This sequel to the widely read Zen and the Brain continues James Austin's explorations into the key interrelationships between Zen Buddhism and brain research. In Zen-Brain Reflections, Austin, a clinical neurologist, researcher, and Zen practitioner, examines the evolving psychological processes and brain changes associated with the path of long-range meditative training. Austin draws not only on the latest neuroscience research and new neuroimaging studies but also on Zen literature and his personal experience with alternate states of (...) consciousness.Zen-Brain Reflections takes up where the earlier book left off. It addresses such questions as: how do placebos and acupuncture change the brain? Can neuroimaging studies localize the sites where our notions of self arise? How can the latest brain imaging methods monitor meditators more effectively? How do long years of meditative training plus brief enlightened states produce pivotal transformations in the physiology of the brain? In many chapters testable hypotheses suggest ways to correlate normal brain functions and meditative training with the phenomena of extraordinary states of consciousness.After briefly introducing the topic of Zen and describing recent research into meditation, Austin reviews the latest studies on the amygdala, frontotemporal interactions, and paralimbic extensions of the limbic system. He then explores different states of consciousness, both the early superficial absorptions and the later, major "peak experiences." This discussion begins with the states called kensho and satori and includes a fresh analysis of their several different expressions of "oneness." He points beyond the still more advanced states toward that rare ongoing stage of enlightenment that is manifest as "sage wisdom."Finally, with reference to a delayed "moonlight" phase of kensho, Austin envisions novel links between migraines and metaphors, moonlight and mysticism. The Zen perspective on the self and consciousness is an ancient one. Readers will discover how relevant Zen is to the neurosciences, and how each field can illuminate the other. (shrink)

This sequel to the widely read Zen and the Brain continues James Austin's explorations into the key interrelationships between Zen Buddhism and brain research. In Zen-Brain Reflections, Austin, a clinical neurologist, researcher, and Zen practitioner, examines the evolving psychological processes and brain changes associated with the path of long-range meditative training. Austin draws not only on the latest neuroscience research and new neuroimaging studies but also on Zen literature and his personal experience with alternate states of (...) consciousness.Zen-Brain Reflections takes up where the earlier book left off. It addresses such questions as: how do placebos and acupuncture change the brain? Can neuroimaging studies localize the sites where our notions of self arise? How can the latest brain imaging methods monitor meditators more effectively? How do long years of meditative training plus brief enlightened states produce pivotal transformations in the physiology of the brain? In many chapters testable hypotheses suggest ways to correlate normal brain functions and meditative training with the phenomena of extraordinary states of consciousness.After briefly introducing the topic of Zen and describing recent research into meditation, Austin reviews the latest studies on the amygdala, frontotemporal interactions, and paralimbic extensions of the limbic system. He then explores different states of consciousness, both the early superficial absorptions and the later, major "peak experiences." This discussion begins with the states called kensho and satori and includes a fresh analysis of their several different expressions of "oneness." He points beyond the still more advanced states toward that rare ongoing stage of enlightenment that is manifest as "sage wisdom."Finally, with reference to a delayed "moonlight" phase of kensho, Austin envisions novel links between migraines and metaphors, moonlight and mysticism. The Zen perspective on the self and consciousness is an ancient one. Readers will discover how relevant Zen is to the neurosciences, and how each field can illuminate the other. (shrink)

The book uses Zen Buddhism as the opening wedge for an extraordinarily wide-ranging exploration of consciousness.

A personal story of the ways in which persistence, chance, and creativity interact in biomedical research. This first book by the author of Zen and the Brain examines the role of chance in the creative process. James Austin tells a personal story of the ways in which persistence, chance, and creativity interact in biomedical research; the conclusions he reaches shed light on the creative process in any field. Austin shows how, in his own investigations, unpredictable events shaped (...) the outcome of his research and brought about novel results. He then goes beyond this story of serendipity to propose a new classification of the varieties of chance, drawing on his own research and examples from the history of science—including the famous accidents that led Fleming to the discovery of penicillin. Finally, he explores the nature of the creative process, considering not only the environmental and neurophysiological correlates of creativity but also the role of intuition in both scientific discoveries and spiritual quests. This updated MIT Press paperback edition includes a new introduction and recent material on medical research, creativity, and spirituality. (shrink)

This is not the usual kind of self-help book. Indeed, its major premise heeds a Zen master's advice to be _less_ self-centered. Yes, it is "one more book of words about Zen," as the author concedes, yet this book explains meditative practices from the perspective of a " _neural_ Zen." The latest findings in brain research inform its suggestions. In _Meditating Selflessly_, James Austin -- Zen practitioner, neurologist, and author of three acclaimed books on Zen and neuroscience -- (...) guides readers toward that open awareness already awaiting them on the cushion and in the natural world. Austin offers concrete advice -- often in a simplified question-and-answer format -- about different ways to meditate. He clarifies both the concentrative and receptive styles of meditation. Drawing widely from the exciting new field of contemplative neuroscience, Austin helps resolve an ancient paradox: why both insight wisdom _and_ selflessness arise simultaneously during enlightened states of consciousness. (shrink)

Based on the Zen philosophy about focusing away from the self, a guide to "neural Zen" meditative practices draws on recent findings in brain research to outline recommendations for various methods of pursuing a balanced, selfless state of ...

