Thomas Reid in the eighteenth century and Ludwig Wittgenstein in the twentieth made strong cases for the existence of "communication systems" that must be in place if there is to be the acquisition of any language; language in the full sense of a system of words, displaying distinctions into word classes and ordered by a grammar that is sensitive to those word classes. Although their pre-languages have something of the character of language proper, Reid and Wittgenstein offer a very different (...) conception of the necessary conditions for the existence of language from that proposed by Chomsky, much criticized for its implausible cognitivism. In this paper we compare and contrast Reidian and Wittgensteinian conceptions of what there must be for language to be possible, and draw some morals for the vexed, but in our view, empty question of the demarcation of language from all other intentional and normative systems in use amongst people and animals. (shrink)

"An American psychologist, Daniel N. Robinson, traces the development of the insanity plea...[He offers] an assured historical survey." Roy Porter, The Times [UK] "Wild Beasts and Idle Humours is truly unique. It synthesizes material that I do not believe has ever been considered in this context, and links up the historical past with contemporaneous values and politics. Robinson effortlessly weaves religious history, literary history, medical history, and political history, and demonstrates how the insanity defense cannot be fully (...) understood without consideration of all these sources." Michael L. Perlin, New York Law School "Daniel N. Robinson has written a graceful history of insanity and the law stretching from Homer to Hinckley. He attempts no final theory as to how the law should cope with the insane; he seeks, rather, to use the shifting notions of when madness exculpates criminal activity to illuminate the core self-perceptions of the cultures developing ever-evolving resolutions of the problem...[T]he grandeur of the theme...commands attention and respect." --Neal Johnston, The Nation . (shrink)

Identity, Morality, and Threat offers a critical examination of the social psychological processes that generate outgroup devaluation and ingroup glorification as the source of conflict. Daniel Rothbart and Karyna Korostelina bring together essays analyzing the causal relationship between escalating violence and opposing images of the Self and Other.

In the third of his Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man, Reid devotes the fourth chapter to the concept of‘identity’, and the sixth chapter to Locke’s theory of ‘personal identity’. This latter chapter is widely regarded as a definitive refutation of the thesis that personal identity is no more than memories of a certain sort. It is interesting that the terms ‘identity’ and ‘personal identity’ do not appear as chapter or section titles elsewhere in any of Reid’s works; and (...) Hume is neither mentioned nor his theory of personal identity discussed in the two chapters specifically addressed to the matter. Moreover, while Locke, Reid, and Hume are often anthologized in works on personal identity, Reid is always presented as replying only to Locke. (shrink)

Presents the Presidential address by Daniel N. Robinson at the Division of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology. Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association in Boston on August 11, 1990. His remarks included a series of important developments within Psychology but also outside its traditional areas of interest, in such fields as anthropology, linguistics and ethnology. 2012 APA, all rights reserved).

So fearfully and wonderfully are we made, so infinitely subtle is the spiritual part of our being, so difficult is it to trace with accuracy the effect of diseased intellect upon human action, that I may appeal to all who hear me, whether there are any causes more difficult, or which, indeed, so often confound the learning of the judges themselves, as when insanity, or the the effects and consequences of insanity, become the subjects of legal consideration and judgment.

In recent decades, issues that reside at the center of philosophical and psychological inquiry have been absorbed into a scientific framework variously identified as "brain science," "cognitive science," and "cognitive neuroscience." Scholars have heralded this development as revolutionary, but a revolution implies an existing method has been overturned in favor of something new. What long-held theories have been abandoned or significantly modified in light of cognitive neuroscience? _Consciousness and Mental Life_ questions our present approach to the study of consciousness and (...) the way modern discoveries either mirror or contradict understandings reached in the centuries leading up to our own. Daniel N. Robinson does not wage an attack on the emerging discipline of cognitive science. Rather, he provides the necessary historical context to properly evaluate the relationship between issues of consciousness and neuroscience and their evolution over time. Robinson begins with Aristotle and the ancient Greeks and continues through to René Descartes, David Hume, William James, Daniel Dennett, John Searle, Richard Rorty, Hilary Putnam, and Derek Parfit. Approaching the issue from both a philosophical and a psychological perspective, Robinson identifies what makes the study of consciousness so problematic and asks whether cognitive neuroscience can truly reveal the origins of mental events, emotions, and preference, or if these occurrences are better understood by studying the whole person, not just the brain. Well-reasoned and thoroughly argued, _Consciousness and Mental Life_ corrects many claims made about the success of brain science and provides a valuable historical context for the study of human consciousness. (shrink)

This is the story of the clattering of elevated subways and the cacophony of crowded neighborhoods, the heady optimism of industrial progress and the despair of economic recession, and the vibrancy of ethnic cultures and the resilience of ...

