ENTREVISTA COM PROFESSORAS(ES) DE FILOSOFIA DO ENSINO MÉDIO DO CEARÁ – BLOCO IICom: Dayane Evellin de Sousa Costa, Emilson Silva LopesPor: Antônio Alex Pereira de Sousa, Paulo Willame Araújo de Lima.

This paper is concerned with the question of whether mature human experience is thoroughly conceptual, or whether it involves non-conceptual elements or layers. It has two central goals. The first goal is methodological. It aims to establish that that question is, to a large extent, an empirical question. The question cannot be answered by appealing to purely a priori and transcendental considerations. The second goal is to argue, inter alia by relying on empirical findings, that the view known as ‘state-conceptualism’ (...) is false. We will argue that our experiences do involve non-conceptual elements. That is, a subject may enjoy an experience with a particular phenomenal aspect, without possessing the concept needed for the specification of the content of that aspect, and moreover, without being able to acquire that concept upon having that experience. (shrink)

Selon le «cognitivisme fort», toutes les raisons d’une action trouvent leurs sources dans des caractéristiques normatives par lesquelles l’individu motivé (explicitement ou implicitement) prend des objets comme avoir (ou manque), indépendamment de son attitude à l’égard de ces objets. L’objectif majeur de cet article est de contester les arguments du cognitivisme fort, en d’autres termes, de démontrer que toute attitude volitive donne aux individus des raisons pour entreprendre une action. À cette fin, l’argument principal consistera à procéder par le biais (...) de l’analyse du phénomène complexe de la préoccupation, pour en extrapoler une conclusion relative à la nature (incitative et normative) d’un phénomène mental plus fondamental encore : les désirs spécifiques. (shrink)

According to the view we may term “strong cognitivism”, all reasons for action are rooted in normative features that the motivated subject takes objects to have independently of her attitudes towards these objects. The main concern of this paper is to argue against strong cognitivism, that is, to establish the view that conative attitudes do provide subjects with reasons for action. The central argument to this effect is a top-down argument: it proceeds by an analysis of the complex phenomenon of (...) love and derives a conclusion regarding the nature of more basic mental phenomena—particular desires. More specifically, its starting point is the crude intuition that the significance conferred by love upon its objects is of a distinctively personal kind—an intuition that is expressed by the apparent non-substitutability of two similar subjects only one of whom is loved with respect to their importance for the lover. I argue that the initial notion of non-substitutability can be refined and modified so as to form a real challenge to all versions of strong cognitivism and to establish the existence of attitude-dependent reasons. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Naharaim Jahrgang: 10 Heft: 2 Seiten: 247-272.

Video gaming, specifically action video gaming, seems to improve a range of cognitive functions. The basis for these improvements may be attentional control in conjunction with reward-related learning to amplify the execution of goal-relevant actions while suppressing goal-irrelevant actions. Given that EEG alpha power reflects inhibitory processing, a core component of attentional control, it might represent the electrophysiological substrate of cognitive improvement in video gaming. The aim of this study was to test whether non-video gamers, non-action video gamers and action (...) video gamers exhibit differences in EEG alpha power, and whether this might account for differences in visual information processing as operationalized by the theory of visual attention. Forty male volunteers performed a visual short-term memory paradigm where they memorized shape stimuli depicted on circular stimulus displays at six different exposure durations while their EEGs were recorded. Accuracy data was analyzed using TVA-algorithms. There was a positive correlation between the extent of post-stimulus EEG alpha power attenuation and speed of information processing across all participants. Moreover, both EEG alpha power attenuation and speed of information processing were modulated by an interaction between group affiliation and time on task, indicating that video gamers showed larger EEG alpha power attenuations and faster information processing over time than NVGs – with AVGs displaying the largest increase. An additional regression analysis affirmed this observation. From this we concluded that EEG alpha power might be a promising neural substrate for explaining cognitive improvement in video gaming. (shrink)

The question of whether conscious experience is restricted by cognitive access and exhausted by report, or whether it overflows it—comprising more information than can be reported—is hotly debated. Recently, we provided evidence in favor of Overflow, showing that observers discriminated the color‐diversity (CD) of letters in an array, while their working‐memory and attention were dedicated to encoding and reporting a set of cued letters. An alternative interpretation is that CD‐discriminations do not entail conscious experience of the underlying colors. Here we (...) argue, based on conceptual considerations and consistency with neuroscience and phenomenology, in favor of the Overflow interpretation. (shrink)

