This paper examines two objections to the infinitist theory of epistemic justification, namely “the finite mind objection” and “the distinction objection.” It criticizes Peter Klein’s response to the distinction objection and offers a more plausible response. It is then argued that this response is incompatible with Klein’s response to the finite mind objection. Infinitists, it would seem, cannot handle both objections when taken together.

This book presents a new theory of the nature of the space in which substantial, enduring objects (objects that are identifiable for more than a fleeting instant) connect with each other and cohere within themselves. This posited fundamental space underlies the common perception of space as necessarily having to identify its contents by separating them within finite beginning and ending boundaries. In the real space each entity is positive and is directly connected to every entity. These connections differ depending (...) on the spatial and temporal dimensions in which they are defined and viewed. This offers a radically new solution to the mind-body problem, which rechearchers in mind-brain theory have not yet satisfactorily solved. And it resolves the conflicting interpretations of quantum physics vs. classical relativistic physics. Even more encouraging to readers who are not specialists in the sciences are the implications for realizing enduring values and a greater appreciation of excellence in our work, education, avocations, and the kindof entertainment we seek. (shrink)

I evaluate two new objections to an infinitist account of epistemic justification, and conclude that they fail to raise any new problems for infinitism. The new objections are a refined version of the finite-mind objection, which says infinitism demands more than finite minds can muster, and the normativity objection, which says infinitism entails that we are epistemically blameless in holding all our beliefs. I show how resources deployed in response to the most popular objection (...) to infinitism, the original finite-mind objection, can be redeployed to address the two new objections. (shrink)

This article discusses contemporary response to the epistemic regress problem or Agrippa's trilemma. The epistemic regress problem is considered the most crucial in the entire theory of knowledge and it is a major concern for many contemporary epistemologists. However, only two of the three alternative solutions have been developed in any detail, foundationalism and coherentism. Infinitism was not seriously considered as a solution because of the finite-mind objection. This article also provides a brief evaluation of foundationalism, emergent (...) coherentism, and infinitism. (shrink)

This chapter analyses Malebranche’s theory that the human, finite mind participates in two separate and, at least prima facie, incompatible unions: one with the body to which it is joined and one with God. By looking at the way that Malebranche borrows from both the mechanical philosophy as articulated by Descartes and Augustine’s dictum that we are not “lights unto” ourselves, the unique, difficult, and at times problematic Malebranchean philosophy of mind is revealed. This discussion is divided (...) into two main parts. First, it situates Malebranche’s view of the nature of mind in relation to Descartes’ and Augustine’s views by way of discussion of the roles of intellect and will, the intelligibility of mind, and the manner in which the mind is involved in sensation, imagining, and passionate responses. These are the operations that depend on the mind’s relationship to its body. Second, the chapter moves to explore Malebranche’s view of the operations of the mind as united to God: ideation, which involves a discussion of Malebranche’s famous doctrine of the Vision of All Things in God, and pure understanding. In this second part, attention is paid to Malebranche’s disputes with Antoine Arnauld, Pierre-Sylvain Régis, and Dortous de Mairan over the central philosophical principle that underwrites the Malebranchean view of ideas: intelligible extension. While intelligible extension is the legitimate object of critique, it is suggested here that Malebranche, by relying on faith, can answer his critics. The chapter concludes by articulating the manner in which that Malebranche sees the relationship between the two unions of the mind, with body and with God, in his science of man. -/- . (shrink)

Klein’s account of epistemic justification, infinitism, supplies a novel solution to the regress problem. We argue that concentrating on the normative aspect of justification exposes a number of unpalatable consequences for infinitism, all of which warrant rejecting the position. As an intermediary step, we develop a stronger version of the ‘finite minds’ objection.

