Other Minds, Facts, and Values

2019 ◽  
pp. 200-218 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jane Heal
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Mind ◽  
Other Minds ◽  
Individual Life ◽  
Social Animals ◽  
Recent Philosophy

It is deep fact about us that we are social animals. The idea that ‘I’, ‘you’, and ‘we’ are interdependent concepts, and that joint thought and joint projects are central to our lives, is prominent in recent philosophy of mind and action. But the idea is important in ethics as well. Whether my individual life goes well or ill is constitutively intertwined with whether our joint life goes well or ill. If there are facts about the former (which few deny) then there are facts about the latter. So if you and I differ about what we should aim for, what is at stake in the debate is our shared future welfare. The familiar idea of ‘a fact–value distinction’, implying that there is no fact-directed reflection which could help us, presupposes a faulty individualistic account of welfare. It thus misrepresents our position in a seriously unhelpful and disempowering way.

Wittgenstein on Other Minds

2021 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 107-116
Author(s):  
Kailashkanta Naik ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Mind ◽  
The Other ◽  
Other Minds ◽  
Private Language ◽  
Private Language Argument ◽  
Novel Approach ◽  
Other Minds Problem ◽  
Problem Of Other Minds

When philosophy of mind goes into every detail in explaining about consciousness and its every aspect, the problem of other minds being its part is not spared. In such context going against the traditional way of giving justification Wittgenstein novel approach to other minds is remarkable and is close to the phenomenological understanding. The analysis of the sensation of pain as one of its important factors in solving the other minds problem is unique and it is this that proves how Wittgenstein dissolves the problem rather than giving a solution. This article focuses Wittgenstein’s two important factors: Private Language Argument and the concept of the sensation of pain in dissolving the issue. And in this I have made an attempt to show how his novelty in approaching this problem gains importance even today.

scholarly journals The Oxford Handbook of Reasons and Normativity

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Mind ◽  
Philosophy Of Language ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Recent Philosophy ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
Selection Of ◽  
Do So

The Oxford Handbook of Reasons and Normativity contains forty-four commissioned chapters on a wide range of topics. It will appeal especially to readers with an interest in ethics or epistemology, but also to those with an interest in philosophy of mind or philosophy of language. Both students and academics will benefit from the fact that the Handbook combines helpful overviews with innovative contributions to current debates. A diverse selection of substantive positions are defended by leading proponents of the views in question. Few concepts have received as much attention in recent philosophy as the concept of a reason. This is the first edited collection to provide broad coverage of the study of reasons and normativity across multiple philosophical subfields. In addition to focusing on reasons as part of the study of ethics and as part of the study of epistemology (as well as focusing on reasons as part of the study of the philosophy of language and as part of the study of the philosophy of mind), the Handbook covers recent developments concerning the nature of normativity in general. A number of the contributions to the Handbook explicitly address such “metanormative” issues, bridging subfields as they do so.

Self-knowledge: the Wittgensteinian Legacy

1998 ◽  
Vol 43 ◽  
pp. 101-122 ◽  
Author(s):  
Crispin Wright
Keyword(s):  
Other Minds ◽  
Recent Philosophy ◽  
Self Knowledge

It is only in fairly recent philosophy that psychological self-knowledge has come to be seen as problematical; once upon a time the hardest philosophical difficulties all seemed to attend our knowledge of others. But as philosophers have canvassed various models of the mental that would make knowledge of other minds less intractable, so it has become unobvious how to accommodate what once seemed evident and straightforward–the wide and seemingly immediate cognitive dominion of minds over themselves.

