Download or read book The Epistemic Role of Consciousness written by Declan Smithies and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2019-08-02 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is the role of consciousness in our mental lives? Declan Smithies argues here that consciousness is essential to explaining how we can acquire knowledge and justified belief about ourselves and the world around us. On this view, unconscious beings cannot form justified beliefs and so they cannot know anything at all. Consciousness is the ultimate basis of all knowledge and epistemic justification. Smithies builds a sustained argument for the epistemic role of phenomenal consciousness which draws on a range of considerations in epistemology and the philosophy of mind. His position combines two key claims. The first is phenomenal mentalism, which says that epistemic justification is determined by the phenomenally individuated facts about your mental states. The second is accessibilism, which says that epistemic justification is luminously accessible in the sense that you're always in a position to know which beliefs you have epistemic justification to hold. Smithies integrates these two claims into a unified theory of epistemic justification, which he calls phenomenal accessibilism. The book is divided into two parts, which converge on this theory of epistemic justification from opposite directions. Part 1 argues from the bottom up by drawing on considerations in the philosophy of mind about the role of consciousness in mental representation, perception, cognition, and introspection. Part 2 argues from the top down by arguing from general principles in epistemology about the nature of epistemic justification. These mutually reinforcing arguments form the basis for a unified theory of the epistemic role of phenomenal consciousness, one that bridges the gap between epistemology and philosophy of mind.
Download or read book The Epistemic Role of Consciousness written by Declan Smithies and published by Philosophy of Mind. This book was released on 2019 with total page 457 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is the role of consciousness in our mental lives? Declan Smithies argues here that consciousness is essential to explaining how we can acquire knowledge and justified belief about ourselves and the world around us. On this view, unconscious beings cannot form justified beliefs and so they cannot know anything at all. Consciousness is the ultimate basis of all knowledge and epistemic justification. Smithies builds a sustained argument for the epistemic role of phenomenal consciousness which draws on a range of considerations in epistemology and the philosophy of mind. His position combines two key claims. The first is phenomenal mentalism, which says that epistemic justification is determined by the phenomenally individuated facts about your mental states. The second is accessibilism, which says that epistemic justification is luminously accessible in the sense that you're always in a position to know which beliefs you have epistemic justification to hold. Smithies integrates these two claims into a unified theory of epistemic justification, which he calls phenomenal accessibilism. The book is divided into two parts, which converge on this theory of epistemic justification from opposite directions. Part 1 argues from the bottom up by drawing on considerations in the philosophy of mind about the role of consciousness in mental representation, perception, cognition, and introspection. Part 2 argues from the top down by arguing from general principles in epistemology about the nature of epistemic justification. These mutually reinforcing arguments form the basis for a unified theory of the epistemic role of phenomenal consciousness, one that bridges the gap between epistemology and philosophy of mind.
Download or read book Ignorance and Imagination written by Daniel Stoljar and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2009-01-06 with total page 262 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ignorance and Imagination advances a novel way to resolve the central philosophical problem about the mind: how it is that consciousness or experience fits into a larger naturalistic picture of the world. The correct response to the problem, Stoljar argues, is not to posit a realm of experience distinct from the physical, nor to deny the reality of phenomenal experience, nor even to rethink our understanding of consciousness and the language we use to talk about it. Instead, we should view the problem itself as a consequence of our ignorance of the relevant physical facts, Stoljar shows that this change of orientation is well motivated historically, empirically, and philosophically, and that it has none of the side effects it is sometimes thought to have. The result is a philosophical perspective on the mind that has a number of far-reaching consequences: for consciousness studies, for our place in nature, and for the way we think about the relationship between philosophy and science.
Download or read book Consciousness and the Limits of Objectivity written by Robert J. Howell and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2013-06-13 with total page 201 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Robert J. Howell offers a new account of the relationship between conscious experience and the physical world, based on a neo-Cartesian notion of the physical and careful consideration of three anti-materialist arguments. His theory of subjective physicalism reconciles the data of consciousness with the advantages of a monistic, physical ontology.
Download or read book Consciousness and Language written by John R. Searle and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2002-07-15 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Publisher Description
Download or read book Introspection and Consciousness written by Declan Smithies and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2012-06-12 with total page 436 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The topic of introspection stands at the interface between questions in epistemology about the nature of self-knowledge and questions in the philosophy of mind about the nature of consciousness. What is the nature of introspection such that it provides us with a distinctive way of knowing about our own conscious mental states? And what is the nature of consciousness such that we can know about our own conscious mental states by introspection? How should we understand the relationship between consciousness and introspective self-knowledge? Should we explain consciousness in terms of introspective self-knowledge or vice versa? Until recently, questions in epistemology and the philosophy of mind were pursued largely in isolation from one another. This volume aims to integrate these two lines of research by bringing together fourteen new essays and one reprinted essay on the relationship between introspection, self-knowledge, and consciousness.