continent. 2.1 (2012): 6–21. The French philosopher and novelist Tristan Garcia was born in Toulouse in 1981. This makes him rather young to have written such an imaginative work of systematic philosophy as Forme et objet , 1 the latest entry in the MétaphysiqueS series at Presses universitaires de France. But this reference to Garcia’s youthfulness is not a form of condescension: by publishing a complete system of philosophy in the grand style, he has already done what none of us (...) in the older generation of speculative realists has done so far. His book is sophisticated, erudite, rigorous, imaginatively rich, and abundant in worldly wisdom– despite the author’s conclusion that wisdom does not exist. The quality and scope of Forme et objet took few observers by surprise, since Garcia has been treated as an emerging philosopher to watch across half a decade of Parisian oral tradition. But Garcia was not just the subject of rumor, being already well known to the French public as a writer of fiction. His debut novel, La meilleure part des hommes , 2 was awarded the 2008 Prix de Flore 3 and has already appeared in English as Hate: A Romance . 4 His follow-up novel, Mémoires de la jungle , 5 made clever use of a chimpanzee narrator. Nor was Garcia only published as a novelist before last November: his philosophical study L’Image 6 had already appeared when the author was just twenty-six, a year before he was crowned by the muses at the historic Café de Flore. And then in 2011, just months before the appearance of Forme et objet , Garcia published a widely distributed work entitled Nous, animaux et humains , 7 with its focus on Jeremy Bentham’s ideas about animals. Given this prolific and versatile track record, an optimistic scenario might envisage the young Garcia as one of those combined literary/philosophical talents who appear intermittently in France across the centuries: Jean-Paul Sartre is merely the most famous recent case. While more time is needed to see how Garcia will channel his impressive mental energies, Forme et objet displays such breadth of insight that its author has a good chance to emerge as one of the leading philosophers of his generation. If we accept Aristotle’s dictum that the peak mental age is fifty-one, then to read Garcia’s massive book is to gain some idea of what European philosophy might look like in the futuristic-sounding 2030’s. The present article is confined to Forme et objet . At 486 pages, the work is obviously daunting in size. Indeed, it is even longer than it sounds, given that many of its early sections are printed in a smaller typeface to designate them as supplemental commentary to the main flow of the argument. But while the length of the book reportedly led to delays in French publication, and will probably slow the inevitable appearance of an English translation, the length of the book should not deter interested readers– much of it results from Garcia’s teacherly writing style. Whereas Quentin Meillassoux’s prose displays an arctic economy of means, Garcia’s style is reminiscent of the repeated lessons of oral classroom proceedings. Rarely is the reader given fewer than three or four chances to master an idea before the author moves on to the next. In practice, the style feels welcoming rather than long-winded. Otherwise, the structure of Forme et objet is surprisingly simple. There is a useful Introduction of less than twenty pages. Then comes Book I: Formally , running to approximately 135 pages. Here Garcia outlines the most basic features of a thing “no matter what it is,” or n’importe quoi , an everyday phrase that Garcia shapes into a technical term. This part of the book feels at times like a more amiable version of Hegel’s Science of Logic , a parallel emphasized further by the threefold articulation of its theme: 1. Thing; 2. Thing and World; 3. Being and Understanding. This is followed by the much longer Book II: Objectively , totaling more than 300 pages. It contains sixteen essay-like meditations on specific kinds of objects—including time, animals, humans, history, gender, and death. Here each chapter rolls smoothly into the next, making this second part of the book feel more like a different work of Hegel: The Phenomenology of Spirit . But these are merely analogies. Garcia is no Hegelian, even if the book contains a few dialectical flourishes that seem to reflect his early enthusiasm for the Frankfurt School. Forme et objet ends with a six-page Coda, followed by the usual page of acknowledgments. In what follows, I will briefly summarize each of these four parts of the book before ending with some more general remarks. Before doing so, it will be useful to situate Garcia biographically (as much as I am able) and philosophically. Though Toulouse is his native city, his formative years were spent largely in Algeria, where his family has deep roots. During our sole private conversation, Garcia mentioned that his parents are professors of literature. 8 As a student of philosopher Garcia flourished so early that many of his current ideas date to his teenaged years: “There are sentences in Forme et objet that I wrote when I was seventeen,” he said in response to a question on that cold night on the Canal St.-Martin. I recalled that remark when reading his brilliant account, late in the book, of the central role of adolescence in contemporary culture. While many prodigies blow through their formal academic training without serious obstruction, Garcia’s student memories are rich in tales of isolation and struggle, though equally rich in gratitude for a half-dozen or so exceptional teachers who provided the intellectual space he needed: Meillassoux and Alain Badiou are simply two of the most prominent figures on that list. Though there are many points of agreement between Garcia’s philosophical position and my own, he not only reached his position years before reading my work, 9 he arrived along a rather different path: not through phenomenology, but via the Frankfurt School, which may be one of the reasons for his profound fascination with aesthetics. Garcia’s cultural background is as broad as one could wish: he is no less informed about punk rock and European football leagues than about the spiritualist roots of Bergson’s philosophy. Curious about everything and contemptuous towards nothing, Garcia can be expected to write insightfully on dozens of topics in the years to come. Given that his philosophy is so personally tantalizing in its agreements and disagreements with my own, and given the great internal richness of Forme et objet itself, the present review is no better than a first effort at coming to terms with the challenges posed by this minstrel from the rising generation. This is especially intriguing for older Generation X’ers like me, since confrontation with the younger generation is one of the many themes treated insightfully in Garcia’s book. 1. Introduction Garcia begins in defense of a so-called “flat ontology,” in which all things are equally things. While Roy Bhaskar 10 used this term pejoratively to refer to anti-realist philosophies that flatten everything onto an epistemic plane of human access, Manuel DeLanda 11 (an admirer of Bhaskar) reversed it into the positive principle that all realities are equally realities. Similar notions can be found in the “absistence” of Alexius Meinong, 12 the “irreduction” of Bruno Latour, 13 and my own critique 14 of the undermining/overmining pair. Also noteworthy is Levi Bryant’s use of the term “flat ontology” throughout The Democracy of Objects 15 and his earlier essay “The Ontic Principle.” 16 But for Garcia, flatness is only one face of the cosmos, and one that he ultimately declares to be rather impoverished. Even so, he always remains an advocate of a flat ontology. Insofar as everything is equally something, no matter what it is ( n’importe qui ), everything is equally a thing, equally solitary in its relation with world. This is why his book abounds in those long lists of random, ontologically equivalent entities that Ian Bogost has playfully termed “Latour Litanies.” 17 The first litany in Garcia’s book runs as follows: “We live in this world of things, where a cutting of acacia, a gene, a computer-generated image, a transplantable hand, a musical sample, a trademarked name, or a sexual service are comparable things.” (7) Yet Garcia is frankly dualistic; his flat ontology only lasts until page 159 and the end of Book I (entitled “Formally”), which deals entirely with things that are equally things. Thereafter Garcia turns his attention from things to objects, which are not flat in the least, but engage in hierarchical relations with one another. In agreement with both DeLanda and the speculative realists, Garcia proclaims that his book “proposes to put to the test a thought about things rather than a thought about our thought about things .” (8) Just as ducklings are “imprinted” (9) after hatching and treat the first creature they see as their mother, philosophers are imprinted by the idea with which they begin. Hence, philosophies that begin with human access will never truly find their way back to things. This makes Garcia rather suspicious of twentieth century philosophy, since “the twentieth century—to which in some way this work proposes to bid adieu—has been a period of theorizing modes of access to things rather than things...” (9) Among other possible benefits of the philosophy of things that Garcia proposes, it is fully able to account for thought as a special variant of things, while the reverse is not possible.(10) In Book I of Forme et objet , Garcia’s “things” are so flat, so de-determined, that he is forced to renounce some of the most basic features ascribed to things by most realists. As he tells us in his foreboding third footnote: “We will maintain that the solitude [of things] is less than unity, less than identity, and that it does not imply acceptance (any more than refusal) of the principle of non-contradiction.” (11) In a contemporary world cluttered with too many things, Garcia’s flat and formal plane provides us with some breathing room: “The formal plan of thought enables or re-enables us to cut short all accumulation—whether of knowing, experience, or action—by a simplicity, an impoverished surface...” (13) As Garcia says elsewhere in responding to a Deleuzian critic of the book, his starting point in flat ontology is designed to obstruct the claims of both analytic philosophy and Hegelianism: “Hence, this work seeks to protect each thing—real, imaginary, inconsistent, contradictory—both against Ockham’s Razor and against the Aufhebung or dialectical process.” 