Neurophilosophy: Preface

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

Neurophilosophy: Preface Preface In the mid -seventies I discovered that my patience with most main - stream philosophy had run out . What had instead begun to seem promising was the new wave in philosophical method , which ceased to pander to " ordinary language" and which began in earnest to reverse the antiscientific bias typical of " linguistic analysis." Even here I had a major misgiving , however , because the sciences em - braced by the new wave as relevant to understanding the nature of the mind did not include neuroscience . Indeed , the best of what there was had espoused a novel and sophisticated form of dualism - theory dualism - that dismissed neuroscience as largely irrelevant to theo- ries in psychology and philosophy . Since I was a materialist and hence believed that the mind is the brain , it seemed obvious that a wider understanding of neuroscience could not fail to be useful if I wanted to know how we see , how we think and reason and decide . I therefore decided to find out in detail whether what was already known in neuroscience was of any use in understanding cognitive functions . Beginning with ..a cautious paddling at the available edges of neuroscience , I quickly found myself venturing further and further from shore, and finally setting tull sail. In the midst of the unencumbered delights of discovering what was known about nervous systems and how neurobiologists got that knowledge , questions of a distinctly philosophical nature continued to make demanding background noises: Is it possible that we could have one grand , unified theory of the mind -brain ? What would such a theory look like ? Is a reductionist strategy reasonable or not ? As a philosopher , I had found myself driven to the neurosciences, but having immersed myself in the neurosciences, I found I could not leave the philosophy alone either . For those far-reaching, wide - embracing questions asked about neuroscientific research I well rec- ognized to be philosophical questions- moreover, questions where philosophers of science and historians of science have had useful things to say. It is now evident that where one discipline ends and the other begins no longer matters, for it is in the nature of the case that x Preface the boundaries are ill defined . This book is thus the result of what I came to regard as neurophilosophicalinquiries. Given the range of topics I needed to know about, I was through - out the project necessarily dependent on the willingness of neuro- scientists to explain their research, to tell me what they thought was important and why , and to give advice on who else to talk to and what to read. My vvorst fear- that as a philosopher I would be con- sidered an utter waste of time- was virtually never realized. Invari - ably neuroscientists were exceedingly generous, often going beyond explanations asked, allowing me to observe or participate in experi- ments, explaining details of techniques, and drawing back the curtain on the wider vision that motivated their research. From time to time I found considerable disagreement among neuroscientists on fundamental issues, and at first I tacitly assumed that there must be someone who really knew what was what and who could settle for me what is the Truth . In the end I knew that I had to make up my own mind , and do it the way any neuroscientist would : find out as much as I reasonably could about the issue and go with what seemed most reasonable. A vague decision procedure, to be sure, but the only one I know of. Without the generosity and patience of many people, not only neuroscientists, but also philosophers , psychologists, and computer scientists, this book would still be a shapeless intention . To Larry Jordan I am especially indebted for giving me a basis in neurophysiol - ogy and in laboratory techniques and for convincing me that it is essential to think about how organisms move. I also owe an enor- mous debt to Rodolfo Llinas, whose unique blend of experimental understanding and drive for theory gave me a sense of what a large, unifying framework for neurobiology and psychology might look like and how known data would figure in that framework . For similar reasons, I am grateful to Francis Crick, whose general understanding of the entire field of vision and sense of how theoretical problems in neurobiology might be solved directed me in getting a grip on the functional questions . More than anyone else, Llinas and Crick have made neuroscience seem like the most exciting thing in the world and consequently rekindled - and, I suspect, realigned- my philosoph - ical preoccupations . Among philosophers , my first and greatest debt is to Paul M . Churchland , who has been a partner in the venture from the very beginning . It was he especially who convinced me of the importance of bringing science and the philosophy of science to bear on questions in the philosophy of mind , and