The topic of personal identity has prompted some of the liveliest and most interesting debates in recent philosophy. In a fascinating new contribution to the discussion, Peter Unger presents a psychologically aimed, but physically based, account of our identity over time. While supporting the account, he explains why many influential contemporary philosophers have underrated the importance of physical continuity to our survival, casting a new light on the work of Lewis, Nagel, Nozick, Parfit, Perry, Shoemaker, and others. Deriving from his (...) discussion of our identity itself, Unger produces a novel but commonsensical theory of the relations between identity and some of our deepest concerns. In a conservative but flexible spirit, he explores the implications of his theory for questions of value and of the good life. (shrink)

Objective: The value of spontaneous EEG oscillations in distinguishing patients in vegetative and minimally conscious states was studied. Methods: We quantified dynamic repertoire of EEG oscillations in resting condition with closed eyes in patients in vegetative and minimally conscious states (VS and MCS). The exact composition of EEG oscillations was assessed by the probability-classification analysis of short-term EEG spectral patterns. Results: The probability of delta, theta and slow-alpha oscillations occurrence was smaller for patients in MCS than for VS. Additionally, (...) only patients in MCS demonstrated fast-alpha oscillation occurrence. Depending on the type and composition of EEG oscillations, the probability of their occurrence was either aetiology dependent or independent. The probability of EEG oscillations occurrence differentiated brain injuries with different aetiologies. Conclusions: Spontaneous EEG oscillations have a potential value in distinguishing patients in VS and MCS. Significance: This work may have implications for clinical care, rehabilitative programs and medical–legal decisions in patients with impaired consciousness states following coma due to acute brain injuries. (shrink)

Application of quantum mechanical description to neurophysiological processes appears to provide for a natural unification of the physical and humanistic sciences. The categories of thought used to represent physical and psychical processes become united, and the mechanical conception of man created by classical physics is replaced by a profoundly different quantum conception. This revised image of man allows human values to be rooted in contemporary science.

Nietzsche's central criticisms of the evaluative hierarchies he claims to be inscribed in the philosophical tradition and in various everyday practices are based on the idea that the self is opaque to itself. More specifically, he proposes that these hierarchies cannot be adequately explained without reference to a particular form of self-deception he labels ressentiment. What makes this type of self-deception distinctive is that it is alleged to concern the subject's own contemporaneous conscious states. It is shown that none of (...) the three main current models of self-deception can accommodate the type of phenomenon Nietzsche claims to have discovered. Rather than this failure providing grounds for rejecting the concept of ressentiment as incoherent, it is argued that a reconstruction of some of Nietzsche's own observations, in conjunction with insights from later phenomenology, can explain the possibility envisaged by Nietzsche of a subject's intentionally misinterpreting her own current affective experiences. Nietzsche's analysis continues to be of importance in highlighting central aspects of the kind of theory of consciousness needed to do justice to the actual complexity of affective experience. (shrink)

I expressed agreement with Unger's view of the essential\nnature of personal identity, but dissented from what I took\nto be his view of the value we attach to its preservation;\nsaying, for example, that, in common, I think with many\nothers, I would prefer being replaced or succeeded' by a\nnumerically distinct continuator' with "qualitatively"\nidentical memories and mental and physical characteristics\nto surviving as the "numerically" identical person with\nsevere impairment of memory and abilities.

Thought experiments about personal identity have generated conflicting conclusions. Unger attempts, but fails, to refine the thought experimental approach, so as to yield consistent results -- in support of a novel analysis of personal identity. A better strategy is to regard the thought experiments as posing a problem rather than providing a solution. The problem they raise concerns the basis of self-concern. Examining this problem provides grounds for a psychological analysis of personal identity that differs substantially from Unger's.

