Consciousness and Mind presents David Rosenthal's influential work on the nature of consciousness. Central to that work is Rosenthal's higher-order-thought theory of consciousness, according to which a sensation, thought, or other mental state is conscious if one has a higher-order thought that one is in that state. The first four essays develop various aspects of that theory. The next three essays present Rosenthal's homomorphism theory of mental qualities and qualitative consciousness, and show how that theory fits with (...) and helps sustain the HOT theory. A crucial feature of homomorphism theory is that it individuates and taxonomizes mental qualities independently of the way we're conscious of them, and indeed independently of our being conscious of them at all. So the theory accommodates the qualitative character not only of conscious sensations and perceptions, but also of those which fall outside our stream of consciousness. Rosenthal argues that, because this account of mental qualities makes no appeal to consciousness, it enables us to dispel such traditional quandaries as the alleged conceivability of undetectable quality inversion, and to disarm various apparent obstacles to explaining qualitative consciousness and understanding its nature. Six further essays build on the HOT theory to explain various important features of consciousness, among them the complex connections that hold in humans between consciousness and speech, the self-interpretative aspect of consciousness, and the compelling sense we have that consciousness is unified. Two of the essays, one an extended treatment of homomorphism theory, appear here for the first time. There is also a substantive introduction, which draws out the connections between the essays and highlights their implications. (shrink)

The problem of translation confronts every English, or French-language reader of Geschlecht III, from its title page on, by way of Derrida’s decision not to translate the German noun Geschlecht. In this paper, I explore the stakes of Derrida’s refusal to translate, by situating it within the context of the 1984–5 seminar, ‘Philosophical Nationality and Nationalism’, from which the text of Geschlecht III was taken. I show that the question of translation is already at the heart of that seminar, which (...) concerns the place of the idiom in philosophy, and why approaching the difficulty posed by the untranslatability of a term like Geschlecht might be the very objective of Derrida’s reading of Heidegger on Trakl. (shrink)

Everyone interested in Arabic and Persian literature, in Islam and in comparative religion, regrets the death of Arthur J. Arberry, Sir Thomas Adams's Professor of Arabic in the University of Cambridge. Arberry combined rare human qualities and exceptional professional attainment, and this enabled him to make a unique contribution both to learning and to mutual understanding between East and West. He had a deep sense of vocation, which he brought to his unremitting labours as a skilled editor of texts, especially (...) in the field of Islamic mysticism, and as an imaginative translator of these texts of the Koran and of Arabic and Persian poetry, and as a sympathetic interpreter of Sūfism. (shrink)

At the level of our platitudinous background knowledge about things, speech is the expression of thought. And understanding what such expressing involves is central to understanding the relation between thinking and speaking. Part of what it is for a speech act to express a mental state is that the speech act accurately captures the mental state and can convey to others what mental state it is. And for this to occur, the speech act at least must have propositional content that (...) somehow reflects that of the mental state, and perhaps must have other such properties as well. (shrink)

One phenomenon pertains roughly to being awake. A person or other creature is conscious when it's awake and mentally responsive to sensory input; otherwise it's unconscious. This kind of consciousness figures most often in everyday discourse.

No mental phenomenon is more central than consciousness to an adequate understanding of the mind. Nor does any mental phenomenon seem more stubbornly to resist theoretical treatment. Consciousness is so basic to the way we think about the mind that it can be tempting to suppose that no mental states exist that are not conscious states. Indeed, it may even seem mysterious what sort of thing a mental state might be if it is not a conscious state. On this way (...) of looking at things, if any mental states do lack consciousness, they are exceptional cases that call for special explanation or qualification. Perhaps dispositional or cognitive states exist that are not conscious, but nonetheless count as mental states. (shrink)

This essay compares and contrasts pragmatic naturalism with the more well known position of epistemological naturalism on several pivotal issues, in the process offering a pragmatic critique of the latter. It highlights their common rejection of both foundationalism and a priori methods and their positive claims that: what needs examination is not our concept of knowledge but knowledge itself; knowledge must be understood as tied to the world and as a natural phenomenon to be examined in its natural setting; the (...) epistemic endeavor involves unifying its three traditional projects of giving an account of what knowledge is, explaining how knowledge is possible, and providing useful epistemic advice, thus involving normative considerations; and the method of gaining knowledge in general is continuous with the method of science. Yet, there are very great divergences between the two naturalisms concerning the answers offered, and these are explored and evaluated in the development of the essay. (shrink)

