An Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind provides a lively and accessible introduction to all the main themes and arguments currently being debated in this area. The book examines and criticizes four major theories of mind: Dualism, Mind/Brain Identity, Behaviourism and Functionalism. It argues that while consciousness and our mental lives depend upon physical processes in the brain, they are not reducible to those processes. The differences between mental and physical states, mind/body causality, the problem of other minds, and personal (...) identity are also explored in full. The second edition of this well respected text has been revised to include a new chapter which explores Aristotle’s philosophy of psychology and mind. It also includes new material on the Turing test and has been expanded and updated throughout. The book is designed to help students think for themselves about all the issues identified above, and contains exercises throughout the text to stimulate and challenge the reader. Objectives are clearly set out at the start of every chapter to enable students to check their understanding as they proceed, and each chapter ends with questions to consider. There are discussions of the most cited contemporary writers in the field, so that the reader can gain a rounded perspective of the debates. (shrink)

PART The Early Wittgenstein Half of what I say is meaningless. I say it so that the other half may reach you. Kahlil Gibran My work consists of two parts ...

JL Austin exercised in Post-war Oxford an intellectual authority similar to that of Wittgenstein in Cambridge. Although he completed no books of his own and published only seven papers, Austin became through lectures and talks one of the acknowledged leaders in what is called ‘Oxford philosophy’ or ‘ordinary language philosophy’. Few would dispute that among analytic philosophers Austin stands out as a great and original philosophical genius. Three volumes of his writing, published after his death, have become classics in analytical (...) philosophy: _Philosophical Papers_; _Sense and Sensibilia_; and _How to Do Things with Words_. First published in 1979, this book is a collection of critical essays on Austin’s philosophy written by well-known philosophers, many of whom knew Austin personally. A number of essays included were especially written for this volume, but the majority have appeared previously in various journals or books, not all easy to obtain. (shrink)

J. L. Austin (1911-1960) exercised in Post-war Oxford an intellectual authority similar to that of Wittgenstein in Cambridge. Although he completed no books of his own and published only seven papers, Austin became through lectures and talks one of the acknowledged leaders in what is called ‘Oxford philosophy’ or ‘ordinary language philosophy’. Few would dispute that among analytic philosophers Austin stands out as a great and original philosophical genius. Three volumes of his writing, published after his death, have become classics (...) in analytical philosophy: Philosophical Papers ; Sense and Sensibilia ; and How to Do Things with Words . First published in 1969, this book is a collection of critical essays on Austin’s philosophy written by well-known philosophers, many of whom knew Austin personally. A number of essays included were especially written for this volume, but the majority have appeared previously in various journals or books, not all easy to obtain. (shrink)

The recent revival of Confucianism in the PRC raises questions regarding the legitimacy of cultivating Confucian virtues such as ren, li and xiao in an educational context. This article is based on the assumptions that education is an ideologically laden practice and that moral virtues have the potential of functioning to sustain hegemony and other forms of social control. By focusing on the Xiao Jing, a lesser known Confucian classic, it offers the Confucian account of filial piety a charitable reading (...) which then proceeds to examine the ideological dimension of filial piety. By employing concepts such as naturalisation and the public–private distinction in my analysis, I argue that filial piety should be understood through a critical lens. While the question ‘Is filial piety a virtue?’ cannot be answered in a simple, straightforward manner, the discussion on filial piety presented in this article has the potential to shed light on the relationship between politics and moral education. (shrink)

Based on a reading of chapter 38 of the Daodejing, this article examines the relationship between the virtues and moral motivation. Laozi puts forward a view which might be termed a "paradox of virtue"--the phenomenon that a conscious pursuit of virtue can lead to a diminishing of virtue. It aims to show that Laozi's criticisms on the focus on the virtues and characters of agents, and his overall view on morality, pose challenges to a way of moral thinking that is (...) common in modern moral philosophy, including virtue ethics. (shrink)

This paper takes a reflective look at the notions of identity, ‘race’ and ethnicity using a few ancient and modern Chinese ‘texts’. It begins with an examination of the reforms known as ‘adopting the costume of barbarian/foreign people and practicing mounted archery [hufuqishe]’ carried out by King Wuling 武靈王 in 307 BCE as described in the Zhan Guo Ce 戰國策 and the Shiji 史記 by Sima Qian 司馬遷. Its cultural and educational significance is then discussed in order to show how (...) the issues faced by King Wuling are still relevant to the educational scene in the contemporary world. Some recent materials from Hong Kong school textbooks relating to the issues on identity and ‘race’ are then used to contrast and compare with the approach taken by King Wuling. This study argues that the inability to take a critical stance toward categories such as ‘race’ risks perpetuating dated and ethically questionable mentalities. In addition, the importance of taking into consideration issues pertaining to purpose and evaluation in the context of education is highlighted. (shrink)

