Churchland explores the unfolding impact of the several empirical sciences of the mind, especially cognitive neurobiology and computational neuroscience on a variety of traditional issues central to the discipline of philosophy. Representing Churchland's most recent research, they continue his research program, launched over thirty years ago which has evolved into the field of neurophilosophy. Topics such as the nature of Consciousness, the nature of cognition and intelligence, the nature of moral knowledge and moral reasoning, neurosemantics or world-representation in the brain, (...) the nature of our subjective sensory qualia and their relation to objective science, and the future of philosophy itself are here addressed in a lively, graphical, and accessible manner. Throughout the volume, Churchland's view that science is as important as philosophy is emphasised. Several of the color figures in the volume will allow the reader to perform some novel phenomenological experiments on his/her own visual system. (shrink)

This is a collection of Paul Churchland's recent essays which have in common an overarching research programme aimed at identifying the scope and the importance of the contributions that neuroscience has made and will make to philosophy of mind, moral philosophy, epistemology and metaphysics. The general structure of many of the essays included in the collection is as follows: there is a long-standing problem in the philosophical literature which has escaped not only a convincing solution but also a straightforward analysis (...) of what the solution should look like, and how it could be achieved. Then the neurosciences start addressing a relevantly connected problem, or progress in such a way as to make a difference to our understanding of the original problem, and now a solution is in sight or, at least, we know roughly what the solution should look like.The way in which Churchland presents and defends his research programme in the essays included in the collection is praiseworthy for at least two reasons. First, Churchland's attempt to argue for the relevance of cognitive neurobiology for long-standing philosophical problems is seemingly effortless, which is a very rare …. (shrink)

How, if at all, does the internal structure of human phenomenological color space map onto the internal structure of objective reflectance‐profile space, in such a fashion as to provide a useful and accurate representation of that objective feature space? A prominent argument (due to Hardin, among others) proposes to eliminate colors as real, objective properties of objects, on grounds that nothing in the external world (and especially not surface‐reflectance‐profiles) answers to the well‐known and quite determinate internal structure of human phenomenological (...) color space. The present paper proposes a novel way to construe the objective space of possible reflectance profiles so that (1) its internal structure becomes evident, and (2) that structure’s homomorphism with the internal structure of human phenomenological color space becomes obvious. The path is thus reopened to salvage the objective reality of colors, in the same way that we preserved the objective reality of such features as temperature, pitch, and sourness—by identifying them with some objective feature recognized in modern physical theory. (shrink)

Philosophers have long been familiar with the contrast between predicates privado privado son las únicas características cualitativas realmente simples. Con base en que, después de todo, sus referentes externos admiten un análisis estructural, relacional, causal o funcional de algún tipo. En este artículo quiero adoptar un enfoque más general y más filosófico que los argumentos antireduccionistas evidenciando los problemas que generan con la filosofía de la ciencia; la neurociencia emergente y con la historia de la ciencia en general. Sus argumentos (...) carecen incluso de solidez con respecto a los estándares de la filosofía puramente analítica únicas características cualitativas realmente simples. Con base en que, después de todo, sus referentes externos admiten un análisis estructural, relacional, causal o funcional de algún tipo. En este artículo quiero adoptar un enfoque más general y más filosófico que los argumentos antireduccionistas evidenciando los problemas que generan con la filosofía de la ciencia; la neurociencia emergente y con la historia de la ciencia en general. Sus argumentos carecen incluso or concepts that denote “qualitative simples,” as opposed to predicates or concepts that denote or express “structural, relational, causal, or functional” features. The tendency has been to think of these two classes of properties as being ontologically quite different from each other. Some would insist that the features displayed in this private cognitive domain are the only genuinely simple qualitative features, on grounds that their external brethren all turn out to admit of a structural, relational, causal, or functional analysis of some kind after all. In this paper I wish to take a more general and more philosophical approach to the anti-reductionist arguments which run into trouble with the philosophy of science, with emerging neuroscience, and with the history of science generally. They lack integrity even by the standards of purely analytic philosophy. / Los filósofos conocen bien el contraste entre predicados o conceptos que denotan características “cualitativas simples”, a diferencia de predicados o conceptos que señalan características “estructurales, relacionales, causales o funcionales”. La tendencia ha sido pensar estas dos clases de propiedades como ontológicamente diferentes entre sí. Algunos insistirían en que las características que se muestran en este dominio cognitivo de solidez con respecto a los estándares de la filosofía puramente analítica. (shrink)

Alvin Plantinga argues that our cognitive mechanisms have been selected for their ability to sustain reproductively successful behaviors, not for their ability to track truth. This aspect of our cognitive mechanisms is said to pose a problem for the biological theory of evolution by natural selection in the following way. If our cognitive mechanisms do not provide any assurances that the theories generated by them are true, then the fact that evolutionary theory has been generated by them, and even accepted (...) by them, provides no assurance whatever that evolutionary theory is true. Plantinga’s argument, I argue, innocently assumes that the (problematic) “truth-tracking character” of our native cognitive mechanisms is the only possible or available source of rational warrant or justification for evolutionary theory. But it isn’t. Plantinga is ignoring the artificial mechanisms for theorycreation and theory-evaluation embodied in the complex institutions andprocedures of modern science. (shrink)

Philosophers have long been familiar with the contrast between predicates privado privado son las únicas características cualitativas realmente simples. Con base en que, después de todo, sus referentes externos admiten un análisis estructural, relacional, causal o funcional de algún tipo. En este artículo quiero adoptar un enfoque más general y más filosófico que los argumentos antireduccionistas evidenciando los problemas que generan con la filosofía de la ciencia; la neurociencia emergente y con la historia de la ciencia en general. Sus argumentos (...) carecen incluso de solidez con respecto a los estándares de la filosofía puramente analítica únicas características cualitativas realmente simples. Con base en que, después de todo, sus referentes externos admiten un análisis estructural, relacional, causal o funcional de algún tipo. En este artículo quiero adoptar un enfoque más general y más filosófico que los argumentos antireduccionistas evidenciando los problemas que generan con la filosofía de la ciencia; la neurociencia emergente y con la historia de la ciencia en general. Sus argumentos carecen incluso or concepts that denote “qualitative simples,” as opposed to predicates or concepts that denote or express “structural, relational, causal, or functional” features. The tendency has been to think of these two classes of properties as being ontologically quite different from each other. Some would insist that the features displayed in this private cognitive domain are the only genuinely simple qualitative features, on grounds that their external brethren all turn out to admit of a structural, relational, causal, or functional analysis of some kind after all. In this paper I wish to take a more general and more philosophical approach to the anti-reductionist arguments which run into trouble with the philosophy of science, with emerging neuroscience, and with the history of science generally. They lack integrity even by the standards of purely analytic philosophy. / Los filósofos conocen bien el contraste entre predicados o conceptos que denotan características “cualitativas simples”, a diferencia de predicados o conceptos que señalan características “estructurales, relacionales, causales o funcionales”. La tendencia ha sido pensar estas dos clases de propiedades como ontológicamente diferentes entre sí. Algunos insistirían en que las características que se muestran en este dominio cognitivo de solidez con respecto a los estándares de la filosofía puramente analítica. (shrink)

Professor Hooker’s mind is not unlike a telescope: it sees farther than the rest of us. Never mind the chromatic aberration that attends his higher magnifications; the present volume is a book of vision, and it will profit any reader to see the philosophical universe through Hooker’s well-turned lens.