EMPATHY AND THE EXTENDED MIND

I draw upon the conceptual resources of the extended mind thesis (EM) to analyze empathy and interpersonal understanding. Against the dominant mentalistic paradigm, I argue that empathy is fundamentally an extended bodily activity and that much of our social understanding happens outside of the head. First, I look at how the two dominant models of interpersonal understanding, theory theory and simulation theory, portray the cognitive link between folk psychology and empathy. Next, I challenge their internalist orthodoxy and offer an alternative "extended" characterization of empathy. In support of this characterization, I analyze some narratives of individuals with Moebius syndrome, a kind of expressive deficit resulting from bilateral facial paralysis. I conclude by discussing how a Zen Buddhist ethics of responsiveness is helpful for articulating the practical significance of an extended, body-based account of empathy.     

REASON-EXPLANATION AND THE CONTENTS OF THE MIND

This paper takes a close look at the kinds of considerations we use to reach agreement in our ordinary (non‐philosophical and non‐theoretical) judgments about a person's reasons for acting, and the following theses are defended. First, considering the circumstances in which the action occurs is often enough to remove our puzzlement as to why someone acts as she does. Second, in those situations where we do need to enquire about the agent's state of mind, this does not, in the normal case, lead us to look for hidden, inner events that are candidates for the causes of her action. Finally, even though there are cases in which the agent's introspections, reflections, and deliberations are relevant to our search for reasons, such cases do not lend support to the idea that reasons are hidden or inner causes of action. This suggests a problem for most philosophical accounts of what it is to act for reasons and for most philosophical accounts of the nature of mental states.     

THE MIND AND THE 'SHEN-MING'a IN XUNZI

In Plan 21 of the Xunzi , the essay Dubs titles "The Removal of Prejudices"¹ and Watson calls "Dispelling Obsession"², there is a sentence one's eyes slide over rather easily until one tries to fit it into its context and that of the Xunzi generally. Dubs translates it "The mind is the ruler of the body and the master of the spirit" (p. 269); Watson shows a slight discomfort with the second clause when he gives "The mind is the ruler of the body and the master of its god-like intelligence" [whatever that is] (p. 129) Koester³ raises a few more doubts with his "Das Herz nimmt im Koerper die Stelle des Herrschers ein, es ist der Gebieter ueber die shen-ming (Geister, die im Koerper wohnen)" (p. 277). Interestingly enough, the commentatorial tradition seems to have felt no difficulties: Yang Liang's comment is merely a paraphrase of the sentence following, and Wang Xian-jian and Liang Qi-xiong simply quote him⁴.     

THE ARTIFICIALIZATION OF MIND AND WORLD

The rapid advancement of artificial intelligence (AI) has led to renewed ambitions of developing artificial general intelligence. Alongside this has been a resurgence in the development of virtual and augmented reality (V/AR) technologies, which are viewed as “disruptive” technologies and the computing platforms of the future. V/AR effectively bring the digital world of machines, robots, and artificial agents to our senses while entailing the transposition of human activity and presence into the digital world of artificial agents and machine forms of intelligence. The intersection of humans and machines in this shared space brings humans and machines into ontological continuity as informational entities in a totalizing informational environment, which subsumes both cyber and physical space in an artificially constructed virtual world. The reconstruction of mind (through AI) and world (through V/AR) thus has significant epistemological, ontological, and anthropological implications, which constitute the underlying features in the artificialization of mind and world.     

MINDSCAPES AND LANDSCAPES: EXPLORING THE EXTENDED MIND

This brief article introduces a symposium discussing the extended mind thesis and its suggestive relation to religious thought. Essays by Mark Rowlands, Lynne Rudder Baker, Teed Rockwell, Joel Krueger, Leonard Angel, and Matthew Day present a variety of perspectives.     

TOTALITARIANISM – THE INTERNAL WORLD AND THE POLITICAL MIND1

This paper explores how totalitarianism can develop and become a stable structure both as a state of mind and as a political system. Using Shakespeare's Macbeth as an example the author draws attention to the universal nature of the temptations that power brings with it and which can lead to totalitarian domination. Aspects of Macbeth's mental life are compared with dictators such as Hitler and Stalin. A clinical example is then given which further illustrates and explores the phenomenon of totalitarian ways of thinking as encountered in the consulting room showing how individuals can assert their power through the use of omnipotent destructiveness. This type of destructiveness is more effective when the patient is freed from guilt and the mental mechanisms of psychic retreats are used to maintain their totalitarian systems.     

