According to anti-atomism, we represent color properties (e.g., red) in virtue of representing color relations (e.g., redder than). I motivate anti-atomism with a puzzle involving a series of pairwise indistinguishable chips. I then develop two versions of anti-atomism.

This paper argues that whereas philosophical discussions of first-person methods often turn on the veridicality of first-person reports, more attention should be paid to the experimental circumstances under which the reports are generated, and to the purposes of designing such experiments. After pointing to the ‘constructedness’ of first-person reports in the science of perception, I raise questions about the criteria by which to judge whether the reports illuminate something about the nature of perception. I illustrate this point with a historical (...) debate between Gestalt psychologist and atomists, both of whom used first-person methods to investigate perception. (shrink)

Cet article réexamine la totalité des témoignages sur la pensée démocritéenne de l’origine du culte divin. Une étude approfondie de ces témoignages nous autorise à affirmer que, dans l’esprit de Démocrite, le culte des dieux ne dérivait pas seulement d’une peur des phénomènes naturels hostiles, mais aussi de la reconnaissance pour les événements favorables à la survie des humains. Il est à présent possible de réinterpréter cette conception selon un point de vue polémique : Démocrite n’aurait pas nié l’existence des (...) dieux, mais plutôt exposé les mécanismes psychologiques qui conduisent les hommes ordinaires à croire dans les dieux traditionnels. Contre la croyance superstitieuse, il démontre, en s’aidant également de la théorie des εἴδωλα, que les seuls dieux qui existent sont pourvus de la même « raison » que celle à l’œuvre dans la nature et grâce à laquelle les hommes peuvent comprendre ses phénomènes aussi suprenants que variés. (shrink)

We present a cognitive-physicalist account of phenomenal consciousness. We argue that phenomenal concepts do not differ from other types of concepts. When explaining the peculiarities of conscious experience, the right place to look at is sensory/ perceptual representations and their interaction with general conceptual structures. We utilize Jerry Fodor’s psycho- semantic theory to formulate our view. We compare and contrast our view with that of Murat Aydede and Güven Güzeldere, who, using Dretskean psychosemantic theory, arrived at a solution (...) different from ours in some ways. We have suggested that the representational atomism of certain sensory experiences plays a central role in reconstructing the epistemic gap associated with conscious experience, still, atomism is not the whole story. It needs to be supple- mented by some additional principles. We also add an account of introspection, and suggest some cognitive features that might distinguish representational atoms with phenomenal character from those without it. (shrink)

In _The Philosophy of Logical Atomism_, Russell defends a version of semantic empiricism according to which direct acquaintance with logical atoms is the source of our semantic capacities. Previous commentators have construed Russellian acquaintance in one of two ways: either as an act of _de re_ designation involving neither conceptualization nor propositional content, or as a species of belief _de re_, which does involve conceptualization or classification. I argue that two further, interim possibilities have been overlooked: that direct acquaintance involves (...) purely phenomenal content or that direct acquaintance involves protoconceptual content. I conclude, however, that on none of the four interpretations considered, can direct acquaintance with logical atoms be the source of our semantic capacities. (shrink)

We explore the integrated structure of consciousness by examining the “phenomenological axioms” of the “integrated information theory of consciousness ” from the perspective of Husserlian phenomenology. After clarifying the notion of phenomenological axioms by drawing on resources from Edmund Husserl and Maurice Merleau-Ponty, we develop a critique of the integration axiom by drawing on phenomenological analyses developed by Aron Gurwitsch and Merleau-Ponty. This axiom is ambiguous. It can be read either atomistically as claiming that the phenomenal content of conscious (...) experience is an integrated complex and holistically as claiming that it is an integrated Gestalt. We argue that the latter reading provides a better characterization of the internal structure of the phenomenal content. Furthermore, the integrated structure of consciousness is not confined to the phenomenal content, but it also extends into the subjective attitude. Subjective attitudes and phenomenal contents are interdependent constituents that jointly make up conscious experiences. This implies a novel theoretical challenge to the scientific component of IIT, which is to explain how to accommodate the subjective dimension of consciousness into its explanatory scope. IIT can respond in a few different ways, but most importantly, it cannot just ignore it once and for all. As one possible way to address the challenge, we propose introducing a novel construct, noetic complex, to develop a fine-grained model of the neural underpinning of consciousness. (shrink)

I criticize Bourget’s intuitive and empirical arguments for thinking that all possible conscious states are underived if intentional. An underived state is one of which it is not the case that it must be realized, at least in part, by intentional states distinct from itself. The intuitive argument depends upon a thought experiment about a subject who exists for only a split second while undergoing a single conscious experience. This, however, trades on an ambiguity in "split second." Meanwhile, Bourget's empirical (...) argument is question-begging. My critique also has implications for debates about the essential temporality and unity of consciousness experience, and, phenomenal atomism. (shrink)

This paper defends and develops the structuring account of conscious attention: attention is the conscious mental process of structuring one’s stream of consciousness so that some parts of it are more central than others. In the first part of the paper, I motivate the structuring account. Drawing on a variety of resources I argue that the phenomenology of attention cannot be fully captured in terms of how the world appears to the subject, as well as against an atomistic conception of (...) attention. In the second part of the paper, I show how the structuring account can be made precise: attention causes and causally sustains phenomenal relations to hold between the parts of the stream of consciousness; most importantly the relation of one part being peripheral to another. I end by pointing out consequences for both the scientific study of attention as well as for several areas of central philosophical interest. (shrink)

Résumé Le débat holisme-réductionnisme se structure autour de trois domaines sémantiques : l 'ontologie, la méthodologie et l'épistémologie. Généralement, une méthodologie analytique s'accompagne d'une ontologie atomiste et de la réduction des lois et théorie des niveaux d'organisation supérieurs aux lois et théorie des niveaux inférieurs. Par contre, une ontologie holiste, relationnelle peut s'accorder au concept d'émergence. En conséquence dans l'élaboration des lois et théories d'un phénomène appartenant à un niveau donné la prise en compte du niveau d'organisation supérieurs se révélera (...) déterminante. Les propositions philosophiques anti-mécanicistes de précurseur tels que Bradley, S. Alexander, A.N. Whitehead, C.L. Morgan, D.C. Broad, même en restant au niveau d'une forme de proto-émergentisme représentent le fondement épistémologique à partir duquel s'est développée une méthodologie véritablement émergentiste. Abstract The holism-reductionism debate is structured around three areas of semantics: ontology, methodology and epistemology. As a general rule, an analytical methodology goes with an atomist ontology, and the reduction of laws and theories from the higher levels of organisation to the laws and theories of lower levels. On the other hand, a holistic and relational ontology can be in unison with the concept of emergence. As a consequence, in elaborating laws and theories of a phenornenon of a given level, taking into account that the higher level of organisation will be determinant. The philosophical and anti-mechanistic propositions of precursors such as F. Bradley, S. Alexander, A.N. Whitehead, C.L. Morgan, D.C. Broad, even remaining at the level of a kind of proto-emergentism represent the epistemological basis on which a true emergentist methodology has been developed. (shrink)

