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Books > Philosophy > Topics in philosophy > Philosophy of mind
There are many many books on Wittgenstein, and some will address subjects that overlap with our book--but our book has a specific focus on trying to evaluate Wittgenstein's thoughts on the mind, on meaning and philosophy and see how they stand up to critisicms by contemporary philosophers, and to ask the question - was he wrong?
Reissuing works originally published between 1949 and '79, this set presents a rich selection of renowned scholarship across the subject, touching also on ethics, religion, and psychology and other behavioural science. Classic previously out-of-print works are brought back into print here in this set of important discourse and theory.
Of the topics found in psychoanalytic theory it is Freud's philosophy of mind that is at once the most contentious and enduring. Psychoanalytic theory makes bold claims about the significance of unconscious mental processes and the wish-fulfilling activity of the mind, citing their importance for understanding the nature of dreams and explaining both normal and pathological behaviour. However, since Freud's initial work, both modern psychology and philosophy have had much to say about the merits of Freudian thinking. Developments in psychology, philosophy, and psychoanalysis raise new challenges and questions concerning Freud's theory of mind. This book addresses the psychoanalytic concept of mind in the 21st century via a joint scientific and philosophical appraisal of psychoanalytic theory. It provides a fresh critical appraisal and reflection on Freudian concepts, as well as addressing how current evidence and scientific thinking bear upon Freudian theory. The book centres upon the major concepts in psychoanalysis, including the notion of unconscious mental processes and wish-fulfilment and their relationship to dreams, fantasy, attachment processes, and neuroscience.
Attention has been studied in cognitive psychology for more than half a century, but until recently it was largely neglected in philosophy. Now, philosophers of mind increasingly recognize that attention has an important role to play in our theories of consciousness and of cognition. At the same time, several recent developments in psychology have led psychologists to foundational questions about the nature of attention and its implementation in the brain. As a result there has been a convergence of interest in fundamental questions about attention. This volume presents the latest thinking from the philosophers and psychologists who are working at the interface between these two disciplines. Its fourteen chapters contain detailed philosophical and scientific arguments about the nature and mechanisms of attention; the relationship between attention and consciousness; the role of attention in explaining reference, rational thought, and the control of action; the fundamental metaphysical status of attention, and the details of its implementation in the brain. These contributions combine ideas from phenomenology, neuroscience, cognitive psychology and philosophy of mind to further our understanding of this centrally important mental phenomenon, and to bring to light the foundational questions that any satisfactory theory of attention will need to address.
This unique collection of articles on emotion by Wittgensteinian philosophers provides a fresh perspective on the questions framing the current philosophical and scientific debates about emotions and offers significant insights into the role of emotions for understanding interpersonal relations and the relation between emotion and ethics.
Bishop and Trout here present a unique and provocative new approach
to epistemology (the theory of human knowledge and reasoning).
Their approach aims to liberate epistemology from the scholastic
debates of standard analytic epistemology, and treat it as a branch
of the philosophy of science. The approach is novel in its use of
cost-benefit analysis to guide people facing real reasoning
problems and in its framework for resolving normative disputes in
psychology. Based on empirical data, Bishop and Trout show how
people can improve their reasoning by relying on Statistical
Prediction Rules (SPRs). They then develop and articulate the
positive core of the book. Their view, Strategic Reliabilism,
claims that epistemic excellence consists in the efficient
allocation of cognitive resources to reliable reasoning strategies,
applied to significant problems. The last third of the book
develops the implications of this view for standard analytic
epistemology; for resolving normative disputes in psychology; and
for offering practical, concrete advice on how this theory can
improve real people's reasoning.
This collection of essays on the philosophy of love, by leading contributors to the discussion, places particular emphasis on the relation between love, its character and appropriateness and the objects towards which it is directed: romantic and erotic partners, persons, ourselves, strangers, non-human animals and art.