We need to clarify at least four aspects of selfhood if we are to reach a better understanding of consciousness in general, and of its alternate states. First, how did we develop our self-centred psychophysiology? Second, can the four familiar lobes of the brain alone serve, if only as preliminary landmarks of convenience, to help understand the functions of our many self-referent networks? Third, what could cause one's former sense of self to vanish from the mental field during an extraordinary (...) state of consciousness? Fourth, when a person's physical and psychic self do drop off briefly, how has conscious experience then been transformed? In particular, what happens to that subject's personal sense of time? Our many-sided self arose in widely distributed brain networks. Since infancy, these self-oriented circuits have been over-conditioned by limbic biases. Selfhood then seems to have evolved along lines suggesting at least in shorthand the operations of a kind of ‘I-Me-Mine’ complex. But what happens when this egocentric triad briefly dissolves? Novel states of consciousness emerge. Two personally-observed states are discussed: insight-wisdom ; internal absorption. How do these two states differ phenomenologically? The physiological processes briefly suggested here emphasize shifts in deeper systems, and pivotal roles for thalamo-cortical interactions in the front and back of the brain. (shrink)

[opening paragraph]: On page 2 of this volume our co-editors set admirable goals. They seek ‘method- ologies that can provide an open link to objective, empirically based description'. Moreover, they want ‘explicit examples of practical knowledge, in case studies'. My comments will address these words and goals. I too prefer the case-method approach, and seek practical ways to access states of consciousness. Then, at the top of page 4, Professors Varela and Shear define ‘nonconscious phenomena’ as those the subject is (...) not aware of. In order to comment further on this issue of awareness and non-awareness, I'll first need to pick up on their other key word -- ‘blindness’ -- as introduced in their section VII. I'll then redirect it. For surely a central topic to confront is our own self-imposed blindfold. Which subterranean region of consciousness are we most unaware of? What thwarts our efforts to study all of its regions? Our own covert self. (shrink)

First published in 1962, contains the William James Lectures delivered at Harvard University in 1955. It sets out Austin's conclusions in the field to which he directed his main efforts for at least the last ten years of his life. Starting from an exhaustive examination of his already well- known distinction of performative utterances from statements, Austin here finally abandons that distinction, replacing it by a more general theory of 'illocutionary forces' of utterances which has important bearings (...) on a wide variety of philosophical problems. (shrink)

Russell's theory of descriptions has recently come under attack as being trivial and circular--Specifically, That it predicates uniqueness of definite descriptions only after identifying those descriptions as phrases analysable via the uniqueness criterion in the first place. It is shown that this criticism is quite off target. The confusion results largely from failure to distinguish the class of denoting phrases from its sub-Set, Definite descriptions. A few reminders are issued in hopes of facilitating the study and teaching of the theory (...) which will probably be remembered as russell's greatest contribution to philosophy. (shrink)

Lyotard talks of performativity or the subsumption of education to the efficient functioning of the social system. Education is no longer to be concerned with the pursuit of ideals such as that of personal autonomy or emancipation, but with the means, techniques or skills that contribute to the efficient operation of the state in the world market and contribute to maintaining the internal cohesion and legitimation of the state. But this requires individuals of a certain kind -- not Kantian autonomous (...) persons but Foucault's normalized and governable individuals. In constituting such individuals discourse is critically important. But how discourse effects this through the force of language is not fully developed by Foucault. This paper draws upon the performative account of language offered by John Austin to develop more fully comments made by Foucault on the force or effects of language in constituting normalized and governable individuals for the march of performativity. (shrink)

There is no epistemic fault in interpreting events in ways that improve our behavior and lifestyle in situations that force interpretation. Fictionalized but possibly true narratives endow adult life with meaning, in turn rendering day-to-day affairs more agreeable. In this essay, I call the practice of introducing stories when a situation forces interpretation to affect behavior or lifestyle faux-believing, and I explicate and defend faux-believing against the objection that it is epistemically blameworthy After giving two examples of 'faux belief,' and (...) distinguishing it from similar concepts, including belief proper, I ask if we can have the _right_ to faux-believe independent of whether the faux belief is _justified_. Next, I turn to William James's "The Will to Believe" to argue that if James is correct that we have the right to believe, then we also have the right to faux-believe. While explicating James's argument for when we have the right to believe on insufficient evidence, I highlight two separate theses of James's (often erroneously thought to be a single thesis). It is one of these two theses that implies we also have the right to faux-believe. (shrink)

