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Added by: Clotilde Torregrossa, Contributed by: Juan R. Loaiza
Abstract: I give an analysis of how empirical terms do their work in communication and the gathering of knowledge that is fully externalist and that covers the full range of empirical terms. It rests on claims about ontology. A result is that armchair analysis fails as a tool for examining meanings of 'basic' empirical terms because their meanings are not determined by common methods or criteria of application passed from old to new users, by conventionally determined 'intensions'. Nor do methods of application used by individual speakers constitute definitive reference-determining intensions for their idiolect terms or associated concepts. Conventional intensions of non-basic empirical terms ultimately rest on basic empirical concepts, so no empirical meaning is found merely 'in the head'. I discuss the nature of lexical definition, why empirical meanings cannot ultimately be modelled as functions from possible worlds to extensions, and traps into which armchair analysis of meaning can lead us. A coda explains how 'Swampman' examples, as used against teleosemantic theories of content, illustrate such trapsMontague, Michelle. Recent work on intentionality2010, Analysis 70 (4):765 - 782.-
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Added by: Clotilde Torregrossa, Contributed by: Simon Fokt
Abstract: Much recent work on intentionality has been dedicated to exploring the complex relationship between the intentional properties and the phenomenological properties of mental states. A lot of this work has focused on perception, but with the introduction of cognitive phenomenology, conscious thought and the role cognitive-phenomenological properties may play with respect to conscious thought, are likely to receive an increasing amount of attention.Comment:
Montague, Michelle. The Life of the Mind2015, In Paul Coates and Sam Coleman (eds.), Phenomenal Qualities: Sense, Perception and Consciousness. Oxford University Press.-
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Added by: Clotilde Torregrossa, Contributed by: Simon Fokt
Abstract: What distinguishes a conscious occurrent thought from a non-conscious occurrent thought? I argue that the notion of 'access-consciousness' cannot provide a satisfactory answer and that we must appeal to phenomenological properties. If this is right, a further question arises about what kind of phenomenological features are required. Can we give a satisfactory account of what makes an occurrent thought a conscious thought solely by reference to sensory phenomenology - including both verbal and non-verbal imagery? I argue that we cannot, and that we must appeal to 'cognitive phenomenology' in order to be able to say what distinguishes conscious occurrent thought from non-conscious occurrent thought.
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Nagasawa, Yujin. God and Phenomenal Consciousness: A Novel Approach to Knowledge Arguments2008, Cambridge University Press.-
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Added by: Clotilde Torregrossa, Contributed by: Tyron Goldschmidt
Publisher's Note: In God and Phenomenal Consciousness, Yujin Nagasawa bridges debates in two distinct areas of philosophy: the philosophy of mind and the philosophy of religion. First, he introduces some of the most powerful arguments against the existence of God and provides objections to them. He then presents a parallel structure between these arguments and influential arguments offered by Thomas Nagel and Frank Jackson against the physicalist approach to phenomenal consciousness. By appealing to this structure, Nagasawa constructs novel objections to Jackson's and Nagel's arguments. Finally, he derives, from the failure of these arguments, a unique metaphysical thesis, which he calls 'non-theoretical physicalism'. Through this thesis, he shows that although this world is entirely physical, there are physical facts that cannot be captured even by complete theories of the physical sciences.Comment: Fitting for courses on Philosophy of Religion or Philosophy of Mind
Neander, Karen. Teleological Theories of Mental Content2012, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy-
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Added by: Jamie Collin
Abstract: Teleological theories of mental content try to explain the contents of mental representations by appealing to a teleological notion of function. Take, for example, the thought that blossoms are forming. On a representational theory of thought, this thought involves a representation of blossoms forming. A theory of content aims among other things to tell us why this representation has that content; it aims to say why it is a thought about blossoms forming rather than about the sun shining or pigs flying or nothing at all. In general, a theory of content tries to say why a mental representation counts as representing what it represents. According to teleological theories of content, what a representation represents depends on the functions of the systems that produce or use the representation. The relevant notion of function is said to be the one that is used in biology and neurobiology in attributing functions to components of organisms (as in "the function of the pineal gland is secreting melatonin" and "the function of brain area MT is processing information about motion"). Proponents of teleological theories of content generally understand such functions to be what the thing with the function was selected for, either by ordinary natural selection or by some other natural process of selection.Comment: This would be useful in a course in philosophy of mind, philosophy of language, philosophy of biology, or any course in which naturalistic accounts of mental content are relevant. The entry is detailed and quite lengthy. It also serves as an excellent source of further reading. Suitable for advanced undergraduates and graduates.