How does our knowledge of the language on the one hand, and of the
context on the other, permit us to understand what we are told, to
resolve ambiguities, to grasp both explicit and implicit content,
to appreciate metaphor and irony? These issues have been studied in
two disciplines: linguistic pragmatics and psycholinguistics, with
only limited interactions between the two. This volume lays down
the foundation for a new field: "Experimental Pragmatics."
Contributions review pioneering work and present novel ways of
articulating theories and experimental methods in the area.
This book is an encounter between Deleuze the philosopher, Proust
the novelist, and Beckett the writer creating interdisciplinary and
inter-aesthetic bridges between them, covering textual, visual,
sonic and performative phenomena, including provocative speculation
about how Proust might have responded to Deleuze and Beckett.
This book offers a comprehensive study of the views of ancient philosophers on mental disorders. Relying on the original Greek and Latin textual sources, the author describes and analyses how the ancient philosophers explained mental illness and its symptoms, including hallucinations, delusions, strange fears and inappropriate moods and how they accounted for the respective roles of body and mind in such disorders. Also considered are ethical questions relating to mental illness, approaches to treatment and the position of mentally ill people in societies of the times. The volume opens with a historical overview that examines ancient medical accounts of mental illness, from Hippocrates' famous Sacred Disease to late antiquity medical authors. Separate chapters interpret in detail the writings of Plato, Aristotle, Galen and the Stoics and a final chapter summarises the views of various strains of Scepticism, the Epicurean school and the Middle and Neo-Platonists. Offering an important and useful contribution to the study of ancient philosophy, psychology and medicine. This volume sheds new light on the history of mental illness and presents a new angle on ancient philosophical psychology.
What is depiction? A new answer is given to this venerable question by providing a syncretistic theory of depiction that tries to combine the merits of the previous theories on the matter while dropping their defects. Thus, not only perceptual, but also both conventional and causal factors contribute in making something a picture of something else.
We live in two planes of existence simultaneously: the world of our physical senses and the domain of our inner spiritual awareness. Moments in Time explores this inner realm. It describes the author's first hand experience with divine consciousness and conveys insight into personal spirituality. This guide also probes into the invisible bonds between ourselves and universal intelligence.
R. S. Peters on Education and Ethics reissues seven titles from Peters' life's work. Taking an interdisciplinary approach, the books are concerned with the philosophy of education and ethics. Topics include moral education and learning, authority and responsibility, psychology and ethical development and ideas on motivation amongst others. The books discuss more traditional theories and philosophical thinkers as well as exploring later ideas in a way which makes the subjects they discuss still relevant today.
This book is not written for posterity. It is meant to constitute part of my contribution to a continuing debate at the intersection of the philosophy of mind, the philosophy of language, epistemology, and the philosophy of cognitive science. The debate is over how mental states are individuated. Many philosophers, call them externalists (or anti individualists), believe that the individuation of mental states requires appeal to an individual's social and/ or physical environment. I am not among them; I am an internalist ( or individualist). This book attempts to show that the leading proponents of externalism make a lot of mistakes in defending their view. This is either because the view is false, so any defense of it is bound to make some mistake or another, or it is because the people defending externalism have not been very careful, or both. I have included some introductory material so that those not already familiar with the issues involved might nevertheless gain entry into the debate. The intended audience, however, consists in those professional philosophers and students of philosophy who are already familiar with and interested in the question of how mental states are individuated. I do not spend much time trying to motivate an interest in this issue. Like all philosophy, it is interesting and worthwhile if one is blessed (or cursed) with the appropriate kind of intellectual curiosity. Those who do not meet this requirement proceed at their own risk."