"This book is a significant contribution to the analytic study of ethics, to the history of ethics, and to the growing field of philosophical psychology.

The third volume of The History of Evil encompasses the early modern era from 1450–1700. This revolutionary period exhibited immense change in both secular knowledge and sacred understanding. It saw the fall of Constantinople and the rise of religious violence, the burning of witches and the drowning of Anabaptists, the ill treatment of indigenous peoples from Africa to the Americas, the reframing of formal authorities in religion, philosophy, and science, and it produced profound reflection on good and evil in the (...) genius of Shakespeare, Milton, Bacon, Teresa of Avila, and the Cambridge Platonists. This superb treatment of the history of evil during a formative period of the early modern era will appeal to those with interests in philosophy, theology, social and political history, and the history of ideas. (shrink)

“FITNESS FOR THE RULE OF LAW” lends itself to a variety of treatments. I should make clear at the outset one treatment that I do not intend to provide under this heading, even if it is implicitly represented here and there in this essay. I will not examine psychological or psychiatric conceptions of “fitness” as these are featured in, for example, the “insanity defense” or in tests of testamentary capacity. A recent book of mine explores these issues in some historical (...) and analytical detail, but this is a vast and complex subject falling beyond the scope of what I hope to clarify here. I shall assume throughout that the minimal conditions by which one becomes fit for the rule of law are satisfied, and will focus then on how one’s potentialities for life within such a context are realized. (shrink)

The perils and sometimes macabre consequences of Aristotle-worship have been documented historically and serve as a general warning to scholars in every discipline. The necessary course—I might say the "golden mean"—is to be found between an uncritical praise and a final burial. Aristotle's record can only enjoy the lasting respect of all students, but apart from the matter of his just deserts is the enduring usefulness of his contributions. Nonetheless a certain perspective must be maintained if Psychology is to derive (...) due measure of the benefits, while avoiding what is misleading or confused or idle in the surviving works. That this perspective is hard-won can be seen from the tendency even among seasoned Aristotle scholars to misplace it as they move from topic to topic. And so I offer what I hope is to be the somewhat clearer paths to this perspective, though very sketchily and with a modesty fully earned through years of strenuous attention to Aristotle's writings. 2012 APA, all rights reserved). (shrink)

Commentators' criticisms are considered in relation to the aims of the book as well as in relation to the commentators' own understanding of major issues. Neither reliance on social construcitonist alternatives nor on 'de gustibus' arguments reaches the principal arguments of Praise and Blame. 2012 APA, all rights reserved).

The constant threats to scientific progress are complacency and the diminished capacity for self-criticism. There have been great advances in our understanding of the functional anatomy of the nervous system, advances that stand in vivid contrast to our understanding of the moral, aesthetic and political dimensions of human life. The contrast is so great as to encourage the belief that these dimensions are found beyond the ambit of scientific explanation. How pathetic, then, to witness strident and smug attacks on those (...) who have reached this plausible and profound conclusion. (shrink)

Reviews the books, Emotion and peace of mind: From stoic agitation to Christian temptation by Richard Sorabji and Other minds by Anita Avramides . The two works considered here are deeply serious and composed by scholars who have executed their projects with undeviating integrity. In Emotion and Peace of Mind, based on his Gifford Lectures, Richard Sorabji moves the reader through a veritable course of study on a subject as notoriously protean as it is central to the lived life. The (...) twenty-six chapters range over whole realms of thought on the subject of emotion, beginning with ancient philosophy and reaching the research and theory advanced right now in that congeries of specialties dubbed the brain sciences. Between the covers of this truly estimable work one meets not just the subtle and instructive thought of Seneca and Augustine, Iamblichlus and Epictetus, but insightful commentaries on the work of Damasio, Le Doux, Maclean and others. In all, Emotion and Peace of Mind is a benchmark- volume, an outstanding contribution to the philosophy and psychology of emotion; surely a required work for anyone prepared to approach the subject with the seriousness it demands. The second book of this review, Other Minds, is a work of philosophical rigor and originality, composed by an Oxford tutor who has skillfully shaped other minds with the sharp and sharpening instrument of conceptual analysis. Do computers have minds? Do animals have minds? Are there minds other than my own? And if I know of my own mind in that most basic first-person sense, then clearly there is no other mind that I can thus know. If there is something epistemologically amiss about first-person achievements, then there is surely something suspect about claims to the effect that I know of my mind. If there is nothing less than a required first-person account of minds, then there is something epistemologically suspect about any statement of any other mind. 2012 APA, all rights reserved). (shrink)

