Is Neuroscience Relevant to Philosophy?

1990 ◽  
Vol 16 ◽  
pp. 323-341 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patricia Smith Churchland
Keyword(s):  
Free Will ◽  
Theoretical Foundation ◽  
The Self ◽  
Advanced Technology ◽  
The World ◽  
The Mind ◽  
The Brain

Many questions concerning the nature of the mind have remained intractable since their first systematic discussion by the ancient Greeks. What is the nature of knowledge, and how is it possible to represent the world? What are consciousness and free will? What is the self and how is it that some organisms are more intelligent than others? Since it is now overwhelmingly evident that these are phenomena of the physical brain, it is not surprising that an established empirical and theoretical foundation in this domain has eluded us for so long. For in order to understand what we are and how we work, we must understand the brain and how it works. Yet the brain is exceedingly difficult to study, and research on any significant scale is critically dependent on advanced technology.

Semantic Pragmatism and A Priori Knawledge (or ‘Yes we could all be brains in a vat’)

2001 ◽  
Vol 31 (4) ◽  
pp. 455-480 ◽  
Author(s):  
Henry Jackman
Keyword(s):  
A Priori ◽  
The Self ◽  
Semantic Externalism ◽  
Metaphysical Realism ◽  
The World ◽  
Rational Acceptability ◽  
The Mind ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Brain ◽  
Brain In A Vat

Hilary Putnam has famously argued that we can know that we are not brains in a vat because the hypothesis that we are is self-refuting. While Putnam's argument has generated interest primarily as a novel response to skepticism, he originally introduced his brain in a vat scenario to help illustrate a point about the ‘mind/world relationship.’ In particular, he intended it to be part of an argument against the coherence of metaphysical realism, and thus to be part of a defense of his conception of truth as idealized rational acceptability. Putnam's discussion has already inspired a substantial body of criticism, but it will be argued here that these criticisms fail to capture the central problem with his argument. Indeed, it will be shown that, rather than simply following from his semantic externalism, Putnam's conclusions about the self-refuting character of the brain in a vat hypothesis are actually out of line with central and plausible aspects of his own account of the relationship between our minds and the world.

The Patient

2018 ◽  
pp. 19-37
Keyword(s):  
Point Of View ◽  
The Self ◽  
The World ◽  
Clinical Point ◽  
The Mind ◽  
The Brain

This chapter addresses the issue of a stroke's impact on consciousness and the self, from a clinical point of view. We look at how the mind is seen by three experts—a neuroscientist, a brain surgeon, and a neuro-philosopher—and find that, instead of solving the mystery of the mind, they in fact add to it. Indeed, they all agree on the lingering mystery of consciousness, underneath and beyond the brain, as well as on the surprising rapport the self seems to establish to the world and its environment – in ways that are not constitutive to the brain itself. This suggests we might need to call on psychologists and sociologists next, to help us solve the conundrum of the self.

Nihilistic Thinking as the Self-Will of the Mind and the Projects of Its Overcoming

2020 ◽  
Vol 63 (10) ◽  
pp. 74-87
Author(s):  
Irina N. Sidorenko
Keyword(s):  
Significant Role ◽  
Current Situation ◽  
The Self ◽  
Spatial Perspective ◽  
The World ◽  
The Will ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Radical Transformation