18 Yet contrary to the equalizing spirit of many flat ontologies, “we will add to our formal ontology of the equal, an objective ontology of the unequal.” (13) But initially, Garcia joins all flat ontologists in holding that everything is irreducible: “this irreducibility, which we will term the ‘chance’ of each thing... also marks the refusal of a positive thought that reduces things exclusively to natural things, or social things, or historical things, etc.” (15) This irreducible “chance” of a thing emerges as an important technical term in the book, always paired with its inverted brother, the “price to pay” ( prix à payer ). On pages 17-19, we find the only diagrams in the book. What they illustrate is that Garcia wishes to avoid two equally dangerous extremes. The first is the philosophy of substance, featuring the thing-in-itself as a mighty river fed by attributes as if by subordinate tributary streams. This model can be found in many of the classic thinkers of West and East alike. In it, “there is obviously a hierarchization between that which is dragged towards something other than itself, and this other which serves it as an ontological support while supporting its proper being.” (16) For Garcia, the second extreme worth avoiding is the philosophy of events: “One thus conceives trajectories of being, identified as events, facts, powers, intensities, or intentionality. These vectors of being come first, bearing and supporting being, displacing it, but without ever finding a stopping point, a buffer, an objective consistency.” (17) The first model gives us a thing too wrapped up in itself, too compact . This word “compact” (the French and the English are the same) is another technical term for Garcia. But if the “compact” model of things leads us to something more than things, the philosophy of events gives us less than things, by dissolving them into a play of vectors. Garcia’s alternative lies midway between these two extremes: Being enters the thing, being comes out of it. And a thing is nothing other than the difference between the enters and the being that comes out. Thus, the circuit of being is never halted. In the thing, there is never the thing-in-itself. And the thing is never in-itself, but outside of itself. Nonetheless, being is not eventally “pollinated” by vectors: it possesses an objecting halting-point... (19) This single idea is the key to Garcia’s book: the thing is neither a self-contained durable lump nor some sort of evental flux. Instead, the thing is the difference between its various components and its relations with its environment. Or stated differently: “the price to pay for this disposition is a circulation of being that systematically distinguishes two senses of things: that which is in the thing , and that in which the thing is , or that which encompasses it and that which it encompasses,” (19) translating comprendre here as “encompass.” 19 In a beautiful description of a piece of black slate, Garcia sums up the various minerals, qualities, and shapes that compose [ comprend ] it, and calls them “that which is in the thing,” (20) noting that this tells us nothing about “that in which [the slate] is”—namely, all the various situations in which the black slate can be found. Instead, the slate is the difference between these two: the most characteristic principle of Garcia’s philosophy. 2. Formally Book One of Forme et objet , “Formally,” is concerned with the formal equality of all things in a flat world. “Two questions mark the boundaries of reflection: of what is everything composed [ composé ], and: what do all things compose?” (27) Looking downward, we wish to know what everything is made of; looking upward, we want to know the ultimate result of the combination of all things. Here we must turn our attention to the thing n’importe quoi— no matter what it is. (30) Anything with finite qualities is obviously too specific to be relevant to global ontological questions. To an equal degree, something possessing all qualities (think of Whitehead’s God) 20 would not be n’importe quoi either, since it would still be too definite, even if incredibly vast. The same holds for contradictions, since these all differ from each other. The square circle, the non-white black white, and the non-city city are all too distinct to count as the thing no matter what it is. The n’importe quoi must be devoid of all specific qualities, including contradictory ones. In one of the more intriguing points in his book, so reminiscent of Meinong, Garcia proclaims that “the ‘no matter what it is’ is neither a reality nor an abstract construction, nor both of these at once; the ‘no matter what it is’ is simply the plane of equality of that which is real, that which is possible, that which is inexistent, that which is past, that which is impossible, that which is true, that which is false, that which is bad.”(39-40) Since everything has two faces, it would be a grievous mistake to focus on just one of them at the expense of the other, as physicalism or materialism do when reducing the world to minuscule physical underpinnings. For scientistic materialism, “it is either atoms, particles, or fields of force... which are the things.” (47-48) Moreover, “these more-than-things are accompanied by less-than-things: for example, ideas or facts of consciousness are determined by the state of matter and are not autonomous things, but manifestations reduced to secondary effects of material processes...” (48) On this point, Garcia’s position is in complete accord with my own critique of undermining and overmining. 21 Where we disagree is that Garcia is more deeply suspicious of the notion of substance, which I view as salvageable with a few needed changes, while Garcia sees this operation as hopeless: “A substance, in the history of philosophy, is the more-than-thing par excellence.” (51) Another agreement between our positions is visible when Garcia claims (correctly, in my opinion) “that it is vain to distinguish between things which are material and those which are not.” (52) Yet we also find an even more important disagreement, since for Garcia withdrawal cannot be the quality of a thing. Instead, the absence of a thing is simultaneous with it, embodied in all that is not it– the absence of the sculpture of a woman is to be found in the mold that appears at the same time as it, and thus withdrawal must be viewed as an “event” rather than as something pertaining to an object. For Garcia, nothing withdraws beyond access. Since we must distinguish between “that which is something” and “that which something is,” and since the former is identified with “no matter what it is is” and the latter with “ not no matter what it is,” we can say that “everything is thus a milieu, a fragile link between ‘no matter what it is’ and ‘ not no matter what it is.’” (62) And here we find Garcia’s critique of the thing-in-itself: “A thing is never defined en bloc . We can affirm that a thing is this or that, but that does not suffice. It is still necessary to state precisely that which is this thing .” (62) Stated differently, “something is not in itself : for that which is in the thing is not the thing, and that in which the thing is is not the thing.” (62) And here Garcia and I, facing the same evidence, draw opposite conclusions. For me, the fact that nothing can be identified with either its components or its concrete location means that the thing must be something in-itself distinct from both of these. Yet for Garcia, to be in-itself would mean to be identified with just one of these two extreme terms, and hence the thing can only be the difference between them. Garcia is equally suspicious of the classical tendency to view “unity” as a property of the thing, since in his eyes unity is too relational a property to belong to things. (65) While specific things are situated determinately with respect to other things, we are still speaking here about the thing no matter what it is, and this can be viewed only in terms of solitude, which all things share: a human being, a hand, or a chair or all equally things insofar as they are on their own , not insofar as they are one . (64) A thing is alone, and relates only to the one thing that is not another thing: world. In a striking parallel to my own argument for a partial revival of occasionalism, Garcia tells us that “the things communicate only by their solitude: it is because everything is equally on its own in the world that things can be together, enmeshed in one another.” (67) Alone in their solitude, things all relate to world, which serves as a mediator allowing them to become mixed up in one another. As we have seen, one reason that nothing can be in itself is because everything is in something else. For Garcia, “to be in something and to be something are equivalent.” (69) Stated more broadly, “being is thus the difference between the two aspects of each thing: that which is it, and that which it is.” (70) And even more vividly: “a thing is almost like a sack: there is that which one puts in the sack and that which remains outside the sack.” (70) But not quite like a sack, “since a thing is not a thin skin or film. Instead, a thing is comparable to a sack that is immaterial and without thickness: it is nothing other than the difference between that which is this thing and that which thing is, between content and container.” (71) Nothing can be in-itself because everything is two selves at once. For example, we cannot say that our self is defined by our consciousness: “Everything has a self because nothing is in itself. The self is not the quality of that which is related to itself (which is conscious, for example) or which thinks itself related to itself. Nonetheless, for an entity called ‘conscious’ to be related to itself, it is necessary that this very relation should be another thing than the self to which it is related.” (71) Consciousness cannot be the self, precisely because it is other than that of which it is conscious. Nothing is able to grasp itself. The self is “the function by which being and composition [ compréhension ] are mutually excluded...” (72) The self is “the point of shadow of everything that projects some light...” (72) The in-itself faces two opposite dangers: “For something to be in-itself is to be a self. Something which is a self flies out through one of its two sides... Stated differently, being in-itself is simply the possibility of a double failure.” (73) The in-itself can be termed compact : “There remains to us a means of thinking that which does not fully enter into the world, though without exiting from it. This means is what we call the compact.” (76) In a sense, the compact is the opposite of the world. For in the case of the world, everything enters it and it enters nothing; as for the compact, it enters the world (since it is something, after all) while nothing enters it. (77) The compact marks the presence of the impossible in the world. (78) It is not impossible, but possible only on the condition that it fails. (78) The time has come to speak of where a thing is located. “The sole condition of a thing is that of being in another thing than itself, and thus in another thing than something.” (78) A condition is “that which determines something, that which forms something, that in which something is.” (78) As for humans, “the condition of someone is his situation; my social condition is that which socially determines me, my place and my function...” (79) More generally, “to be conditioned is to find oneself reduced to that in which one is.” (79) Everything is conditioned, but nothing is reducible to this condition. To determine the condition of something is to determine in what it is. A thing is located in that which contradicts it, just as a statue exists in its mold, which is precisely that which it is not. Since the thing is finite and definite, its condition or form must be infinite and indefinite. That in which all things are is the world, which Garcia also terms “the whole.” (81) “To try to be in-itself is to attempt to remain outside the world. And indeed, to try to be in-itself is only a path of entry into the world.” (83) For Garcia, “the world is not the pre-existent container of the things it contains, a priori , nor the construction by the mind of a fictional ensemble of all things, a posteriori .” (85) Instead, the world is simultaneous with all things; the two always go together. The world cannot be a determinate world, such as the physical universe or mathematical space, since these are already too specific and limited. “Every determinate world, which is in fact a universe , is a ‘big thing’ [ grosse chose ]: it is a set, however vast, of composite things which itself embodies a thing.” (85) Every determinate world is really just a “big thing.” Stated differently, “it is nothing other than a balanced milieu between the things that compose it and the thing that it composes.” (85) We generally picture the world as a physical univer. (shrink)

