Multistable figures offer an intriguing model for arbitrating conflicting positions. Moving back and forth between the different aspects under which something can be seen, one recognizes that mutually contradictory descriptions can be equally valid and that disputes over the correct account can be resolved without dissolving differences or establishing a higher synthesis. Yet, the experience of a gestalt switch also offers a model for radical conversions and revolutions – that is, for irreversible leaps to incommensurable alternatives foiling ideals of rational (...) choice while providing the possibility and necessity of decision. Accentuating the temporal dimensions of multistable figures, this multidisciplinary volume illuminates the critical potentials and limits of multistability as a complex figure of thought. (shrink)

Inference is a process by which appropriate belief states get connected. Belief states are biological states in the sense that they are reentrant loops ; their intrinsic feature is recognition. In inference or reasoning the transition process between belief states is regulated by the rule of concept usage, involved in the belief state, in natural language. Like belief states experiential states are also biological states whose extrinsic feature is recognition, such that, one can have an, say, X-type experience without recognizing (...) it as an experience of X. One can, however, also have an experience of an X; in the latter case, one not only has an X-type experience but also recognizes an X as an X. In some cases the transition from X-type experience to believing an X to be there instantiates a quasi-inferential pattern. In all such cases the transition process is regulated by the rule of X usage. In such quasi-inferential transition additional belief states are involved. Such states assert that there are no countervailing factors and there are additional factors conducive to the conclusion. Such belief states are expressed non-propositionally in the language of thought. Propositions are a necessary part of such quasi-inference for they give content to thoughts to which one can assign 'falsity' and defeasible reasoning requires us to assign 'falsity' to our thoughts. Propositions implicated in the quasi-inferences from experience types to belief states are the evidential reasons for the conclusion and they can only be accepted as provisionally true and have to be revised in the light of further information. (shrink)

The word “as” enables one to make contexts and aspects of things explicit while attributing properties or descriptions to them. For example “John is rational as a mathematician”; “John is irrational as a driver.” This paper examines the idea according to which all propositions containing “as” should be targeted as potential inferences about the subject; as for the examples given—about John. If the inference is valid—the conception in question holds—one can get rid of “as.” I argue against that view by (...) bringing up several contexts in which “as” is not supposed to express an inference. On this basis I come up with a different (non-inferential) typology which does justice, I believe, to ordinary as well as philosophical uses of the little word at stake. (shrink)

Aspectual shape is widely recognized property of intentionality. This means that subject’s access to reality is necessarily conditioned by applied concepts, perspective, modes of sensation, etc. I argue against representational and indirect-realist account of this phenomenon. My own proposition—presentational and direct realist—is based on the recognition of historical contexts, in which the phenomenon of aspectuality should be reconsidered; on the other hand—it is based on Ludwig Wittgenstein’s conception of aspectual perception. Moreover I apply some results from the area of logicophilosophical (...) investigations called qua theory. (shrink)

Is there a substantial difference between a portrait depicting the sitter’s face made by an artist and an image captured by a machine able to simulate the neuro-physiology of facial perception? Drawing on the later Wittgenstein, this paper answers this question by reference to the relation between seeing a visual pattern as (i) a series of shapes and colours, and (ii) a face with expressions. In the case of the artist, and not of the machine, the portrait’s creative process involves (...) the ability to see both aspects. From the perspective of the image’s viewer, the distinction is more difficult to draw. I address this difficulty by further distinguishing between two attributes of portraits: their representational accuracy, and their ability to convey the artist’s reflection on her experience of seeing the sitter face-to-face. While artificial intelligence can mimic this latter reflective ability, it cannot exactly reproduce it. (shrink)

In this paper, I want to hold, first, that a treatment of Frege cases in terms of a difference in cognitive phenomenology of the involved experiential mental states is not viable. Second, I will put forward another treatment of such cases that appeals to a difference in intentional objects metaphysically conceived not as exotica, but as schematic objects, that is, as objects that have no metaphysical nature qua objects of thought. This allows their nature to be settled independently of their (...) being thought of, in particular as concrete entities in the sense of entities that may be spatiotemporal occupiers. Yet third, as to Frege cases, cognitive phenomenology may return from the back door. For the realization that, if correct, solves any such case cannot but have a proprietary, though neither distinctive nor individuative, phenomenology. In my account, this is the realization that the different schematic intentional objects involved are none other than the same entity. (shrink)

