The Relational–Linguistic Spiral: A Model of Language for Theology

This article attempts to sketch out a view of language as a relational–linguistic spiral by discussing some implications of the thought of Ludwig Wittgenstein for language in general. Language is cast as a spiral which revolves around a center of 'human relationality' that anchors all our speech and concepts but which revolves in an ever–widening way into an arena of meaning we call language. Language creates linguistic space for experience and invites one into these new experiences. The borders of our language are thus not the absolute limits of our world but the admitted limits of our experience. Because the enterprise of language is inherently open, there must be a space for theological language and for the possibility at least of the kind of experiences described therein. Tracing the relational 'vectors' involved in language can also provide a platform for theological and even inter–religious dialogue.     

at home in the world

To be at home in the world is an expression of attachment observed in all living beings and the specifically human need to create a world of shared meaningful experiences. Recent history has been a history of lost homes and lost nations. Although modern man and woman have gained new opportunities of finding a home with any person or community, an analysis of homesickness reveals the archetypal need for enduring attachments that are rooted in the actual history of our experiences of a whole world. The mythic notion of Sacred Space symbolizes an archetypal intention to invest kinship libido in people, animals and objects that are within the boundaries of a known world. Home becomes an inner psychological dimension not dependent on geographic location. We may understand it as a capacity of the psyche to offer a fixed point of reference to which we may return so that we may assimilate new experiences without loss of identity. The discoveries of infant research indicate that self-continuity manifests in infancy as an attribute of the core self. If this is not matched by a holding environment, psychologically painful experiences of felt abandonment can ensue. It is shown how this theme can appear as part of the analytic space, in dreams and in transference, and that a working through of its meanings individually can help restore our being at home in the world.     

Is there a phenomenological argument for higher-order representationalism?

In his 2009 article “Self-Representationalism and Phenomenology,” Uriah Kriegel argues for self-representationalism about phenomenal consciousness primarily on phenomenological grounds. Kriegel’s argument can naturally be cast more broadly as an argument for higher-order representationalism. I examine this broadened version of Kriegel’s argument in detail and show that it is unsuccessful for two reasons. First, Kriegel’s argument (in its strongest form) relies on an inference to the best explanation from the claim that all experiences of normal adult human beings are accompanied by peripheral awareness of those very experiences to the claim that all experiences are accompanied by peripheral awareness of those very experiences. This inference is inadequately defended, for the explanandum may also be given a straightforward evolutionary explanation. Second, contra Kriegel, I argue that phenomenological investigation does not support the thesis that we are always peripherally aware of our experiences. Instead, it delivers no verdict on this thesis. Kriegel’s phenomenological mistake may be explained via a highly diluted version of the famous transparency thesis about experience.     

Self-awareness as conscious meta-representation

Citing the phenomenon of transparency, some philosophers argue that we cannot become aware of the intrinsic properties of our experiences. When we introspect, they argue, our experiences always seem as if they are exhausted by their intentional contents. They conclude that introspection does not reveal any properties that seem intrinsic to experience. In order to answer this argument, we must show how it could seem as if we are simultaneously aware of external objects and our experience of those objects. I explain how this is possible by introducing the notion of conscious meta-representation. Conscious meta-representation occurs when we consciously conceive of represented objects as being merely putative. This sort of conceiving sometimes involves a distinctive phenomenology, and it explains how certain features of an experience can simultaneously seem as if they belong to external objects and to our experiences of those objects. We can, I conclude, look ‘at’ our experiences even as we are looking ‘through’ them.     

How to tell essence (when you sense one)

How could perceptual experiences reveal matters of essentiality? Answering this question is crucial for vindicating a thesis about the epistemic import of experience, commonly known as Revelation. The thesis comes in a weak and a strong version. Only on the strong one could it make up an authoritative piece of common sense. But this version also seems to demand too much of our experiences, namely that they can reveal essentiality. However, the impression that our experiences are not suited for this turns out to be due to a non-mandatory assumption about how the revelation of essentiality would work.     