this has made all the difference in thinking about consciousness, cognition , and subjective experience, and about the general framework needed for a unified science of the . Preface Xl mind -brain . Consistently naturalistic in his approach to philosophical questions, and robustly skeptical of folk psychology, he pointed me in the direction of the neurosciences. Dan Dennett made a difference in countless ~ ays, one of which was convincing me to write the book in the first place. In addition , by taking a blue pencil to the manu- script in several of its incarnations , he helped me avoid many mis- takes. Best of all, perhaps, he set an example of how philosophy ought to be done. Stephen Stich also gave me unstinting encourage- ment and advice, and his ruthless clarity helped keep mushiness from creeping in . To Jerry Feldman I owe a debt of thanks for a careful reading of the manuscript and for much useful criticism and advice. Cliff Hooker discussed large parts of the manuscript with me as well, and his general conception of the development of philosophy since the turn of the century provided an organizing focus. Many other people gave me ideas, advice, and invaluable conversa- tion or read some substantial section of the manuscript and suggested revisions . I should mention especially the following : Ted Bullock, Jeff Foss, Don Griffin , Alastair Hannay , Stevan Hamad , Ken Heilman , Don Herzog, Geoffrey Hinton , Marcel Kinsbourne , Marta Kutas, Michael Gazzaniga, Ron Giere, Lisa Lloyd , Vemon Mountcastle , David alton , Andras Pellionisz, Susan Schefchyk, Martin Sereno, Terry Sejnowski, Allison Shalinsky, Aaron Smith, Michael Stack, Larry Weiskrantz , Chris Wood, David Zipser, and Steve Zucker . I want also to thank Harry and Betty Stanton of MIT Press/Bradford Books for their genteel encouragement and for making the produc - tion end of publication almost fun . Gustav Szabo designed the cover, and I am grateful to him for .working out exactly the right theme. Finally , thanks to Darlene Stack for the ready supply of buck-you- uppo and for entertaining us through many a Manitoba blizzard . For financial support , my greatest debt is to the Social Sciencesand Humanities Research Council of Canada, without whose generous funding in providing release time from teaching this project would have been impossible (grants 410- 81- 0182, 451- 83- 3049). I am also grateful to the University of California at San Diego for support in the final stages of preparation of the manuscript (grants RJ111-G, RK91- G). In addition , I should like to thank the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton for giving me a peaceful and productive year in 1982-1983, during which large portions of the book moved into posi- tion . I owe a special debt to the University of Manitoba for having the courage to support me in a host of important ways on a project that was not, by most lights , conventional . PSC La Jolla1985 N europhilosophy One ought to know that on the one hand pleasure, joy , laughter, and games, and on the other, grief , sorrow, discontent, and dissatisfaction arise only from the brain . It is especially by it that we think , comprehend, see, and hear, that we distinfl,uish the ugly from the beautiful , the bad from the good, the agreeablefrom the disagreeable. Hi ppocra tes Philosophyis like the mother who gave birth to and endowedall the other sciences. Therefore, one should not scorn her in her nakednessand poverty, but should hope, rather! that part of her Don Quixote ideal will live on in her children so that they do not sink into philistinism. Albert Einstein , 1932 GeneralIntroduction Squirming out from the primordial ooze, our evolutionary ancestors harbored within themselves a perfectly astounding invention - the excitable cell. Such is a cell that can pass a tiny electrical effect down its extent and that, in concert with clumps and configurations of similarly excitable cells, can be appropriately excited so that the or- ganism may move, thereby feeding, fleeing, fighting , or reproducing . From the very beginning , mobile creatures whose excitable cells were capable of conveying information about conditions outside the body had a survival advantage over those whose movements were inde- pendent of whatever was going on outside . Obviously , the organism that flees in the absence of predators and feeds willy -nilly is doomed to be prey for those more lucky organisms fitted out with cells coor- dinating representationsof the world with movementin the world. With increased complexity of behavioral repertoire comes increased capac- ity for representing the environment . Our own brains are massive mounds of excitable cells, which some- how contrive collectively to contain a rich representation of the out- side world , as well as to enable the muscles to accomplish such feats as catching a ball, playing the violin , and talking , in addition of course to the fundamental feeding, fleeing, fighting , and reproduc - ing .