PYRRHONIAN BUDDHISM: AN IMAGINATIVE RECONSTRUCTION -/- Author: -/- Adrian Kuzminski 279 Donlon Road Fly Creek, NY 13337 USA -/- Description of Pyrrhonian Buddhism: -/- The ancient Greek sceptic philosopher, Pyrrho of Elis, accompanied Alexander the Great to India, where he had contacts with Indian sages, so-called naked philosophers (gymnosophists), among whom were very probably Buddhist mendicants, or sramanas. My work, entitled Pyrrhonian Buddhism, takes seriously the hypothesis that Pyrrho’s contact with early Buddhists was the occasion of his rethinking, in a (...) Greek philosophical idiom, of what he experienced in those encounters. This has major implications for our understanding of both Buddhism and Pyrrhonism. -/- Pyrrho’s rethinking of Buddhism, I argue, enabled him to introduce into Greek philosophy and culture several key Buddhist notions. These include the primacy and interdependence of immediate phenomenal experience (which the Buddhists called dependent origination), the suspension of judgment about beliefs lacking phenomenal verification (reflecting the scepticism of the Buddha about ‘unanswered’ or ‘metaphysical’ questions), and the promise of personal enlightenment said to follow such suspension, which Pyrrho called ataraxia, and the Buddhists called bodhi. -/- Pyrrho, like Socrates, wrote nothing, but the movement he founded—Pyrrhonism--became an important tradition in Western philosophy. When the texts of later Pyrrhonian philosophers, particularly Sextus Empiricus, were redicovered during the Renaissance, they sparked a reexamination of the foundations of knowledge, thereby helping to prompt the modern scientific revolution. -/- The notion that early Buddhism played a pivotal role in the birth of ancient Greek Pyrrhonian philosophy remains provocative, but has found increasing support in recent years. An earlier work of mine, Pyrrhonism: How the Ancient Greeks Reinvented Buddhism (Lexington Books, 2008), was, as far as I know, the first book-length comparison of the common features of the two traditions. My current work, Pyrrhonian Buddhism, seeks to broaden and deepen this comparison. It argues that ancient Greek Pyrrhonism is best understood as a fully developed but hitherto largely unrecognized Western version of Buddhism. -/- The Introduction reviews our current understanding of Pyrrhonism in light of recent scholarship on ancient Greek-Indian cultural exchanges, and outlines the methodology I employ. -/- Part I of the book offers re-readings of the classic Pyrrhonian texts, with parallels to Buddhism in mind, including Diogenes Laertius (Chapter One), Sextus Empiricus (Chapter Two) and Timon and Aulus Gellius (Chapter Three). -/- Part II enlists the rubric of the Three Turnings of the Wheel of Dharma to illuminate the fundamental points of comparison between early Buddhism and ancient Pyrrhonism. -/- The First Turning (Chapter Four) centers on the Buddhist insistence on the dependent origination of the objects of immediate consciousness, which can also be found in the understanding of immediate experience expressed in the phenomenalistic atomism of the Pyrrhonists. The Second Turning (Chapter Five), as posed by the ‘unanswered questions’ of the Buddha and the ‘emptiness’ of the Madhyamaka, finds its Pyrrhonian correlation in the suspension of judgment over ‘indeterminate’ beliefs. And the Third Turning (Chapter Six), reported as bodhi in Buddhism and ataraxia in Pyrrhonism, is shown in both traditions to follow liberation from suffering and existential angst, caused by what the Buddhists call our attachments and the Pyrrhonists call our beliefs. -/- Other Writers/Commentators: -/- Aspects of the Pyrrhonian/Buddhism question have been addressed by Edward Conze, Everard Flintoff, Thomas McEvilley, Jay Garfield, Mathew Neale, Ethan Mills, Christopher Beckwith, and Robin Brons, among other recent writers. The book-length studies on the issue (since my earlier work) are by Beckwith (Greek Buddha) and Neal (Madhyamaka and Pyrrhonism). Other writers/scholars with relevant expertise include C. W. Huntington, Jr., Charles Goodman, Stephen Batchelor, Dan Lusthaus, Rupert Gethin, and Mark Siderits. -/- . (shrink)

I will argue that emergence is an empirically plausible and unique philosophical/ scientific framework for bridging the ontological gap and the explanatory gap with respect to phenomenal consciousness. On my view the ontological gap is the gap between fundamental ingredients/parts of reality that are not conscious and beings/wholes that are conscious. The explanatory gap is the current lack of a philosophical/scientific theory that explains how non-conscious parts can become conscious wholes. Both gaps are of course conceptual as well as (...) empirical in nature. Section I will be devoted to these issues as well as providing other general criteria for an account of consciousness. In section II, different types of emergence will be defined in the context of a more general taxonomy of reduction and emergence. Emergentism about consciousness becomes much more plausible when we see that the ancient ‘atomism’ that drives physicalism on one end, and fundamental property dualism on the other, is probably false. Backing up this claim will be the primary burden of section III. In section IV I will conjecture that phenomenal consciousness is mereologically and perhaps nomologically emergent from neurochemical/ quantum processes, just as many other properties are so emergent. In section V I defend my view of emergence against the objections that: it cannot bridge the explanatory/ontological gap between matter and consciousness and it cannot account for the causal efficacy of consciousness in itself. Finally, in section VI, there is speculation about where all of this might take us in the future. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:139. COULD AN IMPRESSION BE A PROCESS? Processes are of two main kinds, depending on whether the process has or lacks culmination. I am concerned with non-culminating processes, e.g., with a burning fuse sans explosion. This is reported as secondary by any good dictionary, derived from the head, or culminating, sense of 'process'. An ontological criterion for 'process' is as follows: something is absolutely unchanging, if it is unchanging (...) in every sense of the word. Those who hold that, e.g., a monotonous sound is absolutely unchanging hold that in an absolutely unchanging universe there is no reason why there should not be such a sound. Like any absolutely unchanging existent, a sound is caught, so to speak, in an instantaneous freeze on all change. Those who opt for process hold that change is, so to speak, of its essence. Hence, in an absolutely unchanging world, there could not be a process. The question I wish to raise is not whether there are processes, and certainly not whether Hume opts for processes. It is doubtful that Hume entertained the question of process. Indeed, that is the point. One of Hume's main commentators, R. W. Church, holds that Hume's perceptual atoms, defined by his dictum that distinguishability mutually entails separability, as well as their philosophical relations, are incompatible with the thesis that "experiences exist not in succession but in process." Church goes on to say that it is "difficult to see how... 'process' can have meaning for Hume. He plainly holds perceptions and their contents to be successive merely. I begin by considering Church's reason why Hume must reject processes, and then consider an additional reason drawn from Hume's account of time. Specifically, 140. divisibility òf time terminates in unchanging atoms. The essence of process is change. Hence, no temporal atom is a process. Neither reason, I argue, suffices for holding that impressions and processes are mutually exclusive. Hume holds that distinguishability mutually entails separability. Church holds that this dictum defines Hume's perceptual atomism. To highlight the atomism it is supposed to define, he rewords it, as follows: "Whatever is distinguishable is intrinsically self-identical and therefore self-contained." What does this rewording mean? According to Church, Hume, in the body of the Treatise, holds that resemblance is qualitative identity distributed, numerically, over many complexes. "On Hume's theory of abstract ideas, 'resemblance' is a verbal term referring (in virtue of habits of association) to any case of a qualitative 4 identity numerically distributed." Further, the qualitative identity in question is not relative to any difference from another quality, Bradley to the contrary notwithstanding. Difference, for Hume, is incompatible with relation and it is itself not a relation. It follows, according to Church, that Hume's absolute self-identity mutually entails self -containment. So much for Church's version of Hume's perceptual atomism. Is it incompatible with process, as Church claims? A trombone's slide illustrates non-culminating process with succession. Let us use it as a basis for an account. A trombone's slide is unbroken not only qua sound but qua pitch. Nevertheless, it incorporates pitch multiplicity. By "successive merely" does Church mean that the transition from pitch to pitch must be broken, contrary to what is heard, and, for this reason, Hume cannot account for the slide qua process? If so, he is mistaken. 141. Distinguishability mutually entails separability for Hume, but this does not mean that the transition from pitch to pitch cannot be experienced as a slide. In fact, it is easy to show that a trombone's slide conforms to Hume's dictum, by reason of the just noticeable difference and Hume's philosophical relation of contiguity in time. We are dealing with three notions: first, distinction, and, in particular, how pitches in the slide are distinguished. Second, separability, and, in particular, how separation corresponding to distinction is guaranteed by the fact of process. Third, slide, and, in particular how Hume's philosophical relation of temporal contiguity, coupled with the just noticeable difference, guarantees phenomenal slide. I take up these three notions in the order mentioned. The distinction between two pitches in the trombone's slide is... (shrink)

