Table of contents :
Title
Contents
Introduction Adventures in technophilosophy
Part 1 Virtual Wor... more Table of contents : Title Contents Introduction Adventures in technophilosophy Part 1 Virtual Worlds Chapter 1 Is this the real life? Chapter 2 What is the simulation hypothesis? Part 2 Knowledge Chapter 3 Do we know things? Chapter 4 Can we prove there is an external world? Chapter 5 Is it likely that we’re in a simulation? Part 3 Reality Chapter 6 What is reality? Chapter 7 Is God a hacker in the next universe up? Chapter 8 Is the universe made of information? Chapter 9 Did simulation create its from bits? Part 4 Real Virtual Reality Chapter 10 Do virtual reality headsets create reality? Chapter 11 Are virtual reality devices illusion machines? Chapter 12 Does augmented reality lead to alternative facts? Chapter 13 Can we avoid being deceived by deepfakes? Part 5 Mind Chapter 14 How do mind and body interact in a virtual world? Chapter 15 Can there be consciousness in a digital world? Chapter 16 Does augmented reality extend the mind? Part 6 Value Chapter 17 Can you lead a good life in a virtual world? Chapter 18 Do simulated lives matter? Chapter 19 How should we build a virtual society? Part 7 Foundations Chapter 20 What do our words mean in virtual worlds? Chapter 21 Do dust clouds run computer programs? Chapter 22 Is reality a mathematical structure? Chapter 23 Have we fallen from the Garden of Eden? Chapter 24 Are we Boltzmann brains in a dream world? Acknowledgments Glossary Notes Index
All too often, we think of our minds and bodies separately. The reality couldn’t be more differen... more All too often, we think of our minds and bodies separately. The reality couldn’t be more different: the fundamental fact about our mind is that it is embodied. We have a deep visceral, emotional, and qualitative relationship to the world—and any scientifically and philosophically satisfactory view of the mind must take into account the ways that cognition, meaning, language, action, and values are grounded in and shaped by that embodiment.
This book gathers the best of philosopher Mark Johnson’s essays addressing questions of our embodiment as they deal with aesthetics—which, he argues, we need to rethink so that it takes into account the central role of body-based meaning. Viewed that way, the arts can give us profound insights into the processes of meaning making that underlie our conceptual systems and cultural practices. Johnson shows how our embodiment shapes our philosophy, science, morality, and art; what emerges is a view of humans as aesthetic, meaning-making creatures who draw on their deepest physical processes to make sense of the world around them.
I-Language introduces the uninitiated to linguistics as cognitive science. In an engaging, down-t... more I-Language introduces the uninitiated to linguistics as cognitive science. In an engaging, down-to-earth style Daniela Isac and Charles Reiss give a crystal-clear demonstration of the application of the scientific method in linguistic theory. Their presentation of the research programme inspired and led by Noam Chomsky shows how the focus of theory and research in linguistics shifted from treating language as a disembodied, human-external entity to cognitive biolinguistics - the study of language as a human cognitive system embedded within the mind/brain of each individual. The recurring theme of equivalence classes in linguistic computation ties together the presentation of material from phonology, morphology, syntax, and semantics. The same theme is used to help students understand the place of linguistics in the broader context of the cognitive sciences, by drawing on examples from vision, audition, and even animal cognition. This textbook is unique in its integration of empirical issues of linguistic analysis, engagement with philosophical questions that arise in the study of language, and treatment of the history of the field. Topics ranging from allophony to reduplication, ergativity, and negative polarity are invoked to show the implications of findings in cognitive biolinguistics for philosophical issues like reference, the mind-body problem, and nature-nurture debates. This textbook contains numerous exercises and guides for further reading as well as ideas for student projects. A companion website with guidance for instructors and answers to the exercises features a series of pdf slide presentations to accompany the teaching of each topic.
The Phenomenological Mind is the first book to properly introduce fundamental questions about the... more The Phenomenological Mind is the first book to properly introduce fundamental questions about the mind from the perspective of phenomenology. Interesting and important examples are used throughout, including phantom limb syndrome, blindsight and self-disorders in schizophrenia, making The Phenomenological Mind an ideal introduction to key concepts in phenomenology, cognitive science and philosophy of mind.
This is the first major textbook to offer a truly comprehensive review of cognitive science in it... more This is the first major textbook to offer a truly comprehensive review of cognitive science in its fullest sense. Ranging across artificial intelligence models and cognitive psychology through to recent discursive and cultural theories Rom Harré offers a breathtakingly original yet accessible integration of the field. At its core this textbook addresses the question "is psychology a science?" with a clear account of scientific method and explanation and their bearing on psychological research.
A pivotal figure in psychology and philosophy for many decades Rom Harré has turned his unmatched breadth of reference and insight for students at all levels. Whether describing, language, categorization, memory, the brain or connectionism the book always links our intuitions about beliefs, desires and their social context to the latest accounts of their place in computational and biological models. Fluently written and well structured, this an ideal text for students. The book is divided into four basic modules, with three lectures in each; the reader is guided with helpful learning points, study and essay questions and key readings for each chapter.
This volume illustrates how the methodology of metaphysics can be enriched with the help of cogni... more This volume illustrates how the methodology of metaphysics can be enriched with the help of cognitive science. Few philosophers nowadays would dispute the relevance of cognitive science to the metaphysics of mind, but this volume mainly concerns the relevance of metaphysics to phenomena that are not themselves mental. The volume is thus a departure from standard analytical metaphysics. Among the issues to which results from cognitive science are brought to bear are the metaphysics of time, of morality, of meaning, of modality, of objects, and of natural kinds, as well as whether God exists. A number of chapters address the enterprise of metaphysics in general. In traditional analytical metaphysics, intuitions play a prominent role in the construction of, and assessment of theories. Cognitive science can be brought to bear on the issue of the reliability of intuitions. Some chapters point out how results from cognitive science can be deployed to debunk certain intuitions, and some point out how results can be deployed to help vindicate certain intuitions.
Many metaphysicians have taken to heart the moral that physics should be taken into account in addressing certain metaphysical issues. The overarching point of the volume is that in many instances beyond the nature of the mind itself, cognitive science should also be consulted.
What enables individually simple insects like ants to act with such precision and purpose as a gr... more What enables individually simple insects like ants to act with such precision and purpose as a group? How do trillions of neurons produce something as extraordinarily complex as consciousness? In this remarkably clear and companionable book, leading complex systems scientist Melanie Mitchell provides an intimate tour of the sciences of complexity, a broad set of efforts that seek to explain how large-scale complex, organized, and adaptive behavior can emerge from simple interactions among myriad individuals. Based on her work at the Santa Fe Institute and drawing on its interdisciplinary strategies, Mitchell brings clarity to the workings of complexity across a broad range of biological, technological, and social phenomena, seeking out the general principles or laws that apply to all of them. Richly illustrated, Complexity: A Guided Tour--winner of the 2010 Phi Beta Kappa Book Award in Science--offers a wide-ranging overview of the ideas underlying complex systems science, the current research at the forefront of this field, and the prospects for its contribution to solving some of the most important scientific questions of our time.
