Shelley Weinberg argues that the idea of consciousness as a form of non-evaluative self-awareness helps solve some of the thorniest issues in Locke's philosophy: in his philosophical psychology, and his theories of knowledge, personal identity, and moral agency. The model of consciousness set forth here binds these key issues with a common thread.

Locke’s account of personal identity has been highly influential because of its emphasis on a psychological criterion. The same consciousness is required for being the same person. It is not so clear, however, exactly what Locke meant by ‘consciousness’ or by ‘having the same consciousness’. Interpretations vary: consciousness is seen as identical to memory, as identical to a first personal appropriation of mental states, and as identical to a first personal distinctive experience of the qualitative features of one’s own thinking. (...) There is wide agreement, however, that Locke’s theory of personal identity is meant to complement his moral and theological commitments to a system of divine punishment and reward in an afterlife. But these commitments seem to require also a metaphysical criterion, and Locke is insistent that it cannot be substance. The difficulty reconciling the psychological and metaphysical requirements of the theory has led, at worst, to charges of incoherence and, at best, to a slew of interpretations, none of which is widely accepted. (shrink)

Locke’s theory of personal identity was philosophically groundbreaking for its attempt to establish a non-substantial identity condition. Locke states, “For the same consciousness being preserv’d, whether in the same or different Substances, the personal Identity is preserv’d” (II.xxvii.13). Many have interpreted Locke to think that consciousness identifies a self both synchronically and diachronically by attributing thoughts and actions to a self. Thus, many have attributed to Locke either a memory theory or an appropriation theory of personal identity. But the former (...) stumble on circularity and the latter is insufficient for Locke’s moral theory insofar as he is committed to a theory of divine rectification. The common problem is that Locke’s theory seems to demand an objective, or metaphysical, fact of a continuing consciousness that does not appeal to a traditional notion of substance for the continuity. I’m suggesting something new. In II.xxvii of the Essay, we see an ambiguity in Locke’s use of the term ‘consciousness’. Locke seems to see consciousness as both a mental state by means of which we are aware of ourselves as perceiving and as the ongoing self we are aware of in these conscious states. First, I make the textual argument why we should read Locke as having a conception of a metaphysical fact of a continuing consciousness that does not appeal to thinking or bodily substance to establish its continuity. I then argue that the metaphysical fact of an enduring consciousness is revealed to us as a phenomenological fact of experience. Due to the nature of certain kinds of perceptual situations we have an experience of ourselves as temporally extended. Although the text bears out that Locke seemed to think there is a fact of an ongoing consciousness, I argue that it is consistent with his reluctance elsewhere that he makes no further epistemological or ontological claims about it. Finally, I provide an account of Locke’s understanding of memory and its relation to consciousness that supports the claim that consciousness is something ontologically distinct from either thinking or bodily substance. (shrink)

Locke has been accused of failing to have a coherent understanding of consciousness, since it can be identical neither to reflection nor to ordinary perception without contradicting other important commitments. I argue that the account of consciousness is coherent once we see that, for Locke, perceptions of ideas are complex mental acts and that consciousness can be seen as a special kind of self-referential mental state internal to any perception of an idea.

"John Locke is considered as one of the most important philosophers of the modern era. The Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution were both highly influenced by Locke's philosophical ideas. Commonly known as the 'Father of Liberalism' Locke heavily influences contemporary libertarianism, with its emphasis on small government, the requirement of actual consent to that government, and a natural executive right to establish one's own sovereignty and enforce one'' own rights. The Lockean Mind provides a comprehensive survey of (...) his work, not only placing it in its historical context but also exploring its contemporary significance. Comprising almost sixty chapters by a superb team of international contributors, the volume is divided into twelve parts covering the full range of Locke's thought: Historical Background, Locke's Interlocutors, Locke's Epistemology, Locke's Philosophy of Mind, Locke on Philosophy of Language and Logic, Locke's Metaphysics, Locke's Natural Philosophy, Locke's Moral Philosophy, Locke on Education, Locke's Political Philosophy, Locke's Social Philosophy, Locke on Religion. This collection is essential reading for students and researchers working in political philosophy, philosophy of mind, libertarianism, British Empiricism, epistemology and political theory, as well as for those in related Humanities and Social Sciences disciplines with an interest in John Locke"--. (shrink)

in their famous correspondence, Stillingfleet objects that Locke's definition of knowledge, by limiting certainty to the perception of the agreement or disagreement of ideas, lessens the credibility of faith. Locke replies that his definition of knowledge does not affect the credibility of an article of faith at all, for faith and knowledge are entirely different cognitive acts: The truth of the matter of fact is in short this, that I have placed knowledge in the perception of the agreement or disagreement (...) of ideas. This definition of knowledge, your lordship said, "might be of dangerous consequence to that article of faith, which you have endeavored to defend." This I denied, and gave this reason for it, viz.... (shrink)

