AN INTRODUCTION TO PANSPIRITISM: AN ALTERNATIVE TO MATERIALISM AND PANPSYCHISM

This article is an introduction to a philosophical approach termed “panspiritism.” The fundamental principles of this approach are summarized, with discussion of how it links to earlier (mainly Eastern) philosophical perspectives, how it differs from panpsychism and its relationship to idealism and theism. Issues such as the relationship between mind and matter, the relationship between the mind and the brain, and the emergence of mind are discussed from a “panspiritist” perspective. There is a discussion of how panspiritism relates to mystical experiences. The article concludes by suggesting that this approach can help to elucidate a wide range of phenomena that appear anomalous or problematic from a materialist point of view.     

Non-reductivism and the metaphilosophy of mind

ABSTRACT

This paper discusses the metaphilosophical assumptions that have dominated analytic philosophy of mind, and how they gave rise to the central question that the best-known forms of non-reductivism available have sought to answer, namely: how can mind fit within nature? Its goal is to make room for forms of non-reductivism that have challenged the fruitfulness of this question, and which have taken a different approach to the so-called “placement” problem. Rather than trying to solve the placement problem, the forms of non-reductivism discussed in this paper have put pressure on the metaphilosophical assumptions that have given rise to the question of the place of mind in nature in the first instance.     

具身心智对进化心理学的质疑与挑战

具身-生成心智倡导生命与认知的深刻连续性,它重新定义了自然选择,强调身体和生命活动对认知的关键意义,并指出每一个人都是经过文化适应的主体。它在心智进化的本质、认知的核心工作假设、人类本性与文化,以及基因、身体、生命活动与认知的关系等问题上都有着完全不同于进化心理学的理解,并对后者提出了质疑和挑战。     

六祖惠能的偈语中的心学思想探究

六祖的偈语是其禅学思想的肇始和集中体现,其中蕴含着丰富的心学思想。概括起来,它所蕴含的心学思想主要表现在以下几个方面:心的本体性与修心; 心无与心存; 心悟; 静心等。这些思想既是一种哲学思想,也是一种宗教思想,同时也是一种人们修心处世之道。它们给予当代人以很大的启迪作用和借鉴价值,在当今社会仍有重要的现实价值。     

The Patriarchal Mind as the Ignored Root of Interpersonal and Social Pathologies

The article begins with an integrative theory of neurosis and with the notion of the “patriarchal mind,” which I conceive as the psycho-social foundation of what we call “civilisation” and proceed to characterize as a despotic and repressive activity of the father on the mother and on the child in the family, and also of an analogous relation between the intellect on the emotional and on the instinctual sub-selves in the individual mind. Next, I propose that patriarchy entails four interrelated problems: (1) violent authority; (2) the eclipse of caring; (3) the repression of instinct; and (4) the invalidation of intuition; and point out that since these are evident in our well-recognized social problems, these may be traced down to the “patriarchal complex” that in turn defines patriarchal society. Finally, I develop the idea that not only is the patriarchal mind is embodied in each of the known interpersonal or character pathologies, but that each of these pathologies contributes to the systemic and cultural presence of the patriarchal mind. The corollary of this analysis is that the healing of both our interpersonal and social pathologies will depend on the healing of the patriarchal mind, which is conceivably possible to bring about through a specially designed education oriented to the balanced development of “three-brained beings,” in whom a balance has been achieved between the intellectual, emotional, and instinctive sub-selves that constitute our mind.     