This book introduces concepts in philosophy of mind and neurophilosophy. Inside, three scholars o... more This book introduces concepts in philosophy of mind and neurophilosophy. Inside, three scholars offer approaches to the problems of identity, consciousness, and the mind. In the process, they open new vistas for thought and raise fresh controversies to some of the oldest problems in philosophy.
The first chapter focuses on the identity problem. The author employs an explanatory model he christened sense-phenomenalism to defend the thesis that personal identity is something or a phenomenon that pertains to the observable/perceptible aspect of the human person.
The next chapter explores the problem of consciousness. It deploys the new concept equiphenomenalism as a model to show that mental properties are not by-products but necessary products of consciousness. Herein, the notion of qualia is a fundamental and necessary product that must be experienced simultaneously with neural activities for consciousness to be possible.
The last chapter addresses the mind/body problem. It adopts the new concept proto-phenomenalism as an alternative explanatory model. This model eliminates the idea of a mind. As such, it approaches the mind-body problem from a materialistic point of view with many implications such as, the meaning(lessness) of our existence, the possibility of thought engineering as well as religious implications.
This book brings together a selection of essays from the past two decades that build a powerful a... more This book brings together a selection of essays from the past two decades that build a powerful argument that any scientifically and philosophically satisfactory view of mind and thought must ultimately explain how bodily perception and action give rise to cognition, meaning, language, action, and values. A brief account of Johnson’s own intellectual journey, through which we track some of the most important discoveries in the field over the past forty years, sets the stage. Subsequent chapters set out Johnson’s important role in embodied cognition theory, including his cofounding (with George Lakoff) of conceptual metaphor theory and, later, their theory of bodily structures and processes that underlie all meaning, conceptualization, and reasoning. A detailed account of how meaning arises from our physical engagement with our environments provides the basis for a nondualistic, nonreductive view of mind that he sees as most congruous with the latest cognitive science. A concluding section explores the implications of our embodiment for our understanding of knowledge, reason, and truth. The resulting book will be essential for all philosophers dealing with mind, thought, and language.
This book sheds new light on several controversies that have been limited by the incorrect assump... more This book sheds new light on several controversies that have been limited by the incorrect assumption that reflective representational thought and its language is the only conscious mental state. These include the debate within linguistics about whether language is the expression of a hardwired instinct whose identifying feature is recursion; within psychoanalysis about the nature of conscious and unconscious mental processes, and within cognitive philosophy about whether language and thought are isomorphic. Consciousness, Language, and Self will be of great value to psychoanalysts, as well as students and scholars of linguistics, cognitive philosophy and cultural anthropology.
It is often thought that consciousness has a qualitative dimension that cannot be tracked by scie... more It is often thought that consciousness has a qualitative dimension that cannot be tracked by science. Recently, however, some philosophers have argued that this worry stems not from an elusive feature of the mind, but from the special nature of the concepts used to describe conscious states. Marc Champagne draws on the neglected branch of philosophy of signs or semiotics to develop a new take on this strategy.
The term “semiotics” was introduced by John Locke in the modern period – its etymology is ancient Greek, and its theoretical underpinnings are medieval. Charles Sanders Peirce made major advances in semiotics, so he can act as a pipeline for these forgotten ideas. Most philosophers know Peirce as the founder of American pragmatism, but few know that he also coined the term “qualia,” which is meant to capture the intrinsic feel of an experience. Since pragmatic verification and qualia are now seen as conflicting commitments, Champagne endeavors to understand how Peirce could (or thought he could) have it both ways. The key, he suggests, is to understand how humans can insert distinctions between features that are always bound. Recent attempts to take qualities seriously have resulted in versions of panpsychism, but Champagne outlines a more plausible way to achieve this. So, while semiotics has until now been the least known branch of philosophy ending in –ics, his book shows how a better understanding of that branch can move one of the liveliest debates in philosophy forward.
What is attention? How does attention shape consciousness? In an approach that engages with found... more What is attention? How does attention shape consciousness? In an approach that engages with foundational topics in the philosophy of mind, the theory of action, psychology, and the neurosciences this book provides a unified and comprehensive answer to both questions. Sebastian Watzl shows that attention is a central structural feature of the mind. The first half of the book provides an account of the nature of attention. Attention is prioritizing, it consists in regulating priority structures. Attention is not another element of the mind, but constituted by structures that organize, integrate, and coordinate the parts of our mind. Attention thus integrates the perceptual and intellectual, the cognitive and motivational, and the epistemic and practical. The second half of the book concerns the relationship between attention and consciousness. Watzl argues that attentional structure shapes consciousness into what is central and what is peripheral. The center-periphery structure of consciousness cannot be reduced to the structure of how the world appears to the subject. What it is like for us thus goes beyond the way the world appears to us. On this basis, a new view of consciousness is offered. In each conscious experience we actively take a stance on the world we appear to encounter. It is in this sense that our conscious experience is our subjective perspective.
First religion explained how the mind emerged, language developed, and overall consciousness came... more First religion explained how the mind emerged, language developed, and overall consciousness came into being. Many of these explanations were challenged during the "age of reason," grand metaphysical theories gradually displaced many of the religious perceptions of the world, only to be displaced by scientific advances at the start of the century. Now, Zoltan Torey, an Australian psychologist, freelance science writer, and science journalist for ABC Radio National in Australia, offers a new science-based theory of the human mind. Torey spent ten years using a process he calls reverse engineering, a process with a solid grounding in neuroscience, linguistics, and biological modelling to identify what we call the mind. He shows how it emerged, relates to language, generates consciousness, and yet remains hidden from insight. Sure to be controversial, The Crucible of Consciousness provides a unified description of the human mind, an antidote to the fragmented world and other simplistic belief-systems that occupy the cultural middleground.
What is consciousness? How does the subjective character of consciousness fit into an objective w... more What is consciousness? How does the subjective character of consciousness fit into an objective world? How can there be a science of consciousness? In this sequel to his groundbreaking and controversial The Conscious Mind, David Chalmers develops a unified framework that addresses these questions and many others. Starting with a statement of the "hard problem" of consciousness, Chalmers builds a positive framework for the science of consciousness and a nonreductive vision of the metaphysics of consciousness. He replies to many critics of The Conscious Mind, and then develops a positive theory in new directions. The book includes original accounts of how we think and know about consciousness, of the unity of consciousness, and of how consciousness relates to the external world. Along the way, Chalmers develops many provocative ideas: the "consciousness meter", the Garden of Eden as a model of perceptual experience, and The Matrix as a guide to the deepest philosophical problems about consciousness and the external world.