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o. Decolonising the Mind. The Politics of Language in African Literature1986, London: James Curry, Nairobi: Heineman Kenya, Portsmouth: Heinemann, Harare: Zimbabwe Publishing House-
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Added by: Sara Peppe and Björn FreterPublisher’s Note:
Decolonising the Mind is a collection of essays about language and its constructive role in national culture, history, and identity. The book, which advocates for linguistic decolonization, is one of Ngũgĩ’s best-known and most-cited non-fiction publications, helping to cement him as a pre-eminent voice theorizing the “language debate” in post-colonial studies. Ngũgĩ describes the book as “a summary of some of the issues in which I have been passionately involved for the last twenty years of my practice in fiction, theatre, criticism, and in teaching of literature…” Decolonising the Mind is split into four essays: “The Language of African Literature,” “The Language of African Theatre,” “The Language of African Fiction,” and “The Quest for Relevance.”Comment (from this Blueprint): The papers in this volume were foundational for the post-colonial debate on African language.
Nida-Rumelin, Martine. Grasping phenomenal properties2006, In Torin Alter & Sven Walter (eds.), Phenomenal Concepts and Phenomenal Knowledge: New Essays on Consciousness and Physicalism. Oxford University Press.-
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Added by: Clotilde Torregrossa, Contributed by: Nora Heinzelmann
Abstract: I will present an argument for property dualism. The argument employs a distinction between having a concept of a property and grasping a property via a concept. If you grasp a property P via a concept C, then C is a concept of P. But the reverse does not hold: you may have a concept of a property without grasping that property via any concept. If you grasp a property, then your cognitive relation to that property is more intimate then if you just have some concept or other of that property. To grasp a property is to understand what having that property essentially consists in.Comment:
Nida-Rumelin, Martine. Qualia: The Knowledge Argument2002, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.-
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Added by: Clotilde Torregrossa, Contributed by: Nora Heinzelmann
Abstract: The knowledge argument aims to establish that conscious experience involves non-physical properties. It rests on the idea that someone who has complete physical knowledge about another conscious being might yet lack knowledge about how it feels to have the experiences of that being. It is one of the most discussed arguments against physicalism.Comment:
Nida-Rumelin, Martine. What Mary couldn’t know: Belief about phenomenal states1995, In Thomas Metzinger (ed.), Conscious Experience. Ferdinand Schoningh. pp. 219--41.-
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Added by: Clotilde Torregrossa, Contributed by: Nora Heinzelmann
Introduction: Everyone familiar with the current mind-body debate has probably heard about Frank Jackson's neurophysiologist Mary. So I tell her story very briefly. Mary knows everything there is to know about the neurophysiological basis of human colour vision but she never saw colours herself (she always lived in a black-and-white environment). When Mary is finally released into the beauty of the coloured world, she acquires new knowledge about the world and - more specifically - about the character of the visual experiences of others. This appears clear at first sight. In the ongoing philosophical debate, however, there is no agreement about whether Mary really gains new knowledge and about whether this would, if it were so, represent a problem for physicalism. Those who defend the so-called argument from knowledge (or 'knowledge argument') think that it does.Comment:
Nida-Rümelin, Martine. Freedom and the Phenomenology of Agency2018, Erkenntnis 83 (1):61-87.-
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Added by: Clotilde Torregrossa, Contributed by: Nora Heinzelmann
Abstract: Free action and microphysical determination are incompatible but this is so only in virtue of a genuine conflict between microphysical determination with any active behavior. I introduce active behavior as the veridicality condition of agentive experiences and of perceptual experiences and argue that these veridicality conditions are fulfilled in many everyday cases of human and non-human behavior and that they imply the incompatibility of active behavior with microphysical determination. The main purpose of the paper is to show that the view proposed about active behavior leads to a natural compromise between libertarianism and compatibilism, which avoids the flaws of both positions while preserving their central insights.Comment:
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Millikan, Ruth Garrett. On Knowing the Meaning; With a Coda on Swampman
2010, Mind 119 (473):43-81.
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