Online research in philosophy

The first book synthesizing the many different topics that surround the issue of personal identity, this text makes an important contribution to the philosophy of personal identity and mind, and to epistemology.

The current orthodoxy on mental representation can be characterized in terms of three
central ideas. The first is ontological, the second semantic, and the third methodological. After
elucidating those, I argue that the emerging picture of mental representation is satisfactory only as
an account of mental representation at the sub-personal level. It is unsatisfactory, in a principled
way, as an account of mental representation at the personal level.

This paper argues that, while there is a difference between personal and sub-personal explanation, claims of autonomy should be treated with scepticism. It distinguishes between horizontal and vertical explanatory relations that might hold between facts at the personal and farts at the sub-personal level. Noting that many philosophers are prepared to accept vertical explanatory relations between the two levels, I argue for the stronger claim that, in the case of at least three central personal level phenomena, the demands of explanatory adequacy require postulating horizontal explanatory relations.

This paper argues that, while there is a difference between personal and sub-personal explanation, claims of autonomy should be treated with scepticism. It distinguishes between horizontal and vertical explanatory relations that might hold between facts at the personal and farts at the sub-personal level. Noting that many philosophers are prepared to accept vertical explanatory relations between the two levels, I argue for the stronger claim that, in the case of at least three central personal level phenomena, the demands of explanatory adequacy require postulating horizontal explanatory relations.

In this paper, I argue that we should not ascribe beliefs and desires to subjects like zombies or (present day) computers which do not have phenomenal consciousness. In order to ascribe beliefs, we must distinguish between personal and subpersonal content. There may be states in my brain which represent the array of light intensities on my retina, but these states are not beliefs, because they are merely subpersonal. I argue that we cannot distinguish between personal and subpersonal content without reference to phenomenal consciousness. I argue for this by examining two attempts to account for belief without reference to phenomenal consciousness, functionalism and Dennett's patterns of behavior theory, and showing that they both fail. In the course of the arguments that these attempts fail, I develop some positive reasons for believing that phenomenal consciousness is indeed necessary.

This paper attempts in the first instance to clarify the application of the personal/sub-personal distinction to psychoanalysis and to indicate how this issue is related to that of psychoanalysis" epistemology. It is argued that psychoanalysis may be regarded either as a form of personal psychology, or as a form of jointly personal and sub-personal psychology, but not as a form of sub-personal psychology. It is further argued that psychoanalysis indicates a problem with the personal/sub-personal distinction itself as understood by Dennett A revised view of the distinction, which is argued to reflect its true metaphysical significance, is proposed.

I defend a conception of the relationship between the personal and sub-personal levels as interaction withoutreduction.There are downward inferences from the personal to the sub-personal level but we find upward explanatory gaps when we try to construct illuminating accounts of personal level conditions using just sub-personal level notions. This conception faces several serious challenges but the objection that I consider in this paper says that, when theories support downward inferences from the personal to the sub-personal level, this is the product of an unacceptably • mechanistic view of persons. According to this objection, if we were to focus on persons as conscious rational thinkers and agents then the support for putative downward inferences would be undermined. I consider and reject developments of this objection in response to two arguments for downward inferences.

Starting from Dennett's distinction between personal and sub-personal levels of description, I consider the relationships amongst three levels: the personal level, the level of information-processing mechanisms, and the level of neurobiology. I defend a conception of the relationship between the personal level and the sub-personal level of information-processing mechanisms as interaction without reduction . Even given a nonreductionist conception of persons, philosophical theorizing sometimes supports downward inferences from the personal to the sub-personal level. An example of a downward inference is provided and an objection is considered.

Since 1969, when Dennett introduced a distinction between personal and sub-personal levels of explanation, many philosophers have used 'sub-personal' very loosely, and Dennett himself has abandoned a view of the personal level as genuinely autonomous. I recommend a position in which Dennett's original distinction is crucial, by arguing that the phenomenon called mental causation is on view only at the properly personal level. If one retains the commit-' ments incurred by Dennett's early distinction, then one has a satisfactory anti-physicalistic, anti-dualist philosophy of mind. It neither interferes with the projects of sub-personal psychology, nor encourages ; instrumentalism at the personal level.

Locke’s account of personal identity has been highly influential because of its emphasis on a psychological criterion. The same consciousness is required for being the same person. It is not so clear, however, exactly what Locke meant by ‘consciousness’ or by ‘having the same consciousness’. Interpretations vary: consciousness is seen as identical to memory, as identical to a first personal appropriation of mental states, and as identical to a first personal distinctive experience of the qualitative features of one’s own thinking. There is wide agreement, however, that Locke’s theory of personal identity is meant to complement his moral and theological commitments to a system of divine punishment and reward in an afterlife. But these commitments seem to require also a metaphysical criterion, and Locke is insistent that it cannot be substance. The difficulty reconciling the psychological and metaphysical requirements of the theory has led, at worst, to charges of incoherence and, at best, to a slew of interpretations, none of which is widely accepted.