29 results
44 - Phenomenology Meets Philosophy of Mind and Language
- from Section Eight - Bridge Builders, Border Crossers, Synthesizers
- Edited by Kelly Becker, University of New Mexico, Iain D. Thomson, University of New Mexico
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- The Cambridge History of Philosophy, 1945–2015
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- 08 November 2019
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- 21 November 2019, pp 603-623
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Summary
This chapter appraises ways in which phenomenology interacted with philosophy of mind and philosophy of logic and language between 1945 and 2015. During this period, as the post-war phenomenological tradition engaged with and drew from evolving theories in logic, philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, and cognitive neuroscience, the phenomena of intentionality, meaning, and consciousness gained renewed salience. As a result of these particular engagements (especially with Fregean and possible world semantics, the information-processing model of mind, and the cognitive study of phenomenal intentionality), both intentional and phenomenal aspects of consciousness have come to the fore with renewed vigor, embracing “what it is like” to experience perception, thought, emotion, and action.
Contributors
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- By Mitchell Aboulafia, Frederick Adams, Marilyn McCord Adams, Robert M. Adams, Laird Addis, James W. Allard, David Allison, William P. Alston, Karl Ameriks, C. Anthony Anderson, David Leech Anderson, Lanier Anderson, Roger Ariew, David Armstrong, Denis G. Arnold, E. J. Ashworth, Margaret Atherton, Robin Attfield, Bruce Aune, Edward Wilson Averill, Jody Azzouni, Kent Bach, Andrew Bailey, Lynne Rudder Baker, Thomas R. Baldwin, Jon Barwise, George Bealer, William Bechtel, Lawrence C. Becker, Mark A. Bedau, Ernst Behler, José A. Benardete, Ermanno Bencivenga, Jan Berg, Michael Bergmann, Robert L. Bernasconi, Sven Bernecker, Bernard Berofsky, Rod Bertolet, Charles J. Beyer, Christian Beyer, Joseph Bien, Joseph Bien, Peg Birmingham, Ivan Boh, James Bohman, Daniel Bonevac, Laurence BonJour, William J. Bouwsma, Raymond D. Bradley, Myles Brand, Richard B. Brandt, Michael E. Bratman, Stephen E. Braude, Daniel Breazeale, Angela Breitenbach, Jason Bridges, David O. Brink, Gordon G. Brittan, Justin Broackes, Dan W. Brock, Aaron Bronfman, Jeffrey E. Brower, Bartosz Brozek, Anthony Brueckner, Jeffrey Bub, Lara Buchak, Otavio Bueno, Ann E. Bumpus, Robert W. Burch, John Burgess, Arthur W. Burks, Panayot Butchvarov, Robert E. Butts, Marina Bykova, Patrick Byrne, David Carr, Noël Carroll, Edward S. Casey, Victor Caston, Victor Caston, Albert Casullo, Robert L. Causey, Alan K. L. Chan, Ruth Chang, Deen K. Chatterjee, Andrew