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Philosophy Of Mind (philosophy + of_mind)
Selected AbstractsThe Myth of Jones and the Return of SubjectivityMIND & LANGUAGE, Issue 2 2001Janet Levin This paper discusses a number of recent criticisms of ,theoretical' accounts of mental state concepts,that is, accounts which take these concepts to derive their meanings from the roles played by mental states in the explanation of behavior: in particular, I evaluate the claim that (insofar as they are ,third-personal' or ,theoretical') these concepts cannot individuate mental states that intuitively are distinct, and the claim that they cannot account for what goes on in the ascription of mental states to oneself. I argue (with reference to what may be the originating text of this approach to mental state concepts, Sellars's ,Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind') that, although these criticisms may have some plausibility when directed against theoretical accounts of experiential or qualitative states, they have little plausibility when directed against theoretical accounts of intentional states. In so arguing, moreover, I try to show the shortcomings of various recent ,first-person' or ,subjectivist' views. [source] SUBJECTIVITY AS A NON-TEXTUAL STANDARD OF INTERPRETATION IN THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHICAL PSYCHOLOGYHISTORY AND THEORY, Issue 1 2010JARI KAUKUA ABSTRACT Contemporary caution against anachronism in intellectual history, and the currently momentous theoretical emphasis on subjectivity in the philosophy of mind, are two prevailing conditions that set puzzling constraints for studies in the history of philosophical psychology. The former urges against assuming ideas, motives, and concepts that are alien to the historical intellectual setting under study, and combined with the latter suggests caution in relying on our intuitions regarding subjectivity due to the historically contingent characterizations it has attained in contemporary philosophy of mind. In the face of these conditions, our paper raises a question of what we call non-textual (as opposed to contextual) standards of interpretation of historical texts, and proceeds to explore subjectivity as such a standard. Non-textual standards are defined as (heuristic) postulations of features of the world or our experience of it that we must suppose to be immune to historical variation in order to understand a historical text. Although the postulation of such standards is often so obvious that the fact of our doing so is not noticed at all, we argue that the problems in certain special cases, such as that of subjectivity, force us to pay attention to the methodological questions involved. Taking into account both recent methodological discussion and the problems inherent in two de facto denials of the relevance of subjectivity for historical theories, we argue that there are good grounds for the adoption of subjectivity as a nontextual standard for historical work in philosophical psychology. [source] The Psychological Basis of Historical Explanation: Reenactment, Simulation, and the Fusion of HorizonsHISTORY AND THEORY, Issue 1 2002Karsten R. Stueber In this article I will challenge a received orthodoxy in the philosophy of social science by showing that Collingwood was right in insisting that reenactment is epistemically central for historical explanations of individual agency. Situating Collingwood within the context of the debate between simulation theory and what has come to be called "theory theory" in contemporary philosophy of mind and psychology, I will develop two systematic arguments that attempt to show the essential importance of reenactment for our understanding of rational agency. I will furthermore show that Gadamer's influential critique of the reenactment model distinguishes insufficiently between the interpretation of certain types of texts and the explanation of individual actions. In providing an account of individual agency, we are committed to a realistic understanding of our ordinary scheme of action-explanations and have thus to recognize the centrality of reenactment. Nevertheless, Collingwood's emphasis on reenactment is certainly one-sided. I will demonstrate its limitations even for accounting for individual agency, and show how it has to be supplemented by various theoretical considerations, by analyzing the different explanatory strategies that Christopher Browning and Daniel Goldhagen use to explain the behavior of the ordinary men in Reserve Battalion 101 during World War II. [source] The poverty of economic explanations of consumption and an action theory alternativeMANAGERIAL AND DECISION ECONOMICS, Issue 3-4 2000Richard P BagozziArticle first published online: 27 MAR 200 The purpose of this essay is to critique economic conceptualizations of consumer behaviour and explanations of consumer choice, and to propose an alternative rooted in the philosophy of mind and action, as well as in nascent social psychological and marketing models of purposive behaviour. It is claimed that economic theory harbours ideological and methodological biases in how consumer behaviour is conceived and obscures understanding of the many decision processes constituting consumer behaviour and its causes and effects. A novel multistage model is proposed to account for consumer goal achievement/goal failure, where goal outcomes are hypothesized to be joint functions of consumer actions and physical, social, or other environmental forces. Consumer action, in turn, is proposed to begin with reasoning processes (subject to nonconscious biases found in neural operations), to undergo appraisals of anticipated goal outcomes, which are experienced as positive and negative emotions, to involve a subsequent integrative stage of desire production, where reasoning, emotional, and social processes are integrated and transformed into a decision to act or not, and finally to encompass additional affective and reasoning processes that are initiated in a stage termed, ,trying to consume', wherein decisions are planned and implemented, and goal-directed behaviours activated. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] THE PUZZLE OF FALLIBLE KNOWLEDGEMETAPHILOSOPHY, Issue 3 2008HAMID VAHID Abstract: Although the fallible/infallible distinction in the theory of knowledge has traditionally been upheld by most epistemologists, almost all contemporary theories of knowledge claim to be fallibilist. Fallibilists have, however, been forced to accommodate knowledge of necessary truths. This has proved to be a daunting task, not least because there is as yet no consensus on how the fallible/infallible divide is to be understood. In this article, after examining and rejecting a number of representative accounts of the notion of fallible knowledge, I argue that the main problems with these accounts actually stem from the very coherence of that notion. I then claim that the distinction is best understood in terms of the externalist/internalist conceptions of knowledge. Finally, I seek to garner some independent support for the proposal by highlighting some of its consequences, including its surprising bearing on certain recent and seemingly distant controversies involving issues in epistemology and philosophy of mind. [source] Meaning and normativity in nurse,patient interactionNURSING PHILOSOPHY, Issue 1 2007Halvor Nordby phd Abstract, It is a fundamental assumption in nursing theory that it is important for nurses to understand how patients think about themselves and the contexts they are in. According to modern theories of hermeneutics, a nurse and a patient must share the same concepts in order to communicate beliefs with the same content. But nurses and patients seldom understand medical concepts in exactly the same way, so how can this communicative aim be achieved in interaction involving medical concepts? The article uses a theory of concepts from recent cognitive science and philosophy of mind to argue that nurses and patients can share medical concepts despite the diversity of understanding. According to this theory, two persons who understand medical language in different ways will nevertheless possess the same medical concepts if they agree about the normative standards for the applications of the concepts. This entails that nurses and patients normally share medical concepts even though patients' conceptions of disease and illness are formed in idiosyncratic ways by their social and cultural contexts. Several practical implications of this argument are discussed and linked to case studies. One especially important point is that nurses should seek to make patients feel comfortable with deferring to a medical understanding. In many cases, an adequate understanding of patients presupposes that nurses manage to do this. Another implication is that deference-willingness to normative meaning is not equivalent to the actual application of concepts. Deference-willingness should rather be thought of as a pre-communicative attitude that it is possible for patients who are not fully able to communicate to possess. What is important is that nurses and patients have the intention of conforming to the same meaning. [source] WHAT KIND OF PHILOSOPHER WAS LOCKE ON MIND AND BODY?PACIFIC PHILOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY, Issue 2 2010HAN-KYUL KIM The wide range of conflicting interpretations that exist in regard to Locke's philosophy of mind and body (i.e. dualistic, materialist, idealistic) can be explained by the general failure of commentators to appreciate the full extent of his nominalism. Although his nominalism that focuses on specific natural kinds has been much discussed, his mind-body nominalism remains largely neglected. This neglect, I shall argue, has given rise to the current diversity of interpretations. This paper offers a solution to this interpretative puzzle, and it attributes a view to Locke that I shall describe as nominal symmetry. [source] Feeling Pain for the Very First Time: The Normative Knowledge ArgumentPHILOSOPHY AND PHENOMENOLOGICAL RESEARCH, Issue 1 2010GUY KAHANE In this paper I present a new argument against internalist theories of practical reason. My argument is inpired by Frank Jackson's celebrated Knowledge Argument. I ask what will happen when an agent experiences pain for the first time. Such an agent, I argue, will gain new normative knowledge that internalism cannot explain. This argument presents a similar difficulty for other subjectivist and constructivist theories of practical reason and value. I end by suggesting that some debates in meta-ethics and in the philosophy of mind might be more closely intertwined than philosophers in either area would like to believe. [source] What Am I? Virtual Machines and the Mind/Body ProblemPHILOSOPHY AND PHENOMENOLOGICAL RESEARCH, Issue 2 2008JOHN L. POLLOCK When your word processor or email program is running on your computer, this creates a "virtual machine" that manipulates windows, files, text, etc. What is this virtual machine, and what are the virtual objects it manipulates? Many standard arguments in the philosophy of mind have exact analogues for virtual machines and virtual objects, but we do not want to draw the wild metaphysical conclusions that have sometimes tempted philosophers in the philosophy of mind. A computer file is not made of epiphenomenal ectoplasm. I argue instead that virtual objects are "supervenient objects." The stereotypical example of supervenient objects is the statue and the lump of clay. To this end I propose a theory of supervenient objects. Then I turn to persons and mental states. I argue that my mental states are virtual states of a cognitive virtual machine implemented on my body, and a person is a supervenient object supervening on this cognitive virtual machine. [source] | ||||||||||