Siblings compete for parental care and feeding, while parents must allocate scarce resources to those offspring most likely to survive and reproduce. This could cause offspring to evolve traits that advertise health, and thereby attract parental resources. For example, experimental evidence suggests that bright orange filaments covering the heads of North American coot chicks may have evolved for this fitness-advertising purpose. Could any human mental disorders be the equivalent of dull filaments in coot chicks—low-fitness extremes of mental abilities that evolved (...) as fitness indicators? One possibility is autism. Suppose that the ability of very young children to charm their parents evolved as a parentally selected fitness indicator. Young children would vary greatly in their ability to charm parents, that variation would correlate with underlying fitness, and autism could be the low-fitness extreme of this variation. This view explains many seemingly disparate facts about autism and leads to some surprising and testable predictions. (shrink)

The scientific study of consciousness, also referred to as consciousness science, is a young scientific field devoted to understanding how conscious experiences and the brain relate. It comprises a host of theories, experiments, and analyses that aim to investigate the problem of consciousness empirically, theoretically, and conceptually. This thesis addresses some of the questions that arise in these investigations from a formal and mathematical perspective. These questions concern theories of consciousness, experimental paradigms, methodology, and artificial consciousness. -/- Regarding theories (...) of consciousness, the thesis contributes to the understanding of the mathematical structure that some of the formal theories in the field propose. The work presented here targets the theory of consciousness known as Integrated Information Theory (IIT) and the neuroscientific theory known as Predictive Processing Theory or Free Energy Principle in its Active Inference form (AI-PP). The thesis provides axiomatic definitions of the mathematical structures that constitute these theories, and uses these definitions to address some of the open questions surrounding the theories. For AI-PP, this includes a rigorous derivation of the formula for Active Inference via Free Energy minimisation and a proof of compositionality of Free Energy. For IIT, this includes resolutions of some of the criticisms of IIT's formal scope and applications, but also the identification of new issues that concern the formalism and its derivation. When possible, the definitions are provided in the mathematical framework of category theory. -/- Regarding experiments, the thesis addresses the main paradigm for testing and falsifying theories of consciousness currently applied in the field. This paradigm consists of comparing the conscious experience that a theory predicts with the conscious experience that is inferred from behavioural data or report by use of measures of consciousness. The thesis provides a formal model of this paradigm and shows that under a certain condition—if inference and prediction are independent—, any minimally informative theory of consciousness can always be falsified. This is deeply problematic since the field’s reliance on report or behaviour to infer conscious experiences, in conjunction with the general structure of most contemporary theories of consciousness, implies such independence. This observation provides the exact formal underpinning of the well-known unfolding argument. The thesis analyses the origin of the problem and identifies precisely which changes are required to avoid this problem in future research. The thesis furthermore shows that the problem of falsifying theories of consciousness, and of empirical comparisons of theories of consciousness more generally, follows from a pervasive closure paradigm in consciousness science, that consists of taking a neuroscientific account of the brain as input to a theory of consciousness, so as to explain what consciousness is, without allowing for modifications or adaptations of the neuroscientific account that would accommodate consciousness as part of the brain's functioning. As is shown in the thesis, this paradigm has implications that point to a fundamental need of revision. -/- Regarding methodological and conceptual questions, the thesis contributes to the foundations of structural research in consciousness science. Structural research aims to use mathematical structures or mathematical spaces, instead of verbal descriptions or simple categorisations, to represent conscious experiences scientifically, for example when building theories of consciousness, or when exploring new empirical avenues to measure consciousness. Despite considerable advances in this realm, there was, prior to this thesis, no explicit definition of what a mathematical structure of conscious experience should be; that is, how the attribution of mathematical structure to conscious experiences should be systematically understood. Perhaps the most important contribution of this thesis to the field is to propose such a definition. The definition, a structural concept, extends existing approaches wherever available, and provides a basis for developing a common formal language to study consciousness, bridging developments as far apart as psychophysics and phenomenology. In addition, and independently of this proposal, the thesis offers a critical analysis of which metaphysical premises need to be presumed in structural research, whether the use of particular formal tools (such as structure-preserving mappings or homomorphisms) is justified, and how structural theories of consciousness could otherwise be built in the first place. An attempt to expand the results from consciousness to more general problems in philosophy of science is made in the context of the well-known Newman problem. -/- Regarding the question of artificial consciousness—can AI feel?—, the thesis contributes two results that take the form of no-go theorems, as known from physics. The first no-go theorem shows that if consciousness is relevant for the temporal evolution of a system's states—if it is dynamically relevant—, then contemporary AI systems cannot be conscious. That is because AI systems run on CPUs, GPUs, TPUs or other processors which have been designed and verified to adhere to computational dynamics that systematically preclude or suppress deviations. The second no-go theorem is situated in the context of computational functionalism, a view which posits that consciousness is a computation. The theorem shows that if computational functionalism holds true, consciousness cannot be a Turing computation. Rather, it must be a novel type of computation that has recently been proposed by Geoffrey Hinton, called mortal computation. -/- This thesis is part of a global effort to pioneer a mathematical perspective in consciousness science, now called Mathematical Consciousness Science. The hope behind the research carried out in this PhD is to illustrate the power and usefulness of mathematical approaches in different areas of consciousness science, and in doing so, to lay the foundations for future mathematical work that complements and supports empirical and theoretical work in the further development of this exciting field. (shrink)