Chignell, Roderick M. Chisholm, Kelly J. Clark, E. J. Coffman, Robin Collins, Brian P. Copenhaver, John Corcoran, John Cottingham, Roger Crisp, Frederick J. Crosson, Antonio S. Cua, Phillip D. Cummins, Martin Curd, Adam Cureton, Andrew Cutrofello, Stephen Darwall, Paul Sheldon Davies, Wayne A. Davis, Timothy Joseph Day, Claudio de Almeida, Mario De Caro, Mario De Caro, John Deigh, C. F. Delaney, Daniel C. Dennett, Michael R. DePaul, Michael Detlefsen, Daniel Trent Devereux, Philip E. Devine, John M. Dillon, Martin C. Dillon, Robert DiSalle, Mary Domski, Alan Donagan, Paul Draper, Fred Dretske, Mircea Dumitru, Wilhelm Dupré, Gerald Dworkin, John Earman, Ellery Eells, Catherine Z. Elgin, Berent Enç, Ronald P. Endicott, Edward Erwin, John Etchemendy, C. Stephen Evans, Susan L. Feagin, Solomon Feferman, Richard Feldman, Arthur Fine, Maurice A. Finocchiaro, William FitzPatrick, Richard E. Flathman, Gvozden Flego, Richard Foley, Graeme Forbes, Rainer Forst, Malcolm R. Forster, Daniel Fouke, Patrick Francken, Samuel Freeman, Elizabeth Fricker, Miranda Fricker, Michael Friedman, Michael Fuerstein, Richard A. Fumerton, Alan Gabbey, Pieranna Garavaso, Daniel Garber, Jorge L. A. Garcia, Robert K. Garcia, Don Garrett, Philip Gasper, Gerald Gaus, Berys Gaut, Bernard Gert, Roger F. Gibson, Cody Gilmore, Carl Ginet, Alan H. Goldman, Alvin I. Goldman, Alfonso Gömez-Lobo, Lenn E. Goodman, Robert M. Gordon, Stefan Gosepath, Jorge J. E. Gracia, Daniel W. Graham, George A. Graham, Peter J. Graham, Richard E. Grandy, I. Grattan-Guinness, John Greco, Philip T. Grier, Nicholas Griffin, Nicholas Griffin, David A. Griffiths, Paul J. Griffiths, Stephen R. Grimm, Charles L. Griswold, Charles B. Guignon, Pete A. Y. Gunter, Dimitri Gutas, Gary Gutting, Paul Guyer, Kwame Gyekye, Oscar A. Haac, Raul Hakli, Raul Hakli, Michael Hallett, Edward C. Halper, Jean Hampton, R. James Hankinson, K. R. Hanley, Russell Hardin, Robert M. Harnish, William Harper, David Harrah, Kevin Hart, Ali Hasan, William Hasker, John Haugeland, Roger Hausheer, William Heald, Peter Heath, Richard Heck, John F. Heil, Vincent F. Hendricks, Stephen Hetherington, Francis Heylighen, Kathleen Marie Higgins, Risto Hilpinen, Harold T. Hodes, Joshua Hoffman, Alan Holland, Robert L. Holmes, Richard Holton, Brad W. Hooker, Terence E. Horgan, Tamara Horowitz, Paul Horwich, Vittorio Hösle, Paul Hoβfeld, Daniel Howard-Snyder, Frances Howard-Snyder, Anne Hudson, Deal W. Hudson, Carl A. Huffman, David L. Hull, Patricia Huntington, Thomas Hurka, Paul Hurley, Rosalind Hursthouse, Guillermo Hurtado, Ronald E. Hustwit, Sarah Hutton, Jonathan Jenkins Ichikawa, Harry A. Ide, David Ingram, Philip J. Ivanhoe, Alfred L. Ivry, Frank Jackson, Dale Jacquette, Joseph Jedwab, Richard Jeffrey, David Alan Johnson, Edward Johnson, Mark D. Jordan, Richard Joyce, Hwa Yol Jung, Robert Hillary