Download or read book The Mystery of Consciousness written by John R. Searle and published by New York Review of Books. This book was released on 1990-01-01 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It has long been one of the most fundamental problems of philosophy, and it is now, John Searle writes, "the most important problem in the biological sciences": What is consciousness? Is my inner awareness of myself something separate from my body? In what began as a series of essays in The New York Review of Books, John Searle evaluates the positions on consciousness of such well-known scientists and philosophers as Francis Crick, Gerald Edelman, Roger Penrose, Daniel Dennett, David Chalmers, and Israel Rosenfield. He challenges claims that the mind works like a computer, and that brain functions can be reproduced by computer programs. With a sharp eye for confusion and contradiction, he points out which avenues of current research are most likely to come up with a biological examination of how conscious states are caused by the brain. Only when we understand how the brain works will we solve the mystery of consciousness, and only then will we begin to understand issues ranging from artificial intelligence to our very nature as human beings.
Download or read book Actual Consciousness written by Ted Honderich and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2014 with total page 433 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is it for you to be conscious? There is no consensus in philosophy or science: it has remained a mystery. Ted Honderich develops a brand new theory of consciousness, according to which perceptual consciousness is external to the perceiver. It exists in a subjective physical world dependent on both you and the objective physical world.
Download or read book Inference and Consciousness written by Timothy Chan and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-12-20 with total page 251 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Inference has long been a central concern in epistemology, as an essential means by which we extend our knowledge and test our beliefs. Inference is also a key notion in influential psychological accounts of mental capacities, ranging from problem-solving to perception. Consciousness, on the other hand, has arguably been the defining interest of philosophy of mind over recent decades. Comparatively little attention, however, has been devoted to the significance of consciousness for the proper understanding of the nature and role of inference. It is commonly suggested that inference may be either conscious or unconscious. Yet how unified are these various supposed instances of inference? Does either enjoy explanatory priority in relation to the other? In what way, or ways, can an inference be conscious, or fail to be conscious, and how does this matter? This book brings together original essays from established scholars and emerging theorists that showcase how several current debates in epistemology, philosophy of psychology and philosophy of mind can benefit from more reflections on these and related questions about the significance of consciousness for inference.
Download or read book Conscious Experience written by Anil Gupta and published by . This book was released on 2019-02 with total page 441 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book aims to offer an account of conscious experience and of concepts that help us understand empirical reasoning and empirical dialectic. The account offered possesses, it is claimed, two virtues. First, it provides great theoretical freedom. It allows the theoretician freedom to radically reconceive the world. The theoretician may, for example, begin with the conception that colors are genuine qualities of physical bodies and may, in light of empirical findings, shift to the conception that colors are not genuine qualities at all. Second, the account grants empirical reason a great power to constrain: empirical reason can force a particular conception of the self and the world on the rational inquirer. These seemingly contrary virtues are reconciled through a novel treatment of presentation and appearances in the account offered of conscious experience and a novel treatment of ostensive definitions in the account offered of concepts. The argument of the book is buttressed by a critical study of the principal approaches to experience and reason found in the philosophical literature.--
Download or read book The Epistemology of Resistance written by José Medina and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2013 with total page 347 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores the epistemic side of racial and sexual oppression. It elucidates how social insensitivities and imposed silences prevent members of different groups from listening to each other.
Download or read book Skepticism and the Veil of Perception written by Michael Huemer and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2001 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In opposition to both skeptics and representationalists, Huemer (philosophy, U. of Colorado, Boulder) presents a theory of perceptual awareness, according to which perception gives us direct awareness of real objects and non-inferential knowledge of the properties of these objects. He responds to the major arguments for skepticism, including the infinite regress argument, the problem of the criterion, the brain in the vat, and the impossibility of verification. c. Book News Inc.
