History of Consciousness

Call for papers - La rivoluzione interiore (XVI e XVII secolo)

by Lo Sguardo - Rivista di Filosofia

Il numero X de Lo Sguardo ha come oggetto i secoli XVI e XVII. Il tema che si intende approfondire è quello dell'interiorizzazione del mondo e dello sviluppo di una interiorità individuale nel periodo compreso tra Rinascimento e prima età moderna. A questo scopo il numero esplorerà la psicologia cinque-seicentesca soffermandosi in particolare su alcune facoltà “ausiliari” dell'intelletto quali la memoria, l'immaginazione, la fantasia, in relazione al processo di apprehensio, alla pratica degli esercizi spirituali e all'ideale dell'homo faber sui.

Lingue accettate: Italiano, Inglese, Francese, Spagnolo, Tedesco.
Deadline: 10/09/2012

Per maggiori informazioni scrivere a: redazione@losguardo.net.

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Call for papers - The Inner Revolution (16th and 17th century) [English version]

by Lo Sguardo - Rivista di Filosofia

This tenth issue of Lo Sguardo will be dedicated to the “inner revolution” of he 16th and 17th century; in particular it will delve into the matter of the interiorization of the world” and the development of an “individual interiority” in the period included betweenthe end of the Renaissance and the early modern Age. With this purpose the issue will consider the “psychology of the soul” livering over the role of the “auxialiry faculties” –such as memory, imagination, fantasy – in relation to the notion of apprehensio, to the practice of spiritual exercises and to the concept of homo faber sui.

Accepted languages: English, French, Italian, Spanish, German
Deadline for the delivery: September, 10th 2012

Please feel free to contact us for any further informations: redazione@losguardo.net

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Consciousness from a first-person perspective

by Max Velmans

This is a clean PDF of my reply to 36 peer reviews of my target article in BBS, 1991 “Is human information processing conscious?” As it develops quite a few themes that are fundamental to consciousness studies, I have added an Abstract and references so that it can be read as a stand-alone paper. As this paper tries to address all the points raised by the commentaries it ranges widely, and to assist easier reading it has been subdivided into sections that separate experimental issues from the more theoretical and philosophical issues. The commentators included many of the experimentalists and theoreticians that were prominent in consciousness studies at the time, including scientists such as Bernie Baars, Francis Crick, Christoph Koch, John Gardiner, Jeffrey Gray, Marcel Kinsbourne, Ben Libet, Dan Lloyd, George Mandler, Bruce Mangan, Norman Dixon, Howard Shevrin, Keith Stanovich, Geoff Underwood and philosophers such as Ned Block, Fred Dretske, Valery Hardcastle, Georges Rey, Aaron Sloman and Robert van Gulick. Viewed historically, it is interesting to see how confused the literature was at the time concerning how phenomenal consciousness relates to information processing and particularly to attentional processing. Viewed 20 years later, I would still make a similar defence of my original target article although many of the themes introduced in these two papers have now been elaborated in my subsequent writings.

This paper replies to the first 36 commentaries on my target article on “Is human information processing conscious?”... more This paper replies to the first 36 commentaries on my target article on “Is human information processing conscious?” (Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 1991, pp. 651-669). The target article focused largely on experimental studies of how consciousness relates to human information processing, tracing their relation from input through to output, while discussion of the implications of the findings both for cognitive psychology and philosophy of mind was relatively brief. The commentaries reversed this emphasis, and so, correspondingly, did the reply. The sequence of topics in the reply roughly follows that of the target article. The discussion begins with a reconsideration of the details of the empirical findings, whether they can be extrapolated to non-laboratory settings, and the extent to which one can rely on their use of subjective reports. This is followed by an in-depth discussion of what is meant by “conscious processing” and of how phenomenal consciousness relates to attentional processing. We then turn to broader philosophical and theoretical issues. I point out some of the reasons why I do not support epiphenomenalism, dualist-interactionism, or reductionism, and elaborate on how first- and third-person views of the mind can be regarded as complementary and mutually irreducible. I suggest how the relation of conscious experiences to their neural correlates can be understood in terms of a dual-aspect theory of information, and how this might be used to resolve some of the paradoxes surrounding the causal interactions of consciousness and brain. I also suggest that, viewed from a first-person perspective, consciousness gives purpose to existence, which allows a different way of viewing its role in evolution.

How Does Recognition Emerge from Nature? The Genesis of Consciousness in Hegel’s Jena Writings

by Italo Testa

Draft, forthcoming in “Critical Horizons”, Special Issue edited by J.-P. Deranty & H. Hikaeheimo, 2012

The paper proposes a reconstruction of some fragments of Hegel’s Jena manuscripts concerning the natural genesis of... more The paper proposes a reconstruction of some fragments of Hegel’s Jena manuscripts concerning the natural genesis of recognitive spiritual consciousness. On this basis it  will be argued that recognition has a foothold in nature. As a consequence, recognition should not be understood as a bootstrapping process, that is, as a self-positing and self-justifying normative social phenomenon, intelligible within itself and independently of anything external to it.

"The Continuum of Experience: Non-Conscious Experience"

by Gregory Nixon

Target Article 95 @ The Karl Jaspers Forum online, posted July 7, 2007. [editor/moderator reviewed]

When so much is being written on conscious experience, it is past time to face the question whether experience happens... more When so much is being written on conscious experience, it is past time to face the question whether experience happens that is not conscious of itself. The recognition that we and most other living things experience non-consciously has recently been firmly supported by experimental science, clinical studies, and theoretic investigations; the related if not identical philosophic notion of experience without a subject has a rich pedigree. Leaving aside the question of how experience could become conscious of itself, I aim here to demonstrate that the terms experience and consciousness are not interchangeable. Experience is a notoriously difficult concept to pin down, but I see non-conscious experience as based mainly in momentary sensations, relational between bodies or systems, and probably common throughout the natural world. If this continuum of experience — from non-conscious, to conscious, to self-transcending awareness — can be understood and accepted, radical constructivism (the “outside” world as a construct of experience) will gain a firmer foundation, panexperientialism (a living universe) may gain credibility, and psi will find its medium.

"Whatever Happened to 'Heightened Consciousness'?"

by Gregory Nixon

@ *Journal of Curriculum Studies* 31 (6), Winter 1999. 626-633.

I have been bold enough to present a paper which is not theoretically complex but is, instead, theoretically `back to... more I have been bold enough to present a paper which is not theoretically complex but is, instead, theoretically `back to basics'. I ask to where did the rhetoric go about heightened or expanded consciousness which was so predominant in the early 70s. To that end I look at the historical sources of this movement and what has happened since the early `reconceptualist' days. I suggest that expanded awareness became irrevocably linked to psychedelic self-indulgence and seen as selfish by the majority political wing of curriculum theorists. However, both these views are mistaken. Instead, it is non-reflective political stances which are egocentric. Finally, I suggest that context-expanding awareness cannot be a personal goal but a pleasant side effect of selfless service.