This Handbook introduces neurosemiotics, a pluralistic framework to reconsider semiosis as an emergent phenomenon at the interface of biology and culture. Across individual and interpersonal settings, meaning is influenced by external and internal processes bridging phenomenological and biological dimensions. Yet, each of these dyads has been segregated into discipline-specific topics, with attempts to chart their intersections proving preliminary at best. Bringing together perspectives from world-leading experts, this volume seeks to overcome these disciplinary divides between the social and the natural sciences at both the empirical and theoretical levels. Its various chapters chart the foundations of neurosemiotics; characterize linguistic and interpersonal dynamics as shaped by neurocognitive, bodily, situational, and societal factors; and examine other daily neurosemiotic occurrences driven by faces, music, tools, and even visceral signals. This comprehensive volume is a state-of the-art resource for students and researchers interested in how humans and other animals construe experience in such fields as cognitive neuroscience, biosemiotics, philosophy of mind, neuropsychology, neurolinguistics, and evolutionary biology.

In this book, Shay Welch expands on the contemporary cognitive thinking-in-movement framework, which has its roots in the work of Maxine Sheets-Johnstone but extends and develops within contemporary embodied cognition theory. Welch believes that dance can be used to ask questions, and this book offers a method of how critical inquiry can be embodied. First, she presents the theoretical underpinnings of what this process is and how it can work; second, she introduces the empirical method as a tool that can be used by movers for the purpose of doing embodied inquiry. Exploring the role of embodied cognition and embodied metaphors in mining the body for questions, Welch demonstrates how to utilize movement to explore embodied practices of knowing. She argues that our creative embodied movements facilitate our ability to bodily engage in critical analysis about the world.

Brain Mystery Light and Dark examines scientific models of how the brain becomes conscious and argues that the spiritual dimension of life is compatible with the main scientific theories. Keyes shows us that the belief in the unity of mind and brain does not necessarily undermine aesthetic, religious, and ethical beliefs.

Personal Agency consists of two parts. In Part II, a radically libertarian theory of action is defended which combines aspects of agent causalism and volitionism. This theory accords to volitions the status of basic mental actions, maintaining that these are spontaneous exercises of the will--a 'two-way' power which rational agents can freely exercise in the light of reason. Lowe contends that substances, not events, are the causal source of all change in the world--with rational, free agents like ourselves having a special place in the causal order as unmoved movers, or initiators of new causal chains. And he defends a thoroughgoing externalism regarding reasons for action, holding these to be mind-independent worldly entities rather than the beliefs and desires of agents. Part I prepares the ground for this theory by undermining the threat presented to it by physicalism. It does this by challenging the causal closure argument for physicalism in all of its forms and by showing that a dualistic philosophy of mind--one which holds that human mental states and their subjects cannot be identified with bodily states and human bodies respectively--is both metaphysically coherent and entirely consistent with known empirical facts.

- integrates relevant philosophy in a way that makes it understandable and palatable to psychoanalytic readers - there isn't much direct competition to this book; it's an original contribution

Beyond Humanism seeks to set humanism on a new footing. Enlightenment ideals of an autonomous, disconnected, and rational self are unrealistic. Together with Romantic dreams of authenticity and expression of the self it has had adverse effects, contributing to egotism and narcissism. Instead, this book employs a philosophy oriented towards the relationship between self and other. The book gives a critical discussion of religion, the Enlightenment and Romanticism. It seeks a way between Nietzsche's philosophy of the flourishing of life and Levinas's philosophy of the other. It argues that the self requires the other for its flourishing. The other is needed for the development of the self, for freedom also from the delusions and prejudices of the self, for transcendence of the self, for learning and innovation, for making sense in language, and for a life that aims not at a hereafter for the self but a hereafter that benefits others after one's death.

"Here, at last, is a book about what happiness really means, and why it often eludes us in our stressed-out, always-on lives." -Arianna Huffington, Founder and CEO, Thrive A young philosopher and Guinness World Record holder in pull-ups argues that the key to happiness is not goal-driven striving but forging a life that integrates self-possession, friendship, and engagement with nature. What is the meaning of the good life? In this strikingly original book, Adam Adatto Sandel draws on ancient and modern thinkers and on two seemingly disparate pursuits of his own, philosophy and fitness, to offer a surprising answer to this age-old human question. Sandel argues that finding fulfillment is not about attaining happiness, conceived as a state of mind, or even about accomplishing one's greatest goals. Instead, true happiness comes from immersing oneself in activity that is intrinsically rewarding. The source of meaning, he suggests, derives from the integrity or "wholeness" of self that we forge throughout the journey of life. At the heart of Sandel's account of life as a journey are three virtues that get displaced and distorted by our goal-oriented striving: self-possession, friendship, and engagement with nature. Sandel offers illuminating and counterintuitive accounts of these virtues, revealing how they are essential to a happiness that lasts. To illustrate the struggle of living up to these virtues, Sandel looks to literature, film, and television, and also to his own commitments and adventures. A focal point of his personal narrative is a passion that, at first glance, is as narrow a goal-oriented pursuit as one can imagine: training to set the Guinness World Record for Most Pull-Ups in One Minute. Drawing on his own experiences, Sandel makes philosophy accessible for readers who, in their own infinitely various ways, struggle with the tension between goal-oriented striving and the embrace of life as a journey.

