The purpose of this paper is to argue that however impressive and useful its results, neuroscience alone does not provide a complete theory of mind. We specifically enlist John Dewey to help dispel the notion that the mind is the brain. In doing so, we explore functionalism to clarify Dewey’s modified functionalist stance and argue for avoiding “the mereological fallacy.” Mereology is the study of part-whole relations. The mereological fallacy arises from confusing the properties of a necessary subfunction with the (...) properties that derive from the unity of the whole functional coordination. We conclude that the mind is a complex distributed biologicalsociocultural function that is not simply located anywhere and, therefore, is not completely in the possession of any one : it occurs wherever it has consequences. (shrink)

In “On Begging the Systematicity Question,” Wayne Davis criticizes the suggestion of Cummins et al. that the alleged systematicity of thought is not as obvious as is sometimes supposed, and hence not reliable evidence for the language of thought hypothesis. We offer a brief reply.

The current approach for dealing with the global AIDS pandemic focuses on technology, particularly pharmaceuticals. However, most of the world’s PLWHA (people living with HIV/AIDS) have little or no access to these expensive treatments. Additionally, such technologies have not proven themselves adequate in addressing AIDS in global terms. When the health of communities is prioritised, rather than the interests of pharmaceutical companies and biomedicine, alternative strategies and policies can be considered. These strategies include seriously investigating traditional medicines in other cultures, (...) rather than adopting an uncritical assumption that the biomedical approach is preferable. The limited research available suggests that some alternative treatments could indeed turn out to be useful in treating HIV/AIDS. However, without Western support for rigorous evaluation and development of local alternative therapies, the potential of these treatments for HIV/AIDS will continue to be dismissed. Additionally, the rights of communities to self-determination, and PLWHA to the best possible primary health care, whether in rich or poorer nations, will also be diminished. (shrink)

The demanding frontier life of My Ántonia or Little House on the Prairie may be long gone, but the idyllic small town still exists as a cherished icon of American community life. Yet sprawl and urban density, rather than small towns and farms, are the predominant features of our modern society, agribusiness and other commercial forces have rapidly taken over family farms and ranches, and even the open spaces we think of as natural retreats only retain the barest façade of (...) their former frontier austerity. The fading communities, social upheaval, and enduring heritage of the Northern Plains are the subject of Jim Dow’s Marking the Land, a stirring photographic tribute to the complex and unyielding landscape of North Dakota. Jim Dow began making pilgrimages to this remote territory in 1981 and, with a commission from the North Dakota Museum of Art, he took photographs of the passing human presence on the land. The simple, stolid pieces of architecture carved out against the Dakota skies—whether the local schoolhouse, car wash, prison, homes, hunting lodge, or churches—evoke in their spare lines and weather-battered frames the stoic and toughened spirit of the people within their walls. Folk art is also an integral part of the landscape in Dow’s visual study, and he examines the subtle evolution of local craftsmanship from homemade sculptures, murals, and carvings to carefully crafted pieces aimed at tourists. Anchoring all of these explorations is the raw and striking landscape of the North Dakota plains. Marking the Land is a moving reflection by a leading American photographer on the state of the Northern Plains today, forcing us all to rethink our conceptions of America’s forgotten frontier. (shrink)

This book collects the work of leading scholars on Alain Badiou and G.W.F. Hegel, creating a dialogue between, and a critical appraisal of, these two central figures in European philosophy.