Kane, Tomis Kapitan, Jacquelyn Ann K. Kegley, James A. Keller, Ralph Kennedy, Sergei Khoruzhii, Jaegwon Kim, Yersu Kim, Nathan L. King, Patricia Kitcher, Peter D. Klein, E. D. Klemke, Virginia Klenk, George L. Kline, Christian Klotz, Simo Knuuttila, Joseph J. Kockelmans, Konstantin Kolenda, Sebastian Tomasz Kołodziejczyk, Isaac Kramnick, Richard Kraut, Fred Kroon, Manfred Kuehn, Steven T. Kuhn, Henry E. Kyburg, John Lachs, Jennifer Lackey, Stephen E. Lahey, Andrea Lavazza, Thomas H. Leahey, Joo Heung Lee, Keith Lehrer, Dorothy Leland, Noah M. Lemos, Ernest LePore, Sarah-Jane Leslie, Isaac Levi, Andrew Levine, Alan E. Lewis, Daniel E. Little, Shu-hsien Liu, Shu-hsien Liu, Alan K. L. Chan, Brian Loar, Lawrence B. Lombard, John Longeway, Dominic McIver Lopes, Michael J. Loux, E. J. Lowe, Steven Luper, Eugene C. Luschei, William G. Lycan, David Lyons, David Macarthur, Danielle Macbeth, Scott MacDonald, Jacob L. Mackey, Louis H. Mackey, Penelope Mackie, Edward H. Madden, Penelope Maddy, G. B. Madison, Bernd Magnus, Pekka Mäkelä, Rudolf A. Makkreel, David Manley, William E. Mann (W.E.M.), Vladimir Marchenkov, Peter Markie, Jean-Pierre Marquis, Ausonio Marras, Mike W. Martin, A. P. Martinich, William L. McBride, David McCabe, Storrs McCall, Hugh J. McCann, Robert N. McCauley, John J. McDermott, Sarah McGrath, Ralph McInerny, Daniel J. McKaughan, Thomas McKay, Michael McKinsey, Brian P. McLaughlin, Ernan McMullin, Anthonie Meijers, Jack W. Meiland, William Jason Melanson, Alfred R. Mele, Joseph R. Mendola, Christopher Menzel, Michael J. Meyer, Christian B. Miller, David W. Miller, Peter Millican, Robert N. Minor, Phillip Mitsis, James A. Montmarquet, Michael S. Moore, Tim Moore, Benjamin Morison, Donald R. Morrison, Stephen J. Morse, Paul K. Moser, Alexander P. D. Mourelatos, Ian Mueller, James Bernard Murphy, Mark C. Murphy, Steven Nadler, Jan Narveson, Alan Nelson, Jerome Neu, Samuel Newlands, Kai Nielsen, Ilkka Niiniluoto, Carlos G. Noreña, Calvin G. Normore, David Fate Norton, Nikolaj Nottelmann, Donald Nute, David S. Oderberg, Steve Odin, Michael O’Rourke, Willard G. Oxtoby, Heinz Paetzold, George S. Pappas, Anthony J. Parel, Lydia Patton, R. P. Peerenboom, Francis Jeffry Pelletier, Adriaan T. Peperzak, Derk Pereboom, Jaroslav Peregrin, Glen Pettigrove, Philip Pettit, Edmund L. Pincoffs, Andrew Pinsent, Robert B. Pippin, Alvin Plantinga, Louis P. Pojman, Richard H. Popkin, John F. Post, Carl J. Posy, William J. Prior, Richard Purtill, Michael Quante, Philip L. Quinn, Philip L. Quinn, Elizabeth S. Radcliffe, Diana Raffman, Gerard Raulet, Stephen L. Read, Andrews Reath, Andrew Reisner, Nicholas Rescher, Henry S. Richardson, Robert C. Richardson, Thomas Ricketts, Wayne D. Riggs, Mark Roberts, Robert C. Roberts, Luke Robinson, Alexander Rosenberg, Gary Rosenkranz, Bernice Glatzer Rosenthal, Adina L. Roskies, William