Recommended publications
  • Neurophilosophy and Its Discontents How Do We Understand Consciousness Without Becoming Complicit in That Understanding?
    Neurophilosophy and Its Discontents How Do We Understand Consciousness Without Becoming Complicit in that Understanding? BY GABRIELLE BENETTE JACKSON dependent on empathy or imagination. Though presumably it would not capture everything, its goal would be to describe, at least in part, the subjective character of hat is consciousness? “It is being awake,” “being responsive,” “acting,” “being experience in a form comprehensible to beings incapable of having those experi- Waware,” “being self-aware,” “paying attention,” “perceiving,” “feeling emo- ences. […] It should be possible to devise a method of expressing in objective terms tions,” “feeling feelings,” “having thoughts,” “thinking about thoughts,” “it is like much more than we can at present, and with much greater precision.” The proposal, this!” simply put, was to develop a language to describe subjectivity in non-subjective Who is conscious? “We humans, surely!” Well, maybe not all the time. “Animals!” terms. And although it is definitely not the case that all theorists pushing past the Debatable. “Computers?” No—at least, not yet. “Other machines?” Only in fiction. problem of consciousness consider themselves to be implementing Nagel’s plan, it “Plants?” Absolutely not, right? does help to understand a particular set of accumulated answers. Two fundamental Nearly twenty-five years ago, we lived through “the project of the decade of the approaches have been neurophilosophy and neurophenomenology, each emphasizing brain,” a governmental initiative set forth by President one aspect of Nagel’s suggestion—either the objective part George H. W. Bush.1 Presidential Proclamation 6158 (viz. neurophilosophy) or the phenomenology part (viz. begins, “The human brain, a three-pound mass of inter- neurophenomenology).
    [Show full text]
  • Churchland Source: the Journal of Philosophy, Vol
    Journal of Philosophy, Inc. Reduction, Qualia, and the Direct Introspection of Brain States Author(s): Paul M. Churchland Source: The Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 82, No. 1 (Jan., 1985), pp. 8-28 Published by: Journal of Philosophy, Inc. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2026509 Accessed: 07-08-2015 19:14 UTC Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/ info/about/policies/terms.jsp JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Journal of Philosophy, Inc. is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Journal of Philosophy. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 142.58.129.109 on Fri, 07 Aug 2015 19:14:45 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 8 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY structureof this idiom, moreover-its embeddingof a subordinate sentence-would have been clearly dictatedby its primitiveuse in assessing children's acquisition of observationsentences. Analogi- cal extension of the idiom to other than observation sentences would follow inevitably,and the developmentof parallel idioms for other propositional attitudeswould then come naturally too, notwithstanding their opacity from a logical point of view. Naturalness is one thing, transparencyanother; familiarityone, clarityanother. W. V. QtJINE Harvard University REDUCTION, QUALIA, AND THE DIRECT INTROSPECTION OF BRAIN STATES* DO the phenomenological or qualitative featuresof our sen- sations constitutea permanentbarrier to thereductive aspi- rations of any materialisticneuroscience? I here argue that theydo not.
    [Show full text]
  • Phobos, Deimos: Formation and Evolution Alex Soumbatov-Gur
    Phobos, Deimos: Formation and Evolution Alex Soumbatov-Gur To cite this version: Alex Soumbatov-Gur. Phobos, Deimos: Formation and Evolution. [Research Report] Karpov institute of physical chemistry. 2019. hal-02147461 HAL Id: hal-02147461 https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-02147461 Submitted on 4 Jun 2019 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. Phobos, Deimos: Formation and Evolution Alex Soumbatov-Gur The moons are confirmed to be ejected parts of Mars’ crust. After explosive throwing out as cone-like rocks they plastically evolved with density decays and materials transformations. Their expansion evolutions were accompanied by global ruptures and small scale rock ejections with concurrent crater formations. The scenario reconciles orbital and physical parameters of the moons. It coherently explains dozens of their properties including spectra, appearances, size differences, crater locations, fracture symmetries, orbits, evolution trends, geologic activity, Phobos’ grooves, mechanism of their origin, etc. The ejective approach is also discussed in the context of observational data on near-Earth asteroids, main belt asteroids Steins, Vesta, and Mars. The approach incorporates known fission mechanism of formation of miniature asteroids, logically accounts for its outliers, and naturally explains formations of small celestial bodies of various sizes.
