Brain Hammer

Friday, July 30, 2010

Seventeenth-Century Theories of Consciousness (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

Seventeenth-Century Theories of Consciousness (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy):

In the seventeenth century, “consciousness” began to take on a uniquely modern sense. This transition was sparked by new theories of mind and ideas, and it connected with other important issues of debate during the seventeenth century, including debates over the transparency of the mental, animal consciousness, and innate ideas. Additionally, consciousness was tied closely to moral identity, with both French and Latin lacking even a linguistic distinction between consciousness and conscience (i.e., a moral sensibility). This semantic shift marked a philosophical division between the psychological or phenomenal aspects of thought and a moral sensibility as well. The discussions on all of these topics were rich and varied in the seventeenth century—the article below provides a view from forty thousand feet.

Wednesday, July 28, 2010

A Judge's Guide to Neuroscience

A Judge's Guide to Neuroscience: "

The Law and Neuroscience Project (along with the SAGE Center at UCSB) recently published A Judge's Guide to Neuroscience: A Concise Introduction. The useful manual contains articles by Marcus Raichle, Michael Gazzaniga, Adina Roskies, Read Montague, Scott Grafton, and others. And while it is aimed at judges, I think it might be useful for philosophers interested in these issues as well.

Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Cephalove: Do octopuses play?

Nice article expressing skepticism about claims of octopus play. It seems, though, that an overly important role is played in the author's argument by the flawed argument-by-analogy approach to the problem of other minds.
Cephalove: Do octopuses play?

Thursday, July 22, 2010

first-order representationalism

From Key Terms in Philosophy of Mind (Continuum, 2010):

first-order representationalism, a theory of CONSCIOUSNESS that explains state consciousness (see CONSCIOUSNESS, STATE) in terms of having a certain kind of MENTAL REPRESENTATION (crucially, a representation that need not be represented by any other representation, thus “first-order”) and explains QUALIA or the “WHAT IT IS LIKE” aspects of consciousness (see CONSCIOUSNESS, PHENOMENAL) in terms of the CONTENT of the relevant mental representation. The main distinctive feature of first-order representationalism is that unlike higher-order representationalisms, such as the HIGHER-ORDER THOUGHT THEORY OF CONSCIOUSNESS or the higher-order PERCEPTION theory of consciousness, it does not make it a requirement on a state’s being conscious that it be represented by itself or any other state. One consideration that first-order representationalists raise in support of this part of their view is that it appears, or so it is claimed, that we cannot become aware of the features of an EXPERIENCE itself as opposed to features of what the experience is an experience of. For example, when I attend to my experience of a blue rectangle, it seems that I am only aware of the blueness and the rectangularity—properties presumably instantiated not by my experience but by some physical object in the external world: a blue rectangle. See TRANSPARENCY (OF EXPERIENCE).

Figdor: "Is Mechanistic Explanation of Mind Possible?"

Today in the CUNY Grad Center Cognitive Science Speaker Series:

Carrie Figdor, University of Iowa: "Is Mechanistic Explanation of Mind Possible?"

2:00 pm, Room 7102, CUNY Graduate Center