L. Rowe, T. M. Rudavsky, Michael Ruse, Bruce Russell, Lilly-Marlene Russow, Dan Ryder, R. M. Sainsbury, Joseph Salerno, Nathan Salmon, Wesley C. Salmon, Constantine Sandis, David H. Sanford, Marco Santambrogio, David Sapire, Ruth A. Saunders, Geoffrey Sayre-McCord, Charles Sayward, James P. Scanlan, Richard Schacht, Tamar Schapiro, Frederick F. Schmitt, Jerome B. Schneewind, Calvin O. Schrag, Alan D. Schrift, George F. Schumm, Jean-Loup Seban, David N. Sedley, Kenneth Seeskin, Krister Segerberg, Charlene Haddock Seigfried, Dennis M. Senchuk, James F. Sennett, William Lad Sessions, Stewart Shapiro, Tommie Shelby, Donald W. Sherburne, Christopher Shields, Roger A. Shiner, Sydney Shoemaker, Robert K. Shope, Kwong-loi Shun, Wilfried Sieg, A. John Simmons, Robert L. Simon, Marcus G. Singer, Georgette Sinkler, Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, Matti T. Sintonen, Lawrence Sklar, Brian Skyrms, Robert C. Sleigh, Michael Anthony Slote, Hans Sluga, Barry Smith, Michael Smith, Robin Smith, Robert Sokolowski, Robert C. Solomon, Marta Soniewicka, Philip Soper, Ernest Sosa, Nicholas Southwood, Paul Vincent Spade, T. L. S. Sprigge, Eric O. Springsted, George J. Stack, Rebecca Stangl, Jason Stanley, Florian Steinberger, Sören Stenlund, Christopher Stephens, James P. Sterba, Josef Stern, Matthias Steup, M. A. Stewart, Leopold Stubenberg, Edith Dudley Sulla, Frederick Suppe, Jere Paul Surber, David George Sussman, Sigrún Svavarsdóttir, Zeno G. Swijtink, Richard Swinburne, Charles C. Taliaferro, Robert B. Talisse, John Tasioulas, Paul Teller, Larry S. Temkin, Mark Textor, H. S. Thayer, Peter Thielke, Alan Thomas, Amie L. Thomasson, Katherine Thomson-Jones, Joshua C. Thurow, Vzalerie Tiberius, Terrence N. Tice, Paul Tidman, Mark C. Timmons, William Tolhurst, James E. Tomberlin, Rosemarie Tong, Lawrence Torcello, Kelly Trogdon, J. D. Trout, Robert E. Tully, Raimo Tuomela, John Turri, Martin M. Tweedale, Thomas Uebel, Jennifer Uleman, James Van Cleve, Harry van der Linden, Peter van Inwagen, Bryan W. Van Norden, René van Woudenberg, Donald Phillip Verene, Samantha Vice, Thomas Vinci, Donald Wayne Viney, Barbara Von Eckardt, Peter B. M. Vranas, Steven J. Wagner, William J. Wainwright, Paul E. Walker, Robert E. Wall, Craig Walton, Douglas Walton, Eric Watkins, Richard A. Watson, Michael V. Wedin, Rudolph H. Weingartner, Paul Weirich, Paul J. Weithman, Carl Wellman, Howard Wettstein, Samuel C. Wheeler, Stephen A. White, Jennifer Whiting, Edward R. Wierenga, Michael Williams, Fred Wilson, W. Kent Wilson, Kenneth P. Winkler, John F. Wippel, Jan Woleński, Allan B. Wolter, Nicholas P. Wolterstorff, Rega Wood, W. Jay Wood, Paul Woodruff, Alison Wylie, Gideon Yaffe, Takashi Yagisawa, Yutaka Yamamoto, Keith E. Yandell, Xiaomei Yang, Dean Zimmerman, Günter Zoller, Catherine Zuckert, Michael Zuckert, Jack A. Zupko (J.A.Z.)