Given his representationalism how can Locke claim we have sensitive knowledge of the external world? We can see the skeptic as asking two different questions: how we can know the existence of external things, or more specifically how we can know inferentially of the existence of external things. Locke's account of sensitive knowledge, a form of non-inferential knowledge, answers the first question. All we can achieve by inference is highly probable judgment. Because Locke's theory of knowledge includes both first order (...) psychological and second order normative conditions, sensitive knowledge can be non-inferential and less certain than intuitive and demonstrative knowledge. (shrink)

Locke defines knowledge as the perception of the agreement or disagreement of ideas. Nevertheless, he claims that we know particular things: the identity of our ideas, our own existence, and the existence of external objects. Although much has been done to reconcile the definition of knowledge with our knowledge of external objects, there is virtually nothing in the scholarship when it comes to knowing ideas or our own existence. I fill in this gap by arguing that perceptions of ideas are (...) complex mental states that convey propositional knowledge due to agreeing elements therein. (shrink)

Locke seems to have conflicting commitments: we know individual ideas and all knowledge is propositional. This paper shows the conflict to be only apparent. Looking at Locke’s philosophy of language in relation to the Port Royal logic, I argue, first, that Locke allows that we have non-ideational mental content that is signified only at the linguistic level. Second, I argue that this non-ideational content plays a role in what we know when we know an idea. As a result, we can (...) see our knowledge of an idea as a form of knowledge by acquaintance: there is a direct epistemic relation between a mental object and a knowing subject. But owing to Locke’s logic, that knowledge has a tacit propositional structure expressing the truth of the idea, which gains full signification only linguistically. (shrink)

In the brief space I have, I can provide only a quick taste of what the reader is in for with Han-Kyul Kim's Locke's Ideas of Mind and Body. Kim argues that his account of Locke's metaphysics of substance in terms of ideas of mind and body makes sense of the relation between four crucial and often overlooked topics in Locke's philosophy: " Locke's mind-body nominalism, his epistemic humility, his functionalist account of substrata, and his naturalist approach to the human (...) mind". Kim opens in chapter 1 with a survey of various ontological doctrines that have been associated with Locke and provides arguments that none are... (shrink)

In Prometheus Unbound, the empire of Jupiter is a mythic figuration of monotheism and its corresponding hegemonies, broadly conceived in both instances as the domain of supreme oppressive governance. The ties of governance are reified by paternalism—hence the use of Jupiter (Gk. Zeu + pater) as the master embodiment of the Father, combining the role of God-the-Father in Judeo-Christianity, of the Trinity, of pope or monarch, and that of paterfamilias, such that, in Shelley's unifying vision, one becomes indistinguishable from (...) the other: all emanations of the Law of the Father, the symbolic order of “rationality” which represses primordial desire, associated with Prometheus and Asia. The overthrow of Jupiter in Prometheus Unbound is an implicit rejection of European rationalist hegemony, embodied in the conception of a manic, autocratic sky God, uniting sacred and secular aspects, and a reinstatement of an extra, or at least more profound and enduring identity that is consistent with re-ascendant primeval forces, paradoxically embodied in the shadowy figure of Demogorgon, but repressed as long as Jupiter reigns. (shrink)

© Mind Association 2017Locke was not the first English philosopher to use the term ‘consciousness’ in a recognizably modern sense; that distinction seems to belong to Ralph Cudworth. But he was perhaps the first to accord consciousness a major place in his philosophy: as Shelley Weinberg reminds us in her new book, the concept of consciousness is central to his polemics against Descartes’ philosophy of mind. Here Locke seeks to turn Descartes’ own weapons against him: he deploys the (...) mental transparency thesis in an attempt to undermine some of the most celebrated Cartesian doctrines. According to Weinberg, understanding Locke’s conception of consciousness not only helps us to make sense of his replies to Descartes; it also helps us to solve major problems of interpretation surrounding his theories of personal identity, moral agency, and the nature of knowledge.Weinberg puts her cards on the table early on by... (shrink)

