousness exist as a disembodied entity? To answer these fundamental questions of existence, the collaboration of several disciplines such as neurology, psychology, medicine, biology, pharmacology and also physics, to call only the most important of them, is necessary, the geriatrics finding suitable responses within the multidisciplinary researches to its various questions related to the life prolongation and the improvement of the life quality. Within such a context, it was recently developed an informational model of consciousness, which can offer response to the above questions, based on the last discoveries of the quantum physics and cosmology [4,5]. (shrink)

This paper proposes a classificatory framework for disjunctivism about the phenomenology of visual perceptual experience. Disjunctivism of this sort is typically divided into positive and negative disjunctivism. This distinction successfully reflects the disagreement amongst disjunctivists regarding the explanatory status of the introspective indiscriminability of veridical perception and hallucination. However, it is unsatisfactory in two respects. First, it cannot accommodate eliminativism about the phenomenology of hallucination. Second, the class of positive disjunctivism is too coarse-grained to provide an informative overview of (...) the current dialectical landscape. Given this, I propose a classificatory framework which preserves the positive-negative distinction, but which also includes the distinction between eliminativism and non-eliminativism, as well as a distinction between two subclasses of positive disjunctivism. In describing each class in detail, I specify who takes up each position in the existing literature, and demonstrate that this classificatory framework can disambiguate some existing disjunctivist views. (shrink)

Abstract: How is it that we can visually experience complete three-dimensional objects despite being limited, in any given perceptual moment, to perceiving the sides facing us from a specific spatial perspective? To make sense of this, such visual experiences must refer to occluded or presently unseen back-sides which are not sense-perceptually given, and which cannot be sense- perceptually given while the subject is occupying the spatial perspective on the object that they currently are – I call this the horizonality (...) of visual experience. Existing accounts of these horizonal references are unsatisfactory. In providing a satisfactory account, this paper argues that the content and structure of the visual experience of complete three-dimensional objects is as follows: the object is presented as being perceptible from yet-to-be-determined alternative points of view. As part of the content of visual experience, this motivates non-propositional attitudes of anticipation. Explicating this proposal is the central positive aim of this paper. (shrink)

Subjectivity theories of consciousness take self-reference, somehow construed, as essential to having conscious experience. These theories differ with respect to how many levels they posit and to whether self-reference is conscious or not. But all treat self-referencing as a process that transpires at the personal level, rather than at the subpersonal level, the level of mechanism. -/- Working with conceptual resources afforded by pre-existing theories of consciousness that take self-reference to be essential, several attempts have been made to explain (...) seemingly anomalous cases, especially instances of alien experience. These experiences are distinctive precisely because self-referencing is explicitly denied by the only person able to report them: those who experience them deny that certain actions, mental states, or body parts belong to self. The relevant actions, mental states, or body parts are sometimes attributed to someone or something other than self, and sometimes they are just described as not belonging to self. But all are referred away from self. -/- The cases under discussion here include somatoparaphrenia, schizophrenia, depersonalization, anarchic hand syndrome, and utilization behavior; the theories employed, Higher-Order Thought, Wide Intrinsicality, and Self-Representational. Below I argue that each of these attempts at explaining or explaining away the anomalies fails. Along the way, since each of these theories seeks at least compatibility with science, I sketch experimental approaches that could be used to adduce support for my position, or indeed for the positions of theorists with whom I disagree. -/- In a concluding section I first identify two presuppositions shared by all of the theorists considered here, and argue that both are either erroneous or misleading. Second, I call attention to divergent paths adopted when attempting to explain alienation experiences: some theorists choose to add a mental ingredient, while others prefer to subtract one. I argue that alienation from experience, action, or body parts could result from either addition or subtraction, and that the two can be incorporated within a comprehensive explanatory framework. Finally, I suggest that this comprehensive framework would require self-referencing of a sort, but self-referencing that occurs solely on the level of mechanism, or the subpersonal level. In adumbrating some features of this “subpersonal self,” I suggest that there might be one respect in which it is prior to conscious experience. (shrink)

