I argue that a dilemma arises for naturalistic philosophers of mind in the naturalised semantics tradition. Giving a naturalistic account of the mind is a pressing problem. Brentano’s Thesis — that a state is mental if, and only if, that state has underived representational content — provides an attractive route to naturalising the mental. If true, Brentano’s Thesis means that naturalising representation is sufficient for naturalising the mental. But a naturalist who accepts Brentano’s Thesis thus commits to an eliminativism about the category of the mental. This is because naturalistic theories of representation are reductive, and so over-generalise by applying to patently non-mental states. According to these theories, it has been argued, phenomena like tree rings and saliva come out as representational. Only proposing further Naturalistic conditions on representation could avoid the eliminativist conclusion. But this shows that Naturalists have made only limited progress towards naturalising the mental. And if a Naturalist rejects Brentano’s Thesis, then she gives up on a clear link between representation and mentality. Hence, it is incumbent on the Naturalist to propose another, naturalistically acceptable, mark of the mental. This, again, shows that Naturalists have made only limited progress on the issue of naturalising the mental.
{"title":"A dilemma for naturalistic theories of intentionality","authors":"Michael Hegarty","doi":"10.4013/FSU.2021.221.07","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4013/FSU.2021.221.07","url":null,"abstract":"I argue that a dilemma arises for naturalistic philosophers of mind in the naturalised semantics tradition. Giving a naturalistic account of the mind is a pressing problem. Brentano’s Thesis — that a state is mental if, and only if, that state has underived representational content — provides an attractive route to naturalising the mental. If true, Brentano’s Thesis means that naturalising representation is sufficient for naturalising the mental. But a naturalist who accepts Brentano’s Thesis thus commits to an eliminativism about the category of the mental. This is because naturalistic theories of representation are reductive, and so over-generalise by applying to patently non-mental states. According to these theories, it has been argued, phenomena like tree rings and saliva come out as representational. Only proposing further Naturalistic conditions on representation could avoid the eliminativist conclusion. But this shows that Naturalists have made only limited progress towards naturalising the mental. And if a Naturalist rejects Brentano’s Thesis, then she gives up on a clear link between representation and mentality. Hence, it is incumbent on the Naturalist to propose another, naturalistically acceptable, mark of the mental. This, again, shows that Naturalists have made only limited progress on the issue of naturalising the mental.","PeriodicalId":41989,"journal":{"name":"Filosofia Unisinos","volume":"22 1","pages":"59-68"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-03-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42336431","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In 1980s, neuroscientists joined philosophers and psychologists in the investigation of volitional actions and freedom of will. In a series of experiments pioneered by Benjamin Libet (1985), it was observed that some neural activities correlated with volitional action regularly precedes the conscious will to perform it, which suggests that what appears to be a free action may actually be predetermined by some neural activities, even before the conscious intention to act arises. Shortly after publication of that study, Libet’s findings and interpretations were started to be criticized on philosophical and methodological grounds. In this study, the legitimacy of the criticisms directed to Libet’s and his successors’ experiments is discussed by taking recent neuroscience studies on volition into account and it is argued that these criticisms are not sufficient to eliminate the doubt that these experiments casted on the freedom of the will.