    [Show full text]
  • In Defence of Folk Psychology
    FRANK JACKSON & PHILIP PETTIT IN DEFENCE OF FOLK PSYCHOLOGY (Received 14 October, 1988) It turned out that there was no phlogiston, no caloric fluid, and no luminiferous ether. Might it turn out that there are no beliefs and desires? Patricia and Paul Churchland say yes. ~ We say no. In part one we give our positive argument for the existence of beliefs and desires, and in part two we offer a diagnosis of what has misled the Church- lands into holding that it might very well turn out that there are no beliefs and desires. 1. THE EXISTENCE OF BELIEFS AND DESIRES 1.1. Our Strategy Eliminativists do not insist that it is certain as of now that there are no beliefs and desires. They insist that it might very well turn out that there are no beliefs and desires. Thus, in order to engage with their position, we need to provide a case for beliefs and desires which, in addition to being a strong one given what we now know, is one which is peculiarly unlikely to be undermined by future progress in neuroscience. Our first step towards providing such a case is to observe that the question of the existence of beliefs and desires as conceived in folk psychology can be divided into two questions. There exist beliefs and desires if there exist creatures with states truly describable as states of believing that such-and-such or desiring that so-and-so. Our question, then, can be divided into two questions. First, what is it for a state to be truly describable as a belief or as a desire; what, that is, needs to be the case according to our folk conception of belief and desire for a state to be a belief or a desire? And, second, is what needs to be the case in fact the case? Accordingly , if we accepted a certain, simple behaviourist account of, say, our folk Philosophical Studies 59:31--54, 1990.
    [Show full text]
  • Maintaining Meaningful Expressions of Romantic Love in a Material World
    Reconciling Eros and Neuroscience: Maintaining Meaningful Expressions of Romantic Love in a Material World by ANDREW J. PELLITIERI* Boston University Abstract Many people currently working in the sciences of the mind believe terms such as “love” will soon be rendered philosophically obsolete. This belief results from a common assumption that such terms are irreconcilable with the naturalistic worldview that most modern scientists might require. Some philosophers reject the meaning of the terms, claiming that as science progresses words like ‘love’ and ‘happiness’ will be replaced completely by language that is more descriptive of the material phenomena taking place. This paper attempts to defend these meaningful concepts in philosophy of mind without appealing to concepts a materialist could not accept. Introduction hilosophy engages the meaning of the word “love” in a myriad of complex discourses ranging from ancient musings on happiness, Pto modern work in the philosophy of mind. The eliminative and reductive forms of materialism threaten to reduce the importance of our everyday language and devalue the meaning we attach to words like “love,” in the name of scientific progress. Faced with this threat, some philosophers, such as Owen Flanagan, have attempted to defend meaningful words and concepts important to the contemporary philosopher, while simultaneously promoting widespread acceptance of materialism. While I believe that the available work is useful, I think * [email protected]. Received 1/2011, revised December 2011. © the author. Arché Undergraduate Journal of Philosophy, Volume V, Issue 1: Winter 2012. pp. 60-82 RECONCILING EROS AND NEUROSCIENCE 61 more needs to be said about the functional role of words like “love” in the script of progressing neuroscience, and further the important implications this yields for our current mode of practical reasoning.
