In the course of criticizing indirect forms of consequentialism Bernard Williams argued that because virtues of character enter into the very content of the self, they cannot be instrumentalised. They must, instead, be viewed as cognitive responses to intrinsic value. This paper investigates this argument and relates it to similar claims in the work of Sartre. The inalienability of the first personal point of view represents a common theme and informs a further argument that an agent can only think of (...) him or herself as merely one amongst others via a distinctive ethical use of the trope of irony. (shrink)

(2013). Will it be me? Identity, concern and perspective. Canadian Journal of Philosophy: Vol. 43, No. 2, pp. 206-226.

Personal identity theory has become increasingly sensitive to the importance of the first-person perspective. However, certain ways of speaking about that perspective do not allow the full temporal aspects of first-person perspectives on the self to come into view. In this paper I consider two recent phenomenologically-informed discussions of personal identity that end up yielding metaphysically divergent views of the self: those of Barry Dainton and Galen Strawson. I argue that when we take a properly temporally indexical view of the (...) first-person perspective, and thereby resist the assumption that phenomenally-figured and theoretically-figured identity claims must have a common object, the metaphysically awkward accommodations each of these authors is compelled to make cease to be necessary. (shrink)

This essay examines the perspective from which Bas van Fraassen, in his book, The Empirical Stance, explains the project of empiricism. I argue that this perspective is a robustly transcendental perspective, which suggests that the tradition of empiricism lacks the resources to explain itself. I offer an alternative history of epistemic voluntarism in twentieth-century philosophy to the history van Fraassen himself provides, one that finds the novelty in van Fraassen's own views to be precisely his reintroduction of the knowing mind (...) into the tradition of analytic philosophy of science. (shrink)

Neste artigo argumenta-se que o programa biolinguístico de Noam Chomsky contém uma ontologia subjacente cuja implicação diz respeito a uma transformação radical da noção de sujeito e da categoria de identidade que lhe sustenta, assim como da noção kuhniana de ciência normal. De fato, um dos desafios de uma ontologia estruturalista da qual Chomsky é pessoalmente distante, mas formalmente próximo, é de transpor as teses sobre o real da questão do ser e do acontecimento para um realismo, campo que proporciona (...) as condições de criação de um sujeito diferencial e genérico pela geração de estruturas sintáticas elementares projetadas em séries de palavras. Desta forma, a capacidade linguística auxilia na produção e na criação da identidade. Argumenta-se que o programa biolinguístico é ainda revolucionário no sentido em que despertou e perpetuou uma nova figura subjetiva da ciência, isto é, uma figura emancipadora do sujeito pensado pela ciência em relação à qual uma ontologia fundamental só pode se adequar na base da multiplicidade, tal como tem feito Alain Badiou. (shrink)

It is often assumed that contemporary physics is more hospitable to divine action (and human freedom) than classical mechanics. The article criticizes this assumption on the grounds of both physics and theology. Most currently discussed models of divine action do not challenge the physicalist assumption that physics provides a true and complete description of nature’s causal web. Thus they resemble physicalism-plus-God. Taking up suggestions from Herman Dooyeweerd and Henri Blocher, I propose an alternative framework for divine action in the world. (...) It takes creation as the starting-point to understand the world and leads to a non-reductionist, multidimensional picture of reality. (shrink)

By focussing on the intentional character of observation in science, we argue that Constructive Empiricism—B.C. van Fraassen’s much debated and explored view of science—is inconsistent. We then argue there are at least two ways out of our Inconsistency Argument, one of which is more easily to square with Constructive Empiricism than the other.

The Two Selves takes the position that the self is not a "thing" easily reduced to an object of scientific analysis. Rather, the self consists in a multiplicity of aspects, some of which have a neuro-cognitive basis (and thus are amenable to scientific inquiry) while other aspects are best construed as first-person subjectivity, lacking material instantiation. As a consequence of their potential immateriality, the subjective aspect of self cannot be taken as an object and therefore is not easily amenable to (...) treatment by current scientific methods. -/- Klein argues that to fully appreciate the self, its two aspects must be acknowledged, since it is only in virtue of their interaction that the self of everyday experience becomes a phenomenological reality. However, given their different metaphysical commitments (i.e., material and immaterial aspects of reality), a number of issues must be addressed. These include, but are not limited to, the possibility of interaction between metaphysically distinct aspects of reality, questions of causal closure under the physical, the principle of energy conservation. -/- After addressing these concerns, Klein presents evidence based on self-reports from case studies of individuals who suffer from a chronic or temporary loss of their sense of personal ownership of their mental states. Drawing on this evidence, he argues that personal ownership may be the factor that closes the metaphysical gap between the material and immaterial selves, linking these two disparate aspects of reality, thereby enabling us to experience a unified sense of self despite its underlying multiplicity. -/- . (shrink)

[For a planned Festschrift on William Lycan, edited by Mitch Green and Jan Michel.] Lycan (2022) sums up his (2019) _On Evidence in Philosophy_ as a “dolorous” book. This is primarily because the book claims that the field is infected with non-rational socio-psychological forces (fashion, bias, etc.) and that there is a persistent lack of consensus on philosophical questions. In this paper, I primarily rebut Lycan's second reason for dolorousness. For one, if we attend carefully to his text, his metaphilosophical (...) despair seems to die a death of 1000 qualifications. For another, several of the most important qualifications to such pessimism have been omitted. In attending to these, we shall see that philosophy has much to be proud of. I also offer an explanation for why many optimistic signs for philosophical progress tend to escape our notice. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that much of the confusion and mystery surrounding the concept of "self" can be traced to a failure to appreciate the distinction between the self as a collection of diverse neural components that provide us with our beliefs, memories, desires, personality, emotions, etc (the epistemological self) and the self that is best conceived as subjective, unified awareness, a point of view in the first person (ontological self). While the former can, and indeed has, been extensively (...) studied by researchers of various disciplines in the human sciences, the latter most often has been ignored -- treated more as a place holder attached to a particular predicate of interest (e.g., concept, reference, deception, esteem, image, regulation, etc). These two aspects of the self, I contend, are not reducible -- one being an object (the epistemological self) and the other a subject (the ontological self). Until we appreciate the difficulties of applying scientific methods and analysis to what cannot be reduced to an object of inquiry without stripping it of its essential aspect (its status as subject), progress on the "self", taken as a pluralistic construct, will continue to address only one part of the problems we face in understanding this most fundamental aspect of human experience. (shrink)

In this paper I argue for the importance of treating mental experience on its own terms. In defense of “experiential realism” I offer a critique of modern psychology’s all-too-frequent attempts to effect an objectification and quantification of personal subjectivity. The question is “What can we learn about experiential reality from indices that, in the service of scientific objectification, transform the qualitative properties of experience into quantitative indices?” I conclude that such treatment is neither necessary for realizing, nor sufficient for capturing, (...) subjectively given states (such as perception, pain, imagery, fear, thought, memory) – that is, for understanding many of the principle objects of psychological inquiry. A “science of mind” that approaches its subject matter from a third-person perspective should, I contend, be treated with a healthy amount of informed skepticism. (shrink)

This Target paper is about the hard problem of phenomenal consciousness (i.e., how is subjective experience possible given the scientific presumption that everything from molecules to minerals to minds is wholly physical?). I first argue that one of the most valuable tools in the scientific arsenal (metaphor) cannot be recruited to address the hard problem due to the inability to forge connections between the stubborn fact of subjective experience and physically grounded models of scientific explanation. I then argue that adherence (...) to the physicalist tenets of contemporary science has a limiting effect on a full appreciation of the phenomenon under discussion. (shrink)