Minding Minding God: A Response to Spezio and Bielfeldt

Abstract. Michael Spezio and Dennis Bielfeldt have each raised important issues with regard to my positions in Minding God: Theology and the Cognitive Sciences. In this article I respond to several of their criticisms, including issues of the nature of theology, my stance on epistemology and realism, and issues of physicalism, freedom, and determinism.     

Philosophy and Science Dialogue: Free Will

In this dialogue Derk Pereboom and Marcel Brass discuss the free will problem from the perspective of philosophy and cognitive neuroscience. First, they give their opinion on how the two disciplines contribute to the free will problem. While Pereboom is optimistic regarding the contribution of science, Brass is more pessimistic and questions the usefulness of an empirical approach to the question whether free will exists or not. Then they outline their position on the free will problem. The idea of a transcendental agent is discussed in more detail. Furthermore, it is discussed whether free will scepticism is a politically, socially, psychologically viable position. Pereboom argues that promoting the idea of free will scepticism can have a positive impact on retributive emotions and the political practice regarding retributive punishment. Brass argues that retributive emotions are deeply rooted in evolution and therefore difficult to change via high-level beliefs about free will. Finally, the future of the free will debate is discussed. Both agree that the dialogue between philosophy and psychology should be intensified. Philosophy can benefit from taking empirical research more seriously. Psychology and neuroscience can benefit from philosophy by appreciating the sophistication and conceptual clarity of the philosophical debate. Both have to find a common language and define common problems that can be tackled from both perspectives.     

Philosophy and Science Dialogue: Mental Causation

This paper is a dialogue between Thalia Wheatley and Terence Horgan. Horgan maintains that philosophy is a broadly empirical discipline, and that philosophical theorizing about how concepts work treats certain intuitions about proper concept-usage as empirical data. He holds that the possibility of strong multiple realizability undermines the psychophysical identity theory. He holds that the concept of causation is governed by implicit contextual parameters, and that this dissolves Kim’s problem of “causal exclusion.” He holds that the concept of free will is governed by implicit contextual parameters, and that free-will attributions are often true, in typical contexts, even if determinism is true. Thalia Wheatley holds that the concept of multiple realizability hinges on the level of abstraction discussed and that neuroscientific data does not yet support multiple realizability of mental states from specific, high resolution brain states. She also holds that compatibilism redefines the concept of free will in ways that bear little resemblance to the common understanding―that of being free to choose otherwise in the moment. She maintains that this folk understanding is incompatible with the brain as a physical system and is not rescued by concepts of context and capacity.     

Applied Logic without Psychologism

Logic is a celebrated representation language because of its formal generality. But there are two senses in which a logic may be considered general, one that concerns a technical ability to discriminate between different types of individuals, and another that concerns constitutive norms for reasoning as such. This essay embraces the former, permutation-invariance conception of logic and rejects the latter, Fregean conception of logic. The question of how to apply logic under this pure invariantist view is addressed, and a methodology is given. The pure invariantist view is contrasted with logical pluralism, and a methodology for applied logic is demonstrated in remarks on a variety of issues concerning non-monotonic logic and non-monotonic inference, including Charles Morgan’s impossibility results for non-monotonic logic, David Makinson’s normative constraints for non-monotonic inference, and Igor Douven and Timothy Williamson’s proposed formal constraints on rational acceptance.     

康德实践理性的事实概念及其对自由的证明

康德实践理性的事实概念指的是道德律或道德律的意识,而道德律本身实际上是道德律的意识。道德律是某种自身肯定的东西,它作为事实肯定了纯粹实践理性的客观实在性,并通过理性的这一积极的概念,证明了它自身在实践上的客观实在性。正是通过道德律这一事实,在思辨哲学那里只具有消极性的自由的原因性的概念,在实践哲学中获得了积极的规定,也成为了一个“事实”。     

康德哲学与企业文化

本文分析了中国当前企业文化的三种类型即官商、儒商和佛商,指出佛商流行于华南一带,是目前最有生机活力的一种企业文化,但这种生机活力是由于解构一切规范带来的,具有投机性,不具有积极建设性,对市场经济规律没有自觉意识,尤其对于赚钱的目的性不明确,背后受本能欲望的支配;康德哲学和西方基督教文化在这方面的启示是能够提供一种终极关怀,实践理性的道德自律为人的生存指明了一种理想目标。因此,当代企业文化的发展前景依赖于个人自由意志的确立和建立理性的规范,赚钱的目的应归结到完成自由人格。     

Free Choice

In everyday language, the central question raised by “free choice” is not causation but whether I do what I want. We can, however, grant that our wants are caused. We commonly fail to appreciate this because there is no consciousness of these causal processes. Nevertheless a question about the causation of my want may on occasion become relevant to the freedom of my choice. Thus one may ask if my want is caused by my knowledge and values, or by causes alien to these. This is not a question about the truth, or implications, of the theory of universal determinism.     

The (near) necessity of alternate possibilities for moral responsibility

Harry Frankfurt has famously criticized the principle of alternate possibilities—the principle that an agent is morally responsible for performing some action only if able to have done otherwise than to perform it—on the grounds that it is possible for an agent to be morally responsible for performing an action that is inevitable for the agent when the reasons for which the agent lacks alternate possibilities are not the reasons for which the agent has acted. I argue that an incompatibilist about determinism and moral responsibility can safely ignore so-called “Frakfurt-style cases” and continue to argue for incompatibilism on the grounds that determinism rules out the ability to do otherwise. My argument relies on a simple—indeed, simplistic—weakening of the principle of alternate possibilities that is explicitly designed to be immune to Frankfurt-style criticism. This alternative to the principle of alternate possibilities is so simplistic that it will no doubt strike many readers as philosophically fallow. I argue that it is not. I argue that the addition of one highly plausible premise allows for the modified principle to be employed in an argument for incompatibilism that begins with the observation that determinism rules out the ability to do otherwise. On the merits of this argument I conclude that deterministic moral responsibility is impossible and that Frankfurt’s criticism of the principle of alternate possibilities—even if successful to that end—may be safely ignored.

Break philosophy through internally

This paper contrasts and illustrates two types of breakthroughs in philosophy; i.e., external and internal ones. Both are made possible through its application to a newfield. In the external breakthrough, a new field is discovered by such factors without philosophy as encounters with different traditions of thought and advance in technology. In the internal one, a new field is brought into attention by critical examination of one or another assumption within philosophy that has once dismissed the field as too trivial or insignificant to be its proper subject. Based on this distinction, a research guideline for philosophy is proposed that one must always seek the possibility of its internal breakthrough. It is also suggested that the philosophy of science and epistemology can be innovated internally when they are applied to a new field, that is, statistics. Finally the distinction between pure and applied philosophy is reinterpreted in the light of the internal breakthrough.     

Reflexivity and its Radical Form: Implications for the Practice of Humanistic Psychotherapies

Reflexivity has been defined as self-awareness, and radical reflexivity as awareness of self-awareness. Based on a qualitative research study of the client's experience of psychotherapy, clients’ reflexivity and radical reflexivity are applied to the concepts of moral evaluation and freedom of will. These concepts in turn are related to psychotherapy clients’ relationship with self and with the therapist. It is shown how the nature of these relationships provides a rationale for decisions on the appropriateness of the therapist's direction of the therapeutic process. In addition, specific interventions to offset the power differential between the client and therapist are specified. It is concluded that unconscious determinants of experience and action notwithstanding, clients’ self-aware agency plays a significant role in their engagement in therapy.