Download or read book The Bloomsbury Companion to the Philosophy of Consciousness written by Dale Jacquette and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2018-01-25 with total page 505 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From Descartes and Cartesian mind-body dualism in the 17th century though to 21st-century concerns about artificial intelligence programming, The Bloomsbury Companion to the Philosophy of Consciousness presents a compelling history and up-to-date overview of this burgeoning subject area. Acknowledging that many of the original concepts of consciousness studies are found in writings of past thinkers, it begins with introductory overviews to the thought of Descartes through to Kant, covering Brentano's restoration of empiricism to philosophical psychology and the major figures of the late 19th and early 20th centuries: Russell, Wittgenstein, Ryle and James. These opening chapters on the forces in the history of consciousness lay the groundwork needed to understand how influential contemporary thinkers in the philosophy of mind interpret the concept of consciousness. Featuring leading figures in the field, Part II discusses current issues in a range of topics progressing from the so-called hard problem of understanding the nature of consciousness, to the methodology of invoking the possibility of philosophical zombies and the prospects of reductivism in philosophy of mind. Part III is dedicated to new research directions in the philosophy of consciousness, including chapters on experiment objections to functionalism and the scope and limits of artificial intelligence. Equipped with practical research resources including an annotated bibliography, a research guide and a glossary, The Bloomsbury Companion to the Philosophy of Consciousness is an authoritative guide for studying the past, present and future of consciousness.
Download or read book Consciousness and the Self written by JeeLoo Liu and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2012 with total page 271 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New essays connecting recent scientific studies with traditional issues about the self explored by Descartes, Locke and Hume. Leading philosophers offer contrasting perspectives on the relation between consciousness and self-awareness, and the notion of personhood. Essential reading for philosophers, neuroscientists, cognitive scientists and psychologists.
Download or read book Heidegger and the Problem of Consciousness written by Nancy J. Holland and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2018-07-06 with total page 159 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nancy J. Holland turns to the thought of Martin Heidegger to help understand an age-old philosophical question: Is there a split between the body and the mind? Arguing against philosophical positions that define human consciousness as an overarching phenomenon or reduce it to the brain or physicality, Holland contends that consciousness is relational and it is this relationship that allows us to inhabit and negotiate in the world. Holland forwards a complex and nuanced reading of Heidegger as she focuses on consciousness, being, and what might constitute the animal or, more broadly, other-than-human world. Holland engages with the depth and breadth of Heidegger's work as she opens space for a discussion about the uniqueness of human consciousness.
Download or read book Waking Dreaming Being written by Evan Thompson and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2014-11-18 with total page 497 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A renowned philosopher of the mind, also known for his groundbreaking work on Buddhism and cognitive science, Evan Thompson combines the latest neuroscience research on sleep, dreaming, and meditation with Indian and Western philosophy of mind, casting new light on the self and its relation to the brain. Thompson shows how the self is a changing process, not a static thing. When we are awake we identify with our body, but if we let our mind wander or daydream, we project a mentally imagined self into the remembered past or anticipated future. As we fall asleep, the impression of being a bounded self distinct from the world dissolves, but the self reappears in the dream state. If we have a lucid dream, we no longer identify only with the self within the dream. Our sense of self now includes our dreaming self, the "I" as dreamer. Finally, as we meditate—either in the waking state or in a lucid dream—we can observe whatever images or thoughts arise and how we tend to identify with them as "me." We can also experience sheer awareness itself, distinct from the changing contents that make up our image of the self. Contemplative traditions say that we can learn to let go of the self, so that when we die we can witness its dissolution with equanimity. Thompson weaves together neuroscience, philosophy, and personal narrative to depict these transformations, adding uncommon depth to life's profound questions. Contemplative experience comes to illuminate scientific findings, and scientific evidence enriches the vast knowledge acquired by contemplatives.
Download or read book Being No One written by Thomas Metzinger and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2004-08-20 with total page 896 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: According to Thomas Metzinger, no such things as selves exist in the world: nobody ever had or was a self. All that exists are phenomenal selves, as they appear in conscious experience. The phenomenal self, however, is not a thing but an ongoing process; it is the content of a "transparent self-model." In Being No One, Metzinger, a German philosopher, draws strongly on neuroscientific research to present a representationalist and functional analysis of what a consciously experienced first-person perspective actually is. Building a bridge between the humanities and the empirical sciences of the mind, he develops new conceptual toolkits and metaphors; uses case studies of unusual states of mind such as agnosia, neglect, blindsight, and hallucinations; and offers new sets of multilevel constraints for the concept of consciousness. Metzinger's central question is: How exactly does strong, consciously experienced subjectivity emerge out of objective events in the natural world? His epistemic goal is to determine whether conscious experience, in particular the experience of being someone that results from the emergence of a phenomenal self, can be analyzed on subpersonal levels of description. He also asks if and how our Cartesian intuitions that subjective experiences as such can never be reductively explained are themselves ultimately rooted in the deeper representational structure of our conscious minds.