Conscious mental states are states we are in some way aware of. I compare higher-order theories of consciousness, which explain consciousness by appeal to such higher-order awareness (HOA), and first-order theories, which do not, and I argue that higher-order theories have substantial explanatory advantages. The higher-order nature of our awareness of our conscious states suggests an analogy with the metacognition that figures in the regulation of psychological processes and behaviour. I argue that, although both consciousness and metacognition involve higher-order psychological (...) states, they have little more in common. One thing they do share is the possibility of misrepresentation; just as metacognitive processing can misrepresent one’s cognitive states and abilities, so the HOA in virtue of which one’s mental states are conscious can, and sometimes does, misdescribe those states. A striking difference between the two, however, has to do with utility for psychological processing. Metacognition has considerable benefit for psychological processing; in contrast, it is unlikely that there is much, if any, utility to mental states’ being conscious over and above the utility those states have when they are not conscious. (shrink)

Mead's pragmatic focus on habit as the foundation of meaning is usually viewed in sharp contrast with Merleau-Ponty's phenomenological examination of meaning within experience. This paper attempts to show the way in which the explicit focus of each philosopher's position is latent within that of the other. For Mead and Merleau-Ponty alike, the content of human awareness at all levels is inseparably linked with the structure of human behavior. And, for both, such a structure is permeated throughout by the ``living (...) meaning'' of anticipatory habit or vital intentionality. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This commentary defends an interpretation of Spinoza that preserves some key elements of traditional rationalism, in which reason does have an independent path to the truth. While it agrees with Lloyd’s general view, in which reason, imagination, and emotion are more closely tied than the Cartesian scheme, in which reason is distinct from the world of bodies, the paper disagrees with her central claim that reason is constituted by the imagination. It argues that the imagination is effective to the (...) extent that it produces forms of knowledge that are analogous to reason. The paper considers her interpretation of Flaubert and the Biblical prophets and claims that it cannot account for why some forms of the imagination might be mistaken or superior to others. In conclusion, it points out that, while ‘unresolved multiplicity’ might be the predicament of those led by the imagination, Spinoza thinks that reason leads to a common perspective and is a superior guide to life. (shrink)

In response to your kind offer to read through portions of the typescript of my thesis pertaining to your views on intentionality, I am sending you a copy of an introductory section to such a chapter.{1} The enclosed typescript represents a first draft, for which I apologize, but I thought it might be useful to get any comments you might have in at the ground floor, so to speak.

This anthology brings together readings mainly from contemporary philosophers, but also from writers of the past two centuries, on the philosophy of mind. Some of the main questions addressed are: is a human being really a mind in relation to a body; if so, what exactly is this mind and how it is related to the body; and are there any grounds for supposing that the mind survives the disintegration of the body?

All mental states, including thoughts, feelings, perceptions, and sensations, often occur consciously. But they all occur also without being conscious. So the first thing a theory of consciousness must do is explain the difference between thoughts, feelings, perceptions, and sensations that are conscious and those which are not.

This chapter contains sections titled: Selfhood and community Value The normative‐empirical split Environmental ethics.

All mental states, including thoughts, feelings, perceptions, and sensations, often occur consciously. But they all occur also without being conscious. So the first thing a theory of consciousness must do is explain the difference between thoughts, feelings, perceptions, and sensations that are conscious and those which are not.

MS, under submission, derived from a Powerpoint presentation at a Conference on Consciousness, Memory, and Perception, in honor of Larry Weiskrantz, City University, London, September 15, 2006.

A touchstone of much modern theorizing about the mind is the idea, still tac- itly accepted by many, that a state's being mental implies that it's conscious. This view is epitomized in the dictum, put forth by theorists as otherwise di-.

Ned BlockÕs influential distinction between phenomenal and access consciousness has become a staple of current discussions of consciousness. It is not often noted, however, that his distinction tacitly embodies unargued theoretical assumptions that favor some theoretical treatments at the expense of others. This is equally so for his less widely discussed distinction between phenomenal consciousness and what he calls reflexive consciousness. I argue that the distinction between phenomenal and access consciousness, as Block draws it, is untenable. Though mental states that (...) have qualitative character plainly differ from those with no mental qualities, a mental stateÕs being conscious is the same property for both kinds of mental state. For one thing, as Block describes access consciousness, that notion does not pick out any property that we intuitively count as a mental stateÕs being conscious. But the deeper problem is that BlockÕs notion of phenomenal consciousness, or phenomenality, is ambiguous as between two very different mental properties. The failure to distinguish these results in the begging of important theoretical questions. Once the two kinds of phenomenality have been distinguished, the way is clear to explain qualitative consciousness by appeal to a model such as the higher-order-thought hypothesis. Ó 2002 Elsevier Science . All rights reserved. (shrink)

Adam Kolber argues against retributivist theories of punishment, based on considerations of moral uncertainty. In this reply, I suggest that Kolber’s argument will not have the implications he supposes, in part because, if it’s able to raise difficulties for retributivism, similar problems will arise for a wide variety of other approaches to punishment.