{"title":"Knowing your choice before you choose","authors":"Hasan Çağatay","doi":"10.4013/FSU.2021.221.01","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4013/FSU.2021.221.01","url":null,"abstract":"In 1980s, neuroscientists joined philosophers and psychologists in the investigation of volitional actions and freedom of will. In a series of experiments pioneered by Benjamin Libet (1985), it was observed that some neural activities correlated with volitional action regularly precedes the conscious will to perform it, which suggests that what appears to be a free action may actually be predetermined by some neural activities, even before the conscious intention to act arises. Shortly after publication of that study, Libet’s findings and interpretations were started to be criticized on philosophical and methodological grounds. In this study, the legitimacy of the criticisms directed to Libet’s and his successors’ experiments is discussed by taking recent neuroscience studies on volition into account and it is argued that these criticisms are not sufficient to eliminate the doubt that these experiments casted on the freedom of the will.","PeriodicalId":41989,"journal":{"name":"Filosofia Unisinos","volume":"22 1","pages":"01-11"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-03-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46266772","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Prompted by our commentators, we take this response as an opportunity to clarify the premises, attitudes, and methods of our enactive approach to human languaging. We high-light the need to recognize that any investigation, particularly one into language, is always a concretely situated and self-grounding activity; our attitude as researchers is one of knowing as engagement with our subject matter. Our task, formulating the missing categories that can bridge embodied cognitive science with language research, requires avoiding premature abstractions and clarifying the multiple circularities at play. Our chosen method is dialectical, which has prompted several interesting observations that we respond to, particularly with respect to what this method means for enactive epistemology and ontology. We also clarify the important question of how best to conceive of the variety of social skills we progressively identify with our method and are at play in human languaging. Are these skills socially constituted or just socially learned? The difference, again, leads to a clarification that acts, skills, actors, and interactions are to be conceived as co-emerging categories. We illustrate some of these points with a discussion of an example of aspects of the model at play in a study of gift giving in China.Keywords: Enactive epistemology, Enactive ontology, Dialectics, languaging, Shared know-how.
{"title":"Letting language be: reflections on enactive method","authors":"E. Cuffari, E. D. Di Paolo, Hanne De Jaegher","doi":"10.4013/FSU.2021.221.14","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4013/FSU.2021.221.14","url":null,"abstract":"Prompted by our commentators, we take this response as an opportunity to clarify the premises, attitudes, and methods of our enactive approach to human languaging. We high-light the need to recognize that any investigation, particularly one into language, is always a concretely situated and self-grounding activity; our attitude as researchers is one of knowing as engagement with our subject matter. Our task, formulating the missing categories that can bridge embodied cognitive science with language research, requires avoiding premature abstractions and clarifying the multiple circularities at play. Our chosen method is dialectical, which has prompted several interesting observations that we respond to, particularly with respect to what this method means for enactive epistemology and ontology. We also clarify the important question of how best to conceive of the variety of social skills we progressively identify with our method and are at play in human languaging. Are these skills socially constituted or just socially learned? The difference, again, leads to a clarification that acts, skills, actors, and interactions are to be conceived as co-emerging categories. We illustrate some of these points with a discussion of an example of aspects of the model at play in a study of gift giving in China.Keywords: Enactive epistemology, Enactive ontology, Dialectics, languaging, Shared know-how.","PeriodicalId":41989,"journal":{"name":"Filosofia Unisinos","volume":"22 1","pages":"117-124"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-03-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44144577","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Echoing Socrates’ remarks to Phaedrus — namely, that it is by “perceiving and bringing together in one idea the scattered particulars, that one may make clear by definition the particular thing which he wishes to explain”, and that we shall divide things “where the natural joints are, and not trying to break any part, after the manner of a bad carver” (Phaedrus, 265d-e) —, one could say that in some ways each of the papers in this special issue aims at carving an aspect of cognition, or language, or both, at its joints. This does not imply that this is a volume of Platonist variations. However, it calls our attention to the metaphysical framework of contemporary understandings of cognition and language.
