UNCERTAINTY AND GOD: A JAMESIAN PRAGMATIST APPROACH TO UNCERTAINTY AND IGNORANCE IN SCIENCE AND RELIGION

This article picks up from William James's pragmatism and metaphysics of experience, as expressed in his “radical empiricism,” and further develops this Jamesian pragmatist approach to uncertainty and ignorance by connecting it to phenomenological thought. The Jamesian pragmatist approach avoids both a “crude naturalism” and an “absolutist rationalism,” and allows for identification of intimations of the sacred in both scientific and religious practices—which all, in their respective ways, try to make sense of a complex world. Analogous to religious practices, emotion and the metaphysics of experience play a central role in science, especially the emotion of wonder. Engaging in scientific or religious practices may create opportunities for individuals to realize that they are co‐creators of the world in partnership with God, in full awareness of uncertainty and ignorance and filled with the emotion of wonder.     

PRAGMATISM,REALISM, AND RELIGION

Pragmatism is often thought to be incompatible with realism, the view that there are knowable mind‐independent facts, objects, or properties. In this article, I show that there are, in fact, realist versions of pragmatism and argue that a realist pragmatism of the right sort can make important contributions to such fields as religious ethics and philosophy of religion. Using William James's pragmatism as my primary example, I show (1) that James defended realist and pluralist views in metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, and philosophy of religion, and (2) that these views not only cohere with his pragmatism but indeed are basic to it. After arguing that James's pragmatism provides a credible and useful approach to a number of basic philosophical and religious issues, I conclude by reflecting on some ways in which we can apply and potentially improve James's views in the study of religion.     

European Functionalism

Functionalism about mental phenomena must account for their multiple realizability. According to standard doctrine, this can be achieved by allowing our folk theory's realization formula to be multiply satisfied by distinct physical properties. If at all, uniqueness can then be restored by suitable relativization to populations or worlds. Recent arguments suggest that this is a dead end. Here the attempt is made to devise a novel type of functionalism that accounts for multiple realizability but rejects the standard doctrine and thus proves immune to those arguments. The distinctive feature of this novel type of functionalism is its use of plural quantification in ramsification, which allows it to retain uniqueness of satisfaction despite multiple realizability while respecting naturalness requirements on physical properties.     

Spinoza's Thinking Substance and the Necessity of Modes

How should ‘the physical’ be defined for the purpose of formulating physicalism? In this paper I defend a version of the via negativa according to which a property is physical just in case it is neither fundamentally mental nor possibly realized by a fundamentally mental property. The guiding idea is that physicalism requires functionalism, and thus that being a type identity theorist requires being a realizer‐functionalist. In §1 I motivate my approach partly by arguing against Jessica Wilson's no fundamental mentality constraint. In §2 I set out my preferred definition of ‘the physical’ and make my case that physicalism requires functionalism. In §3 I defend my proposal by attacking the leading alternative account of ‘the physical,’ the theory‐based conception. Finally, in §4 I draw on my definition, together with Jaegwon Kim's account of intertheoretic reduction, to defend the controversial view that physicalism requires a priori physicalism.     

Pure experience revisited: A critical reassessment of Nishida Kitaro's radicalization of William James' empiricism

In this paper, we will revisit the relation between the respective conceptions of pure experience of Nishida Kitaro and William James. As various authors have previously shown, comparing Nishida and James can not only help us better understand both of their specific understandings of pure experience, and consequently its position within their respective enterprises, but also give a platform with which to see how these two authors could contribute to contemporary discussions on philosophical methodology. However, despite the long history of comparative research on these two thinkers, there is still no consensus about the extent to which Nishida's philosophy actually resembles James' work at all. Was Nishida's interest in James' work found only in superficial similarities between two authors interested in overcoming the subject–object distinction? Or did Nishida attempt to somehow develop or radicalize James' work, taking his notion of pure experience into the realm of religion and metaphysics? In this contribution, we will agree with previous authors who have argued that Nishida is best understood as trying to go beyond or develop James' work. However, we will make this claim with the caveat that James had good reason not to take the avenues Nishida pursued, and that Nishida's attempt to radicalize some ideas in James may have led to some difficult points within his early philosophy.     

