Metaphysics of Mind

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.

I can't get no (epistemic) satisfaction: Why the hard problem of consciousness entails a hard problem of explanation

by Brian Earp

Earp, B. D. (2012). I can’t get no (epistemic) satisfaction: Why the hard problem of consciousness entails a hard problem of explanation. Dialogues in Philosophy, Mental and Neuro Sciences, in press.

Daniel Dennett (1996) has disputed David Chalmers’ (1995) assertion that there is a “hard problem of consciousness”... more Daniel Dennett (1996) has disputed David Chalmers’ (1995) assertion that there is a “hard problem of consciousness” worth solving in the philosophy of mind. In this paper I defend Chalmers against Dennett on this point: I argue that there is a hard problem of consciousness, that it is distinct in kind from the so-called easy problems, and that it is vital for the sake of honest and productive research in the cognitive sciences to be clear about the difference. But I have my own rebuke for Chalmers on the point of explanation. Chalmers (1995, 1996) proposes to “solve” the hard problem of consciousness by positing qualia as fundamental features of the universe, alongside such ontological basics as mass and space-time. But this is an inadequate solution: to posit, I will urge, is not to explain. To bolster this view, I borrow from an account of explanation by which it must provide “epistemic satisfaction” to be considered successful (Rowlands, 2001; Campbell, 2009), and show that Chalmers’ proposal fails on this account. I conclude that research in the science of consciousness cannot move forward without greater conceptual clarity in the field.

Book review of T. Rego, La filosofía del sentido común según Aristóteles. Roma: Leonardo da Vinci, 2011. 137pp.

by David Torrijos-Castrillejo

"Anuario Filosófico" 45 (2012) 203-206

Rego compare Aristotle with a contemporary philosopher, Antonio Livi. He searchs his realism (that stands under the... more Rego compare Aristotle with a contemporary philosopher, Antonio Livi. He searchs his realism (that stands under the name of "philosophy of common sense or alethic logic") in Aristotelian philosophy. So he looks for the material logic in Aristotle.
The first part deals with the common sense in the methodology of Aristotle, while the second reviews the verification of the five judgments implicitly made ​​by common sense according to Livi.

Hume as a Trope Nominalist

by Jani Hakkarainen

I will give this paper at the panel on nominalism and relations in Hume Conference, Calgary, July 18-22, 2012.

Choosing between the long and short informational routes to psychological explanation

by Marc Champagne

Published in Philosophical Psychology.

Following recent work by Don Ross (Ross, 2000; Ross & Spurrett, 2004), I contrast the influential theories of... more Following recent work by Don Ross (Ross, 2000; Ross & Spurrett, 2004), I contrast the influential theories of Daniel Dennett and Paul Churchland in information-theoretic terms. Dennett makes much of the fact that the morphological shorthand which emerges before a witness as she looks upon cohesive aggregates of matter commands some measure of predictive power. This, for him, speaks against eliminating recourse to an intentional vocabulary. By contrast, the eliminative materialism defended by Churchland does not gloss such informational compressibility as an explanatory desideratum, and thus regards the informational noise which accrues at higher levels of description as patently unacceptable. Yet, since it is unlikely, as Ross et al. (2007) have recently suggested, that anything remains once we subtract the appeal to patterns, I argue that the ubiquity of informational compression in scientific explanation seriously undermines the claim that talk of the mental could be eliminated.

Kategoriler (Gilbert Ryle)

by Ilyas Altuner

Kutadgubilig Felsefe-Bilim Araştırmaları, 20, 2011

Bu makalesinde Ryle, yalnızca kategorilerin tarihsel seyrini Aristoteles, Kant ve analitik felsefe bağlamında ele... more Bu makalesinde Ryle, yalnızca kategorilerin tarihsel seyrini Aristoteles, Kant ve analitik felsefe bağlamında ele almamakta, aynı zamanda bu süreçte kategorilerin ele alınış biçimini ciddî eleştirilere tabi tutmaktadır. Ryle kategorileri tiplerden ayrı tutmamakta ve kategori-önermelerinin ve tiplerin nasıl oluştuklarını da ele almaktadır. Önermelerin başlığını bilmek, onlar hakkında her şeyi bilmek demektir.