This article deals with conceptual questions regarding claims to the effect that humans and animals share artistic abilities such as the possession of music. Recent works focusing on animals, from such as Hollis Taylor and Dominique Lestel, are discussed. The attribution of artistic traits in human and animal contexts is examined by highlighting the importance of issues relating to categorization and evaluation in cross-species studies. An analogy between the denial of major attributes to animals and a form of racism is (...) drawn in order to show how questions pertaining to meaning can impact on our understanding of animal abilities. One of the major theses presented is that the question of whether animals possess music cannot be answered by a methodology that is uninformed by the way concepts such as music or art function in the context of human life: the ascription of music to humans or non-humans is a value-laden act rather than a factual issue regarding how to represent an entity. In order to see how humans and animals share a life in common, it is necessary to come to the reflective realization that how human beings understand themselves can impact on their perception and experience of human and non-human animals. (shrink)

This study presents a description of an open database on scientific output of Vietnamese researchers in social sciences and humanities, one that corrects for the shortcomings in current research publication databases such as data duplication, slow update, and a substantial cost of doing science. Here, using scientists’ self-reports, open online sources and cross-checking with Scopus database, we introduce a manual system and its semi-automated version of the database on the profiles of 657 Vietnamese researchers in social sciences and humanities who (...) have published in Scopus-indexed journals from 2008 to 2018. The final system also records 973 foreign co-authors, 1,289 papers, and 789 affiliations. The data collection method, highly applicable for other sources, could be replicated in other developing countries while its content be used in cross-section, multivariate, and network data analyses. The open database is expected to help Vietnam revamp its research capacity and meet the public demand for greater transparency in science management. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to show the importance of moral sensitivity when including persons with dementia in research. The article presents and discusses ethical challenges encountered when a total of 15 persons with dementia from two nursing homes and seven proxies were included in a qualitative study. The examples show that the ethical challenges may be unpredictable. As researchers, you participate with the informants in their daily life and in the interviews, and it is not possible to plan (...) all that may happen during the research. A procedural proposal to an ethical committee at the beginning of a research project based on traditional research ethical principles may serve as a guideline, but it cannot solve all the ethical problems one faces during the research process. Our main argument in this article is, therefore, that moral sensitivity is required in addition to the traditional research ethical principles throughout the whole process of observing and interviewing the respondents. (shrink)

This article questions social constructionists' claims to introduce Wittgenstein's philosophy to psychology. The philosophical fiction of a neonate Crusoe is introduced to cast doubt on the interpretations and use of the private language argument to support a new psychology developed by the constructionists. It is argued that a neonate Crusoe's viability in philosophy and apparent absence in psychology offends against the integrity of the philosophical contribution Wittgenstein might make to psychology. The consequences of accepting Crusoe's viability are explored as they (...) appear in both philosophy and psychology. (shrink)

The editor has arranged forty-nine essays on and by Santayana into eight chapters representing major areas of Santayana's thought such as "Materialism and Idealism," "Essence, Substance, and Existence," "Art and Beauty." The essays supposedly speak to their chapter titles and to each other to create "the sense of dialogue"; with a few exceptions they were not written as deliberate conversation. This "dialogue" treats the reader to a fine display of the variety of minds and interests at work in philosophy and (...) illustrates the fact that one man's philosophical arena is rarely another man's. From J. H. Randall, Jr. to John Crowe Ransom, a recurring point of contention is Santayana's conception of Essences and their relationship to Matter. The range of interpretation on this issue goes from plaintive objections that "Essences don't do anything!" to appreciative acknowledgment that "Essences don't do anything!". Arguments over "isms" abound; realism, idealism, epiphenominalism are examined from many angles besides Santayana's. Santayana is highlighted nicely, arranged in this way beside his critics. His ability to locate the vital force behind an idea and to indicate where specific thrusts of thought will lead evinces his title of philosopher and master critic. This collection is not limited in appeal to Santayana aficionados.--A. K. T. (shrink)