Spinoza on the Limits of Explanation

Commentators standardly ascribe to Spinoza a belief in an exceptionless conceptual closure of mental and physical realms: no intention can allow us to understand a bodily movement, no bodily injury can make intelligible a sensation of pain. This counterintuitive doctrine, most often now referred to as Spinoza's 'attribute barrier', has weighty repercussions for his views on intelligibility, nature of the mind, identity, and causality. I argue against the standard reading of the doctrine, by showing that it produces an inconsistent epistemological picture, contradicting Spinoza's theory of mind and his commitment to universal intelligibility. The alternative account I propose is also philosophically more compelling and plausible as an account of thought in its essential intentionality.     

Between Peirce (1878) and James (1898): G. Stanley Hall,the origins of pragmatism,and the history of psychology

This article focuses on the 20‐year gap between Charles S. Peirce's classic proposal of pragmatism in 1877–1878 and William James's equally classic call for pragmatism in 1898. It fills the gap by reviewing relevant developments in the work of Peirce and James and by introducing G. Stanley Hall, for the first time, as a figure in the history of pragmatism. In treating Hall and pragmatism, the article reveals a previously unnoted relation between the early history of pragmatism and the early history of the “new psychology” that Hall helped to pioneer. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Deducing the Mind

Frank Jackson has argued that, in principle, all mental truths are deducible from all physical science truths: 'deducibility'. Jackson's defence of deducibility relies upon the method for producing naturalistic definitions of mental states championed in the analytical functionalism of himself, David Lewis, and others. Two arguments are presented. The first contends that the particular naturalistic definitions of analytical functionalism fail because they do not take account of the extraordinary kind of bodily animation displayed by human beings, which I argue is necessary to (at least one kind of) mentality; machines lacking (at least this one kind of) mentality can satisfy the naturalistic definitions of analytical functionalism. So Jackson's defence of deducibility fails as it stands. The second argument contends that no naturalistic conceptual analysis of the mental can be adequate, because understanding (certain) mental concepts requires a special kind of affective reaction here named 'personal response', while understanding naturalistic concepts does not require this- therefore no naturalistic analysis can ever capture our common-sense mental concepts. The upshot is that Jackson's defence of deducibility cannot be repaired. No defence of deducibility will work which relies upon the possibility of naturalistic conceptual analyses of mentality.     

Wilhelm Wundt's contribution to John Dewey's functional psychology

John Dewey's functionalism and instrumentalism arose from his defense of a teleological understanding of human activity and intelligence. E. B. Titchener's counterdefense of structuralism in the late 1890s placed Wundt's psychological methodology in opposition to functionalism. However, investigations that convincingly re-interpret Wundt instead permit the disclosure of much fundamental agreement. Examination of Dewey's earliest work shows that his commitment to teleology, with its attendant organicist and voluntarist orientation, arose from an early allegiance to G. S. Morris's Aristotelianized neo-Hegelianism and an inspirational debt to Wundt's psychology and philosophy. William James's influence on Dewey's development toward instrumentalism must be accordingly de-emphasized.     

Convergent Themes Across Jamesian and Jungian Thought

The pragmatic philosophy of William James and the analytic psychology of Carl Jung share many common characteristics. This article compares the Jamesian and Jungian perspectives on two issues central to the designs of each thinker: (1) the nature of the psyche and (2) the theory of knowledge. Attention is given to the ways in which Jung's personality theory gives expression to a philosophical position very similar to that developed by James. Jung himself did not systematically articulate the philosophical foundations of his personality theory. James's work provides valuable insights into these philosophical underpinnings. Potential benefits for the academician and practitioner are discussed.     

