Consciousness and the Attention Schema: Why It Has to Be Right
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Notes on Peirce's Semiotics and Epistemology
DIAGRAMMATIC THINKING: NOTES ON PEIRCE’S SEMIOTICS AND EPISTEMOLOGY Luis Radford In this paper, I discuss the role of diagrammatic thinking within the larger context of cognitive activity as framed by Peirce’s semiotic theory of and its underpinning realistic ontology. After a short overview of Kant’s scepticism in its historical context, I examine Peirce’s attempt to rescue perception as a way to reconceptualize the Kantian “manifold of senses”. I argue that Peirce’s redemption of perception led him to a se- ries of problems that are as fundamental as those that Kant encountered. I contend that the understanding of the difficulties of Peirce’s epistemol- ogy allows us to better grasp the limits and possibilities of diagrammatic thinking. Keywords: Culture; Diagrammatic thinking; Kant; Peirce; Perception; Semiotics Pensamiento Diagramático: Notas sobre la Semiótica y la Epistemología de Peirce En este artículo se discute el papel que desempeña el concepto de pen- samiento diagramático en el contexto de la actividad cognitiva, tal y como es concebida dentro del marco de la teoría semiótica de Peirce y su subyacente ontología realista. Luego de presentar una visión general del escepticismo kantiano en su contexto histórico, se examina el esfuer- zo de Peirce por rescatar la percepción, esfuerzo que lo lleva a indagar de manera innovadora el “multiespacio de los sentidos” del que habla- ba Kant. Se mantiene que este esfuerzo lleva a Peirce a una serie de problemas que son tan fundamentales como los que Kant encontró en su propio itinerario epistemológico. Se sostiene que la comprensión de las dificultades intrínsecas a la epistemología de Peirce nos permite cernir mejor los límites y posibilidades de su pensamiento diagramático. -
Theoretical Models of Consciousness: a Scoping Review
brain sciences Review Theoretical Models of Consciousness: A Scoping Review Davide Sattin 1,2,*, Francesca Giulia Magnani 1, Laura Bartesaghi 1, Milena Caputo 1, Andrea Veronica Fittipaldo 3, Martina Cacciatore 1, Mario Picozzi 4 and Matilde Leonardi 1 1 Neurology, Public Health, Disability Unit—Scientific Department, Fondazione IRCCS Istituto Neurologico Carlo Besta, 20133 Milan, Italy; [email protected] (F.G.M.); [email protected] (L.B.); [email protected] (M.C.); [email protected] (M.C.); [email protected] (M.L.) 2 Experimental Medicine and Medical Humanities-PhD Program, Biotechnology and Life Sciences Department and Center for Clinical Ethics, Insubria University, 21100 Varese, Italy 3 Oncology Department, Mario Negri Institute for Pharmacological Research IRCCS, 20156 Milan, Italy; veronicaandrea.fi[email protected] 4 Center for Clinical Ethics, Biotechnology and Life Sciences Department, Insubria University, 21100 Varese, Italy; [email protected] * Correspondence: [email protected]; Tel.: +39-02-2394-2709 Abstract: The amount of knowledge on human consciousness has created a multitude of viewpoints and it is difficult to compare and synthesize all the recent scientific perspectives. Indeed, there are many definitions of consciousness and multiple approaches to study the neural correlates of consciousness (NCC). Therefore, the main aim of this article is to collect data on the various theories of consciousness published between 2007–2017 and to synthesize them to provide a general overview of this topic. To describe each theory, we developed a thematic grid called the dimensional model, which qualitatively and quantitatively analyzes how each article, related to one specific theory, debates/analyzes a specific issue. -
Peirce's Theory of Communication and Its Contemporary Relevance
Ahti-Veikko Pietarinen Peirce’s Theory of Communication and Its Contemporary Relevance Introduction The mobile era of electronic communication has created a huge semi- otic system, constructed out of triadic components envisaged by the American scientist and philosopher Charles S. Peirce (1839–1914), such as icons, indices and symbols, and signs, objects and interpretants. Iconic signs bear a physical resemblance to what they represent. Indices point at something and say “there!”, and symbols signify objects by conven- tions of a community.1 All signs give rise to interpretants in the minds of the interpreters. It is nonetheless regrettable that the somewhat simplistic triadic ex- posé of Peirce’s theory of signs has persisted in semiotics as the some- how exhaustive and final description of what Peirce intended. The more fascinating and richer structure of signs emerging from their intimate relation to intercommunication and interaction (Peirce’s terms) has been noted much less frequently. Despite this shortcoming, the full Peircean road to inquiry – per- formed by the dynamic community of learning inquirers, or the com- 1 In fact, according to Peirce (2.278 [1895]): “The only way of directly communi- cating an idea is by means of an icon; and every indirect method of communicating an idea must depend for its establishment upon the use of an icon.” Peirce’s chef d’œuvre came shortly after these remarks into being as his diagrammatic system of existential graphs, a thoroughly iconic representation of and a way of reasoning about “moving pictures of thought”, which encompassed not only propositional and predicate logic, but also modalities, higher-order notions, abstraction and category-theoretic notions. -
Ethical Reasoning
