Consciousness AND REGRESS

2008 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-57 ◽  
Author(s):  
KEITH LEHRER
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Mind ◽  
Textual Analysis ◽  
History Of Philosophy ◽  
Thomas Reid ◽  
Regress Problem ◽  
History Of

Thomas Reid has a theory of consciousness that is central to his philosophy of mind but which raises a regress problem. I have two tasks in this paper. The first is to give an account of Reid's views on consciousness and the avoidance of the regress based on textual analysis. The second is to expand the theory of consciousness Reid gives to offer a deeper explanation of how the regress is avoided that is based on Reid's philosophy of mind but goes beyond any text from Reid that I know. The distinction is important. Philosophers are inclined to attribute to a philosopher views that they have invented by studying the philosopher. Both textual analysis and invention based on a philosopher's writings are legitimate uses of the history of philosophy. When they are confused, however, arguments about what the philosopher held generate confusion. If you invent something from his or her philosophy, even something implied by it, that is your philosophy, not the philosopher's. The distinction is important for avoiding useless disputes. This first part of my paper is an attempt to remain true to the texts of Reid. The second part goes beyond the text, though it is what I extrapolate from Reid.

Brentano, Franz Clemens (1838–1917)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roderick M. Chisholm ◽  
Peter Simons
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Philosophy Of Mind ◽  
Philosophy Of Language ◽  
History Of Philosophy ◽  
Descriptive Psychology ◽  
Phenomenological Movement ◽  
Precise Statement ◽  
Philosophical Language ◽  
History Of ◽  
Sparse Ontology

Brentano was a philosopher and psychologist who taught at the Universities of Würzburg and Vienna. He made significant contributions to almost every branch of philosophy, notably psychology and philosophy of mind, ontology, ethics and the philosophy of language. He also published several books on the history of philosophy, especially Aristotle, and contended that philosophy proceeds in cycles of advance and decline. He is best known for reintroducing the scholastic concept of intentionality into philosophy and proclaiming it as the characteristic mark of the mental. His teachings, especially those on what he called descriptive psychology, influenced the phenomenological movement in the twentieth century, but because of his concern for precise statement and his sensitivity to the dangers of the undisciplined use of philosophical language, his work also bears affinities to analytic philosophy. His anti-speculative conception of philosophy as a rigorous discipline was furthered by his many brilliant students. Late in life Brentano’s philosophy radically changed: he advocated a sparse ontology of physical and mental things (reism), coupled with a linguistic fictionalism stating that all language purportedly referring to non-things can be replaced by language referring only to things.

scholarly journals Contemporary Phenomenology at Its Best: Interview With Professor Dan Zahavi

2014 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 215-220 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dan Zahavi ◽  
Andrei Simionescu-Panait
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Mind ◽  
History Of Philosophy ◽  
Cognitive Research ◽  
History Of ◽  
Scientific Context ◽  
The University

This time around, we have the chance of getting to know Prof. Dan Zahavi of the University of Copenhagen, one of phenomenology's top researchers, whose thought expresses a particular voice in the philosophy of mind and interdisciplinary cognitive research. Today, we shall explore topics regarding phenomenology in our present scientific context, Edmund Husserl's takes on phenomenology, the influence of the history of philosophy on shaping contemporary cognitive research and the links and possibilities between phenomenology and psychology, in both method and practice.

The Aristotelian Theos in Hegel's Philosophy of Mind

2019 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 83-101
Author(s):  
Ermylos Plevrakis
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Mind ◽  
History Of Philosophy ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Vanishing Point ◽  
Speculative Philosophy ◽  
Systematic Significance ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Common ◽  
Systematic Point

AbstractAlthough Hegel does not pass up the opportunity to express his deep admiration for specific aspects of the Aristotelian notion of God, he is not interested in giving a concrete account of its systematic significance for his Philosophy of Mind as a whole. In this article, I seek to take an overarching perspective on both the Aristotelian God and the Hegelian mind. By contrast to the common practice of focusing on Hegel's interpretation of Aristotle in his Lectures on the History of Philosophy, I first examine the Aristotelian text itself and then focus on Hegel's Encyclopaedia Philosophy of Mind, in order to explore the coincidence between the two conceptions from a systematic point of view. With regard to Aristotle, I argue that ‘God’ represents the conceptual vanishing point of his philosophy at which all philosophical sciences appear to converge. With regard to Hegel, I show that it is precisely such conceptual convergence of all philosophical sciences that constitutes both the starting and ending points of the Philosophy of Mind. The result is a novel meta-scientific and non-theistic conception of ‘God’ that provides the means not only to re-evaluate the systematic relation between Hegel and Aristotle but also to reconsider the character, content and aim of speculative philosophy in general.

