Wilfrid Sellars' Semantic Solution of the Mind-Body Problem

1970 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 177-199
Author(s):  
Józef Bremer
Keyword(s):  
Ludwig Wittgenstein ◽  
Body Problem ◽  
Formal Logic ◽  
Formal Structure ◽  
Wilfrid Sellars ◽  
Sharp Distinction ◽  
Pure Mathematics ◽  
Mind Body Problem ◽  
And Mathematics ◽  
The Mind

In his philosophical works Wilfrid Sellars (1912-1989) - like Ludwig Wittgenstein - clearly distinguishes the domain of philosophy from that of empirical sciences. Within the framework of this differentiation he insists on a further sharp distinction between the concepts of empirical or factual linguistics and those of pure semiotic. It is quite clear - thus Sellars's example - that formal logic and pure mathematics are not empirical sciences nor do they constitute branches of any such science. This distinction was historically gained from the development of pure syntax. According to Sellars, pure syntaxis concerned with „rules defining the formal structure of calculi rather than languages'' (Sellars, PPE 182). In a syntactic system understood in this sense we use neither the concepts of designation or truth, nor of verifiability or meaningfulness. The concepts used in logic and mathematics - taken as examples of such systems - are clarified through identification with concepts which occur in the formation and transformation of definitive rules of calculi. In this context, logic and mathematics are normative rather than factual sciences. The basis of their norms is grounded in humanly conceived rules.

Consciousness as Existence, and the End of Intentionality

2001 ◽  
Vol 48 ◽  
pp. 1-26
Author(s):  
Ted Honderich
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Mind ◽  
Body Problem ◽  
Physical World ◽  
Formal Logic ◽  
Philosophical Psychology ◽  
The Core ◽  
The Past ◽  
Mind Body Problem ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Past Millennium

It was only in the last century of the past millennium that the Philosophy of Mind began to flourish as a part of philosophy with some autonomy, enough for students to face examination papers in it by itself. Despite an inclination in some places to give it the name of Philosophical Psychology, it is not any science of the mind. This is not to say that the Philosophy of Mind is unempirical, but that it is like the rest of philosophy in being more taken up with good thinking about experienced facts than with establishing, elaborating or using them. Logic, if not formal logic, is the core of all philosophy, and so of the Philosophy of Mind. The discipline's first question is what it is for a thing to be conscious, whatever its capabilities. The discipline's second question is how a thing's being conscious is related to the physical world, including chairs, brains and bodily movements—the mind-brain or mind-body problem.

Emergentism

1982 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 473-488 ◽  
Author(s):  
William Hasker
Keyword(s):  
Body Problem ◽  
Wilfrid Sellars ◽  
Mind Body Problem ◽  
The Mind

Great philosophical problems are known by their power to rise, phoenix-like, from the ashes of their own dissolution. Indeed, it may be only thus that we are finally convinced of the enduring significance of a problem. The mind-body problem has been dissolved at least twice in the last fifty years: once by the positivists, and again by the therapeutic analysts. Yet it strongly re-asserts itself, so that it is barely a hyperbole when Wilfrid Sellars says that this problem ‘soon turns out, as one picks at it, to be nothing more nor less than the philosophical enterprise as a whole’.

The Mind-Body Problem Revisited

1975 ◽  
Vol 20 (8) ◽  
pp. 660-660
Author(s):  
MADGE SCHEIBEL ◽  
ARNOLD SCHEIBEL
Keyword(s):  
Body Problem ◽  
Mind Body Problem ◽  
The Mind

Zombies and Dolls

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marcello Massimini ◽  
Giulio Tononi
Keyword(s):  
Body Problem ◽  
Thought Experiments ◽  
Turing Test ◽  
Hard Problem ◽  
Mind Body Problem ◽  
The Hard Problem ◽  
The Mind ◽  
The Brain

This chapter uses thought experiments and practical examples to introduce, in a very accessible way, the hard problem of consciousness. Soon, machines may behave like us to pass the Turing test and scientists may succeed in copying and simulating the inner workings of the brain. Will all this take us any closer to solving the mysteries of consciousness? The reader is taken to meet different kind of zombies, the philosophical, the digital, and the inner ones, to understand why many, scientists and philosophers alike, doubt that the mind–body problem will ever be solved.

Brute Necessity and the Mind–Body Problem

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Van Cleve
Keyword(s):  
Body Problem ◽  
Necessary Truths ◽  
Mind Body Problem ◽  
The Mind

In a growing number of papers one encounters arguments to the effect that certain philosophical views are objectionable because they would imply that there are necessary truths for whose necessity there is no explanation. For short, they imply that there are brute necessities. Therefore, the arguments conclude, the views in question should be rejected in favor of rival views under which the necessities would be explained. This style of argument raises a number of questions. Do necessary truths really require explanation? Are they not paradigms of truths that either need no explanation or automatically have one, being in some sense self-explanatory? If necessary truths do admit of explanation or even require it, what types of explanation are available? Are there any necessary truths that are truly brute? This chapter surveys various answers to these questions, noting their bearing on arguments from brute necessity and arguments concerning the mind–body problem.

Metaphysics and the Mind-Body Problem. Michael E. Levin

Ethics ◽  
1981 ◽  
Vol 92 (1) ◽  
pp. 174-176
Author(s):  
Gilbert Harman
Keyword(s):  
Body Problem ◽  
Mind Body Problem ◽  
The Mind
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