- Edited by Robert Audi, University of Notre Dame, Indiana
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- The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy
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- 05 August 2015
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- 27 April 2015, pp ix-xxx
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Contributors
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- By R. J. Aitken, Gokhan Akkoyunlu, David F. Albertini, Christiani A. Amorim, R. A. Anderson, Baris Ata, Pedro N. Barri, Mohamed A. Bedaiwy, Rosita Bergström, Veronica Bianchi, Montserrat Boada, Paolo Boffetta, Andrea Borini, Karina Braga Ribeiro, Peter R. Brinsden, Ralph L. Brinster, Jason G. Bromer, A. L. Caplan, Chian Ri-Cheng, Ina N. Cholst, A. Ciobanu, Megan Clowse, Ana Cobo, Susannah C. Copland, John K. Critser, B. J. Curry, Giuseppe Del Priore, M. De Vos, Marie-Madeleine Dolmans, Javier Domingo, Jacques Donnez, David H. Edgar, Nanette R. Elster, Carol Fabian, Gregory M. Fahy, Tommaso Falcone, Debra Friedman, Jill P. Ginsberg, Debra A. Gook, Julie R. Gralow, Elizabeth Grill, Sebastien Gouy, Xu Han, Lisa M. Harlan-Williams, Outi Hovatta MD, Wayland Hsiao, Zhongwei Huang, E. Isachenko, V. Isachenko, Roy A. Jensen, I. I. Katkov, S. Samuel Kim, Jennifer Klemp, Larissa A. Korde, R. Kreienberg, Srinivasan Krishnamurthy, Juergen Liebermann, J. Ryan Martin, Elizabeth A. McGee, Marie McLaughlin, P. Mathevet, D. Meirow, Philippe Morice, Steven F. Mullen, Kutluk Oktay, Pasquale Patrizio, Antonio Pellicer, Pinki K. Prasad, Kenny A. Rodriguez-Wallberg, Erin Rohde, Allison B. Rosen, Zev Rosenwaks, María Sánchez, R. Sanchez, Glenn L. Schattman, Peter N. Schlegel, Einat Shalom-Paz, Lonnie D. Shea, Gunapala Shetty, Jill Simmons, Carrie A. Smith, J. Smitz, Miquel Solé, Jean Squifflet, Shane R. Stecklein, Jerome F. Strauss, David J. Tagler, Seang Lin Tan, Evelyn E. Telfer, Sreedhar Thirumala, Michael J. Tucker, Catherine Uzan, Anne Van Langendonckt, Anna Veiga, W. H. B. Wallace, Wenjia Wang, Brent Waters, Dagan Wells, Teresa K. Woodruff, Erik Woods, Christine Wyns
- Edited by Jacques Donnez, Université Catholique de Louvain, Belgium, S. Samuel Kim, University of Kansas
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- Principles and Practice of Fertility Preservation
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- 04 February 2011
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- 03 February 2011, pp x-xiv
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COMMISSION 50: PROTECTION OF EXISTING AND POTENTIAL OBSERVATORY SITES
- Richard J. Wainscoat, Malcolm G. Smith, Carlo Blanco, David L. Crawford, Margarita Metaxa, Woodruff T. Sullivan
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- Proceedings of the International Astronomical Union / Volume 4 / Issue T27A / December 2008
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 01 December 2008, pp. 456-459
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- December 2008
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The activities of the Commission have continued to focus on controlling unwanted light and radio emissions at observatory sites, monitoring of conditions at observatory sites, and education and outreach. Commission members have been active in securing new legislation in several locations to further the protection of observatory sites.
The Picture
- David Woodruff Smith, University of California, Irvine
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- Mind World
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- 05 June 2012
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- 15 March 2004, pp 8-9
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8 - Basic Categories
- David Woodruff Smith, University of California, Irvine
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- 15 March 2004, pp 242-282
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Summary
Abstract. This essay pursues basic ontological categories. The strategy is to develop a sense of systematic ontology by crafting a series of increasingly sophisticated category schemes. We move from an austere scheme of physical particles and sets to the traditional categories of substance and attribute, to a modern view of modality and intentionality, to the distinction between formal and material categories, and various candidates thereof, to a notion of categorial “depth.” Along the way we keep an eye out for where mind or consciousness falls in each category scheme. This study indicates that a piecemeal ontology will not deal adequately with basic ontological structures, including the place of consciousness in the world. The methodological lesson to be learned is that the systematic organization of categories is crucial to the practice of ontology.
Segue. In previous essays we explored structures of consciousness and different types of ontology that might help to account for features of consciousness including its intentionality and its dependence on both neural activity and cultural background. In this essay we turn exclusively to the problem of developing a detailed category scheme that allows us to deal with a variety of structures of the world, including the fundamental ontological differences among causal relations in nature, intentional relations in consciousness, social relations in culture – and ultimately with the organization of very basic categories or modes-of-being, including dependence, intentionality, unity, and process.