scholarly journals Revisiting the Early Modern Philosophical Canon

2016 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 365-383 ◽  
Author(s):  
LISA SHAPIRO
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
History Of Science ◽  
Philosophy Of Mind ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
History Of Philosophy ◽  
History Of ◽  
Philosophical Questions

ABSTRACT:I reflect critically on the early modern philosophical canon in light of the entrenchment and homogeneity of the lineup of seven core figures: Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, and Kant. After distinguishing three elements of a philosophical canon—a causal story, a set of core philosophical questions, and a set of distinctively philosophical works—I argue that recent efforts contextualizing the history of philosophy within the history of science subtly shift the central philosophical questions and allow for a greater range of figures to be philosophically central. However, the history of science is but one context in which to situate philosophical works. Looking at the historical context of seventeenth-century philosophy of mind, one that weaves together questions of consciousness, rationality, and education, does more than shift the central questions—it brings new ones to light. It also shows that a range of genres can be properly philosophical and seamlessly diversifies the central philosophers of the period.

scholarly journals Divine and Human Agency from the Standpoint of Historicalism, Scientism, and Phenomenological Realism

2015 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 3-25
Author(s):  
Charles Taliaferro
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Mind ◽  
Human Agency ◽  
History Of Philosophy ◽  
Physical Sciences ◽  
History Of ◽  
Phenomenological Realism ◽  
Realist Perspective

Phenomenological realism, in the tradition of Dietrich von Hildebrand, is advanced as a promising methodology for a theistic philosophy of divine and human agency. Phenomenological realism is defended in contrast to the practice of historicalism – the view that a philosophy of mind and God should always be done as part of a thoroughgoing history of philosophy, e.g. the use of examples in analytic theology should be subordinated to engaging the work of Kant and other great philosophers. The criticism of theism based on forms of naturalism that give exclusive authority to the physical sciences (or scientism) is criticized from a phenomenological, realist perspective.

Lehrer Reading Reid

Dialogue ◽  
1991 ◽  
Vol 30 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 103-108
Author(s):  
D. D. Todd
Keyword(s):  
Page Number ◽  
English Translation ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
History Of Philosophy ◽  
Thomas Reid ◽  
Monograph Series ◽  
Ideal System ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Mind

Lehrer's “reason for writing this book is that the philosophy of Thomas Reid is widely unread, while the combination of soundness and creativity of his work is unexcelled.” The book contributes to the ongoing Reid revival. Chapter 1 presents an overview of Reid's life and works and the last, Chapter 15, gives Lehrer's appraisal of Reid's philosophy. Chapter 2, “Beyond Impressions and Ideas,” outlines Reid's “refutation of what he called the Ideal System” of impressions and ideas that dominated philosophy from Descartes through Hume, and summarizes Reid's theory of the mind. The remaining chapters conduct the reader through the three books Reid published during his lifetime. There are three chapters covering the Inquiry of the Human Mind (1764), five on the Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man (1785), a chapter comparing Reid on conception and evidence in the Inquiry and the Essays, and three chapters on Essays on the Active Powers of Man (1788). The index is helpful despite occasional references to a page number larger than the number of pages. The bibliography is generally good, although, oddly, Lehrer lists the inaccessible 1937 Latin edition of Reid's important Philosophical Orations and not the English translation published by the Philosophy Research Archives in 1977 and republished by the Journal of the History of Philosophy Monograph Series early in 1989. The text is remarkably free of typographical errors, but on p. 130 Putnam's 1973 article, “Meaning and Reference,” is said to have been published in 1983.

Building Objective Thoughts: Stumpf, Twardowski and the Late Husserl on Psychic Products

2018 ◽  
Vol 100 (3) ◽  
pp. 336-370 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hamid Taieb
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
Philosophy Of Mind ◽  
History Of Philosophy ◽  
Contemporary Philosophy ◽  
History Of ◽  
Mental Acts

Abstract Some Austro-German philosophers considered thoughts to be mind-dependent entities, that is, psychic products. Yet these authors also attributed “objectivity” to thoughts: distinct thinking subjects can have mental acts with “qualitatively” the same content. Moreover, thoughts, once built, can exist beyond the life of their inventor, “embodied” in “documents”. At the beginning of the 20th century, the notion of “psychic product” was at the centre of the debates on psychologism; a hundred years later, it is rather at the margins of the history of philosophy. While Twardowski’s theory of products has been frequently studied, those of Stumpf and the late Husserl have been much less discussed. A presentation of the Austro-German debates about psychic products is all the more important since these discussions might be of direct interest for contemporary philosophy of mind and epistemology. This paper examines the Austro-German notion of psychic products in Stumpf, Twardowski, and the later Husserl.