呼应苏格拉底对费德鲁斯的评论即是通过“感知和汇集在一个想法分散的细节,你可以明确的定义特定的事情,他希望解释”,我们要把事情“天然关节在哪里,而不是试图打破,任何部分的一个坏卡佛”(菲德拉斯,265 d e),可以说,在某种程度上每个论文旨在雕刻在这个特殊问题的一个方面认知或语言,或两者兼而有之,在它的关节。这并不意味着这是一本柏拉图主义的变种书。然而，它引起了我们对当代认知和语言理解的形而上学框架的关注。
{"title":"Carving cognition and language at their joints","authors":"Cesar Fernando Meurer, R. Krempel","doi":"10.4013/FSU.2021.221.AP","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4013/FSU.2021.221.AP","url":null,"abstract":"Echoing Socrates’ remarks to Phaedrus — namely, that it is by “perceiving and bringing together in one idea the scattered particulars, that one may make clear by definition the particular thing which he wishes to explain”, and that we shall divide things “where the natural joints are, and not trying to break any part, after the manner of a bad carver” (Phaedrus, 265d-e) —, one could say that in some ways each of the papers in this special issue aims at carving an aspect of cognition, or language, or both, at its joints. This does not imply that this is a volume of Platonist variations. However, it calls our attention to the metaphysical framework of contemporary understandings of cognition and language.","PeriodicalId":41989,"journal":{"name":"Filosofia Unisinos","volume":"22 1","pages":"38-39"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-03-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43818752","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
ness and concreteness. Concreteness is traditionally considered in the twentieth century philosophy as a feature of a material object in contrast to abstractness. This distinction marks a line in the metaphysical debate about entities. There is no consensual account of what they are, but there are clear paradigmatic cases that enable the distinction: “(...) [I]t is universally acknowledged that numbers and the other objects of pure mathematics are abstract (if they exist), whereas rocks and trees and human beings are concrete” (Rosen, 2020, para. 1). According to the authors of linguistic enact ivism, the philosophical tradition maintains that “(...) the concrete is that which is closer to actual perceptions, to the fact icity of the real world, while the abstract is that which is more general, that which, removed from the senses, indicates commonalities across actual instantiations” (LB, p. 111). Indeed, it is acknowledged that the distinction between the mental and material realms have been a crucial factor in the development of distinction between abstract and concrete since Descartes
{"title":"On the notion of dialectics in the linguistic bodies theory","authors":"Nara M. Figueiredo","doi":"10.4013/FSU.2021.221.13","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4013/FSU.2021.221.13","url":null,"abstract":"ness and concreteness. Concreteness is traditionally considered in the twentieth century philosophy as a feature of a material object in contrast to abstractness. This distinction marks a line in the metaphysical debate about entities. There is no consensual account of what they are, but there are clear paradigmatic cases that enable the distinction: “(...) [I]t is universally acknowledged that numbers and the other objects of pure mathematics are abstract (if they exist), whereas rocks and trees and human beings are concrete” (Rosen, 2020, para. 1). According to the authors of linguistic enact ivism, the philosophical tradition maintains that “(...) the concrete is that which is closer to actual perceptions, to the fact icity of the real world, while the abstract is that which is more general, that which, removed from the senses, indicates commonalities across actual instantiations” (LB, p. 111). Indeed, it is acknowledged that the distinction between the mental and material realms have been a crucial factor in the development of distinction between abstract and concrete since Descartes","PeriodicalId":41989,"journal":{"name":"Filosofia Unisinos","volume":"22 1","pages":"108-116"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-03-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46345431","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The “colored-brain thesis”, or strong qualitative physicalism, is discussed from historical and philosophical perspectives. This thesis was proposed by Thomas Case (1888), in a non-materialistic context, and is close to views explored by H. H. Price (1932) and E. Boring (1933). Using Mary’s room thought experiment, one can argue that physicalism implies qualitative physicalism. Qualitative physicalism involves three basic statements: (i) perceptual internalism, and realism of qualia; (ii) ontic physicalism, charaterized as a description in space, time, and scale; and (iii) mind-brain identity thesis. In addition, (iv) structuralism in physics, and distinguishing the present version from that suggested by H. Feigl and S. Pepper, (v) realism of the physical description. The “neurosurgeon argument” is presented, as to why the greenness of a visually perceived avocado, which (according to this view) is present in the brain as a physical-chemical attribute, would not be seen as green by a neurosurgeon who opens the observer’s skull. This conception is compared with two close views, Russellian (and Schlickian) monisms and panprotopsychism (including panqualityism). According to the strong qualitative physicalism presented here, the phenomenal experience of a quale q is identical to a physico-chemical quality q, which arises from a combination of (1) the materiality wassociated with the brain, and (2) the causal organization or structure of the relevant elements of the brain S, including in this organization the structure of the self: (Sw)q. The “explanatory gap” between mental and physical states is shifted to a gap between the physico-chemical qualities q and the organized materiality of a specific brain region (Sw)q, and is seen as being bridged only by a set of non-explanatory postulates. Keywords: Colored-brain thesis, qualitative physicalism, mind-brain identity thesis, qualia, panprotopsychism, sensorium.