Donald Davidson finds folk-psychological explanations anomalous due to the open-ended and constitutive conception of rationality which they employ, and yet monist because they invoke an ontology of only physical events. An eliminative materialist who thinks that the beliefs and desires of folk-psychology are mere pre-scientific fictions cannot accept these claims, but he could accept anomalous monism construed as an analysis, merely, of the ideological and ontological presumptions of folk-psychology. Of course, eliminative materialism is itself only a guess, a marker for (...) material explanations we do not have, but it is made plausible by, inter alia, whatever difficulties we have in interpreting intentional folk-explanations realistically. And surely anomalous monism does require further explanation if it is to be accepted realistically and not dismissed as an analysis of a folk-idiom which is to be construed instrumentally at best. Some further explanation is needed of how beliefs, desires, etc. can form rational patterns which have ‘no echo in physical theory’ and yet those beliefs, desires etc. be physical events. To this end I propose to graft on to anomalous monism a modest version of functionalism. (shrink)

The main concepts of the free energy (FE) neuroscience developed by Karl Friston and colleagues parallel those of Freud's Project for a Scientific Psychology. In Hobson et al. ( 2014 ) these include an innate virtual reality generator that produces the fictive prior beliefs that Freud described as the primary process. This enables Friston's account to encompass a unified treatment—a complexity theory—of the role of virtual reality in both dreaming and mental disorder. In both accounts the brain operates to minimize (...) FE aroused by sensory impingements—including interoceptive impingements that report compliance with biological imperatives—and constructs a representation/model of the causes of impingement that enables this minimization. In Friston's account (variational) FE equals complexity minus accuracy, and is minimized by increasing accuracy and decreasing complexity. Roughly the brain (or model) increases accuracy together with complexity in waking. This is mediated by consciousness-creating active inference—by which it explains sensory impingements in terms of perceptual experiences of their causes. In sleep it reduces complexity by processes that include both synaptic pruning and consciousness/virtual reality/dreaming in REM. The consciousness-creating active inference that effects complexity-reduction in REM dreaming must operate on FE-arousing data distinct from sensory impingement. The most relevant source is remembered arousals of emotion, both recent and remote, as processed in SWS and REM on “active systems” accounts of memory consolidation/reconsolidation. Freud describes these remembered arousals as condensed in the dreamwork for use in the conscious contents of dreams, and similar condensation can be seen in symptoms. Complexity partly reflects emotional conflict and trauma. This indicates that dreams and symptoms are both produced to reduce complexity in the form of potentially adverse (traumatic or conflicting) arousals of amygdala-related emotions. Mental disorder is thus caused by computational complexity together with mechanisms like synaptic pruning that have evolved for complexity-reduction; and important features of disorder can be understood in these terms. Details of the consilience among Freudian, systems consolidation, and complexity-reduction accounts appear clearly in the analysis of a single fragment of a dream, indicating also how complexity reduction proceeds by a process resembling Bayesian model selection. (shrink)

Machamer, Darden, and Craver argue that causal explanations explain effects by describing the operations of the mechanisms which produce them. One of this paper’s aims is to take advantage of neglected resources of Mechanism to rethink the traditional idea that actual or counterfactual natural regularities are essential to the distinction between causal and non-causal co-occurrences, and that generalizations describing natural regularities are essential components of causal explanations. I think that causal productivity and regularity are by no means the same thing, (...) and that the Regularists are mistaken about the roles generalizations play in causal explanation. Humean, logical empiricist, and other Regularist accounts of causal explanation have had the unfortunate effect of distracting philosophers’ from important non-explanatory scientific uses of laws and lesser generalizations which purport to describe natural regularities. My second aim is to characterize some of these uses, illustrating them with examples from neuroscientific research. (shrink)

This paper presents a counterfactual account of what a mechanism is. Mechanisms consist of parts, the behavior of which conforms to generalizations that are invariant under interventions, and which are modular in the sense that it is possible in principle to change the behavior of one part independently of the others. Each of these features can be captured by the truth of certain counterfactuals.

This paper is concerned with the reversal in meaning of the word positivism, which has come to mean ‘theory which assumes the existence of a world beyond our ideas’ whereas once it meant ‘theory which is agnostic about the existence of a world beyond our ideas', and with educational writers’ persistent mistakes in using quotation marks, as a consequence of this reversal.

