A companion to the issues in the contemporary philosophy of mind.

The goal of the article is to show that a complete answer to the title question can be given only in the context of the natural sciences. We believe that the group of cognitive sciences are the most reliable source of information about cognitive mental processes is. Making use of their achievements, we present a series of criteria for possessing a mind. We distinguish between many kinds of minds. We attempt to outline the conditions that must be fulfilled by an (...) adequate model of the mind. In our opinion, such a model must make use of all available empirical data and of scientific theories constructed on the basis of such data. From the point of view of philosophy, the requirements placed upon such theories by ontology are especially important. Their reconstruction can be a prolegomenon to a future integrated ontology of the mind. We emphasize that the mind is not an independent thing. In speaking about the mind we have in mind states, events, processes, functions, and dispositions that are derivative with respect to processes of a lower order. We assume that an adequate model of the mind is multi-dimensional, taking into account several mutually interacting levels of organization. We interpret the psychophysical problem as one of the relation between levels of organization, a relation that is constitutive for the actualization of mental states. Psychophysical relations turn out to be a particular case of the broader issue of relations between levels. In carrying out a preliminary conceptualization we make use of the notion of emergence; this is why our position, which is mainly in opposition to substantial dualism, may be termed emergent monism or naturalism. (shrink)

„Supervenience” is now a part of the philosophical vocabulary of the analytical tradition. The basic ontological idea of supervenience is an attempt to characterize the relationship between families of properties, such as moral and natural properties, mental and physical properties, or macro-properties and micro-properties. The aim of the paper is to discuss recent variants of supervenience relation (microphysical supervenience, global and local supervenience, weak and strong supervenience, natural and logical supervenience). Supervenience relations are almost always unexplanatory, that is, supervenience itself (...) merely picks out a certain kind of covariation or corelation - it does not explain why that covariation holds. (shrink)

The aim of the paper is to present and analyze problems associated with the mechanisms of auditory perception (especially those responsible for speech perception), their specific disorders and functions. I discuss research on speech perception in the broader theoretical context of the mechanistic model of scientific explanation and the perspective of cognitive implantology that explores the possibilities for building hybrid auditory systems.

The purpose of the article is to analyze the concept of contextual emergence as well as its selected applications in philosophy of mind and cognitive science. In the first section the author presents the general assumptions of the emergentist model of reality. He stresses that the concept of emergence can be applied to the description of various levels of organization of nature: one of these levels is that of mental-cognitive processes, analyzed within the fields of philosophy of mind and cognitive (...) science. In the subsequent sections, he introduces the definitions of contextual emergence and systemic causation and he points to their selected applications to mentalcognitive systems. In the concluding part, he presents the ideas of Gerald Edelman and Michael Gazzaniga on the role of contextual explanations as well as the concepts of emergence in the philosophy of biology and cognitive neuroscience. He also indicates the possibility of incorporating the concept of contextual emergence into active externalism and the extended cognition theory. (shrink)

The article deals with the problem of the relationship between logic and experience. Conceptions of K. Ajdukiewicz and W.V.O. Quine are briefly presented. Then the problem of falsifiability of logic is considered.

The problem of interfield integration in cognitive science has three closely connected aspects; they are to do with: a) the interdependencies between the levels of organization of cognitive systems, b) the intertheoretic connections between the subdisciplines of cognitive science, and c) the organization of research and interdisciplinary research projects conducted by scientists from different disciplines who employ a variety of research methods.

The article’s aim is to analyse the ontological and methodological aspects of the interdisciplinarity problem in the context of contemporary research into the mind. After a brief presentation of the differences in meaning in the use of the terms: “multi-,” “inter-,” and “transdisciplinaryity,” the case of cognitive sicence is discussed. According to the author, the levels of analysis and explanation inmulti(inter)disciplinary science of the mind correspond to different levels or dimensions of its architecture. One of the main ontological issues arising (...) here concerns the nature of interlevel relationships constituting the hierarchical structure of the cognitive system. The article’s last part is devoted to showing that an integrated ontology of mind (consistent with scientific knowledge) must be transdisciplinary in character and based on emergentist assumptions. (shrink)

The article provides a critical-comparative analysis of selected positions lending grounds for limitation of the clasical principle of consistency of belief systems. The first part contains arguments of C. Cherniak, P. Klein, R.C. Pinto, N. Rescher and R. Brandom for the inevitability of contradictions in human belief systems. The second part presents several systems of paraconsistent doxastic logic (N.C.A. da Costa, S. French, G. Priest) formally tolerating (in various way) contradictory beliefs. The analysis especially focuses on the weaknesses of the (...) paraconsistent interpretation of the self-deception phenomenon and the contradictions resulting from the so-called Moore's paradox. (shrink)

In the article I am answering some questions posed by J. Komorowska-Mach (in her review of my book) concerning such problems as: (a) relation between cognitive science and ontology of mind, (b) nature of downward causation, (c) methodological status of the theory of psychophysical emergence, (d) nature and mode of existence of the mind in a physical world, (e) ontological commitments of cognitive neuroscience, and (f) fundamentals of emergentist world-picture. The main aim of the paper is demonstration of a connection (...) between the theory of psychophysical emergence and the problem of interdisciplinarity within the context of mind research. (shrink)

Epistemic externalists offer many arguments against skepticism. They modify the skeptic’s concept of knowledge, justification and meaning and point out which of his presuppositions we need not accept. Dretske claims that a skeptic wrongly presupposes that we cannot know if we do not know that we know. But knowledge need not be self-conscious . According to Nozick a skeptic wrongly presupposes the Principle of Closure . He says that although we do not know that we are not brains in a (...) vat, a skeptic does not have the right to use this principle to argue that we do not know things that are obvious. According to Putnam the skeptical hypothesis that we are brains in a vat is incoherent when we use the external theory of meaning. If the meaning of our words depends on a causal relation with our environment, the sentence “I am a brain in a vat” is false or meaningless. Similarly, Davidson says that the external theory of perceptual beliefs excludes global skepticism. According to Williams skepticism simply presupposes a stance opposite to externalism, namely internalism . When we reject internalism, no skeptical argument can be formulated. (shrink)