scholarly journals Why Frege cases do involve cognitive phenomenology but only indirectly

Author(s):  
Alberto Voltolini
Author(s):  
Ruth Garrett Millikan

Over the long run, failures of function are the rule rather than the exception for biological systems, being mostly due not to malfunction but to external conditions not historically “Normal” for performance of a function. Most cognitive failures occur because outside conditions are not Normal for the particular cognitive functions attempted. When unitrackers with well-focused targets fail, the result is misperception or false belief. Failures can also occur in the operation of prior mechanisms whose jobs are to prime unitrackers, to send them after clear targets and to keep them on target as they develop. Redundant unitrackers may be maintained side by side, collecting information about the same thing by different means—so called Frege cases. Equivocal unitrackers may develop, aimed incompatibly toward two or more targets at once. False priming can result in empty unitrackers that are not aimed at anything real at all.


Author(s):  
Joseph Levine

The papers presented in this volume cover topics, such as the “phenomenal concept strategy,” to defend materialism from anti-materialist intuitions, the doctrine of representationalism about phenomenal character, the modal argument against materialism, the nature of demonstrative thought, and cognitive phenomenology. On the one hand, I argue that the phenomenal concept strategy cannot work and that representationalism has certain fatal flaws, at least if it’s to be joined to a materialist metaphysics. On the other, I defend materialism from the modal argument, arguing that it relies on a questionable conflation of semantic and metaphysical issues. I also provide a naturalistic theory of demonstrative thought, criticizing certain philosophical arguments involving that notion in the process. I argue as well that the peculiarly subjective nature of secondary qualities provides a window into the nature of the relation between phenomenal character and intentional content, and conclude that relation involves a robust notion of acquaintance.


Metaphysica ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Bradley Richards

AbstractAcquaintance with the non-sensory cognitive phenomenology of a given intentional content can act as a Fregean sense presenting that content. This provides (i) a mechanism for acquaintance with (a kind of) sense, (ii) a sense that is subject and context invariant, and (iii) a mechanism for the immediate presentation of a referent. This kind of sense can be used to defend


Author(s):  
Jonardon Ganeri

A fundamental claim in Pessoa’s philosophy is that selves are grounded in fields of experience. What, though, if there are no sensations? This very possibility, which seems at first sight to be wholly unavailable to Pessoa, is exactly what is countenanced by the eleventh-century Central Asian philosopher Avicenna. Avicenna says that one can imagine a human being who is created out of nothing flying through the air but having no sensory perceptions. However, there is a phenomenological field, and so a type of centrality, available even to the flying man. A positional conception of self can be grounded in the centrality of a purely cognitive phenomenology. If a purely cognitive landscape of presence is a possibility, then so too is a virtual subject, a heteronym, whose manner of experiencing is purely cognitive.


2008 ◽  
Vol 144 (2) ◽  
pp. 211-238 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bradley Rives
Keyword(s):  

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