Paulin Hountondji, béninois né en 1942 à Abidjan, est l'un des philosophes africains les plus influents de ces cinquante dernières années. Sa vive critique de ce qui se présente comme 'philosophie africaine' chez le prêtre Tempels et les auteurs qui adoptèrent la démarche 'ethnophilosophique' du missionnaire belge s'inspire de la pensée du philosophe allemand Edmund Husserl. Selon lui, la pensée philosophique doit prendre son point de départ non pas dans les représentations mais dans les problèmes, lesquels définissent alors la démarche (...) pour les formuler. La pensée de Hountondji s'inspire ainsi du Husserl qui, rompant avec l'idéalisme de ses premiers écrits, inscrit la philosophie dans 'le monde de la vie' et des cultures humaines. Ainsi est-on conduit à poser la question de l'universel et à en redéployer le sens dans une perspective qui ne privilégie plus les cultures occidentales et 'l'humanité européenne'. Sur cette question, ce livre montre comment Hountondji a anticipé une bonne partie des débats contemporains, en ayant aussi été l'un des premiers à avoir clairement énoncé le projet philosophique d'une refondation des savoirs endogènes africains."--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

"We become what we love," states Jim Garrison in Dewey and Eros: Wisdom and Desire in the Art of Teaching. This provocative book represents a major new interpretation of Dewey's education philosophy. It is also an examination of what motivates us to teach and to learn, and begins with the idea of education of eros (i.e., passionate desire)-"the supreme aim of education" as the author puts it-and how that desire results in a practical philosophy that guides us in recognizing what (...) is essentially good or valuable. Garrison weaves these threads of ancient wisdom into a critical analysis of John Dewey's writings that reveal an implicit theory of eros in reasoning, and the central importance of educating eros to seek "the Good." Chapters: Plato's Symposium: Eros, the Beautiful, and the Good • Care, Sympathy, and Community in Classroom Teaching: Feminist Reflections on the Expansive Self • Play-Doh, Poetry, and "Ethereal Things" • The Aesthetic Context of Inquiry and the Teachable Moment • The Education of Eros: Critical and Creative Value Appraisal • Teaching and the Logic of Moral Perception This book can be used in graduate courses in foundations, teacher education, philosophy of education, qualitative research, arts and education, language and literacy, and women and education. Jim Garrison is Professor of Philosophy of Education at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, VA. He is pastpresident of the John Dewey Society and a winner of the Society's Outstanding Achievement Award. (shrink)

Frege argued that though it is logically possible for an illogical community to exist, It is not possible that it should be right. Neither the assertion of false statements nor the acceptance of invalid arguments suffices to render a community illogical. The kinds of behavior which would suffice prove, On examination, To be very rare, But to justify frege's rather obscure remarks on illogicality and the universality of logical laws. The laws of logic are to be understood as constraints on (...) the kinds of rules governing linguistic exchanges needed if the language is to accommodate attempts to prove. (edited). (shrink)

This paper suggests and discusses an answer to the following question: What distinguishes causal from non-causal or coincidental co-occurrences? The answer derives from Elizabeth Anscombe’s idea that causality is a highly abstract concept whose meaning derives from our understanding of specific causally productive activities, and from her rejection of the assumption that causality can be informatively understood in terms of actual or counterfactual regularities.Keywords: Elizabeth Anscombe; Causality; Explanation; Inhibition.

Standard philosophical discussions of theory-ladeness assume that observational evidence consists of perceptual outputs (or reports of such outputs) that are sentential or propositional in structure. Theory-ladeness is conceptualized as having to do with logical or semantical relationships between such outputs or reports and background theories held by observers. Using the recent debate between Fodor and Churchland as a point of departure, we propose an alternative picture in which much of what serves as evidence in science is not perceptual outputs or (...) reports of such outputs and is not sentential in structure. (shrink)

This article argues that justified true beliefs in Gettier cases often are not true due to luck. I offer two ‘unlucky’ Gettier cases, and it's easy enough to generate more. Hence even attaching a broad ‘anti‐luck’ codicil to the tripartite account of knowledge leaves the Gettier problem intact. Also, two related questions are addressed. First, if epistemic luck isn't distinctive of Gettier cases, what is? Second, what do Gettier cases reveal about knowledge?