Hello World! I am Young Mantis. I was born in a village, called the Jute Plant Village, near the Bird Village. The photo of mine was taken by Kingfisher the Wise of the Bird Village, showing me while just 3 days old. That’s why I looked very tiny, even when compared to a newborn leave of the jute plant where I was clinging. My friendship with Kingfisher the Wise has developed over time, going through a roller coaster ride, thus, (...) complicated. But we are still friends today. For this, I am pleased to express my gratitude for many things in life. (shrink)

I offer some responses to Prosser’s ‘Experiencing Time’, one of whose goals is to debunk a view of temporal experience somewhat prevalent in the metaphysics literature, which I call ‘Perceptualism’. According to Perceptualism: it is part of the content of perceptual experience that time passes in a metaphysically strong sense: the present has a metaphysically privileged status, and time passes in virtue of changes in which events this ‘objective present’ highlights, and moreover this gives us evidence in favor of strong (...) passage. Prosser argues that perception cannot be sensitive to whether the strong passage obtains, and therefore cannot represent strong passage in a way that gives us evidence of its truth. Although I accept this conclusion, I argue that Prosser’s argument for it is problematic. It threatens to over-generalize to rule out uncontroversial cases of perceptual knowledge, such as our knowledge that we live in a spatial world. Furthermore, a successful argument ruling out perceptual evidence for strong passage would have to give constraints on the theory/observation distinction of a kind not provided by Prosser’s discussion. I also comment on several other parts of the book. (shrink)

I assess a number of connected ideas about temporal experience that are introspectively plausible, but which I believe can be argued to be incorrect. These include the idea that temporal experiences are extended experiential processes, that they have an internal structure that in some way mirrors the structure of the apparent events they present, and the idea that time in experience is in some way represented by time itself. I explain how these ideas can be developed into more sharply defined (...) views, and then argue that these views are inconsistent with certain empirical facts about how time is represented in the brain. These facts instead support a kind of atomic view, on which temporal experiences are temporally unstructured atoms. (shrink)

I give an account of the difference between "Holistic" and "Atomistic" views of conscious experience. On the Holistic view, we enjoy a unified "field" of awareness, whose parts are mere modifications of the whole, and therefore owe their existence to the whole. There is some tendency to saddle those who reject the Holistic field model with a (perhaps) implausible "building block" view. I distinguish a number of different theses about the parts of an experience that are suggested by the "building (...) block" metaphor, but which can be rejected by those who also reject the holistic field view. (shrink)

The articles that comprise this special issue of Intellectual History Review are briefly described.

