In Section I, I clarify turning point issues in the Phillips and Block debate about whether there is unconscious perception. These include questions about whether uptake of certain visual information is an individual or person level accomplishment, as required for genuine unconscious _perceiving_. Section II takes up a recent reorientation proposed in Block ( 2017 ) towards the question of whether there is unconscious perceiving, where we are to look for the pervasive role of unconscious perceiving in, perhaps especially, the (...) online control of everyday reaching and grasping. I point out that while this may well be a helpfully different approach to explore, it does not evade the central questions and challenges familiar from the prior debate between Phillips and Block. Section III reviews an approach summarized in Dehaene ( 2014 ), drawing from a range of measures of neural activity. Dehaene provides evidence of quite rich non-conscious perceptual system responses, some arguably individual or person level. But in a fairly thin or fragile way, absent taking up, in higher level assessment, the information encoded in initial visual response. Or that is the interpretation I argue for, in relating the Dehaene account to the Phillips and Block debate, in a way that illuminates the Phillips and Block discussions. An Appendix provides an overview of debates in the literature about the Goodale and Milner Two Visual Systems Hypothesis, that Block ( 2017 ) makes central appeal to. (shrink)

This collection of recent articles by leading scholars is designed to illuminate one of the greatest and most influential philosophical books of all time. It includes incisive commentary on every major theme and argument in the Meditations, and will be valuable not only to philosophers but to historians, theologians, literary scholars, and interested general readers.

With the increasing amount of software devoted to industrial automation and process control, it is becoming more important than ever for systems to be able to explain their behavior. In some domain...

It is generally agreed that the interpretation of information, in any form, is context-dependent. The goal of the recent Ontology Summit 2018 was to explore the various relationships spanning ontol...

This volume focuses on philosophical problems concerning sense perception in the history of philosophy. It consists of thirteen essays that analyse the philosophical tradition originating in Aristotle’s writings. Each essay tackles a particular problem that tests the limits of Aristotle’s theory of perception and develops it in new directions. The problems discussed range from simultaneous perception to causality in perception, from the representational nature of sense-objects to the role of conscious attention, and from the physical/mental divide to perception as quasi-rational (...) judgement. -/- The volume gives an equal footing to Greek, Arabic, and Latin philosophical traditions. It makes a substantial contribution not just to the study of the Aristotelian analysis of sense perception, but to its reception in the commentary tradition and beyond. Thus, the papers address developments in Alexander of Aphrodisias, Themistius, Avicenna, John of Jandun, Nicole Oresme, and Sayf al-Din al-Amidi, among others. The result of this is a coherent collection that attacks a well-defined topic from a wide range of perspectives and across philosophical traditions. (shrink)

Oxford Studies in Metaphysics is dedicated to the timely publication of new work in metaphysics, broadly construed. These volumes provide a forum for the best new work in this flourishing field. They offer a broad view of the subject, featuring not only the traditionally central topics such as existence, identity, modality, time, and causation, but also the rich clusters of metaphysical questions in neighbouring fields, such as philosophy of mind and philosophy of science. This book is the eighth volume in (...) the series. It contains essays by Cian Dorr and John Hawthorne, Maya Eddon, Shamik Dasgupta, Bill Dunaway, Cody Gilmore, Ted Sider, Aaron Cotnoir, Katherine Hawley, Frabrice Correia and Sven Rosencrantz, David Braddon-Mitchell, and Ross Cameron. (shrink)

