Perception, according to advocates of the predictive processing (PP) framework in cognitive science, is a kind of controlled hallucination. Philosophers interested in PP, however, differ on how best to interpret this slogan. Does it suggest a new kind of idealism about perceptual objects or is it just a useful metaphor, illustrating something about how PP systems work without entailing a radical shakeup of mainstream realist views in the philosophy of perception? In this paper, I take a historically informed approach to (...) this question, drawing on the Kantian roots of the contemporary framework. What perception reveals, according to PP, is a world shaped by the neurocomputational capacities and limitations of perceiving creatures. This means that the properties of perceived objects are, in an important and surprising sense, perceiver-dependent. Nonetheless, thanks to the integration of perceptual and agential capacities envisioned by PP, we should also accept a central claim of realism: in encountering this world we also encounter—come to be acquainted with—mind-independent particulars. PP thus supports a promising next step in the development of a Kantian argument linking the unity of agency to the objectivity of perception. The argument was advanced in its modern form by P.F. Strawson and has later been developed by Susan Hurley and others. In the revised form presented here, it says that PP-perceivers must be practically self-aware agents and that practically self-aware agents embedded in an environment can be acquainted with objects it contains. (shrink)

Clark (2018) worries that predictive processing accounts of perception introduce a puzzling disconnect between the content of personal-level perceptual states and their underlying subpersonal representations. According to PP, in perception, the brain encodes information about the environment in conditional probability density distributions over causes of sensory input. But it seems perceptual experience only presents us with one way the world is at a time. If perception is at bottom probabilistic, shouldn’t this aspect of subpersonally represented content show up in consciousness? (...) To address this worry, Clark argues that representations underlying personal-level content are constrained by the need to provide a single action-guiding take on the environment. However, this proposal rests a conception of the nature of agency, famously articulated by Davidson (1980a,b), that is inconsistent with a view of the mind as embodied-extended. Since Clark and other enactivist PP theorists present the extended mind as an important consequence of the predictive framework, the proposal is in tension with his complete view. I claim that this inconsistency could be resolved either by retaining the Davidsonian view of action and abandoning the extended-embodied approach, or by adopting a more processual, world-involving account of agency and perceptual experience than Clark currently endorses. To solve the puzzle he raises, Clark must become a radical enactivist or a consistent internalist. (shrink)

The hypothesis of extended cognition (HEC) casts human cognition as constitutively dependent on its bodily and environmental context. Drawing on recent empirical work on ‘cognitive offloading’, HEC’s defenders claim that information processing offloaded onto such brain-external resources is sometimes ‘genuinely’ cognitive. But while debates about offloading have a high profile in philosophy of cognitive science, surprisingly little attention has been paid to the fact that paradigm cases of offloading are intentional actions. As a result, opposition to HEC is driven in (...) part by unarticulated intuitions about the metaphysics of human agency. Thinking of action as a kind of interface between separately constituted intentions and bodily movements can make HEC look problematic. But while this view of agency has been popularised – most prominently by Donald Davidson – as analytic philosophy of action’s ‘standard story’, it has come under pressure from philosophers influenced by Elizabeth Anscombe’s very different account. According to this, actions express an agent’s intention only in so far as they fit into the right kind teleologically structured worldly context. In this paper, I’ll argue that HEC’s supporters should adopt an Anscombean model of action. That is, they should understand cognitive offloading as a manifestation of human agency’s general dependence on its bodily and environmental setting. (shrink)

Despite obvious advantages, no generalised ideographic codes have evolved through cultural evolution to rely on iconicity. Morin suggests that this is because of missing means of standardisation, which glottographic codes get from natural languages. Although we agree, we also point to the important role of the available media, which might support some forms of reference more effectively than others.

'Het is wreed, weet je, dat muziek zo mooi kan zijn. Ze heeft de schoonheid van de eenzaamheid & van pijn; van kracht & vrijheid. De schoonheid van de teleurstelling & de nimmer verzadigde liefde. De wrede schoonheid van de natuur, en de eeuwigdurende schoonheid van de monotonie.'.

The Britten–Davidson model of genetic regulation was well received by American molecular biologists and embryologists, but not by the members of the French School of molecular biology. In particular, François Jacob considered it too abstract and too removed from experiments. I re-examine the contrast between the Britten–Davidson model and the operon model by Jacob and Monod, the different scientific contexts in which they were produced and the different roles they played. I also describe my recent encounters with Eric (...) Davidson, and how I discovered the extraordinary continuity of his work on the development of the sea urchin, as well as his rich personality. (shrink)

In Islam, one of the core beliefs is in the life of the hereafter. At the end of time and all that exists, all human beings will be resurrected and will face the Day of Judgment. Even their body parts or organs will stand witness against them. Furthermore, in Islamic law, every action or thing is categorized either as legitimate or prohibited. This article explores ethico‐legal opinions on the issues of organ donation and transplantation in the light of these essential (...) Islamic beliefs. (shrink)

Scholarship on Xenophanes’s F1 has had two foci, one on the rules of the symposium and the other on the religious program posed at its close. Thus far, the two areas of focus have been treated as either separate issues or as the religious program proposed in the service of the sympotic objectives. Instead, I will argue that the sympotic norms Xenophanes espouses are in the service of the broader program of rational theology.