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Books > Philosophy > Topics in philosophy > Philosophy of mind
The Injustice of Punishment emphasizes that we can never make sense of moral responsibility while also acknowledging that punishment is sometimes unavoidable. Recognizing both the injustice and the necessity of punishment is painful but also beneficial. It motivates us to find effective means of minimizing both the use and severity of punishment, and encourages deeper inquiry into the causes of destructive behavior and how to change those causes in order to reduce the need for punishment. There is an emerging alternative to the comfortable but destructive system of moral responsibility and just deserts. That alternative is not the creation of philosophers but of sociologists, criminologists, psychologists, and workplace engineers; it was developed, tested, and employed in factories, prisons, hospitals, and other settings; and it is writ large in the practices of cultures that minimize belief in individual moral responsibility. The alternative marks a promising path to less punishment, less coercive control, deeper common commitment, and more genuine freedom.
conditions of the possibility of Experience ... must mean nothing else than all that which lies immanently in the essence of Experience ... and therefore belongs to it indispensably. The essence of Experience that phenomenological analysis of Experience elucidates is the same as the possibility of Experience, and all that which is determined in the essence, in the possibility of Experience, is eo ipso 1 condition of the possibility of Experience. Through acquaintance with Husserl's work, then, I developed my way of understand ing what, according to their very possibility, lies in conscious activities of mentally representing something, for example, by imagining or remembering it, or by viewing it in a picture, all these understood as forms of modified perception. As Husserl himself made clear, such reflective and descriptive analyses of the mental activities according to their very possibility are carried out regardless of the way they have actually come to be. However, I was also interested in developmen tal questions, especially with regard to the activity of imagining. Hence I turned to cognitive developmental psychology in order to get acquainted with the neces sary empirical material. Moreover, I conducted a pilot-study with young children that I had conceived according to phenomenologically relevant aspects concerning the difference and yet inner connection of the activities of imagining and viewing 2 pictures."
Accessibly written and intends to demonstrate Bion's ideas through 'feeling' rather than logic by using poetry, literature, philosophy and art. Examines topics including the "no-thing", the impact of trauma on development, and the development of and controversy surrounding Bion's concept of O. Examples and clinical case studies used throughout.
This book offers a social-scientific interpretation of the Hindu and Buddhist traditions of Tantra dating back 15 centuries. It is a self-reflexive study approached with an insider's empathy and the perspective of an Indologist, anthropologist, mystic and practitioner of the cult. The work includes a discussion of non-modern Indic themes: mandala as a trope and its manifestations in South Asian regions such as Nepal; yoga and Indic individuality; the concept of bhoga; disciplined wellbeing; gender; and Indic axiology. Using personal praxis to inform his research, the author examines three core themes within Tantra - a 'holonic'/mandalic individuality that conduces to mystical experience; a positive valorisation of pleasure and play; and cultural attitudes of gender-mutuality and complementarity, as neatly encapsulated in the icon of Shiva as Ardhanariswara. This analysis, as captured by the Tantric mandalas of deities in intimate union, leads to his compelling metathesis that Tantra serves as a permanent counterculture within the Indic civilization. This second edition, with a new Afterword, will greatly interest those in anthropology, South Asian studies, religious studies, gender studies, psychology and philosophy, as also the general reader.
Sensation of Movement explores the role of sensation in motor control, bodily self-recognition and sense of agency. The sensation of movement is dependent on a range of information received by the brain, from signalling in the peripheral sensory organs to the establishment of higher order goals. Through the integration of neuroscientific knowledge with psychological and philosophical perspectives, this book questions whether one type of information is more relevant for the ability to sense and control movement. Addressing conscious sensations of movement, experimental designs and measures, and the possible functions of proprioceptive and kinaesthetic information in motor control and bodily cognition, the book advocates the integration of neuroscientific knowledge and philosophical perspectives. With an awareness of the diverse ideas and theories from these distinct fields, the book brings together leading researchers to bridge these divides and lay the groundwork for future research. Of interest to both students and researchers of consciousness, Sensation of Movement will be essential reading for those researching motor control, multimodal perception, bodily self-recognition, and sense of agency. It aims to encourage the integration of multiple perspectives in order to arrive at new insights into how sensation of movement can be studied scientifically.
This title was first published in 2002: At the end of the 20th century, the emotions ceased to be a neglected topic for philosophical consideration. The editor suggests that this may, in part, be due to a change in the way the subject is approached. The emotions were characteristically thought of by philosophers as states which give rise to perturbation in what might roughly be called "right-thinking". The basic idea was that practical reasoning, like theoretical reasoning, ought to be, and can be, dispassionate. This means that either the emotions interfere with "right-reasoning" in a way which is a proper object of study for the biological sciences but not for the science of the mind, or that the emotions become reducible to, and analyzable as, collections of propositional attitudes which are themselves assessable in terms of "right-reasoning". The move away from this idea is taken as an improvement in our philosophical approach to the emotions by the authors. Following this, all of the papers in the volume contribute to this philosophical approach, each approaching the subject from a different angle.