9781405170987_4_001.qxd 8/8/08 7:18 PM Page 9 PART I ETHICAL REASONING 1 A Brief Overview of Basic Ethical Theory David R. Keller 2 A Framework for Moral Reasoning Eric H. Gampel 9781405170987_4_001.qxd 8/8/08 7:18 PM Page 10 9781405170987_4_001.qxd 8/8/08 7:18 PM Page 11 1 A BRIEF OVERVIEW OF BASIC ETHICAL THEORY David R. Keller Ethics is the philosophical study of morality. Although we use the words syn- onymously in everyday discourse, in philosophy it is important to distinguish the two. Morality is the behavior of making value judgments regarding how we should best live our lives. Two points follow. First, judgments presuppose freedom of choice; the entire edifice of ethics is erected on the assumption that value judg- ments are made by moral agents voluntarily, who therefore are responsible for those choices. This assumption leads into a whole debate about determinism versus free will that I cannot address here.1 Second, value judgments differ from judgments of ordinary preference, such as how spicy we like our food or what color of clothing we prefer to wear. Moral judgments involve interconnected conceptions of goodness, rightness, the class of beings worthy of moral consid- eration, and virtue. Moral judgments presuppose the acceptance of some highest moral good (summum bonum). This might be obedience to God, acting in accordance with duty, realizing one’s unique individual potential, affirming relationships based on care and empathy, or maximizing overall collective happiness. Humans live their lives and make daily choices with an eye to some ideal of moral goodness. -
Human Beings and the Moral Law: Moral Precariousness in Kant's Ethical Philosophy
University of Pennsylvania ScholarlyCommons Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations 2014 Human Beings and the Moral Law: Moral Precariousness in Kant's Ethical Philosophy Bradley Taylor University of Pennsylvania, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations Part of the Philosophy Commons Recommended Citation Taylor, Bradley, "Human Beings and the Moral Law: Moral Precariousness in Kant's Ethical Philosophy" (2014). Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations. 1468. https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/1468 This paper is posted at ScholarlyCommons. https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/1468 For more information, please contact [email protected]. Human Beings and the Moral Law: Moral Precariousness in Kant's Ethical Philosophy Abstract ABSTRACT HUMAN BEINGS AND THE MORAL LAW: MORAL PRECARIOUSNESS IN KANT'S ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY Bradley M. Taylor Dr. Paul Guyer This dissertation is an examination of human moral precariousness in Kant's ethics. Human beings are in a state of moral precariousness insofar as they are ever-capable of transgressing the moral law and are often uncertain of the moral worth of their actions. Put another way, in this dissertation I argue that the basic relationship between human beings and the moral law, in Kant's moral philosophy, is, most fundamentally, one of tenuousness and vacillation. This relation is the fundamental characteristic of the human moral condition because such a relation is built into Kant's account of human moral agency. We have a tenuous relation to the moral law because we always have at least the possibility of conflict between our desire for happiness (i.e. the satisfaction of our inclinations) and the requirements of the moral law. -
Biocentrism in Environmental Ethics: Questions of Inherent Worth, Etiology, and Teleofunctional Interests David Lewis Rice III University of Arkansas, Fayetteville
University of Arkansas, Fayetteville ScholarWorks@UARK Theses and Dissertations 8-2016 Biocentrism in Environmental Ethics: Questions of Inherent Worth, Etiology, and Teleofunctional Interests David Lewis Rice III University of Arkansas, Fayetteville Follow this and additional works at: http://scholarworks.uark.edu/etd Part of the Ethics and Political Philosophy Commons Recommended Citation Rice, David Lewis III, "Biocentrism in Environmental Ethics: Questions of Inherent Worth, Etiology, and Teleofunctional Interests" (2016). Theses and Dissertations. 1650. http://scholarworks.uark.edu/etd/1650 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by ScholarWorks@UARK. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks@UARK. For more information, please contact [email protected], [email protected]. Biocentrism in Environmental Ethics: Questions of Inherent Worth, Etiology, and Teleofunctional Interests A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Philosophy by David Rice Delta State University Bachelor of Science in Biology, 1994 Delta State University Master of Science in Natural Sciences in Biology, 1999 University of Mississippi Master of Arts in Philosophy, 2009 August 2016 University of Arkansas This dissertation is approved for recommendation to the Graduate Council. ____________________________________ Dr. Richard Lee Dissertation Director ____________________________________ ____________________________________ Dr. Warren Herold Dr. Tom Senor Committee Member Committee Member Abstract Some biocentrists argue that all living things have "inherent worth". Anything that has inherent worth has interests that provide a reason for why all moral agents should care about it in and of itself. There are, however, some difficulties for biocentric individualist arguments which claim that all living things have inherent worth. -
How Can We Solve the Meta-Problem of Consciousness?