The book explores concepts throughout the history of philosophy that suggest the possibility of unconscious thought and lay the foundation for ideas of unconscious thought in modern philosophy and psychoanalysis. The focus is on the workings of unconscious thought and the role it plays in thinking, language, perception, and human identity.

Different from traditional research on the mind-body problem often discussed from an epistemological viewpoint, which assumes that mental processes are internal to the person, this book demonstrates the crucial role of contextual relevance in the workings of the mind and illustrates how mind emerges from the individual's interactions with her physical, social, and cultural environments. It also develops the interpersonal and social aspects of embodied mind. The body that creates meaning is not only an emotional, kinesthetic, and aesthetically experiencing body; the body that creates meaning is a social body. It suggests that mind-body relations are not only achieved through the interaction between our own mind and body, but by other minds in our intersubjective interactions. It is related to epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, value theory, action theory, and the philosophies of mind, science, logic, and technology. The readership may include graduate and undergraduate students studying philosophy, law, political science, sociology, psychology, etc., educators, researchers, scholars, and anyone who shows an interest in philosophy.

Comedy, Seriously provides a philosophical interpretation of comedy and argues that comedy displays a particular kind of rationality that reflects philosophical thinking. In particular, that comedy is defined not so much by laughter or jokes, but rather the structure of its plot, which is isomorphic with that of the philosophical argument. Comedy allows for the resolution of a conflict and the achievement of well-being and equality through action that follows the comic plot. Moreover, such action is propelled by the 'thinker on stage,' who, as socially and politically oppressed, contributes to the liberation of all and the achievement of the good life. Comedy, therefore, establishes the universal pattern for justice and well-being and allows us to rethink the notion of subjectivity not as the modern isolated subject, but rather as integrated with others through shared action and dialogical involvement.

This book investigates the significance of Wittgenstein's philosophy for aesthetic understanding. Focusing on the aesthetic elements of Wittgenstein's philosophical work, the authors explore connections to contemporary currents in aesthetic thinking and the illuminating power of Wittgenstein's philosophy when considered in connection with the interpretation of specific works of literature, music, and the arts. Taken together, the chapters presented here show what aesthetic understanding consists of and the ways we achieve it, how it might be articulated, and why it is important. At a time of strong renewal of interest in Wittgenstein's contributions to the philosophy of mind and language, this book offers insight into the connections between philosophical-psychological and linguistic issues and the understanding of the arts.

In this open access book, Carlos Montemayor illuminates the development of artificial intelligence (AI) by examining our drive to live a dignified life. He uses the notions of agency and attention to consider our pursuit of what is important. His method shows how the best way to guarantee value alignment between humans and potentially intelligent machines is through attention routines that satisfy similar needs. Setting out a theoretical framework for AI Montemayor acknowledges its legal, moral, and political implications and takes into account how epistemic agency differs from moral agency. Through his insightful comparisons between human and animal intelligence, Montemayor makes it clear why adopting a need-based attention approach justifies a humanitarian framework. This is an urgent, timely argument for developing AI technologies based on international human rights agreements. The ebook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com. Open access was funded by Carlos Montemayor and San Francisco State University.

What place does motivation have in the lives of intelligent agents? Mele's answer is sensitive to the concerns of philosophers of mind and moral philosophers and informed by empirical work. He offers a distinctive, comprehensive, attractive view of human agency. This book stands boldly at the intersection of philosophy of mind, moral philosophy, and metaphysics.

This volume brings together a collection of recent essays on the philosophy and theory of history. This is a field of lively interdisciplinary discussion and research, to which historians, philosophers and theorists of culture and literature have contributed. The author is a philosopher by training, and his inspiration comes primarily from the continental-phenomenological tradition. Thus the influence of Husserl, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty and Ricoeur can be discerned here. This background opens up a unique perspective on the issues under discussion. Phenomenology differs from other philosophical approaches, like metaphysics and epistemology. Phenomenology asks, of anything that exists or may exist: how is it given, how does it enter our experience, what is our experience of it like? Very broadly we can say: phenomenology is about experience. At first glance, this approach may seem ill-suited to history. In our language, "history" usually means either 1) what happened, i.e. past events, or 2) our knowledge of what happened. We can't experience past events, and whatever knowledge we have of them must come from other sources-memory, testimony, physical traces. But the author maintains that we actually do experience historical events, and these essays explain how this is so. Sitting at the intersection of philosophy and history, and divided into three parts-Historicity, Narrative, and Time, Teleology and History, and Embodiment and Experience-this is the ideal volume for those interested in experience from a philosophical and historical perspective.