If we are to escape reification—a sort of cogni- tive neutrality of basic, gnosic apprehension of the world plus a fundamental disrespect of the other as free agent—we should recognize our mode of existence as always already one of existential engagement with and within experience, aiming at articulating and expressing this engagement. One way of fully inhabiting this, let’s call it the proper human stance, is through recognizing a pendular space between the basic attitudes of acknowledging lived, shared (...) interests and values and avoiding being bound to and dependent on the values of others. Both philosophy as radical critical re- flection, and art, or artistic processes of production and re- ception, can be seen as invitations to inhabit this pendular space of human experience, by way of continually opening up our habits of sensibility to new engagements in thought and life, and successfully articulating and expressing these engagements in public forms. I take Cavell’s reading of Wittgenstein’s mature philosophy as an attuning to an apt attitude towards this invitation. Is this attitude one possible, non-procedural meaning of “liberalism”? (shrink)

Our experiences with the external world are possible mainly through vision, hearing, taste, touch, and smell providing us a sense of reality. How the brain is able to seamlessly integrate stimuli from our external and internal world into our sense of reality has yet to be adequately explained in the literature. We have previously proposed a three-dimensional unified model of consciousness that partly explains the dynamic mechanism. Here we further expand our model and include illustrations to provide a better conception (...) of the ill-defined space within the self, providing insight into a unified mind-body concept. In this article, we propose that our senses “super-impose” on an existing dynamic space within us after a slight, imperceptible delay. The existing space includes the entire intrapersonal space and can also be called the “the body’s internal 3D default space”. We provide examples from meditation experiences to help explain how the sense of ‘self’ can be experienced through meditation practice associated with underlying physiological processes that take place through cardio-respiratory synchronization and coherence that is developed among areas of the brain. Meditation practice can help keep the body in a parasympathetic dominant state during meditation, allowing an experience of inner ‘self’. Understanding this physical and functional space could help unlock the mysteries of the function of memory and cognition, allowing clinicians to better recognize and treat disorders of the mind by recommending proven techniques to reduce stress as an adjunct to medication treatment. (shrink)

This is an expanded and revised discussion of the argument briefly put forward in my 'A New Problem for the A-Theory of Time', where it is claimed that it is impossible to experience real temporal passage and that no such phenomenon exists. In the first half of the paper the premises of the argument are discussed in more detail than before. In the second half responses are given to several possible objections, none of which were addressed in the earlier (...) paper. There is also some discussion of some related epistemic arguments against the passage of time given by Huw Price and David Braddon-Mitchell along with objections raised against them recently by Tim Maudlin and Peter Forrest respectively. (shrink)

This book focuses on discussions of metaphysics and epistemology in early modern India found in the works of the South Indian philosopher Vyāsatīrtha (1460–1539). Vyāsatīrtha was pivotal to the ascendancy of the Mādhva tradition to intellectual and political influence in the Vijayanagara Empire. -/- This book is primarily a philosophical reconstruction based on original translations of relevant parts of Vyāsatīrtha’s Sanskrit philosophical text, the “Nectar of Logic” (Nyāyāmr̥ta). Vyāsatīrtha wrote the Nyāyāmr̥ta as a vindication of his tradition’s theistic world view (...) against the Advaita tradition of Vedānta. In the centuries after it was written, the Nyāyāmr̥ta came to dominate philosophical discussions among Vedānta traditions in India. -/- The Advaitins argued for an anti-realist stance about the empirical world, according to which the world of our experience is simply an illusion that can be dispelled by a deep study of the Upaniṣads. This book reconstructs the parts of the Nyāyāmr̥ta where Vyāsatīrtha argues in favor of the reality of the world against the Advaitins. Philosophically, it focuses on the concept of existence in Vyāsatīrtha’s metaphysics, and on his arguments about knowledge and the philosophy of perception. (shrink)

The article examines Wittgenstein’s thought on the language of pain in first and third person. Relevant grammatical differences, according to the typical analytical method of this philosopher, are highlighted not only in relation to the two perspectives, but also regarding the use of cognitive verbs such as ‘feeling’ and ‘knowing’. The exam of many texts suggests some issues concerning the relationship between personal experiences, empathic grasping of other’s feelings and their conceptual translation. A brief comparison with some Thomas Aquinas’ texts (...) complements the proposal of the existence of non intentional knowledge. (shrink)

We are able to think of empirical objects as capable of existing unperceived. What explains our grasp of this conception of objects? In this paper I examine the claim that experience explains our understanding of objects as capable of existing unperceived with reference to Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason. I argue that standard accounts of experience’s explanatory role are unsatisfactory, but that an alternative account can be extracted from the first Critique – one which relies on Kant’s transcendental (...) idealism. (shrink)

