scholarly journals The Varieties of Instantiation

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-21
Author(s):  
UMRAO SETHI
Keyword(s):  
Standard View ◽  
Bodily Sensations ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Sensible Qualities ◽  
In Virtue Of ◽  
Unitary Analysis

Abstract Working with the assumption that properties depend for their instantiation on substances, I argue against a unitary analysis of instantiation. On the standard view, a property is instantiated just in case there is a substance that serves as the bearer of the property. But this view cannot make sense of how properties that are mind-dependent depend for their instantiation on minds. I consider two classes of properties that philosophers often take to be mind-dependent: sensible qualities like color and bodily sensations like itches. Given that the mind is never itself literally red or itchy, we cannot explain the instantiation of these qualities as a matter of their having a mental bearer. Appealing to insights from Berkeley, I defend a view on which a property can be instantiated not in virtue of having a bearer—mental or material—but rather in virtue of being the object of a conscious act of perception. In the second half of the paper, I suggest that the best account of sensible qualities and bodily sensations ultimately makes use of both varieties of instantiation.

Sensible Over-Determination

2019 ◽  
Vol 70 (280) ◽  
pp. 588-616 ◽  
Author(s):  
Umrao Sethi
Keyword(s):  
Direct Contact ◽  
Sensory Experience ◽  
Material Objects ◽  
Naive Realism ◽  
Veridical Perception ◽  
Naïve Realism ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Sensible Qualities ◽  
In Virtue Of

Abstract I develop a view of perception that does justice to Price's intuition that all sensory experience acquaints us with sensible qualities like colour and shape. Contrary to the received opinion, I argue that we can respect this intuition while insisting that ordinary perception puts us in direct contact with the mind-independent world. In other words, Price's intuition is compatible with naïve realism. Both hallucinations and ordinary perceptions acquaint us with instances of the same kinds of sensible qualities. While the instances in hallucination are mind-dependent, those in veridical perception are not. The latter are ontologically over-determined—they have their existence guaranteed both in virtue of having a material bearer and in virtue of being perceived by a mind. Such over-determined instances are mind-independent—they can continue to exist unperceived, because, in addition to the minds that perceive them, their existence is guaranteed by the material objects that are their bearers.

The body in group analysis

2019 ◽  
Vol 52 (4) ◽  
pp. 544-556 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bracha Hadar
Keyword(s):  
Group Analysis ◽  
Radical Change ◽  
The Body ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Face To Face ◽  
History Of ◽  
Bodily Sensations ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Embodied History

This article explores the history of the exclusion/inclusion of the body in group analytic theory and practice. At the same time, it aims to promote the subject of the body in the mind of group analysts. The main thesis of the article is that sitting in a circle, face-to-face, is a radical change in the transition Foulkes made from psychoanalysis to group analysis. The implications of this transition have not been explored, and in many cases, have been denied. The article describes the vicissitudes of relating group analysis to the body from the time of Foulkes and Anthony’s work until today. The article claims that working with the body in the group demands that the conductor gives special attention to his/her own bodily sensations and feelings, while at the same time remaining cognizant of the fact that each of the participants is a person with a physical body in which their painful history is stored, and that they may be dissociated because of that embodied history. The thesis of the article is followed by a clinical example. The article ends with the conclusion that being in touch with one’s own body demands a lot of training.

Learning to Read Nature

2013 ◽  
Vol 18 (4-5) ◽  
pp. 405-434 ◽  
Author(s):  
Guido Giglioni
Keyword(s):  
Human Experience ◽  
Theory Of Knowledge ◽  
Standard View ◽  
Learning To Read ◽  
Book Of Nature ◽  
Role Based ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Human Intellect ◽  
The Way

Francis Bacon’s elusive notion of experience can be better understood when we relate it to his views on matter, motion, appetite and intellect, and bring to the fore its broader philosophical implications. Bacon’s theory of knowledge is embedded in a programme of disciplinary redefinition, outlined in the Advancement of Learning and De augmentis scientiarum. Among all disciplines, prima philosophia (and not metaphysica) plays a key foundational role, based on the idea of both a physical parallelism between the human intellect and nature (psycho-physical parallelism) and a theological parallelism between nature and God (physico-theological parallelism). Failure to assess Bacon’s distinctive position concerning the way in which the mind mirrors both the natural and the divine world, that is to say, the meaning of “reality,” has resulted in notoriously jejune discussions on Baconian empiricism, monotonously driven by epistemological concerns. As a result, the standard view on Bacon’s empiricism is as epistemologically comforting as it is imaginary, an “idol” in a genuinely Baconian sense. In this article, Bacon’s notion of experience will be discussed by examining those steps that he considered to be the crucial initial stages in the formation of human experience, stages described as a process of experiential literacy (experientia literata) or, in emblematic terms, as a hunting expedition led by the mythological figure of Pan (venatio Panis). I argue that a well-rounded analysis of Bacon’s experientia literata needs to take into account the complementary notion of the “spelling-book of nature” (abecedarium naturae), that is, the original code of the primordial motions of matter. By getting acquainted with the first rudiments of experience through its spelling-book (on both an individual and a cosmological level), one learns to read the book of nature and, most of all, to write new pages in it.