How Can We Solve the Meta-Problem of Consciousness? David J. Chalmers I am grateful to the authors of the 39 commentaries on my article “The Meta-Problem of Consciousness”. I learned a great deal from reading them and from thinking about how to reply.1 The commentaries divide fairly nearly into about three groups. About half of them discuss po- tential solutions to the meta-problem. About a quarter of them discuss the question of whether in- tuitions about consciousness are universal, widespred, or culturally local. About a quarter discuss illusionism about consciousness and especially debunking arguments that move from a solution to the meta-problem to illusionism. Some commentaries fit into more than one group and some do not fit perfectly into any, but with some stretching this provides a natural way to divide them. As a result, I have divided my reply into three parts, each of which can stand alone. This first part is “How can We Solve the Meta-Problem of Conscousness?”. The other two parts are “Is the Hard Problem of Consciousness Universal?” and “Debunking Arguments for Illusionism about Consciousness”. How can we solve the meta-problem? As a reminder, the meta-problem is the problem of explaining our problem intuitions about consciousness, including the intuition that consciousness poses a hard problem and related explanatory and metaphysical intuitions, among others. One constraint is to explain the intuitions in topic-neutral terms (for example, physical, computational, structural, or evolutionary term) that do not make explicit appeal to consciousness in the explana- tion. In the target article, I canvassed about 15 potential solutions to the meta-problem. -
How Our Worldviews Shape Our Practice
How Our Worldviews Shape Our Practice Rachel M. Goldberg This article reviews research on the effect of a conflict resolution practi- tioner’s worldview on practice. The results revealed patterns connecting worldview frames with differing uses of power. Forty-three environ- mental and intercultural practitioners were interviewed, and narrative and metaphor analysis was used to reveal key worldview orientations in their practice stories. The results are correlated in continuums and “pro- files” of the worldview orientation. The findings strengthen previous work questioning the effects of the traditional neutrality stance, deepen fieldwide arguments for the embedded nature of worldview and cul- ture, and describe new methods that reveal some of the dynamics between worldview and practice. Native American tribe spent many years struggling against a govern- Ament agency for permanent residence status on their traditional homeland (the ability to live in and use their traditional homeland). Over time, their argument became a fight about permanent homes, because this was the only way to argue for use of the land that the agency understood. For the agency representatives, permanent housing (a building) was syn- onymous with permanent residence (ability to live on and use the land). One day, the mediator who was working with the tribe asked them why they wanted permanent homes. It turned out that the area became very hot during the summer; the tribe had traditionally built temporary homes in the winter and migrated to the mountains during the hot season. It become clear that the tribe did not even really want permanent housing, but a right to reside legally in the area—in their case, a very different goal. -
Aristotle's Subject Matter Dissertation Presented in Partial Fulfillment Of
Aristotle’s Subject Matter Dissertation Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University Keren Wilson Shatalov, MLitt Graduate Program in Philosophy The Ohio State University 2019 Dissertation Committee: Allan Silverman, Adviser Tamar Rudavsky Lisa Downing ii Copyright by Keren Wilson Shatalov 2019 iii Abstract In my dissertation I examine Aristotle’s concept of matter by highlighting the tools from his Organon which he uses to introduce matter in his Physics. I make use of logical concepts Aristotle develops in his work on explanation in Posterior Analytics, especially his concept of subject or ὑποκείμενον, to argue that matter, for Aristotle, must be understood not as a distinct ontological category but as a term of art denoting a part of an explanation in natural philosophy. By presenting an analysis of Aristotle’s concept of ὑποκείμενον from his logical works, I show how Aristotle uses it to spell out just what explanatory role matter plays, and what this means for what it is to be matter. I argue that when Aristotle uses the term “ὑποκείμενον” to name a principle of change in Physics A, he is employing the logical concept which he had made use of and developed in his logical works, contra prominent readings which argue instead that the term in Physics is a distinct technical term, homonymous with the logical term. Further, I offer a new reading of the concept of ὑποκείμενον in the logical works. On my reading, a genuine ὑποκείμενον is something which, just by being what it is or ὅπερ x τι, is what is presupposed by something else, y, and which grounds and partially explains the presence of that y. -