    [Show full text]
  • Differentiating Neuroethics from Neurophilosophy
    Differentiating Neuroethics From Neurophilosophy A review of Scientific and Philosophical Perspectives in Neuroethics by James J. Giordano and Bert Gordijn (Eds.) New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2010. 388 pp. ISBN 978-0-521-70303-1. $50.00 Reviewed by Amir Raz Hillel Braude Neuroethics is about gaps: the gap between neuroscience and ethics, the one between science and philosophy, and, most of all, the “hard gap” between mind and brain. The hybrid term neuroethics, put into public circulation by the late William Safire (2002), attempts to address these lacunae through an emergent discipline that draws equally from neuroscience and philosophy. What, however, distinguishes neuroethics from its sister discipline—neurophilosophy? Contrary to traditional “armchair” philosophy, neurophilosophers such as Paul and Patricia Churchland argue that philosophy needs to take account of empirical neuroscience data regarding the mind–brain relation. Similarly, neuropsychologists and neuroscientists should be amenable to philosophical insights and the conceptual rigor of the philosophical method. Joshua Greene’s neuroimaging studies of participants making moral decisions provide a good example of this symbiotic relation between neuroscience and philosophy (Greene, Sommerville, Nystrom, Darley, & Cohen, 2001). A number of possible answers to the distinction between neuroethics and neurophilosophy emerge from Scientific and Philosophical Perspectives in Neuroethics, edited by James J. Giordano and Bert Gordijn. First, neuroethics emerges from the discipline of bioethics and, as such, specifically deals with ethical issues related to neuroscience. As Neil Levy says in his preface to the book, “Techniques and technologies stemming from the science of the mind raise . profound questions about what it means to be human, and pose greater challenges to moral thought” (p.
    [Show full text]
  • Tools of Pragmatism
    Coping with the World: Tools of Pragmatism Mind, Brain and the Intentional Vocabulary Anders Kristian Krabberød Hovedoppgave Filosofisk Institutt UNIVERSITETET I OSLO Høsten 2004 Contents 1. Introduction.................................................................................................. 2 2. Different Ways of Describing the Same Thing ........................................... 7 3. Rorty and Vocabularies ............................................................................. 11 The Vocabulary-Vocabulary ...............................................................................................13 Reduction and Ontology......................................................................................................17 4. The Intentional Vocabulary and Folk Psychology: the Churchlands and Eliminative Materialism ................................................................................ 21 Eliminative Materialism......................................................................................................22 Dire Consequences..............................................................................................................24 Objecting against Eliminative Materialism..........................................................................25 1. The first objection: Eliminative materialism is a non-starter........................................27 2. The second objection: What could possibly falsify Folk Psychology?...........................29 3. The third objection: Folk Psychology is used
    [Show full text]
  • Emergence, Closure and Inter-Level Causation in Biological Systems Matteo Mossio, Leonardo Bich, Alvaro Moreno
    Emergence, Closure and Inter-level Causation in Biological Systems Matteo Mossio, Leonardo Bich, Alvaro Moreno To cite this version: Matteo Mossio, Leonardo Bich, Alvaro Moreno. Emergence, Closure and Inter-level Causation in Biological Systems. Erkenntnis, Springer Verlag, 2013, 78 (2), pp.153-178. 10.1007/s10670-013-9507- 7. hal-01354366 HAL Id: hal-01354366 https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01354366 Submitted on 18 Sep 2018 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution - NonCommercial| 4.0 International License - Published in Erkenntnis (2013)- (http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10670-013-9507-7) Emergence, closure and inter-level causation in biological systems Matteo Mossio1, Leonardo Bich2, & Alvaro Moreno2 1IHPST (CNRS/Université Paris I/ENS) 13, rue du Four, 75006 Paris, France 2Department of Logic and Philosophy of Science IAS-Research Centre for Life, Mind and Society University of the Basque Country Avenida de Tolosa 70, 20018, Donostia-San Sebastián, Spain Abstract In this paper, we advocate the idea that an adequate explanation of biological systems requires appealing to organisational closure as an emergent causal regime. We first develop a theoretical justification of emergence in terms of relatedness, by arguing that configurations, because of the relatedness among their constituents, possess ontologically irreducible properties, providing them with distinctive causal powers.