According to strong representationalism it is in virtue of having a particular representational content that an experience has the specific phenomenal character that it has. This paper argues that representationalism does not have the resources to explain the most salient aspect of the phenomenal character of pain – it is bound to leave out the painfulness of pain or its negative affect. Its central argument proceeds by analysing the rationalising role of pains. According to it, representationalism is committed to a (...) false picture on which a subject who knowingly acts so as to get rid of her pain without thereby getting rid of the bodily condition it represents always behaves irrationally – in so acting she is shooting the messenger. Thus, there can be no viable representationalist account of the phenomenal character of pain. (shrink)

The main goal of this paper is to present a theory of the most salient aspect of the phenomenal character of pain – namely, the painfulness of pain or its negative affective quality. This task involves developing an account of the evaluative structure of pain, according to which painfulness is constituted by a frustrated conative attitude that is directed towards the bodily condition the obtaining of which the pain represents. The argument for the proposed Attitudinal-Representational Theory of Pain proceeds by (...) presenting an explanatory challenge that concerns crucial aspects of the reason-giving force of pain, and showing that, unlike extant theories of pain, it successfully accounts for them. (shrink)

Attempts to account for the phenomenal character of perceptual experiences have so far largely focused on their sensory aspects. The first aim of this article is to support the claim that phenomenal character has another, significant, aspect—the phenomenal realm is suffused with valence. What it’s like to undergo perceptual experiences—from pains to supposedly “neutral” visual experiences—standardly feels good or bad to some degree. The second aim is to argue, by appealing to theoretical and empirical considerations pertaining to the phenomenon of (...) valence-variance, that perceptual valence cannot be accounted for by extending the prevalent representationalist account of phenomenal character. Thus, a revision in the understanding of phenomenal character is called for. Finally, the phenomenon of valence-variance serves to make some headway toward defending a new Attitudinal-Representational Theory of perceptual valence, according to which perceptual valence is constituted by first-order conative attitudes directed toward the representational objects of experiences. (shrink)

Tradition contrasts “cold,” motivationally-inert, “standard” perception with “hot,” motivationally-potent, emotion and affect. Against this backdrop, it has recently been argued that perceptual experiences have another fundamental phenomenal aspect, beyond their sensory aspects–perception in all sense-modalities is (at least often) Intrinsically valenced. Roughly, its phenomenal character is inherently pleasant or unpleasant, feeling good or bad to some degree. Yet, the revolutionary notion of Intrinsically Valenced Perception (IVP) requires elucidation and is fraught with theoretical difficulties. The paper aims to explicate and address (...) some foundational questions regarding the very notion of IVP: What is required for perception to be intrinsically valenced? Specifically, if perception itself is valenced, what should be the relations between its valenced aspects and sensory aspects? The paper identifies the relevant notion of IVP by uncovering various principles that express constraints and desiderata that IVP must meet. It further offers a Determination-Dimension Model of the relations between sensory and valenced aspects that aims to resolve the previously identified theoretical difficulties. (shrink)

The question of the cognitive penetrability (CP) of experience is, roughly, the question whether cognitive states can influence, in some direct and non-trivial manner, one’s experiences. Whereas the CP of perception has recently been widely discussed by philosophers, the parallel question regarding pain has been utterly neglected. This chapter introduces the general notion of CP, as well as its epistemic import, focusing on visual experiences. It explains the notion of CP to pains, presenting some initial reasons to think that pains (...) are cognitively penetrable. CP is standardly understood as requiring an influence of cognitive states on both phenomenal character and representational content: it should be manifest in the way things appear to us both sensuously and representationally. The penetrating cognitive states influence cognitive states downstream of the perceptual experiences – notably, they affect judgments made on the basis of these experiences. (shrink)

This chapter argues that attitudinal-representational theory (ART) better accommodates the phenomenon of valence variance. It purposes to lend further support to ART as a theory of unpleasant pain, and, to make some headway toward vindicating ART as a general theory of valenced perceptual experiences. The postulated desire-like attitude is a “negative desire” in that it is directed against a particular condition or state of affairs that is represented as obtaining. Due to the fact that the valenced aspect of pain is (...) often so pronounced, and given the significance of pain in the life, it is quite natural, when attempting to account for valenced perceptual experiences, to begin with the apparently paradigmatic case of pain. The gist of the argument from the variability of g-valenced experiences in favor of ART may be clear. (shrink)