{"title":"The colored-brain thesis","authors":"O. Pessoa Jr.","doi":"10.4013/FSU.2021.221.10","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4013/FSU.2021.221.10","url":null,"abstract":"The “colored-brain thesis”, or strong qualitative physicalism, is discussed from historical and philosophical perspectives. This thesis was proposed by Thomas Case (1888), in a non-materialistic context, and is close to views explored by H. H. Price (1932) and E. Boring (1933). Using Mary’s room thought experiment, one can argue that physicalism implies qualitative physicalism. Qualitative physicalism involves three basic statements: (i) perceptual internalism, and realism of qualia; (ii) ontic physicalism, charaterized as a description in space, time, and scale; and (iii) mind-brain identity thesis. In addition, (iv) structuralism in physics, and distinguishing the present version from that suggested by H. Feigl and S. Pepper, (v) realism of the physical description. The “neurosurgeon argument” is presented, as to why the greenness of a visually perceived avocado, which (according to this view) is present in the brain as a physical-chemical attribute, would not be seen as green by a neurosurgeon who opens the observer’s skull. This conception is compared with two close views, Russellian (and Schlickian) monisms and panprotopsychism (including panqualityism). According to the strong qualitative physicalism presented here, the phenomenal experience of a quale q is identical to a physico-chemical quality q, which arises from a combination of (1) the materiality wassociated with the brain, and (2) the causal organization or structure of the relevant elements of the brain S, including in this organization the structure of the self: (Sw)q. The “explanatory gap” between mental and physical states is shifted to a gap between the physico-chemical qualities q and the organized materiality of a specific brain region (Sw)q, and is seen as being bridged only by a set of non-explanatory postulates. Keywords: Colored-brain thesis, qualitative physicalism, mind-brain identity thesis, qualia, panprotopsychism, sensorium.","PeriodicalId":41989,"journal":{"name":"Filosofia Unisinos","volume":"22 1","pages":"84-93"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-03-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48613985","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The authors of Linguistic Bodies appeal to shared know-how to explain the social and participatory interactions upon which linguistic skills and agency rest. However, some issues lurk around the notion of shared know-how and require attention and clarification. In particular, one issue concerns the agent behind the shared know-how, a second one concerns whether shared know-how can be reducible to individual know-how or not. In this paper, I sustain that there is no single answer to the first issue; depending on the case, shared know-how can belong to the participants of a social activity or to the system the participants bring forth together. In relation to the second issue, I sustain, following the authors, a non-reductive account of shared know-how. I also suggest that responsiveness to others, which is a fundamental element of shared know-how, can be extended by perceptual learning.Keywords: Shared know-how, participatory sense-making, social agency, responsiveness to others, enactivism.