Is transcendental idealism coherent?

I argue that transcendental idealism can be understood as a coherent and plausible account of experience. I begin by proposing an interpretation of the claim that we know only appearances that does not imply that the objects of experience are anything other than independently real objects. As I understand it, the claim here is abouthow objects appear to us, and not aboutwhat objects appear to us. After this, I offer a version of a correspondence account of veridical experience, in virtue of which these independent entities can satisfy the contents of our experiences. Specifically, I claim that veridical experience can be construed as a kind of map of reality in itself, and that these independent entities satisfy the contents of our experiences when they are, given the proper method of projection, the objects mapped by those experiences.     

Temporal Experiences without the Specious Present

Most philosophers believe that we have experiences as of temporally extended phenomena like change, motion, and succession. Almost all theories of time consciousness explain these temporal experiences by subscribing to the doctrine of the specious present, the idea that the contents of our experiences embrace temporally extended intervals of time and are presented as temporally structured. Against these theories, I argue that the doctrine is false and present a theory that does not require the notion of a specious present. Furthermore, I argue that the different aspects of temporal experiences arise from different mechanisms operating separately. If the theory is true, then temporal experiences do not tell us anything special about the nature of consciousness and its temporal properties per se.     

Empirical Content and Rational Constraint

It is often thought that epistemic relations between experience and belief make it possible for our beliefs to be about or “directed towards” the empirical world. I focus on an influential attempt by John McDowell to defend a view along these lines. According to McDowell, unless experiences are the sorts of things that can be our reasons for holding beliefs, our beliefs would not be “answerable” to the facts they purportedly represent, and so would lack all empirical content. I argue that there is no intelligible conception of what it is for beliefs to be answerable to the facts that supports McDowell's claim that our empirical beliefs must be justified by experience.     

What do the MMPI scales fundamentally measure? Some hypotheses

I consider the question of whether all psychopathological behaviors can, on an evolutionary foundation, be considered as positive adaptations. I proposed that higher functions can be differentiated from their associated emotional modulations at simultaneous subjective, behavioral, and neural levels and that organizing analyses in this way will enable us to fill in our understanding of both the effects and relief of traumatic experiences. I then present each of the 8 clinical scales of the MMPI (Hathaway & McKinley, 1943) as a dimension of positive adaptation with simultaneous cognitive-emotional, operant-classical, and neocortical-limbic elements. A variety of life-experience paradigms are then offered to explain the factors that operate to increase MMPI scale elevations as well as countermeasures that can operate to reduce such elevations. Understanding all such behaviors as adaptive leads to a notable enhancement of empathy.     

The Sixteen Strivings for God

Abstract. A psychological theory of religious experiences, sensitivity theory, is proposed. Whereas other theories maintain that religious motivation is about a few overarching desires, sensitivity theory provides a multifaceted analysis consistent with the diversity, richness, and individuality of religious experiences. Sixteen basic desires show the psychological foundations of meaningful experience. Each basic desire is embraced by every person, but to different extents. How we prioritize the basic desires expresses our individuality and influences our attraction to various religious images and activities. Each basic desire is associated with a basic goal and a unique joy, such as love, self‐worth, relaxation, or strength. We do not seek to experience joys infinitely; we regulate joys, in accordance with our core values, to sixteen balance points (sensitivities) that vary based on individuality. Religions help persons of faith regulate the sixteen basic joys by providing some images that strengthen joyful experiences and others that weaken them. We can strengthen our experience of self‐ worth, for example, by contemplating God in the image of savior; we can weaken our experience of self‐worth by contemplating original sin. The theory of sixteen basic desires is testable scientifically and suggests such philosophical concepts as value‐based happiness.     