Although actual human omniscience is unimaginable, it is not obvious what it means to be limited with regard to thought. One of Kant's significant contributions to epistemology was his redefinition of the limits of thought. He is explicit about this when he contrasts human, receptive intuition, and the creative intuition that an infinite being would have. Importantly, judging and reasoning are only necessary for a mind that is first affected by an object through sensibility, which is not the case (...) for a being with creative intuition, since this kind of intuition creates its own object. This means that the intellect of Kant's God is distinct from the human intellect in kind, since judging and reasoning are essentially finite activities; they are already evidence of a finite, human cognition. In contrast, Aristotle argues that human cognition - beyond its capacity for discursivity - is able to contemplate; as we will see, Aristotle argues that contemplation is divine, and so a limited intellect can become more or less like an omniscient intellect depending on the quality of one's contemplative life. In this work, I want to 1) establish that Kant and Aristotle have incompatible conceptions of non-omniscience, 2) trace the epistemological commitments that motivate their rival positions on non-omniscience, 3) show that their particular views on the legitimacy of metaphysical judgments presuppose their particular interpretations of non-omniscience, and 4) argue that Kant provides a superior analysis of non-omniscience. (shrink)

In discussions regarding models of cognition, the very mention of “computationalism” often incites reactions against the insufficiency of the Turing machine model, its abstractness, determinism, the lack of naturalist foundations, triviality and the absence of clarity. None of those objections, however, concerns models based on natural computation or computing nature, where the model of computation is broader than symbol manipulation or conventional models of computation. Computing nature consists of physical structures that form layered computational architecture, with computation processes ranging from (...) quantum to chemical, biological/cognitive and social-level computation. It is argued that, on the lower levels of information processing in the brain, finite automata or Turing machines may still be adequate models, while, on the higher levels of whole-brain information processing, natural computing models are necessary. A layered computational architecture of the mind based on the intrinsic computing of physical systems avoids objections against early versions of computationalism in the form of abstract symbols manipulation. (shrink)

Infinity and the Brain proposes a logical and scientific way to resolve the paradox of mind and matter -- by explaining how the perception of a finite image is dependent upon the contrasting infinitude of God. The theory holds that awareness is equal to a tension between existence and nonexistence, such that the self is illuminated to itself (becomes conscious) to the exact measure that it anticipates the infinitude of its own nonexistence. This "anticipation" is actually a "tendency (...) toward" a loss of structure in accordance with the second law of thermodynamics, a process that is restrained by effort and the consequent wholesness of an image. An understanding of how effort is linked to an image and how both are dependent upon neural systems inseparable from "infinity anticipation" sets the stage for a new worldview -- in which mind is seen as dependent upon the immanence of an infinite God. And because "mind" can be defined by the presence of an image which intrinsically restrains disorder, we see by extrapolation that the entire universe must be fundamentally personal, not objective as currently viewed by modern science. Book jacket. (shrink)

An elementary mathematical proof is offered that mental states cannot be either intensionally or extensionally identical with brain states. the proof consists in taking a subset of mental states, namely, possible thoughts of integers and showing that this set has the cardinal number aleph null; then taking the largest physically possible set of brain states k and the number of subsets of k which is 2 to the power k, and which, no matter how large, is necessarily finite. it (...) follows that these two sets cannot correspond one to one from which it then follows that they cannot have identical elements. i conclude with answers to likely objections and with a denial that my argument supports traditional dualism. (shrink)

It is obvious that both Spinoza and Leibniz attach importance to the notion of expression in their philosophical writings and that both do so in a similar fashion: They agree, for example, that the mind expresses the body (although this claim has rather different meanings for each of them). Another – albeit related – use of ‘expression’ that appears in both thinkers provides a deeper insight into some metaphysical similarity as well as difference: The idea that expression is closely (...) connected with the perfection and action of individual things. While this relation is explicit in Leibniz, I will show that it is also in a less straightforward way found in Spinoza and, furthermore, that the relation of expression in regards to perfection is similar in Spinoza and Leibniz as both of them regard individuals as perfect insofar as they express the world and God. But one crucial difference in their accounts lies in the claim that, for Spinoza, what is being expressed and gives rise to perfection can be privative in nature, while such a thing cannot be the object of an expression for Leibniz. As I will argue, this not based merely on their different metaphysical views, but also on a difference in what can serve as content of an expression. (shrink)

This paper concerns Alan Turing’s ideas about machines, mathematical methods of proof, and intelligence. By the late 1930s, Kurt Gödel and other logicians, including Turing himself, had shown that no finite set of rules could be used to generate all true mathematical statements. Yet according to Turing, there was no upper bound to the number of mathematical truths provable by intelligent human beings, for they could invent new rules and methods of proof. So, the output of a human mathematician, (...) for Turing, was not a computable sequence (i.e., one that could be generated by a Turing machine). Since computers only contained a finite number of instructions (or programs), one might argue, they could not reproduce human intelligence. Turing called this the “mathematical
objection” to his view that machines can think. Logico-mathematical reasons, stemming from his own work, helped to convince Turing that it should be possible to reproduce human intelligence, and eventually compete with it, by developing the appropriate kind of digital computer. He felt it
should be possible to program a computer so that it could learn or discover new rules, overcoming the limitations imposed by the incompleteness and undecidability results in the same way that human
mathematicians presumably do. (shrink)