Difference, Dialogue, and Development is an in-depth exploration of the collected works of Mikhail Bakhtin to find relevance of key concepts of dialogism for understanding various aspects of human development. Taking the reality of differences in the world as a given, Bandlamudi argues that such a reality necessitates dialogue, and actively responding to that necessity leads to development. The varied works of Bakhtin that span several decades passing through the most tumultuous period in Russian history, are brought under one banner of three D's - Difference, Dialogue and Development - and the composite features of the three D's emerge as leitmotifs in every chapter.
Two of the most commonly alleged features of Japanese society are its homogeneity and its encouragement of conformity, as represented by the saying that the nail that sticks up gets pounded. This volume's primary goal is to challenge these and a number of other long-standing assumptions regarding Tokugawa (1600-1868) society, and thereby to open a dialogue regarding the relationship between the Japan of two centuries ago and the present. The volume's central chapters concentrate on six aspects of Tokugawa society: the construction of individual identity, aggressive pursuit of self-interest, defiant practice of forbidden religious traditions, interest in self-cultivation and personal betterment, understandings of happiness and well-being, and embrace of "neglected" counter-ideological values. The author argues that when taken together, these point to far higher degrees of individuality in early modern Japan than has heretofore been acknowledged, and in an Afterword the author briefly examines how these indicators of individuality in early modern Japan are faring in contemporary Japan at the time of writing.
This book is the companion to Difference and Disavowal: The Trauma of Eros (Stanford University Press, 2000), which dealt with the psychoanalytic clinical problem of resistance to interpretation. The key to this resistance is the unconscious registration and repudiation (disavowal) of the reality of difference. The surprising generality of this resistance intersects with Nietzsche's, Heidegger's, and Derrida's understanding of how and why difference is in general the "unthought of metaphysics." All three see metaphysics engaged with a "registration and repudiation of difference," and all three rethink interpretation in relation to this question. The synthesis of these theories of interpretation and difference provides the philosophical foundations for a new thinking of how interpretation functions, and is a critical intersection of deconstruction and psychoanalysis.
Cognition and Temporality: The Genesis of Historical Thought in Perception and Reasoning argues that both verbal grammar and figural grammar have their cognitive basis in twelve characteristic forms of judgment, distributed among individuals in human populations throughout history. These twelve logical forms are context-free and language-free foundations in our attentional awareness and shape all verbal and figural statements. Moreover, these types of historical judgment are psychogenetic inheritances in a population, and each serves a distinct problem-solving function in the human species. Through analysis of verbal and figural statements, Mark E. Blum contends, the researcher can find evidence of these forms of judgment and in turn analyze how the event to which those statements attend is formally constructed by that judgment. This construction guides how the event is assessed, approached, and engaged in the process of problem-solving. Artists and aestheticians in the early twentieth century-including Wassily Kandinsky, Stephen C. Pepper, and Andrew Paul Ushenko-have all posited an inherited attentional perspective in individuals, manifested in the logical correspondence between their distinctive verbal and figural grammars. Cognition and Temporality elaborates these claims, arguing that while the styles of well-known writers and artists are conditioned by the public styles of a particular time period, variations in personal style manifest one's inherited form of judgment and the characteristic grammars that express that form. Through rigorous visual and stylistic analysis, this book demonstrates the expression of these forms among notable painters, historians, and writers across history. The result is a wide-ranging and provocative contribution to phenomenology, aesthetic philosophy, and cultural history.
Contesting much contemporary epistemology and cognitive science, noted philosopher Kenneth M. Sayre argues that, while some cognitive attitudes such as believing take propositions as objects, there are many others (knowing, hoping, fearing, etc.) whose objects are instead states of affairs. Therefore, knowledge cannot be belief with other factors such as justification added, nor can hope and fear be relations a subject bears to neuronal brain states functioning as propositional representations. To support these claims Sayre undertakes a detailed exploration of belief and knowledge and traces the relations of cognitive attitudes to a network of related concepts like certainty, truth, representation, and intentionality. His findings not only challenge current orthodoxy but open new paths of research in epistemology and cognitive science.
