This book provides a thoroughly worked out and systematic presentation of an interpretivist position in the philosophy of mind, of the view that having mental properties is a matter of interpretation. Bruno Mölder elaborates and defends a particular version of interpretivism, the ascription theory, which explicates the possession of mental states with contents in terms of their canonical ascribability, and shows how it can withstand various philosophical challenges. Apart from a defence of the ascription theory from the objections commonly directed (...) against interpretivism, the book provides a critical analysis of major alternative accounts of mental state possession as well as the interpretivist ideas originating from Donald Davidson and Daniel Dennett. The viability of the approach is demonstrated by showing how one can treat mental causation as well as the faculties closely connected with consciousness -- perception and the awareness of one’s own mental states -- in the interpretivist framework. (shrink)

This is an interview with Professor Patricia S. Churchland. It covers themes such as eliminative materialism, folk psychology, neurophilosophy, the relationship between philosophy and science, moral norms as well as the criticism of contemporary analytic philosophy.

This paper analyses explanations provided by current philosophical models of time consciousness. These models attempt to explain temporal experience by describing the mechanisms of time consciousness in experiential terms. I criticize this practice on two grounds; firstly, it relies upon folk notions that have no clear individuation conditions and secondly because it often merely names, but does not explain the phenomena.

This paper is a reply to commentaries on "Mind Ascribed". My response is organised into three parts. In the first part I describe the relationship between folk psychology and the scientific study of the mind. The second part replies to objections to the central tenets and presuppositions of the ascription theory. I clarify the distinction between the nature and the possession of mental states and the notion of a pleonastic entity. I explain why the ascription theory is a version of (...) interpretivism, and not a species of instrumentalism or fictionalism. I also argue that canonical ascription should not be spelled out in terms of the ideal interpreter. The third part deals with comments on miscellaneous topics such as normativity, self-knowledge, the necessity of the brain and the proper understanding of intentional patterns. (shrink)

Introspective disputes are introspectively based disputes about features of experiences. This paper addresses the question of what kinds of disagreement are exemplified in such disputes. The following kinds of disagreement are reviewed with respect to introspective disputes – verbal, metalinguistic, faultless, deep and genuine disagreements. The paper defends the conclusion that introspective debates are genuine debates that are mostly of the theoretical kind and that some such debates may also involve metalinguistic negotiation.

Cohen Kadosh & Walsh (CK&W) present convincing evidence indicating the existence of notation-specific numerical representations in parietal cortex. We suggest that the same conclusions can be drawn for a particular type of numerical representation: the representation of time. Notation-dependent representations need not be limited to number but may also be extended to other magnitude-related contents processed in parietal cortex (Walsh 2003).

An explanatory gap ensues when the truths constituting the explanans do not entail the explanandum. Attempts to give a physicalist account of consciousness seem to generate an explanatory gap, which is special in the following psychological sense. In other cases, it is possible to bridge or close the gap by regimenting or eliminating the respective concepts. In the case of consciousness, however, there is a pervasive intuition that the gap remains even when one works out a notion of consciousness that (...) allows the entailment of truths about consciousness from physical premises. The intuition is expressed by the sense that something essential about consciousness is left out from any such conceptual regimentation. This paper defends the view that this intuition is generated by the way our experiences are given to us. Every experience has a component that is not captured by any specification. The gap intuition is due to this ineffable component in experiences. Since conscious experiences are partly ineffable, it seems that no account of consciousness captures conscious experiences entirely and so would develop the intuition that something has been left out. An alternative explanation to the gap intuition is provided by the “phenomenal concepts’ strategy”. According to this strategy, it is the peculiar nature of phenomenal concepts that feeds the intuition. The main problem with such an approach is that phenomenal concepts are more coarse-grained than the experiences themselves and thus their application still does not entail what it is like to have a particular phenomenal experience. (shrink)

“Philosophy and Psychology of Time” comprises papers from philosophers and psychologists who work on various aspects of subjective time. In the book, the broad topic of time is examined from different aspects, divided into five parts. These main aspects are the following: the concept of time in philosophy and psychology, temporal presence, the continuity and fl ow of time in mind, the timing of experiences, and the relationship between time and intersubjectivity. This chapter introduces the volume and supplies a short (...) overview of each contribution. (shrink)

Christopher Gauker was interviewed about his work in philosophy of language and mind and his famous teachers, Donald Davidson, Richard Rorty and Wilfrid Sellars.

It has been argued that deflationary theories of truth stumble over the normativity of truth. This paper maintains that the normativity objection does not pose problems to at least one version of deflationism, minimalism. The rest of the paper discusses truth-related norms, showing that either they do not hold or they are not troublesome for deflationism.

Tänapäeval peetakse tähenduse, sisu ja vaimu normatiivsust sageli takistuseks nende naturaliseerimisele. Samas saab normatiivsust ennast mõista mitmel moel. Artikli eesmärgiks on tutvustada väitlusi normatiivsuse üle. Rõhutatakse, et normatiivsuse filosoofilises analüüsis on oluline vältida 'normatiivsuse' mitmemõttelisust ning et tuleb teha vahet eri nähtuste normatiivsusel. Tuuakse esile olulisemad normatiivsuse määratlemise viisid ning vaadeldakse, kuidas tuleks mõista tähenduse ja intentsionaalsuse konstitutiivset normatiivsust. Filosoofiliselt on iseäranis oluline selline normatiivsus, mis on niihästi kategooriline, ettekirjutuslik kui konstitutiivne. Artiklis vaadeldud käsitluste suhtes näidatakse, et väited sedalaadi normatiivsuse (...) esinemise kohta tähenduse ja intentsionaalsuse vallas pole põhjendatud. It has become increasingly common to invoke the normativity of meaning, content and mind as an obstacle to their naturalisation. At the same time, one can understand normativity itself in various ways. The aim of this paper is to shed some light on the debate about the nature and the scope of normativity. It is emphasised that it is important to prevent the ambiguity of 'normativity' and that it is crucial to distinguish between the normativity of different phenomena. The paper covers the most important characterisations of normativity and concentrates on the alleged normativity of meaning and intentionality. The normativity that has a philosophical import is categorical, prescriptive and constitutive. With respect to the accounts scrutinised in this paper, it is argued that there are no good reasons to claim that meaning and intentionality are normative in this sense. (shrink)

This book is an edited collection of papers from international experts in philosophy and psychology concerned with time. The collection aims to bridge the gap between these disciplines by focussing on five key themes and providing philosophical and psychological perspectives on each theme. -/- The first theme is the concept of time. The discussion ranges from the folk concept of time to the notion of time in logic, philosophy and psychology. The second theme concerns the notion of present in the (...) philosophy of mind, metaphysics, and psychology. The third theme relates to continuity and flow of time in mind. One of the key questions in this section is how the apparent temporal continuity of conscious experience relates to the possibly discrete character of underlying neural processes. The fourth theme is the timing of experiences, with a focus on the perception of simultaneity and illusions of temporal order. Such effects are treated as test cases for hypotheses about the relationship between the subjective temporal order of experience and the objective order of neural events. The fifth and the final theme of the volume is time and intersubjectivity. This section examines the role of time in interpersonal coordination and in the development of social skills. -/- The collection will appeal to both psychologists and philosophers, but also to researchers from other disciplines who seek an accessible overview of the research on time in psychology and philosophy. (shrink)