{"title":"The shared know-how in Linguistic Bodies","authors":"E. Carvalho","doi":"10.4013/FSU.2021.221.11","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4013/FSU.2021.221.11","url":null,"abstract":"The authors of Linguistic Bodies appeal to shared know-how to explain the social and participatory interactions upon which linguistic skills and agency rest. However, some issues lurk around the notion of shared know-how and require attention and clarification. In particular, one issue concerns the agent behind the shared know-how, a second one concerns whether shared know-how can be reducible to individual know-how or not. In this paper, I sustain that there is no single answer to the first issue; depending on the case, shared know-how can belong to the participants of a social activity or to the system the participants bring forth together. In relation to the second issue, I sustain, following the authors, a non-reductive account of shared know-how. I also suggest that responsiveness to others, which is a fundamental element of shared know-how, can be extended by perceptual learning.Keywords: Shared know-how, participatory sense-making, social agency, responsiveness to others, enactivism.","PeriodicalId":41989,"journal":{"name":"Filosofia Unisinos","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-03-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44159485","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
El analisis de las los sentimientos morales irregulares que Smith describe en TMS II.iii evidencia la gran influencia de la teoria de las pasiones de David Hume en la moral de su sucesor, asi como las divergencias entre las teorias morales de ambos filosofos escoceses. Junto con ello, estas situaciones atipicas permiten tambien captar con claridad las distintas partes del juicio moral smithiano, y excluir – contradiciendo la afirmacion del mismo Smith – la influencia de la suerte moral en este. Palabras clave: Adam Smith, David Hume, juicio moral, pasiones, suerte moral.
{"title":"The influence of Hume’s theory of passions in Adam Smith’s account of moral judgment","authors":"M. Carrasco","doi":"10.4013/RFU.V21I3.18860","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4013/RFU.V21I3.18860","url":null,"abstract":"El analisis de las los sentimientos morales irregulares que Smith describe en TMS II.iii evidencia la gran influencia de la teoria de las pasiones de David Hume en la moral de su sucesor, asi como las divergencias entre las teorias morales de ambos filosofos escoceses. Junto con ello, estas situaciones atipicas permiten tambien captar con claridad las distintas partes del juicio moral smithiano, y excluir – contradiciendo la afirmacion del mismo Smith – la influencia de la suerte moral en este. Palabras clave: Adam Smith, David Hume, juicio moral, pasiones, suerte moral.","PeriodicalId":41989,"journal":{"name":"Filosofia Unisinos","volume":"21 1","pages":"268-276"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-11-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45805755","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
We are pleased to present to the Brazilian and international philosophical community the third number of the twenty-one volume (2020 - September-December) of Unisinos Journal of Philosophy, which consists of eight articles and one book review. The excellent articles published in this number deal with varied topics, such as the moral dimension of torture, the indispensability of i-desires, the belief and pluralistic ignorance, the influence of Hume’s theory of passions on Smith’s moral theory, the priority of injustice, the strength of the ethics of alterity, an objection to Chalmers’s conceivability argument and an objection against Searle’s ontological subjectivity of consciousness thesis. It also has an important review that analyzes tyranny in Plato’s Republic.
我们很高兴向巴西和国际哲学界介绍《Unisinos Journal of Philosophy》21卷(2020年9月至12月)的第三期，其中包括八篇文章和一篇书评。本刊发表的优秀文章涉及各种主题，如酷刑的道德维度、自我欲望的不可或缺性、信仰和多元无知、休谟的激情理论对史密斯道德理论的影响、不公正的优先性、另类伦理的力量、对查尔默斯的可想象性论点的反对以及对塞尔的意识本体论主体性论点的反对。它也有一个重要的评论，分析柏拉图的《理想国》中的暴政。
{"title":"Presentation","authors":"D. Coitinho","doi":"10.4013/fsu.2020.213.ap","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4013/fsu.2020.213.ap","url":null,"abstract":"We are pleased to present to the Brazilian and international philosophical community the third number of the twenty-one volume (2020 - September-December) of Unisinos Journal of Philosophy, which consists of eight articles and one book review. The excellent articles published in this number deal with varied topics, such as the moral dimension of torture, the indispensability of i-desires, the belief and pluralistic ignorance, the influence of Hume’s theory of passions on Smith’s moral theory, the priority of injustice, the strength of the ethics of alterity, an objection to Chalmers’s conceivability argument and an objection against Searle’s ontological subjectivity of consciousness thesis. It also has an important review that analyzes tyranny in Plato’s Republic.","PeriodicalId":41989,"journal":{"name":"Filosofia Unisinos","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-11-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47003212","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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