Table of contents :
Contents......Page 10
Introduction......Page 12
I. The Problems of Consciousness......Page 30
1. Facing Up to the Problem of Consciousness......Page 32
Afterword: From “Moving Forward on the Problem of Consciousness”......Page 57
II. The Science of Consciousness......Page 64
2. How Can We Construct a Science of Consciousness?......Page 66
Afterword: First-Person Data and First-Person Science......Page 81
3. What Is a Neural Correlate of Consciousness?......Page 88
4. On the Search for the Neural Correlate of Consciousness......Page 120
III. The Metaphysics of Consciousness......Page 130
5. Consciousness and Its Place in Nature......Page 132
6. The Two-Dimensional Argument against Materialism......Page 170
Afterword: Other Anti-Materialist Arguments......Page 221
7. Conceptual Analysis and Reductive Explanation (with Frank Jackson)......Page 236
IV. Concepts of Consciousness......Page 278
8. The Content of Phenomenal Concepts......Page 280
9. The Epistemology of Phenomenal Belief......Page 306
10. Phenomenal Concepts and the Explanatory Gap......Page 334
V. The Contents of Consciousness......Page 366
11. The Representational Character of Experience......Page 368
Afterword: Th e Two-Dimensional Contents of Perception......Page 401
12. Perception and the Fall from Eden......Page 410
13. The Matrix as Metaphysics......Page 484
Afterword: Philosophical Notes......Page 508
VI. The Unity of Consciousness......Page 524
14. What Is the Unity of Consciousness? (with Tim Bayne)......Page 526
Appendix: Two-Dimensional Semantics......Page 570
Bibliography......Page 598
The project of naturalizing human consciousness/experience has made great technical strides (e.g.... more The project of naturalizing human consciousness/experience has made great technical strides (e.g., in mapping areas of brain activity), but has been hampered in many cases by its uncritical reliance on a dualistic “Cartesian” paradigm (though as some of the authors in the collection point out, assumptions drawn from Plato and from Kant also play a role). The present volume proposes a version of naturalism in aesthetics drawn from American pragmatism (above all from Dewey, but also from James and Peirce)—one primed from the start to see human beings not only as embodied, but as inseparable from the environment they interact with—and provides a forum for authors from diverse disciplines to address specific scientific and philosophical issues within the anti-dualistic framework considering aesthetic experience as a process of embodied meaning-making. Cross-disciplinary contributions come from leading researchers including Mark Johnson, Jim Garrison, Daniel D. Hutto, John T. Haworth, Luca F. Ticini, Beatriz Calvo-Merino.
The volume covers pragmatist aesthetics, neuroaesthetics, enactive cognitive science, literary studies, psychology of aesthetics, art and design, sociology.
Aesthetic and moral value are often seen to go hand in hand. They do so not only practically, su... more Aesthetic and moral value are often seen to go hand in hand. They do so not only practically, such as in our everyday assessments of artworks that raise moral questions, but also theoretically, such as in Kant's theory that beauty is the symbol of morality. Some philosophers have argued that it is in the relation between aesthetic and moral value that the key to an adequate understanding of either notion lies. But difficult questions abound. Must a work of art be morally admirable in order to be aesthetically valuable? How, if at all, do our moral values shape our aesthetic judgements - and vice versa? Aesthetics and Morality is a stimulating and insightful inquiry into precisely this set of questions. Elisabeth Schellekens explores the main ideas and debates at the intersection of aesthetics and moral philosophy. She invites readers to reflect on the nature of beauty, art and morality, and provides the philosophical knowledge to render such reflection more rigorous. This original, inspiring and entertaining book sheds valuable new light on a notably complex and challenging area of thought.
A snapshot of ecocriticism in action, Coming into Contact collects sixteen previously unpublished... more A snapshot of ecocriticism in action, Coming into Contact collects sixteen previously unpublished essays that explore some of the most promising new directions in the study of literature and the environment. They look to previously unexamined or underexamined aspects of literature's relationship to the environment, including swamps, internment camps, Asian American environments, the urbanized Northeast, and lynching sites. The authors relate environmental discourse to practice, including the teaching of green design in composition classes, the restoration of damaged landscapes, the persuasive strategies of environmental activists, the practice of urban architecture, and the impact of human technologies on nature. The essays also put ecocriticism into greater contact with the natural sciences, including elements of evolutionary biology, biological taxonomy, and geology. Engaging both ecocritical theory and practice, these authors more closely align ecocriticism with the physical environment, with the wide range of texts and cultural practices that concern it, and with the growing scholarly conversation that surrounds this concern.
Using a semiotic model of poetic change, Recasting Persian Poetry presents a critical history of ... more Using a semiotic model of poetic change, Recasting Persian Poetry presents a critical history of the evolution of Persian poetry in modern Iran. Iran's contact with Europe in the nineteenth century produced largely imaginary ideas about European culture and literature. In a series of textual manoeuvres and cultural contestations, successive generations of Iranian intellectuals sought to recast the classical tradition in a mold at once modern and relevant to their concerns. In particular, Karimi proposes a revision of the view that sets the Modernist poet Nima Yushij as the single-handed inventor of 'New Poetry'. This view, he argues, has resulted in an exaggerated sense of the aesthetic gulf between the modernist poetry of Iran and classical Persian poetry. Through a number of close readings of works by Nima's predecessors, Karimi makes visible a century-old Persian poetic tradition with Nima as its culmination.
About the author :
Ahmad Karimi-Hakkak is Professor of Persian Language, Literature and Culture, and Chair of the Department of Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Maryland's School of Languages, Literatures and Cultures. He was previously Professor of Persian Language and Literature and Iranian Culture and Civilization at the University of Washington.
Conscious experience is one of the most difficult and thorny problems in psychological science. I... more Conscious experience is one of the most difficult and thorny problems in psychological science. Its study has been neglected for many years, either because it was thought to be too difficult, or because the relevant evidence was thought to be poor. Bernard Baars suggests a way to specify empirical constraints on a theory of consciousness by contrasting well-established conscious phenomena - such as stimulus representations known to be attended, perceptual, and informative - with closely comparable unconscious ones - such as stimulus representations known to be preperceptual, unattended, or habituated. Adducing data to show that consciousness is associated with a kind of global workplace in the nervous system, and that several brain structures are known to behave in accordance with his theory, Baars helps to clarify many difficult problems.
Cognitive Sociolinguistics is a novel and burgeoning field of research which seeks to foster inve... more Cognitive Sociolinguistics is a novel and burgeoning field of research which seeks to foster investigation into the socio-cognitive dimensions of language at a usage-based level. Advances in Cognitive Sociolinguistics brings together ten studies into the social and conceptual aspects of language-internal variation. All ten contributions rely on a firm empirical basis in the form of advanced corpus-based techniques, experimental methods and survey-based research, or a combination of these. The search for methods that may adequately unravel the complex and multivariate dimensions intervening in the interplay between conceptual meaning and variationist factors is thus another characteristic of the volume. In terms of its descriptive scope, the volume covers three main areas: lexical and lexical-semantic variation, constructional variation, and research on lectal attitudes and acquisition. It thus illustrates how Cognitive Sociolinguistics studies both the variation of meaning, and the meaning of variation.