This guest-edited special section explores the related themes of mystery, humility, and religious practice from both the Western and East Asian philosophical traditions. The contributors are David E. Cooper, John Cottingham, Mark Wynn, Graham Parkes, and Ian James Kidd.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Otto Rudolph Ortmann, Music Philosophy, and Music EducationDavid J. GonzolWhat is music? What should we teach when we teach music? How should we? In the early twentieth century, these most foundational questions relating to music education were addressed by the highly regarded, though less well known, educator and researcher, Otto Rudolph Ortmann. In 1922, he published an article in which he outlined a theory of musical experience, developing aspects (...) of the physics of sound, qualitative theory, and Gestalt psychology, prefiguring important ideas in music philosophy. Ortmann highly valued his theory, utilized it in other research throughout his career, and influenced others such as Carl Seashore. Few, however, seem to be aware of his work or its implications for music education.1The seminal 1922 article, "The Sensorial Basis of Music Appreciation," was written while Ortmann was teaching at the Peabody Conservatory of Music and Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland.2 While this article has received little attention, much of his other research has been widely and well received.3 "Papa Ortmann," well beloved of family and students, had a career Gerig characterized as "a wedding between Materia Medica and Frau Musica."4 A prolific [End Page 160] researcher, superb musician, and excellent teacher, he published articles on music theory (one of which was reprinted and extended in 1983), musicology, music reading, ear training, synesthesia, and jazz.5 His research on piano performance, particularly his two books,6 is regarded as definitive; it has been discussed in a thesis and four dissertations; some of it has been replicated. In Famous Pianists and Their Technique, Gerig devoted a chapter to Ortmann.7 Ortmann's theory of listening types, in effect a theory of music cognition,8 was accepted by Robert Neidlinger, Doreen Rao, and Bennett Reimer.9 In the 1992 Handbook of Research on Music Teaching and Learning, F. R. Wilson and F. L. Roehmann praised the significance of Ortmann's body of research as undiminished in importance in music education.10It may be that Ortmann's "Sensorial Basis"theory received little attention at the time because too few were interested in such theories or in the synthesizing of science and psychology or the touching on philosophy that he employed. Although he influenced Seashore, the philosophical issues he began to explore would be developed more strongly only decades later, by philosophers such as Monroe Beardsley, Peter Kivy, and Jerrold Levinson. It seems that Ortmann's theory not only prefigures some ideas in recent music philosophy, but supports them as well. If it does, then our increased understanding of music can provide a firmer basis for developing better music education-one of Ortmann's aims. In this article I will describe his theory, sketch how it aligns with subsequent research, and consider its value today. Ortmann attempted a comprehensive explanation of music's nature; as far as his explanation is accurate, that far it can help us understand music and in turn music education.Three "Attributes"At the turn of the 1900s, it was popular to refer to "attributes" of sound. Ortmann posited that all sensation, including sound, has three types of attributes. The primary attribute he termed extensity, by which he meant the breadth of the sensation that is perceived. Extensity has three forms, transtensity (frequency), intensity (strength), and protensity (duration). These can be perceived individually but also as sound's secondary attributes, chief of which is quality. Tertiary attributes of sound are made through association, either by (a) contiguity, linking a sound's quality with things experienced near in time to the sound, or by (b) similarity, associating the quality with sensations of like extensity (for example, the expressive brightness of a sound and a light). Ortmann believed that tertiary attributes form "the threshold of musical imagination, and imagination in turn, of musical enjoyment."11 Accordingly, he concluded that music could express many things, and that this is dependent on listeners, their individual histories, and their entire field of sensations. [End Page 161]The Primary Attribute of ExtensityIn the Renaissance, Benedetti and Galileo found that pitch was related to frequency, and in 1702, Sauveur was the first to state that overtones affect timbre. In 1863, Helmholtz... (shrink)

We argue that for theorists with a post-institutional conception of property, e.g., Rawlsians, there is no principled reason to limit the domain of distributive justice to tax and transfer-both tax policy and the rules of the private law are constructed in service to distributive aims. Such theorists cannot maintain a commitment to a normative conception of private law independent of their overarching distributive principles. In contrast, theorists with a pre-institutional conception of property can derive the private law from sectors of (...) morality independent of distributive justice. Nevertheless, we argue, this does not entail that the private law, for pre-institutional theorists, must be sanitized of equity-oriented values. Non-libertarian pre-institutional theorists holding principled commitments to equity-oriented values are free to invoke either tax and transfer or the rules of the private law to attain them. Footnotesa We are grateful to John G. Bennett, Harry Dolan, Edward McCaffery, and Ellen Frankel Paul for written comments on a previous draft and to Eric Mack, Fred Miller, Jeffrey Paul, A. John Simmons, and the other contributors to this volume for valuable discussions. (shrink)