The principle of sufficient reason threatens modal collapse. Some have suggested that by appealing to the indefinite extensibility of contingent truth, the threat is neutralized. This paper argues that this is not so. If the indefinite extensibility of contingent truth is developed in an analogous fashion to the most promising models of the indefinite extensibility of the concept set, plausible principles permit the derivation of modal collapse.

This essay draws on the work of Jacques Derrida and Angela Y. Davis towards a philosophical resistance to the death penalty in the U.S. I find promise in Derrida’s claim that resistance to the death penalty ought to contest a political structure that founds itself on having the power to decide life and death, but I move beyond Derrida’s desire to consider the abolition of the death penalty without engaging with the particular histories and geographies of European colonialism. I offer (...) a critique of Derrida’s recently published work on the death penalty by engaging with the work of Davis and argue that discussions of state violence in nations that inherit European forms of sovereignty must take seriously the racist violence on which those sovereign powers rely. (shrink)

During the Standing Rock protests in North Dakota, USA/Turtle Island, a group of military veterans knelt in front of Oceti Sakowin Elders asking forgiveness for centuries of settler colonial military ventures in Oceti Sakowin Territory. Leonard Crow Dog forgave them and immediately demanded respect for Native Nations throughout the U.S. Lacking such respect, he said, Native people will cease paying taxes. Crow Dog’s post-forgiveness remarks speak to the political context of the military veterans’ request: They seek collective forgiveness amidst ongoing (...) occupation and harms committed by the collective they represent. In this chapter, I examine this case study and argue that ongoing harm undermines requests for forgiveness on behalf of collectives. I look to the work of Glen Coultard, Waziyatawin, and Leanne Simpson to consider what a responsible request for collective forgiveness would entail. (shrink)

In two rarely discussed passages – from unpublished notes on the Principles of Philosophy and a 1647 letter to Chanut – Descartes argues that the question of the infinite extension of space is importantly different from the infinity of time. In both passages, he is anxious to block the application of his well-known argument for the indefinite extension of space to time, in order to avoid the theologically problematic implication that the world has no beginning. Descartes concedes that we always (...) imagine an earlier time in which God might have created the world if he had wanted, but insists that this imaginary earlier existence of the world is not connected to its actual duration in the way that the indefinite extension of space is connected to the actual extension of the world. This paper considers whether Descartes’s metaphysics can sustain this asymmetrical attitude towards infinite space vs. time. I first consider Descartes’s relation to the ‘imaginary’ space/time tradition that extended from the late scholastics through Gassendi and More. I next examine carefully Descartes’s main argument for the indefinite extension of space and explain why it does not apply to time. Most crucially, since duration is merely conceptually distinct from enduring substance, the end or beginning of the world entails the end or beginning of real time. In contrast, extension does not depend on any enduring substance besides itself. (shrink)

In the essay “Epistemic Self-Trust and the Consensus Gentium Argument,” Dr. Linda Zagzebski examines the reasonableness of religious belief. More specifically, she argues that truth demands epistemic self-trust—roughly, a trust in the reliability of our own faculties. Furthermore, it is asserted that this self-trust commits me to an epistemic trust in others, which in turn provides grounds for believing that because many other people (to whom we have granted this epistemic trust) believe in God, this prevalence of belief thereby provides (...) a reason for me to believe in God, too. A critical step in Zagzebski’s argument is the move from epistemic self-trust to granting this sort of trust to other people—a move for which a sub-argument can be drawn out of her essay. My paper’s focus will be to examine Zagzebski’s sub-argument for her second premise (i.e., granting epistemic trust to others) to which I will advance two objections. (shrink)

Feminist social theory and female body experience are the twin themes of Iris Marion Young's twelve outstanding essays written over the past decade and brought together here. Her contributions to social theory raise critical questions about women and citizenship, the relations of capitalism and women's oppression, and the differences between a feminist theory that emphasizes women's difference and one that assumes a gender-neutral humanity. Loosely following a phenomenological method of description, Young's essays on female embodiment discuss female movement, (...) pregnancy, clothing, and the breasted body. In an introduction that situates her work in the context of shifts in feminist theory and politics over the past decade, Young emphasizes the rootedness of her theorizing in a dedicated and seasoned political activism. (shrink)

What is the connection between having a phenomenal property and knowing that one has that property? A traditional view on the matter takes the connection to be quite intimate. Whenever one has a phenomenal property, one knows that one does. Recently most authors have denied this traditional view. The goal of this paper is to defend the traditional view. In fact, I will defend something much stronger: I will argue that what it is for a property to be phenomenal is (...) for it to be a property one must know oneself to have when on has it. As we will see, this theory has a number of surprising and welcome upshots, suggesting that the traditional view has been unjustly maligned. (shrink)

Recently some philosophers have defended the thesis that naturalness, or joint-carvingness, is an aim of belief. This paper argues that there is an important class of counterexamples to this thesis. In particular, it is argued that naturalness is not an aim of our beliefs concerning what is joint carving and what is not.

Propositions represent the entities from which they are formed. This fact has puzzled philosophers and some have put forward radical proposals in order to explain it. This paper develops a primitivist account of the representational properties of propositions that centers on the operation of application. As we will see, this theory wins out over its competitors on grounds of strength, systematicity and unifying power.

We defend and explore the view that bringing philosophy, political science, and economics together in the study of social and political institutions sheds light and banishes shadows in ways that no subset of these three disciplines could possibly accomplish.

matter of knowing that -- that injustice is wrong, courage is valuable, and care is As a result, what I'll be doing is primarily defending in general -- and due. Such knowledge is embodied in a range of capacities, abilities, and skills..

The case for secrecy in voting depends on the assumption that voters reliably vote for the political outcomes they want to prevail. No such assumption is valid. Accordingly, voting procedures should be designed to provide maximal incentive for voters to vote responsibly. Secret voting fails this test because citizens are protected from public scrutiny. Under open voting, citizens are publicly answerable for their electoral choices and will be encouraged thereby to vote in a discursively defensible manner. The possibility of bribery, (...) intimidation or blackmail moderates this argument but such dangers will be avoidable in many contemporary societies without recourse to secrecy. (shrink)

We are immersed within an odorous sea of chemical currents that we parse into individual odors with complex structures. Odors have been posited as determined by the structural relation between the molecules that compose the chemical compounds and their interactions with the receptor site. But, naturally occurring smells are parsed from gaseous odor plumes. To give a comprehensive account of the nature of odors the chemosciences must account for these large distributed entities as well. We offer a focused review of (...) what is known about the perception of odor plumes for olfactory navigation and tracking, which we then connect to what is known about the role odorants play as properties of the plume in determining odor identity with respect to odor quality. We end by motivating our central claim that more research needs to be conducted on the role that odorants play within the odor plume in determining odor identity. (shrink)

It is often said in physics that if two models of a theory are related by a symmetry, then the two models provide (or could provide) two different representations of the very same situation, alike the case of two maps of different color for the very same city. It is also said that the situations represented by two models of a theory are indiscernible in some ways when the models in question are related by a symmetry of the theory, just (...) like the situation in the interior of the cabin of a train when the train is at rest in the station is empirically indiscernible from the situation in the interior when the train is moving uniformly (in classical mechanics, these two situations are represented by two models related by a boost). In recent years, philosophers of physics have focused a lot of attention in developing various principles that aim to elucidate these and similar remarks on symmetries, models, physical equivalence, and representation that are widespread in physics practice. The goal of the current article is to provide a critical review of these principles, and suggest a new framework for thinking about these kinds of questions. One important upshot of the paper is that questions of indiscernibility, and questions of the representational capacity of models, must be distinguished from one another. (shrink)

This Essay analyzes an essay by H. L. A. Hart about discretion that has never before been published, and has often been considered lost. Hart, one of the most significant legal philosophers of the twentieth century, wrote the essay at Harvard Law School in November 1956, shortly after he arrived as a visiting professor. In the essay, Hart argued that discretion is a special mode of reasoned, constrained decisionmaking that occupies a middle ground between arbitrary choice and determinate rule application. (...) Hart believed that discretion, soundly exercised, provides a principled way of coping with legal indeterminacy that is fully consistent with the rule of law. This Essay situates Hart’s paper – Discretion – in historical and intellectual context, interprets its main arguments, and assesses its significance in jurisprudential history. In the context of Hart’s work, Discretion is notable because it sketches a theory of legal reasoning in depth, with vivid examples. In the context of jurisprudential history, Discretion is significant because it sheds new light on long-overlooked historical and theoretical connections between Hart’s work and the Legal Process School, the American jurisprudential movement dominant at Harvard during Hart’s year as a visiting professor. Hart’s Discretion is part of our jurisprudential heritage, advancing our understanding of legal philosophy and its history. (shrink)

In the last century, philosophers turned their attention to language. One place they have looked for clues about its nature is Plato’s Cratylus, which considers whether names are naturally or conventionally correct. The dialogue is a source of annoyance to many commentators because it does not take a clear position on the central question. At times, it argues that language is conventional, and, at other times, defends the view that language is natural. This lack of commitment has led to a (...) longstanding dispute over the outcome of the dialogue. I argue that the Cratylus provides no clear resolution to this problem because it presupposes certain unexamined metaphysical commitments about the nature of reality, which are in need of thorough investigation. (shrink)

The notions of a commutative (∈, ∈)-neutrosophic ideal and a commutative falling neutrosophic ideal are introduced, and several properties are investigated. Characterizations of a commutative (∈, ∈)-neutrosophic ideal are obtained. Relations between commutative (∈, ∈)-neutrosophic ideal and (∈, ∈)-neutrosophic ideal are discussed. Conditions for an (∈, ∈)-neutrosophic ideal to be a commutative (∈, ∈)-neutrosophic ideal are established. Relations between commutative (∈, ∈)-neutrosophic ideal, falling neutrosophic ideal and commutative falling neutrosophic ideal are considered. Conditions for a falling neutrosophic ideal to be (...) commutative are provided. (shrink)

Mind &Language, Volume 35, Issue 1, Page 90-114, February 2020.

The educational philosophies of John Dewey, Paulo Freire and Tsunesaburo Makiguchi were born at different times and in different cultures but the themes they propound resonate with the ordinary people. Although there are ideas that are unique to each philosophy, this paper tries to uncover the themes that are similar in them. The purpose to uncovering these themes is to try in some way to form a unifying force that opens a path to making the ideas rather than the person (...) resonate among people. The three philosophers were not interested in recognition but rather sought the welfare of their fellow human beings as their purpose. As such, their hope was that their ideas would be turned to action by people rather than adoration of their philosophies. Increasingly, educators are seeking ways to harmonize their ideas and ideals with other educators in order to build a strong counterbalance to the historically prevalent divisive and prejudicial societal structures that inhibit human development. Paolo Freire points out that such a counterbalance would ultimately benefit the oppressed and the oppressor. In order to accomplish this, educators will need to put aside small philosophical differences and focus on the more meaningful themes that unite them. The interconnectedness of humanity and nature is becoming increasingly apparent in all realms of human activity. Future research and educational work must begin to turn away from its divisive nature and look for themes of harmony within and between disciplines. Instead of looking for ways to reject each other we need to research ways of uniting each other, not only for our own sake but for the sake are future generations. (shrink)

What are the sensory individuals of audition? What are the entities our auditory system attributes properties to? We examine various proposals about the nature of the sensory individuals of audition, and show that while each can account for some aspects of auditory perception, each also faces certain difficulties. We then put forward a new conception of sensory individuals according to which auditory sensory individuals are composite individuals. A feature shared by all existing accounts of sounds and sources is that they (...) postulate sensory individuals that are non-composite. They identify the sensory individual of sound hearing or source hearing with one type of entity in the environment, be they sound waves, vibrations, or interactions. We question this assumption and argue that our perceptual systems represent two or more aspects of the environment as a single sensory individual. Finally, we show that taking auditory individuals to be composite sensory individuals allows for an account of audition that is less problematic than its existing alternatives. (shrink)

There is consensus within the chemosciences that olfactory perception is of the molecular structure of chemical compounds, yet within philosophical theories of smell there is little agreement about the nature of smell. The paper critically assesses the current state of debate regarding smells within philosophy in the hopes of setting it upon firm scientific footing. The theories to be covered are: Naïve Realism, Hedonic Theories, Process Theory, Odor Theories, and non-Objectivist Theories. The aforementioned theories will be evaluated based on their (...) explanations of the (a) the olfactory quality of a smell, (b) smells as distal entities, and (c) our experience of smells as intentional objects. The paper concludes with a defense of Molecular Structure Theory that demonstrating its superiority in accounting for each of these three aspects of smell. (shrink)

In the book “A Theory of Justice”, John Rawls examines the notion of a just society. More specifically, he develops a conception of justice—Justice as Fairness—derived from his novel interpretation of the social contract. Central to his account are two lexically-ordered principles of justice by which primary social institutions, or the basic structure of society, are ideally to be organized and regulated. Broadly speaking, the second of Rawls’ two principles pertains to “the distribution of income and wealth”, and its formulation (...) is to be understood as an expression of Rawls’ Difference Principle—roughly, the principle that “inequality in expectation is permissible only if lowering it would make the [worst-off] class even more worse off.”1 2 I want to suggest that Rawls’ Difference Principle (DP) entails the following worrisome outcome: Because DP maximizes the absolute level of expectation (and disregards the relative level), it authorizes potentially immense levels of inequality, such that this inequality itself can become a source of social discord and injustice. This paper will (§2) present Rawls’ formulation of DP, (§3) motivate the worrisome outcome entailed by DP, and (§4) offer a prima facie plausible solution in the form of an addendum to DP. (shrink)

Numerous studies of the beliefs of people with anorexia nervosa (AN) suggest that a subset of such individuals may experience delusions. We first describe what makes a belief delusional and conclude that such characteristics can be appropriately applied to some beliefs of people with AN. Next, we outline how delusional beliefs may relate to the broader psychopathological process in AN, including: (1) they may be epiphenomenal; (2) they may be an initial partial cause of AN; (3) they may be caused (...) by aspects of AN; or (4) they may be sustaining causes, possibly involved in reciprocal causal relations with aspects of AN. We argue that there is good reason to believe that delusional beliefs of people with AN are not merely epiphenomenal, but rather that they’re causally connected to AN. Because of this, empirical studies can be designed to test for the presence of causal relations. We describe how these studies should be designed. The results of such studies have important implications for understanding the experience of individuals with AN and for the treatment of AN. We outline these implications. (shrink)

Aaron Ridley posed the question of whether results in the ontology of musical works would have implications for judgements about the interpretation, meaning or aesthetic value of musical works and performances. His arguments for the conclusion that the ontology of musical works have no aesthetic consequences are unsuccessful, but he is right in thinking (in opposition to Andrew Kania and others) that ontological judgements have no aesthetic consequences. The key to demonstrating this conclusion is the recognition that ontological judgments are (...) a priori and aesthetic judgments are empirical. A priori judgements have no empirical consequences. Neither fundamental ontology of music nor higher- order ontological reflections have any aesthetic consequences. (shrink)

We perceive smells as perduring complex entities within a distal array that might be conceived of as smellscapes. However, the philosophical orthodoxy of Odor Theories has been to deny that smells are perceived as having a distal location. Recent challenges have been mounted to Odor Theories’ veracity in handling the timescale of olfactory perception, how it individuates odors as a distal entities, and their claim that olfactory perception is not spatial. The paper does not aim to dispute these criticisms. Rather, (...) what will be shown is that Molecular Structure Theory, a refinement of Odor Theory, can be further developed to handle these challenges. The theory is further refined by focusing on distal perception that requires considering the perceptual object as mereologically complex persisting odor against a background scene conceived of as a smellscape. What will be offered is an expansion of Molecular Structure Theory to account for distal smell perception within natural environments. (shrink)