Table of contents :
Title
Contents
Introduction Adventures in technophilosophy
Part 1 Virtual Wor... more Table of contents : Title Contents Introduction Adventures in technophilosophy Part 1 Virtual Worlds Chapter 1 Is this the real life? Chapter 2 What is the simulation hypothesis? Part 2 Knowledge Chapter 3 Do we know things? Chapter 4 Can we prove there is an external world? Chapter 5 Is it likely that we’re in a simulation? Part 3 Reality Chapter 6 What is reality? Chapter 7 Is God a hacker in the next universe up? Chapter 8 Is the universe made of information? Chapter 9 Did simulation create its from bits? Part 4 Real Virtual Reality Chapter 10 Do virtual reality headsets create reality? Chapter 11 Are virtual reality devices illusion machines? Chapter 12 Does augmented reality lead to alternative facts? Chapter 13 Can we avoid being deceived by deepfakes? Part 5 Mind Chapter 14 How do mind and body interact in a virtual world? Chapter 15 Can there be consciousness in a digital world? Chapter 16 Does augmented reality extend the mind? Part 6 Value Chapter 17 Can you lead a good life in a virtual world? Chapter 18 Do simulated lives matter? Chapter 19 How should we build a virtual society? Part 7 Foundations Chapter 20 What do our words mean in virtual worlds? Chapter 21 Do dust clouds run computer programs? Chapter 22 Is reality a mathematical structure? Chapter 23 Have we fallen from the Garden of Eden? Chapter 24 Are we Boltzmann brains in a dream world? Acknowledgments Glossary Notes Index
All too often, we think of our minds and bodies separately. The reality couldn’t be more differen... more All too often, we think of our minds and bodies separately. The reality couldn’t be more different: the fundamental fact about our mind is that it is embodied. We have a deep visceral, emotional, and qualitative relationship to the world—and any scientifically and philosophically satisfactory view of the mind must take into account the ways that cognition, meaning, language, action, and values are grounded in and shaped by that embodiment.
This book gathers the best of philosopher Mark Johnson’s essays addressing questions of our embodiment as they deal with aesthetics—which, he argues, we need to rethink so that it takes into account the central role of body-based meaning. Viewed that way, the arts can give us profound insights into the processes of meaning making that underlie our conceptual systems and cultural practices. Johnson shows how our embodiment shapes our philosophy, science, morality, and art; what emerges is a view of humans as aesthetic, meaning-making creatures who draw on their deepest physical processes to make sense of the world around them.
I-Language introduces the uninitiated to linguistics as cognitive science. In an engaging, down-t... more I-Language introduces the uninitiated to linguistics as cognitive science. In an engaging, down-to-earth style Daniela Isac and Charles Reiss give a crystal-clear demonstration of the application of the scientific method in linguistic theory. Their presentation of the research programme inspired and led by Noam Chomsky shows how the focus of theory and research in linguistics shifted from treating language as a disembodied, human-external entity to cognitive biolinguistics - the study of language as a human cognitive system embedded within the mind/brain of each individual. The recurring theme of equivalence classes in linguistic computation ties together the presentation of material from phonology, morphology, syntax, and semantics. The same theme is used to help students understand the place of linguistics in the broader context of the cognitive sciences, by drawing on examples from vision, audition, and even animal cognition. This textbook is unique in its integration of empirical issues of linguistic analysis, engagement with philosophical questions that arise in the study of language, and treatment of the history of the field. Topics ranging from allophony to reduplication, ergativity, and negative polarity are invoked to show the implications of findings in cognitive biolinguistics for philosophical issues like reference, the mind-body problem, and nature-nurture debates. This textbook contains numerous exercises and guides for further reading as well as ideas for student projects. A companion website with guidance for instructors and answers to the exercises features a series of pdf slide presentations to accompany the teaching of each topic.
The Phenomenological Mind is the first book to properly introduce fundamental questions about the... more The Phenomenological Mind is the first book to properly introduce fundamental questions about the mind from the perspective of phenomenology. Interesting and important examples are used throughout, including phantom limb syndrome, blindsight and self-disorders in schizophrenia, making The Phenomenological Mind an ideal introduction to key concepts in phenomenology, cognitive science and philosophy of mind.
This is the first major textbook to offer a truly comprehensive review of cognitive science in it... more This is the first major textbook to offer a truly comprehensive review of cognitive science in its fullest sense. Ranging across artificial intelligence models and cognitive psychology through to recent discursive and cultural theories Rom Harré offers a breathtakingly original yet accessible integration of the field. At its core this textbook addresses the question "is psychology a science?" with a clear account of scientific method and explanation and their bearing on psychological research.
A pivotal figure in psychology and philosophy for many decades Rom Harré has turned his unmatched breadth of reference and insight for students at all levels. Whether describing, language, categorization, memory, the brain or connectionism the book always links our intuitions about beliefs, desires and their social context to the latest accounts of their place in computational and biological models. Fluently written and well structured, this an ideal text for students. The book is divided into four basic modules, with three lectures in each; the reader is guided with helpful learning points, study and essay questions and key readings for each chapter.
This volume illustrates how the methodology of metaphysics can be enriched with the help of cogni... more This volume illustrates how the methodology of metaphysics can be enriched with the help of cognitive science. Few philosophers nowadays would dispute the relevance of cognitive science to the metaphysics of mind, but this volume mainly concerns the relevance of metaphysics to phenomena that are not themselves mental. The volume is thus a departure from standard analytical metaphysics. Among the issues to which results from cognitive science are brought to bear are the metaphysics of time, of morality, of meaning, of modality, of objects, and of natural kinds, as well as whether God exists. A number of chapters address the enterprise of metaphysics in general. In traditional analytical metaphysics, intuitions play a prominent role in the construction of, and assessment of theories. Cognitive science can be brought to bear on the issue of the reliability of intuitions. Some chapters point out how results from cognitive science can be deployed to debunk certain intuitions, and some point out how results can be deployed to help vindicate certain intuitions.
Many metaphysicians have taken to heart the moral that physics should be taken into account in addressing certain metaphysical issues. The overarching point of the volume is that in many instances beyond the nature of the mind itself, cognitive science should also be consulted.
What enables individually simple insects like ants to act with such precision and purpose as a gr... more What enables individually simple insects like ants to act with such precision and purpose as a group? How do trillions of neurons produce something as extraordinarily complex as consciousness? In this remarkably clear and companionable book, leading complex systems scientist Melanie Mitchell provides an intimate tour of the sciences of complexity, a broad set of efforts that seek to explain how large-scale complex, organized, and adaptive behavior can emerge from simple interactions among myriad individuals. Based on her work at the Santa Fe Institute and drawing on its interdisciplinary strategies, Mitchell brings clarity to the workings of complexity across a broad range of biological, technological, and social phenomena, seeking out the general principles or laws that apply to all of them. Richly illustrated, Complexity: A Guided Tour--winner of the 2010 Phi Beta Kappa Book Award in Science--offers a wide-ranging overview of the ideas underlying complex systems science, the current research at the forefront of this field, and the prospects for its contribution to solving some of the most important scientific questions of our time.