To feel is to know relations: James' concept of stream of thought and contemporary studies on procedural knowledge

The theory of William James concerning the temporal and dynamic nature of mind is analyzed as implying that thought is a flow of subjective experience that belongs to the material flow of living beings, and therefore, that knowledge is primarily affective and practical rather than declarative and contemplative. In this context, we will discuss contemporary theory and research relevant to the discussion about declarative and procedural knowledge, with the focus on a literature review in the neurosciences of knowledge. Then we reconstruct James' theory of mind as flow, in terms of relatedness, feeling, and temporality of experience. The Principles suggest that declarative knowledge is not independent, but derived and supported by a more basic knowledge that is both procedural and affective in nature. Finally, we discuss possible lesson for nowadays efforts to develop a dynamic account of the procedural nature of knowledge.     

Pragmatism and revisionism: James's conception of truth

Abstract

The paper argues that James's conception of truth is non‐revisionist, that is, it sanctions common use of the notion of truth, but criticizes foundation‐alist philosophical accounts of that notion. This interpretation conflicts with traditional interpretations of James such as Russell's and Moore's, and contemporary interpretations such as Dummett's, all of which are revisionist. To the extent that objections raised against James's pragmatism depend on such revisionist reading, this paper constitutes a defence of James. The paper argues, further, that non‐revisionism distinguishes James from logical positivism and contemporary verificationism, and that James seeks to defend rather than renounce metaphysics. On this issue the paper disagrees with Rorty, who ascribes to James an extreme anti‐metaphysical stance.     

Feminist Philosophy,Pragmatism, and the “Turn to Affect”: A Genealogical Critique

Recent years have witnessed a focus on feeling as a topic of reinvigorated scholarly concern, described by theorists in a range of disciplines in terms of a “turn to affect.” Surprisingly little has been said about this most recent shift in critical theorizing by philosophers, including feminist philosophers, despite the fact that affect theorists situate their work within feminist and related, sometimes intersectional, political projects. In this article, I redress the seeming elision of the “turn to affect” in feminist philosophy, and develop a critique of some of the claims made by affect theorists that builds upon concerns regarding the “newness” of affect and emotion in feminist theory, and the risks of erasure this may entail. To support these concerns, I present a brief genealogy of feminist philosophical work on affect and emotion. Identifying a reductive tendency within affect theory to equate affect with bodily immanence, and to preclude cognition, culture, and representation, I argue that contemporary feminist theorists would do well to follow the more holistic models espoused by the canon of feminist work on emotion. Furthermore, I propose that prominent affect theorist Brian Massumi is right to return to pragmatism as a means of redressing philosophical dualisms, such as emotion/cognition and mind/body, but suggest that such a project is better served by John Dewey's philosophy of emotion than by William James's.     

Presymbolic Processes in Scientific Creativity

Most accounts of scientific thinking emphasize the role of symbolic recombinations as the source of creativity. This misses the important role that presymbolic processes may play. This article argues that the relative neglect is, in part, due to erroneous models of explanation, which dominate much of the literature, and argues instead for a model of explanation based on an analogy to dynamic physical systems. As an example, some of Michael Faraday's work is described and analyzed using dynamic approaches in an informal manner. The results suggest that, using William James's (1890) phrasing, it is possible to seek a 'reinstatement of the vague to its proper place in the mental life.'     

Extended cognition and the metaphysics of mind

This paper explores the relationship between several ideas about the mind and cognition. The hypothesis of extended cognition claims that cognitive processes can and do extend outside the head, that elements of the world around us can actually become parts of our cognitive systems. It has recently been suggested that the hypothesis of extended cognition is entailed by one of the foremost philosophical positions on the nature of the mind: functionalism, the thesis that mental states are defined by their functional relations rather than by their physical constituents. Furthermore, it has been claimed that functionalism entails a version of extended cognition which is sufficiently radical as to be obviously false. I survey the debate and propose several ways of avoiding this conclusion, emphasizing the importance of distinguishing the hypothesis of extended cognition from the related notion of the extended mind.     