Before "New Age" there was "New Thought," a philosophy that sought God through metaphysics and was wildly popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. As perhaps the movement's most vocal proponent, William Walker Atkinson-here writing as Theron Q. Dumont-believed above all in the power of the mind, especially as it affected the body's ability to heal. Elaborating on the idea that the corporeal mind, made up of a body's cells and organs, is subject to mental suggestion, Dumont provides detailed lessons on how to use thought to promote the body's natural healing abilities. Unlike many occult- or religion-based approaches, the author gives equal attention to the biological processes and functions of the body, something he believed to be crucial to proper visualization. More than just an entertaining time capsule, Mental Therapeutics is a set of principles and healing techniques that can easily coexist alongside today's medical advances. THERON Q. DUMONT is an alias and pen name of American writer WILLIAM WALKER ATKINSON (1862-1932), editor of the popular magazine New Thought from 1901 to 1905, and editor of the journal Advanced Thought from 1916 to 1919. He authored dozens of New Thought books under numerous pseudonyms, including "Yogi," some of which are likely still unknown today.
The phenomenological approach to the philosophy of mind, as inaugurated by Brentano and worked out in a very sophisticated way by Husserl, has been severely criticized by philosophers within the Wittgensteinian tradition and, implicitly, by Wittgenstein himself. Their criticism is, in the epistemological regard, directed against introspectionism, and in the ontological regard, against an internalist and qualia-friendly, non-functionalist (or: broadly dualistic/idealistic) conception of the mind. The book examines this criticism in detail, looking at the writings of Wittgenstein, Ryle, Hacker, Dennett, and other authors, reconstructing their arguments, and pointing out where they fall short of their aim. In defending Husserl against his Wittgensteinian critics, the book also offers a comprehensive fresh view of phenomenology as a philosophy of mind. In particular, Husserl's non-representationalist theory of intentionality is carefully described in its various aspects and elucidated also with respect to its development, taking into account writings from various periods of Husserl's career. Last but not least, the book shows Wittgensteinianism to be one of the effective roots of the present-day hegemony of physicalism.
A first in English, this book engages with the ways in which Hegel and Sartre answer the difficult questions: What is it to be human? What place do we have in the world? How should we live? What can we be?
This book seeks to build bridges between neuroscience and social science empirical researchers and theorists working around the world, integrating perspectives from both fields, separating real from spurious divides between them and delineating new challenges for future investigation. Since its inception in the early 2000s, multilevel social neuroscience has dramatically reshaped our understanding of the affective and cultural dimensions of neurocognition. Thanks to its explanatory pluralism, this field has moved beyond long standing dichotomies and reductionisms, offering a neurobiological perspective on topics classically monopolized by non-scientific traditions, such as consciousness, subjectivity, and intersubjectivity. Moreover, it has forged new paths for dialogue with disciplines which directly address societal dynamics, such as economics, law, education, public policy making and sociology. At the same time, beyond internal changes in the field of neuroscience, new problems emerge in the dialogue with other disciplines. Neuroscience and Social Science - The Missing Link puts together contributions by experts interested in the convergences, divergences, and controversies across these fields. The volume presents empirical studies on the interplay between relevant levels of inquiry (neural, psychological, social), chapters rooted in specific scholarly traditions (neuroscience, sociology, philosophy of science, public policy making), as well as proposals of new theoretical foundations to enhance the rapprochement in question. By putting neuroscientists and social scientists face to face, the book promotes new reflections on this much needed marriage while opening opportunities for social neuroscience to plunge from the laboratory into the core of social life. This transdisciplinary approach makes Neuroscience and Social Science - The Missing Link an important resource for students, teachers, and researchers interested in the social dimension of human mind working in different fields, such as social neuroscience, social sciences, cognitive science, psychology, behavioral science, linguistics, and philosophy.
Experimental philosophy is a new movement that seeks to return the
discipline of philosophy to a focus on questions about how people
actually think and feel. Departing from a long-standing tradition,
experimental philosophers go out and conduct systematic experiments
to reach a better understanding of people's ordinary intuitions
about philosophically significant questions. Although the movement
is only a few years old, it has already sparked an explosion of new
research, challenging a number of cherished assumptions in both
philosophy and cognitive science.
Currently, the neurosciences challenge the concept of will to be scientifically untenable, specifying that it is our brain rather than our "self" that decides what we want to do. At the same time, we seem to be confronted with increasing possibilities and necessities of free choice in all areas of social life. Based on up-to-date (empirical) research in the social sciences and philosophy, the authors convened in this book address this seeming contradiction: By differentiating the physical, the psychic, and the social realm, the neuroscientific findings can be acknowledged within a comprehensive framework of selves in neoliberal societies.