Shelley Weinberg’s Consciousness in Locke builds on her previous journal articles and makes significant contributions to John Locke scholarship by offering the first systematic study of consciousness throughout Locke’s Essay. According to Weinberg, consciousness for Locke is self-referential, non-evaluative awareness internal to every thought or perception. She argues that once we realize the complexity of any perception—namely that every perception involves, “at the very least, an act of perception, an idea perceived, and consciousness ” —we can see (...) that Locke’s conception of consciousness connects important themes in his philosophical psychology, namely his theory of... (shrink)

Serena Olsaretti brings together new essays by leading moral and political philosophers on the nature of desert and justice, their relations with each other and with other values.

In this paper we propose to argue for two claims. The first is that a sizeable group of epistemological projects – a group which includes much of what has been done in epistemology in the analytic tradition – would be seriously undermined if one or more of a cluster of empirical hypotheses about epistemic intuitions turns out to be true. The basis for this claim will be set out in Section 2. The second claim is that, while the jury is (...) still out, there is now a substantial body of evidence suggesting that some of those empirical hypotheses are true. Much of this evidence derives from an ongoing series of experimental studies of epistemic intuitions that we have been conducting. A preliminary report on these studies will be presented in Section 3. In light of these studies, we think it is incumbent on those who pursue the epistemological projects in question to either explain why the truth of the hypotheses does not undermine their projects, or to say why, in light of the evidence we will present, they nonetheless assume that the hypotheses are false. In Section 4, which is devoted to Objections and Replies, we’ll consider some of the ways in which defenders of the projects we are criticizing might reply to our challenge. Our goal, in all of this, is not to offer a conclusive argument demonstrating that the epistemological projects we will be criticizing are untenable. Rather, our aim is to shift the burden of argument. (shrink)

This paper investigates connections between procreative ethics and the ethics of suicide and euthanasia. While there are good reasons for distinguishing between lives worth starting and lives worth continuing, I argue that those reasons provide no reason for denying that there is a relationship between procreative and end of life ethics. Regarding euthanasia/assisted suicide, we might think it too demanding to ask parents to help euthanize their terminally ill, suffering child, but had the parents not procreated, thereby exposing their child (...) to life's risks, their child wouldn't need euthanizing. If you need help killing yourself, shouldn't your parents, who got you into life in the first place – without your consent – help you out of it? Yet knowing that your parents would help you kill yourself may increase your desire to die. A conundrum. Regarding suicide, the fact that we are forced into life should bolster the right to suicide, even for reasons that others might find wanting. The ways in which we are brought into life have moral implications for the ways in which we are entitled to get out of it. (shrink)

According to the perspective developed in this article, widely shared, hegemonic cultural beliefs about gender and their impact in what the authors call “social relational” contexts are among the core components that maintain and change the gender system. When gender is salient in these ubiquitous contexts, cultural beliefs about gender function as part of the rules of the game, biasing the behaviors, performances, and evaluations of otherwise similar men and women in systematic ways that the authors specify. While the biasing (...) impact of gender beliefs may be small in any one instance, the consequences cumulate over individuals’ lives and result in substantially different outcomes for men and women. After describing this perspective, the authors show how it sheds newlight on some defining features of the gender system and illustrate its implications for research into specific questions about gender inequality. (shrink)

Intimacies and domestic lives -- Reproduction.