    [Show full text]
  • Two Dogmas of Reductionism: on the Irreducibility of Self-Consciousness and the Impossibility of Neurophilosophy
    Athens Journal of Humanities & Arts - Volume 1, Issue 2 – Pages 135-146 Two Dogmas of Reductionism: On the Irreducibility of Self-Consciousness and the Impossibility of Neurophilosophy By Joseph Thompson Two fundamental assumptions have become dogma in contemporary Anglo-American philosophy of consciousness: that everything about consciousness can be explained in physical terms, and that neuroscience provides the uniquely authoritative methodology for approaching the essential questions. But there has never yet been a successful physical explanation of subjective first-person experience, and reductionism fails to account adequately for thought, reason, and a full range of objects proper to philosophy. Tracking the deep divide within the analytic tradition, I bring a ‘continental’ (German) perspective to bear on recent work from Nagel and Chalmers which shows the reductionist neuroscientific agenda to be incapable of completion, for systematic reasons. Physicalism can explain only structure, function, and mechanism; but self-consciousness is always already embodied and embedded in multiple contexts beyond the structures and functions of brain activity. Consciousness needs to account for itself, to itself, on the terms in which it experiences itself. No explanation of the form provided by ‘neurophilosophy’ is adequate to the most fundamental and essential phenomena of self- consciousness, and neurophilosophy can never philosophically explain or justify itself on its own terms and by its own methodology. These are insuperable limitations for any explanation aspiring to be comprehensive, and such problems have brought contemporary antireductionists in the English-speaking world back around to positions which strongly resemble the ontology and phenomenology of German-language philosophers, particularly Kant, Hegel, and Heidegger.
    [Show full text]
  • GURPS Classic Mars
    MARS The Red Planet Written by James L. Cambias Additional material by Kenneth Peters Edited by Scott Haring Cover art by Christopher Shy Illustrated by Paul Daly GURPS System Design ! Steve Jackson GURPS Line Editor ! Sean Punch Managing Editor ! Andrew Hackard Project Administrator ! Monique Chapman Production Manager ! Heather Oliver Creative Director ! Philip Reed Production Artist ! Heather Oliver Production Assistance ! Alex Fernandez Page Designer ! Jack Elmy Print Buyer ! Monica Stephens Sales Manager ! Ross Jepson Errata Coordinator ! Andy Vetromile Lead Playtester: Steph Pennington Assistant Lead Playtester: Devin L. Ganger Playtesters: Frederick Bracken, Nelson Cunnington, Jeremiah Genest, Anthony Jackson, M.A. Lloyd, David Morgan-Mar, Kenneth Peters, Bill Stoddard, and Constantine Thomas Special Thanks to: Dr. Diane A. Kelly, Dr. Geoffrey A. Landis, Richard Wagner, and Dr. Keith Watt. And thanks to everyone who provided information or commentary. GURPS, Warehouse 23, and the all-seeing pyramid are registered trademarks of Steve Jackson Games Incorporated. Pyramid and the names of all products published by Steve Jackson Games Incorporated are registered trademarks or trademarks of Steve Jackson Games Incorporated, or used under license. GURPS Mars is copyright © 2002 by Steve Jackson Games Incorporated. All rights reserved. Some art copyright www.arttoday.com. Some art courtesy of NASA/JPL/Caltech. Printed in the USA. ISBN 1-55634-534-8 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 STEVE JACKSON GAMES CONTENTS Introduction . 4 Looking for Life . 30 Fortean Mars . 46 Invaders from Earth. 30 Velikovskian Mars . 47 About the Author . 4 The Martian Meteorite. 30 Capricorn One . 47 1. Mars Observed . 5 GETTING TO MARS .