According to the thesis of transparency, subjects can attend only to the representational content of perceptual experience, never to the intrinsic properties of experience that carry this representational content, i.e., to “mental paint.” So far, arguments for and against transparency were conducted from the armchair, relying mainly on introspective observations. In this paper, we argue in favor of transparency, relying on the cognitive neuroscience of attention. We present a trilemma to those who hold that attention can be directed to mental (...) paint. Such attention is either first-order sensory, higher-order cognitive, or higher-order sensory attention. We argue that the notion of first-order sensory attention to mental paint is incompatible with the neuroscience of sensory attention; that higher-order cognitive attention to mental paint is irrelevant to transparency; and that the notion of higher-order sensory attention to mental paint has an apparently incoherent prediction. Via elimination, these considerations support the thesis of transparency. (shrink)

En mettant en question l’utilisation par les colonisés de la langue des colonisateurs et en appelant au retour aux langues africaines, l’écrivain kényan Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o a produit sans doute la critique la plus radicale et la plus audacieuse qui soit, de la colonisation de l’esprit. Cet article le met en conversation avec Karl Marx dans l'esprit de la pensée de Jane Anna Gordon sur la créolisation de la théorie politique.

Although adverbialism is not given much attention in current discussions of phenomenal states, it remains of interest to philosophers who reject the representationalist view of such states, in suggesting an alternative to a problematic ‘act-property’ conception. We discuss adverbialism and the formalization Tye once offered for it, and criticize the semantics he proposed for this formalization. Our central claim is that Tye’s ontological purposes could have been met by a more minimal view, which we dub “attributeism”. We then show that (...) there is no incompatibility between the ontology of attributeism and the postulation of pictorial representations in the brain. (shrink)

Two debates loom large in current discussions on phenomenal consciousness. One debate concerns the relation between phenomenal character and representational content. Representationalism affirms, whereas “content separatism” denies, that phenomenal character is exhausted by representational content. Another debate concerns the relation between phenomenal consciousness and cognitive access. “Access separatism” affirms, whereas, e.g., the global workspace model denies, that there are phenomenally conscious states that are not cognitively accessed. I will argue that the two separatist views are related. Access separatism supports content (...) separatism by undermining the most prominent sort of arguments in favor of representationalism, namely ones that appeal to the phenomenology of perceptual experiences. (shrink)

The paper argues that Jackson's knowledge argument fails to undermine physicalist ontology. First, it is argued that, as this argument stands, it begs the question. Second, it is suggested that by supplementing the argument , this flaw can be remedied insofar as the argument is taken to be an argument against type-physicalism; however, this flaw cannot be remedied insofar as the argument is taken to be an argument against token-physicalism. The argument cannot be supplemented so as to show that experiences (...) have properties which are illegitimate from a physicalist perspective. (shrink)

The view (held, e.g., by Davidson) that the having of beliefs and desires presupposes the having of reflective capacities is sometimes supported by appealing to the idea that the concept of belief is a concept of a mental state which involves a normative aspect: beliefs can be “successful” or “unsuccessful” from the perspective of their possessors, and sometimes discarded in light of their “failure.” This naturally invites the idea that believers must be capable of reflecting on their beliefs. Desires presuppose (...) reflectivity if only in virtue of their essential linkage with beliefs. This paper suggests a sense in which mental states—including those of non-reflective creatures—can have such a normative aspect. On this suggestion, the intelligible relations that obtain between cognitive states and conative states open the door for the possibility of normativity without reflectivity. Due to these relations, a creature's beliefs can be successful or unsuccessful from its own perspective even without its conceiving of them. (shrink)

Modern literature has always been obsessed by music. It cannot seem to think about itself without obsessing about music. And music has returned the favour. The Routledge Companion to Music and Modern Literature addresses this relationship as a significant contribution to the burgeoning field of word and music studies. The 37 chapters within consider the partnership through four lenses-the universal, opera and literature, musical and literary forms, and popular music and literature-and touch upon diverse and pertinent themes for our modern (...) times, ranging from misogyny to queerness, racial inequality to the claimed universality of whiteness. This Companion therefore offers an essential resource for all who try to decode the musico-literary exchange. (shrink)