In 1747, Kant believed that the mind/body problem presupposed several false and interrelated assumptions that fell under the general view that the essential force of body is vis motrix, namely that bodies act only by causing changes of motion, that bodies can be acted upon only by being moved, and that souls and bodies do not share a common force. He argued in Thoughts on the True Estimation of Living Forces that the traditional vis motrix view, which was defended (...) by Wolff, appealed to an unexplanatory and metaphysically incoherent conception of force. ;Kant maintained that God acted to unify our world in such a way that all its finite substances possess a vis activa capable of producing motion in bodies and representations in souls. Unlike Leibniz's account of vis activa, Kant's account was compatible with the existence of transeunt or externally-directed forces. Indeed, Kant argued that every change in our world involves the exercise of a transeunt force. ;In Living Forces, Kant used these ideas to solve the mind/body problem. This study evaluates Kant's solution and traces his responses in later pre-critical texts to several acute difficulties. Chief among these difficulties was that his account of the "divine schema" of our world was incompatible with his metaphysical dualism: to exist in our world, Kant argued, all substances must possess attractive and repulsive forces, but attributing these forces to souls implied that they also possessed the same material nature as the physical monads out of which material bodies are composed. ;Kant did not recognize this problem until the early 1760s, and in the Dreams of a Spirit-Seer he maintained that it was insoluble. In the Meta-physik L1 lectures , Kant articulated a new understanding of the mind/body problem that centered on the idea that the body is an object of outer sense and the soul an object of inner sense. ;I conclude that, although his understanding of mind/body connectedness remained inadequate in the mid-1770s, Kant's struggles with this and related issues contributed to the development of systematic critical strictures on meta-physical reasoning and to the critical theory of inner sense. (shrink)

In the Transcendental Aesthetic of the Critique of Pure Reason, Immanuel Kant famously claims that we have an a priori intuition of space as an ‘infinite given magnitude’. Later on, in the Transcendental Analytic, he seems to add that the intuition of space presupposes a synthetic activity of the transcendental imagination. Several authors have recently pointed out that these two claims taken together give rise to two problems. First, it is unclear how the transcendental imagination of a finite (...) class='Hi'>mind could ever result in the intuition of an entity that is infinitely large. Second, Kant claims that our intuition of space has a ‘whole-prior-to-its-parts’ structure, such that its parts are given only as limitations of the whole, while synthesis is compositional and has a ‘parts-prior-to-their-whole’ structure, because it consists in first running through and then taking together the parts of a sensible manifold. I will solve these two problems by showing that Kant thought that synthesis does not always have a compositional structure but that there is also a form of ‘decomposing’ synthesis, which has a whole-prior-to-its-parts structure. Building on similarities between Kant, Edmund Husserl and G. W. F. Hegel, I will argue that infinite space is given to us in intuition by precisely such an activity of decomposition, one that allows us to differentiate between finite spatial objects and the unlimited phenomenal horizon in which they appear. (shrink)

Berkeley's doctrine of archetypes explains how God perceives and can have the same ideas as finite minds. His appeal of Christian neo-Platonism opens up a way to understand how the relation of mind, ideas, and their union is modeled on the Cappadocian church fathers' account of the persons of the trinity. This way of understanding Berkeley indicates why he, in contrast to Descartes or Locke, thinks that mind (spiritual substance) and ideas (the object of mind) cannot (...) exist or be thought of apart from one another. It also hints at why Gregory of Nyssa's immaterialism sounds so much like Berkeley's. (shrink)

Adequate ideas are the fundamental element of Spinoza’s epistemological program. However, a recurrent worry among scholars is that Spinoza’s account of adequate ideas is inconsistent with any finite being ever having one. As I frame it, the problem is that for Spinoza an idea is adequate in a mind only if all its causal antecedents lie within the mind as well. However, it seems there can be no finite mind for which this is true; (...) class='Hi'>finite minds come to be and exist within a deterministic causal nexus, and the causal antecedents of every idea in a mind will ultimately stretch far beyond it. I call this the External Cause Objection. I argue that Spinoza appreciated and explicitly answered this concern. According to this reply, adequate ideas do not have causes external to the mind because they do not fall into the category of what Spinoza calls “singular things.” In addition to showing that this coheres with his more specific claims about adequate ideas and his firm belief that finite minds are parts of nature, I argue that the resolution to this problem sheds light on Spinoza’s understanding of what I call absolute agency. Published on 2022-03-23 11:07:32. (shrink)

In this paper I argue, based on a comparison of Spinoza's and Descartes‟s discussion of error, that beliefs are affirmations of the content of imagination that is not false in itself, only in relation to the object. This interpretation is an improvement both on the winning ideas reading and on the interpretation reading of beliefs. Contrary to the winning ideas reading it is able to explain belief revision concerning the same representation. Also, it does not need the assumption that I (...) misinterpret my otherwise correct ideas as the interpretation reading would have it. In the first section I will provide a brief overview of the notion of inherence and its role in Spinoza‟s discussion of the status of finite minds. Then by examining the relation between Spinoza‟s and Descartes‟ distinction of representations and attitudes, I show that affirmation can be identified with beliefs in Spinoza. Next, I will take a closer look at the identification of intellect and will and argue that Spinoza's identification of the two is based on the fact that Spinoza sees both as the active aspect of the mind. After that, I analyze Spinoza‟s comments on the different scopes of will and intellect, and argue that beliefs are affirmations of the imaginative content of the idea. Finally, through Spinoza‟s example of the utterance of mathematical error, I present my solution to the problem of inherence of false beliefs. (shrink)

Skepticism in epistemology refers to the supposedly irrational attitude of suspending judgment about all beliefs, particularly those taken for granted. The skeptical attitude presses philosophy to investigate the conditions under which knowledge and justification rather than accidental truths can be arrived at. In the first chapter, we will investigate how to construct a form of radical skepticism known as Pyrrhonian skepticism; we will see how Agrippa's Trilemma builds three ways of skeptical defense to object to three possible conditions in the (...) structuring of epistemic justification. In the second chapter, we will examine infinitism as a possible answer to the trilemma, as well as the conceptual bases that make possible the existence of this possible solution to the skeptical challenge. In the third, the main objection to infinitism known as the finite mind problem will be analyzed. In the fourth chapter, we will look at an alternative formulation of the trilemma, as well as the challenges this approach poses to the anti-skeptical response. (shrink)

Renaissance philosopher, mathematician, and theologian Nicholas of Cusa (1401-1464) said that there is no proportion between the finite mind and the infinite. He is fond of saying reason cannot fully comprehend the infinite. That our best hope for attaining a vision and understanding of infinite things is by mathematics and by the use of contemplating symbols, which help us grasp "the absolute infinite". By the late 19th century, there is a decisive intervention in mathematics and its philosophy: the (...) philosophical mathematician Georg Cantor (1845-1918) says that between the realm of the finite and the absolute infinite, there is an intermediate realm partaking in properties in a certain sense of both the finite and the infinite: the transfinite realm. Like the finite, the transfinite realm is a realm of mathematical objects, numbers, and knowledge. Like the absolute infinite, the transfinite is a form of infinity insofar as transfinite sets and numbers transcend any finite number. Echoing Cusanus and neo-Platonism, Cantor says that the transfinite sequence of all ordinals is a symbol of the absolutely infinite, that is, God. This paper considers how the doctrine of symbolism and the philosophers' different commitments to the laws of logic, especially the Law of Non-Contradiction (LNC), enables these thinkers to articulate a transcendental apophatic approach to divinity. (shrink)