RésuméDans A Theory of Content Jerry Fodor fait déboucher sa théorie représentationnelle de l'esprit sur une psychosémantique physicaliste et atomiste. Cette théorie externaliste de la signification –the Asymmetric Dependency Theory– fournit une solution entièrement naturalisée au second problème de Brentano, c'est‐à‐dire celui de l'objet référentiel. En m'appuyant sur le réalisme interne de Hilary Putnam, je critique deux éléments essentiels de la solution proposée par Fodor, à savoir la relation de dépendance asymétrique et l'individuation des objets de la référence. Cette critique (...) vise à montrer que le problème de la naturalisation et celui de la détermination sémantique ne sauraient être résolus simultanément. En outre, la détermination ontologique des objets de la référence implique inévitablement le principe de relativité conceptuelle. L'impossibilité de la psychosémantique naturalisée de Fodor corrobore donc la thèse de Brentano selon laquelle les phénomènes de sémanticité et d'intentionnalité sont primitifs. (shrink)

Vehicle externalists hold that the physical substrate of mental states can sometimes extend beyond the brain into the body and environment. In a particular variation on vehicle externalism, Susan Hurley (1998) and Alva Noë (2004) have argued that perceptual states, states with phenomenal qualities, are among the mental states that can sometimes spread beyond the brain. Their vehicle externalism about perceptual states will be the main topic of this article. In particular, I will address three strong objections to their (...) vehicle externalism, objections by Ned Block (2005), Jesse Prinz (2006), and Fred Adams & Ken Aizawa (2008). Though in some ways these objections appear disparate, I will argue that all of them depend on a crucial presupposition, one which Hurley, Noë, and their sympathizers should reject. This presupposition is that perceptual character is fixed by an instantaneous snapshot of neural states, a view that Hurley dubbed ‘temporal atomism.’ To put the presupposition in more familiar terms, all three objections are implicitly committed to something like Dennett’s Cartesian Theater (1991). -/- In the first part of the article, I will discuss Hurley and Noë’s views, and include reasons why their views entail the rejection of the Cartesian Theater. In the next part of the article I will introduce the three objections and show how they presuppose something like a Cartesian Theater. I will also show that, if the Cartesian Theater is rejected, the objections all vanish. In the final part of the article I address the charge that Noë and Hurley confuse causation with constitution. This charge reveals a lack of appreciation for the way in which dynamical explanation motivates Hurley’s externalism. (shrink)

J?aborderai ici le problème de la passivité de l?esprit dans le cadre d?une analyse de la perception sensible 1 . La question qui m?occupera sera la sui­vante : quel est le rôle des matériaux sensoriels ou des phénomènes sensibles dans la perception ? Plus exactement : quel sens faut-il donner ? s?il faut en donner un ? à la notion de « champs sensoriels » ( Sinnesfelder ) dans l?ana­lyse intentionnelle de la perception ? Je commencerai par rappeler que l?ap­proche (...) intentionnelle, telle qu?elle est développée par Edmund Husserl ? mais aussi, notamment, par August Messer ?, implique une critique très vive du sensualisme, aussi bien dans sa version atomiste que dans sa version gestaltiste. J?examinerai ensuite une certaine difficulté de la conception intentionaliste exposée dans les Ideen I (1913). Cette difficulté a été mise en évidence, dans le champ de la psychologie expérimentale d?inspiration wundtienne, par Edward Titchener ( Systematic Psychology , 1929) et surtout, dans l?école brentanienne, par Carl Stumpf ( Er­kenntnislehre , 1939). Elle concerne le rôle des données sensibles ou de la « hylè sensuelle » au sein des prestations intentionnelles du sujet percevant . Le point que fait valoir Stumpf se résume à ceci : si l?étude des états mentaux perceptuels ne doit pas devenir une « phénoménologie sans phénomènes », alors il semble que l?on doive renoncer au concept éthéré. (shrink)

My paper is divided into three parts. The first examines the different versions of phenomenology that Husserl used during the Freiburg period, including genetic phenomenology, which is considered, in Experience and Judgment, as the basis for his genealogy of logic. I also examine the doxa-episteme opposition, which is one of the central topics of this book, and I claim that Brentano's epistemic asymmetry between internal and external perception can be considered as a special case of this opposition, which Husserl seeks (...) to overcome. The second part consists in an account of the genesis of the concept of primary content, such as it was first introduced in his Habilitationsschrift in order to replace Brentano's notion of physical phenomenon, to Ideas I where Husserl seems to have abandoned this notion, and replaced it with that of hyle which he conceived in a way similar to that of traditional atomism. The third part shows that the lectures and the working manuscripts of the Freiburg period, including Experience and Judgment, dispel the impression left by Ideas I by providing an original analysis of the dimension of sensory experience. Our starting point is an analysis of the cases of misperception that serve as arguments against Brentano's theory of external perception and whose function here is to uncover several distinctions relating to the modes of consciousness which are directly related to primary contents and to the qualitative dimension of experience. I conclude on the subject of passive syntheses and argue that they refer to a multiplicity of relations that structure phenomenal experience. (shrink)