This book introduces concepts in philosophy of mind and neurophilosophy. Inside, three scholars o... more This book introduces concepts in philosophy of mind and neurophilosophy. Inside, three scholars offer approaches to the problems of identity, consciousness, and the mind. In the process, they open new vistas for thought and raise fresh controversies to some of the oldest problems in philosophy.
The first chapter focuses on the identity problem. The author employs an explanatory model he christened sense-phenomenalism to defend the thesis that personal identity is something or a phenomenon that pertains to the observable/perceptible aspect of the human person.
The next chapter explores the problem of consciousness. It deploys the new concept equiphenomenalism as a model to show that mental properties are not by-products but necessary products of consciousness. Herein, the notion of qualia is a fundamental and necessary product that must be experienced simultaneously with neural activities for consciousness to be possible.
The last chapter addresses the mind/body problem. It adopts the new concept proto-phenomenalism as an alternative explanatory model. This model eliminates the idea of a mind. As such, it approaches the mind-body problem from a materialistic point of view with many implications such as, the meaning(lessness) of our existence, the possibility of thought engineering as well as religious implications.
This book brings together a selection of essays from the past two decades that build a powerful a... more This book brings together a selection of essays from the past two decades that build a powerful argument that any scientifically and philosophically satisfactory view of mind and thought must ultimately explain how bodily perception and action give rise to cognition, meaning, language, action, and values. A brief account of Johnson’s own intellectual journey, through which we track some of the most important discoveries in the field over the past forty years, sets the stage. Subsequent chapters set out Johnson’s important role in embodied cognition theory, including his cofounding (with George Lakoff) of conceptual metaphor theory and, later, their theory of bodily structures and processes that underlie all meaning, conceptualization, and reasoning. A detailed account of how meaning arises from our physical engagement with our environments provides the basis for a nondualistic, nonreductive view of mind that he sees as most congruous with the latest cognitive science. A concluding section explores the implications of our embodiment for our understanding of knowledge, reason, and truth. The resulting book will be essential for all philosophers dealing with mind, thought, and language.
This book sheds new light on several controversies that have been limited by the incorrect assump... more This book sheds new light on several controversies that have been limited by the incorrect assumption that reflective representational thought and its language is the only conscious mental state. These include the debate within linguistics about whether language is the expression of a hardwired instinct whose identifying feature is recursion; within psychoanalysis about the nature of conscious and unconscious mental processes, and within cognitive philosophy about whether language and thought are isomorphic. Consciousness, Language, and Self will be of great value to psychoanalysts, as well as students and scholars of linguistics, cognitive philosophy and cultural anthropology.
It is often thought that consciousness has a qualitative dimension that cannot be tracked by scie... more It is often thought that consciousness has a qualitative dimension that cannot be tracked by science. Recently, however, some philosophers have argued that this worry stems not from an elusive feature of the mind, but from the special nature of the concepts used to describe conscious states. Marc Champagne draws on the neglected branch of philosophy of signs or semiotics to develop a new take on this strategy.
The term “semiotics” was introduced by John Locke in the modern period – its etymology is ancient Greek, and its theoretical underpinnings are medieval. Charles Sanders Peirce made major advances in semiotics, so he can act as a pipeline for these forgotten ideas. Most philosophers know Peirce as the founder of American pragmatism, but few know that he also coined the term “qualia,” which is meant to capture the intrinsic feel of an experience. Since pragmatic verification and qualia are now seen as conflicting commitments, Champagne endeavors to understand how Peirce could (or thought he could) have it both ways. The key, he suggests, is to understand how humans can insert distinctions between features that are always bound. Recent attempts to take qualities seriously have resulted in versions of panpsychism, but Champagne outlines a more plausible way to achieve this. So, while semiotics has until now been the least known branch of philosophy ending in –ics, his book shows how a better understanding of that branch can move one of the liveliest debates in philosophy forward.
What is attention? How does attention shape consciousness? In an approach that engages with found... more What is attention? How does attention shape consciousness? In an approach that engages with foundational topics in the philosophy of mind, the theory of action, psychology, and the neurosciences this book provides a unified and comprehensive answer to both questions. Sebastian Watzl shows that attention is a central structural feature of the mind. The first half of the book provides an account of the nature of attention. Attention is prioritizing, it consists in regulating priority structures. Attention is not another element of the mind, but constituted by structures that organize, integrate, and coordinate the parts of our mind. Attention thus integrates the perceptual and intellectual, the cognitive and motivational, and the epistemic and practical. The second half of the book concerns the relationship between attention and consciousness. Watzl argues that attentional structure shapes consciousness into what is central and what is peripheral. The center-periphery structure of consciousness cannot be reduced to the structure of how the world appears to the subject. What it is like for us thus goes beyond the way the world appears to us. On this basis, a new view of consciousness is offered. In each conscious experience we actively take a stance on the world we appear to encounter. It is in this sense that our conscious experience is our subjective perspective.
First religion explained how the mind emerged, language developed, and overall consciousness came... more First religion explained how the mind emerged, language developed, and overall consciousness came into being. Many of these explanations were challenged during the "age of reason," grand metaphysical theories gradually displaced many of the religious perceptions of the world, only to be displaced by scientific advances at the start of the century. Now, Zoltan Torey, an Australian psychologist, freelance science writer, and science journalist for ABC Radio National in Australia, offers a new science-based theory of the human mind. Torey spent ten years using a process he calls reverse engineering, a process with a solid grounding in neuroscience, linguistics, and biological modelling to identify what we call the mind. He shows how it emerged, relates to language, generates consciousness, and yet remains hidden from insight. Sure to be controversial, The Crucible of Consciousness provides a unified description of the human mind, an antidote to the fragmented world and other simplistic belief-systems that occupy the cultural middleground.
What is consciousness? How does the subjective character of consciousness fit into an objective w... more What is consciousness? How does the subjective character of consciousness fit into an objective world? How can there be a science of consciousness? In this sequel to his groundbreaking and controversial The Conscious Mind, David Chalmers develops a unified framework that addresses these questions and many others. Starting with a statement of the "hard problem" of consciousness, Chalmers builds a positive framework for the science of consciousness and a nonreductive vision of the metaphysics of consciousness. He replies to many critics of The Conscious Mind, and then develops a positive theory in new directions. The book includes original accounts of how we think and know about consciousness, of the unity of consciousness, and of how consciousness relates to the external world. Along the way, Chalmers develops many provocative ideas: the "consciousness meter", the Garden of Eden as a model of perceptual experience, and The Matrix as a guide to the deepest philosophical problems about consciousness and the external world.