The "THINKING: Bioengineering of Science and Art" is to discuss about philosophical aspects of thinking at the context of Science and Art. External representations provide evidence that the fundamental process of thinking exists in both animal subjects and humans. However, the diversity and complexity of thinking in humans is astonishing because humans have been permitted to integrate scientific accounts into their accounts and create excellent illustrations for the effects of this integration. The book necessarily begins with the origins of human thinking and human thinking into self and others, body, and life. Multiple factors tend to modify the pattern of thinking. They all will come into play by this book that brings thinking into different disciplines: humanities, natural sciences, social sciences, formal sciences, and applied sciences. The thinking demands full processing of information, and therefore, the book considers the economy of thinking as well. The book thoroughly intends to explore thinking beyond the boundaries. Specifically, several chapters are devoted to discipline this exploration either by artistic thinking alone or by art and mathematics-aided engineering of complexities. In this manner, the book models variations on thinking at the individual and systems levels and accumulates a list of solutions, each good for specific scenarios and maximal outcomes.

This book provides an integrative interdisciplinary view of how intellectual and moral virtues are understood in two separate practices, science and music. The authors engage with philosophical and psychological accounts of virtue to understand scientists' and musicians' understandings of intellectual and moral virtues. They present empirical evidence substantiating the MacIntyrean claim that traditions and practices are central to understanding the virtues."

Intentionality - the relationship between conscious states and their objects - is one of the most discussed topics in contemporary debates in philosophy of mind, cognitive neuroscience and the study of consciousness. Long a foundational concept in Phenomenology, it has also received considerable coverage in the writings of analytic philosophers. This book is the first study to offer an impartial, well-informed assessment of the two traditions' approaches through an in-depth investigation of the principal thinkers' ideas, so that their positions emerge side-by-side, converging and diverging on certain shared themes. Beginning with a historical discussion of the development of the term in the work of Continental thinkers in the 19th and early 20th centuries, the book considers the work of Brentano and Husserl and subsequent existentialist critiques. From there, it explores how empirical-analytic philosophers took up the topic, drawn as they were to materialist and computer models of the mind. Finally MacDonald presents a new hybrid' account of intentionality that will be a crucial work for scholars working on consciousness and the mind.

From Aristotle to the present, memory has been grasped as a trace or impression of lost reality - bridging physiological experience and consciousness. Philosophers have vainly sought the nature of this bridge. The present-day physiologizing/naturalizing of consciousness is not resolving their congenital continuity, in which the very existence and practice of life is rooted. We have to change our approach (Erwin Straus). The Aristotelian congenital ties between memory and temporality, acquire crucial significance in our primogenital ontopoiesis of life (Tymieniecka). It reveals memory to be the factor that carries this coalescence and the becoming of life itself. This can be the fruit only of the generative springs of life, first phenomenology/philosophy, the ontopoietic logos of life.

In this collection we explore memory in the constitution of reality: rememorizing and interpretation, consciousness/action, facts/imagination, history/myths, self-realization/metamorphosis.

This book offers an accessible and inclusive overview of the major debates in the philosophy of action. It covers the distinct approaches taken by Donald Davidson, G.E.M. Anscombe, and numerous others to answering questions like "what are intentional actions?" and "how do reasons explain actions?" Further topics include intention, practical knowledge, weakness and strength of will, self-governance, and collective agency. With introductions, conclusions, and annotated suggested reading lists for each of the ten chapters, it is an ideal introduction for advanced undergraduates as well as any philosopher seeking a primer on these issues.

Slips of the tongue, unwitting favoritism, and stereotyped assumptions are just some examples of microaggression. Nearly all of us commit microaggressions at some point, even if we don't intend to. Yet over time a pattern of microaggression can cause considerable harm by reminding members of marginalized groups of their precarious position. The Ethics of Microaggression is a much needed and clearly written exploration of this pervasive yet complex problem. What is microaggression and how do we know when it is occurring? Can we be held responsible for microaggressions and if so, how? How has social media affected the problem? What role can philosophy play in understanding microaggression? Regina Rini explores these highly topical and controversial questions in an engaging and fair-minded way, arguing that an event is a microaggression precisely because it causes a marginalized person to experience an ambiguous encounter with oppression. She illustrates her argument with compelling examples from media, politics, and psychology and explains the significance of essential concepts, such as media representation, reparative renaming, and safe spaces. The Ethics of Microaggression explains what microaggression is and offers strategies for combating it. Assuming no prior knowledge of the topic or philosophy, it demystifies a controversial and extremely important topic in clear language. It is ideal for anyone coming to the topic for the first time and for students in philosophy, gender studies, race theory, disability theory, and social and political philosophy.

Brain, Decision Making, and Mental Health acknowledges that thinking is not a constant phenomenon but varies considerably across cultures. Critical thinking is particularly important in bridging thinking divisions and its applicability across sciences, particularly medical sciences. We see critical thinking as educable and the arts as means to achieve this purpose. We address the multidimensional relationship between thinking and health and related mechanisms. Thinking mainly affects emotion regulation and executive function; in other words, both mental and physical health are related as a function of thoughts. Considering the thinking-feeling-emotion regulation/executive function pathway, it would be reasonable to propose thinking capacities-based interventions to impact emotion regulation and executive function, such as mindfulness and psychotherapy. We review decision-making taking place in integrated and social contexts and discuss the decision-making styles-decision outcomes relation. Finally, artificial thinking and intelligence prepare us for decision-making outside the human mind.