This research used the embodied approach to analyse the pain experiences of 25 heterosexually married Israeli-Jewish women undergoing in vitro fertilization (IVF) treatments for a first pregnancy. Semi-structured interviews were conducted to allow the women to openly discuss issues concerning their perceptions of pain. Research findings show that the women’s pain perceptions dictated two distinct categories of discourse. The first category of discourse surfaced in the accounts of 14 of the interviewees. Women belonging to this category expressed their willingness to (...) “do everything for a child”. These women insisted on silencing pain and considered it to be irrelevant. They refused to locate bodily pains at the centre of their experience, fearing that this would delay their goal of reproducing. The second discourse of pain emerged from the accounts of 11 interviewees. This discourse was associated with women’s motivation to maintain an active dialogue with painful experiences. They obstinately sought to direct internal attentiveness to what was happening inside their bodies. This approach enabled them to define body boundaries and form an active negotiation with the authority treating their bodies. The research findings suggest that women who share the same socio- cultural environment (Israeli pronatalism) and physical circumstances (the inability to conceive) have varied and wideranging interpretations of pain. It seems that medical authorities can benefit the understanding of pain by providing new support resources to women undergoing IVF treatments. (shrink)

Although seemingly irrational choice abounds, the rules governing these mis‐steps that might provide hints about the factors limiting normative behavior are unclear. We consider three experimental tasks, which probe different aspects of non‐normative choice under uncertainty. We argue for systematic statistical, algorithmic, and implementational sources of irrationality, including incomplete evaluation of long‐run future utilities, Pavlovian actions, and habits, together with computational and statistical noise and uncertainty. We suggest structural and functional adaptations that minimize their maladaptive effects.

This book explores how decolonial epistemologies are concretely translated in thinking and theorizing about cultural and political practices. Chapters draw on Latin American and Caribbean philosophies and concepts of creolization and racialization, Afropean aesthetics, arts and cultural productions, religion, feminisms, education, and architecture.

Another volume in the Bechers' lifelong project of documenting the architecture of industrial structures. Bernd and Hilla Becher's photography can be considered conceptual art, typological study, and topological documentation. Their work can be linked to the Neue Sachlichkeit movement of the 1920s and to such masters of German photography as Karl Blossfeldt, August Sander, and Albert Renger-Patzsch. Their photographs documenting the architecture of industrial structures, taken over the course of forty years, make up the most important body of work (...) to be found in independent objective photography. This volume adds cooling towers to a list of photographic projects that includes book-length studies of water towers, blast furnaces, gas tanks, mineheads, and frame houses.Since the end of the nineteenth century, cooling towers have formed a striking part of electricity and steel works. The first cooling towers were wood-clad structures at coal mines; more recent examples are the steel or concrete constructions seen at nuclear power stations. The simplicity of these forms and their hermetically sealed external skins create an impressive, monumental effect. The Bechers have been photographing cooling towers since the 1960s. This volume contains 236 photographs of cooling towers—in all their different shapes and structural forms—from Belgium, England, France, Germany, Holland, and the United States, and includes a short text by the Bechers. (shrink)

These photographs of grain elevators in America, Germany, Belgium, and France are a major addition to the Bechers' ongoing documentation of the vanishing buildings that once defined the industrial landscape of Europe and America. Bernd and Hilla Becher's almost fifty-year collaboration constitutes the most important project in objective and conceptual photography today. With this volume, grain elevators join the list of building types documented by the Bechers in their book-length studies: water towers, blast furnaces, gas tanks, oil tanks, mineheads, (...) frame houses, and cooling towers. Grain elevators are towering structures in the flat, vast landscape of the world's granaries. Providing a fast and efficient method of loading and unloading grain to keep pace with the industrial production methods of the nineteenth century, they made possible a tremendous increase in the trafficking and processing of grain. Scooping, pouring, and spitting, they both illustrated and inspired Le Corbusier's idea of buildings as functioning machines. Monumental, essential, and visually arresting, grain elevators belong as much to the American imagination and landscape as to the European. The photographs of grain elevators in this volume were taken in Germany, Belgium, France, and America. But the specificity of time and place is erased in these photographs; the monolithic structures evoke the agricultural prosperity of a vanished era and the vacancy that replaces it today. (shrink)