Epicurus

Philosophy ◽  
2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tim O'Keefe
Keyword(s):  
Empty Space ◽  
Hellenistic Period ◽  
Alexander The Great ◽  
Biological Functions ◽  
Atomic Collisions ◽  
Wise Person ◽  
The World ◽  
Correct Understanding ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Sensible Qualities

Epicurus (b. c. 341–d. 271 bce) was one of the most influential philosophers of the Hellenistic period, the two centuries or so following the death of Alexander the Great in 323 bce. Epicureanism, alongside Stoicism and Academic Skepticism, was one of the predominant systems of thought competing for the allegiance of people in the Greek- and Latin-speaking world, and communities of Epicureans flourished for centuries following Epicurus’s death. Epicurus revived the atomism of the pre-Socratics Leucippus and Democritus, where everything is ultimately the result of indivisible particles interacting in empty space. However, he modified their atomism by adding weight as a property of atoms as well as a tiny, indeterministic “swerve” to the side that is supposed to account for atomic collisions and to allow for human freedom. Epicurus said that the workings of the world are not due to any divine purpose or plan and that we can explain why organisms operate as they do without recourse to biological functions. Excluding the gods from meddling with the world liberates us from fearing them. Furthermore, the mind is a bodily organ that allows us to think and live, instead of being some immaterial animating principle that can move from body to body. And so, death is annihilation. The realization that death is annihilation should free us from the fear of death: annihilation is simply nothingness, and because after our deaths we do not exist, our death cannot be good or bad for us. Epicurus thought that skepticism about the reliability of the senses was self-refuting and practically disastrous. To avoid such skepticism, he affirmed (contra Democritus) that sensible qualities such as color and taste are genuine properties of bodies, and he even said that all sensations are true. On the basis of these sensations, we can come to a correct understanding of how the world works. In ethics, Epicurus affirmed egoistic hedonism (contra Plato and Aristotle); thus, he affirmed that only my own pleasure is intrinsically good for me. However, this does not license reckless dissipation. Freedom from bodily distress and mental turmoil is by itself pleasant—in fact, the limits of pleasure for us. To attain a trouble-free and tranquil life, we must moderate our desires, cultivate the virtues, live justly, and acquire a circle of trustworthy friends. The wise person will even worship the gods, correctly conceived—not as meddling and jealous world-managers but as exemplars of human blessedness whom we need not fear.

The Cartesians

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Walter Ott
Keyword(s):  
Direct Realism ◽  
Brain Image ◽  
Natural Geometry ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Antoine Arnauld ◽  
Sensible Qualities ◽  
The Brain ◽  
Independent Existence ◽  
Extended Bodies

This chapter examines the crisis of perception as it figures in the work of four of Descartes’s immediate successors: Louis de la Forge, Robert Desgabets, Pierre-Sylvain Régis, and Antoine Arnauld. La Forge opts for a version of Descartes’s last view, which has no place for natural geometry. Desgabets defends a version of Descartes’s earliest view, which requires the mind to turn to the brain image. Régis thinks we sense colors and sounds and the rest and then use these to imagine extension. Arnauld’s case is especially problematic, since he rejects the mind-independent existence of sensible qualities but seems committed to some version of direct realism. He is then left with the question how the mind projects these illusory states on to extended bodies, a question for which he has no answer.

The Early Descartes

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Walter Ott
Keyword(s):  
Brain Image ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Sensible Qualities ◽  
The Brain

Descartes’s earliest theory of perception attempts to marry the remnants of the Baconian and Aristotelian views while divorcing them from hylomorphism and the innocent view of sensible qualities. Descartes holds the ‘overlap thesis,’ the claim that any behavior exhibited by non-human animals and inattentive humans must receive the same explanation. Corporeal perception requires the presence of a brain image that resembles its object. When the mind attends to its environment, it is immediately aware of this brain image and, through it, of the common sensibles. The claim that the mind ‘turns toward’ the brain is a thoroughly traditional one. The proper sensibles are summoned by the mind on the occasion of its undergoing certain brain events. Descartes thinks of the mind as ‘decoding’ the language of the brain in order to provide itself with the appropriate sensations. But those sensations do nothing to explain our awareness of objects.

scholarly journals Rational Requirements and the Primacy of Pressure

Mind ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 129 (516) ◽  
pp. 1033-1070 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Fogal
Keyword(s):  
Mental States ◽  
Alternative Account ◽  
Standard View ◽  
Rational Requirements ◽  
Substantive Rationality ◽  
Structural Relations ◽  
Distinct Kind ◽  
The Right ◽  
In Virtue Of ◽  
Rational Evaluation