This paper tests the extent of Spinoza’s liberalism through examining the question whether he would tolerate atheists. The first section analyzes the meaning of atheism through the epistolary exchange with Lambert van Velthuysen. It argues that it makes a difference whether Spinoza is an atheist in the strict sense—someone who explicitly denies the existence of God—or a deist—someone who holds a view of unorthodox God. Spinoza denies the charge that his idea of God undermines morality and he also defends his (...) claim that other monotheistic religions than Christianity might contain a kernel of truth. In the second section, the paper discusses Spinoza’s views on toleration. It argues that the state has a limited interest in regulating religious views and it does this through the “dogmas of universal faith.” The state should tolerate a variety of beliefs about God, including those labeled deist, but strict atheistic beliefs, however, are not to be tolerated. In the third section the paper discusses the challenge of the “virtuous atheist” and compares Spinoza’s views to those of Locke and Bayle. Not only Spinoza’s metaphysics but also his ethical project depends on the proper idea of God. Spinoza explicitly contrasts his view, based on a deist conception of God, with that of Hobbes. He reads Hobbes as an epicurean and an atheist. Spinoza’s critical description of Hobbes’s view helps us understand what he thought atheism was and why he was not very sympathetic to it. Spinoza is intolerant towards atheism because it leads to an immoral life and justifies an absolutist state. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Psychological or political criticism of the parent‐child relation presupposes a normative account of that relation. Such an account is here provided. The normative account can shed most light when the parent‐child relation is presented recognizably, not in Utopian disguise. The purposes of reasonable people partly depend on their interpretations of those of their parents. This is so whether such people accept or reject any particular parental purposes. The filial art sticks to the project of working out the enacted interpretation—until (...) it gets it approximately right. There is a corresponding parental art, neither compensatory nor sacrificial. (shrink)

(No abstract is available for this citation).

in Encyclopedia of Consciousness, ed. William P. Banks, Amsterdam: Elsevier, forthcoming in 2009.

Because there is a fair amount of overlap in the points by Balog and Rey, I will organize this response topically, referring specifically to each commentator as rele- vant. And, because much of the discussion focuses on my higher-order-thought hypothesis independent of questions about metacognition, I will begin by addressing a cluster of issues that have to do with the status, motivation, and exact formulation of that hypothesis.

red and round. According to common sense, the red, round thing we see is the tomato itself. When we have a hallucinatory vision of a tomato, however, there may be present to us no red and round phys- ical object. Still, we use the words 'red' and 'round' to describe that situation as well, this time applying them to the visual experience itself. We say that we have a red, round visual image, or a visual experience of a red disk, (...) or some such. Because we see physical objects far more often than we hallucinate, we apply terms for color and shape to physical objects far more often than to visual experiences. Moreover, different theories of perception explain in different ways the applications such terms have to physical objects and to visual experiences. But whatever their frequency and explanation, it seems clear that both sorts of application occur. (shrink)

In diesem Aufsatz gebe ich eine Darstellung und kritische Bewertung der sog. Propensity-Theorie der Wahrscheinlichkeit. Diese konzipiert Wahrscheinlichkeiten als reale „Neigungen“ oder „Tendenzen“ experimenteller Arrangements zur Hervorbringung bestimmter Resultate. Damit gibt sie Wahrscheinlichkeitsaussagen eine objektive, ontologische Interpretation. Ihre Konkurrenten in diesem Feld sind die Häufigkeitstheorie, der zufolge sich Wahrscheinlichkeitsaussagen auf relative Häufigkeiten, und die Symmetrieauffassung, der zufolge sie sich auf Symmetrieverhältnisse beziehen. Ich diskutiere kurz und grundsätzlich diese Alternativen und versuche zu verdeutlichen, wie sie von selbst zur Propensity-Theorie hinführen, um (...) diese dann ausführlicher zu thematisieren. Dabei erweist sich, dass die Konzeption von Wahrscheinlichkeiten als Tendenzen in der Wirklichkeit die merkwürdige Konsequenz hat, dass dadurch Entitäten mit einer normativen Kraft eingeführt werden, die nicht näher erläutert werden kann. Es ergibt sich, dass bisher keine wirklich befriedigende Konzeption objektiver Wahrscheinlichkeiten vorliegt. (shrink)