The consciousness of visual experience

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
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Seokman Kang

[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT AUTHOR'S REQUEST.] "This monograph mainly concerns two distinctive features of visual experience. First, visual experience has its own phenomenal dimension. Following the familiar terminology in the literature, I refer to this unique experiential feature as phenomenal character. The phenomenal character of a visual experience is typically taken to be the sui generis property that it has in virtue of being a particular kind of conscious mental state. As Thomas Nagel once put it, 'ocean organism has conscious mental states if and only if there is something that it is like to be that organism--something it is like for the organism' (1974, p. 436). Since then, the phenomenal character of an experience has often been construed as a subjective feel of some sort that manifests itself to the subject when he undergoes the experience that carries it. Alex Byrne thus proposes that 'the phenomenal character of an experience e is a property, specifically a property of e: that property that types e according to what it's like to undergo e' (2002)."--Chapter 1.

Author(s):  
David J. Chalmers

Chapter 1 discusses two questions about the extended mind. First, what is the extended mind thesis? Second, can there be extended consciousness, and if not, why not? The chapter answers the first question by arguing that the thesis should be formulated in terms of perception and action: a subject’s cognitive processes and mental states can be partly constituted by entities that are external to the subject, in virtue of the subject’s interacting with these entities via perception and action. The second question is answered by appealing to direct availability for global control as the physical correlate of consciousness: extended processes always involve indirect availability for global control, mediated by perception and action, so there is no extended consciousness.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
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Jon Marc Asper

[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT REQUEST OF AUTHOR.] In practical deliberation, your aim should not always only be to promote objective goodness. Rather, I argue, you should use your own practical evaluations, as long as they are reasonable. Reasonable evaluations are sensitive to agent-centered reasons (e.g., you should not have a favorite child), instrumental reasons (e.g., to have more common interests with others), and rational reasons. This dissertation primarily develops an account of rational reasons for evaluations. Particularly, I investigate which evaluations rationally fit objective values. For many items (e.g., career paths or hobbies), it is plausible that no particular sharp evaluation is rationally required, even though some evaluations are clearly too high or low. For other items (e.g., someone else's pain), their weight in practical deliberation do not depend on the evaluator's perspective. To explain this difference, I defend an interval account of rationally fitting evaluaations, noting that the intervals can collapse to points. Each chapter rebuts an objection to the interval account. Chapter 1 rebuts the objection that value relations cannot be modeled using relations between intervals. I offer different definitions. Chapter 2 rebuts the objection that arbitrarily sharpened evaluations (within the intervals) cannot be practically authoritative. I respond that they must be practically authoritative or else perfect rationality would be possible in principle. Chapter 3 responds to the objection that evaluations cannot be practically authoritative because it is practically impossible to change them. I grant that it is often permissible to change our evaluations, but I rhetorically challenge the objector to deny that such things can (though need not) contribute meaning to a life.


2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
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Jacob Warren Wright

[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT AUTHOR'S REQUEST.] This dissertation argues for a virtue account of science in which foundational scientific goals are achieved by scientists' employment of virtuous tools and practices. Chapter 1 discusses contemporary literature on the nature and success of biology, especially the realism/antirealism debate within biology. This chapter also provides background into the debate surrounding explanation and understanding. Chapter 2 challenges the idea that successful biology requires appeals to laws of nature by arguing that some foundational scientific goals best realized by unlawful tools and practices. This result provides a criterion for determining whether a discipline is more scientific than another another; disciplines are more or less scientific to the extent that they are able to achieve foundational scientific goals. Chapter 3 examines a test case for the result in Chapter 2 by analyzing McShea and Brandon's [2010] Zero Force Evolutionary Law (ZFEL). I show that the ZFEL's failure as a law does not impact its usefulness to scientists, who are able to use the ZFEL to achieve a number of important, foundational goals. Chapter 4 provides a strategy for determining foundational scientific goals by examining the debate surrounding the relationship between understanding and explanation. By analyzing Khalifa's [2013a] Explanatory Knowledge Model of Understanding, I demonstrate that understanding is not a species of explanation and is thus a foundational scientific goal. It is a goal that scientists aim at, has intrinsic benefit, and is not reducible to other scientific goals. Finally, Chapter 5 presents an outline of the virtue account. On this account, science is successful to the extent it regularly achieves foundational scientific goals. Science does so by employing virtuous tools and practices--those tools and practices that regularly allow for the achievement of foundational goals. The chapter concludes by examining several benefits of this view and considering future avenues for research.