The Theistic Argument from Intentionality (TAI) is a venerable argument for the existence of God from the existence of eternal truths. The argument relies, inter alia, on the premises that (i) truth requires representation, and that (ii) non-derivative representation is a function of, and only of, minds. If propositions are the fundamental bearers of truth and falsity, then these premises entail that propositions (or at least their representational properties) depend on minds. Although it is widely thought that psychologism—the view that (...) the fundamental truth-bearers are mind-dependent—was refuted by Frege, a psychologistic view of propositions has been undergoing a revival. However, this new psychologism suffers from a problem of scarcity—finite minds cannot generate enough thoughts to play the role of fundamental truth-bearers. This objection paves the way for a revised version of the TAI: only an infinite mind can furnish enough thoughts to play the role of propositions. (shrink)

Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758) is widely acknowledged to be America's most important and original philosophical theologian. His work as a whole is an expression of two themes — the absolute sovereignty of God and the beauty of God's holiness. The first is articulated in Edwards' defense of theological determinism, in a doctrine of occasionalism, and in his insistence that physical objects are only collections of sensible “ideas” while finite minds are mere assemblages of “thoughts” or “perceptions.” As the only real (...) cause or substance underlying physical and mental phenomena, God is “being in general,” the “sum of all being.” -/- Edwards' second theme is articulated in accounts of God's end in creation, and of the nature of true virtue and true beauty. God creates in order to manifest a holiness which consists in a benevolence which alone is truly beautiful. Genuine human virtue is an imitation of divine benevolence and all finite beauty is an image of divine loveliness. True virtue is needed to discern this beauty, however, and to reason rightly about “divine things.”. (shrink)

There is a widespread assumption that Berkeley and Spinoza have little in common, even though early Jesuit critics in France often linked them. Later commentators have also recognized their similarities. My essay focuses on how Berkeley 's comments on the Arnauld-Malebranche debate regarding objective and formal reality and his treatment of god's creation of finite minds within the order of nature relate his theory of knowledge to his doctrine in a way similar to that of Spinoza. On estime souvent (...) que Berkeley et Spinoza ont peu en commun, même si les premières critiques jésuites en France les ont souvent liés. D'autres commentateurs ont également reconnu leurs similitudes. Mon essai se concentre sur la manière dont 1 / les remarques de Berkeley sur la discussion entre Arnauld et Malebranche concernant la réalité objective et formelle et 2 / son traitement de la création par Dieu des esprits finis dans l'ordre de la nature mettent en relation sa théorie de la connaissance et sa doctrine de la liberté dans une manière semblable à celle de Spinoza. (shrink)

The doctrine of signs consisting in triadic relations irreducible to the subjective or objective terms that relation of signification brings into unity is a decisive refutation of the central doctrine of Nominalism only individual subjects exist independently of considerations of the finite mind. The imperceptibility of relations as such in their distinction from related things no doubt was (and is) the main source for the credibility of nominalist doctrine denying mind-independent status to relations as such, and perhaps (...) even for the late-blooming of semiotics itself in the long history of philosophy, inasmuch we now realize that precisely the unique being of relation as a suprasubjective mode of being is what gives the sign its indifference to contrast between what is mind-dependent (ens rationis) and mind-independent (ens reale), what is inner (the psychological states which sustain relations of sign) and what is outer (the materialthings of the environment which themselves sustain relations of sign independently of psychological states). By this unexpected route, the “way of signs”, we are thus led across yet another surprise: a wholly new approach to establishing the distinction between “sense” (as including perception along with outer sense) and “intellect” (or ‘understanding’, the intuitive capacity of ‘reason’ to ‘see’ in objects of experience aspects of ‘reality’ — such as a judge or an officer, a photon or an angel — which cannot be reduced anything directlymanifested by external sensation). This subject, of whether humans as “rational animals” differ in kind or (as Hume and many empiricists have held) only in degree from the intelligence of “brute animals”, has been a matter of dispute over the entire history of philosophy. Semiotics, with the discovery that all animals use signs but only human animals come to know that there are signs, suprasubjective triadic relations in their irreducibility to related things which alone sense perception can objectively reveal, thus, is led not only to the species-specific definition of humans as “semiotic animals”, but also to a decisive demonstration of the difference between sense and intellect. Anthony Russell (22 November 1922–1989 April 12) proposed that an essay addressing this point from the perspective of semiotics would be “the first essay worth reading on the subject since the days of Locke and Hume”; whence it is to Russell’s memory that this essay is dedicated. (shrink)

Renaissance philosopher, mathematician, and theologian Nicholas of Cusa (1401-1464) said that there is no proportion between the finite mind and the infinite. He is fond of saying reason cannot fully comprehend the infinite. That our best hope for attaining a vision and understanding of infinite things is by mathematics and by the use of contemplating symbols, which help us grasp "the absolute infinite". By the late 19th century, there is a decisive intervention in mathematics and its philosophy: the (...) philosophical mathematician Georg Cantor (1845-1918) says that between the realm of the finite and the absolute infinite, there is an intermediate realm partaking in properties in a certain sense of both the finite and the infinite: the transfinite realm. Like the finite, the transfinite realm is a realm of mathematical objects, numbers, and knowledge. Like the absolute infinite, the transfinite is a form of infinity insofar as transfinite sets and numbers transcend any finite number. Echoing Cusanus and neo-Platonism, Cantor says that the transfinite sequence of all ordinals is a symbol of the absolutely infinite, that is, God. Moreover, Cantor envisioned his transfinite set theory (Mengenlehre) as providing the analytical methods and techniques necessary for a comprehensive, organic, non-reductive description of nature, a Naturphilosophie. Thus Cantor’s novel mathematics is presented as part of a long tradition, to which Cusanus, Bruno, Spinoza, Leibniz and others belong, in which the infinity and infinite character of organic life forms is appreciated, and is in some sense a mirror or symbol of the divine. The doctrine of symbolism and their different approach to the laws of logic present in both the work of Cusanus and Cantor enables these thinkers to articulate a transcendental apophatic approach to divinity. (shrink)

Structural idealism uses formal and computational techniques to describe an idealist ontology composed of God and a set of finite minds. A finite mind is a system of private intentional worlds. An intentional world is a connectionist hierarchy of intentional objects (propositions, concepts, sensible things, sensations). Intentional objects, similar to Leibnizian monads, are computing machines. To escape the egocentric predicament, Leibnizian relations of (in)compossibility exist between finite minds, linking them together into a constraint-satisfaction network, thereby coordinating (...) their private intentional worlds. (shrink)

The aim of the article is to critically assess the widespread surmise according to which Descartes was in certain important aspects of his thought infl uenced by Suárez’s Metaphysical Disputations. In the article this question is addressed with regard to the problem of the ontological background of the representational acts of a finite mind. Descartes’ position is reconstructed on the basis of an analysis of Meditation III and consequently of Descartes’ polemic with Johan de Kater in the First (...) Objections and Replies; the reconstruction is accomplished by means of terms and concepts commonly used in the late scholastic thought of the end of the 16th century. An analysis of the key passage of Section 2 of Disputation 54 of the Metaphysical Disputations of Suárez (concerned with the distinction between extrinsic denominations and beings of reason) then shows, first, that Suárez’s position concerning the ontology of mental representation does indeed agree with that of Descartes, not Kater; second, that the implications of Suárez’s critique of certain theses concerning the identity of extrinsic denominations and beings of reason probably form an important part of the conceptual framework presupposed in the polemic between Decartes and Kater. (shrink)