The deepest beliefs’ about personal identity whose consequences Unger seeks to draw out are the beliefs of those who already share his theoretical convictions; and his pain-avoidance’ experiments show nothing unless one already assumes those convictions. If there is a risk’ that I may not survive a brain operation even though I know exactly which chunks of brain will be removed and replaced, that shows that I am a separate thing from my body and brain, about which the latter provide (...) normally reliable, but still fallible evidence. (shrink)

This book is of vital interest to anyone who yearns to know how science, theology, ethics, art, and politics do really afford objective truths. Not only that, but how these truths in seemingly clashing areas are interrelated by common sense and rooted in our incontrovertible consciousness of Being itself. Being itself, as the basis for truth, is defended against truth-denying modern philosophers who, having headed in the wrong direction with tragic costs of murderous ideologies, have completely misunderstood the simple (...) origin of truth in the realist tradition of Aristotle, Aquinas, Étienne Gilson, and others. Their profoundness is not bamboozled by the covert and corrupting sophism of today’s teachings. Anyone interested in surmounting these teachings that include political correctness and a false divide of fact from value, which paralyze the very modern ethics that helped to create them, should read this book. The book reveals how ethics, art, and politics can be as true as the sciences that inform them. (shrink)

Special issue of the journal Revue philosophique in homage to the centenary of Franz Brentano's death. Contains a substantial introduction and contributions from Alain de Libera, Kevin Mulligan, Barry Dainton, and Uriah Kriegel.

It is a regrettable feature of this book symposium that it appears only after the book itself. If I could solicit from three outstanding philosophers detailed analyses of substantial portions of the book before publishing it, the book would have been far better. Below, I indicate some of the ways the book would have been better.

In this Festschrift honoring the work of Timothy L. S. Sprigge, Sprigge summarizes his philosophy (a synthesis of absolute idealism, panpsychism, and utilitarianism), defends his position against criticism raised by philosophers in the preceding chapters of this volume, and offers in an addendum a proof for the existence of the Absolute, namely, a final and all-embracing Consciousness akin in many ways to Spinoza’s God. This defense of his philosophy consists mainly of responses to various points of criticism raised about (...) his view of time, the relation between his metaphysics and ethics, panpsychism, the Absolute, and animal rights. (shrink)

A vast range of our everyday experiences seem to involve an immediate consciousness of value. We hear the rudeness of someone making offensive comments. In seeing someone risking her life to save another, we recognize her bravery. When we witness a person shouting at an innocent child, we feel the unfairness of this action. If, in learning of a close friend’s success, envy arises in us, we experience our own emotional response as wrong. How are these values apprehended? (...) The three most common answers provided by contemporary philosophy explain the consciousness of value in terms of judgment, emotion, or perception. An alternative view endorsed mainly by authors inspired by the phenomenological tradition argues that values are apprehended by an intentional feeling. In this model, it is by virtue of a feeling that objects are presented as being in different degrees and nuances fair or unfair, boring or funny, good or bad. This paper offers an account of this model of feeling and its basic features, and defends it over alternative models. To this end, the paper discusses different versions of the model circulating in current research which until now have developed in parallel rather than in mutual exchange. The paper also applies the proposed account to the moral domain and examines how a feeling of values is presupposed by several moral experiences. (shrink)

Contributed papers presented at a seminar organized by Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla and Dept. of Philosophy, Goa University.

It seems obvious that phenomenally conscious experience is something of great value, and that this value maps onto a range of important ethical issues. For example, claims about the value of life for those in a permanent vegetative state, debates about treatment and study of disorders of consciousness, controversies about end-of-life care for those with advanced dementia, and arguments about the moral status of embryos, fetuses, and non-human animals arguably turn on the moral significance of various (...) facts about consciousness. However, though work has been done on the moral significance of elements of consciousness, such as pain and pleasure, little explicit attention has been devoted to the ethical significance of consciousness. In this book Joshua Shepherd presents a systematic account of the value present within conscious experience. This account emphasizes not only the nature of consciousness, but the importance of items within experience such as affect, valence, and the complex overall shape of particular valuable experiences. Shepherd also relates this account to difficult cases involving non-humans and those with disorders of consciousness, arguing that the value of consciousness influences and partially explains the degree of moral status a being possesses, without fully determining it. The upshot is a deeper understanding of both the moral importance of phenomenal consciousness and its relations to moral status. This book will be of great interest to philosophers and students of ethics, bioethics, philosophy of psychology, philosophy of mind and cognitive science. (shrink)