Table of contents :
Contents......Page 10
Introduction......Page 12
I. The Problems of Consciousness......Page 30
1. Facing Up to the Problem of Consciousness......Page 32
Afterword: From “Moving Forward on the Problem of Consciousness”......Page 57
II. The Science of Consciousness......Page 64
2. How Can We Construct a Science of Consciousness?......Page 66
Afterword: First-Person Data and First-Person Science......Page 81
3. What Is a Neural Correlate of Consciousness?......Page 88
4. On the Search for the Neural Correlate of Consciousness......Page 120
III. The Metaphysics of Consciousness......Page 130
5. Consciousness and Its Place in Nature......Page 132
6. The Two-Dimensional Argument against Materialism......Page 170
Afterword: Other Anti-Materialist Arguments......Page 221
7. Conceptual Analysis and Reductive Explanation (with Frank Jackson)......Page 236
IV. Concepts of Consciousness......Page 278
8. The Content of Phenomenal Concepts......Page 280
9. The Epistemology of Phenomenal Belief......Page 306
10. Phenomenal Concepts and the Explanatory Gap......Page 334
V. The Contents of Consciousness......Page 366
11. The Representational Character of Experience......Page 368
Afterword: Th e Two-Dimensional Contents of Perception......Page 401
12. Perception and the Fall from Eden......Page 410
13. The Matrix as Metaphysics......Page 484
Afterword: Philosophical Notes......Page 508
VI. The Unity of Consciousness......Page 524
14. What Is the Unity of Consciousness? (with Tim Bayne)......Page 526
Appendix: Two-Dimensional Semantics......Page 570
Bibliography......Page 598
The project of naturalizing human consciousness/experience has made great technical strides (e.g.... more The project of naturalizing human consciousness/experience has made great technical strides (e.g., in mapping areas of brain activity), but has been hampered in many cases by its uncritical reliance on a dualistic “Cartesian” paradigm (though as some of the authors in the collection point out, assumptions drawn from Plato and from Kant also play a role). The present volume proposes a version of naturalism in aesthetics drawn from American pragmatism (above all from Dewey, but also from James and Peirce)—one primed from the start to see human beings not only as embodied, but as inseparable from the environment they interact with—and provides a forum for authors from diverse disciplines to address specific scientific and philosophical issues within the anti-dualistic framework considering aesthetic experience as a process of embodied meaning-making. Cross-disciplinary contributions come from leading researchers including Mark Johnson, Jim Garrison, Daniel D. Hutto, John T. Haworth, Luca F. Ticini, Beatriz Calvo-Merino.
The volume covers pragmatist aesthetics, neuroaesthetics, enactive cognitive science, literary studies, psychology of aesthetics, art and design, sociology.
Aesthetic and moral value are often seen to go hand in hand. They do so not only practically, su... more Aesthetic and moral value are often seen to go hand in hand. They do so not only practically, such as in our everyday assessments of artworks that raise moral questions, but also theoretically, such as in Kant's theory that beauty is the symbol of morality. Some philosophers have argued that it is in the relation between aesthetic and moral value that the key to an adequate understanding of either notion lies. But difficult questions abound. Must a work of art be morally admirable in order to be aesthetically valuable? How, if at all, do our moral values shape our aesthetic judgements - and vice versa? Aesthetics and Morality is a stimulating and insightful inquiry into precisely this set of questions. Elisabeth Schellekens explores the main ideas and debates at the intersection of aesthetics and moral philosophy. She invites readers to reflect on the nature of beauty, art and morality, and provides the philosophical knowledge to render such reflection more rigorous. This original, inspiring and entertaining book sheds valuable new light on a notably complex and challenging area of thought.
A snapshot of ecocriticism in action, Coming into Contact collects sixteen previously unpublished... more A snapshot of ecocriticism in action, Coming into Contact collects sixteen previously unpublished essays that explore some of the most promising new directions in the study of literature and the environment. They look to previously unexamined or underexamined aspects of literature's relationship to the environment, including swamps, internment camps, Asian American environments, the urbanized Northeast, and lynching sites. The authors relate environmental discourse to practice, including the teaching of green design in composition classes, the restoration of damaged landscapes, the persuasive strategies of environmental activists, the practice of urban architecture, and the impact of human technologies on nature. The essays also put ecocriticism into greater contact with the natural sciences, including elements of evolutionary biology, biological taxonomy, and geology. Engaging both ecocritical theory and practice, these authors more closely align ecocriticism with the physical environment, with the wide range of texts and cultural practices that concern it, and with the growing scholarly conversation that surrounds this concern.
Using a semiotic model of poetic change, Recasting Persian Poetry presents a critical history of ... more Using a semiotic model of poetic change, Recasting Persian Poetry presents a critical history of the evolution of Persian poetry in modern Iran. Iran's contact with Europe in the nineteenth century produced largely imaginary ideas about European culture and literature. In a series of textual manoeuvres and cultural contestations, successive generations of Iranian intellectuals sought to recast the classical tradition in a mold at once modern and relevant to their concerns. In particular, Karimi proposes a revision of the view that sets the Modernist poet Nima Yushij as the single-handed inventor of 'New Poetry'. This view, he argues, has resulted in an exaggerated sense of the aesthetic gulf between the modernist poetry of Iran and classical Persian poetry. Through a number of close readings of works by Nima's predecessors, Karimi makes visible a century-old Persian poetic tradition with Nima as its culmination.
About the author :
Ahmad Karimi-Hakkak is Professor of Persian Language, Literature and Culture, and Chair of the Department of Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Maryland's School of Languages, Literatures and Cultures. He was previously Professor of Persian Language and Literature and Iranian Culture and Civilization at the University of Washington.
Conscious experience is one of the most difficult and thorny problems in psychological science. I... more Conscious experience is one of the most difficult and thorny problems in psychological science. Its study has been neglected for many years, either because it was thought to be too difficult, or because the relevant evidence was thought to be poor. Bernard Baars suggests a way to specify empirical constraints on a theory of consciousness by contrasting well-established conscious phenomena - such as stimulus representations known to be attended, perceptual, and informative - with closely comparable unconscious ones - such as stimulus representations known to be preperceptual, unattended, or habituated. Adducing data to show that consciousness is associated with a kind of global workplace in the nervous system, and that several brain structures are known to behave in accordance with his theory, Baars helps to clarify many difficult problems.
Cognitive Sociolinguistics is a novel and burgeoning field of research which seeks to foster inve... more Cognitive Sociolinguistics is a novel and burgeoning field of research which seeks to foster investigation into the socio-cognitive dimensions of language at a usage-based level. Advances in Cognitive Sociolinguistics brings together ten studies into the social and conceptual aspects of language-internal variation. All ten contributions rely on a firm empirical basis in the form of advanced corpus-based techniques, experimental methods and survey-based research, or a combination of these. The search for methods that may adequately unravel the complex and multivariate dimensions intervening in the interplay between conceptual meaning and variationist factors is thus another characteristic of the volume. In terms of its descriptive scope, the volume covers three main areas: lexical and lexical-semantic variation, constructional variation, and research on lectal attitudes and acquisition. It thus illustrates how Cognitive Sociolinguistics studies both the variation of meaning, and the meaning of variation.