Abstract There are at least two threads in our thought and talk about rationality, both practical and theoretical. In one sense, to be rational is to respond correctly to the reasons one has. Call this substantive rationality. In another sense, to be rational is to be coherent, or to have the right structural relations hold between one's attitudinal mental states, independently of whether those states are justified. Call this structural rationality. According to the standard view, structural rationality is associated with a distinctive set of requirements that mandate or prohibit certain combinations of attitudes, and it's in virtue of violating these requirements that incoherent agents are irrational. I think the standard view is mistaken. The goal of this paper is to explain why, and to motivate an alternative account: rather than corresponding to a set of law-like requirements, structural rationality should be seen as corresponding to a distinctive kind of pro tanto rational pressure—that is, something that comes in degrees, having both magnitude and direction. Something similar is standardly assumed to be true of substantive rationality. On the resulting picture, each dimension of rational evaluation is associated with a distinct kind of rational pressure—substantive rationality with (what I call) justificatory pressure and structural rationality with attitudinal pressure. The former is generated by one's reasons while the latter is generated by one's attitudes. Requirements turn out to be at best a footnote in the theory of rationality.

scholarly journals Meditation and the Wandering Mind: A Theoretical Framework of Underlying Neurocognitive Mechanisms

2020 ◽  
pp. 174569162091734
Author(s):  
Tracy Brandmeyer ◽  
Arnaud Delorme
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Processes ◽  
Neural Substrates ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Thought Processes ◽  
Thought Patterns ◽  
Bodily Sensations ◽  
Spontaneous Thought ◽  
Sensory Processes ◽  
The Mind

During the practice of meditation, the tendency of the mind to wander away from the object of focus is ubiquitous. The occurrence of mind wandering in the context of meditation provides individuals a unique and intimate opportunity to closely examine the nature of the wandering mind by cultivating an awareness of ongoing thought patterns, while simultaneously aiming to cultivate equanimity (evenness of temper or disposition) and compassion toward the content of thoughts, interpretations, and bodily sensations. In this article we provide a theoretical framework that highlights the neurocognitive mechanisms by which contemplative practices influence the neural and phenomenological processes underlying spontaneous thought. Our theoretical model focuses on several converging mechanisms: the role of meta-awareness in facilitating an increased moment-to-moment awareness of spontaneous thought processes, the effects of meditation practice on key structures underlying both the top-down cognitive processes and bottom-up sensory processes implicated in attention and emotion regulation, and the influence of contemplative practice on the neural substrates underlying perception and perceptual decoupling.

Skepticism, A Priori Skepticism, and the Possibility of Error

2013 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 235-252 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hamid Vahid
Keyword(s):  
A Priori ◽  
Second Order ◽  
Main Concern ◽  
A Posteriori ◽  
Standard View ◽  
First Order ◽  
Radical Skepticism ◽  
In Virtue Of

Epistemologists have differed in their assessments of what it is in virtue of which skeptical hypotheses succeed in raising doubts. It is widely thought that skeptical hypotheses must satisfy some sort of possibility constraint and that only putative knowledge of contingent and a posteriori propositions is vulnerable to skeptical challenge. These putative constraints have been disputed by a number of epistemologists advocating what we may call “the non-standard view.” My main concern in this paper is to challenge this view by identifying a general recipe by means of which its proponents generate skeptical scenarios. I will argue that many of the skeptical arguments that are founded on these scenarios undermine at most second-order knowledge and that to that extent the non-standard view’s rejection of the standard constraints on skeptical hypotheses is problematic. It will be argued that, pace the non-standard view, only in their error-inducing capacities can skeptical hypotheses challenge first-order knowledge. I will also dispute the non-standard view’s claim that its skeptical arguments bring to light a neglected form of radical skepticism, namely, “a priori skepticism.” I conclude by contending that the non-standard view’s account of how skeptical hypotheses can raise legitimate doubt actually rides piggyback on the standard ways of challenging the possibility of knowledge.

scholarly journals Bodies in the Novel Infinite Jest

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ana Chapman ◽  
Silvia Chapman ◽  
Stephanie Cosentino
Keyword(s):  
Literary Analysis ◽  
Self Awareness ◽  
The Novel ◽  
External Stimulation ◽  
Infinite Jest ◽  
Mind And Body ◽  
Bodily Sensations ◽  
Body Self ◽  
Clinical Conditions ◽  
The Mind

This manuscript provides a literary analysis of the use of bodies in the novel Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace. The novel describes a world where oversaturation of external stimulation leads to the perception of mind and body of self of an individual as prosthetic parts, malleable and deformed, wherein the mind fails to feel bodily sensations and characters experience a complete disconnectedness from the self and others. Indeed, the disembodiment of characters and sensations of disconnection leads them to a compulsive quest for connectedness through the use of masks, made-up feelings, mind–body hybrid pain, corporeal malleability, and prostheses. These portrayals of the disordered and disconnectedness between body and mind or self will be described and compared to clinical conditions characterized by a disconnection between mind and body and impaired body self-awareness. Through this exercise, we argue that the use of scientifically inspired pathologized bodies is a means of conveying the stance of Wallace on or criticism of the degradation of society through excessive entertainment.

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