GETTING UNDER MY SKIN: WILLIAM JAMES ON THE EMOTIONS, SOCIALITY, AND TRANSCENDENCE

“You are really getting under my skin!” This exclamation suggests a series of psychological, philosophical, and metaphysical questions: What is the nature and development of human emotion? How does emotion arise in social interaction? To what extent can interactive situations shape our embodied selves and intensify particular affective states? With these questions in mind, William James begins to investigate the character of emotions and to develop a model of what he terms the social self. James's studies of mimicry and his interest in phenomena now often investigated using biofeedback begin to explain how affective states develop and how it might be possible for something to “get under one's skin.” I situate these studies in the history of psychology between the psychological schools of structuralism and behaviorism. More important, I suggest continuity between James's Psychology and recent research on mirror neurons, reentrant mapping, and emotional mimicry in the fields of clinical psychology and cognitive neuroscience. This research supports and extends James's initial claims in regard to the creation of emotions and the life of the social self. I propose that James's work in the empirical sciences should be read as a prelude to his metaphysical works that speak of a coordination between embodied selves and wider environmental situations, and his psychological studies should be read as a prelude to his reflections on spiritual transcendence.     

Shoemaker's Analysis of Realization: A Review

Sydney Shoemaker has been arguing for more than a decade for an account of the mind–body problem in which the notion of realization takes centre stage. His aim is to provide a notion of realization that is consistent with the multiple realizability of mental properties or events, and which explains: (i) how the physical grounds the mental; and (ii) why the causal work of mental events is not screened off by that of physical events. Shoemaker's proposal consists of individuating properties in terms of causal powers, and defining realization as a relation of inclusion between sets of causal powers. Thus, as the causal powers that define a mental property are a subset of the causal powers that characterize a physical property, it can be said that physical properties realize mental properties. In this paper we examine the physicalist credentials of Shoemaker's mind–body theory in relation to three important issues: the direction of the relation of dependence that the theory is committed to; the possibility of mental properties existing without being anchored by physical properties; and the compatibility of the theory with the causal closure of the physical world. We argue that Shoemaker's theory is problematic in all three respects. After that we consider whether the theory should count as a mind–body theory at all, given that it seems to be committed to a distorted view of mental properties.     

Diagrams: Socrates and Meno's slave

Abstract

When do two mental items belong to the same life? We could be content with the answer ‐just when they have certain volitional qualities in common. An affinity is noted between that theory and Berkeley's early doctrine of the self. Some rivals of the volitional theory invoke a spiritual or physical owner of mental items. They run a risk either of empty formality or of causal superstition. Other rivals postulate a non‐transitive and symmetrical relation in the set of mental items. They must allow in consequence either for joint ownership of one and the same mental item, or for incompatible simultaneous decisions by one and the same person, or for new forms of death. This makes them disquieting. Another rival invokes a transitive and symmetrical relation defined in terms of co‐consciousness. Even that allows for incongruous simultaneities. The volitional theory is free from such disadvantages.     

CAUSALITY, INTENSIONALITY AND IDENTITY: MIND BODY INTERACTION IN SPINOZA

According to Spinoza mental events and physical events are identical. What makes Spinoza's identity theory tempting is that it solves the problem of mind body interaction rather elegantly: mental events and physical events can be causally related to each other because mental events are physical events. However, Spinoza seems to deny that there is any causal interaction between mental and physical events. My aim is to show that Spinoza's apparent denial of mind body interaction can be reconciled with the identity theory. I argue that Spinoza had both an extensional and an intensional concept of cause and when Spinoza seems to deny mind body interaction he is having in mind the intensional concept of cause. This intensional concept of cause corresponds to that of causal explanation. I will argue that Spinoza anticipated Donald Davidson's view that even though mental events cannot be explained by referring to physical events and vice versa, mental and physical events are causally related to each other.     

丹尼特的“异类现象学”——新实用主义谱系中一个被忽略的环节

一般认为,"新实用主义"乃经典实用主义的一个后现代主义的变种,它无法在知识论的角度接受心灵表征的客观实在性。本文则认为,反实在论并非是我们发展实用主义的心灵哲学时必然陷入的理论窠臼。如果我们采纳美国哲学家丹尼特主张的"异类现象学"方法,我们就有可能将科学方法和工具主义立场相调和,或在对他人的心灵状态做出本体论承诺时,不必向反实在论投降。