Spring 2010Colleagues-As I hope you are aware, two major changes have occurred with the beginning of the 2010 SAAP membership cycle.First, the Society has ended its formal relationship with the Journal of Speculative Philosophy. This has been a good relationship for SAAP, resulting in the publication of the highlights of our annual meeting since 2003 and increasing the profile of the Society. I know that we are all grateful to the editors of JSP for these years of cooperative interaction, and (...) wish the journal well in the future. It is my personal hope that the members of SAAP will continue to support JSP with their contributions and subscriptions, so that it will remain an important journal for all of us working .. (shrink)

The conclusion of this paper will be that e-sports are not sports. I begin by offering a stipulation and a definition. I stipulate that what I have in mind, when thinking about the concept of sport, is ‘Olympic’ sport. And I define an Olympic Sport as an institutionalised, rule-governed contest of human physical skill. The justification for the stipulation lies partly in that it is uncontroversial. Whatever else people might think of as sport, no-one denies that Olympic Sport is sport. (...) This seeks to ensure that those who might wish to dispute my conclusion might stay with the argument at least for as long as possible. Secondly, the justification for the stipulation lies partly in its normativity—I have chosen an Olympic conception of sport just because it seems to me to offer some kind of desirable version of what sport is and might become. Thirdly, I give examples which show how prominent promoters of e-sports agree with my stipulation, as evidenced by their strenuous attempts to comply with it i... (shrink)

The spiritual rewards and intellectual challenges of Eastern philosophy are revealed in this visually stunning book, illustrated by Joe Lee and with 19th-century engravings. Eastern philosophy is not only an intellectual pursuit, but one that involves one’s entire being. Much of it is so deeply entwined with the non-intellectual art of meditation, that the two are impossible to separate. In this survey of the major philosophies of India, China, Tibet and Japan, Jim Powell draws upon his knowledge of Sanskrit and (...) Chinese, as well as decades of meditation. Whether tackling Buddha, Confucius, Lao Tzu, Dogen, the Dalai Lama or Patanjal–Powell’s insights are deeply illuminating. All the major philosophies of India, China, Tibet and Japan are explained and everyone, from beginner to expert, will find Eastern Philosophy For Beginners an insightful overview. (shrink)

Feminist analysis has eonvineed me that certain tendencies within that form of radical environmentalism known as deep ecology-with its supposed rejection of the Western ethical tradition and its adoption of what looks to be a feminist attitude toward the environment and our relationship to nature-constitute one more chapter in the story of Western alienation from nature. In this paper I deepen my critique of these tendencies toward alienation within deep ecology by historicizing my critique in the light of a development (...) in the ancient world that is disquietingly similar to the rise of deep ceology in recent times-namely, the rise of Stoicism in the wake of the breakup of the ancient polis. (shrink)

Although a number of authors have used diagrams extensively in their studies of Navya-Nyāya, they have done so to explain and illustrate concepts, not with the goal of reasoning with the diagrams themselves. Adherents of diagrammatic reasoning have made claims for its potential by pointing to key structural correspondences between diagrams and logical concepts, arguably lacking in sentential representations, and describing these relations using concepts such as “well matchedness” and “iconicity”. A canonical example of this iconicity is the use of (...) Euler diagrams to depict categorical syllogisms. Since the meaning of expressions in Indian logic differs in so many important ways from logic in the Western tradition, the use or adaptation of diagrams developed in the latter would seem to preclude iconicity. Thus, the development of diagrams which reflect the nature of inference in Navya-Nyāya, which centres on the anumāna inference schema, is motivated. In this paper we extend Ganeri’s method of depicting the Vaiśeṣika ontology with graphs to include syntax intended to expose the nature of anumāna. The diagrams are given a formal basis: i.e. abstract syntax, inference rules defined abstractly and a graph-theoretic semantics. These are the first formalised logical diagrams that aim to reflect the nature of the anumāna inference. This paper lays the way for further work in extending the formalism to cover more of Navya-Nyāya, and in exploring a dialogue between properties of the formalism and of Navya-Nyāya. (shrink)