The integral consciousness -- The internal universe -- The evolution of consciousness -- The within of things -- The systemic nature of evolution -- Stages of consciousness and culture -- The spiral of development -- Tribal consciousness -- Warrior consciousness -- Traditional consciousness -- Modernist consciousness -- Postmodern consciousness -- The spiral as a whole -- What is the real evidence for the spiral? -- The integral stage of consciousness -- Life (...) conditions for integral consciousness -- The values of integral consciousness -- Integral consciousness in the context of history -- Practicing the integral lifestylevalue metabolism -- Postintegral consciousness -- Integral politics -- The politics of the spiral -- Integral politics and global governance -- Is global governance an unrealistic fantasy? -- Is global governance too dangerouswhat are the safeguards? -- Global governance and integral consciousness cocreate each other -- Integral spirituality -- The development of spiritual traditions -- Public spirituality in the integral age -- Beauty, truth, and goodnessphilosophical spirituality -- The practice of beauty, truth, and goodness -- The revelation of evolution -- The founders of integral philosophy -- Ken Wilber in context -- The evolution of philosophy as a human endeavor -- Hegel, the first integral philosopher -- Bergson, the first post-darwinian integral philosopher -- Whitehead, spiritual philosopher for the ages -- Teilhard de Chardin, master of the internal universe -- Gebser, prophet of integral consciousness -- Developmental psychology and the mapping of the internal universe -- Habermas, architect of integral foundations -- Wilber, framer of integral philosophys twenty-first-century synthesis -- What I add to integral philosophy -- The integral reality frame -- Metaphysics and the evolution of reality frames -- The integral map of reality -- Integral philosophy and human spirituality -- Some critiques of the integral reality frame -- Structures of the human mind -- Lines of development recognized by psychologists -- Wilber's theory of the lines of development -- A critique of Wilber's theory of developmental lines -- An alternative theory of the structures of consciousness -- The self as a whole -- The directions of evolution -- Evolution and the idea of progress -- Unity, complexity, and consciousness -- Directions of evolution in the internal universe -- The dialectical quality of the master patterns of evolution -- Potential applications of a dialectical understanding of evolution. (shrink)

One of the most important and influential philosophers of the last 30 years, John Searle has been concerned throughout his career with a single overarching question: how can we have a unified and theoretically satisfactory account of ourselves and of our relations to other people and to the natural world? In other words, how can we reconcile our common-sense conception of ourselves as conscious, free, mindful, rational agents in a world that we believe comprises brute, unconscious, mindless, meaningless, mute physical (...) particles in fields of force? The essays in this collection are all related to the broad overarching issue that unites the diverse strands of Searle's work. Gathering in an accessible manner essays available only in relatively obscure books and journals, this collection will be of particular value to professionals and upper-level students in philosophy as well as to Searle's more extended audience in such fields as psychology and linguistics. (shrink)

Many philosophers tacitly accept the View: consciousness is necessary for being a welfare subject. That is, in order to be an eligible bearer of welfare goods and bads, an entity must be capable of phenomenal consciousness. However, this paper argues that, in the absence of a compelling rationale, we are not licensed to accept the View, because doing so amounts to fallacious reasoning in theorizing about welfare: insisting on the View when consciousness is not in fact important (...) for welfare value in a systematic and significant way is objectionably “consciousist.” As a result, the View does not advance our understanding of the value of consciousness. The paper further diagnoses why we may be attracted to the View, and what we should accept instead. (shrink)

. Prospects for uniting religion and science are brightened by recently changed views of consciousness and mind‐brain interaction. Mental, vital, and spiritual forces, long excluded and denounced by materialist philosophy, are reinstated in nonmystical form. A revised scientific cosmology emerges in which reductive materialist interpretations emphasizing causal control from below upward are replaced by revised concepts that emphasize the reciprocal control exerted by higher emergent forces from above downward. Scientific views of ourselves and the world and the kinds of (...) values upheld by scientific belief undergo basic transformations, making them more compatible with religious motivation and moral responsibility. (shrink)