Berkeley holds that the essence of sensible objects is percipi. So, sensible objects cannot exist unperceived. Naturally, this has invited questions about the existence of sensible objects when unperceived by finite minds. This is sometimes called the Problem of Continuity. It is frequently said that Berkeley solves the problem by invoking God's ever-present perception to ensure that sensible objects maintain a continuous existence. Problems with this line of response have led some to a phenomenalist interpretation of Berkeley's claim. This (...) paper argues that neither of these are Berkeley's solution since he recognizes no such problem. The paper sketches a new interpretation of sensible objects that obviates the need for a "solution" by avoiding the "problem" in the first place. (shrink)

The problem of cooperation for rational actors comprises two sub problems: the problem of the intentional object (under what description does each actor perceive the situation?) and the problem of common knowledge for finite minds (how much belief iteration is required?). I will argue that subdoxastic signalling can solve the problem of the intentional object as long as this is confined to a simple coordination problem. In a more complex environment like an assurance game signals may become unreliable. Mutual (...) beliefs can then bolster the earlier attained equilibrium. I will first address these two problems by means of an example, in order to draw some more general lessons about combining evolutionary theory and rationality later on. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is twofold. First, I argue that Mary Shepherd has a dispositional understanding of God, matter, and finite minds. That is, she understands all of them as dispositions or powers (two terms I will use interchangeably). Second, I aim to shed light on the emanationist picture suggested by Shepherd’s remarks in her second book Essays on the Perception of an External Universe (EPEU). For instance, Shepherd calls ‘animate’ and ‘inanimate nature’ a divine ‘emanation’ (EPEU 190) (...) and describes finite beings as ‘outgoings’ that come ‘forth’ from God (EPEU 189, 190, 219). Because of this emanationist language, in conjunction with Shepherd’s dispositional understanding of God, matter, and mind, it is helpful to use Jennifer McKitrick’s (2003) distinction between bare and based disposition. For Shepherd’s remarks suggest that the powers that are matter and finite minds are akin to based dispositions because they are caused by and subsist in virtue of God. But since God – ‘THE GREAT FIRST CAUSE’ (ERCE 119) ‘who began not to be’ (EPEU 219) is also a power, the Deity functions similarly to a bare or ungrounded disposition, while matter and finite minds are similar to a ‘based dispositions’ (McKitrick 2003). (shrink)

ELSEWHERE WE HAVE ARGUED that Peirce's later thought manifests a commitment to the thesis that there is a world of physical objects whose existence and properties are neither logically nor causally dependent upon the noetic act of any number of finite minds. 1 In other words, we have argued that Peirce's later thought satisfies the definition of metaphysical realism as classically defined. 2 There are, however, a number of texts which might be cited to support the claim that, for (...) Peirce, the existence and properties of physical objects are causally, and therefore logically, dependent upon the noetic act of the sum of finite minds identified as the community of scientific inquirers. If this latter claim can be substantiated it would seem to follow that either (a) Peirce was fundamentally inconsistent in simultaneously espousing two mutually exclusive doctrines or (b) in his later writings Peirce was not a metaphysical realist at all and that the doctrine on externality can be subsumed into a metaphysical idealism in which the notion of 'external object' does not imply causal or logical independence of the noetic act but rather the experience of duality or otherness. In other words, if the claim that the later Peirce was a metaphysical idealist can be supported, then Peirce was either hopelessly inconsistent or merely trying to account for realistic distinctions within an idealistic framework such as to... (shrink)

This essay examines some of the ways in which the assumption of the essential finitude of the human mind, in contrast to the infinitude of God’s mind, bears on Leibniz’s and Kant’s accounts of our representational capacities. This examination reveals several underappreciated similarities between their views, but also some notable differences that help us pinpoint where and in what ways Kant departs from his celebrated predecessor. The fruits of this examination are a better understanding of Kant’s conception of (...) the discursivity of our understanding, his account of the difference between concepts and intuitions, and the particular flavor of his idealism. -/- . (shrink)

The recognition that human minds/brains are finite systems with limited resources for computation has led some researchers to advance theTractable Cognition thesis: Human cognitive capacities are constrained by computational tractability. This thesis, if true, serves cognitive psychology by constraining the space of computational‐level theories of cognition. To utilize this constraint, a precise and workable definition of “computational tractability” is needed. Following computer science tradition, many cognitive scientists and psychologists define computational tractability as polynomial‐time computability, leading to theP‐Cognition thesis. This (...) article explains how and why the P‐Cognition thesis may be overly restrictive, risking the exclusion of veridical computational‐level theories from scientific investigation. An argument is made to replace the P‐Cognition thesis by theFPT‐Cognition thesisas an alternative formalization of the Tractable Cognition thesis (here, FPT stands for fixed‐parameter tractable). Possible objections to the Tractable Cognition thesis, and its proposed formalization, are discussed, and existing misconceptions are clarified. (shrink)

In his work, Insight and Inference, Murray Miles provides a thorough and illuminating analysis of many topics in Cartesian philosophy, each of which would be worthy of a focused study in its own right. But Miles’s treatment of each of these matters is subordinated to that which remains throughout the principal object of his study, namely, the correct interpretation and analysis of Descartes’s sentence, cogito ergo sum, taken as a formula of the principle upon which first philosophy and indeed science (...) in general may be finally well founded. Given his interpretation and analysis, Miles goes on to show how, in employing this sentence as such a principle, Descartes transformed the very ideas upon which the order of being, no less than that of knowing, could be framed. This transformation, Miles argues, has been largely neglected in recent scholarship, as when Descartes’s works are read as concerned with primarily epistemological problems regarding the foundations of a mathematical science of nature, or misrepresented, as when some version of ideal-ism or anti-realism is attributed to Descartes. As a corrective to this, Miles tries to show that while taking the existence and nature of the knowing finite mind as the point of departure for metaphysics, as otherwise traditionally conceived, Descartes did not accept or commit himself to any version of idealism or anti-realism. Instead, Miles argues, Descartes developed together with a novel ontology of separable, finite minds a new and rather robust direct realism with respect to our ordinary and philosophical knowledge of the natural world. It is perhaps as just such a corrective that Miles’s extensive study of Descartes’s founding principle of philosophy is most intriguing and compelling, not only for the Descartes scholar but for any philosopher interested in metaphysics—the future of metaphysics, no less than its past. (shrink)