In two studies, we used the Ethics Position Questionnaire (EPQ) to investigate the relationship between individual differences in moral philosophy, involvement in the animal rights movement, and attitudes toward the treatment of animals. In the first, 600 animal rights activists attending a national demonstration and 266 nonactivist college students were given the EPQ. Analysis of the returns from 157 activists and 198 students indicated that the activists were more likely than the students to hold an "absolutist" moral orientation (high idealism, (...) low relativism). In the second study, 169 students were given the EPQ with a scale designed to measure attitudes toward the treatment of animals. Multiple regression showed that gender and the EPQ dimension of idealism were related to attitudes toward animal use. (shrink)

Although radical forms of relativism are perhaps beyond the epistemological pale, I argue here that a more moderate form may be plausible, and articulate the conditions under which moderate epistemic relativism could well serve our epistemic goals. In particular, as a result of our limitations as human cognizers, we find ourselves needing to investigate the dappled and difficult world by means of competing communities of highly specialized researchers. We would do well, I argue, to admit of the existence of unresolvable (...) disputes between such communities, but only so long as there is a sufficient amount of fruitful exchange between them as well. I close with some speculation about when it is or is not legitimate to make an “appeal to discipline”: responding to another’s argument by saying something like, “we should do it this way, because we are philosophers (/linguists/psychologists/…), and that’s just what we do”. (shrink)

This is the first of the four essays in Part II of the book on liberalism and traditionalist education; all four are by authors who would like to find ways for the liberal state to honour the self-definitions of traditional cultures and to find ways of avoiding a confrontation with differences. For example, Shelley Burtt argues that the liberal state has good reason to be far more accommodating of traditional groups than liberals commonly recognize. She contends that liberal autonomy, (...) properly understood, is not threatened in any special way by traditional religious or cultural groups, and that traditional cultures are as capable of fostering autonomy as their more cosmopolitan counterparts. Most strikingly, she maintains that it is a good thing, from the perspective of liberal autonomy, to be encumbered by unchosen attachments and loyalties such as those that we might expect to be most fully developed within religious communities. The essay is in two main parts: Part One takes up the challenge of the notion that liberal theorists have missed the chance to describe in detail the possibilities for autonomous thought from within a comprehensive education to a particular way of life or understanding of the good, offering several reasons why the central demand of autonomy – to think and know for oneself – is well within the reach of individuals who receive this sort of ‘grounded’ education; Part Two looks more closely at liberal theories of autonomy, particularly aspects of those accounts that encourage the idea that comprehensive educations are at odds with the development of autonomy, arguing that such characterizations overstate the difficulties that exist, and concluding by reaffirming the possibility of combining an education for autonomy with education toward a comprehensive vision of the good life. (shrink)

This research proposes and tests a new theoretical mechanism to account for a portion of the motherhood penalty in wages and related labor market outcomes. At least a portion of this penalty is attributable to discrimination based on the assumption that mothers are less competent and committed than other types of workers. But what happens when mothers definitively prove their competence and commitment? In this study, we examine whether mothers face discrimination in labor-market-type evaluations even when they provide indisputable evidence (...) that they are competent and committed to paid work. We test the hypothesis that evaluators discriminate against highly successful mothers by viewing them as less warm, less likable, and more interpersonally hostile than otherwise similar workers who are not mothers. The results support this “normative discrimination” hypothesis for female but not male evaluators. The findings have important implications for understanding the nature and persistence of discrimination toward mothers. (shrink)

How does civic disengagement develop? This article examines the theory that the dissatisfaction and disengagement citizens develop toward one government agency can extend to an alternative agency. Leveraging police precinct-level data on 311 calls and criminal complaints from 2004 to 2012 in New York City, it investigates whether government responsiveness to municipal issues predicts citizens’ willingness to submit criminal complaints to the police. The study finds that predictors of disengagement with law enforcement extend beyond negative interactions with law enforcement alone. (...) Rather, the time it takes local government officials to fix a 311 request for services, such as filling potholes and abating noise, shapes the likelihood that residents will file misdemeanor criminal complaints. Thus policymakers must account for the policy environment beyond their agency’s domain to alleviate citizens’ dissatisfaction and disengagement with government overall. (shrink)

This article engages critically with issues surrounding the theorization of the self and body relation, where the body is interpreted as material increasingly open to human intervention and choice. It is argued that this theorization rests upon a mind/body split that limits an understanding of embodied identity. The significance for feminism of undermining representational practices that rely upon this dualism are outlined and criticized for reproducing the logic of representation they set out to destabilize. An alternative strategy is examined and (...) the argument is made that to understand embodied identity the question must not be what do bodies mean but what can they do. Here feminist approaches that rely upon a radically different ontological position in order to move beyond the mind/body split are utilized. These theoretical debates are made meaningful through the lens of self narratives produced by young women–a context which demands the development of strategies for theorizing lived bodies. (shrink)