For the dynamical hypothesis to be defended as a viable alternative to a computational perspective on natural cognition, the role of biological constraints needs to be considered. This task requires a detailed understanding of the structural organization and function of the dynamic nervous system, as well as a theoretical approach that grounds cognitive activity within the constraints of organism and ecological context.

Although Arbib's extension of the mirror-system hypothesis neatly sidesteps one problem with the “gesture-first” theory of language origins, it overlooks the importance of gestures that occur in current-day human linguistic performance, and this lands it with another problem. We argue that, instead of gesture-first, a system of combined vocalization and gestures would have been a more natural evolutionary unit.

If we divide our physical theories into theories of matter and theories of spacetime, quantum field theory is our most fundamental empirically successful theory of matter. As such, it has attracted increasing attention from philosophers over the past two decades, beginning to eclipse its predecessor theory of quantum mechanics in the philosophical literature. Here I survey some central philosophical puzzles about the theory's foundations.

The nature of masculinity is a popular subject for contemporary authors, either treated critically from a sociological standpoint, or analysed from a psychological and spiritual perspective. In _Remaking Men_, David Tacey argues that we must strive to bridge the gap between these separate traditions - masculinity should neither be hijacked by the spiritual, Jung-influenced men's movement, nor discussed merely as a product of socio-political forces. Examining his own and other men's experience in a critical and lively discourse he evades (...) the simplistic optimism of the 'inner journey' approach and the chronic pessimism of contemporary academic arguments. This is a fascinating and very accessible look at masculinity for those who want to explore self and society with intelligence and soul. (shrink)

We pose and resolve a puzzle about spontaneous symmetry breaking in the quantum theory of infinite systems. For a symmetry to be spontaneously broken, it must not be implementable by a unitary operator in a ground state's GNS representation. But Wigner's theorem guarantees that any symmetry's action on states is given by a unitary operator. How can this unitary operator fail to implement the symmetry in the GNS representation? We show how it is possible for a unitary operator of this (...) sort to connect the folia of unitarily inequivalent representations. This result undermines interpretations of quantum theory that hold unitary equivalence to be necessary for physical equivalence. (shrink)

What is consciousness? How does the subjective character of consciousness fit into an objective world? How can there be a science of consciousness? In this sequel to his groundbreaking and controversial The Conscious Mind, David Chalmers develops a unified framework that addresses these questions and many others. Starting with a statement of the "hard problem" of consciousness, Chalmers builds a positive framework for the science of consciousness and a nonreductive vision of the metaphysics of consciousness. He replies to many (...) critics of The Conscious Mind, and then develops a positive theory in new directions. The book includes original accounts of how we think and know about consciousness, of the unity of consciousness, and of how consciousness relates to the external world. Along the way, Chalmers develops many provocative ideas: the " consciousness meter", the Garden of Eden as a model of perceptual experience, and The Matrix as a guide to the deepest philosophical problems about consciousness and the external world. This book will be required reading for anyone interested in the problems of mind, brain, consciousness, and reality. (shrink)

The hypothesis that belief aims at the truth has been used to explain three features of belief: (1) the fact that correct beliefs are true beliefs, (2) the fact that rational beliefs are supported by the evidence and (3) the fact that we cannot form beliefs.