IT IS fairly well known that the problem of motion or, more generally, that of change is one of the oldest philosophical problems which can be traced to the very dawn of Western thought. It was inseparable from the basic problem which the Presocratics faced: that of the primary stuff underlying the phenomenal diversity of our sensory experience. Once the sensory diversity is viewed as merely apparent, one cannot avoid the question how such an appearance is generated by the (...) underlying single principle; in other words, one faces the problem of the origin of things, i.e., the problem of change. Hence the monism which in various forms underlies the majority of the early cosmogonic or protocosmogonic speculations. But already then three different theses are discernible: a) one rather extreme view which upholds rigorously the strict oneness of the underlying substance and from its immutability infers the impossibility of change; this was the view of Parmenides and his disciples; b) the second view which, while retaining the Eleatic principle of the singleness and immutability of the basic stuff, admits its existence in a plural form. This is atomism which reduces change to a change of position. In other words, diversity is retained only in the form of numerical diversity, and change only in the form of spatial displacement. All apparently qualitative changes are thus explainable in terms of combination and recombination of the homogeneous and immutable elements. Such are the basic premises not only of ancient Greek atomism, but very nearly of all forms of atomism in all different periods of history. Its basic inspiration has always remained Eleatic, although a very important concession has been made to sensory perception in the sense that the reality of change has been admitted. But it is admitted in its most innocuous form—in the form of displacement of the unchanging units of Being. (shrink)

More than perhaps any other major social theorist, Niklas Luhmann adopted a perspective on society at the opposite end of the atomistic-holistic spectrum to that of mainstream economics. While the position of mainstream economics is that society is nothing more than a collection of individuals, so that it can be understood simply in terms of those individuals and their interactions, Luhmann abstracts from individuals entirely, understanding social phenomena as being produced by society itself, with individuals playing a merely peripheral or (...) “enabling” role. This radical reconceptualization of society and the relation of the individual to society allowed Luhmann to build from the ground up a highly systematic theory of society which allows one to formulate economic and social questions in new ways, freed from preconceptions that are poorly grounded or simply wrong. After providing a brief overview of Luhmann’s general social theory, this article considers two questions for which Luhmann’s theory can produce a fresh point of view. The first concerns what is the nature of markets. According to Luhmann, markets are not a kind of system, but collections of observations--the observations of market participants of other market participants. The second concerns the old question of what is the appropriate degree of intervention in the economy. Mainstream economics approaches this problem through the distinction between markets and planning. According to Luhmann, this is a false dichotomy, since all economies have markets and planning. The real question is who should do the planning: private organizations or the state. The former operate on the basis of competition, that is, rivalry; the latter operates on the basis of cooperation. The problem with “socialist” or “centrally planned” economies was not that they were planned or centrally organized, since “free market” economies have planning and centralization too; it was that they relied solely on cooperation, with there being no space for competition. The paper concludes with some reflections on whether freemarket economies with minimal intervention by the state are any more sustainable than are “socialist” economies.Niklas Luhmann, peut-être plus que les autres auteurs en théorie sociale, a adopté une approche de la société qui est à l’opposé du spectre individualismeholisme des économistes orthodoxes. Alors que l’économie orthodoxe considère que la société n’est rien d’autre que la somme des individus et qu’elle ne peut être appréhendée qu’en termes d’individus et de leurs interactions, Luhmann fait totalement abstraction des individus et comprend les phénomènes sociaux comme étant produits par la société elle-même dans laquelle les individus jouent un rôle périphérique ou un rôle “d’habilitation”. Cette radicale reconceptualization de la société ainsi que la relation des individus à la société a permis à Luhmann de construire une théorie très méthodique de la société qui permet d’appréhender de façon différente les questions économiques et sociales, sans préreprésentations fragiles ou erronées. Après avoir donné un aperçu général de la théorie sociale de Luhmann, l’article considère deux questions pour lesquelles la théorie de Luhmann peut apporter un nouveau point de vue. La première traite de la nature des marchés. D’après Luhmann, les marchés ne sont pas une sorte de système mais des sommes d’observations faites par les participants au marché sur les autres participants. La seconde question concerne l’éternel problème du degré d’interventionnisme dans l’économie. Les économistes orthodoxes abordent cette question à travers la distinction entre les marchés et la planification. D’après Luhmann cette dichotomie est erronée dans la mesure où toutes les économies connaissent à la fois le marché et la planification. La véritable question est: Qui devrait planifier: les organisations privées ou l’Etat?. Les premières agissent sur la base de la concurrence, i.e de la rivalité; l’Etat agit sur la base de la coopération. Le problème avec les économies “socialistes” ou “centralement planifiées” n’est pas qu’elles sont planifiées ou qu’elles relèvent d’une organisation centralisée puisque les économies de “marché libre” connaissent aussi la planification et la centralisation. Le problème vient du fait qu’elles reposent uniquement sur la coopération et n’accordent pas de place à la concurrence. Le papier conclut en s’interrogeant sur l’idée selon laquelle les économies de libre marché avec une intervention étatique minimale sont plus viables que les économies “socialistes”. (shrink)

There is a Wittgensteinian use of "phenomenology" which is the grammar of the apriori possibility of facts, in contradistinction to an hermeneutical conception of language in the spirit of German phenomenology. Not only does Wittgenstein refer, as early as 1929, to such a "language" as opposed to a Husserlian "doctrine" of intuiting the phenomenal apriori, but he keeps using the term in a positive manner which does not allow us to declare that from the Tractatus to the early thirties (...) Wittgenstein shifted from a kind of ineffabilist phenomenalism to physicalism. Rather the author of the Philosophical Remarks aims at freeing "phenomenology" from the earlier assumption of an atomistic basis providing a "primary language". Yet, Wittgenstein says in the same period that there is and there is not any confrontation with the given. Two ways of speaking about the connection between language and reality according to what is to be understood by "verifying" a sentence make Wittgenstein remain the same from one conception to the other. (shrink)

There is a Wittgensteinian use of "phenomenology" which is the grammar of the apriori possibility of facts, in contradistinction to an hermeneutical conception of language in the spirit of German phenomenology. Not only does Wittgenstein refer, as early as 1929, to such a "language" as opposed to a Husserlian "doctrine" of intuiting the phenomenal apriori, but he keeps using the term in a positive manner which does not allow us to declare that from the Tractatus to the early thirties (...) Wittgenstein shifted from a kind of ineffabilist phenomenalism to physicalism. Rather the author of the Philosophical Remarks aims at freeing "phenomenology" from the earlier assumption of an atomistic basis providing a "primary language". Yet, Wittgenstein says in the same period that there is and there is not any confrontation with the given. Two ways of speaking about the connection between language and reality according to what is to be understood by "verifying" a sentence make Wittgenstein remain the same from one conception to the other. (shrink)