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Books by Hamed Moosavie
Title
Contents
Introduction Adventures in technophilosophy
Part 1 Virtual Worlds
Chapter 1 Is this the real life?
Chapter 2 What is the simulation hypothesis?
Part 2 Knowledge
Chapter 3 Do we know things?
Chapter 4 Can we prove there is an external world?
Chapter 5 Is it likely that we’re in a simulation?
Part 3 Reality
Chapter 6 What is reality?
Chapter 7 Is God a hacker in the next universe up?
Chapter 8 Is the universe made of information?
Chapter 9 Did simulation create its from bits?
Part 4 Real Virtual Reality
Chapter 10 Do virtual reality headsets create reality?
Chapter 11 Are virtual reality devices illusion machines?
Chapter 12 Does augmented reality lead to alternative facts?
Chapter 13 Can we avoid being deceived by deepfakes?
Part 5 Mind
Chapter 14 How do mind and body interact in a virtual world?
Chapter 15 Can there be consciousness in a digital world?
Chapter 16 Does augmented reality extend the mind?
Part 6 Value
Chapter 17 Can you lead a good life in a virtual world?
Chapter 18 Do simulated lives matter?
Chapter 19 How should we build a virtual society?
Part 7 Foundations
Chapter 20 What do our words mean in virtual worlds?
Chapter 21 Do dust clouds run computer programs?
Chapter 22 Is reality a mathematical structure?
Chapter 23 Have we fallen from the Garden of Eden?
Chapter 24 Are we Boltzmann brains in a dream world?
Acknowledgments
Glossary
Notes
Index
This book gathers the best of philosopher Mark Johnson’s essays addressing questions of our embodiment as they deal with aesthetics—which, he argues, we need to rethink so that it takes into account the central role of body-based meaning. Viewed that way, the arts can give us profound insights into the processes of meaning making that underlie our conceptual systems and cultural practices. Johnson shows how our embodiment shapes our philosophy, science, morality, and art; what emerges is a view of humans as aesthetic, meaning-making creatures who draw on their deepest physical processes to make sense of the world around them.
A pivotal figure in psychology and philosophy for many decades Rom Harré has turned his unmatched breadth of reference and insight for students at all levels. Whether describing, language, categorization, memory, the brain or connectionism the book always links our intuitions about beliefs, desires and their social context to the latest accounts of their place in computational and biological models.
Fluently written and well structured, this an ideal text for students. The book is divided into four basic modules, with three lectures in each; the reader is guided with helpful learning points, study and essay questions and key readings for each chapter.
Many metaphysicians have taken to heart the moral that physics should be taken into account in addressing certain metaphysical issues. The overarching point of the volume is that in many instances beyond the nature of the mind itself, cognitive science should also be consulted.
The first chapter focuses on the identity problem. The author employs an explanatory model he christened sense-phenomenalism to defend the thesis that personal identity is something or a phenomenon that pertains to the observable/perceptible aspect of the human person.
The next chapter explores the problem of consciousness. It deploys the new concept equiphenomenalism as a model to show that mental properties are not by-products but necessary products of consciousness. Herein, the notion of qualia is a fundamental and necessary product that must be experienced simultaneously with neural activities for consciousness to be possible.
The last chapter addresses the mind/body problem. It adopts the new concept proto-phenomenalism as an alternative explanatory model. This model eliminates the idea of a mind. As such, it approaches the mind-body problem from a materialistic point of view with many implications such as, the meaning(lessness) of our existence, the possibility of thought engineering as well as religious implications.
Consciousness, Language, and Self will be of great value to psychoanalysts, as well as students and scholars of linguistics, cognitive philosophy and cultural anthropology.
The term “semiotics” was introduced by John Locke in the modern period – its etymology is ancient Greek, and its theoretical underpinnings are medieval. Charles Sanders Peirce made major advances in semiotics, so he can act as a pipeline for these forgotten ideas. Most philosophers know Peirce as the founder of American pragmatism, but few know that he also coined the term “qualia,” which is meant to capture the intrinsic feel of an experience. Since pragmatic verification and qualia are now seen as conflicting commitments, Champagne endeavors to understand how Peirce could (or thought he could) have it both ways. The key, he suggests, is to understand how humans can insert distinctions between features that are always bound.
Recent attempts to take qualities seriously have resulted in versions of panpsychism, but Champagne outlines a more plausible way to achieve this. So, while semiotics has until now been the least known branch of philosophy ending in –ics, his book shows how a better understanding of that branch can move one of the liveliest debates in philosophy forward.
Table of contents :
Contents......Page 10
Introduction......Page 12
I. The Problems of Consciousness......Page 30
1. Facing Up to the Problem of Consciousness......Page 32
Afterword: From “Moving Forward on the Problem of Consciousness”......Page 57
II. The Science of Consciousness......Page 64
2. How Can We Construct a Science of Consciousness?......Page 66
Afterword: First-Person Data and First-Person Science......Page 81
3. What Is a Neural Correlate of Consciousness?......Page 88
4. On the Search for the Neural Correlate of Consciousness......Page 120
III. The Metaphysics of Consciousness......Page 130
5. Consciousness and Its Place in Nature......Page 132
6. The Two-Dimensional Argument against Materialism......Page 170
Afterword: Other Anti-Materialist Arguments......Page 221
7. Conceptual Analysis and Reductive Explanation (with Frank Jackson)......Page 236
IV. Concepts of Consciousness......Page 278
8. The Content of Phenomenal Concepts......Page 280
9. The Epistemology of Phenomenal Belief......Page 306
10. Phenomenal Concepts and the Explanatory Gap......Page 334
V. The Contents of Consciousness......Page 366
11. The Representational Character of Experience......Page 368
Afterword: Th e Two-Dimensional Contents of Perception......Page 401
12. Perception and the Fall from Eden......Page 410
13. The Matrix as Metaphysics......Page 484
Afterword: Philosophical Notes......Page 508
VI. The Unity of Consciousness......Page 524
14. What Is the Unity of Consciousness? (with Tim Bayne)......Page 526
Appendix: Two-Dimensional Semantics......Page 570
Bibliography......Page 598
The volume covers pragmatist aesthetics, neuroaesthetics, enactive cognitive science, literary studies, psychology of aesthetics, art and design, sociology.
The essays also put ecocriticism into greater contact with the natural sciences, including elements of evolutionary biology, biological taxonomy, and geology. Engaging both ecocritical theory and practice, these authors more closely align ecocriticism with the physical environment, with the wide range of texts and cultural practices that concern it, and with the growing scholarly conversation that surrounds this concern.
About the author :
Ahmad Karimi-Hakkak is Professor of Persian Language, Literature and Culture, and Chair of the Department of Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Maryland's School of Languages, Literatures and Cultures. He was previously Professor of Persian Language and Literature and Iranian Culture and Civilization at the University of Washington.