 The author analyzes the conceptions of ontological nihilism in the works of S. Kierkegaard, F. Nietzsche, M. Heidegger, E. Jünger. On the basis of this analysis, violence is defined as a manifestation of nihilism, of the “will to nothingness” and hypertrophy of the self-will of man. The article demonstrates the importance of the problem of nihilism. The nihilistic thinking of modern man is expressed in the attitude toward a radical transformation of the world from the position of his “absolute” righteousness. The paradox of the current situation is that there is the reverse side of this transformative activity, when there is only the appearance of action and the dilution of responsibility. Confidence in the rightness of own views and beliefs increases the risk of the violent imposition of own vision of reality. Historical and philosophical reconstruction of the conceptions of nihilism allowed to reveal the following projects of its comprehension and resolution: (1) the project of “positing of values,” which consists in the transformation of the evaluation, which is understood as another perspective of positing values, leading to the affirmation of being; (2) the project of overcoming nihilism from the space of temporality, carried out through the resoluteness to accept the historicity of own existence; (3) the project of overcoming nihilism as the oblivion of being from the spatial perspective of the “line,” allowing to realize the “glimpse” of being. The author concludes that it is impossible to solve the problem of violence and its various forms of its manifestation without overcoming “ontological nihilism.” Significant role in solving the problem of ontological violence is assigned to philosophy as a critical and responsible form of thinking, which is capable to help a person to bear the burden of the world, to provide meanings and affirm being, as well as to unite people and resist the fundamentalist claims of exclusivity and rightness.

Consciousness, law of nature, and nomological determinism

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiaoyang Yu
Keyword(s):  
Free Will ◽  
Important Thing ◽  
Law Of Nature ◽  
The World ◽  
The Law ◽  
The Brain

Nomological determinism does not mean everything is predictable. It just means everything follows the law of nature. And the most important thing Is that the brain and consciousness follow the law of nature. In other words, there is no free will. Without life, brain and consciousness, the world follows law of nature, that is clear. The life and brain are also part of nature, and they follow the law of nature. This is due to scientific findings. There are not enough scientific findings for consciousness yet. But I think that the consciousness is a nature phenomenon, and it also follows the law of nature.

The ”true me”—one or many?

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Iris Berent ◽  
Melanie Platt
Keyword(s):  
Free Will ◽  
Optimality Theory ◽  
The Self ◽  
True Self ◽  
Behavioral Test ◽  
Brain Scan ◽  
Moral Behaviors ◽  
The Brain ◽  
Constraint Ranking

Recent results suggest that people hold a notion of the true self, distinct from the self. Here, we seek to further elucidate the “true me”—whether it is good or bad, material or immaterial. Critically, we ask whether the true self is unitary. To address these questions, we invited participants to reason about John—a character who simultaneously exhibits both positive and negative moral behaviors. John’s character was gauged via two tests--a brain scan and a behavioral test, whose results invariably diverged (i.e., one test indicated that John’s moral core is positive and another negative). Participants assessed John’s true self along two questions: (a) Did John commit his acts (positive and negative) freely? and (b) What is John’s essence really? Responses to the two questions diverged. When asked to evaluate John’s moral core explicitly (by reasoning about his free will), people invariably descried John’s true self as good. But when John’s moral core was assessed implicitly (by considering his essence), people sided with the outcomes of the brain test. These results demonstrate that people hold conflicting notions of the true self. We formally support this proposal by presenting a grammar of the true self, couched within Optimality Theory. We show that the constraint ranking necessary to capture explicit and implicit view of the true self are distinct. Our intuitive belief in a true unitary “me” is thus illusory.

The brain as a mediator of the mind and the world

Cortex ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 45 (7) ◽  
pp. 904-905
Author(s):  
Zhicheng Lin
Keyword(s):  
The World ◽  
The Mind ◽  
The Brain

scholarly journals On The Verge of the Hybrid Mind

2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 30-43
Author(s):  
Surjo Soekadar ◽  
Jennifer Chandler ◽  
Marcello Ienca ◽  
Christoph Bublitz
Keyword(s):  
Human Brain ◽  
Natural Environment ◽  
The Body ◽  
The Self ◽  
Cognitive Systems ◽  
Privacy And Security ◽  
Technological Artifacts ◽  
Mind And Body ◽  
The Mind ◽  
The Brain