Appendix: Background Conceptions of Ontology, Phenomenology, Philosophy of Mind, and Historical Philosophy
- David Woodruff Smith, University of California, Irvine
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In the following remarks I try to outline the broad conceptual, methodological, and historical background assumed in the preceding chapters. This background is part of the unity of views developing in the chapters themselves, although the chapters are intended to be accessible without digging into this background. Of course, one's own background is often the most difficult part of one's philosophy to articulate.
The Theory of Consciousness and World in Recent Philosophy
The headwinds in philosophy are strong. They are the winds of fashion.
Metaphysics has been under suspicion for three centuries, first in the age of science and recently in the era of cultural interpretation. Yet what we need in philosophy today is a more systematic ontology, framing a wide metaphysics that is cognizant of discoveries in physics, neuroscience, and evolutionary biology alongside analyses of our own consciousness and our cultural practices and institutions.
Phenomenology has been under suspicion for half a century, as philosophy turned away from conscious experience. The tradition of analytic philosophy turned toward language – ordinary language, symbolic logic, then computer languages – and then toward naturalism, eyeing the marvels of quantum mechanics, relativity theory, and evolutionary biology. Continental philosophy too came to stress language, discourse, text, and cultural practice over consciousness. Yet what we need today, to understand the phenomena of consciousness much discussed in recent philosophy of mind oriented to cognitive neuroscience, is a more systematic phenomenology, framing a careful analysis of structures of subjective experience.
Index
- David Woodruff Smith, University of California, Irvine
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- Mind World
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- 15 March 2004, pp 305-309
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2 - The Cogito circa a.d. 2000
- David Woodruff Smith, University of California, Irvine
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- Mind World
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- 15 March 2004, pp 42-75
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Abstract. What are we to make of the cogito (cogito ergo sum) today, as the walls of Cartesian philosophy crumble around us? The enduring foundation of the cogito is consciousness. It is in virtue of a particular phenomenological structure that an experience is conscious rather than unconscious. Drawing on an analysis of that structure, the cogito is given a new explication that synthesizes phenomenological, epistemological, logical, and ontological elements. What, then, is the structure of conscious thinking on which the cogito draws? What kind of certainty does the experience of thinking give one about one's thinking and about one's existence? What form of inference is the cogito, and what is the source of its validity and soundness? Does the cogito itself lead to an ontology of mind and body like Descartes's dualism? The discussion begins with Descartes's own careful formulations of some of these issues. Then the cogito is parsed into several different principles, the phenomenological principle emerging as basic. In due course the analysis sifts through Husserl's epistemology, Hintikka's logic (or pragmatics) of the cogito, and Kaplan's logic of demonstratives, as these bear specifically on the cogito.
Segue. In “Three Facets of Consciousness” we proposed that the nature of any entity, including an act of consciousness, divides into form, appearance, and substrate. Here we explore the form of consciousness – that of self-aware intentionality – through its appearance within an act, that is, through “inner awareness.” We approach the analysis of inner awareness by a critical review of the traditional “cogito,” drawing on Descartes's analysis but from today's perspective (without dualism and without incorrigibility). […]
1 - Three Facets of Consciousness
- David Woodruff Smith, University of California, Irvine
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- Mind World
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- 15 March 2004, pp 10-41
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Abstract: Over the past century phenomenology has ably analyzed the basic structures of consciousness as we experience it. Yet recent philosophy of mind, concerned more with brain activity and computational function, has found it difficult to make room for the structures of subjectivity and intentionality that phenomenology has appraised. In order to understand consciousness as something that is both subjective and grounded in neural activity, we need to delve into phenomenology and ontology. I draw a fundamental distinction in ontology among the form, appearance, and substrate of any entity. Applying this three-facet ontology to consciousness, we distinguish the intentionality of consciousness (its form); the way we experience consciousness (its appearance, including so-called qualia); and the physical, biological, and cultural basis of consciousness (its substrate). We can thus show how these very different aspects of consciousness fit together in a fundamental ontology. And we can thereby define the proper domains of phenomenology and other disciplines that contribute to our understanding of consciousness.