Consciousness, Brain and the Physical World

by Max Velmans

This is a clean PDF of the first paper I published on consciousness, in Philosophical Psychology in 1990. At the time it was very radical and still has radical elements. In particular it challenged the widely accepted presupposition that all conscious experiences are "in the head", and by implication "located in the brain." Although many of the basic steps it makes are now widely accepted in the field, there is continuing controversy about how best to interpret their broader implications. The basic points made about the phenomenology of consciousness are for example now accepted by both direct realist philosophers such as Michael Tye who believe the qualia of consciousness to be physical properties of the external world, and indirect realist scientists such as Stephen Lehar, Antti Revonsuo and Jeffrey Gray who adopt biological naturalism--the view that the entire phenomenal world is in fact a form of virtual reality contained within the brain. In my 2008 Journal of Consciousness Studies paper on "Reflexive Monism" I compare and contrast both of these positions with the reflexive monist view that the external phenomenal world is a perceptual projection.

Dualist and Reductionist theories of mind disagree about whether or not consciousness can be reduced to a state of or... more Dualist and Reductionist theories of mind disagree about whether or not consciousness can be reduced to a state of or function of the brain. They assume, however, that the contents of consciousness are separate from the external physical world as-perceived. According to the present paper this assumption has no foundation either in everyday experience or in science. Drawing on evidence for perceptual projection in both interoceptive and exteroceptive sense modalities, the case is made that the physical world as-perceived is a construct of perceptual processing and, therefore, part of the contents of consciousness. A finding which requires a Reflexive rather than a Dualist or Reductionist model of how consciousness relates to the brain and the physical world. The physical world as-perceived may, in turn be thought of as a biologically useful model of the world as described by physics. Redrawing the boundaries of consciousness to include the physical world as-perceived undermines the conventional separation of the 'mental' from the physical', and with it the very foundation of the Dualist-Reductionist debate. The alternative Reflexive model departs radically from current conventions, with consequences for many aspects of consciousness theory and research. Some of the consequences which bear on the internal consistency and intuitive plausibility of the model are explored, e.g. the causal sequence in perception, representationalism, a suggested resolution of the Realism versus Idealism debate, and the way manifest differences between physical events as-perceived and other conscious events (images, dreams, etc.) are to be construed.

Leibniz' Argument for Innate Ideas

by Byron Kaldis

Just the Arguments: 100 of the Most Important Arguments in Western Philosophy, Blackwell, 2011

Leibniz’s Arguments for the existence of petites perceptions in his Nouveaux essais sur l’entendement humain (1704 Leibniz’s Arguments for the existence of petites perceptions in his Nouveaux essais sur l’entendement humain (1704

Sophia und Polemos (German/Spanish)

by Tabea Hirzel

Vác 2011

The myth of reductive extensionalism

by Itay Shani

Axiomathes (2007) 17:155–183

M uscularity of M ind: Towards an Explanation

by Nagarjuna G

The Continuity of Consciousness

by Oliver Rashbrook

In this paper I discuss two puzzles that concern the sense in which consciousness can be described as ‘continuous’.... more In this paper I discuss two puzzles that concern the sense in which consciousness can be described as ‘continuous’. The first puzzle arises out of recent work by Dainton and Tye, both of whom appear to oscillate between ascribing the property of ‘continuity’ to the stream of experience, and ascribing it to the objects of experience. The second puzzle concerns the notion that the stream of consciousness could be in some sense unreal or illusory—a puzzle stemming from the thought that some of the brain processes underlying consciousness do not exhibit continuity. I argue that these problems can be solved by distinguishing between three possible bearers of the property of ‘continuity’—(1) the State of Consciousness, (2) the Stream of Experience, and (3) what is represented by experience—and two different senses of ‘continuity’—‘strict’ and ‘extreme’ continuity. I conclude by providing a positive account of the continuity of consciousness, according to which the State of Consciousness exhibits ‘strict’ continuity, and the Stream of Experience exhibits ‘extreme’ continuity.

The Fluid Self

by Nicholaj de Mattos Frisvold

An unedited earlier version of a dissertation concerning the nature of selfhood, discussing its essential, substantial and cultural implications.