CHANGE AND THE ETERNAL PART OF THE MIND IN SPINOZA

Spinoza insists that we can during the course of our lives increase that part of the mind that is constituted by knowledge, but he also calls that part of the mind its eternal part. How can what is eternal increase? I defend an interpretation on which there is a sense in which the eternal part of the mind can become greater without changing intrinsically at all.     

THE EXTENDED MIND

The extended mind is the thesis that some mental—typically cognitive—processes are partly composed of operations performed by cognizing organisms on the world around them. The operations in question are ones of manipulation, transformation, or exploitation of environmental structures. And the structures in question are ones that carry information pertinent to the success or efficacy of the cognitive process in question. This essay examines the thesis of the extended mind and evaluates the arguments for and against it.     

TOUCH,SOUND, AND THINGS WITHOUT THE MIND

Abstract: Two notable thought experiments are discussed in this article: Reid's thought experiment about whether a being supplied with tactile sensations alone could acquire the conception of extension and Strawson's thought experiment about whether a being supplied with auditory sensations alone could acquire the conception of mind‐independent objects. The experiments are considered alongside Campbell's argument that only on the so‐called relational view of experience is it possible for experiences to make available to their subjects the concept of mind‐independent objects. I consider how the three issues ought to be construed as raising questions about woulds, coulds, or shoulds—and argue that only on the normative construal of them are they resolvable as intended by the a priori methods of the philosophers who pose them.     

睡眠与心理健康关系初探

近期研究表明,睡眠样式不同的个体在觉醒期间可能表现出心理和行为的差异,精种疾病与睡眠障碍有密切关系。本文从正常和病理两个方面对睡眠与心理健康之间存在的可能关系作了初步探讨。     

HUSSERLIAN INTENTIONALITY AND THE CHINESE CONCEPT OF "MIND"

The phenomenology of Edmund Husserl is, in one sense, a theory of pure consciousness that aims to set forth an absolute, ultimate, rigorous ground for the sciences based on the field of pure consciousness. Husserl believed that, on the basis of this field of pure consciousness, he could secure eternal significance for the spiritual life of man. Intentionality is the key element in this theory of pure consciousness and it plays a crucial part in the realization of Husserl's philosophical goal. By contrast, traditional Chinese philosophy was not concerned to seek an absolute, ultimate ground for the sciences or to derive a set of moral norms and a theory of value for human life from logical and scientific truths. Rather, Chinese philosophy sought to adjust the relationships between man and nature and between man and man in their ordinary, secular existence. It placed no value in the ideas of pure logic, pure science, or pure consciousness. Traditional Chinese philosophers inquired into the experiential, intuitive 'mind' ( xin ^a). This approach to 'mind'was understood by the Chinese to require rigorous logical proof or scientific theory:— anyone can perceive one's 'mind'in daily life and, by analogy, anyone can 'perceive'other 'minds'. If Husserl's intentionality is the transcendental reason of Western philosophy, the 'mind'is the practical reason of Chinese philosophy. What, then, are the essential features of Husserl's 'intentionality'and the Chinese 'mind'? What are their respective theoretical features? Can they be brought together and compared in a philosophically significant fashion?     

MIND AND ITS TREATMENT

On the basis of mother-baby observations and analytic experience, it is argued that a trauma during infancy leads to a psychic functioning where the early defensive manoeuvres of non-integration described by Eugenio Gaddini cannot be given up in fear of a repetition of the catastrophe, already experienced once in early infancy, of losing the self. This state of non-integration can be seen in a traumatized girl's missing feminine symbolizations as well as in her false self. A girl is described who had to stick to a transitional object, which seems to represent concretization, an inablity to symbolize, instead of being able to use a transitional phenomenon supporting healthy development. A case of a hysteric woman illustrates the state of non-integration due to an evident early trauma. For women, as in this case, the female inner-genitality has to be filled with pregenital drive-contents. The binding functions as well as the symbolization function are paralysed due to integration-anxiety. In analysing the resistance of my patient, I have found an active use of imitation for the purpose of self-defense within the transference against receiving the analyst's understanding, empathy or interpretations. This state of non-integration, possibly typical of hysteria, is what Gaddini calls imitative identity.