Oxford Studies in Philosophy of Mind Volume 1

2021 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Mind ◽  
Traditional Approach ◽  
History Of Philosophy ◽  
Cutting Edge ◽  
General Philosophy ◽  
Gender Balance ◽  
History Of ◽  
Armchair Philosophy ◽  
Annual Publication

Oxford Studies in Philosophy of Mind is an annual publication of some of the most cutting-edge work in the philosophy of mind. The philosophy of mind has, for at least half a decade, been torn between a traditional, armchair-led approach and a naturalistic, empirically driven approach. The most prestigious general philosophy journals tend to favor the traditional approach, while journals dedicated to the philosophy of mind tend to favor the naturalistic approach. Meanwhile, the history of philosophy of mind gets no play in philosophy-of-mind-dedicated journals, and is of course published mostly in history-of-philosophy journals. Oxford Studies in Philosophy of Mind will publish work from all three sectors: armchair philosophy of mind, empirically driven philosophy of mind, and history of philosophy of mind. As far as invited contributions are concerned, Oxford Studies in Philosophy of Mind will observe a strict gender balance, with exactly half of the invitees being women and half men. It does not control, of course, the ultimate delivery of manuscripts by the invitees, nor the quantity and quality of submissions from each gender. This inaugural volume contains thirteen articles focused on three themes: the value of consciousness, naturalism and physicalism, and the nature of content.

Epistemology After Sextus Empiricus

2020 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Mind ◽  
Philosophy Of Language ◽  
Action Theory ◽  
History Of Philosophy ◽  
Sextus Empiricus ◽  
The Core ◽  
Pyrrhonian Skepticism ◽  
History Of ◽  
History Of Epistemology

Pyrrhonian skepticism is defined by its commitment to inquiry. The Greek work skepsis means inquiry—not doubt, or whatever else later forms of skepticism took to be at the core of skeptical philosophy. The book proposes that Sextus Empiricus’s legacy in the history of epistemology is that he developed an epistemology of inquiry. The volume’s authors investigate epistemology after Sextus, both ways in which he has influenced the history of philosophy and ways in which he and the Pyrrhonian tradition he represents ought to contribute to contemporary debates. As a whole, the book aims to (re)instate Sextus as an important philosopher in these discussions in much the same way that Aristotle has been brought into discussions in contemporary ethics, action theory, and metaphysics. Sextus provides a fresh take on contemporary debates because he approaches issues of perception, disagreement, induction, and ignorance from the perspective of inquiry. The volume’s contributions address four core themes of Sextus’s skepticism: (1) appearances and perception, (2) the structure of justification and proof, (3) belief and ignorance, and (4) ethics and action. These themes are explored in some historical authors whose work relates to Sextus, including Peripatetic logicians, Locke, Hume, Nietzsche, and German idealists; and they are explored as they figure in today’s epistemology, philosophy of mind, philosophy of language, and ethics.

scholarly journals The Necessity of History for Philosophy – Even Analytic Philosophy

2013 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 299-325 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Redding
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Philosophy Of Mind ◽  
Human Activities ◽  
Analytic Philosophy ◽  
History Of Philosophy ◽  
Wilfrid Sellars ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Normative Considerations

Abstract Analytic philosophers are often said to be indifferent or even hostile to the history of philosophy – that is, not to the idea of history of philosophy as such, but regarded as a species of the genus philosophy rather than the genus history. Here it is argued that such an attitude is actually inconsistent with approaches within the philosophies of mind that are typical within analytic philosophy. It is suggested that the common “argument rather than pedigree” claim – that is, that claim that philosophical ideas should be evaluated only in the context of the reasons for or against them, and not in terms of historical conditions that brought them about – presupposes an early modern “egological” conception of the mind as normatively autonomous, and that such a view is in contradiction with the deeply held naturalistic predispositions of most contemporary philosophers of mind. Using the example of Wilfrid Sellars, who attempted to combine “naturalist” and “normative” considerations in his philosophy of mind, it is argued that only by treating the mind as having an artifactual dimension can these opposing considerations be accommodated. And, if the mind is at least partly understood as artifactual, then, to that extent, like all artifacts, it is to be understood via a narrative about the particular human activities in which those artifacts are produced and in which they function.

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