The Problem of Consciousness
Lately, philosophers and scientists have been looking for mind in all the wrong places. Physicalists of all stripes have focused primarily on the physical conditions of consciousness, from neural activity to computational function. Meanwhile, humanists – historicists, postmodernists, culture critics – have looked primarily to the cultural conditions of our discourse, as if consciousness did not exist in its own right (expressed in art and literature) but is “theorized” in a cultural tradition of phenomenology or science or humanistic discourse.
Mind World
- Essays in Phenomenology and Ontology
- David Woodruff Smith
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- 15 March 2004
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This collection explores the structure of consciousness and its place in the world, or inversely the structure of the world and the place of consciousness in it. Amongst the topics covered are: the phenomenological aspects of experience (inner awareness, self-awareness), dependencies between experience and the world (the role of the body in experience, the role of culturally formed background ideas) and the basic ontological categories found in the world at large (unity, state-of-affairs, connectedness, dependence and intentionality). Developing ideas drawn from historical figures such as Descartes, Husserl, Aristotle, and Whitehead, the essays together demonstrate the interdependence of ontology and phenomenology and its significance for the philosophy of mind.
Overview: A Story Line
- David Woodruff Smith, University of California, Irvine
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The Background
In a moment I will sketch a line of argument, or rather narrative, that weaves through the essays gathered here. But first let me recall some background notions broadly assumed in that story line.
Consciousness is a consciousness “of” something, and this of-ness – called intentionality – is the tie that binds consciousness and world together.
Intentionality is itself the structure in which we know about the world. This structure begins with mental and practical acts on the one hand and objects of various types on the other. Phenomenology works from intentionality into structures of experience, or conscious mental activity, whereas ontology works inter alia from intentionality into structures of the world in general (including mental activity). We do not normally think of ontology as beginning with intentionality. As Quine has stressed, however, our ontology consists of what we posit in our preferred theories – what we posit, I note, in our intentional activities of theorizing.
So we may think of working from intentionality into phenomenology on the one hand and into ontology on the other hand. In one direction lies “subjective” structure; in the other lies “objective” structure. Both directions are pursued in the essays gathered in this book, but the subjective and objective, I urge, are part of one world with a unified structure. (By contrast, Descartes posited two realms of mind and body, and Kant separated two spheres called phenomena and noumena, or things-as-they-appear and things-as-they-are-in-themselves.)
6 - Intentionality Naturalized?
- David Woodruff Smith, University of California, Irvine
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- 15 March 2004, pp 176-210
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Abstract. Here I outline an ontology of diverse categories that define a place for consciousness and intentionality in the world of “nature.” Intentionality is “naturalized” only in that way, without reducing consciousness or its intentionality to a causal or computational process. The basic background assumption is that there is one world ordered and unified as “nature.” The world includes us, our conscious intentional experiences, physical objects, and social organizations. These things belong to diverse “material” categories such as Body, Mind, and Culture, which are ordered by diverse “formal” categories such as Individual, Quality, and State of Affairs. The world is unified by the systematic ways in which these categories interact. Among the formal categories of the world, I claim, are Intentionality and Dependence. If these are distinct formal categories, it is a mistake to identify intentionality with a structure of causation (dependence) realized in a brain or computer. We need instead a more sensitive system of categories.
Segue. In “Consciousness in Action” we showed that the experience of everyday action includes a sense of dependence on embodiment. Then in “Background Ideas” we argued that familiar forms of intentional experience depend on ideas extant in one's background culture. Now, consciousness – in thought, perception, and action – is part of nature, and so is human culture. However, to articulate the mind's place in the world of nature, we need a broad and fundamental ontological framework. Yet the type of naturalism assumed in today's philosophy of mind cum cognitive science cannot make room for conscious, embodied, encultured intentional activities. […]
Coda: The Beetle in the Box
- David Woodruff Smith, University of California, Irvine
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- Mind World
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- 15 March 2004, pp 283-288
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I found a little beetle, so that Beetle was his name,
And I called him Alexander and he answered just the same.