It is a well-established fact in representationalist cognitive science that concrete concepts influence human perception. In radical, anti-representationalist cognitive science, however, the case is far from clear. One reason for this is that proponents of Radical Enactivism yet have to clarify whether perceptual activity involving concepts is bound to rely on mental content or if it instantiates basic, contentfree cognition. The purpose of this paper is to show that concept-involving perception instantiates REC-style basic cognition. The paper begins by considering ‘cognitive (...) projection’ as the term is introduced by Distributed Cognition research. Although being introduced as a means for exploring concept-based perception in non-representationalist terms, I argue that ‘cognitive projection’ comes with mentalist overtones and unclarities concerning its linguistic basis. With the purpose of overcoming these shortcomings, I unfold a REC-friendly reading of Wittgenstein’s writings on aspect perception, arguing that basic concept-involving perception is an instantiation of basic cognition. Concludingly, with the aim of ensuring compatibility, I make a connection between conceptual aspect perception and the REC notion of attentional anchors. The latter has been introduced to explore the role of material artefacts in the context of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics educational design but has, I submit, the potential for being extended to other practical contexts. (shrink)

Among the many striking features of the philosophy of the Zhuāngzǐ is that it advocates a life unperturbed by emotions, including even pleasurable, positive emotions such as joy or delight. Many of us see emotions as an ineluctable part of life, and some would argue they are a crucial component of a well-developed moral sensitivity and a good life. The Zhuangist approach to emotion challenges such commonsense views so radically that it amounts to a test case for the fundamental plausibility (...) of the Daoist ethical orientation: If the Zhuangist stance on emotion is untenable, then other aspects of Daoist ethics may founder as well. In this essay, I explore what I call a Zhuangist ‘Virtuoso View’ of emotion and its connections with human agency, attempting to show that at least one version of a Zhuangist approach to emotion passes the ‘basic plausibility’ test. I begin by describing the Virtuoso View and sketching its theoretical foundation, which involves claims about human agency, the self, psychophysical hygiene, the good life, epistemology, and metaphysics. Next, I defend the Virtuoso View against three objections, namely that it abandons intentionality, that it interferes with a good life, and that it yields a schizophrenic conception of agency. I argue for three major theses. First, the Virtuoso View is easily intelligible and largely defensible. Second, it reflects a crucial insight into a fundamental dichotomy at the core of human agency: the unavoidable conflict within a self-aware human agent between an internal, engaged perspective and an external, detached one. Third, I suggest that certain problems or conflicts arising from the Virtuoso View actually reflect inherent features of the human predicament and thus are not mere conceptual defects. Hence even if we do not find the Virtuoso View wholly convincing, we can nevertheless gain much insight from it. (shrink)

The Linda paradox is a key topic in current debates on the rationality of human reasoning and its limitations. We present a novel analysis of this paradox, based on the notion of verisimilitude as studied in the philosophy of science. The comparison with an alternative analysis based on probabilistic confirmation suggests how to overcome some problems of our account by introducing an adequately defined notion of verisimilitudinarian confirmation.

As its criticisms have revealed, a closer look at the concept of the Real, the thesis of “all experiencing is experiencing-as,” and the criterion of the soteriological transformation have shown some difficulities in John Hick’s pluralistic hypothesis. Focusing on the theory of religious experience contended by Hick, this research explores the Kantian and Wittgensteinian elements of his hypothesis to ease the tension between its metaphysical and epistemological aspects. Since Hick’s hypothesis is based on the doctrines of religions within the Indo-European (...) language group, this research introduces those traditions from outside this group to rethink its criteriology. These two attempts inevitably call for a refined model of Hick’s hypothesis. Both Hick’s hypothesis and the refined model reflect certain understandings of the notion of Religion. Meanwhile, every religious tradition also manifests its various dimensions. This research consequently suggests that the ideal of Religion can be considered in terms of the idea of functional unity and can be taken as the regulative principle to direct any model of religious pluralism, which is subject to be modified when it encounters any “anomalies” of religious phenomena -- this pattern can be further illustrated in light of the Confucian proposition of “the Li is one but its manifestations are many.”. (shrink)