I advance a stipulational account of symmetry-to-reality inference, according to which symmetries are part of the content of theories. For a theory to have a certain symmetry is for the theory to stipulate that models related by the symmetry represent the same possibility. I show that the stipulational account compares positively with alternatives, including Dasgupta’s epistemic account of symmetry, Møller-Nielsen’s motivational account, and so-called formal and ontic accounts. In particular, the stipulational account avoids the problems Belot and Dasgupta have raised (...) against formal and ontic accounts of symmetry while retaining many of the advantages of these otherwise-attractive frameworks. (shrink)

The permutation symmetry of quantum mechanics is widely thought to imply a sort of metaphysical underdetermination about the identity of particles. Despite claims to the contrary, this implication does not hold in the more fundamental quantum field theory, where an ontology of particles is not generally available. Although permutations are often defined as acting on particles, a more general account of permutation symmetry can be formulated using superselection theory. As a result, permutation symmetry applies even in field theories with no (...) particle interpretation. The quantum mechanical account of permutations acting on particles is recovered as a special case. (shrink)

It is sometimes claimed that string theory posits a fundamental ontology including extended mereological simples, either in the form of minimum-sized regions of space or of the strings themselves. But there is very little in the actual theory to support this claim, and much that suggests it is false. Extant string theories treat space as a continuum, and strings do not behave like simples.

The continued failure of our civilisation to mobilise an adequate response to the crisis of climate change is traced to a pathological condition of culture analogous to addiction in the case of an individual. The exponential increase in the use of fossil fuel energy has both fuelled, and been driven by, an increasingly mechanistic and materialistic world-outlook that is inimical to acceptance of the measures needed to prevent catastrophic anthropogenic climate change. A holistic view of nature, drawn from such disciplines (...) as chaos theory, complexity theory and Gaia theory, and allied to a spiritual outlook grounded in the Buddhist view of interdependence and kindred paradigms, is emerging as a response to the crisis that could form the basis of a rapid 'state-shift' of the human social / economic / cultural system, comparable to cases of spontaneous remission from cancer that is unresponsive to conventional treatment regimes. (shrink)

The nature of antimatter is examined in the context of algebraic quantum field theory. It is shown that the notion of antimatter is more general than that of antiparticles. Properly speaking, then, antimatter is not matter made up of antiparticles—rather, antiparticles are particles made up of antimatter. We go on to discuss whether the notion of antimatter is itself completely general in quantum field theory. Does the matter–antimatter distinction apply to all field theoretic systems? The answer depends on which of (...) several possible criteria we should impose on the space of physical states. (shrink)

Eleanor Knox has argued that our concept of spacetime applies to whichever structure plays a certain functional role in the laws. I raise two objections to this inertial functionalism. First, it depends on a prior assumption about which coordinate systems defined in a theory are reference frames, and hence on assumptions about which geometric structures are spatiotemporal. This makes Knox’s account circular. Second, her account is vulnerable to several counterexamples, giving the wrong result when applied to topological quantum field theories (...) and parity- and time-asymmetric theories. I advance an alternative account on which our spacetime concept is a cluster concept. On this view, the notion of metaphysical fundamentality may feature in the cluster, in which case spacetime functionalism may be uninformative in the absence of answers to fundamental metaphysical questions like the substantivalist/relationist debate. (shrink)

What is the mind? Is consciousness a process in the brain? How do our minds represent the world? Philosophy of Mind: Classical and Contemporary Readings is a grand tour of writings on these and other perplexing questions about the nature of the mind. The most comprehensive collection of its kind, the book includes sixty-three selections that range from the classical contributions of Descartes to the leading edge of contemporary debates. Extensive sections cover foundational issues, the nature of consciousness, and the (...) nature of mental content. Three of the selections are published here for the first time, while many other articles have been revised especially for this volume. Each section opens with an introduction by the editor. Philosophy of Mind is suitable for students at all levels and also for general readers. (shrink)