The twenty-two essays collected for this book range widely in theme, style, and quality. The essays, a majority of which were previously unpublished, are arranged in three sections: 1) Early Essays, containing one particularly fine essay, "The Soul at Play," originally intended as part of Santayana's Soliloquies in England; 2) Later Essays, in which the title essay and "Friendship" are outstanding; and 3) Philosophical Essays, offering commentaries on Russell, Dewey, and James, on his own philosophy, and "On the False Steps (...) of Philosophy." The book's last article, "What is the Ego?", is an elaboration of his criticism of those "German Prophets" who return from self-contemplation "as greedy as children and as stubborn as Inquisitors." Santayana's manner of exposition often involves the elaboration of a single image or metaphor. When an image or metaphor is employed which can bear the weight of subtle distinctions, he is brilliant; but when the metaphor is too weak to encompass his thinking, then his writing becomes flowery and decadent. The essays, unfinished and fragmentary for the most part, are frequently little more than a single extended metaphor--sometimes over-extended. The fragmentary, possibly only experimental, ideas in these essays invite comparison with their use in his completed works. The book will be of special interest to someone already familiar with Santayana.--A. K. T. (shrink)

The history of contemporary modal logic dates back to the writings of C. S. Lewis in the early part of this century. Since then, a growing body of literature has attested to professional interest in the area, and in a number of related issues in philosophical logic which have received wide attention. The recent development of powerful formal techniques for modal system building, together with an increasing interest in modal logic as a tool for philosophical analysis, have created a need (...) for an up-to-date text to introduce students to this material. Snyder's book attempts to answer this need. Assuming an understanding of elementary propositional logic, Snyder introduces a reductive technique called cancellation for detecting the theorems of a system of logic. This technique, analogous to the construction of Smullyan trees but more compact, is extended to modal and quantified contexts. Cancellation versions of the systems M and Mn of G. H. von Wright, and S4 and S5 of Lewis are developed. Snyder uses a Hintikka type of semantics, showing how the various formal systems are differentiated at the semantic level by differing conditions which must be imposed on the model systems used as interpretations for them. These model systems, and the conditions imposed upon them, are in turn described by means of a metalanguage which is essentially first-order quantificational logic. The power of this technique stems from the fact that for every object language formula of a system, there is a corresponding formula in the metalanguage which describes the conditions an interpretation must meet in order to satisfy the original formula. The conditions that the interpretations of a given system of logic must meet are reflected in this metalanguage as "antecedent assumptions," and these in turn correspond to cancellation rules for the object language. This correspondence is constructed in such a way that the metalinguistic counterpart of each theorem of the system will be a theorem of first-order logic. Snyder's primary interest is in showing how modal logic can be used, with the help of these techniques, to build a large variety of formal systems and to "tailor" such systems to meet a variety of analytical tasks. Simple modal systems are developed for the articulation of a number of modal concepts, in addition to the classic alethic ones. Examples are taken from temporal, deontic, and epistemic logic to show how specific interpretations of the meanings of the relevant operators lead to the incorporation of appropriate conditions in the formal systems used to articulate them. An entire chapter is devoted to a discussion of the paradoxes of material and strict implication, and to an attempt to articulate the notion of entailment through the development of formal systems which include a dyadic modal operator that is free of these paradoxes. The final chapter discusses such classical issues as proper names, reference, fictional entities, definite descriptions, and existence presuppositions. Appendices deal with such matters as the equivalence of the cancellation systems to more classical axiomatic-deduction systems, and the sketch of a proof of soundness and completeness for all the modal systems presented. While designed as a text, this volume should be of interest to both logicians and those working in metaphysics and language analysis, since the primary concern of the author is to develop techniques that will facilitate the usefulness of modal logic as a tool for philosophical analysis. The instructor's manual contains many suggestions derived from the author's experience in teaching this non-standard treatment of the subject.--K. T. (shrink)

Prior apparently left a substantially completed manuscript dealing with the objects of thought when he died in 1969. Geach and Kenny have edited this material, supplementing it with both published and unpublished other writings, including an appendix on names in lieu of Prior's intended final chapter. The result is an interesting, often non-standard, discussion of many issues central to philosophical logic. There are two major concerns treated--what is it that we think?, and what is it that we think about?. These (...) are the two principle ways in which 'thinking of' can occur as a relation for Prior. An examination of the first sense results in a defense of the view that propositions, as language-independent logical constructions, are the objects of thought. In doing so, a large number of related issues are discussed to include criticisms of extentionalist [[sic]] theses, a sympathetic version of the assertive redundancy theory of truth, and an account of non-assertoric logic. Prior also devotes chapters to paradoxes such as that of the liar, and to Tarskian and alternative semantics. Perhaps the most interesting section of the book is that devoted to discussing what sentences are about, especially when their ostensible subjects are non-existent, e.g., "The King of France is bald." It is not clear just what his positive views are, but Prior has a number of criticisms directed against current intentionalistic views of names as well as against Russellian names. His chief worry seems to concern oratio obliqua constructions in which a reporter does not believe in the existence of that of which/whom a reportee speaks. Although critical of writers influenced by either the early Brentano or the later Russell, Prior appears to be sympathetic to both schools in that he seems to view non-demonstrative sentences as never being directly about their subjects. Thus, neither "Gustavus is bald" nor "The King of Sweden is bald" would be about the King of Sweden, i.e., Gustavus. However, since Gustavus is the King of Sweden, the sentences are indirectly about him. Presumably, such a move precludes a reporter's being committed to the reportee's ontology, thereby avoiding the difficulty. An interesting but undeveloped aspect of his view is the role of background stories in our use of names. While some use is made of formal logic in the Polish notation, unfamiliarity with either is not a bar to following the text as English translations and keys are provided. It is unfortunate that we cannot look forward to further elucidation of Prior's views.--K. T. (shrink)