Dans ce travail, je souligne l’importance du phénomène de la parole vivante et de la dimension communicative de l’expérience dans la recherche phénoménologique. Spécifiquement, je considère de manière critique l’accusation de phonocentrisme adressée par Derrida à la phénoménologie, qui semble avoir discrédité toute tentative d’aborder le phénomène de la vocalité par peur de privilégier la présence et la subjectivité atomiste. Il est peut-être vrai que la phénoménologie classique de la conscience privilégie le point de vue de la première personne et (...) qu’elle est coupable d’un biais subjectiviste, mais il y a des ressources riches dans la tradiction dialogique, notamment chez Buber, de même que chez Humboldt et Platon, qui permettent de souligner la dualité fondamentale du soi et de l’autre, qui se déploie entre moi et toi dans la parole vivante et de corriger la position individualiste de la phénoménologie classique. (shrink)

RésuméDans A Theory of Content Jerry Fodor fait déboucher sa théorie représentationnelle de l'esprit sur une psychosémantique physicaliste et atomiste. Cette théorie externaliste de la signification –the Asymmetric Dependency Theory– fournit une solution entièrement naturalisée au second problème de Brentano, c'est‐à‐dire celui de l'objet référentiel. En m'appuyant sur le réalisme interne de Hilary Putnam, je critique deux éléments essentiels de la solution proposée par Fodor, à savoir la relation de dépendance asymétrique et l'individuation des objets de la référence. Cette critique (...) vise à montrer que le problème de la naturalisation et celui de la détermination sémantique ne sauraient être résolus simultanément. En outre, la détermination ontologique des objets de la référence implique inévitablement le principe de relativité conceptuelle. L'impossibilité de la psychosémantique naturalisée de Fodor corrobore donc la thèse de Brentano selon laquelle les phénomènes de sémanticité et d'intentionnalité sont primitifs. (shrink)

A stubborn problem for reflectance physicalism about color is to account for individual differences in normal trichromat color perception. The identification of determinate colors with physical properties of visible surfaces in a universal, perceiver-independent way is challenged by the observation that the same surfaces in identical viewing conditions often look different in color to different human subjects with normal color vision. Recently, leading representatives of reflectance physicalism have offered some arguments to defend their view against the individual differences challenge. In (...) this paper I challenge their defense. I argue thateven though individual differences are present in shape perception as well as in color perception, the mechanisms of shape perception and those of color perception differ in ways which make them completely different regarding their evidential status for certain identity claims. Thus comparing color perception to shape perception offers no support for identifying hues with reflectances. On the other hand, drawing a parallel between the temperature-mean kinetic energy of molecules (MKE) identification and the proposed hue-reflectance identities is no support for reflectance physicalism either, since there is an important disanalogybetween the two cases. While individual differences obtain in color perception, the effects of temperature (e.g., melting, thermal expansion) do not exhibit analogous variation, which makes the temperature-MKE identification unproblematic compared to the hue-reflectance identification. One motivation for this ongoing debate is that the success or failure of reflectance physicalism has far-reaching consequences regarding externalist theories of phenomenal consciousness. (shrink)

The article discusses the concept of “holistic” causality which has superseded that of “mechanistic causality”, “mechanism”.In a sequence of events a causal nexus is mentally established, attention being directed either to the initiation, the starting, the incitation of the process or to the conservation of matter and energy in the initiated transformation: initiation causality and conservation causality .As a rule, the two kinds of causality are intimately interlinked, though they often are easily to be distinguished; for instance, catalytic causation and (...) stimulus influences are clearly forms of A.K.If a “totality” , i.e., a more or les closed and stable uniformity of coexistences, is “pushed” or incited , it actively responds from its content of free energy by an event combining within itself A.K., E.K., and reciprocity . This complex causality is holistic causality . Holistic causality, already to be found in the inorganic, appears to perfection in the stimulus causality of organism with its development of form and conservation of form; likewise in the entire psycho-physical phenomenation: psychic A.K., motive causality.Thus, in the constant “Ocean of matter and energy” there is a “demon of unrest” in the guise of A.K., setting up a distinct hierarchy ranging from atomistic causality to mechanic, chemical, and catalytic causality, and beyond to physiobiological “incitation” and to psychic, or even “supra-psychic”, direction and evolution causality.Dans ce traité il s'agit d'une discussion de la conception de causalité „holistique” qui a remplacé l'autocratie de la „causalité mécanique”, du „mécanisme”.Dans des séquences d'événements, l'intellect reconnaît des causalnexus, en observant ou l'impulsion, le motif, le stimulus de l'action — ou, dans la transformation initiée, la conservation de la matière et de l'énergie: causalité impulsatrice et causalité conservatrice .A l'ordinaire ces deux causalités sont étroitement liées; mais souvent elles se laissent distinguer sans difficulté. Par exemple, les effets catalytiques et les influences stimulantes sont expressément des formes de l'A.K.Si une „totalité” , c.-à-d. un système, un ordre en coïncidences, plus ou moins clos et stable, est „poussé” ou stimulé , il répond, du fonds de son énergie libre, par une action qui unit en soi l'A.K., l'E.K. et la réciprocité . Cette causalité complexe est la causalité holistique , déjà existante dans l'inorganique. Elle apparaît parfaite dans la causalité stimulus de l'organisme à tendances formatives et conservatives, ainsi que dans tous les rapports psychophysiques: A.K. psychique, causalité motive.Ainsi, il y a dans la „Mer constante de la matière et de l'énergie” un „courant d'inquiétude” qui se présente comme l'A.K. Cet „esprit” laisse reconnaître une distincte hiérarchie , s'étendant de la causalité dans la physique atomaire et la causalité mécanique, chimique et catalytique, jusqu'à l'„excitation” physio-biologique et jusqu'à la causalité directrice et évolutionnaire, psychique ou même „superpsychique”. (shrink)

This set of problems first came to light with the Eleatic criticism of Pythagorean theory, and dramatically revealed their importance in the paradoxes of Zeno, which have retained their relevance down the ages, and play a significant role, as we shall see, in the thought of Whitehead. In antiquity Aristotle had attained the clearest realization of these problems. It was in terms of them that he analyzed and rejected the theory of Leukippos and Demokritos of atoms and the void, and (...) worked out his own alternative theory. In the Renaissance these problems became crucial again, especially in the thought of Bruno and Patrizzi. Leibniz saw them as the basic issue presented by the theories of the seventeenth century, and it was in terms of these problems that he made his examination of Descartes' doctrine of res extensa, of Gassendi's revival of Democritean atomism, as well as of Newton's doctrine of space. Insufficient attention to these problems had resulted in his contemporaries getting caught in what he referred to as the "labyrinth of the composition of the continuum"-adopting this phrase from the title of a book by Libertius Fromond which had been published in 1631. Leibniz believed himself to have found the Adriadne's thread out of the labyrinth in the conception of body, as well as of space and time, as phenomenal. In Kant's view this way out was tenable only with a considerable philosophical reconstruction, which he provided with his transcendental philosophy. (shrink)