Imagine that you and a duplicate of yourself are lying unconscious, next to each other, about to undergo a complete step-by-step exchange of bits of your bodies. It certainly seems that at no stage in this exchange of bits will you have thereby switched places with your duplicate. Yet it also seems that the end-result, with all the bits exchanged, will be essentially that of the two of you having switched places. Where will you awaken? I claim that one and (...) the same person possesses both bodies, occupies both places and will experience both awakenings, just as a person whose brain has been bisected must at once experience both of the unconnected fields of awareness, even though each of these will falsely appear to him as the entirety of his experience. I also claim that the more usual apparent boundaries of persons are as illusory as those in brain bisection; personal identity remains unchanged through any variation or multiplication of body or mind. In all conscious life there is only one person - I - whose existence depends merely on the presence of a quality that is inherent in all experience - its quality of being mine, the simple immediacy of it for whatever is having experience. One powerful argument for this is statistical: on the ordinary view of personhood it is an incredible coincidence for you (though not for others) that out of 200,000,000 sperm cells the very one required on each occasion for your future existence was first to the egg in each of the begettings of yourself and all your ancestors. The only view that does not make your existence incredible, and that is not therefore (from your perspective) an incredible view, is that any conscious being would necessarily have been you anyway. It is a consequence that self-interest should extend to all conscious organisms. (shrink)

The human mind is constituted by inner, subjective, private, first-person conscious experiences that cannot be measured with physical devices or observed from an external, objective, public, third-person perspective. The qualitative, phenomenal nature of conscious experiences also cannot be communicated to others in the form of a message composed of classical bits of information. Because in a classical world everything physical is observable and communicable, it is a daunting task to explain how an empirically unobservable, incommunicable consciousness could have any physical (...) substrates such as neurons composed of biochemical molecules, water, and electrolytes. The challenges encountered by classical physics are exemplified by a number of thought experiments including the inverted qualia argument, the private language argument, the beetle in the box argument and the knowledge argument. These thought experiments, however, do not imply that our consciousness is nonphysical and our introspective conscious testimonies are untrustworthy. The principles of classical physics have been superseded by modern quantum physics, which contains two fundamentally different kinds of physical objects: unobservable quantum state vectors, which define what physically exists, and quantum operators (observables), which define what can physically be observed. Identifying consciousness with the unobservable quantum information contained by quantum physical brain states allows for application of quantum information theorems to resolve possible paradoxes created by the inner privacy of conscious experiences, and explains how the observable brain is constructed by accessible bits of classical information that are bound by Holevo's theorem and extracted from the physically existing quantum brain upon measurement with physical devices. (shrink)

In Jylkkä's (Philosophy and Psychedelics: Frameworks for Exceptional Experience, Bloomsbury Academic, New York, 2022) Mary on Acid: Experiences of unity and the epistemic gap, the author contends that psychedelic experience, by inducing unitary—nondual—experiences of subject–object dissolution, brings to light the epistemic gap between unitary knowledge, constituted by experience, and relational knowledge, distinct from experience. Jylkkä draws a connection between the nondual experience as occasioned through psychedelic usage, and Buddhist contemplative practices. While Jylkkä's attempt to establish (...) a dialogue between analytic philosophy, Buddhism and the science of psychedelics is laudable, we contend that more rigorous attention is required to characterizing nondual experience, the forms of experience occasioned by psychedelic use, and whether they truly constitute parallel to states cultivated through Buddhist practice traditions. While such parallelism may speak to a deeper unification, such a claim requires substantiation to avoid the perennialist eliding of the varied and rich engagement with nonduality across completive traditions. This article highlights the internal tensions that exist surrounding the nature of the nondual as elucidated across Indo-Tibetan traditions, dangers of decontextualizing states induced through culturally embedded contemplative practices including the underrecognized epistemic function of ceremonial ethnomedicine usage in generating Indigenous metaphysics; and the under acknowledged potential of psychedelic substances for attenuating introspective bias in first-person phenomenological inquiry. (shrink)