Do you see what I know? On reasons,perceptual evidence,and epistemic status

Our epistemology can shape the way we think about perception and experience. Speaking as an epistemologist, I should say that I don't necessarily think that this is a good thing. If we think that we need perceptual evidence to have perceptual knowledge or perceptual justification, we will naturally feel some pressure to think of experience as a source of reasons or evidence. In trying to explain how experience can provide us with evidence, we run the risk of either adopting a conception of evidence according to which our evidence isn't very much like the objects of our beliefs that figure in reasoning (e.g., by identifying our evidence with experiences or sensations) or the risk of accepting a picture of experience according to which our perceptions and perceptual experiences are quite similar to beliefs in terms of their objects and their representational powers. But I think we have good independent reasons to resist identifying our evidence with things that don't figure in our reasoning as premises and I think we have good independent reason to doubt that experience is sufficiently belief‐like to provide us with something premise‐like that can figure in reasoning. We should press pause. We shouldn't let questionable epistemological assumptions tell us how to do philosophy of mind. I don't think that we have good reason to think that we need the evidence of the senses to explain how perceptual justification or knowledge is possible. Part of my scepticism derives from the fact that I think we can have kinds of knowledge where the relevant knowledge is not evidentially grounded. Part of my scepticism derives from the fact that there don't seem to be many direct arguments for thinking that justification and knowledge always requires evidential support. In this paper, I shall consider the three arguments I've found for thinking that justification and knowledge do always require evidential support and explain why I don't find them convincing. I think that we can explain perceptual justification, rationality, and defeat without assuming that our experiences provide us with evidence. In the end, I think we can partially vindicate Davidson's (notorious) suggestion that our beliefs, not experiences, provide us with reasons for forming further beliefs. This idea turns out to be compatible with foundationalism once we understand that foundational status can come from something other than evidential support.     

Using an AI creativity system to explore how aesthetic experiences are processed along the brain’s perceptual neural pathways

With the increased sophistication of AI techniques, the application of these systems has been expanding to ever newer fields. Increasingly, these systems are being used in modeling of human aesthetics and creativity, e.g. how humans create artworks and design products. Our lab has developed one such AI creativity deep learning system that can be used to create artworks in the form of images and videos. In this paper, we describe this system and its use in studying the human visual system and the formation of aesthetic experiences. Specifically, we show how time-based AI created media can be used to explore the nature of the dual-pathway neuro-architecture of the human visual system and how this relates to higher cognitive judgments such as aesthetic experiences that rely on these divergent information streams. We propose a theoretical framework for how the movement within percepts such as video clips, causes the engagement of reflexive attention and a subsequent focus on visual information that are primarily processed via the dorsal stream, thereby modulating aesthetic experiences that rely on information relayed via the ventral stream. We outline our recent study in support of our proposed framework, which serves as the first study that investigates the relationship between the two visual streams and aesthetic experiences.     

Care for one's own future experiences

We care for our own future experiences. Most of us, trivially, would rather have them pleasurable than painful. When we care for our own future experiences we do so in a way that is different from the way we care for those of others (which is not to say that we necessarily care more about our own experience). Prereflectively, one would think this is because these experiences will be ours and no one else's. But then, of course, we need to explain what it means to say that a future experience will be mine and how knowledge of this fact renders it rational for me to care for this experience in a special way. Indeed most philosophers take this route. But in doing so, they quickly stumble on insuperable problems. I shall argue that the problem of egocentric care, as it is sometimes called, can be solved by turning things upside down: it is much more fruitful to think that the special kind of care we feel for some future experiences (and not others) is part of what makes them ours should they occur. This requires an explanation of egocentric care for future experiences that does not draw in a theory of personal identity, but rather contributes to one. I will attempt to provide this explanation by making use of the idea of a diachronic mental holism.     