Despite the title, some of the essays are devoted to matters which are not strictly epistemological. Both Malcolm and Stoutland are concerned with accounting for the connection between intention and the object of intention. Malcolm reviews Wittgenstein's thoughts on the subject while Stoutland gives an account of intentions in terms of teleology. With an eye toward the free will and skepticism controversies, White attempts an account of "What Might Have Been," distinguishing between existential and problematic possibilities. The remaining essays delve (...) into the topics of traditional epistemology. Oliver gives "A Sober Look at Solipsism" focussing attention on its 'causal' and 'privacy' postulates. Taking up the challenge of skepticism, Unger argues that "Our Knowledge of the Material World" not only is a reality, but is a function of our immediate experience. We can't help but believe such experiences, just as dogs must. The attempt is made by Pollock to map out "The Structure of Epistemic Justification" and he eschews a deductive model of explanation in favor of showing that logical reasons are but one kind of good reason--good reasons being the stuff of justification. Knox argues that "Do Appearances Exist?" deserves an affirmative answer as a consequence of the fact that we perceive objects, given his treatment of appearances as events. This is an interesting collection of essays, albeit for the non-subscriber, an expensive one.--K. T. (shrink)

The double issue of Synthese devoted to essays on the work of W. V. Quine has been re-issued under hard cover with an additional paper by Grice on "Vacuous Names" and a 13-page bibliography of Quine's writings. With the exception of Berry's "Logic with Platonism" and Jensen's "On The Consistency of a Slight. Modification of Quine's New Foundation," the papers are concerned with the key issues of Word and Object. Quine's responses to each of the contributors are not as helpful (...) as they might be, but are at times quite illuminating. He dispels Stenius's view in "Beginning with Ordinary Things" that Quine holds a Russellian epistemology, for example, and clarifies somewhat his account of ontic commitment in replying to Hintikka's "Behavioral Criteria of Radical Translation." Hintikka argues that "to be is to be a value of a bound variable" presupposes the principle, "to be is to be an object of search." Quine rejects this view, identifying his ontology with the range of the variables as opposed to the class of all things to which a theory is ontically committed. The introduction to chapter two of Word and Object by Harman is quite helpful, suggesting among other things that Quine's use of 'propositional attitude' is a misnomer to be better replaced by 'sentential attitude'. An interesting and provocative paper by Kaplan offers a Fregean alternative to Quine's general mode of handling referentially opaque contexts, allowing "Quantifying In" with the variable ranging over expressions. Interestingly enough, Quine's remarks are rather laudatory and sympathetic. Davidson's "On Saying That" suggests a roughly similar account of oratio obliqua discourse. Føllesdal and Sellars discuss "Quine on Modality" and "Some Problems about Belief." There is a discussion of "Quine's Philosophy of Science" by Smart, tracing a shift from instrumentalism to realism on the part of Quine. Also included are papers by Chomsky, Stroud, and Geach, as well as Strawson's familiar "Singular Terms and Predication." In spite of the imposing price and the uneven quality of the essays, the book is a desirable piece of Quineana.--K. T. (shrink)

We present the opinion of some authors who believe there is no force between a stationary charge and a stationary resistive wire carrying a constant current. We show that this force is different from zero and present its main components: the force due to the charges induced in the wire by the test charge and a force proportional to the current in the resistive wire. We also discuss briefly a component of the force proportional to the square of the current (...) which should exist according to some models and another component due to the acceleration of the conduction electrons in a curved wire carrying a dc current (centripetal acceleration). Finally, we analyze experiments showing the existence of the electric field proportional to the current in resistive wires. (shrink)

Clear explanation and evaluation of fundamental concepts of Hindu thought; historical synopsis of the development of Hindu religious philosophy; detailed descriptions of the psychology and psychoanalysis of yoga, its postures and varieties of breathing; exercises in concentration--even methods by which yogis achieve muscular control over bodily functions. For general readers, students, and practitioners.