2017 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 6-38
Author(s):  
Avelino Corral Esteban

The subject of this paper was inspired by my collaboration on a project involving the long-term histories of grammatical traditions led by Dr. Philomen Probert at the University of Oxford. Owing to my interest in linguistic typology and the study of the syntax-semantics-pragmatics interface in a number of languages,  – especially Native American languages, which differ in many respects from Indo-European languages,  –, I have observed that some languages cannot be accurately described if we use the grammatical terms and concepts commonly applied to the analysis of extensively studied languages such as English, Spanish or French, as certain grammatical properties of one language may not be equivalent to those of another and, consequently, require a different treatment. Thus, firstly, by adopting a holistic comparative perspective deriving from all areas of grammar, I aim to reveal the distinctive features that Plains Algonquian languages such as Cheyenne / Tsėhésenėstsestȯtse (Montana and Oklahoma, USA), Blackfoot / Siksiká, Kainai, and Pikani, (Montana, USA; Alberta, Canada), Arapaho / Hinóno´eitíít (Wyoming and Oklahoma, USA), and Gros Ventre / White Clay or Atsina / Aaniiih (Montana, USA) display when compared with Indo-European languages such as English, Spanish, French or German. The subsequent examination of these data will provide examples of terms and concepts that are typically used in traditional grammatical descriptions, but that do not serve to characterize the grammar of these Native American languages accurately. Finally, I will attempt to propose alternative terms and concepts that might describe the distinctive grammatical properties exhibited by these languages more adequately.


Author(s):  
A.V. Eremeeva

The relevance of this article is due to the need to study the gender specifics of the relationship between the manifestations of subjectivity (mental states, procedural and effective parameters of the situation) with the basic psychological need for autonomy to apply the data obtained in the practice of psychological and pedagogical support of the educational process at the university. The goal of the empirical research was to determine the gender common and peculiar in the manifestations of subjectivity, depending on the degree of autonomy of the subject of activity. The main hypothesis was the assumption that there are differences in the manifestations of subjectivity in situations with different levels of autonomy among respondents of different genders. The sample consisted of 112 people (56 men and 56 women). The age of men was from 22 to 42 years (M=25, SD=3,5 years). The age of women was from 22 to 45 years (M=24, SD=2,8 years). The respondents - advanced students (n=112) in the form of a free essay described the situations of extrinsic and internal motivation when studying at the university and compared them with each other by any possible criteria. For data processing, the methods of content analysis, frequency analysis of text and the Fisher angular transformation criterion were used. Statistically significant differences in the emotional and intellectual-emotional manifestations of states in subjects of different sexes were revealed. In situations of autonomy, women more often experienced states of joy, interest and passion (p≤0,05), and men experienced pleasure (p≤0,01). The state of relief in situations of non-autonomy was more common for women than for men (p≤0,01). Differences in the frequency of mention of procedural and effective parameters of situations in respondents of different sexes were not found. The results of the study can be used in the development of programs for the adaptation of future specialists to changes in the labor market conditions.


1942 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 290-305 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brewton Berry ◽  
Carl Chapman

The village site, which is the subject of this report, has been known for at least three-quarters of a century. Its large size, the abundance of surface materials, and the nearby presence of a conspicuous earthwork, combined to attract attention to the site. Prof. G. C. Broadhead, of the University of Missouri, explored the region in 1872, and gathered a number of sherds which form part of the present archaeological collection at the University. During the '70's and '80's there were quite a few pseudo-scientific excavations on the site, the published reports of which are more tantalizing than illuminating to the modern student. Fowke was there in 1907; and local amateurs have long made a practice of gathering specimens there, and sending them to scientific institutions.