The notion of form is "the most important notion within the Critique of Aesthetic Judgment". The sensible form involved in aesthetic judgment stands in no clear relation to the formal elements of the Transcendental Aesthetic and Logic—neither to the a priori forms of space and time, nor to the categories. It is held to be the same "kind of form" as the intuitable, "empirical form" mentioned infrequently in the Pure Reason. The author attempts to establish only "what Kant meant" as (...) distinct from its "truth." He lays a bold preparation for "the suggestion... that aesthetic experience is a window, so to speak, into the noumenal world". In Ch. I he accepts a widely-held view that Kant is the discoverer of "philosophical aesthetics" or "the autonomy of the aesthetic realm." His concern is not with this historical question. Nonetheless it may be said that he is not sufficiently aware that the autonomy found in Kant is not in understanding aesthetics as a realm of art, but only in understanding aesthetic judgment in its concern with both art and nature. Accordingly the aesthetic form of objects of art and objects of nature is treated without differentiation. The author is little concerned with form in its relation to natural purposiveness, or with the relation of form in the Aesthetic Judgment to form in the Teleological Judgment. Since nature, at least in certain contexts, supplies a kind of norm for art—a "traditional" element in Kant—the author’s exposition of the manner in which art imitates nature is not entirely satisfactory. In Ch. II, the central issue is whether "individual colors and tones are more than mere sensations". If however each may be understood as "a play of sensations" they can be said to possess a "form" and may enter into aesthetic judgments. The assumption here is that only if the parts of a beautiful thing, e.g., the individual colors of a painting, are beautiful, "can the painting as a whole be a beautiful thing". But this atomistic view of the aesthetic part is subsequently modified. In Ch. III, the imagination is said to "function without the categories" in the synthesis of aesthetic forms. The author must then oppose the view of Kemp Smith and others "that there can be no cognitive awareness or consciousness apart from the categories". He relies especially on the "judgments of perception" of the Prolegomena which "require no pure concept of the understanding". The possibility is not considered that although the imagination may indeed function "autonomously"—without the categories—in the synthesis of aesthetic form, that same synthesis may presuppose a synthesis employing the categories, especially in certain types of aesthetic experience. Some valuable clarifications are achieved of the difficult notions of "play," the harmony of form and cognitive faculties, and the universality of aesthetic judgments. The thesis of Ch. IV is that the object of experience, or the phenomenal object, is not a second object, distinct from the thing-in-itself, but an appearance of the thing-in-itself. Ch. V is devoted to Kant’s theory of art and especially to genius as the productive faculty of aesthetic ideas. The harmony of the faculties of imagination and understanding required of the artistic genius is held to be the same as the harmony which "the work of art itself... arouses in the perceiver of that work of art", but is spontaneous and original in the former case. What would be required of the productive agency in the case of natural objects of aesthetic experience lies outside the range of subject matter chosen. Kant’s view, although not entirely lucid, is that "the standard of fine art must be sought in the supersensible substrate of the artist’s faculties and that the production of the accord of the faculties of understanding and imagination ‘is the ultimate end set by the intelligible basis of our nature'". This prepares the conclusion that "the artist, as creative genius, is he who not only produces but expresses in sensible products, forms which are windows into the supersensible substrate of being". The monograph effectively raises this possibility as a central issue in the discussion of Kant’s aesthetics.—R. K. (shrink)

Kant, probably more than any other philosopher, has suffered in the hands of his commentators and critics, both friendly and hostile. The regrettable tendency to truncate philosophical doctrines, to treat them as heaps of bones from which the interpreter can select or pick one or two with the view of using them in his game of intellectual skill, finds its most patent expression in the various treatments of Kant’s account of knowledge, faith and action. It is somehow inviting to look (...) upon the writer of the three Critiques as a tri-cephalous creature—each head pointing in a different direction, a self-contained centre of ideas, each to be examined differently and separately. And yet Kant, with all his failings, cannot be regarded a philosophical schizophrenic. On the contrary, by emphasizing the unitary nature of the human being in all its varied aspects—epistemic, moral and aesthetic—his philosophy is a singularly convincing plea for the rejection of an atomistic approach to human personality. As it is, there are those amongst Kant’s readers who never go beyond the Critique of Pure Reason—indeed quite a number of them, deliberately or unwittingly, get bogged down on the Preface and the Introduction—and who claim that they know their Kant inside-out. There are, again, those who rest content with reading the Critique of Practical Reason and who labour under the impression that they have penetrated to the heart of Kant’s philosophy. Both these limited attitudes are gravid with distortions and they must obviously lead to wrong conclusions. One does not need to be a Kantian scholar or even an unsuspecting convert to see at a glance that at least the first two Critiques are complementary, that only when they are pieced together can Kant’s conception of man be fully comprehended. His view is as simple as it is clear: man participates in two worlds—that of physical nature and that of morality. He is an event, an object among others, determined by certain a priori necessary conditions which, when applied to the sensory manifold, yield subjects and objects, knowledge and nature; but he is also an agent and as such he creates another dimension which, though ‘located’ in the phenomenal world, is not reducible to it. (shrink)