Philosophers have long debated whether morality is objective. But how do lay people think about this matter? A Philosophical Perspective on Folk Moral Objectivism discusses the philosophical aspects of this question in an accessible, integrated and coherent way. The first part argues that many empirical studies have been unsuccessful in fully or exclusively measuring beliefs about moral objectivity. Still, there are a few lessons that can be drawn from them. Most importantly, lay people are not objectivists. They believe that moral statements only express desires or that their truth is relative to individuals or cultures. The book's second part considers ways in which these empirical findings may help assess philosophical theories about moral objectivity. Overall, findings about people's moral objectivity beliefs suggest that morality is not objective. The truth of the matter may even lie beyond the traditional objectivism/non-objectivism dichotomy. This book develops a unique perspective on a thriving new area of research. It is a valuable resource for upper level undergraduates, postgraduates and researchers in moral psychology, theoretical psychology, experimental philosophy, metaethics and philosophy of the mind.
Gray Matters is a thorough examination of the main topics in recent philosophy of mind. It aims at surveying a broad range of issues, not all of which can be subsumed under one position or one philosopher's theory. In this way, the authors avoid neglecting interesting issues out of allegiance to a given theory of mind.
It is a commonly held assumption among cultural, social, and political psychologists that imagining the future of societies we live in has the potential to change how we think and act in the world. However little research has been devoted to whether this effect exists in collective imaginations, of social groups, communities and nations, for instance. This book explores the part that imagination and creativity play in the construction of collective futures, and the diversity of outlets in which these are presented, from fiction and cultural symbols to science and technology. The authors discuss this effect in social phenomena such as in intergroup conflict and social change, and focus on several cases studies to illustrate how the imagination of collective futures can guide social and political action. This book brings together theoretical and empirical contributions from cultural, social, and political psychology to offer insight into our constant (re)imagination of the societies in which we live.
Decartes' maxim Cogito, Ergo Sum (from his Meditations) is perhaps the most famous philosophical expression ever coined. Joseph Almog is a Descartes analyst whose last book WHAT AM I? focused on the second half of this expression, Sum--who is the "I" who is existing-and-thinking and how does this entity somehow incorporate both body and mind? This volume looks at the first half of the proposition--cogito. Almog calls this the "thinking man's paradox": how can there be, in the the natural world and as part and parcel of it, a creature that... thinks? Descartes' proposition declares that such a fact obtains and he maintains that it is self-evident; but as Almog points out, from the point of view of Descartes' own skepticism, it is far from obvious that there could be a thinking-man. How can it be that a thinking human be both part of the natural world and yet somehow distinct and separate from it? How did "thinking" arise in an otherwise "thoughtless" universe and what does it mean for beings like us to be thinkers? Almog goes back to the Meditations, and using Descartes' own aposteriori cognitive methodology--his naturalistic, scientific, approach to the study of man--tries to answer the question.
This forward-thinking collection presents new work that looks beyond the division between the analytic and continental philosophical traditions-one that has long caused dissension, mutual distrust, and institutional barriers to the development of common concerns and problems. Rather than rehearsing the causes of the divide, contributors draw upon the problems, methods, and results of both traditions to show what post-divide philosophical work looks like in practice. Ranging from metaphysics and philosophy of mind to political philosophy and ethics, the papers gathered here bring into mutual dialogue a wide range of recent and contemporary thinkers, and confront leading problems common to both traditions, including methodology, ontology, meaning, truth, values, and personhood. Collectively, these essays show that it is already possible to foresee a future for philosophical thought and practice no longer determined neither as "analytic" nor as "continental," but, instead, as a pluralistic synthesis of what is best in both traditions. The new work assembled here shows how the problems, projects, and ambitions of twentieth-century philosophy are already being taken up and productively transformed to produce new insights, questions, and methods for philosophy today.
In this book, Ilhan Inan questions the classical definition of curiosity as a desire to know. Working in an area where epistemology and philosophy of language overlap, Inan forges a link between our ability to become aware of our ignorance and our linguistic aptitude to construct terms referring to things unknown. The book introduces the notion of inostensible reference (or reference to the unknown). Ilhan connects this notion to related concepts in philosophy of language: knowledge by acquaintance and knowledge by description; the referential and the attributive uses of definite descriptions; the de re/de dicto distinction; and Kripke's distinction between rigid and accidental designators. Continuing with a discussion of the conditions for curiosity and its satisfaction, Inan argues that the learning process-starting in curiosity and ending in knowledge-is always an effort to transform our inostensible terms into ostensible ones. A contextual account is adopted for the satisfaction of curiosity. It then discusses the conditions of successful reference to the object of curiosity and its presuppositions. The book concludes with a discussion on the limits of curiosity and its satisfaction.