John L. Austin believed that in the illocution he had discovered a fundamental element of our speech, the understanding of which would disclose the significance of all kinds of linguistic action: not only proposing marriage and finding guilt, but also stating, reporting, conjecturing, and all the rest of the things men can do linguistically. 2 We claim that the illocution, the full-fledged speech-act, is central to religious utterances as well, and that it provides a perspicuity in understanding them not (...) elsewhere provided in the work of recent philosophy of religion. In particular we hold that understanding religious talk through the illocution shows the way in which the representative and affective elements are connected to one another and to the utterance as a whole. There may, further, be features in such an analysis which can be extended to other forms of discourse than religious. (shrink)

This chapter both explains the origins of emotivism in C. K. Ogden and I. A. Richards, R. B. Braithwaite, Austin Duncan-Jones, A. J. Ayer and Charles Stevenson (along with the endorsement by Frank P. Ramsey, and the summary of C. D. Broad), and looks at MacIntyre's criticisms of emotivism as the inevitable result of Moore's attack on naturalistic ethics and his ushering in the fact/value, which was a historical product of the Enlightenment.

Mill (1773-1836), British philosopher, political theorist, historian and psychologist was largely responsible for organizing the influential group of Bentham followers that became known as the 'philosophical radicals', which included David Ricardo, Joseph Hume, J. R. McCulloch, George Grote and John Austin. A prolific writer, Mill is remembered mainly as Bentham's chief disciple; for his influence on the radicals and in particular his son John Stuart Mill, the prominent utilitarian thinker. Thoemmes Press are making available two key philosophical works by (...) this eminent early nineteenth-century intellectual figure. A Fragment on Mackintosh is an important work in which Mill attacks Sir James Mackintosh, a leading Whig apologist and critic of the philosophical radicals. Mill defends the utilitarian ethical theory against Mackintosh's article on ethics in the Encyclopaedia Britannica. A Fragment colourfully demonstrates Mill's belief that the proper aim of human actions and practices was the promotion of human happiness and is a lucid illustration of his psychological and ethical theories. Privately printed in 1830 and subsequently published in 1835 (the delay was due to Mackintosh's death), this rare dissertation is a key work for all scholars of ethics. (shrink)

In this paper, we examine the historical relationship between phenomenology and the emerging analytic tradition. We pay particular attention to the reception of Husserl’s work by Russell, Moore, and others, and to some convergences between phenomenology and ordinary language philosophy, noted by Wittgenstein, Austin, and Ryle. Focusing on Russell and Ryle, we argue that the historical details suggest an alternative parsing of the ways to the “parting of the ways” narrative made famous by Dummett but also committed to by (...) many others, in which we start from a common source or origin only to have two increasingly divergent inheritances of philosophy that have next to nothing in common, like the Rhine and the Danube. We will show that the period thought to be prior to the “gulf” does not evince the sort of philosophical unity and commonality of purpose sometimes ascribed to it, and that the period of socio-political institution of the ‘divide’ post World War Two, is both historically and philosophically much more complicated than is usually thought, with the ostensible rivers being rather more intertwined than is often supposed. (shrink)

Two dogmas of empiricism, by W. V. Quine.--In defense of a dogma, by H. P. Grice and P. F. Strawson.--The analytic and the synthetic: an untenable dualism, by M. G. White.--Synonymity, by B. Mates.--The meaning of a word, by J. L. Austin.--Meaning and synonymy in natural languages, by R. Carnap.--Analytic-synthetic, by J. Bennett.--On "analytic," by R. M. Martin.--Selected bibliography (p. [188]-196).

Although Wittgenstein's philosophy long went untranslated in France, he was not entirely unread. Yet the relatively minor impact of Wittgenstein in mid-century French-language philosophy stands in marked contrast to the centrality of Wittgenstinian themes in Anglo-American thinking. Early French writings on Wittgenstein, as well a colloquium on analytic philosophy held at Royaumont in 1958, are discussed, and explanations proposed for Wittgenstein's limited reception in France in the five decades following the publication of the Tractatus in 1921/22. Possible effects of Wittgenstein's (...) quasi-absence from French discussion in the period on more recent theoretical reflection are briefly examined. It is suggested that Oxford philosophers of the 1950s, and in particular J.L. Austin, had a more immediate impact on French readers. (shrink)