In the paper of Brown and Priest 2004, the authors developed the chunk and permeate method, which they described as a ?paraconsistent reasoning strategy?. There it is suggested that the method of chunk and permeate could apply to the historical infinitesimal calculus. However, no attempt was made to look at actual historical examples. In this paper, I show that the method of chunk and permeate can indeed apply, as a rational reconstruction, to certain of Isaac Newton's arguments that use infinitesimals. (...) This rational reconstruction maintains and uses, rather than sidesteps, the apparent contradictions in Newton's arguments. The applicability of chunk and permeate to other historical arguments, e.g. of Leibniz/L'Hospital and Fermat, has also been investigated and will be communicated in future publications. (shrink)

A new argument is given for the thesis that only symmetry-invariant physical quantities are real. Non-invariant quantities are dynamically epiphenomenal in that they have no effect on the evolution of invariant quantities, and it is a significant theoretical vice to posit epiphenomenal quantities.

I examine some problems standing in the way of a successful `field interpretation' of quantum field theory. The most popular extant proposal depends on the Hilbert space of `wavefunctionals.' But since wavefunctional space is unitarily equivalent to many-particle Fock space, two of the most powerful arguments against particle interpretations also undermine this form of field interpretation. IntroductionField Interpretations and Field OperatorsThe Wavefunctional InterpretationFields and Inequivalent Representations 4.1. The Rindler representation 4.2. Spontaneous symmetry breaking 4.3. Coherent representations The Fate of Fields (...) in Interacting QFTConclusions. (shrink)

If the block universe view is correct, the future and the past have similar status and one would expect physical theories to involve final as well as initial boundary conditions. A plausible consistency condition between the initial and final boundary conditions in non-relativistic quantum mechanics leads to the idea that the properties of macroscopic quantum systems, relevantly measuring instruments, are uniquely determined by the boundary conditions. An important element in reaching that conclusion is that preparations and measurements belong in a (...) special class because they involve many subsystems, at least some of which do not form superpositions of their physical properties before the boundary conditions are imposed. It is suggested that the primary role of the formalism of standard quantum mechanics is to provide the consistency condition on the boundary conditions rather than the properties of quantum systems. Expressions are proposed for assigning a set of (unmeasured) physical properties to a quantum system at all times. The physical properties avoid the logical inconsistencies implied by the no-go theorems because they are assigned differently from standard quantum mechanics. Since measurement outcomes are determined by the boundary conditions, they help determine, rather than are determined by, the physical properties of quantum systems. (shrink)

Supersymmetry in quantum physics is a mathematically simple phenomenon that raises deep foundational questions. To motivate these questions, I present a toy model, the supersymmetric harmonic oscillator, and its superspace representation, which adds extra anticommuting dimensions to spacetime. I then explain and comment on three foundational questions about this superspace formalism: whether superspace is a substance, whether it should count as spatiotemporal, and whether it is a necessary postulate if one wants to use the theory to unify bosons and fermions.

Comments and replies from the 2021 Eastern APA book symposium on Jill North's Physics, Structure, and Reality.

Just as formal religion appears to dwindle to a minority interest, 'New Age' spirituality gathers increasing momentum and baffles us with its popular appeal. What is more, it has appropriated Jung as one of its spiritual leaders. In his own trenchant style, David Tacey, offers a theoretical and philosophical account of the New Age phenomenon and the archetypal imperatives that have brought it about. He also investigates the popular claim that Jung is a prophet or mystic, and argues that (...) critics have been only too willing to concur with what the New Age has made of him, conspiring to turn Jung into a figure of ridicule. Jung and the New Age redresses the balance while offering a wide-ranging discussion about the state of consciousness in the New Age culture and the future of spirituality versus formal religion. (shrink)

Eleanor Knox has argued that our concept of spacetime applies to whichever structure plays a certain functional role in the laws (the role of determining local inertial structure). I raise two complications for this approach. First, our spacetime concept seems to have the structure of a cluster concept, which means that Knox's inertial criteria for spacetime cannot succeed with complete generality. Second, the notion of metaphysical fundamentality may feature in the spacetime concept, in which case spacetime functionalism may be uninformative (...) in the absence of answers to fundamental metaphysical questions like the substantivalist/relationist debate. (shrink)

The phenomenon of broken spacetime symmetry in the quantum theory of infinite systems forces us to adopt an unorthodox ontology. We must abandon the standard conception of the physical meaning of these symmetries, or else deny the attractive “liberal” notion of which physical quantities are significant. A third option, more attractive but less well understood, is to abandon the existing (Halvorson-Clifton) notion of intertranslatability for quantum theories.

