Thoughts,Processive Character and the Stream of Consciousness

Abstract

This paper explores the relation of thought and the stream of consciousness in the light of an ontological argument raised against cognitive phenomenology views. I argue that the ontological argument relies on a notion of ‘processive character’ that does not stand up to scrutiny and therefore it is insufficient for the argument to go through. I then analyse two more views on what ‘processive character’ means and argue that the process-part account best captures the intuition behind the argument. Following this view, I reconstruct the ontological argument and argue that it succeeds in establishing that some mental episodes like judging, understanding and occurrent states of thought do not enter into the stream but fails to exclude episodes like entertaining. Contrary to what it might seem, this conclusion fits well with cognitive phenomenology views, given that, as I show, there is a way for non-processive mental episodes to be fundamentally related to processive ones, such that they cannot be excluded from the phenomenal domain. This paper sheds light on the nature of different kinds of thoughts and questions a fundamental asymmetry between the perceptual and the cognitive domain when it comes to their ontology and temporal character.     

Environmental Consciousness,Sustainability, and the Character of Philosophy of Education

This paper argues that education itself, properly understood, is intimately concerned with an individual’s being in the world, and therefore is ineluctably environmental. This is guaranteed by the ecstatic nature of consciousness. Furthermore, it is argued that a central dimension of this environment with which ecstatic human consciousness is engaged, is that of nature understood as the ‘self-arising’. Nature, so conceived, is essentially other and is epistemologically mysterious, possessing its own normativity, agency, and intrinsic value. As such, engagement with nature presents opportunities for consciousness quintessentially to go beyond itself, to be inspired and refreshed, and to receive non-anthropogenic standards in the form of intimations of what is fitting and what is not. It will be argued that these are fundamental to the orientation of human being, providing primordial intimations of the nature of reality and truth. Given their centrality to the idea of a person’s becoming educated, the elucidation of these and the issues to which they give rise must be central to the philosophy of education and in this sense it becomes deeply ecological.     

The Continuum of Consciousness

Research in a wide variety of domains provides converging evidence for the psychological unconscious—percepts, memories, and other mental contents that influence experience, thought, and action outside of phenomenal awareness. Studies of preconscious processing indicate that two continua underlie conscious experience—one having to do with the quality of the stimulus event or its mental representation, and the other having to do with the cognitive resources brought to hear on the processing of that representation. However, evidence of subconscious processing violates these conclusions and suggests that something more is involved—perhaps a link between mental representations of events and of the self as the agent or experiencer of them.     

The Continuity of Consciousness

Abstract: In this paper I discuss two puzzles that concern the sense in which consciousness can be described as ‘continuous’. The first puzzle arises out of recent work by Dainton and Tye, both of whom appear to oscillate between ascribing the property of ‘continuity’ to the stream of experience, and ascribing it to the objects of experience. The second puzzle concerns the notion that the stream of consciousness could be in some sense unreal or illusory—a puzzle stemming from the thought that some of the brain processes underlying consciousness do not exhibit continuity. I argue that these problems can be solved by distinguishing between three possible bearers of the property of ‘continuity’—(1) the State of Consciousness, (2) the Stream of Experience, and (3) what is represented by experience—and two different senses of ‘continuity’—‘strict’ and ‘extreme’ continuity. I conclude by providing a positive account of the continuity of consciousness, according to which the State of Consciousness exhibits ‘strict’ continuity, and the Stream of Experience exhibits ‘extreme’ continuity.     

The Problem of Consciousness

This paper attempts to begin to answer four questions. 1. What is consciousness? 2. What is the relation of consciousness to the brain? 3. What are some of the features that an empirical theory of consciousness should try to explain? 4. What are some common mistakes to avoid?     

历史意识问题(下)

在这一部分,伽达默尔讨论了亚里士多德伦理学中实践智慧概念对解释学的特殊贡献。伽达默尔以此为基础,逐步展开哲学解释学的核心内容,如解释学的应用、解释学循环、成见以及如何对待传统等。他强调,解释学的理解应忠实于其开始和结束于此的事情本身,理解即处理处于他者地位的传统。     

意识新论

重新思考审视意识的特性:(1)意识是生命的重要组成.(2)在经典物理学领域,意识是生命的独特功能.在量子物理学领域,意识是宇宙万物的特性,以规则、意义和规律来表达.(3)意识包含精神与物质两种性状,但同时也是非物质非精神的.(4)意识可以穿越不同的时空.(5)意识能够产生能量.(6)意识可以分成四大类.(7)不同机体的意识可以相互交流.(8)意识可以遗传.(9)意识永恒存在.(10)意识可以因各种原因被重叠、掩盖或者忘记(意识非记忆),但是在一定情况下.可以重新被发掘出来.     