The Fluid Self, refers to a concept about self where it is conceived of as being in a constant state of change. This... more The Fluid Self, refers to a concept about self where it is conceived of as being in a constant state of change. This quality has been mentioned by many researchers but usually a throughout investigation of this quality are not attempted. The questions that need to be answered would be related to the nature and constitution of self, touching a wide array of issues. Like what are the differences between private self and social self? If self is a social construction what can then be said about our identity and our perception of who we are? If this “state of change” is facilitated by “self” being understood on basis of external and inner dimensions, which self is more true or is the question simply irrelevant? The suggestion in this monograph is as follows. What modern man understands as self is both a social construction as well as a natural volatile “something” within man. A stable unaltered self is not only impossible, but goes against the adaptable nature of self. It can seem like modern man are prone to understand self in light of behavior and appearance. Man often define other men on basis of this and if unexpected behavior occurs easily words to the effect of “he is not quite him self today” can be spoken in order to label the dissonance between expectation and behavior displayed. One can ask if the human organism when displaying expected behavior in a meeting with another human organism also demonstrates self-consistency, or if this in reality is an expression of awareness and interpretation?

The will is caused, not '“free'

by Brian Earp

Bargh, J. A., & Earp, B. D. (2009). The will is caused, not 'free'. Dialogue, Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Vol 24 No 1, 13-15.

Presumptuous Naturalism: A Cautionary Tale

by Daniel D. Hutto

2011 in American Philosophical Quarterly 48 (2) pp.129 – 145. To be translated into French and reprinted in a special issue of Recherches sur la Philosophie et le Langage.

Concentrating on their treatment of folk psychology, this paper seeks to establish that, in the form advocated by its... more Concentrating on their treatment of folk psychology, this paper seeks to establish that, in the form advocated by its leading proponents, the Canberra project is presumptuous in certain key respects. Crucially, it presumes (1) that our everyday practices entail the existence of implicit folk theories; (2) that naturalists ought to be interested primarily in what such theories say; and (3) that the core content of such theories is adequately characterized by establishing what everyone finds intuitively obvious about the topics in question. I argue these presumptions are a bad starting point for any naturalistic project and, more specifically, that in framing things in this way proponents of the Canberra plan have led us unnecessarily into philosophical quagmires.
The fundamental error is to suppose that our conceptual investigations ought to target (A) what the folk ‘find obvious’ about a given domain (which is putatively revelatory of a shared implicit theory) instead of (B) attending to what the folk do when competently deploying their concepts in dealing with that domain. Only the latter reveals the folk commitments. Focusing on what the folk find obvious, as Canberra planners claim to do, generates a host of methodological difficulties that are best avoided. Much worse than this, trying to identify what is ‘intuitively known by all’ typically results in contaminated pictures, of the genuine commitments of the folk, hogging our attention.
The cardinal sin of a presumptuous naturalism, as exemplified by the official versions of the Canberra plan, is that it makes it appear as if it is a simple matter to obtain an accurate understanding of folk commitments. Focusing on what anyone and everyone will find ‘obvious’ about some domain aids, abets and seemingly legitimizes certain popular but biased pictures of our folk commitments. This becomes dangerous when, by fuelling our intuitions, such pictures set important philosophical agendas and play a leading role in evaluating the adequacy of philosophical proposals.
In section three, using Jaegwon Kim as a stalking horse, I illustrate a clear instance of the kinds of difficulties that attend adopting this sort of starting point, focusing on the so-called ‘problem’ of mental causation. Examination of this case reveals that it is attachment to a certain popular understanding of our folk psychological commitments – specifically, the idea that a productive notion of causation is required for making sense of human agency – that not only creates ‘the problem’ but also determines what any acceptable ‘solution’ must look like.
Against this, in section four, I show that a close examination of our everyday practice of deploying mental predicates to explain actions reveals no logically compelling grounds for supposing that the folk must be operating with a productive notion of causation. This is something inherited from elsewhere. Indeed, a quick review of how the philosophical community became convinced that reasons and reason explanations are causal in the first place (in some sense, in some cases) reveals that we would have no inclination to attribute a commitment to the notion of productive causation to the folk if we did not already buy into a certain picture of how mental states cause actions. Which picture? Well, the very one promoted by the standard Lewisian, commonsense functionalist analysis of the platitudes of folk psychology– an analysis that allegedly states only what the folk find obvious about the mental and nothing more.
If the diagnosis of this paper is correct then it serves as a cautionary tale. We ought to heed Wittgenstein’s warnings about the dangers of being taking in by beguiling pictures – those that systematically obscure a clear vision of our actual use of concepts in various contexts. That warning, it seems, is as pertinent today as ever. My aim is to show that any naturalism that takes a serious interest in understanding our folk commitments must adopt a different and more unassuming starting point than that proposed by the Canberra planners.