The increased visibility of feminism in mainstream culture has recently been noted, with the presence of both online and offline campaigns embedding feminist claims in a variety of everyday spaces. By granting recognition to women’s experiences, these campaigns continue the feminist practice of generating critical knowledge on the basis of gendered experience. In the post-truth era, however, the norms governing claims-making are being significantly reconstructed, with significant consequences for critiques of gender inequality. It is argued here that these norms are (...) linked directly to a wider context of anti-feminism in which dismissing women’s claims is consistent with the goal that opponents of gender equality have of seeking and consolidating epistemic power in the face of what is perceived as systemic male disadvantage and victimhood. Returning to earlier debates within feminism, it is argued that the kinds of post-truth rhetoric used to dismiss women’s experience provide a challenge that feminism must confront. This rhetoric is often grounded in the authenticity of individual experience; however, experience cannot provide unmediated access to truth and, therefore, cannot provide the foundation for feminist claims. On the other hand, experience cannot merely offer one of many contested versions of ‘reality’. The excesses of both foundationalist and anti-foundationalist epistemology are countered with the argument that cognition is a human practice mediated by theoretical propositions which illuminate the question of what can be known. This is the role played by feminist theory in defending the role of experience. (shrink)

The accumulation and advancement of gender scholarship over past decades has led us to the point where gender scholars today can leverage our deep understanding of the reproduction of gender inequality to develop and test models of change. In this lecture, I present one such model designed to reduce the negative effects of stereotypic biases on women’s workplace outcomes. After synthesizing the literature on stereotyping and bias and showing the limits of past change efforts, I develop a “small wins” model (...) of change. Key to this model is that researchers work with teams of managers to produce concrete, implementable actions that produce visible results. I argue that small wins motivate further action and are the building blocks to larger organizational transformation. Preliminary results from several case studies show that this approach can produce important changes in the short run, such as reducing gender biases in workplace evaluations, and that these small wins can inspire longer run change, such as increases in the rate of hiring women. (shrink)

In its simplest form, hedonism about aesthetic value, the standard account of aesthetic normativity, holds that an object’s aesthetic value is the value it possesses in virtue of its capacity to provide aesthetic pleasure. I argue that hedonism cannot be true because it cannot reconcile itself with our concern to make true aesthetic judgments. Then I argue for an alternative account of aesthetic normativity that is not only consistent with that concern but the very expression of it. The argument for (...) the alternative account largely consists of arguments against two theses associated with Kant: subjectivism, which holds that the ascription of aesthetic value to an object depends on the sentiments of the subject making the ascription and not on the subject’s recognition of a property residing in the object, and disinterestedness, which holds that the ascription of beauty to an object neither depends on nor results in the subject’s having a motive to act in regard to the object. -/- . (shrink)

Women’s right to exercise choice has been one of feminism’s central political claims. Where second wave feminism focused on the constraints women faced in making free choices, choice feminism more recently reorients feminist politics with a call for recognition of the choices women are actually making. From this perspective the role of feminism is to validate women’s choices without passing judgement. This article analyses this shift in orientation by locating women’s choices within a late modern gender order in which the (...) ideal of choice has increasingly been associated with a new form of femininity characterized as self-determining, individuated and ‘empowered’. Instead of offering an effective analysis of the changing social conditions within which the relationship between feminism, femininity and individual choice has become increasingly complicated, choice feminism directs criticism at feminist perspectives characterized as overly prescriptive. This critique fails to appreciate how feminist ideals have been recuperated in the service of late capitalism and neoliberal forms of governance. By failing to engage critically with processes currently impacting on the social organization of gender choice feminism aids in the constitution of an individuated neoliberal feminist subject which performs cultural work vital to the reproduction of neoliberal governmentality. (shrink)

It has been standard philosophical practice in analytic philosophy to employ intuitions generated in response to thought-experiments as evidence in the evaluation of philosophical claims. In part as a response to this practice, an exciting new movement—experimental philosophy—has recently emerged. This movement is unified behind both a common methodology and a common aim: the application of methods of experimental psychology to the study of the nature of intuitions. In this paper, we will introduce two different views concerning the relationship that (...) holds between experimental philosophy and the future of standard philosophical practice (what we call, the proper foundation view and the restrictionist view), discuss some of the more interesting and important results obtained by proponents of both views, and examine the pressure these results put on analytic philosophers to reform standard philosophical practice. We will also defend experimental philosophy from some recent objections, suggest future directions for work in experimental philosophy, and suggest what future lines of epistemological response might be available to those wishing to defend analytic epistemology from the challenges posed by experimental philosophy. (shrink)