This 1991 book is a critical study of the philosophical culture of the USSR, and the first substantial treatment of a Soviet philosopher's work by a Western author. The book identifies a tradition within Soviet Marxism that has produced significant theories of the nature of the self and human activity, of the origins of value and meaning, and of the relation of thought and language. The tradition is presented through the work of Evald Ilyenkov, the man who did most (...) to rejuvenate Soviet philosophy after its suppression under Stalin. Professor Bakhurst sets Ilyenkov's contribution against the background of the bitter debates that divided Soviet philosophers in the 1920s, of Vygotsky's 'socio-historical psychology', of the controversies over Lenin's legacy, and of the philosophy of Stalinism. He traces Ilyenkov's tense relationship with the Soviet philosophical establishment and his passionate polemics with Soviet opponents. This book offers a unique insight into the world of Soviet philosophy, the place of politics within it, and its prospects in the age of glasnost and perestroika. (shrink)

Laura Specker Sullivan (2022) makes a fairly compelling case for the value of the perspectives of Buddhist practitioners in neuroethics. In this study, Tibetan Buddhist monks have been asked, among other things, whether consciousness, in brain-injured patients in a minimally conscious state, entails a duty to preserve life. In our view, some of the participants’ responses could be used to inform the bioethical debate on death determination.

Consciousness and quantum mechanics are two great mysteries of our time--and recently scholars have postulated a deeper connection between them. Exploring this possible connection can be fruitful: an analysis of the conscious mind and psychophysical connection can be indispensable in understanding quantum mechanics and solving the notorious measurement problem, and there is also likely some kind of intimate connection between quantum mechanics--the most fundamental theory of the physical world--and our efforts to explain, naturalistically, the phenomenon of consciousness. The (...) sixteen newly written chapters in this volume are divided into three sections: Consciousness and the Wave Function Collapse, Consciousness in Quantum Theories, and Quantum Approaches to Consciousness. This is the first volume to provide a comprehensive review and thorough analysis of intriguing conjectures about the connection between consciousness and quantum mechanics. Written by leading experts in physics, philosophy, and cognitive science, Consciousness and Quantum Mechanics will be of value to students and researchers working on the foundations of quantum mechanics and the philosophy of mind. (shrink)

Three kinds of emotional consciousness are distinguished in this article: feeling awareness, intellectual awareness, and bare awareness. All are important to three moral properties that emotions may have: epistemic, practical, and relational. The bulk of this article is devoted to the third dimension of moral value, that emotions are constitutive of personal relationships such as friendship, enmity, good and bad parenthood, and collegiality. The conception of emotions as concern-based construals (Roberts, 2003) is put to work to explain how (...) felt and intellectually conscious emotions are constitutive of the qualities of such relationships. The relational value of emotions interacts with their epistemic and practical values. (shrink)