Rigorously researched and deeply illuminating, world-leading neurologist Dr Steven Laureys works with celebrated meditators to scientifically prove the positive impact meditation has on our brains. Dr Steven Laureys has conducted ground-breaking research into human consciousness for more than 20 years. For this bestselling book, Steven to explores the effect of meditation on the brain. He uses hard science to explain the benefits of a practice that was once thought of as purely spiritual. The result is a highly accessible, scientifically questioning guide to meditation, designed to open the practice to a broader audience. A mix of fascinating science, inspiring anecdote and practical exercises, this accessible book offers scientific evidence that meditation can have a positive impact on all our lives.
First published in 2000. This is Volume 10, No 1 of the International Journal for the Psychology of Religion. One of the most important concepts in the history of psychology is intelligence. Traditionally, intelligence has been thought of as a more or less unitary mental capacity, connoting a general problem-solving ability and skill at abstract reasoning. More recently, a major counter-argument to the idea that intelligence is unitary was published by Howard Gardner (1993) In his view, intelligence is not a unitary construct but instead is multidimensional, comprised of linguistic, musical, logical-mathematical, spatial, bodily-kinesthetic, interpersonal, and intrapersonal facets. Since then, a dialogue has continued about what does and does not constitute an intelligence. This journal is a collection of essays that discuss this question.
The idea that plants have minds can sound improbable, but some widely respected contemporary scientists and philosophers find it plausible. It turns out to be rather tricky to vindicate the presumption that plants do not have minds, for doing so requires getting clear about what plants can do and what exactly a mind is. By connecting the most compelling empirical work on plant behavior with philosophical reflection on the concept of minds, Plant Minds aims to help non-experts begin to think clearly about whether plants have minds. Relying on current consensus ideas about minds and plants, Chauncey Maher first presents the best case for thinking that plants do not have minds. Along the way, however, he unearths an idea at the root of that case, the idea that having a mind requires the capacity to represent the world. In the last chapter, he defends a relatively new and insightful theory of mind that rejects that assumption, making room for the possibility that plants do have minds, primarily because they are alive.
Agency, Illusion, and Well-Being is a collection of essays drawn from Jerome Segal's earlier books, including essays from Agency and Alienation, Joseph's Bones, Graceful Simplicity, and Creating the Palestinian State Arranged thematically into a coherent new whole, this selection of essays presents Jerome Segal's contribution to philosophy and moral psychology in a definitive edition.
Philosophers have long debated whether morality is objective. But how do lay people think about this matter? A Philosophical Perspective on Folk Moral Objectivism discusses the philosophical aspects of this question in an accessible, integrated and coherent way. The first part argues that many empirical studies have been unsuccessful in fully or exclusively measuring beliefs about moral objectivity. Still, there are a few lessons that can be drawn from them. Most importantly, lay people are not objectivists. They believe that moral statements only express desires or that their truth is relative to individuals or cultures. The book's second part considers ways in which these empirical findings may help assess philosophical theories about moral objectivity. Overall, findings about people's moral objectivity beliefs suggest that morality is not objective. The truth of the matter may even lie beyond the traditional objectivism/non-objectivism dichotomy. This book develops a unique perspective on a thriving new area of research. It is a valuable resource for upper level undergraduates, postgraduates and researchers in moral psychology, theoretical psychology, experimental philosophy, metaethics and philosophy of the mind.
Intentionality is one of the central problems of modern philosophy. How can a thought, action or belief be about something? Sachs draws on the work of Wilfrid Sellars, C I Lewis and Maurice Merleau-Ponty to build a new theory of intentionality that solves many of the problems faced by traditional conceptions.
Thomas Reid (1710-96) was a contemporary of both David Hume and Immanuel Kant, and a central figure in the Scottish School of Common Sense. Until recently, his work has been largely neglected, and often misunderstood. Like Kant, Reid cited Hume's Treatise as the main spur to his own philosophical work. In Reid's case, this led him to challenge 'the theory of ideas', which he saw as the cornerstone of Hume's (and many other philosophers') theories. For those familiar with Reid's work, it is clear that its significance extends well beyond his challenging the theory of ideas. The variety of topics which this book covers attests to the richness and variety of Reid's philosophical contributions, and the persisting relevance of his work to contemporary philosophical debates. The work included in this book, by leading figures in Reid scholarship, deals with aspects of Reid's views on topics ranging from perception, to epistemology, to ethics and meta-ethics, through to language, mind, and metaphysics. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Canadian Journal of Philosophy.
Do people with multiple personalities have more than one self? The first full-length philosophical study of multiple personality disorder, First Person Plural maintains that even the deeply divided multiple personality contains an underlying psychological unity. Braude updates his work in this revised edition to discuss recent empirical and conceptual developments, including the charge that clinicians induce false memories in their patients, and the professional redefinition of "multiple personality disorder" as "dissociative identity disorder." |
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