On The Nature of Experiencing Self‐Agency: The Role of Goals and Primes in Inferring Oneself as the Cause of Behavior

People often find themselves in situations where the cause of events may be ambiguous. Surprisingly though, the experience of self‐agency, i.e., perceiving oneself as the causal agent of behavioral outcomes, appears quite natural to most people. How then do these experiences arise? We discuss common models proposing that self‐agency experiences result from the comparison between actual action‐outcomes and the outcomes one explicitly set as a goal. However, recent developments in psychology and neuroscience suggest that our behaviors and the outcomes they produce can be primed and implicitly guided by environmental cues and yet are accompanied by experiences of self‐agency. Hence, we also review research revealing how self‐agency experiences may arise over behavioral outcomes that are implicitly primed before they occur and how such implicitly cued agency experiences may differ from agency experiences that are the result of explicitly set goals. Directions for future research are briefly addressed.     

“Who Am I?”: The Biblical Moses as a Metaphor for Teaching

This essay presents Moses, the protagonist of the biblical books of Exodus and Deuteronomy in the Hebrew Bible, as a playful but generative metaphor for current teaching practices and experiences in higher education, including my own. Among numerous similarities (such as the fact that Moses, other teachers, and I are all bound by context), the most humbling insights come from Moses's role as a mediator or intermediary. It is a role that we also inhabit – standing, as it were, between our students and the knowledge of our discipline – and that we might consider further, particularly in terms of our responsibilities.     

Absorption and hallucinatory experience

In this paper, we investigate whether the personality trait of Absorption is a predisposing factor for hallucinatory experience. Our participants completed a number of questionnaires, assessing absorption, hallucinatory experiences, subjective experiences along the sleep–wakefulness continuum, paranormal experiences and belief, and dissociation. Our findings are indicative of a common, pseudo‐hallucinatory experiential base, suggesting that absorption can indeed serve as the predisposing factor for hallucinatory experience. In our discussion, we look at the implications of this finding for applied cognitive psychology, focusing on the study of false memories and reality monitoring, and on the study of probability judgement and paranormal belief. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Everything is clear: All perceptual experiences are transparent

The idea that perceptual experience is transparent is generally used by naïve realists and externalist representationalists to promote an externalist account of the metaphysics of perceptual experience. It is claimed that the phenomenal character of our perceptual experience can be explained solely with reference to the externally located objects and properties which (for the representationalist) we represent, or which (for the naïve realist) partly constitute our experience. Internalist qualia theorists deny this and claim that the phenomenal character of our perceptual experience is internally constituted. However, my concern in this paper is not with the metaphysical debate but with transparency as a phenomenological feature of perceptual experience. Qualia theorists have presented a number of examples of perceptual experiences which, they claim, do not even seem to be transparent; these experiences involve objects or properties which seem to be internally realized. I argue, contrary to the qualia theorist's claim, that the phenomenal character of perceptual experience can in fact be characterized solely with reference to externally located objects and properties, and the sense in which some features of our perceptual experiences do not seem external is due to cognitive, not perceptual, phenomenology.     

Quining diet qualia

This paper asks whether we can identify a neutral explanandum for theories of phenomenal consciousness, acceptable to all sides. The 'classic' conception of qualia, on which qualia are intrinsic, ineffable, and subjective, will not serve this purpose, but it is widely assumed that a watered-down 'diet' conception will. I argue that this is wrong and that the diet notion of qualia has no distinctive content. There is no phenomenal residue left when qualia are stripped of their intrinsicality, ineffability, and subjectivity. Thus, if we reject classic qualia realism, we should accept that all that needs explaining are 'zero' qualia - our dispositions to judge that our experiences have classic qualia. Diet qualia should, in Dennett's phrase, be quined.     

A quasi-experimental study of after-event reviews and leadership development

We examine how structured reflection through after-event reviews (AERs) promotes experience-based leadership development and how people's prior experiences and personality attributes influence the impact of AERs on leadership development. We test our hypotheses in a time-lagged, quasi-experimental study that followed 173 research participants for 9 months and across 4 distinct developmental experiences. Findings indicate that AERs have a positive effect on leadership development, and this effect is accentuated when people are conscientious, open to experience, and emotionally stable and have a rich base of prior developmental experiences. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved).