Syllabus Central European University, Fall Term 2019
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Load more
Recommended publications
-
Perception, Realism and Materialism
Perception, Realism and Materialism By Rob Hoveman Submitted to the Central European University Department of Philosophy in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts CEU eTD Collection Supervisor: Professor Howard Robinson Contents Contents ...................................................................................................................................... i Introduction ................................................................................................................................ 1 Chapter one: The Sense Datum Theory ..................................................................................... 4 Phenomenological direct realism (PDR) ............................................................................... 4 Five arguments against PDR .................................................................................................. 5 The causal argument .............................................................................................................. 9 The phenomenal principle and the spreading argument ...................................................... 10 The privacy of sense data ..................................................................................................... 12 Sense data and the problems of indeterminacy .................................................................... 16 Reality lost and restored? ..................................................................................................... 18 The very concept -
INTENTIONALITY Past and Future VIBS
INTENTIONALITY Past and Future VIBS Volume 173 Robert Ginsberg Founding Editor Peter A. Redpath Executive Editor Associate Editors G. John M. Abbarno Matti Häyry Mary-Rose Barral Steven V. Hicks Gerhold K. Becker Richard T. Hull Raymond Angelo Belliotti Mark Letteri Kenneth A. Bryson Vincent L. Luizzi C. Stephen Byrum Alan Milchman H. G. Callaway George David Miller Robert A. Delfino Alan Rosenberg Rem B. Edwards Arleen L. F. Salles Andrew Fitz-Gibbon John R. Shook Francesc Forn i Argimon Eddy Souffrant William Gay Tuija Takala Dane R. Gordon Anne Waters J. Everet Green John R. Welch Heta Aleksandra Gylling Thomas F. Woods a volume in Cognitive Science CS Francesc Forn i Argimon, Editor INTENTIONALITY Past and Future Edited by Gábor Forrai and George Kampis Amsterdam - New York, NY 2005 Cover Design: Studio Pollmann The paper on which this book is printed meets the requirements of “ISO 9706:1994, Information and documentation - Paper for documents - Requirements for permanence”. ISBN: 90-420-1817-8 ©Editions Rodopi B.V., Amsterdam - New York, NY 2005 Printed in the Netherlands CONTENTS Preface vii List of Abbreviations ix ONE The Necessity and Nature of Mental Content 1 LAIRD ADDIS TWO Reading Brentano on the Intentionality of the Mental 15 PHILIP J. BARTOK THREE Emotions, Moods, and Intentionality 25 WILLIAM FISH FOUR Lockean Ideas as Intentional Contents 37 GÁBOR FORRAI FIVE Normativity and Mental Content 51 JUSSI HAUKIOJA SIX The Ontological and Intentional Status of Fregean Senses: An Early Account of External Content 63 GREG JESSON -
Reflexive Monism
Reflexive Monism Max Velmans, Goldsmiths, University of London; email [email protected]; http://www.goldsmiths.ac.uk/psychology/staff/velmans.php Journal of Consciousness Studies (2008), 15(2), 5-50. Abstract. Reflexive monism is, in essence, an ancient view of how consciousness relates to the material world that has, in recent decades, been resurrected in modern form. In this paper I discuss how some of its basic features differ from both dualism and variants of physicalist and functionalist reductionism, focusing on those aspects of the theory that challenge deeply rooted presuppositions in current Western thought. I pay particular attention to the ontological status and seeming “out- thereness” of the phenomenal world and to how the “phenomenal world” relates to the “physical world”, the “world itself”, and processing in the brain. In order to place the theory within the context of current thought and debate, I address questions that have been raised about reflexive monism in recent commentaries and also evaluate competing accounts of the same issues offered by “transparency theory” and by “biological naturalism”. I argue that, of the competing views on offer, reflexive monism most closely follows the contours of ordinary experience, the findings of science, and common sense. Key words: Consciousness, reflexive, monism, dualism, reductionism, physicalism, functionalism, transparency, biological naturalism, phenomenal world, physical world, world itself, universe itself, brain, perceptual projection, phenomenal space, measured space, physical space, space perception, information, virtual reality, hologram, phenomenological internalism, phenomenological externalism, first person, third person, complementary What is Reflexive Monism? Monism is the view that the universe, at the deepest level of analysis, is one thing, or composed of one fundamental kind of stuff. -
Is the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature False?
Portland State University PDXScholar Systems Science Faculty Publications and Presentations Systems Science 10-2013 Is the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature False? Martin Zwick Portland State University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/sysc_fac Part of the Philosophy Commons Let us know how access to this document benefits ou.y Citation Details Zwick, M. (2013). "Is the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature False?" Presented at the 65th Annual Northwest Philosophy Conference, Pacific University, Oct. 4-5, 2013. This Conference Proceeding is brought to you for free and open access. It has been accepted for inclusion in Systems Science Faculty Publications and Presentations by an authorized administrator of PDXScholar. Please contact us if we can make this document more accessible: [email protected]. NORTHWEST PHILOSOPHY CONFERENCE Pacific University, Forest Grove, Oregon, Oct 4-5, 2013 Is the Materialist Nao-Darwinian Conception of Nature False? Professor Martin Zwick Systems Science Graduate Program Portland State University P.O. Box 751 Portland OR 97207-0751 July 19, 2013 [email protected] 503-725-4987 Abstract: This paper assesses the main argument of Thomas Nagel's recent book, Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception ofNature Is Almost Certainly False. The paper agrees with Nagel that, as an approach to the relation between mind and matter and the mystery of subjective experience, neutral monism is more likely to be true than either materialism or idealism. It disagrees with Nagel by favoring a version of neutral monism based on emergence rather than on a reductive pan-psychism. -
The Mind–Body Problem: an Overview
The Mind–Body Problem: An Overview Chapter 1 The Mind–Body Problem: An Overview Kirk Ludwig I have said that the soul is not more than the body, And I have said that the body is not more than the soul, And nothing, not God, is greater to one than one’s self is. Walt Whitman 1.1 Introduction Understanding the place of thought and feeling in the natural world is central to that general comprehension of nature, as well as that special self-understanding, which are the primary goals of science and philosophy. The general form of the project, which has exercised scientists and philosophers since the ancient world, is given by the question, ‘What is the relation, in general, between mental and physical phenomena?’ There is no settled agreement on the correct answer. This is the single most important gap in our understanding of the natural world. The trouble is that the question presents us with a problem: each possible answer to it has consequences that appear unacceptable. This problem has traditionally gone under the heading ‘The Mind–Body Problem.’1 My primary aim in this chapter is to explain in what this traditional mind–body problem consists, what its possible solutions are, and what obstacles lie in the way of a resolution. The discussion will develop in two phases. The first phase, sections 1.2–1.4, will be concerned to get clearer about the import of our initial question as a precondition of developing an account of possible responses to it. The second phase, sections 1.5–1.6, explains how a problem arises in our attempts to answer the question we have characterized, and surveys the various solutions that can be and have been offered. -
Against Emergent Dualism
Against Emergent Dualism Brandon Rickabaugh [email protected] www.brandonrickabaugh.com Forthcoming in The Blackwell Companion to Substance Dualism. Edited by Johnathan Loose, Angus Menuge, and J. P. Moreland. Oxford, UK: Wiley Blackwell, 2018. Introduction Materialism permeates philosophy of mind. Yet, increasing difficulties are triggering dissent.1 William Hasker’s insightful yet underappreciated work in the philosophy of mind is representative. Hasker does not favor the recent turn toward non-reductive physicalism either. Rather, his argument from the unity of consciousness entails SUBSTANCE DUALISM. Additionally, Hasker maintains that the soul is an emergent substance, a view he calls EMERGENT DUALISM. 2 Hasker’s criticisms of materialism are formidable, and his unity of consciousness argument deserves considerable attention. Still, EMERGENT DUALISM faces difficulties. I argue that EMERGENT DUALISM is not more attractive than non-emergent versions of SUBSTANCE DUALISM as Hasker suggests. I raise several new problems for EMERGENT DUALISM that non-emergent versions of SUBSTANCE DUALISM evade. 1. What is Emergent Dualism? According to SUBSTANCE DUALISM the following is true, SUBSTANCE DUALISM: Human persons are not identical to any physical body, but consist of a physical body and a non-physical substantial soul. 1 See for example, The Waning of Materialism, edited by Robert Koons and George Bealer (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010); After Physicalism, edited by Benedikt Paul Göcke (Notre Dame, ID: University of Notre -
Russellian Physicalism Barbara Gail Montero
This is a draft of a paper that is to appear in an Oxford University Press anthology on Russellian Monism, edited by Torin Alter and Yujin Nagasawa. Russellian Physicalism Barbara Gail Montero According to David Chalmers (1996, 2002, 2010) the conceivability argument against physicalism is, by and large, successful. In outline, this argument asks us to first conceive of a world that, although just like ours at the level of fundamental physics, lacks consciousness. It goes on to claim that a world matching this conception is logically possible and concludes that consciousness is not physical. Most accept that if it is possible for there to be a world that duplicates the fundamental properties of physics without duplicating consciousness, then consciousness is not physical. And many accept that we can in some sense conceive of such a world. The controversial part of the argument is the move from conceivability to possibility. Yet, according to Chalmers, when we are very careful about what is to count as conceivability, this move also is valid. Physicalism about consciousness, then, says Chalmers, must be rejected. Or rather, it must almost be rejected. This qualification arises because “Russellian monism,” characterized roughly by Chalmers (2002, p. 265) as the view that “consciousness is constituted by the intrinsic properties of fundamental physical entities” falls through a loophole in the antiphysicalist conceivability argument. For it may be, he thinks, that when we conceive of the fundamental physical world we fail to conceive of its intrinsic properties. Yet if Russellian monism is true, consciousness depends on these intrinsic properties, and because of this, a world that duplicates our fundamental physics 1 without duplicating these properties may be a world without consciousness. -
APA Newsletter on Philosophy and Computers, Vol. 14, No. 2
NEWSLETTER | The American Philosophical Association Philosophy and Computers SPRING 2015 VOLUME 14 | NUMBER 2 FROM THE GUEST EDITOR John P. Sullins NOTES FROM THE COMMUNITY ON PAT SUPPES ARTICLES Patrick Suppes Patrick Suppes Autobiography Luciano Floridi Singularitarians, AItheists, and Why the Problem with Artificial Intelligence is H.A.L. (Humanity At Large), not HAL Peter Boltuc First-Person Consciousness as Hardware D. E. Wittkower Social Media and the Organization Man Niklas Toivakainen The Moral Roots of Conceptual Confusion in Artificial Intelligence Research Xiaohong Wang, Jian Wang, Kun Zhao, and Chaolin Wang Increase or Decrease of Entropy: To Construct a More Universal Macroethics (A Discussion of Luciano Floridi’s The Ethics of Information) VOLUME 14 | NUMBER 2 SPRING 2015 © 2015 BY THE AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL ASSOCIATION ISSN 2155-9708 APA NEWSLETTER ON Philosophy and Computers JOHN P. SULLINS, GUEST EDITOR VOLUME 14 | NUMBER 2 | SPRING 2015 but here we wish to celebrate his accomplishments in the FROM THE GUEST EDITOR fields of philosophy and computing one last time. John P. Sullins To accomplish that goal I have compiled some interesting SONOMA STATE UNIVERSITY pieces from an autobiography that Pat wrote some years ago but that he added to a bit for an event held in his honor November 17, 2014, marked the end of an inspiring at Stanford. In this document he explains his motivations career. On that day Patrick Suppes died quietly at the and accomplishments in various fields of study that are age of ninety-two in his house on the Stanford Campus, of interest to our community. In that section you will see which had been his home both physically and intellectually just how ambitious Pat was in the world of computer since 1950. -
Churchland(S) Critique Dualism
Churchland(s) critique Dualism (Paul Churchland here.) Paul Churchland • Churchland is a materialist/physicalist. • Thought takes place in the brain, which is a purely physical object –particles in motion, or something like that. •Note that there are various materialist theories of the mind. (The main ones are functionalism and the identity theory, but Churchland is an eliminativist.) “Dualism” defined broadly … “The dua listi c approach t o mi nd encompasses several quite different theories, but they are all agreed that th e essenti al nat ure of consci ous intelligence resides in something nonphysical, ithifbdthfin something forever beyond the scope of sciences like physics, neurophysiology, and computiter science.” (Churchland p. 305) Today, physical geometrical “It is now neither useful nor accurate to characterize ordinary matter as that-which-has-extension-in-space. Electrons,,p, for example, are bits of matter , but our best current theories describe the electron as a point- particle with no extension whatever (it even lacks a determinate spatial position).” p. 306 (The “mechanical philosophy has been replaced by “physicalism”, the claim that everything is “physical” – whatever that means. ) Varieties of “dualism” • Substance dualism –Mind and body are different substances (e.g. Descartes, and the “ghost in the machine” ) • PtProperty dlidualism –The mind is the brain. But the brain has special mentltal properties tha t d’tdon’t reduce to philhysical properties. What does “reduce” mean? •The notion of mental properties reducing to physical properties is crucial to this topic. •It’s also very tricky to define! •Examples of successful reduction to physics include –Water is H2O – Lightning is a stream of electrons –Heat is molecular motion (kinetic energy) A physical explanation of lightning Varieties of Property Dualism • The terminology here is confusing. -
Three Studies of Russell's Neutral Monism 9
Vlrtic!cJ THREE STUDIES OF RUSSELeS NEUTRAL MONISM R. E. TULLY Philosophy I University of Toronto Toronto, Om., Canada M5S IAI y aim in this three-part study! is to examine the transition in Russell's thought from the dualism he advocated before M the Great War to the monism he began to endorse after wards. Dating the change with reference to the war is a matter of convenience rather than a suggestion about its cause, for Russell's thinking would almost certainly have altered during a time of world peace. I think that the change in his philosophy resulted from intellec tual tensions and conflicts over three fundamental questions which in fact absorbed his attention through much ofhis career: the most fruit ful way to accommodate the perspectives of both science and first person experience within a metaphysical framework of realism; the nature of belief and awareness; and the correct analysis of the concept of a proposition. These questions were closely related for Russell. In what follows, they will be taken up in turn, without being fully pried apart. Each study will be set out independently of the others, with minimal cross-referencing (but with consecutive footnotes). Despite considerable overlap in the topics and texts they examine, and in the chronological threads they follow, each has a distinct focus. The theme which dominates the first study is the immense difficulty Russell 1 Part III is scheduled to appear in the wimer 1993 issue of Russell. russell: the Journal of the Bertrand Russell Archives n.s. 13 (summer 1993): 5-35 MeMastet University Library Press 'SSN 0036-01631 6 R. -
Robinson-BPG2012-Ch8
8 Qualia, Qualities, and Our Conception of the Physical World Howard Robinson 1. The Real Power of the Knowledge Argument The Initial Predicament The dialectical situation in which the knowledge argument (KA) for property dualism is usually taken to be located is the following.1 It is taken as agreed that physicalism gives an adequate account of non- conscious reality, and that this part of reality constitutes almost 100 percent of the universe. Despite this overwhelming success, however, the physicalist account struggles to accommodate certain features of mental life, namely the ‘what it is like’ or qualia of certain conscious states. These qualia constitute the qualitative nature of sensations and probably of secondary qualities, but have nothing to do with our robust conception of the physical as it applies to the vast mindless 231 232 Howard Robinson tracts of reality. These awkward entities constitute what Chalmers called “the hard problem” for physicalism (Chalmers 2003). But the fact that they also constitute such a tiny part of the world is im- plicitly understood as being a strong prima facie reason for thinking that there must be some way of reconciling their apparent existence with the otherwise triumphant and clearly adequate physicalist ac- count of the world: if it were not for the qualia that occur in a few corners of reality, the adequacy of physicalism would not in any way be in dispute. I think that this interpretation of the situation constitutes a radi- cal misunderstanding of and understatement of the problem that faces physicalism and the role that the knowledge argument plays in bringing out that problem: the dialectic is quite different from the way it is represented in the previous paragraph. -
The Primacy of Panpsychism Galen Strawson ——————————————————————————————————
to appear in Panpsychism: Philosophical Essays, ed. G. Brüntrup and L. Jaskolla (Oxford) 2015/2016 Mind and Being: The Primacy of Panpsychism Galen Strawson —————————————————————————————————— 0 Introduction I’ll start with a metaphysical creed—four propositions. I’m confident that the first three are true, and I suspect that the fourth is true, but I don't think one has to accept any of them to agree with my principal thesis—the thesis of the primacy of panpsychism, the highly unoriginal thesis that there are compelling reasons for favouring panpsychism above all other positive substantive proposals about the fundamental nature of concrete reality. I’ll state the four propositions first in German because I like the way they sound in German. [1] Stoff ist Kraft, [2] Wesen ist Werden, [3] Sein ist Sosein, [4] Ansichsein ist Fürsichsein. These are identity claims—fully reversible. I’m not going to argue for them but I’ll provide a few glosses.1 1 Stoff ist Kraft [1] Stoff ist Kraft. Matter is force or as I will say energy: [1] matter is energy. Strictly speaking matter is only one form of concrete being, but I’ll use the word loosely to mean all concrete stuff: all concrete being is energy—energy-activity, energy-stuff. I’m using the word ‘energy’ as Heisenberg does when he writes that “energy is a substance”, “all particles are made of the same substance: energy” (1958: 63, 71), and putting aside the common use according to which ‘energy’ denotes the power of ‘doing work’ contained in or possessed by a body or system of bodies.