Much ado about nothing? Why going non-semantic is not merely semantics

This paper argues that deciding on whether the cognitive sciences need a Representational Theory of Mind matters. Far from being merely semantic or inconsequential, the answer we give to the RTM-question makes a difference to how we conceive of minds. How we answer determines which theoretical framework the sciences of mind ought to embrace. The structure of this paper is as follows. Section 1 outlines Rowlands’s (2017) argument that the RTM-question is a bad question and that attempts to answer it, one way or another, have neither practical nor theoretical import. Rowlands concludes this because, on his analysis, there is no non-arbitrary fact of the matter about which properties something must possess in order to qualify as a mental representation. By way of reply, we admit that Rowlands’s analysis succeeds in revealing why attempts to answer the RTM-question simpliciter are pointless. Nevertheless, we show that if specific formulations of the RTM-question are stipulated, then it is possible, conduct substantive RTM debates that do not collapse into merely verbal disagreements. Combined, Sections 2 and 3 demonstrate how, by employing specifying stipulations, we can get around Rowlands’s arbitrariness challenge. Section 2 reveals why RTM, as canonically construed in terms of mental states exhibiting intensional (with-an-s) properties, has been deemed a valuable explanatory hypothesis in the cognitive sciences. Targeting the canonical notion of mental representations, Section 3 articulates a rival nonrepresentational hypothesis that, we propose, can do all the relevant explanatory work at much lower theoretical cost. Taken together, Sections 2 and 3 show what can be at stake in the RTM debate when it is framed by appeal to the canonical notion of mental representation and why engaging in it matters. Section 4 extends the argument for thinking that RTM debates matter. It provides reasons for thinking that, far from making no practical or theoretical difference to the sciences of the mind, deciding to abandon RTM would constitute a revolutionary conceptual shift in those sciences.     

Introduction

The papers in this special issue make important contributions to a longstanding debate about how we should conceive of and explain mental phenomena. In other words, they make a case about the best philosophical paradigm for cognitive science. The two main competing approaches, hotly debated for several decades, are representationalism and enactivism. However, recent developments in disciplines such as machine learning and computational neuroscience have fostered a proliferation of intermediate approaches, leading to the emergence of completely new positions, in particular the Predictive Processing approach. Here, we will consider the different approaches discussed in this volume.     

Young children's self‐benefiting lies and their relation to executive functioning and theory of mind

It is well established that children lie in different social contexts for various purposes from the age of 2 years. Surprisingly, little is known about whether very young children will spontaneously lie for personal gain, how self‐benefiting lies emerge, and what cognitive factors affect the emergence of self‐benefiting lies. To bridge this gap in the literature, we situated children between 2 and 4 years of age in a zero‐sum game where children must lie to their opponent if they wanted to win a desirable reward. We found that the majority of young children did not lie even when they experienced personal losses repeatedly. However, some children spontaneously lied during the game; as the game progressed, more children lied. Further, we found that children's theory of mind understanding and executive functioning in terms of a combination of inhibitory control and cognitive flexibility had significant positive and unique correlations with how frequently children lied for personal gain. The present results taken together with the existing findings regarding children's lies for self‐protection and politeness purposes suggest that the act of lying begins early in life. Further, its emergence and development are influenced by children's specific cognitive abilities in the domains of theory of mind understanding and executive functioning.

Highlights

• The study investigated whether very young children will spontaneously lie for personal gain.
• This study used a zero‐sum game to elicit children's self‐benefiting lies. Results showed the majority of young children did not lie, and it is related to children's theory of mind understanding and executive functioning.
• The act of lying begins early in life, and its emergence and development are influenced by children's specific cognitive abilities in the domains of theory of mind understanding and executive functioning.

     

抑郁对社会决策的影响

从社会决策角度出发,依托博弈论的经典范式是研究抑郁症病人人际与社会功能障碍的一个切入点。Ruff和Fehr （2014）提出在社会决策中存在三类情境,即社会反馈、替代性评价、社会原则。我们从这个理论框架出发,发现抑郁症病人在社会反馈加工中存在社会性快感缺失,对社会拒绝的敏感性增强;在替代性评价过程中,共情和心理理论能力减弱;抑郁症病人对决策中的社会原则（公平、合作）存在适应不良现象,如过度利他性。未来的研究一方面可进一步探索抑郁症病人的社会性快感缺失现象,另一方面可采用经颅电/磁刺激与脑成像技术结合或超扫描技术,提高研究结果的解释力和生态效度。     

人心是何?现代新儒家的心理观

随着文化心理学的兴起,如何深化中国文化与心理学的联系,促进其对心理学的贡献成为了重要问题。在这方面,以梁漱溟、熊十力和冯友兰为代表的现代新儒家进行了开拓性的研究。他们在批判性接纳科学心理观的基础上,主张心理是多层次的存在,强调了心理的自觉性、能动性、生成性、道德性等内涵。新儒家的心理观既能启发本土学者妥善解决中国文化与心理的关系,又能推动建立一种既关注大脑生理机制与心理机制又蕴含本土内涵的综合心理观。