One of the most dramatic techniques for constructing accounts of "undiscovery" or incompetence in science involves the manipulative deception—in some accounts, the "hoaxing"—of the putatively incompetent researcher, ostensibly as an experiment to evaluate his or her methodology and the soundness of his or her knowledge claims. In this article, the author examines five cases in which such deceptions have been employed, noting the patterns of argument that typically follow these deceptions and the factors that seem to determine the power of (...) these arguments. The author suggests that the "hoaxer" in such cases is most likely to be successful when his or her views about the targeted researcher's methodology and knowledge claims are orthodox with respect to his or her intended audience. (shrink)

A startling look at one of this century's most influential philosophers, the book chronicles every stage of Foucault's personal and professional odyssey, from his early interest in dreams to his final preoccupation with sexuality and the nature of personal identity.

I claim that the Hodgkin‐Huxley (HH) current equations owe a great deal of their importance to their role in bringing results from experiments on squid giant action preparations to bear on the study of the action potential in other neurons in other in vitro and in vivo environments. I consider ideas from Weber and Craver about the role of Coulomb’s and other fundamental equations in explaining the action potential and in HH’s development of their equations. Also, I offer an embellishment (...) to Schaffner’s emergent unifier conception of the HH model. †To contact the author, please write to: Department of HPS, University of Pittsburgh, 1017 Cathedral of Learning, Pittsburgh, PA 15260; e‐mail: [email protected]. (shrink)

l examine the degree to which the so-called “deep ecology” movement embodies a feminist sensibility. In part one I take a brief look at the ambivalent attitude of “eco-feminism” toward deep ecology. In part two I show that this ambivalence sterns largely from the fact that deep ecology assimilates feminist insights to a basically masculine ethical orientation. In part three I discuss some of the ways in which deepecology theory might change if it adopted a fundamentally feminist ethical orientation.

Jim Edwards; VIII*—Interpreted Logical Forms and Knowing Your Own Mind, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 99, Issue 1, 1 June 1999, Pages 169–190.

This paper compares the relative merits of two alternatives to traditional accounts of causal explanation: Jim Woodward's counterfactual invariance account, and the Mechanistic account of Machamer, Darden, and Craver. Mechanism wins (a) because we have good causal explanations for chaotic effects whose production does not exhibit the counterfactual regularities Woodward requires, and (b)because arguments suggested by Belnap's and Green's discussion of prediction (in'Facing the Future' chpt 6)show that the relevant counterfactuals about ideal interventions on non-deterministic and deterministic systems lack truth (...) value. (shrink)

This is a brief rejoinder to Harvey Siegel’s ‘Dangerous Dualisms or Murky Monism? A Reply to Jim Garrison’ (35·4), which was itself a critical response to my own recent paper in this journal (33·2). This is an attempt to sum up the key points of the Deweyan pragmatism that I argue for, and hence those that Siegel opposes. It is not an attempt to settle the debate, but rather to clarify our differences.

Throughout philosophical history, there has been a recurring argument to the effect that determinism, naturalism, or both are self-referentially incoherent. By accepting determinism or naturalism, one allegedly acquires a reason to reject determinism or naturalism. _The Epistemological Skyhook_ brings together, for the first time, the principal expressions of this argument, focusing primarily on the last 150 years. This book addresses the versions of this argument as presented by Arthur Lovejoy, A.E. Taylor, Kurt Gödel, C.S. Lewis, Norman Malcolm, Karl Popper, J.R. (...) Lucas, William Hasker, Thomas Nagel, Alvin Plantinga, and others, along with the objections presented by their many detractors. It concludes by presenting a new version of the argument that synthesizes the best aspects of the others while also rendering the argument immune to some of the most significant objections made to it. (shrink)