Primary object of interest of mathematicians can be identified as a „mathematical matter”, the concept analogous to „physical matter” or „biological matter”. The „mathematical matter” is the soil upon which mathematics grows. One can distinguish three levels of it: some abstract but not necessarily clear conceptions, operational notions (like number) but not necessarily openly defined, theories not necessarily axiomatic. The „mathematical matter” originates in the abstract reflection upon events and forms in time and space. Its important elements are notions formed (...) mostly in the process of idealization and/or abstraction. Once formed, notions usually evolve being, e.g., simplified or complexified. Mathematics is a mirror of the world, most abstract and therefore fundamental. Although it is a free activity of human mind, mathematics reflects some deep ideas (beauty, simplicity etc.) while most interesting notions come up in tension fields between pairs of poles: the notion of a function can be seen as a bridge connecting variability and immutability, while that of a limit – connecting finiteness and infinity. A fusion of freedom and internal restrictions leads to mathematics which is simple, beautiful and effective. (shrink)

When I see a tree through my window, that particular worldly tree is said to be ‘in’, ‘on’, or ‘before’ my mind. My ordinary visual link to it is ‘intentional’. How similar to this link are the links between me and particular worldly trees when I see them in photographs, or in paintings? Are they, in some important sense, links of the same kind? Or are they links of importantly different kinds? Or, as a third possibility, are they at (...) once links of the same important kind and also links of importantly different sub-kinds within that kind? This paper takes up these taxonomical questions. After fleshing out (a bit) the characterisation of these different subject-object links, I explain and expand upon an approach to answering the taxonomical questions originally set out by Kendall Walton. I then follow this approach a certain distance, connecting it with the question of how to mark the boundary between perception and cognition. My investigations support the conclusion that the three types of links just described are not importantly different in kind. (shrink)

What is the conscious mind? What is experience? In 1968, David Armstrong asked “What is a man?” and replied that a man is “a certain sort of material object”. This book starts from his question but proceeds along a different path. The traditional mind-brain identity theory is set aside, and a mind-object identity theory is proposed in its place: to be conscious of an object is simply to be made of that object. Consciousness is physical but not (...) neural. This groundbreaking hypothesis is supported by recent empirical findings in both perception and neuroscience, and is herein tested against a series of objections of both conceptual and empirical nature: the traditional mind-brain identity arguments from illusion, hallucinations, dreams, and mental imagery. The theory is then compared with existing externalist approaches including disjunctivism, realism, embodied cognition, enactivism, and the extended mind. Can experience and objects be one and the same? (shrink)

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In this chapter what I call the “backside” of habit is explored. I am interested in the philosophical implications of the physical and physiological processes that mediate, and which allow for what comes to appear as almost magic; namely the various sensorimotor associations and integrations that allows us to replay our past experiences, and to in a certain sense perceive potential futures, and to act and bring about anticipated outcomes – without quite knowing how. Thus, the term “backside” is meant (...) to refer both the actual mediation and the epistemic opacity of these backstage intermediaries that allow for the front stage magic. The question is if the epistemic complexities around sensorimotor mediation gives us valuable insights into the nature of human agency and further how it might begin to show us new ways to think of the mind as truly embodied yet not reducible to any finite body-as-object. (shrink)

: Traditional mind-body identity theories maintain that consciousness is identical with neural activity. Consider an alternative identity theory – namely, a mind-object identity theory of consciousness. I suggest to take into consideration whether one’s consciousness might be identical with the external object. The hypothesis is that, when I perceive a yellow banana, the thing that is one and the same with my consciousness of the yellow banana is the very yellow banana one can grab and eat, rather than (...) the neural processes triggered by the banana. The bottom line is that one’s conscious experience of an object is the object one experiences. First, I outline the main hypothesis and the relation between mind, body, and object. Eventually, I address a series of traditional obstacles such as hallucinations, illusions, and commonsensical assumptions. Keywords: Identity Theory; Mind/Body Problem; Consciousness; Hallucinations; Illusions Le esperienze sono oggetti. Verso una teoria dell’identità della mente in quanto oggetto Riassunto: Le teorie dell’identità tra mente e corpo di tipo tradizionale hanno affermato una relazione di identità tra coscienza e attività neurale. Si consideri una teoria dell’identità di carattere alternativo – propriamente una teoria dell’identità che intenda la coscienza come un oggetto. Suggerisco di considerare la possibilità che la coscienza di qualcuno possa essere trattata come identica a un oggetto del mondo esterno. Sulla base di questa ipotesi, quando percepisco una banana gialla, ciò che coincide con la mia coscienza della banana gialla è proprio la banana gialla che si può prendere e mangiare, piuttosto che il processo neurale innescato dalla banana. In definitiva l’esperienza cosciente di un oggetto che ciascuno ha è l’oggetto che si esperisce. In una prima parte, procederò con il delineare l’ipotesi principale e la relazione tra mente, corpo e oggetto. Successivamente cercherò di risolvere alcuni problemi di tipo tradizionale, quali le allucinazioni, le illusioni e gli assunti di senso comune. Parole chiave: Teoria dell’identità; Problema mente/corpo; Coscienza; Allucinazioni; Illusioni. (shrink)

Coleridge tended to view objects in the natural world as if they were capable of articulating truths about his own poetic psyche. He also regarded such objects as if they were capable of illustrating and concretely embodying truths about a transcendent spiritual realm. After 1805, he posited a series of analogical 'likenesses' connecting the rational principles that inform human cognition with the rational principles that he believed informed the teleological structure of the natural world. Human reason and the principle of (...) rationality realised objectively in Nature were both regarded as finite effects of God's seminal Word. Although Coleridge intuitively felt that nature had been constructed as a 'mirror' of the human mind, and that both mind and nature were 'mirrors' of a transcendent spiritual realm, he never found an explanation of such experiences that was fully immune to his own sceptical doubts. Coleridge and Scepticism examines the nature of these sceptical doubts, as well as offering a new explanatory account of why Coleridge was unable to affirm his religious intuitions. Ben Brice situates his work within two important intellectual traditions. The first, a tradition of epistemological 'piety' or 'modesty', informs the work of key precursors such as Kant, Hume, Locke, Boyle, and Calvin, and relates to Protestant critiques of natural reason. The second, a tradition of theological voluntarism, emphasises the omnipotence and transcendence of God, as well as the arbitrary relationship subsisting between God and the created world. Brice argues that Coleridge's detailed familiarity with both of these interrelated intellectual traditions, ultimately served to undermine his confidence in his ability to read the symbolic language of God in nature. (shrink)

For Descartes, our minds are not natural causes because they are not themselves objects; rather, they are the activities that identify objects. In short, they are our challenges to the natural order of things, both in how we adapt to novel situations (as exhibited in what has been called the “rational action test”) and in how we respond in unexpected yet appropriate ways to linguistic cues (in the “language test”). Because these tests reveal ways in which our minds (as “pure,” (...) creative, willful, and immortal substances) introduce novelty into nature, we are not determined (as animals are) by other objects. That is, our rational or linguistic activities are challenges to the order of nature precisely because they are not part of, but rather constitute, nature. Accordingly, “real” (creative) speech is logically prior to finite differentiations and is not limited by laws of nature that constrain animal behavior. (shrink)