Metaphilosophy of Consciousness Studies
Part Three Metaphilosophy of Consciousness Studies Bloomsbury companion to the philosophy of consciousness.indb 185 24-08-2017 15:48:52 Bloomsbury companion to the philosophy of consciousness.indb 186 24-08-2017 15:48:52 11 Understanding Consciousness by Building It Michael Graziano and Taylor W. Webb 1 Introduction In this chapter we consider how to build a machine that has subjective awareness. The design is based on the recently proposed attention schema theory (Graziano 2013, 2014; Graziano and Kastner 2011; Graziano and Webb 2014; Kelly et al. 2014; Webb and Graziano 2015; Webb, Kean and Graziano 2016). This hypothetical building project serves as a way to introduce the theory in a step-by-step manner and contrast it with other brain-based theories of consciousness. At the same time, this chapter is more than a thought experiment. We suggest that the machine could actually be built and we encourage artificial intelligence experts to try. Figure 11.1 frames the challenge. The machine has eyes that take in visual input (an apple in this example) and pass information to a computer brain. Our task is to build the machine such that it has a subjective visual awareness of the apple in the same sense that humans describe subjective visual awareness. Exactly what is meant by subjective awareness is not a priori clear. Most people have an intuitive notion that is probably not easily put into words. One goal of this building project is to see if a clearer definition of subjective awareness emerges from the constrained process of trying to build it. -
Albert the Great on the Subject of Metaphysics and Demonstrating the Existence of God TIMOTHY B
Albert the Great on the Subject of Metaphysics and Demonstrating the Existence of God TIMOTHY B. NOONE In his comprehensive study of Thomas Aquinas's Sen* tentia super Metaphysicam, James Doig introduces Albert the Great as one of the commentators whose interpretation of Aristotle's Meta- physics Thomas intended to challenge. In particular, Doig alleges that Albert's understanding of the formal object (or, in other terminology, the subject) of metaphysics is heavily indebted to the writings of Averroes, although the modern scholar acknowledges that Albert does not follow the Averroistic interpretation in all respects.1 Furthermore, Doig contends that Albert's own Metaphysics following Averroes's schema of metaphysical knowledge, contains no proof of the existence of God as the cause of being but simply relies on the proof of God as the cause of motion, as was developed in Aristotle's Physics.2 1. James C. Doig, Aquinas on Metaphysics: A Histσrico*Doctrinal Study of the Commentary on the Metaphysics (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1972), pp. 53-54, 125-152. The present paper originated as part of the author's licentiate thesis at the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, Toronto. I would like to dedicate the paper to the late James A. Weisheipl, who directed the thesis, even as I acknowledge that he would have disagreed heartily with its conclusions. 2. For example, Doig, Aquinas on Metaphysics, pp. 202, 204. 31 32 TIMOTHY B. NOONE In marked contrast to Doig's interpretation, Albert Zimmermann, in a monograph devoted to medieval conceptions -
Kant's Doctrine of Schemata
Kant’s Doctrine of Schemata By Joseph L. Hunter Thesis submitted to the faculty of Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTERS OF ARTS IN PHILOSOPHY APPROVED: _______________________________ Eric Watkins, Chair _______________________________ _______________________________ Roger Ariew Joseph C. Pitt August 25, 1999 Blacksburg, Virginia Keywords: Kant, Schemata, Experience, Knowledge, Categories, Construction, Mathematics. i Kant’s Doctrine of Shemata Joseph L. Hunter (ABSTRACT) The following is a study of what may be the most puzzling and yet, at the same time, most significant aspect of Kant’s system: his theory of schemata. I will argue that Kant’s commentators have failed to make sense of this aspect of Kant’s philosophy. A host of questions have been left unanswered, and the doctrine remains a puzzle. While this study is not an attempt to construct a complete, satisfying account of the doctrine, it should be seen as a step somewhere on the road of doing so, leaving much work to be done. I will contend that one way that we may shed light on Kant’s doctrine of schemata is to reconsider the manner in which Kant employs schemata in his mathematics. His use of the schemata there may provide some inkling into the nature of transcendental schemata and, in doing so, provide some hints at how the transcendental schemata allow our representations of objects to be subsumed under the pure concepts of the understanding. In many ways, then, the aims of the study are modest: instead of a grand- scale interpretation of Kant's philosophy, a detailed textual analysis and interpretation are presented of his doctrine of schemata.