The notion of form is "the most important notion within the Critique of Aesthetic Judgment". The sensible form involved in aesthetic judgment stands in no clear relation to the formal elements of the Transcendental Aesthetic and Logic—neither to the a priori forms of space and time, nor to the categories. It is held to be the same "kind of form" as the intuitable, "empirical form" mentioned infrequently in the Pure Reason. The author attempts to establish only "what Kant meant" as (...) distinct from its "truth." He lays a bold preparation for "the suggestion... that aesthetic experience is a window, so to speak, into the noumenal world". In Ch. I he accepts a widely-held view that Kant is the discoverer of "philosophical aesthetics" or "the autonomy of the aesthetic realm." His concern is not with this historical question. Nonetheless it may be said that he is not sufficiently aware that the autonomy found in Kant is not in understanding aesthetics as a realm of art, but only in understanding aesthetic judgment in its concern with both art and nature. Accordingly the aesthetic form of objects of art and objects of nature is treated without differentiation. The author is little concerned with form in its relation to natural purposiveness, or with the relation of form in the Aesthetic Judgment to form in the Teleological Judgment. Since nature, at least in certain contexts, supplies a kind of norm for art—a "traditional" element in Kant—the author’s exposition of the manner in which art imitates nature is not entirely satisfactory. In Ch. II, the central issue is whether "individual colors and tones are more than mere sensations". If however each may be understood as "a play of sensations" they can be said to possess a "form" and may enter into aesthetic judgments. The assumption here is that only if the parts of a beautiful thing, e.g., the individual colors of a painting, are beautiful, "can the painting as a whole be a beautiful thing". But this atomistic view of the aesthetic part is subsequently modified. In Ch. III, the imagination is said to "function without the categories" in the synthesis of aesthetic forms. The author must then oppose the view of Kemp Smith and others "that there can be no cognitive awareness or consciousness apart from the categories". He relies especially on the "judgments of perception" of the Prolegomena which "require no pure concept of the understanding". The possibility is not considered that although the imagination may indeed function "autonomously"—without the categories—in the synthesis of aesthetic form, that same synthesis may presuppose a synthesis employing the categories, especially in certain types of aesthetic experience. Some valuable clarifications are achieved of the difficult notions of "play," the harmony of form and cognitive faculties, and the universality of aesthetic judgments. The thesis of Ch. IV is that the object of experience, or the phenomenal object, is not a second object, distinct from the thing-in-itself, but an appearance of the thing-in-itself. Ch. V is devoted to Kant’s theory of art and especially to genius as the productive faculty of aesthetic ideas. The harmony of the faculties of imagination and understanding required of the artistic genius is held to be the same as the harmony which "the work of art itself... arouses in the perceiver of that work of art", but is spontaneous and original in the former case. What would be required of the productive agency in the case of natural objects of aesthetic experience lies outside the range of subject matter chosen. Kant’s view, although not entirely lucid, is that "the standard of fine art must be sought in the supersensible substrate of the artist’s faculties and that the production of the accord of the faculties of understanding and imagination ‘is the ultimate end set by the intelligible basis of our nature'". This prepares the conclusion that "the artist, as creative genius, is he who not only produces but expresses in sensible products, forms which are windows into the supersensible substrate of being". The monograph effectively raises this possibility as a central issue in the discussion of Kant’s aesthetics.—R. K. (shrink)

Phenomenal intentionality is a kind of intentionality, or aboutness, that is grounded in phenomenal consciousness, the subjective, experiential feature of certain mental states. The phenomenal intentionality theory (PIT), is a theory of intentionality according to which there is phenomenal intentionality, and all other kinds of intentionality at least partly derive from it. In recent years, PIT has increasingly been seen as one of the main approaches to intentionality.

Externalist theories of justification create the possibility of cases in which everything appears to one relevantly similar with respect to two propositions, yet one proposition is justified while the other is not. Internalists find this difficult to accept, because it seems irrational in such a case to affirm one proposition and not the other. The underlying internalist intuition supports a specific internalist theory, Phenomenal Conservatism, on which epistemic justification is conferred by appearances.

In this chapter, I argue for the thesis that phenomenal consciousness is the basis of epistemic justification. More precisely, I argue for the thesis of phenomenal mentalism, according to which epistemic facts about which doxastic attitudes one has justification to hold are determined by non-epistemic facts about one’s phenomenally individuated mental states. I begin by providing intuitive motivations for phenomenal mentalism and then proceed to sketch a more theoretical line of argument according to which phenomenal mentalism (...) provides the best explanation of the independently motivated thesis of access internalism. The result is a theory of epistemic justification that brings intuition and theory into reflective equilibrium. (shrink)

As an important view in the epistemology of perception, dogmatism proposes that for any experience, if it has a distinctive kind of phenomenal character, then it thereby provides us with immediate justification for beliefs about the external world. This paper rejects dogmatism by looking into the epistemology of imagining. In particular, this paper first appeals to some empirical studies on perceptual experiences and imaginings to show that it is possible for imaginings to have the distinctive phenomenal character dogmatists (...) have in mind. Then this paper argues that some of these imaginings fail to provide us with immediate justification for beliefs about the external world at least partly due to their inappropriate etiology. Such imaginings constitute counterexamples to dogmatism. (shrink)

Biological atomism postulates that all life is composed of elementary and indivisible vital units. The activity of a living organism is thus conceived as the result of the activities and interactions of its elementary constituents, each of which individually already exhibits all the attributes proper to life. This paper surveys some of the key episodes in the history of biological atomism, and situates cell theory within this tradition. The atomistic foundations of cell theory are subsequently dissected and discussed, (...) together with the theory’s conceptual development and eventual consolidation. This paper then examines the major criticisms that have been waged against cell theory, and argues that these too can be interpreted through the prism of biological atomism as attempts to relocate the true biological atom away from the cell to a level of organization above or below it. Overall, biological atomism provides a useful perspective through which to examine the history and philosophy of cell theory, and it also opens up a new way of thinking about the epistemic decomposition of living organisms that significantly departs from the physicochemical reductionism of mechanistic biology. (shrink)

Contemporary metaphysicians have been drawn to a certain attractive picture of the structure of the world. This picture consists in classical mereology, the priority of parts over wholes, and the well-foundedness of metaphysical priority. In this short note, I show that this combination of theses entails superatomism, which is a significant strengthening of mereological atomism. This commitment has been missed in the literature due to certain sorts of models of mereology being overlooked. But the entailment is an important one: (...) we must either accept superatomism or reject one (or other) of the most widespread theses of contemporary metaphysics. (shrink)

I discuss Clark’s predictive processing/extended mind hybrid, diagnosing a problem: Clark’s hybrid suggests that, when we use them, we pay attention to mind-extending external resources. This clashes with a commonly accepted necessary condition of cognitive extension; namely, that mind-extending resources must be phenomenally transparent when used. I then propose a solution to this problem claiming that the phenomenal transparency condition should be rejected. To do so, I put forth a parity argument to the effect that phenomenal transparency cannot (...) be a necessary condition on cognitive extension: roughly, since internal cognitive resources can fail to be transparent when used, by parity, external resources can fail to be phenomenally transparent too. Further, I argue that phenomenal transparency is not even a reliable indicator of cognitive extension; hence its absence should not be considered a problem for Clark’s extended mind-predictive processing hybrid. Lastly, I consider and allay a number of worries my proposal might raise, and conclude the paper. (shrink)

Intuitively, there is a close link between moral status and phenomenal consciousness. Taking the link seriously can serve as the basis of a proposal that appears to have a surprising number of theoretical benefits. This proposal is the moral option, according to which moral status is partly determinative of phenomenal consciousness, and phenomenal consciousness is sufficient for possession of a moral property I refer to as “moral status.” I argue for this view on the basis of its (...) ability to shed light on the distribution problem of determining which systems are phenomenally conscious. I explicate it by drawing on a theory of attributions of phenomenal consciousness, and considering its relationship to positions on the metaphysics of consciousness. I defend it against a series of objections, including three based on previous theories of the link between phenomenal consciousness and moral status. The moral option should, in my view, be a serious contender among theories of phenomenal consciousness. (shrink)

He explores Russell's logical atomism, which applies logic to problems in the theory of knowledge and metaphysics and was central to Russell's work over this period.