    [Show full text]
  • Religion, Science, and the Conscious Self: Bio-Psychological Explanation and the Debate Between Dualism and Naturalism
    Loyola University Chicago Loyola eCommons Dissertations Theses and Dissertations 2011 Religion, Science, and the Conscious Self: Bio-Psychological Explanation and the Debate Between Dualism and Naturalism Paul J. Voelker Loyola University Chicago Follow this and additional works at: https://ecommons.luc.edu/luc_diss Part of the Religious Thought, Theology and Philosophy of Religion Commons Recommended Citation Voelker, Paul J., "Religion, Science, and the Conscious Self: Bio-Psychological Explanation and the Debate Between Dualism and Naturalism" (2011). Dissertations. 242. https://ecommons.luc.edu/luc_diss/242 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Theses and Dissertations at Loyola eCommons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Loyola eCommons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License. Copyright © 2011 Paul J. Voelker LOYOLA UNIVERSITY CHICAGO RELIGION, SCIENCE, AND THE CONSCIOUS SELF: BIO-PSYCHOLOGICAL EXPLANATION AND THE DEBATE BETWEEN DUALISM AND NATURALISM A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY PROGRAM IN THEOLOGY BY PAUL J. VOELKER CHICAGO, ILLINOIS MAY 2011 Copyright by Paul J. Voelker, 2011 All rights reserved. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Many people helped to make this dissertation project a concrete reality. First, and foremost, I would like to thank my advisor, Dr. John McCarthy. John’s breadth and depth of knowledge made for years of stimulating, challenging conversation, and I am grateful for his constant support. Dr. Michael Schuck also provided for much good conversation during my time at Loyola, and I am grateful to Mike for taking time from a hectic schedule to serve on my dissertation committee.
    [Show full text]
  • CONSCIOUSNESS 'THE Sour
    ( Fall 1995 Vol.15, No.4 HMMM... CONSCIOUSNESS 'THE sour. ABE ARTIFICIAL IIITELLIGENCE Exclusive Interviews with Cognitive Scientists Patricia Smith Churchland and Daniel C. Dennett BERTRAND RUSSELL Also: The Disneyfication of America Situation Ethics in Medicine 74957 Reactionar Black Nationalism FALL 1995, VOL. 15, NO. 4 ISSN 0272-0701 !ee WTI : Contents Editor: Paul Kurtz Executive Editor: Timothy J. Madigan Managing Editor: Andrea Szalanski 3 LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Senior Editors: Vern Bullough, Thomas W. Flynn, R. Joseph Hoffmann, Gerald Larue, Gordon Stein 5 EDITORIALS Contributing Editors: Robert S. Alley, Joe E. Barnhart, David Berman, Notes from the Editor: Pro Ecclesia et Commercia, Paul Kurtz I H. James Birx, Jo Ann Boydston, Bonnie Bullough, Reactionary Black Nationalism: Authoritarianism in the Name of Paul Edwards, Albert Ellis, Roy P. Fairfield, Charles W. Faulkner, Antony Flew, Levi Fragell, Adolf Freedom, Norm R. Allen, Jr. / The Founding Fathers Were Not Grünbaum, Marvin Kohl, Jean Kotkin, Thelma Lavine, Tibor Machan, Ronald A. Lindsay, Michael Christian, Steven Morris I Religious Right to Bolt GOP?, Skipp Martin, Delos B. McKown, Lee Nisbet, John Novak, Porteous I Humanist Potpourri, Warren Allen Smith Skipp Porteous, Howard Radest, Robert Rimmer, Michael Rockier, Svetozar Stojanovic, Thomas Szasz, Roh Tielman 16 NEWS AND VIEWS V. M. Torkunde, Richard Taylor, Associate Editors: Molleen Matsumura, Lois Porter 19 CONSCIOUSNESS REVISITED Editorial Associates: 19 FI Interview: A Conversation with Daniel Dennett Doris Doyle, Thomas Franczyk, Roger Greeley, James Martin-Diaz, Steven L. Mitchell, Warren 22 FI Interview: The Neurophilosophy of Patricia Smith Churchland Allen Smith 25 Neurological Bases of Modern Humanism José Delgado Cartoonist: Don Addis 29 Revisiting 'New Conceptions of the Mind' Noel W Smith CODESH.
    [Show full text]