The widely held picture of dynamical symmetry as surplus structure in a physical theory has many metaphysical applications. Here, I focus on its relevance to the question of which quantities in a theory represent fundamental natural properties.

In recent decades, the individual has become more and more central in both national and world cultural accounts of the operation of society. This continues a long historical process, intensified by the consolidation of a more global polity and the weakening of the primordial sovereignty of the national state. Increasingly, society is culturally rooted in the natural, historical, and spiritual worlds through the individual, rather than through corporate entities or groups. The shift has produced a proliferation and specification of individual (...) roles, accounting for what individuals do in society. It has also produced an expansion in recognized individual personhood, accounting for who individuals are in the extrasocial cosmos and fueling elaborated personal tastes and preferences. Where it has been contested, the shift to the individual has also produced a rise in specializing identities. These offer accounts of individuals' distinctive linkages to the cosmos, and they serve to bolster individual claims to standard roles and personhood. Over time, specializing identities tend to get absorbed into roles and personhood. And in turn, expanded roles and personhood provide further bases for specializing identity claims. Because many theorists mischaracterize the relationship of specializing identities to roles and personhood, the literature often overemphasizes the anomic character of the identity explosion and the closeness of the coupling between social roles and identity claims. On the contrary, specializing identities tend to be edited to remain within general rules of individual personhood and to be disconnected from the obligations involved in institutionalized roles. (shrink)

Comparativism--the view that comparative relations like mass ratios are fundamental and intrinsic values of quantities are not--faces a challenge from physics. In its standard form, comparativism predicts indeterminism in physical theories that are ordinarily understood as deterministic. I explore an option for saving comparativism from this objection: the introduction of "mixed" relations that compare values of unlike quantities. Although tenable, this revised version of comparativism lacks some of the theoretical virtues of the standard version.

Introduction: the darkening spirit -- The degraded spirit in secular society -- Jung's advocacy of spiritual experience -- Jung and the prophetic life -- Jung's ambivalence toward religion -- Spiritual renewal from below -- The integration of the dark side -- The return of soul to the world: Jung and Hillman -- The problem of the spiritual in the reception of Jung -- Conclusion: Jung's contribution to a new religious vision.

The author reflects on the relation between the different veins of Bentham's thought and on the various experiences which influenced them.

According to comparativist theories of quantities, their intrinsic values are not fundamental. Instead, all the quantity facts are grounded in scale-independent relations like "twice as massive as" or "more massive than." I show that this sort of scale independence is best understood as a sort of metaphysical symmetry--a principle about which transformations of the non-fundamental ontology leave the fundamental ontology unchanged. Determinism--a core scientific concept easily formulated in absolutist terms--is more difficult for the comparativist to define. After settling on the (...) most plausible comparativist understanding of determinism, I offer some examples of physical systems that the comparativist must count as indeterministic although the relevant physical theory gives deterministic predictions. Several morals are drawn. In particular: comparativism is metaphysically contingent if true, and it is most natural for a comparativist to accept an at-at theory of motion. (shrink)

This case study examines the circumstance of a patient who has clearly articulated non-treatment preferences and who then later becomes incapacitated. The patient's wife as well as a consulting physician both expressed a preference for full treatment at the time of this incapacity. The analysis of this circumstance is pertinent given misinformed beliefs by health care providers that once a patient is incapacitated, the family is free to override prior values and preferences. The analysis discusses the autonomy, beneficence, and virtue-based (...) considerations as to why a formerly capacitated patient who has not recanted his non-treatment preferences should be obeyed. (shrink)