Title
Contents
Introduction Adventures in technophilosophy
Part 1 Virtual Worlds
Chapter 1 Is this the real life?
Chapter 2 What is the simulation hypothesis?
Part 2 Knowledge
Chapter 3 Do we know things?
Chapter 4 Can we prove there is an external world?
Chapter 5 Is it likely that we’re in a simulation?
Part 3 Reality
Chapter 6 What is reality?
Chapter 7 Is God a hacker in the next universe up?
Chapter 8 Is the universe made of information?
Chapter 9 Did simulation create its from bits?
Part 4 Real Virtual Reality
Chapter 10 Do virtual reality headsets create reality?
Chapter 11 Are virtual reality devices illusion machines?
Chapter 12 Does augmented reality lead to alternative facts?
Chapter 13 Can we avoid being deceived by deepfakes?
Part 5 Mind
Chapter 14 How do mind and body interact in a virtual world?
Chapter 15 Can there be consciousness in a digital world?
Chapter 16 Does augmented reality extend the mind?
Part 6 Value
Chapter 17 Can you lead a good life in a virtual world?
Chapter 18 Do simulated lives matter?
Chapter 19 How should we build a virtual society?
Part 7 Foundations
Chapter 20 What do our words mean in virtual worlds?
Chapter 21 Do dust clouds run computer programs?
Chapter 22 Is reality a mathematical structure?
Chapter 23 Have we fallen from the Garden of Eden?
Chapter 24 Are we Boltzmann brains in a dream world?
Acknowledgments
Glossary
Notes
Index
This book gathers the best of philosopher Mark Johnson’s essays addressing questions of our embodiment as they deal with aesthetics—which, he argues, we need to rethink so that it takes into account the central role of body-based meaning. Viewed that way, the arts can give us profound insights into the processes of meaning making that underlie our conceptual systems and cultural practices. Johnson shows how our embodiment shapes our philosophy, science, morality, and art; what emerges is a view of humans as aesthetic, meaning-making creatures who draw on their deepest physical processes to make sense of the world around them.
A pivotal figure in psychology and philosophy for many decades Rom Harré has turned his unmatched breadth of reference and insight for students at all levels. Whether describing, language, categorization, memory, the brain or connectionism the book always links our intuitions about beliefs, desires and their social context to the latest accounts of their place in computational and biological models.
Fluently written and well structured, this an ideal text for students. The book is divided into four basic modules, with three lectures in each; the reader is guided with helpful learning points, study and essay questions and key readings for each chapter.
Many metaphysicians have taken to heart the moral that physics should be taken into account in addressing certain metaphysical issues. The overarching point of the volume is that in many instances beyond the nature of the mind itself, cognitive science should also be consulted.
The first chapter focuses on the identity problem. The author employs an explanatory model he christened sense-phenomenalism to defend the thesis that personal identity is something or a phenomenon that pertains to the observable/perceptible aspect of the human person.
The next chapter explores the problem of consciousness. It deploys the new concept equiphenomenalism as a model to show that mental properties are not by-products but necessary products of consciousness. Herein, the notion of qualia is a fundamental and necessary product that must be experienced simultaneously with neural activities for consciousness to be possible.
The last chapter addresses the mind/body problem. It adopts the new concept proto-phenomenalism as an alternative explanatory model. This model eliminates the idea of a mind. As such, it approaches the mind-body problem from a materialistic point of view with many implications such as, the meaning(lessness) of our existence, the possibility of thought engineering as well as religious implications.
Consciousness, Language, and Self will be of great value to psychoanalysts, as well as students and scholars of linguistics, cognitive philosophy and cultural anthropology.
The term “semiotics” was introduced by John Locke in the modern period – its etymology is ancient Greek, and its theoretical underpinnings are medieval. Charles Sanders Peirce made major advances in semiotics, so he can act as a pipeline for these forgotten ideas. Most philosophers know Peirce as the founder of American pragmatism, but few know that he also coined the term “qualia,” which is meant to capture the intrinsic feel of an experience. Since pragmatic verification and qualia are now seen as conflicting commitments, Champagne endeavors to understand how Peirce could (or thought he could) have it both ways. The key, he suggests, is to understand how humans can insert distinctions between features that are always bound.
Recent attempts to take qualities seriously have resulted in versions of panpsychism, but Champagne outlines a more plausible way to achieve this. So, while semiotics has until now been the least known branch of philosophy ending in –ics, his book shows how a better understanding of that branch can move one of the liveliest debates in philosophy forward.
Table of contents :
Contents......Page 10
Introduction......Page 12
I. The Problems of Consciousness......Page 30
1. Facing Up to the Problem of Consciousness......Page 32
Afterword: From “Moving Forward on the Problem of Consciousness”......Page 57
II. The Science of Consciousness......Page 64
2. How Can We Construct a Science of Consciousness?......Page 66
Afterword: First-Person Data and First-Person Science......Page 81
3. What Is a Neural Correlate of Consciousness?......Page 88
4. On the Search for the Neural Correlate of Consciousness......Page 120
III. The Metaphysics of Consciousness......Page 130
5. Consciousness and Its Place in Nature......Page 132
6. The Two-Dimensional Argument against Materialism......Page 170
Afterword: Other Anti-Materialist Arguments......Page 221
7. Conceptual Analysis and Reductive Explanation (with Frank Jackson)......Page 236
IV. Concepts of Consciousness......Page 278
8. The Content of Phenomenal Concepts......Page 280
9. The Epistemology of Phenomenal Belief......Page 306
10. Phenomenal Concepts and the Explanatory Gap......Page 334
V. The Contents of Consciousness......Page 366
11. The Representational Character of Experience......Page 368
Afterword: Th e Two-Dimensional Contents of Perception......Page 401
12. Perception and the Fall from Eden......Page 410
13. The Matrix as Metaphysics......Page 484
Afterword: Philosophical Notes......Page 508
VI. The Unity of Consciousness......Page 524
14. What Is the Unity of Consciousness? (with Tim Bayne)......Page 526
Appendix: Two-Dimensional Semantics......Page 570
Bibliography......Page 598
The volume covers pragmatist aesthetics, neuroaesthetics, enactive cognitive science, literary studies, psychology of aesthetics, art and design, sociology.
The essays also put ecocriticism into greater contact with the natural sciences, including elements of evolutionary biology, biological taxonomy, and geology. Engaging both ecocritical theory and practice, these authors more closely align ecocriticism with the physical environment, with the wide range of texts and cultural practices that concern it, and with the growing scholarly conversation that surrounds this concern.
About the author :
Ahmad Karimi-Hakkak is Professor of Persian Language, Literature and Culture, and Chair of the Department of Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Maryland's School of Languages, Literatures and Cultures. He was previously Professor of Persian Language and Literature and Iranian Culture and Civilization at the University of Washington.