The Principle of Conservatism in Cognitive Ethology

2001 ◽  
Vol 49 ◽  
pp. 225-238 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elliott Sober
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Mind ◽  
Identity Theory ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Turing Test ◽  
Other Minds ◽  
Cognitive Ethology ◽  
University Courses ◽  
Problem Of Other Minds ◽  
The Mind

Philosophy of mind is, and for a long while has been, 99% metaphysics and 1% epistemology. Attention is lavished on the question of the nature of mind, but questions concerning how we know about minds are discussed much less thoroughly. University courses in philosophy of mind routinely devote a lot of time to dualism, logical behaviourism, the mind/brain identity theory, and functionalism. But what gets said about the kinds of evidence that help one determine what mental states, if any, an individual occupies? Well, Skinner's puritanical disdain for postulating mental states gets raked over the coals, the problem of other minds gets solved by a perfunctory invocation of the principle of inference to the best explanation, and the Turing test gets discussed, mainly in order to emphasize that it can lead to mistaken answers.

scholarly journals Peter Browne on the Metaphysics of Knowledge

2020 ◽  
Vol 88 ◽  
pp. 215-237
Author(s):  
Kenneth L. Pearce
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Mind ◽  
Contemporary Literature ◽  
General Purpose ◽  
Religious Language ◽  
Multiple Realizability ◽  
Intrinsic Properties ◽  
Interesting Application ◽  
Cognitive Mechanism ◽  
Recent Philosophy ◽  
Material Things

AbstractThe central unifying element in the philosophy of Peter Browne (d. 1735) is his theory of analogy. Although Browne's theory was originally developed to deal with some problems about religious language, Browne regards analogy as a general purpose cognitive mechanism whereby we substitute an idea we have to stand for an object of which we, strictly speaking, have no idea. According to Browne, all of our ideas are ideas of sense, and ideas of sense are ideas of material things. Hence we can conceive of spiritual things – including even our own spirit – only by analogy. One interesting application Browne makes of his theory is an account of how concepts such as knowledge can be correctly applied to beings that have no intrinsic properties in common, such as non-human animals, humans, angels, and God. I argue that this is best understood as what, in the contemporary literature, is known as a ‘multiple realizability’ problem and that Browne's solution to this problem has important similarities to functionalist theories in recent philosophy of mind.

scholarly journals Cartesianism and Intersubjectivity in Paranormal Activity and the Philosophy of Mind

2017 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-19
Author(s):  
Steve Jones
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Mind ◽  
Narrative Structure ◽  
The Self ◽  
Viable Alternative ◽  
Other Minds ◽  
Combined Model ◽  
Philosophical Debate ◽  
Found Footage ◽  
Philosophical Debates ◽  
Activity Series

Over the last century within the philosophy of mind, the intersubjective model of self has gained traction as a viable alternative to the oft-criticised Cartesian solipsistic paradigm. These two models are presented as incompatible inasmuch as Cartesians perceive other minds as “a problem” for the self, while intersubjectivists insist that sociality is foundational to selfhood. This essay uses the Paranormal Activity series (2007–2015) to explore this philosophical debate. It is argued that these films simultaneously evoke Cartesian premises (via found-footage camerawork), and intersubjectivity (via an ongoing narrative structure that emphasises connections between the characters, and between each film). The philosophical debates illuminate premises on which the series’ story and horror depends. Moreover, Paranormal Activity also sheds light on the theoretical debate: the series brings those two paradigms together into a coherent whole, thereby suggesting that the two models are potentially compatible. By developing a combined model, scholars working in the philosophy of mind might better account for the different aspects of self-experience these paradigms focus on.

Should Intentionality be Naturalized?

2001 ◽  
Vol 49 ◽  
pp. 43-60
Author(s):  
Thomas Bontly
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Mind ◽  
Physical System ◽  
Causal Relations ◽  
Functional Relations ◽  
The World ◽  
Recent Philosophy ◽  
Semantic Concepts ◽  
Mental Properties ◽  
Intentional Systems ◽  
Do So