Benjamin Libet's influential publications have raised important questions about voluntarist accounts of action. His findings are taken as evidence that the processes in the central nervous system associated with the initiation of an action occur earlier than the decision to act. However, in light of the methods employed and of relevant findings drawn from research addressed to the timing of neurobehavioural processes, Libet's conclusions are untenable.

Throughout its history, the insanity defense specifically and the more general concept of mental defect or incompetence have been grounded in the assumption that those people fit for the rule of law are able to give and to comprehend reasons for their actions. This chapter traces the evolution of perspectives on the nature of mental illness and the manner in which cultural and extra-scientific influences have shaped perspectives. These perspectives are most saliently expressed in statutory provisions and relevant case law (...) summarized here and covering historical developments from ancient Greece and Rome to the present. Significant interactions between law and psychiatry are further highlighted and informed by core and controversial philosophical assumptions. Attention is given to differences between juridical and medical conceptions of responsibility. (shrink)

By the sixth century of the modern era, and after centuries of refinement and skillful application by Roman jurists, the core principles appear in Justinian's Institutes, where it is simply taken for granted, without benefit of analysis or argument, that.

Studies of Witherspoon's influence as an educator and as a pivotal figure in the American founding tend to neglect his earlier part in controversies among the Scottish Moderates and Evangelicals. By the time he answered the summons from the College of New Jersey, his position on church-state relations was thoroughly developed as was his understanding of the nature and the sources of rights, both alienable and unalienable. Nor were there ‘two Witherspoons’, the earlier one in Scotland opposed to the academic (...) world of intellectuals and a later American version suddenly committed to the progressive ethos of the Enlightenment. There was but one Witherspoon, clear on the several missions required by the times. (shrink)

Philosophers of science have devoted volumes to the question of explanation; I've devoted some pages to it myself. In this highly contracted essay I shall offer no more than a comment on the problem of explanation, some vagrant but critical assessments of the dominant approaches to it, and a caution lest we take comfort in some of the recent "success"—or alleged success—in Psychology. I begin with this question: What does it mean to explain an occurrence? And then: What is it (...) about any explanation that makes it good or bad? 2012 APA, all rights reserved). (shrink)

The Varieties of Religious Experience is not a theological treatise but an inquiry into a ubiquitous feature of the human condition and thus of human nature itself. Its author makes this clear at the outset, claiming competence as a psychologist and promising no more, therefore, than an examination of those “religious propensities of man” which James takes to be “at least as interesting as any other of the facts pertaining to his mental constitution.” The “at least” is clearly ironical for (...) James will argue throughout the work that this aspect of one’s mental constitution is generative of thoughts, sentiments and actions at once new, different, original, and of the greatest consequence. As an enduring feature of our mental constitution, the religious contents are under no special burden of vindication or verification for they are vindicated and verified precisely by their ubiquity and efficacy. This “radical empiricist,” true to the authentic ism, accepts no philosophical a priori that would pass judgment on just which experiences are to count and which are to be rendered otiose. Just in case there are religious thoughts and sentiments widely experienced, abidingly efficacious, central to actually lived lives, it is not for the psychologist to await some “metaphysical” license before including them among subjects of interest. In this independence of inquiry, this openness to realities set before us as indubitable facts of mental life, James records what Louis Dupré discovers in an entire generation of American philosophers. (shrink)

At the beginning of the twenty-first century, it might seem that questions about the nature of the mind are best left to scientists rather than philosophers. How could the views of Aristotle or Descartes or Kant possibly contribute anything to debates about these issues, when the relevant neurophysiological facts and principles were completely unknown to them? This Oxford Reader shows that the arguments of philosophers throughout history still provide essential insights into contemporary questions about the mind and help to clarify (...) the underlying scientific assumptions. Contributions from thinkers ranging from Plato and Locke to Roger Penrose and Oliver Sacks show that appreciating the full complexity of debates about consciousness, intelligence, and perception demands attention to fundamental questions that have occupied philosophers for over two thousand years. (shrink)