Why Naturalize Consciousness?

This paper examines the relevance of philosophical work on consciousness to its scientific study. Of particular concern is the debate over whether consciousness can be naturalized, which is typically taken to bear on the prospects for its scientific investigation. It is not at all clear that philosophers of consciousness have properly identified and evaluated the assumptions about scientific activity made by both naturalization and antinaturalization projects. I argue that there is good reason to think that some of the assumptions about physicalism and explanation made by the parties to the debate are open to serious doubt. Thus this paper is an invitation for those inquiring into whether consciousness can be naturalized to more carefully consider the expected payoff of such efforts.     

Consciousness and content‐formation

General opposition to ‘progress’ is often seen as involving a personification of technology as an evil spirit. One version of ‘luddism’ is defended here as worthy of serious debate. ('Luddism’ is an attempt to justify a general presumption that technical progress is bad for us, so technical innovations should not count as true achievement.) Our luddite says, ‘If technical powers, misused, will cause more harm than good, these powers should count as bad. And such harmful misuse is likely, since the dramatic, half‐blind changes resulting from technology will shortly damage world systems, swamping their adjustment‐mechanisms. “Superhuman”; powers go sour with merely human wisdom. “Know‐how”; tends inherently to pull ahead of “know‐whether”; ‘. This version of luddism is contrasted with various caricatures; luddite research priorities are outlined. Serious discussion is invited of the dangers inherent in further empowering fallible humanity.     

Is Intentionality Dependent upon Consciousness?

It is often assumed thatconsciousness and intentionality are twomutually independent aspects of mental life.When the assumption is denounced, it usuallygives way to the claim that consciousness issomehow dependent upon intentionality. Thepossibility that intentionality may bedependent upon consciousness is rarelyentertained. Recently, however, John Searle andColin McGinn have argued for just suchdependence. In this paper, I reconstruct andevaluate their argumentation. I am in sympathyboth with their view and with the lines ofargument they employ in its defense. UnlikeSearle and McGinn, however, I am quite attachedto a naturalist approach to intentionality. Itwill turn out to be somewhat difficult toreconcile naturalism with the notion thatintentionality is dependent upon consciousness,although, perhaps surprisingly, I will arguethat McGinn's case for such dependence iscompatible with naturalism.     

Social Consciousness in Canadian Islamic Schools?

This note presents the results of interviews carried with lead teachers in four of Toronto's full-time oldest and largest Islamic schools. The study found a distinct development of pedagogical aspirations among these four schools. Teachers all reported encouraging and teaching about social consciousness as a fundamental aspect of faith practice. The note also traces how in the wake of 9/11 these schools have engaged in an explicit attempt to create a space for the teaching of social justice through fundraising, dialogue, and community activism. However, the note concludes by an analysis showing that the predominant conception of social justice in this establishment remains outward looking rather than inwardly critical.     

Self‐Consciousness,Normativity and Abysmal Freedom

This article critically examines Christine Korsgaard's claim in her Tanner Lectures to find in self‐consciousness itself the norms that would answer our need for practical reasons, insofar as that need is constituted through our capacity for reflection. It shows that the way in which Korsgaard sees “the need for a reason” as arising out of self‐consciousness implies a dilemma: on the one hand, we want as the ultimate source of our reasons an authority of which we cannot coherently demand legitimation in turn; on the other, our freedom demands that nothing count for us as a reason except insofar as it is in turn endorsed in reflection. Relying on resources drawn from the tradition of reflection, this paper argues that Korsgaard's attempt to resolve this tension is unsuccessful and appeals, in response to this failure, to faith in the authority of our reasons in the absence of foundational justification of them.     

Possibility and Consciousness in Husserl’s Thought

Clarifying the nature of possibility is crucial for an evaluation of the phenomenological approach to ontology. From a phenomenological perspective, it is ontological possibility, and not spatiotemporal existence, that has pre-eminent ontological status. Since the sphere of phenomenological being and the sphere of experienceability turn out to be overlapping, this makes room for two perspectives. We can confer foundational priority to the acts of consciousness over possibilities, or to pre-set possibilities over the activity of consciousness. Husserl’s position on this issue seems to change over time. Ultimately, the establishment of a phenomenological perspective must involve a rejection of any hypostatization of pre-set possibilities, but not all implications of this theoretical step seem to be drawn in Husserl’s texts. This paper is devoted to an illustration of how the phenomenological notion of possibility should change when we reject the hypostatization of possibility, that is, when we reject the idea that all acts of consciousness are to be conceived as realizations of pre-set “ideal forms”. We examine this question, first, by trying to clarify the conceptual constellation of “possibility” in Husserl’s texts. This leads to an overall classification of the features of constituted (ontic) possibilities. Then we distinguish such constituted possibilities from their constituting conditions, which outlines a different sense of “possibility”. In the last instance two “possibilizing” dimensions (transcendental motivation and transcendental contingency) are shown to lie at the root of all ontic possibilities. This leads to a final suggestion on the nature of the relation between experience and possibility. Actual experiences create the room for possibility: they are possibilizations (Ermöglichungen). In this sense, experience is to be taken as a generative sphere which goes beyond the customary boundary between epistemic and ontological. From this point of view all experience is to be conceived as emergence .     

What Form of Historical Consciousness Should Schools Impart?