2005 ◽  
Author(s):  
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Lynn M. (Lynn Marie) Boorady

[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT AUTHOR'S REQUEST.] This study concerns itself with evaluating the effectiveness of teaching a visual topic, such as patternmaking, via a computer. The visual topic being explored, patternmaking, was taught to three levels of undergraduate students at different universities in the Midwest. This paper discusses the outcomes of patternmaking being taught in a traditional lecture style and compares it to the same instruction received through a computer-based animation program. It was found that the most difference in learning outcomes was within the subject groups in the lowest educational level. There was no difference found in the outcomes between the two higher educational level groups. Attributes of the subject groups which may account for the success of this style of learning include prior experience in sewing complete garments and overall GPA. Additional research and improvements to the animation is discussed. Suggestions are made on how to utilize web-based learning in the design curriculum.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
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Lawrence Loiseau

[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT REQUEST OF AUTHOR.] This study addresses Lacan's comments on Marx. While much has been done towards reading Marx with psychoanalysis generally, little had has been done to unpack the meaning and extent of Lacan's own statements on Marx. For example, while Lacanian Marxists like Slavoj Zizek have wielded Lacan to great effect in a critique of post-structuralism, they have neglected the full meaning and complexity of Lacan's own stance. What is argued thereby is that Zizek not only omits the discrete knowledge within Lacan's commentary, but misses what I describe as a Lacan's theory of the social. On the one hand, it is commonly known in Lacanian thought that discourse is responsible for making the subject. On the other hand, what is less known is that Lacan defined discourse as that which makes a social link which, in contrast with Marxist thought, introduces a certain affect and materialism premised on discourse itself, commonly known, but also for providing the underlying strata of topology (namely, paradox) requisite for making any social link between subjects. Although less commonly known, we can nevertheless gain new insight into Marx. On the one hand, Lacan concedes Marx's underlying structuralism. On the other hand, Marx fails to see the true source of discourse's origins, the real itself, and consequently fails to see the true efficacy of discourse. He fails to see how discourse, although negative, stands as entirely positive and material in its distinctive effects. Discourse negotiates subjects and their inimitable objects of desire in this singularity itself. This is where true production lies; it is that which precedes any social or economic theory, which are otherwise premised on reality. Lacan rejects reality.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
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London Brickley

[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT REQUEST OF AUTHOR.] Folklore and science, along with the subject of the future which has slowly over time worked its way into the discourses of both, have a long, complicated history together. One that lives on in the present. (And one that might even prevail into the time to come). This work is not entirely that story. But it is a part of it, presented here as it is in the interest of opening new channels of discourse between two areas of research that are often seen by participants on all sides to be rather divergent, if not entirely oppositional to one another. This exploration culminates in a consideration of the contemporary status of popular science trends and how folklore might continue to operate within them--a proposal which identifies an increasingly emergent (although certainly not exclusively novel) form of folk expression that arises out of the friction caused by queries of scientific "truth," "promise," and "possibility" that is still stuck in a liminal wait for "the future." Both a widespread present-day phenomenon and subsequent set of narratives, expressions, beliefs, and actions that this work has chosen to call "science frictions."


2020 ◽  
pp. 9-31
Author(s):  
Alison Scott-Baumann ◽  
Mathew Guest ◽  
Shuruq Naguib ◽  
Sariya Cheruvallil-Contractor ◽  
Aisha Phoenix

Chapter 1 sets out the ways in which the status and identities of Muslims are caught up in the changing lives of universities. It begins with an account of the segregated seating controversy at University College London in 2013, illustrating how wider issues of power and cultural identity are evoked when the status of Islam within universities becomes the subject of public debate. This picture is developed and contextualized via an extended discussion of the nature of universities, set out as a series of contested histories, each of which privileges particular values and instates specific boundaries of cultural or academic legitimacy. Models considered are the university as public, as neoliberal, as a source of inclusion and exclusion, as postcolonial, and as a site of heightened risk. The chapter’s central aim is to consider how these strands contribute to the heightened ‘othering’ of Islam within ‘Western’ higher education.


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