One hundred sixty subjects acted as members of a hypothetical Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee and evaluated five proposals in which animals were to be used for research or educational purposes. They were asked to approve or reject the proposals and to indicate what factors were important in reaching their ethical decisions. Gender and differences in personal moral philosophy were related to approval decisions. The reasons given for the decisions fell into three main categories: metacognitive statements, factors related to (...) the animal, and factors related to the design of the experiment. (shrink)

Moonlighting – the performance of more than one function by a single protein – is becoming recognized as a common phenomenon with important implications for systems biology and human health. The different functions of a moonlighting protein may use different regions of the protein structure, or alternative structures that occur due to post-translational modifications and/or differences in binding partners. Often the different functions of moonlighting proteins are used at different times or in different places. The existence of moonlighting functions complicates (...) efforts to under- stand metabolic and regulatory networks, as well as physiological and pathological processes in organisms. Because moonlighting functions can play important roles in disease processes, an improved understanding of moonlighting proteins will provide new opportunities for pharmacological manipulations that specifically target a function involved in pathology while sparing physiologically important functions. (shrink)

This book offers a detailed study of political argument in early eighteenth-century England, a time in which the politics of virtue were vigorously pursued - and just as vigorously challenged. In tracing the emergence of a privately orientated conception of civic virtue from the period’s public discourse, this book not only challenges the received notions of the fortunes of virtue in the early modern era but provides a promising critical perspective on the question of what sort of politics of virtue (...) is possible or desirable today. (shrink)

The systems of belief by the ancient Hebrews of the Old Testament and the current Kenyan tribe of Torobo demonstrate both ancient and modern tribal world view in which the religious is interconnected to all aspects of personal existence within each individual. The most important word in the vocabulary of biblical Hebrew and Torobo anthropology is ‘heart’. Lēḇ (Hebrew ‘heart’) and oltau (Torobo ‘heart’) are divinely ordained conceptual catalysts representing the composite nature of humanity. This paper will explore the concept (...) of heart as the principal, unifying object of attention employed throughout biblical Hebrew and Torobo world view that integrates psychical elements of Self as a cohesive medium for supernatural interaction and moral deportment. (shrink)

The article seeks to examine identities young women are producing within late modern social conditions with the aim of exploring these identities in relation to the increasingly fragmented project of second wave feminism. In order to evaluate whether feminism has maintained intergenerational currency, the article, based upon interviews with 33 young women aged 16–20, discusses ways in which young women are engaging with choices available to them. The active negotiation of identity requires an examination of the discourses available to the (...) subjects and in this study it is apparent that, while these young women were alienated from second wave feminism, their identities were indeed informed by intrinsically feminist ideals. This contradiction begs the question of what place young women occupy within the increasingly diverse category of ‘feminisms’? The tension between second wave feminism and postfeminism and their problematic relationship is analysed as a problem deriving from difference. Analysis of interview material is used to argue that the identities under construction allow the young women to engage in a resistant fashion with the choices they have available at the micro-level of everyday life. (shrink)

Our interest in this paper is to drive a wedge of contention between two different programs that fall under the umbrella of “experimental philosophy”. In particular, we argue that experimental philosophy’s “negative program” presents almost as significant a challenge to its “positive program” as it does to more traditional analytic philosophy.

Aēr in Homer has rarely been discussed; the few studies that do exist focus on the word's semantics and scope of reference. This article proposes that we focus instead on how aēr works and what aēr does, both to characters within the Iliad and the Odyssey and, especially, for the poet responsible for composing them. First, I argue that aēr offers the poet a stratagem for navigating complex narrative demands and that it is best understood primarily in terms of the (...) phenomenological effects it produces on Homeric characters. Next, I consider the implications of this argument for discussions of Homeric things and objects, particularly those influenced by New Materialism. Finally, I explore the consequences of this argument for our understanding of the Presocratic thinker most associated with aēr, Anaximenes. (shrink)