Studies in Philosophy and Education - In this essay, I ask what form of historical consciousness schools should nurture in students. The two criteria I set up in this regard are...     

Which Comes First: Consciousness or Aspartate Receptors?

This paper is a critique of Karl Jansen's hypothesis that near-death and ketamine experiences are caused by blockade of N-methyl-D-aspartate receptors. An assumption that consciousness and its alterations are merely the product of neuronal activity is only one of many possible beliefs about reality. An alternative, which can be verified through one's own direct experience, is that consciousness is always a subject and body is only its object. The objects come and go; consciousness remains.     

Consciousness and identity: who do we think we are?

This article proposes that the epistemological concerns raised by the inherent incoherence of thought requires a dialogical approach to understanding consciousness and identity. It is argued that such an approach leads to (a) a fundamentally spiritual view of self, (b) a radical view of consciousness as a non-local field that shapes the limits of our perception, and (c) a determination of the degree of gap between reality and thought's representation of it. A method of measuring this kind of consciousness is examined, and examples of insights gained through this methodology are provided. Implications of this perspective are explored, and conclusions arising from this inquiry are presented.     

Consciousness or the Physical Universe – Which Came First?

Historically, many have seen the intelligibility of the physical universe as showing that it is somehow ultimately dependent upon conscious intelligent pre‐existing being – ‘God’. Today, however, many believe that modern advances in our scientific understanding of the origins and nature of the universe, and of the conscious intelligent beings it contains, render God, as Laplace said, an ‘unnecessary hypothesis’. This article considers whether the findings of modern science do indeed diminish the plausibility of belief in a creator God. Or, on the contrary, whether there are features of current scientific understanding which may reasonably be thought to support the belief that conscious intelligent being pre‐existed the physical universe and caused it to be. In short: can science reasonably be thought to support the view that consciousness created the physical universe rather than that the physical universe created consciousness?     

Structure of the Objectified Body Consciousness Scale: Reevaluated 20 Years later

The Objectified Body Consciousness Scale (OBCS) is a prominent measure of key constructs in the body image literature. Despite the impact and popularity of the OBCS, however, investigations of its factor structure have been limited. To our knowledge, the present study is the first since the instrument’s development 20 years ago to provide a detailed evaluation of the replicability of the factor structure of OBCS data in a sample of U.S. college women, the population for which the measure was originally developed and is used most frequently. Specifically, we used confirmatory factor analyses to evaluate the structure of OBCS data and identify areas for measure refinement. Internal consistency reliability and convergent validity were also examined. A sample of 368 U.S. college women completed the OBCS along with measures of body esteem and thin-ideal internalization as convergent validity indicators. Findings revealed that OBCS Control Beliefs items were poor indicators of the factor. A two-factor structure composed of Body Surveillance and Body Shame was supported. Support for internal consistency reliability and convergent validity was also garnered. Additionally, abbreviated versions of the Body Surveillance and Body Shame subscales produced good model-data fit without sacrificing reliability or validity. These results support the use of the OBCS Body Surveillance and Body Shame subscales to assess critical aspects of body image in research and practice contexts; the abbreviated versions of these subscales can address demands for brevity in these contexts.     

Is There a Simple Argument for Higher-Order Representation Theories of Awareness Consciousness?

William Lycan has articulated “a simple argument” for higher-order representation (HOR) theories of a variety of consciousness sometimes labeled ‘awareness consciousness’ (Lycan, Analysis 61.1, January 3–4, 2001). The purpose of this article is to critically assess the influential argument-strategy of the simple argument. I argue that, as stated, the simple argument fails since it is invalid. Moreover, I argue that an obvious “quick fix” would beg the question against competing same-order representation (SOR) theories of awareness consciousness. I then provide a reconstruction of the argument and argue that although the reconstructed argument deserves consideration, it is also too simple as stated. In particular, it raises several controversial questions about the nature of mental representation. These questions must be addressed before a verdict as to the cogency of the HOR argument-strategy can be reached. But since the questions are controversial, a cogent argument for HOR theories of awareness consciousness is unlikely to be simple.

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Husserl’s Break from Brentano Reconsidered: Abstraction and the Structure of Consciousness

The paper contends that abstraction lies at the core of the philosophical and methodological rupture that occurred between Husserl and his mentor Franz Brentano. To accomplish this, it explores the notion of abstraction at work in these two thinkers’ methodological discussions through their respective claims regarding the structure of consciousness, and shows that how Husserl and Brentano analyze the structure of consciousness conditions and strictly delineates the nature and reach of their methods of inquiry. The paper pays close attention to intentionality, founding (Fundierung), and qualitative modification (qualitative Modifikation) understood as principles of consciousness. While intentionality has been the topic of numerous discussions surrounding these two thinkers’ work, founding and qualitative modification have slipped under the radar despite the fact that they hold—as I intend to show—the key to shedding new light on their respective methods of inquiry. More specifically, the paper explicates the ways in which Brentano’s notion of founding (understood as a relationship between whole acts) and his failure to identify radical-qualitative modification as a principle of consciousness preclude him from offering a successful model for philosophical universalizing thought. It is my hope to show that Husserl’s rethinking of founding as a relationship between certain structural moments of acts along with his novel notion of qualitative modification ground his attempt to carve a new method of philosophical inquiry—albeit jejune and ambiguous at the time of the Investigations, yet nevertheless able to successfully negotiate the problems faced by his predecessor.