Rex Welshon argues for a new interpretation of Nietzsche's metapsychology and philosophy of mind. Rather than rehearsing Nietzsche's criticisms of souls and religious and philosophical uses of souls and subjects yet again, Welshon starts from the idea that Nietzsche is interested in unpacking the view that the subject is a naturalised phenomenon, both embodied and embedded in a larger natural and social environment and dynamically engaged with that larger environment.
This unique introduction fully engages and clearly explains pragmatism, an approach to knowledge and philosophy that rejects outmoded conceptions of objectivity while avoiding relativism and subjectivism. It follows pragmatism's focus on the process of inquiry rather than on abstract justifications meant to appease the skeptic. According to pragmatists, getting to know the world is a creative human enterprise, wherein we fashion our concepts in terms of how they affect us practically, including in future inquiry. This book fully illuminates that enterprise and the resulting radical rethinking of basic philosophical conceptions like truth, reality, and reason. Author Cornelis de Waal helps the reader recognize, understand, and assess classical and current pragmatist contributions-from Charles S. Peirce to Cornel West-evaluate existing views from a pragmatist angle, formulate pragmatist critiques, and develop a pragmatist viewpoint on a specific issue. The book discusses: Classical pragmatists, including Peirce, James, Dewey, and Addams; Contemporary figures, including Rorty, Putnam, Haack, and West; Connections with other twentieth-century approaches, including phenomenology, critical theory, and logical positivism; Peirce's pragmatic maxim and its relation to James's Will to Believe; Applications to philosophy of law, feminism, and issues of race and racism.
The present book is a collection of essays exploring some classical dimensions of mind both from the perspective of an empirically-informed philosophy and from the point of view of a philosophically-informed psychology. In the last three decades, the level of interaction between philosophy and psychology has increased dramatically. As a contribution to this trend, this book explores some areas in which this interaction has been very productive a" or, at least, highly provocative. The interaction between philosophy and psychology can be of different kinds. For example, psychology can be the subject for philosophy of science. In such a case, the philosopher of science pursues the usual set of issues (explanation, reduction, etc.) within the special case of psychology. Or, philosophy can be the source of proposals for improving psychology. Vice versa, the findings of psychology can be used to criticize philosophical theories and suggest ways to resolve some traditional philosophical questions about the mind, such as the nature of mental representation, perception, emotion, memory, consciousness and free will. The chapters in this book reflect these different forms of interaction in an effort to clarify issues and debates concerning some traditional cognitive capacities. The result is a philosophically and scientifically up-to-date collection of "cartographies of the mind."
Throughout history attempts have been made to explain who we are and how we came to be conscious beings. Until the emergence of evolutionary theory, most explanations were theological in nature. During the last hundred years, theorists have proposed a variety of explanations, including biological, sociocultural, psychological, and transpersonal. Unfortunately, these explanations have been oriented toward just one of these particular aspects of consciousness, and have generally excluded the others. When attempts have been made to incorporate all of these aspects, Arden asserts that the results have been flawed by a dualistic approach. Arden provides a non-dualistic and multidisciplinary explanation of what it means to be a conscious human being. While full attention is given to evolutionary theory, physics, philosophy/history, and theology, Arden provides a coherent synthesis of all the factors affecting consciousness. The issues raised by the sciences of complexity, chaos theory, nonlocality, as well as new developments in neurophysiology are incorporated in a broad-based theory of consciousness. Consciousness, Arden asserts, is a fluid and non-dualistic process where function and structure co-evolve. Consciousness is the result of the same evolutionary process that affects all living phenomena. As such, it is both a part of and an active participant in the biosphere we inhabit. This is an intriguing volume for anyone interested in the underpinnings of consciousness, from psychologists and philosophers to laypeople interested in transpersonal ideas. |
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