Expressions in a language, whether words, phrases, or sentences, have meanings. So it seems reasonable to suppose that there are meanings that expressions have. Of course, it is fashionable in some philosophical circles to deny this.

First published in 2002. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

It is suggested that consciousness is primarily associated not with stimuli and perception, as commonly supposed, but with movement and responses. Consciousness of stimuli arises in situations in which possible movements are planned, or in which information must be actively acquired rather than passively registered, and may or may not require overt movements to be performed. By emphasizing response, this formulation provides a simple explanation for the perceived unity of consciousness: though stimuli can be diverse, with independent components, movements must (...) necessarily be coordinated. Therefore, if we are to look for a `site' for consciousness, it is likely to be in a region such as the anterior cingulate that is neurally close to the higher motor hierarchical levels, and also accessible both to real sensory feedback and also to virtual feedback derived through mechanisms of efference copy from actual or proposed motor commands. It is suggested that synchrony of arrival of such information may be an important prerequisite of this unity, and that on this basis such a `master node' might be expected to be temporally `equidistant' from each of these sources; this may well be true of the anterior cingulate, but no doubt also of other structures. (shrink)

Current bioethical debate is bizarre because it concentrates on exceptional cases while it does not pay attention to underlying value perspectives that determine the agenda of the debate.

The first brief description is given of a project aimed at searching for the neural correlates of consciousness through computer simulation. The underlying model is based on the known circuitry of the mammalian nervous system, the neuronal groups of which are approximated as binary composite units. The simulated nervous system includes just two senses - hearing and touch - and it drives a set of muscles that serve vocalisation, feeding and bladder control. These functions were chosen because of their relevance (...) to the earliest stages of human life, and the simulation has been given the name CyberChild. The system's pain receptors respond to a sufficiently low milk level in the stomach, if there is simultaneously a low level of blood sugar, and also to a full bladder and an unchanged diaper. It is believed that it may be possible to infer the presence of consciousness in the simulation through observations of CyberChild's behaviour, and from the monitoring of its ability to ontogenetically acquire novel reflexes. The author has suggested that this ability is the crucial evolutionary advantage of possessing consciousness. The project is still in its very early stages, and although no suggestion of consciousness has yet emerged, there appears to be no fundamental reason why consciousness could not ultimately develop and be observed. (shrink)

This book critically analyses experiences with bioethics education in various countries across the world and identifies common challenges and interests. It presents ethics teaching experiences in nine different countries and the basic question of the goals of bioethics education. It addresses bioethics education in resource-poor countries, as the conditions and facilities are widely different, and set limits and provide challenges to bioethics educators. Further, the question of how bioethics education can be improved is explored by the contributors. Despite the volume (...) of journal publications agreement on bioethics education is rather limited. There are only few examples of core curricula, demonstrating consensus on the contents, goals, methods and assessment of teaching programs. We need ask: How can agreement on the best modalities of bioethics education be promoted? (shrink)

It is suggested that the evolutionary advantage of consciousness lies in its mediating the acquisition of novel context-specific reflexes, particularly when the context has temporally varying components. Such acquisition is conjectured to require evaluation of feedback stimuli evoked by the animal's self-paced probing of its environment, or by memories of the outcome of previous such probings, and the evaluation is postulated to be predicated on attention. It is argued that such an approach automatically incorporates sensation into the phenomenon, sensation arising (...) from an interplay between the nervous system and the skeletal musculature, and not from the nervous system alone. This theory avoids the increasingly untenable view that consciousness is part of the normal chain of events linking unprovoked stimuli in the outside world with immediate voluntary reactions to them. The theory should prove attractive to those who might otherwise feel compelled by neurophysiology to embrace epiphenomenalism. It also provides a means of bridging the explanatory gap, and of resolving the celebrated hard problem of consciousness. (shrink)

The archive is the place for the storage of documents and records. With the emergence of the modern state, it became the storehouse for the material from which national memories were constructed. Archives also housed the proliferation of files and case histories as populations were subjected to disciplinary power and surveillance. Behind all scholarly research stands the archive. The ultimate plausibility of a piece of research depends on the grounds, the sources, from which the account is extracted and compiled. An (...) expanding and unstable globalizing archive presents particular problems for classifying and legitimating knowledge. Increasingly the boundaries between the archive and everyday life become blurred through digital recording and storage technologies. Not only does the volume of recordable archive material increase dramatically, but the volume of material seen worthy of archiving increases too, as the criteria of what can, or should be, archived expands. Life increasingly becomes lived in the shadow of the archive. (shrink)

The paper presents an indexical semantics, based on times and worlds, for some of Prior's logics concerned with issues such as foreknowledge and determinism. In that sense Prior's logic of futurity can be presented as a completely standard modal/tense logic.

In list-method directed forgetting, reexposure to forgotten List 1 items has been shown to reduce directed forgetting. proposed that reexposure to a few List 1 items only during a direct test of memory reinstates the entire List 1 episode. In the present experiments, part-list reexposure in the context of indirect as well as direct memory tests reduced directed forgetting. Directed forgetting was reduced when 50% or more of the items were reexposed, and was intact when only 25% were reexposed. Furthermore, (...) part-list reexposure appeared to reinstate only reexposed items-not the entire List 1 episode. (shrink)

An easily-accessible introduction is provided for theauthor''s book Enchanted Looms , which is reviewedelsewhere in this volume by Jesse Prinz and by MarcelKinsbourne, and also for the article Didconsciousness evolve from self-paced probing of theenvironment, and not from reflexes? , which alsoappears in this volume and which summarises theauthor''s more recent thoughts on consciousness.

Due to the growth of neo-liberalism with its emphasis on “market-driven courses,” the humanities, of which philosophy is a part, find themselves disparaged and under-funded. As a result, some African philosophers have yielded to the temptation to deploy the empirical methodology of the natural and social sciences in a bid to illustrate the practical value of their discipline, thereby eroding philosophy’s distinctive characteristic, namely, reflection. Consequently, drawing from the contemporary discourse on methodology in African philosophy, this article argues that in (...) order to preserve the distinctive character of their discipline, philosophers who inquire into indigenous African thought ought to treat the collection of empirical data on the subject as a preliminary step to the core task of philosophical reflection that deploys such techniques as criticism, linguistic analysis, and systematic speculation. Only then will African philosophy make its proper contribution to the interdisciplinary field of African studies. (shrink)

We present a new way of constructing classical analogies of quantum interference. These analogies share one common factor: they treat closed loops as fundamental entities. Such analogies can be used to understand the difference between quantum and classical probability; they can also be used to illuminate the many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics. An examination of these analogies suggests that closed loops (particularly closed loops in time) may have special significance in interpretations of quantum interference, because they allow probabilities to (...) remain classically additive. (shrink)