The Internal World

2021 ◽  
pp. 147-170
Author(s):  
Mark Siderits
Keyword(s):  
Verbal Behavior ◽  
External World ◽  
Higher Order ◽  
Ultimate Reality ◽  
Other Minds ◽  
The Status ◽  
Satisfactory Account

Just as some Buddhists deny that the external world is ultimately real, so other Buddhists deny the ultimate reality of consciousness. This chapter examines the debate among different Buddhist schools over the status of cognition. This grows out of a debate over the problem of meta-cognition: if there is no self, then what is it that cognizes cognition? Momentariness and the irreflexivity principle pose obstacles to a satisfactory account. This leads the Yogācāra-Sautrāntika philosophers Dignāga and Dharmakīrti to develop the theory that every cognition is self-cognizing, but that irreflexivity is not violated since noetic and noematic poles of a cognition are non-distinct. Their reflexivity account is challenged by a higher-order thought account developed in the Madhyamaka school. According to this account, cognition is posited as a useful way of explaining bodily and verbal behavior, and so is not to be thought of as ultimately real. There is also some discussion of the difficulty for the reflexivist of explaining the existence of other minds.

Descartes, Divine Veracity, and Moral Certainty

Dialogue ◽  
2005 ◽  
Vol 44 (1) ◽  
pp. 15-40 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jean-Pierre Schachter
Keyword(s):  
External World ◽  
Other Minds ◽  
Moral Certainty

AbstractThis article explores the relation between Descartes's appeal to God's veracity and his connected notions of “metaphysical” and “moral” certainty. I do this by showing their roles in his proof of the external world, his position on other minds, and his position on the “beast-machine.” Descartes uses God's veracity in the first proof, but not in the second or third. I suggest that the reason for this is that extending his appeal to God to other minds would have placed his beast-machine doctrine in jeopardy. I conclude by accounting for some Cartesian passages that might seem incompatible with my reading of moral certainty's important role in his philosophy.

Awareness may be existence as well as (higher-order) thought

2000 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 214-215
Author(s):  
Jordan B. Peterson
Keyword(s):  
Error Correction ◽  
Higher Order ◽  
The Status ◽  
Cybernetic Theory

Rolls attributes to consciousness the functions of reflection, planning, and error-correction. Neuropsychologically grounded cybernetic theory provides an analogous, broader conceptualization: consciousness constructs goals (and plans), alters the valence of goal-related phenomena, registers error-signals, and explores unexpected circumstances (reconfiguring goals and plans as necessary). Consciousness plays a fundamental unrecognized ontological role, as well, conferring the status of “discriminable object” on select aspects of otherwise indeterminate “being.”

scholarly journals Beyond Atoms and Accidents

Oriens ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 48 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 67-122
Author(s):  
Bilal Ibrahim
Keyword(s):  
External World ◽  
Physical Reality ◽  
Causal Role ◽  
Classical Period ◽  
Critical Approach ◽  
Novel Approach ◽  
Islamic Thought ◽  
The Status

Abstract This article explores a novel approach to the analysis of the external world in postclassical Ashʿarite kalām. While discussions of physical reality and its fundamental constituents in the classical period of Islamic thought turned chiefly on the opposing views of kalām atomism and Aristotelian hylomorphism, in the postclassical period kalām thinkers in the Ashʿarite tradition forge a new frame of inquiry. Beginning most earnestly with the philosophical works of Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī, a critical approach is developed addressing received views in ontology, including the relation of substance to accident, the status of Aristotelian form and matter, and part-to-whole relations. Drawing on Rāzī’s al-Mulakhkhaṣ and al-Mabāḥith, kalām thinkers develop several concepts to distinguish arbitrary or mind-dependent (iʿtibārī) composites (‘man-plus-stone’) from non-arbitrary composites (e.g., tree, paste, and house). Most notably, they adopt a substance-plus-accident ontology in opposition to the Aristotelian hylomorphism of falsafa. The mutakallimūn will conceive of composites as possessing ‘real unity’ (ḥaqīqa muttaḥida) while dispensing with the explanatory and causal role of Aristotelian substantial forms.

“Loopings Among the Parts”

2015 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-12
Author(s):  
Stephen Mulhall
Keyword(s):  
External World ◽  
Human Action ◽  
Final Part ◽  
Other Minds ◽  
Philosophical Practice ◽  
Short Essay

This short essay takes guidance from the preface Cavell supplied for the 1999 edition of The Claim of Reason, in order to consider the ways its first three parts interact with one another, just as much as with its fourth and final part. It argues that the book’s account of human action invites us to explore a particular reflexive dimension of its author’s sense of the inter-relatedness of scepticism about the external world and scepticism about other minds; for it suggests that traditional Wittgensteinian responses to the external world sceptic subject him to a form of other minds scepticism, and thereby subvert the extent to which Wittgensteinian philosophical practice (properly understood) constitutes a proof of the reality and accessibility of other minds.

scholarly journals Higher order derivatives of bulk modulus of materials at infinite pressure