历史意识问题(上)

历史意识问题,即如何对待精神科学的历史。具备历史意识需要关注精神科学发展过程中对反身性的运用、对他者的关注,同时摒弃自然科学模式在精神科学中的运用。在本演讲中,伽达默尔论述了狄尔泰生命哲学寻求精神科学基础的得与失,强调了海德格尔关于理解的形而上学意义的重要价值,并在二者的基础上发展了精神科学的历史,推进了对历史意识问题的讨论。     

意识新论

重新思考审视意识的特性：（1）意识是生命的重要组成。（2）在经典物理学领域,意识是生命的独特功能。在量子物理学领域,意识是宇宙万物的特性,以规则、意义和规律来表达。（3）意识包含精神与物质两种性状,但同时也是非物质非精神的。（4）意识可以穿越不同的时空。（5）意识能够产生能量。（6）意识可以分成四大类。（7）不同机体的意识可以相互交流。（8）意识可以遗传。（9）意识永恒存在。（10）意识可以因各种原因被重叠、掩盖或者忘记（意识非记忆）,但是在一定情况下,可以重新被发掘出来。     

暗意识猜想

21世纪初,暗物质与暗能量被观测证实.人类可见的物质只占宇宙的4.6％,其它95.4％的部分人类还不甚了解.在人类还未认知的世界中,是否存在不同于人类的生命结构和暗意识吗,对此,通过简述暗物质与暗能量的发现过程,以及意识的最新观点,提出暗意识可能存在的九种猜想.     

The Question of Animal Consciousness

Conscious awareness of some cognitive processes is a central and important part of human behavior. It may be possible to assess these experiences through introspection and common verbal and nonverbal labels, allowing them to be related to overt behavior and electrophysiological activity in the nervous system. Conscious awareness in other animals is a closed world about which we can do no more than speculate. Empirical investigations should be limited to questions about the extent and nature of mental representations.

     

The Two-Dimensional Content of Consciousness

In this paper I put forward a representationalist theory of conscious experience based on Robert Stalnaker’s version of two-dimensional modal semantics. According to this theory the phenomenal character of an experience correlates with a content equivalent to what Stalnaker calls the diagonal proposition. I show that the theory is closely related both to functionalist theories of consciousness and to higher-order representational theories. It is also more compatible with an anti-Cartesian view of the mind than standard representationalist theories.     

The Structure of Character

In this paper, I defend a local account of character traits that posits traits like close-friend-honesty and good-mood-compassion. John Doris also defends local character traits, but his local character traits are indistinguishable from mere behavioral dispositions, they are not necessary for the purpose which allegedly justifies them, and their justification is only contingent, depending upon the prevailing empirical situation. The account of local traits I defend posits local traits that are traits of character rather than behavioral dispositions, local traits that are necessary to satisfy one of their central purposes, and local traits whose justification is dependent upon theoretical rather than empirical considerations.     

The Scientific Untraceability of Phenomenal Consciousness

It is a common conviction among philosophers who hold that phenomenal properties, qualia, are distinct from any cognitive, intentional, or functional properties, that it is possible to trace the neural correlates of these properties. The main purpose of this paper is to present a challenge to this view, and to show that if “non-cognitive” phenomenal properties exist at all, they lie beyond the reach of neuroscience. In the final section it will be suggested that they also lie beyond the reach of psychology, so that they may be said to lie beyond the reach of science.

Consciousness: The transcendentalist manifesto

Phenomenal consciousness, what it is like to have or undergo an experience, is typically understood as an empirical item – an actual or possible object of consciousness. Accordingly, the problem posed by phenomenal consciousness for materialist accounts of the mind is usually understood as an empirical problem: a problem of showing how one sort of empirical item – a conscious state – is produced or constituted by another – a neural process. The development of this problem, therefore, has usually consisted in the articulation of an intuition: no matter how much we know about the brain, this will not allow us to see how it produces or constitutes phenomenal consciousness. Developing a theme first explored by Kant, and then later by Sartre, this paper argues that the real problem posed by phenomenal consciousness is quite different. Consciousness, it will be argued, is not an empirical but a transcendental feature of the world. That is, what it is like to have an experience is not something of which we are aware in the having of that experience, but an item in virtue of which the genuine (non-phenomenal) objects of our consciousness are revealed as being the way they are. Phenomenal consciousness, that is, is not an empirical object of awareness but a transcendental condition of the possibility of there being empirical objects of awareness.     

The Comic Character of Confucius

This article examines the comic portrayal of Confucius in the Analects and the Zhuangzi, maintaining that there is a humorous aspect to the character of Confucius that is often overlooked. Conventional interpretations of the Analects downplay the pranks and mocking comments that are sprinkled throughout them. Many of the humorous words Confucius utters are directed at ritualistic behaviour which has become mechanistic, suggesting that in order to take ritual seriously, we must also be prepared to take it in jest. Furthermore, Confucius’s situation is poked fun at in both the Analects and the Zhuangzi, since he wanders around desperately seeking a position of influence that eludes him. But while the Zhuangzi relentlessly mocks Confucius for his ritualized arrogance, it also signals his respect for him by making him the mouthpiece of the very Dao that it accuses him of straying from.     

The Indexical Character of Names

Indexicals are unique among expressions in that they depend for their literal content upon extra-semantic features of the contexts in which they are uttered. Taking this peculiarity of indexicals into account yields solutions to variants of Frege's Puzzle involving objects of attitude-bearing of an indexical nature. If names are indexicals, then the classical versions of Frege's Puzzle can be solved in the same way. Taking names to be indexicals also yields solutions to tougher, more recently-discovered puzzles such as Kripke's well-known case involving Paderewski. We argue that names are in fact rigidly designating indexicals. We also argue that fully developed, the direct reference theory's best strategy for solving the puzzles amounts to the adoption of the indexical theory of names – a move that we argue should be thought of as a natural development of the direct reference theory, and not as antagonistic to it.