This paper expands on the discussion in the first section of 'Beyond phenomenal naivete'. Let Phenomenal Naivete be understood as the doctrine that some phenomenal characters of veridical experiences are factive properties concerning the external world. Here I present in detail a phenomenological case for Phenomenal Naivete and an argument from hallucination against it. I believe that these arguments show the concept of phenomenal character to be defective, overdetermined by its metaphysical and epistemological commitments together (...) with the world. This does not establish a gappish eliminativism, but a gluttish pluralism, on which there are many imperfect deservers of the name 'phenomenal character'. Different projects in the philosophy of mind -- phenomenology, philosophy of conscious, metaphysics and epistemology of perception -- are concerned with different deservers of the name. (shrink)

We evaluate the role of embodiment in ordinary mental state ascriptions. Presented are five experiments on phenomenal state ascriptions to disembodied entities such as ghosts and spirits. Results suggest that biological embodiment is not a central principle of folk psychology guiding ascriptions of phenomenal consciousness. By contrast, results continue to support the important role of functional considerations in theory of mind judgments.

The nature of matter and the idea of indivisible parts has fascinated philosophers, historians, scientists and physicists from antiquity to the present day. This collection covers the richness of its history, starting with how the Ancient Greeks came to assume the existence of atoms and concluding with contemporary metaphysical debates about structure, time and reality. Focusing on important moments in the history of human thought when the debate about atomism was particularly flourishing and transformative for the scientific and philosophical (...) spirit of the time, this collection covers: - The discovery of atomism in ancient philosophy - Ancient non-Western, Arabic and late Medieval thought - The Renaissance, when along with the re-discovery of ancient thought, atomism became once again an important doctrine to be fully debated - Logical atomism in early analytic philosophy, with Russell and Wittgenstein - Atomism in Liberalism and Marxism - Atomism and the philosophy of time - Atomism in contemporary metaphysics - Atomism and the sciences Featuring 28 chapters by leading and younger scholars, this valuable collection reveals the development of one of philosophy's central doctrines across 2,500 years and within a broad range of philosophical traditions. (shrink)

Recently, Michael Huemer has defended the Principle of Phenomenal Conservatism: If it seems to S that p, then, in the absence of defeaters, S thereby has at least some degree of justification for believing that p. This principle has potentially far-reaching implications. Huemer uses it to argue against skepticism and to defend a version of ethical intuitionism. I employ a reductio to show that PC is false. If PC is true, beliefs can yield justification for believing their contents in (...) cases where, intuitively, they should not be able to do so. I argue that there are cases where a belief that p can behave like an appearance that p and thereby make it seem to one that p. (shrink)

There is a difference between merely thinking that P and really grasping that P. For example, Jackson's (1982) black-and-white Mary cannot (before leaving her black-and-white room) fully grasp what it means to say that fire engines are red, but she can perfectly well entertain the thought that fire engines are red. The contrast between merely thinking and grasping is especially salient in the context of certain moral decisions. For example, an individual who grasps the plight of starving children thanks to (...) evocative images seems much more likely to donate for the children's benefit than someone who is merely told about their plight. This paper offers a phenomenal account of grasping according to which grasping a content (whether a proposition or concept) consists in one's thoughts about the content being constituted by phenomenal experiences of constituents of the content. This account improves on earlier phenomenal accounts of grasping (Bourget 2017a, 2018) by allowing for partial grasping and generalizing to concepts. The paper also addresses objections to phenomenal accounts of grasping, including the objection that recent developments in AI technology show that consciousness is irrelevant to grasping and understanding. (shrink)

In this paper, I focus on an influential account of phenomenal concepts, the recognitional account, and defend it from some recent challenges. According to this account, phenomenal concepts are recognitional concepts that we use when we recognize experiences as “another one of those.” Michael Tye has argued that this account is viciously circular because the relevant recognitional abilities involve descriptions of the form “another experience of the same type,” which is also a phenomenal concept. Tye argues that (...) we avoid the circularity worry if we explain the reference-fixing of phenomenal concepts in terms of dispositions to re-identify tokens of the same type without appealing to any further phenomenal concepts. However, he argues, this account is incompatible with the intuitive claim that phenomenal concepts seem to involve rich modes of presentation of their referents. Philip Goff and others have similarly argued that a recognitional account of phenomenal concepts would make phenomenal concepts opaque, that is, unable to reveal anything about their referents, which seems problematic. In this paper, I present a new version of the recognitional account that avoids the circularity worry without entailing that phenomenal concepts are opaque. (shrink)

Barry Dainton presents a fascinating new account of the self, the key to which is experiential or phenomenal continuity. Provided our mental life continues we can easily imagine ourselves surviving the most dramatic physical alterations, or even moving from one body to another. It was this fact that led John Locke to conclude that a credible account of our persistence conditions - an account which reflects how we actually conceive of ourselves - should be framed in terms of mental (...) rather than material continuity. But mental continuity comes in different forms. Most of Locke's contemporary followers agree that our continued existence is secured by psychological continuity, which they take to be made up of memories, beliefs, intentions, personality traits, and the like. Dainton argues that that a better and more believable account can be framed in terms of the sort of continuity we find in our streams of consciousness from moment to moment. Why? Simply because provided this continuity is not lost - provided our streams of consciousness flow on - we can easily imagine ourselves surviving the most dramatic psychological alterations. Phenomenal continuity seems to provide a more reliable guide to our persistence than any form of continuity. The Phenomenal Self is a full-scale defence and elaboration of this premise. The first task is arriving at an adequate understanding of phenomenal unity and continuity. This achieved, Dainton turns to the most pressing problem facing any experience-based approach: losses of consciousness. How can we survive them? He shows how the problem can be solved in a satisfactory manner by construing ourselves as systems of experiential capacities. He then moves on to explore a range of further issues. How simple can a self be? How are we related to our bodies? Is our persistence an all-or-nothing affair? Do our minds consist of parts which could enjoy an independent existence? Is it metaphysically intelligible to construe ourselves as systems of capacities? The book concludes with a novel treatment of fission and fusion. (shrink)

The phenomenal powers view claims that phenomenal properties metaphysically necessitate their effects in virtue of how they feel, and thereby constitute non-Humean causal powers. For example, pain necessitates that subjects who experience it try to avoid it in virtue of feeling bad. I argue for this view based on the inconceivability of certain phenomenal properties necessitating different effects than their actual ones, their ability to predict their effects without induction, and their ability to explain their effects without (...) appeal to laws or regularities. I also offer a harmony argument according to which the view offers the best explanation for otherwise seemingly fortunate psychophysical regularities. I then outline the view’s main implications for the metaphysics of causation and philosophy of mind. (shrink)