Recent advances in neurotechnology allow for an increasingly tight integration of the human brain and mind with artificial cognitive systems, blending persons with technologies and creating an assemblage that we call a hybrid mind. In some ways the mind has always been a hybrid, emerging from the interaction of biology, culture (including technological artifacts) and the natural environment. However, with the emergence of neurotechnologies enabling bidirectional flows of information between the brain and AI-enabled devices, integrated into mutually adaptive assemblages, we have arrived at a point where the specific examination of this new instantiation of the hybrid mind is essential. Among the critical questions raised by this development are the effects of these devices on the user’s perception of the self, and on the user’s experience of their own mental contents. Questions arise related to the boundaries of the mind and body and whether the hardware and software that are functionally integrated with the body and mind are to be viewed as parts of the person or separate artifacts subject to different legal treatment. Other questions relate to how to attribute responsibility for actions taken as a result of the operations of a hybrid mind, as well as how to settle questions of the privacy and security of information generated and retained within a hybrid mind.

The Heterocosmic Self: Analogy, Temporality and Structural Couplings in Proust’s Swann’s Way

2020 ◽  
pp. 95-112
Author(s):  
Marco Bernini
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Science ◽  
The Self ◽  
Extended Self ◽  
The World ◽  
The Mind

The idea of a distribution of the mind into the world has been largely considered as an empowering of the mind’s domain, an enlargement of its cognitive territory (a cognitive positivity). Experientially, however, it might generate a feeling of disconcerting fluidity or even an anxiety of groundlessness (an ontological concern), especially if we apply the idea of distribution to the self. What if we consider the self too as unbounded, extended and constantly constituted by ever-changing structural couplings with the world? This chapter focuses on the consequences of this question as explored by Marcel Proust’s Swann’s Way. If extended and enactive frameworks can provide important insights on Proust’s literary endeavour, Proust’s devious use of analogies and his focus on analogical experiences as tell-tale markers of the extended self can offer back to cognitive science new avenues of research about phenomenological and ontological aspects related to extended or enactive models of mind, memory, self and cognition.

Consciousness

2020 ◽  
pp. 651-676
Author(s):  
David Clarke
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Psychology ◽  
Neural Activity ◽  
Philosophical Study ◽  
Computational Process ◽  
The World ◽  
The Mind ◽  
The Brain

Our understanding of the numerous and significant problems of consciousness is inseparable from the often incommensurable disciplinary frameworks through which the topic has been approached. Music may offer a range of perspectives on consciousness, some issuing from interdisciplinary alliances (such as with cognitive psychology and neuroscience), others tapping into what is distinctively musical about music and what music shares with comparable aesthetic formations. Philosophically speaking, music might afford valuable complementary perspectives to approaches within the empirical sciences that see consciousness as essentially a computational process (Pinker, Dennett), or as solely an epiphenomenon of neural activity within the brain. This chapter will look to experiences of music that support views of the mind as extended and embodied, and that see consciousness as ecologically bound up with Being-in-the-world, to adopt notions from Gibson and Heidegger respectively. In this way, music studies can make a contribution to the philosophical study of consciousness from epistemological, phenomenological, and ontological standpoints.

scholarly journals Soul searching: a brief history of the mind/body debate in the neurosciences

2007 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-7 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian Dolan
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Structure And Function ◽  
The Self ◽  
History Of Neuroscience ◽  
History Of ◽  
And Function ◽  
The Mind ◽  
The Brain ◽  
The Way

✓Anatomical and physiological understandings of the structure and function of the brain have worked to establish it as the “seat of the soul.” As an organ of reflection, meditation, and memory, the brain becomes synonymous with what defines the “self” through the existence of consciousness—of mind. Thus, the brain has been associated with a range of transcendent concepts—the soul, spirit, mind, and consciousness—that all relate in fundamental ways to each other both in terms of their perceived location within the brain and because of the way each works ultimately to define the person to whom the brain belongs. In this article, the author provides a brief exploration of how interrelated these categories have been when seen in the context of ancient, Renaissance, early modern, and modern philosophical and medical concerns; how the brain has variously been perceived as home to these intimate states of being; and how practitioners from the neurosciences have reflected on these questions. The author provides novel insights into the interrelationships of philosophy, theology, and medicine by examining these issues through the lens of the history of neuroscience.

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