This dissertation provides a theory of the nature of aesthetic experiences on the basis of a theory of aesthetic values. It results in the formulation of the following necessary conditions for an experience to be aesthetic: it must consist of a representation of an object and an accompanying feeling; the representation must instantiate an intrinsic value; and the feeling must be the recognition of that value and bestow it on the object. Since representations are of intrinsic value for different (...) reasons, there are different kinds of aesthetic experiences . By means of certain conceptual links, it is possible to extend this account to other aesthetic entities thus enabling the formulation of a general theory of the aesthetic in non-aesthetic terms. In particular, aesthetic values are identical with subjective dispositions to elicit aesthetic experiences under normal conditions. Accordingly, I endorse anti-realism about aesthetic values: their existence, nature and exemplification are mind-dependent, while their ascriptions to objects have genuine truth-values. I back up this account by arguing against the alternative positions that either take aesthetic values to be objective or deny the truth-aptness of their attributions. Furthermore, I put forward a relativist variant of anti-realism according to which ascriptions of different aesthetic values to a particular object are all correct, given that the aesthetic experiences involved are made under normal conditions and concern the same aesthetically nonevaluative features of that object. For there is no specifically aesthetic norm by means of which one of the faultless aesthetic experiences can be picked out as the only appropriate one. That aesthetic values nevertheless show a normative dimension is ensured by their conformity to a general account of values as capacities to satisfy, or dissatisfy, rational desires. (shrink)

This paper studies the relationship between consciousness and social existence in Georg Lukács’ early Marxist works through a consideration of his concept of reification. Understanding reification as the process underlying capitalist society’s immediate form of objectivity, I designate dereification as the cultivation of a mediated form of consciousness. In order to better understand the experiential aspects of this cultivation, I supplement my reading of Lukács’ theory of reification with attention to Walter Benjamin’s treatment of experience in capitalist society. (...) I argue that Benjamin’s distinction between experience as the shock of isolated events [Erlebnis] and experience as a long-term practice [Erfahrung] helpfully illuminates Lukács’ conception of dereification, allowing us to see the latter as a long process of cultivation. This account ultimately leads to a consideration of the formal role played by the party—as the facilitator of the working class’s self-education—in Lukács’ philosophy of social praxis. (shrink)

In this paper, I present an interpretation of Wittgenstein's remarks on the experience of wonder at the existence of the world. According to this interpretation, Wittgenstein's feeling of wonder stems from perceiving the existence of the world as an absolute miracle, that is, as a fact that is in principle beyond explanation. Based on this analysis, I will suggest that Wittgenstein's experience is akin to what has been described by other authors such as Coleridge, Pessoa, Heidegger, (...) Scheler, Sartre, and Hadot, among many others. Through a comparison between Wittgenstein and Coleridge on the experience of existence, I shall highlight some core features of this experience, chief among them the use of the notion of nothingness in clarifying what is understood in the experience, the role of intuition, and the presence of a specific pathos. As a whole, this paper aims to provide a contribution to the project of a phenomenology of the experience of existence and intends to create a bridge for a dialogue between Wittgenstein and the phenomenological tradition on the enigma of existence. (shrink)

Consider a toothache, or a feeling of intense pleasure, or the sensation you would have if you looked impassively at an expanse of colour. In each case, the experience can easily be thought to fill time by being present throughout a period. This way of thinking of conscious experience is natural enough, but it is in deep conflict with the view that physical processes are ultimately responsible for experience. The problem is that physical processes are related to (...) durations in a very different way—not by being wholly present at each instant or sub-period, but by having temporal parts that are. There is a choice to be made, therefore, between preserving this common way of thinking of experience and preserving the fundamentality of processes. The first option holds fixed the view of experiences as occurring throughout time and takes this to constrain the category of entity to which they are identical, or upon which they supervene. The second option abandons this common view of experience by taking up a perspective on which we experience things in the world and their properties as existing or occurring a certain way, and mistakenly ascribe this ontological character to our experience as well. The second option is ultimately the better option, however, since only it can make sense of the facts of our experience. (shrink)

Each of our sensory modalities—vision, touch, taste, etc.—works on a slightly different timescale, with differing temporal resolutions and processing lag. This raises the question of how, or indeed whether, these sensory streams are co-ordinated or ‘bound’ into a coherent multisensory experience of the perceptual ‘now’. In this paper I evaluate one account of how temporal binding is achieved: the temporal windows hypothesis, concluding that, in its simplest form, this hypothesis is inadequate to capture a variety of multisensory phenomena. Rather, (...) the evidence suggests the existence of a more complex temporal structure in which multiple overlapping windows support distinct functional mechanisms. To aid in the precise formulation of such views, I propose a taxonomy of temporal window types and their characteristics that in turn suggests promising avenues for future empirical and philosophical research. I conclude by examining some philosophical implications of multi-window models for the metaphysics of perception and perceptual experience more generally. (shrink)