It has been suggested that if the preservation and development of consciousness in the biological evolution is a result of natural selection, it is plausible that consciousness not only has been influenced by neural processes, but has had a survival value itself; and it could only have had this, if it had also been efficacious. This argument for mind-brain interaction is examined, both as the argument has been developed by William James and Karl Popper and as it (...) has been discussed by C.D. Broad. The problem of identifying mental phenomena with certain neural phenomena is also addressed. The main conclusion of the analysis is that an explanation of the evolution of consciousness in Darwinian terms of natural selection does not rule out that consciousness may have evolved as a mere causally inert effect of the evolution of the nervous system, or that mental phenomena are identical with certain neural phenomena. However, the interactionistic theory still seems, more plausible and more fruitful for other reasons brought up in the discussion. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Buddhist-Christian Studies 20 (2000) 3-22 [Access article in PDF] Ecological Consciousness and the Symbol "God" 1 Gordon D. KaufmanHarvard UniversityI am a Christian theologian. This does not mean, however, that I understand my work as being essentially a matter of explaining and defending Christian faith and the Christian set of symbols for interpreting human life and the world. The task of the Christian theologian is rather, as I (...) understand it, to scrutinize carefully, critically evaluate, and reconstruct (in whatever ways seem appropriate and necessary) the central Christian symbols, so they will encourage and support a faith and life appropriate for today. 2 In our time it is no longer sufficient for theologians simply to take it for granted that the basic structure and commitments of traditional Christian faith are--in all of their main lines--right and proper; and to proceed, then, to expound and reinterpret them in whatever ways seem intelligible and persuasive. Whatever may have been the value and justification of this sort of theologizing in the past, the crises of the twentieth century (to many of which Christian symbols, institutions, and practices have themselves contributed) have made it clear that thorough reassessment of the traditional Christian symbol-system, with an eye to its (possibly drastic) reconstruction or even to the total rejection of some of its principal features, is required--if it is to continue to contribute to human well-being, and to the well-being of the rest of life, on planet Earth. It is with this thoroughly critical and open understanding of the task of Christian theologians today that this contribution to our Buddhist-Christian dialogue has been prepared. And I hope a similar spirit will animate the responses to this paper, whether offered from the Christian or the Buddhist side of our conversation. I My assignment here is to examine the topic of "Christianity and Ecology." This is, of course, a very broad topic, much too large for a paper of this sort. I have taken the liberty, therefore, to confine my discussion to only one of the many questions that might be considered under this heading. The central symbol in terms of which Christian faith and Christian life (as well as most other western religious traditions) understand and order themselves is God, usually thought of as designating the creator and governor of the world, the only One to whom unqualified devotion, love, [End Page 3] and service are due. If we can come to some understanding of how this symbol has functioned in the past, and might be conceived properly to function today with respect to ecological concerns, we will have made a large step toward understanding the overall topic of Christianity and ecology. I am devoting this paper, therefore, to the question of "Ecological Consciousness and the Symbol 'God.'"Throughout my professional life I have been concerned with the problem of the continuing viability (or lack of viability) in our contemporary world of the symbol "God," as that symbol has been understood through most of western history (not only by Christians and Jews, but also by many humanists and secularists). And for the last thirty years or so, I have been reflecting on the issues which our growing ecological consciousness poses for our understanding of--and our ordering of life in terms of--this symbol. My earliest writing directly concerned with this question is in a paper entitled "The Concept of Nature: A Problem for Theology" published in the Harvard Theological Review in 1972. 3 In that paper I attempted to show that there is a fundamental tension--indeed, a conceptual and logical incompatibility--between, on the one hand, the understanding of God, and of the intimate relation of humanity to God (as seen in our western religious and philosophical traditions), and on the other hand, our growing awareness that human existence is essentially constituted by, and could not exist apart from, the complex ecological ordering of life that has evolved on planet Earth over many millennia. 4The main emphasis in that paper remains largely correct in my view. Hence, I would like to... (shrink)

It is generally agreed that decoherence theory is, if not a complete answer, at least a great step forward towards a solution of the quantum measurement problem. It is shown here however that in the cases in which a sentient being is explicitly assumed to take cognizance of the outcome the reasons we have for judging this way are not totally consistent, so that the question has to be considered anew. It is pointed out that the way the Broglie–Bohm model (...) solves the riddle suggests a possible clue, consisting in assuming that even very simple systems may have some sort of a proto-consciousness, but that their “internal states of consciousness” are not predictive. It is, next, easily shown that if we imagine the systems get larger, in virtue of decoherence their internal states of consciousness progressively gain in predictive value. So that, for macro-systems, they may be identified (in practice) with the predictive states of consciousness on which we ground our observational predictions. The possibilities of carrying over this idea to standard quantum mechanics are then investigated. Conditions of conceptual consistency are considered and found rather strict, and, finally, two solutions emerge, differing conceptually very much from one another but in both of which the, possibly non-predictive, generalized internal states of consciousness play a crucial role. (shrink)

The interactions between humans, animals and the environment have shaped human values and ethics, not only the genes that we are made of. The animal rights movement challenges human beings to reconsider interactions between humans and other animals, and maybe connected to the environmental movement that begs us to recognize the fact that there are symbiotic relationships between humans and all other organisms. The first part of this paper looks at types of bioethics, the implications of autonomy and the (...) class='Hi'>value of being alive. Then the level of consciousness of these relationships are explored in survey results from Asia and the Pacific, especially in the 1993 International Bioethics Survey conducted in Australia, Hong Kong, India, Israel, Japan, New Zealand, The Philippines, Russia, Singapore and Thailand. Very few mentioned animal consciousness in the survey, but there were more biocentric comments in Australia and Japan; and more comments with the idea of harmony including humans in Thailand. Comparisons between questions and surveys will also be made, in an attempt to describe what people imagine animal consciousness to be, and whether this relates to human ethics of the relationships. (shrink)