In the essay “Reasonable Religious Disagreements,” Dr. Richard Feldman examines reasonable disagreements between peers. More specifically, he asks whether such disagreements are possible, and also whether the parties to such a disagreement could think that both their own belief and the belief of their peer with whom they disagree are reasonable. Feldman argues that there cannot be any such thing as a reasonable disagreement, and furthermore, that the parties to a disagreement are not epistemically licensed to think that their own (...) belief and their opponents belief are both reasonable. As Feldman notes, “open and honest discussion seems to have the puzzling effect of making reasonable disagreement impossible”. My project herein will be (in §2) to explain Feldman’s notion of a reasonable disagreement, and then reconstruct and assess his argumentation, and (in §3) advance three objections to Feldman’s argument. I will focus on denying Feldman’s answer to his first question—that reasonable disagreement between peers is not possible—and my suggestion is that if any of these three objections to Feldman’s argument go through, then the argument falls. And if Feldman’s argument falls, then his argument no longer provides grounds for our thinking that reasonable disagreement is impossible. (shrink)

Olfactory perception provides a promising test case for enactivism, since smelling involves actively sampling our surrounding environment by sniffing. Smelling deploys implicit skillful knowledge of how our movement and the airflow around us yield olfactory experiences. The hybrid nature of olfactory experience makes it an ideal test case for enactivism with its esteem for touch and theoretical roots in vision. Olfaction is like vision in facilitating the perception of distal objects, yet it requires us to breath in and physically contact (...) the sensory object in a manner similar to touch. The paper offers an analysis of the central theoretical components of enactivism, whose soundness and empirical viability are tested using the empirical literature on sniffing. It will be shown that even if sniffing is an essential component of olfaction, the motoric component is not necessary for perceiving smells, which is contrary to the most crucial tenet of enactivism. Thus, the paper concludes that the theory cannot account for olfactory perception. (shrink)

The chapter unfolds in the following sections. The first section exam- ines the reasons for claiming that olfactory perception is spatially unstruc- tured and our experience of smells has an abstract structure. The second section elucidates the further arguments that olfaction cannot generate figure-ground segregation. The third section assesses the conclusion that olfactory perception and experience cannot solve the MPP. Following the overview of the many problems inherent to distal olfactory percep- tion, MST will be introduced as an alternative perspective (...) that allows for figure-ground segregation and perceiving multiple olfactory objects within an array. The chapter then concludes by replying to the shared argument that olfactory distal perception does not have the requisite res- olution to resolve the many properties problem. (shrink)

In this paper, we argue that Midjourney—a generative AI program that transforms text prompts into images—should be understood not as an agent or a tool, but as a new type of artistic medium. We first examine the view of Midjourney as an agent, considering whether it could be seen as an artist or co-author. This perspective proves unsatisfactory, as Midjourney lacks intentionality and mental states. We then explore the notion of Midjourney as a tool, highlighting its unpredictability and the limited (...) fine-grained control users have over its outputs, which sets it apart from traditional artistic tools. We propose that creating images with Midjourney parallels a gardener's interaction with natura naturans—nature's autonomous generative processes. Similarly, Midjourney acts as machina naturans, where users engage with its dynamic recalcitrance to influence, but not fully control, the creative process. This approach presents Midjourney as an artistic medium shaped by its inherent unpredictability. (shrink)

In Beyond Art (2014), Dominic Lopes proposed a new theory of art, the buck passing theory. Rather than attempting to define art in terms of exhibited or genetic featured shared by all artworks, Lopes passes the buck to theories of individual arts. He proposes that we seek theories of music, painting, poetry, and other arts. Once we have these theories, we know everything there is to know about the theory of art. This essay presents two challenges to the theory. First, (...) this essay argues that Lopes is wrong in supposing that theories of arts were developed to deal with the ‘hard cases’ – developments such as Duchamp’s readymades and conceptual art. This is a problem since Lopes holds that the buck passing theory’s capacity to deal with the hard cases is one of its virtues. Second, this essay argues that the buck passing theory has no account of which activities are arts and no account of what makes some activity an art. (shrink)