2016 ◽  
Vol 94 (8) ◽  
pp. 748-750 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Dwivedi
Keyword(s):  
Bulk Modulus ◽  
Higher Order ◽  
Grüneisen Parameter ◽  
Third Order ◽  
Pressure Derivative ◽  
Basic Principles ◽  
Gruneisen Parameter ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Status ◽  
Derivatives Of

Pressure derivatives of bulk modulus of materials at infinite pressure or extreme compression have been studied using some basic principles of calculus. Expressions for higher order pressure derivatives at infinite pressure are obtained that are found to have the status of identities. A generalized formula is derived for the nth-order pressure derivative of bulk modulus in terms of the third-order Grüneisen parameter at infinite pressure.

scholarly journals Cavell on Outsiders and Others

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Moran
Keyword(s):  
External World ◽  
Other Minds ◽  
Problem Of Other Minds ◽  
External World Skepticism ◽  
Similarities And Differences

Part IV of Stanley Cavell’s The Claim of Reason is an extended meditation on the similarities and differences between external world skepticism and skepticism about other minds. One contrast between the two forms of skepticism is the irreducible duality of perspectives with respect to minds (“inside” and “outside”) and the fact that the skeptical inquirer necessarily occupies both perspectives. Another aspect of this relation character of the problem of other minds is what Cavell calls the possibility for both “Active” and “Passive” directions for skepticism here; that is, skepticism with respect to the knowability of other minds, and skepticism with respect to the possibility of being known by any other mind. This paper argues that a lesson of this part of Cavell’s discussion is the importance of seeing these two directions for skepticism as comprising one single phenomenon which requires understanding them in terms of each other.

scholarly journals Inferring subjective states through the observation of actions

2012 ◽  
Vol 279 (1748) ◽  
pp. 4853-4860 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. Patel ◽  
S. M. Fleming ◽  
J. M. Kilner
Keyword(s):  
Social Interaction ◽  
Social Interactions ◽  
Cognitive Processes ◽  
Higher Order ◽  
Other Minds ◽  
Motor Simulation ◽  
Subjective Confidence ◽  
Subjective States

Estimating another person's subjective confidence is crucial for social interaction, but how this inference is achieved is unknown. Previous research has demonstrated that the speed at which people make decisions is correlated with their confidence in their decision. Here, we show that (i) subjects are able to infer the subjective confidence of another person simply through the observation of their actions and (ii) this inference is dependent upon the performance of each subject when executing the action. Crucially, the latter result supports a model in which motor simulation of an observed action mediates the successful understanding of other minds. We conclude that kinematic understanding allows access to the higher-order cognitive processes of others, and that this access plays a central role in social interactions.

Habermas, Science and Modernity

1999 ◽  
Vol 44 ◽  
pp. 329-355 ◽  
Author(s):  
Friedel Weinert
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Frankfurt School ◽  
German Idealism ◽  
External World ◽  
Paradigm Change ◽  
Philosophical Perspective ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Status ◽  
Western Civilisation ◽  
The Individual

The work of Jürgen Habermas has been described as eclectic. It is also prolific. Fortunately for his readers the prolificacy and eclecticism of the author are mitigated by the recurrence of his themes. These concern the emergence and nature of modern occidental society, both from a sociological and philosophical perspective. On a more philosophical level, there is also a strong plea for a paradigm change. The philosophy of the consciousness made the lone subject, in search of knowledge, face the external world. The dialogic philosophy of Habermas sees interlocutors engaged in dialogue about the material, social and internal world and their many aspects. Furthermore, there are many fruitful sidelines: the nature of language, the personality structure of the individual, socialisation and the status of the social sciences. All these various strands are woven into a coherent model of the nature of western civilisation. In the recombination of the contributory constituents, derived from American pragmatism, German Idealism, Hermeneutics, Marxism, the Frankfurt School of Sociology and Systems Theory, lies the originality and breadth of his work.

Practical Reason and the Status of Moral Obligation

2007 ◽  
Vol 33 ◽  
pp. 197-229 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Audi
Keyword(s):  
Practical Reason ◽  
Moral Obligation ◽  
External World ◽  
Moral Action ◽  
Adequate Account ◽  
Theoretical Reason ◽  
Moral Skepticism ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
The Status ◽  
Moral Claims

The power of skepticism depends on the apparent possibility of rationally asking, for virtually any kind of proposition commonly thought to be known, how it is known or what justifies believing it. Moral claims are among those commonly subjected to skeptical challenges and doubts, even on the part of some people who are not skeptical about ordinary claims regarding the external world. There may be even more skepticism about the possibility of justifying moral actions, particularly if they are against the agent's self-interest. Both problems-how to justify moral claims and how to justify moral action - come within the scope of the troubling question “Why be moral?” Even a brief response to moral skepticism should consider both kinds of targets of justification, cognitive and behavioural, and should indicate some important relations between the two types of skeptical challenge. I will begin with the cognitive case- with skepticism about the scope of theoretical reason in ethics - proceed to practical skepticism, which concerns the scope of practical reason, and then show how an adequate account of rationality may enable us to respond to moral skepticism.

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