One goal of recent philosophy of mind has been to ‘naturalize’ intentionality by showing how a purely physical system could have states that represent or are about items (objects, properties, facts) in the world. The project is reductionist in spirit, the aim being to explain intentional relations—to say what they really are—and to do so in terms that do not themselves utilize intentional or semantic concepts. In this vein there are attempts to explain intentional relations in terms of causal relations, informational relations, teleological or functional relations, relations involving abstract similarity or isomorphism, and various combinations thereof. What makes these accounts naturalistic is the presumed objectivity and scientific respectability of the properties appelated to in the explanans. What makes them all reductive is their shared presumption that intentionality can be explained in terms that have a wider application to intentional systems as well as to systems that have no mental properties at all.

scholarly journals Analisis Fenomenologi Terhadap Makna dan Realita

2017 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 120
Author(s):  
Moh Nadhir Mu’ammar
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Mind ◽  
First Person ◽  
Person Perspective ◽  
Recent Philosophy ◽  
First Person Perspective

<p>Phenomenology is precisely this deepening of self consciousness, this restless search for what lies back of the objects in which we ordinarily and scientifically lose our <em>attention</em>, or as we now call it our <em>intention</em>. Phenomenology is not merely the theory that this is so, but the putting it into practice, the urge to explore its interminable vistas. As a discipline, it is distinct from but related to other keys in philosophy: such as ontology, epistemology, logics, and ethics. The discipline of phenomenology is defined by its domain of study, its methods, and its main results. This paper globally makes a try at exploring the history and varieties of phenomenology. Phenomenology has been practiced in various guises for centuries, but it came into its down in the early 20<sup>th</sup> century in the works of Husserl, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty and others. Phenomenological issues of intentionality, consciousness, and first-person perspective have been prominent in recent philosophy of mind.</p><p>Fenomenologi lebih tepatnya ialah pendalaman kesadaran-diri, pencarian yang gelisah ini terhadap sesuatu di balik objek-objek yang di dalamnya kita --biasanya dan secara ilmiah-- mengalahkan <em>perhatian</em> kita, atau seperti yang kita sekarang menyebutnya <em>tujuan</em>. Fenomenologi bukan hanya teori bahwa ini adalah begitu, tapi menempatkan dalam praktiknya, dorongan untuk mengeksplorasi pandangan-pandangan yang tak berkesudahan. Sebagai satu disiplin, ia berbeda dari dan terkait dengan kunci-kunci lain dalam filsafat: seperti ontologi, epistemologi, logika, dan etika. Tulisan ini secara umum akan mencoba mengeksplorasi sejarah dan varietas fenomenologi. Fenomenologi  telah berurat-akar selama berabad-abad, namun berbunga pada karya-karya Husserl, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty dan lain-lain. Isu-isu fenomenologis mengenai intensionalitas, kesadaran, dan perspektif orang-pertama cukup menyolok pada filsafat pikiran akhir-akhir ini.</p>

scholarly journals Interactive and face-to-face communication:a perspective from philosophy of mind and language

Seminar.net ◽  
2006 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Halvor Nordby
Keyword(s):  
Conceptual Framework ◽  
Philosophy Of Mind ◽  
Further Education ◽  
Philosophical Analysis ◽  
Interactive Communication ◽  
Face To Face ◽  
Successful Communication ◽  
Recent Philosophy ◽  
Similarities And Differences ◽  
Normative Dimension

The aim of this article is to derive fundamental communication conditions from central assumptions in recent philosophy of mind and language, and then use these conditions to clarify essential similarities and differences between face-to-face and interactive communication. The analyses are to a large extent made on the basis of participant observations and dialogues with students in a further education course for medical paramedics, but the conclusions should be of interest to anyone who has a pedagogical interest in understanding the nature of the two forms of communication. The arguments set out in the article have both a descriptive and a normative dimension. They are descriptive in the sense that they aim to give a philosophical analysis of successful communication; they are normative in the sense that they seek to understand how communication can be improved. The article concludes that the philosophical analysis presented constitutes a plausible conceptual framework for analyzing empirical phenomena related to face-to-face and interactive communication.

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