Amodal completion is the representation of those parts of the perceived object that we get no sensory stimulation from. While amodal completion is rife and plays an essential role in all sense modalities, philosophical discussions of this phenomenon have almost entirely been limited to vision. The aim of this paper is to examine in what sense we can talk about amodal completion in olfaction. We distinguish three different senses of amodal completion – spatial, temporal and feature-based completion – and argue (...) that all three are present and play a significant role in olfaction. (shrink)

Philosophers have failed to give a satisfactory analysis of the concept of the aesthetic. The attempt to analyze the concept faces two difficulties. The first is that aesthetic objects cannot be identified without knowing which experiences are aesthetic experiences and aesthetic experiences cannot be identified without knowing which objects are aesthetic objects. The second problem is that an incredibly broad range of experiences and objects are described as aesthetic. There is no principled way to choose between the various accounts of (...) the aesthetic and philosophers end up offering persuasive definitions of the aesthetic. These definitions classify as aesthetic objects and experiences ones which philosophers believe are deserving of attention. These objects and experiences are, however, valuable in a wide variety of ways and calling them all aesthetic obscures differences between them. Finer-grained concepts than the concept of the aesthetic are needed to explain how various kinds of objects and experiences are valuable. (shrink)

While this article sets out to advance our knowledge about the characteristics of Nigerian cybercriminals (Yahoo-Boys), it is also the first study to explore the narratives of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) officers concerning them. It appraises symbolic interactionist insights to consider the ways in which contextual factors and worldview may help to illuminate officers’ narratives of cybercriminals and the interpretations and implications of such accounts. Semi-structured interviews of forty frontline EFCC officers formed the empirical basis of this (...) study and were subjected to a directed approach of qualitative content analysis. While prior studies, for example, indicated that only a group of cybercriminals deploy spiritual and magical powers to defraud victims (i.e. modus operandi), our data analysis extended this classification into more refined levels involving multiple features. In particular, analysis bifurcates cybercriminals and their operations based on three factors: [a] educational-attainment, [b] modus-operandi, and [c] networks-collaborators. Results also suggest that these cybercriminals and their operations are embedded in “masculinity-and-material-wealth”. These contributions thus have implications for a range of generally accepted viewpoints about these cybercriminals previously taken-for-granted. Since these criminals have victims all over the world, insights from our study may help various local and international agencies [a] to understand the actions/features of these two groups of cybercriminals better and develop more effective response strategies. [b] to appreciate the vulnerabilities of their victims better and develop more adequate support schemes. We also consider the limitations of social control agents’ narratives on criminals. (shrink)

The psychological and neurobiological processes underlying moral judgement have been the focus of many recent empirical studies1–11. Of central interest is whether emotions play a causal role in moral judgement, and, in parallel, how emotion-related areas of the brain contribute to moral judgement. Here we show that six patients with focal bilateral damage to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPC), a brain region necessary for the normal generation of emotions and, in particular, social emotions12–14, produce an abnor- mally ‘utilitarian’ pattern of (...) judgements on moral dilemmas that pit compelling considerations of aggregate welfare against highly emotionally aversive behaviours (for example, having to sacrifice one person’s life to save a number of other lives)7,8. In contrast, the VMPC patients’ judgements were normal in other classes of moral dilemmas. These findings indicate that, for a selective set of moral dilemmas, the VMPC is critical for normal judgements of right and wrong. The findings support a necessary role for emotion in the generation of those judgements. (shrink)

This is a co-authored dialogue which explores epistemological and metaphysical questions raised by a social constructivist approach to science.

Contemporary neuroscientific theories of consciousness are typically based on the study of vision and have neglected olfaction. Several of these (e.g. Global Workspace Theories, the Information Integration theory, and the various theories offered by Crick and Koch) claim that a thalamic relay is necessary for consciousness. Studies on olfaction and the olfactory system's anatomical structure show this claim to be incorrect, thus showing these theories to be either false or inadequate as general and comprehensive accounts of consciousness. Attempts to rescue (...) these theories by claiming that there is a structure in the olfactory system that is functionally equivalent to the thalamus in the visual system, such as the olfactory bulb or the olfactory cortex, are also shown to fail. If we wish to understand consciousness, we have to wake up and smell it. (shrink)