I put him in a match-box, and I kept him all the day …
And Nanny let my beetle out –
… And Beetle ran away.
We went to all the places which a beetle might be near,
And we made the sort of noises which a beetle likes to hear,
And I saw a kind of something …
It was Alexander Beetle I'm as certain as can be
And he had a sort of look as if he thought it must be ME.
A. A. Milne, “Forgiven”Now someone tells me that he knows what pain is only from his own case! – Suppose everyone had a box with something in it: we call it a “beetle.” No one can look into anyone else's box, and everyone says he knows what a beetle is only by looking at his beetle. – Here it would be quite possible for everyone to have something different in his box. One might even imagine such a thing constantly changing. – But suppose the word “beetle” had a use in these people's language? – If so it would not be used as the name of a thing. The thing in the box has no place in the language-game at all; not even as a something: for the box might even be empty. – No, one can “divide through” by the thing in the box; it cancels out, whatever it is. […]
Frontmatter
- David Woodruff Smith, University of California, Irvine
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- Mind World
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- 15 March 2004, pp i-vi
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4 - Consciousness in Action
- David Woodruff Smith, University of California, Irvine
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- Mind World
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- 15 March 2004, pp 122-146
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Abstract. A phenomenology of action is outlined, analyzing the structure of volition, kinesthesis, and perception in the experience of action. These three forms of intentionality are integrated in a typical case of conscious volitional action. In their integration we find the structure of our everyday experience of embodiment in action. The intentionality of action is contrasted with that of thought and perception in regard to the role of the body, and the relations between an action, the experience of acting, and the context of the action are specified.
Segue. In “The Cogito circa a.d. 2000” we argued that the experience of consciousness includes an inner awareness of the act of consciousness (sans dualism and sans incorrigibility). In “Return to Consciousness” we analyzed the form of inner awareness in detail. Phenomenological analysis begins with our awareness of our own experience as lived. Often this phenomenological perspective, grounded in inner awareness, is assumed to lead to an isolation of mind from body. However, a careful phenomenology of action shows that this structure of consciousness already places consciousness in intimate relations to the “lived” body, so the “inner” is already tied to the “outer,” the “subjective” to the “objective.” Thus, consciousness is already embodied as we experience it in everyday action. Inversely, the body is itself experienced in conscious action. That is, consciousness is itself experienced as part of nature, beginning with one's own body.
3 - Return to Consciousness
- David Woodruff Smith, University of California, Irvine
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- Mind World
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- 15 March 2004, pp 76-121
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Summary
Abstract. What makes a mental state conscious, according to the classical view (in Locke et al.), is a certain self-consciousness, or (as I prefer to put it) an inner awareness of the state. What is the form of that inner awareness? This is a difficult question, as we see by studying neoclassical models in Brentano, Husserl, and others. In recent philosophy of mind it has been proposed that this awareness of our experience consists in a higher-order monitoring. Yet there are problems with all higher-order theories of consciousness, as Brentano well observed. Here I pursue and partly revise my own earlier analysis of inner awareness as a “modal” character of mental acts. On that analysis, inner awareness is an integral part of an act of consciousness; it is not a higher-order act of any type (such as observing one's current thought or perception). On a particular account, this inner awareness may itself be grounded in the temporal flow of consciousness (extending Husserl's analysis of time consciousness). Yet, in the end, we should allow that lower forms of consciousness do not include the form of inner awareness typical of everyday human experience. Consciousness does not, then, reduce to inner awareness; instead we need a systematic classification of types and levels of consciousness, and we sketch the beginning of such a classification.
Segue. In “The Cogito circa a.d. 2000” we appraised the core elements of the Cartesian account of how consciousness is eo ipso a consciousness of its object and an awareness of itself. […]
Prolegomena: The Terroir of Consciousness and the World
- David Woodruff Smith, University of California, Irvine
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- Mind World
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- 05 June 2012
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- 15 March 2004, pp ix-xvi
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This book explores the structure of consciousness and its place in the world or, inversely, the structure of the world and the place of consciousness in it. Some essays focus on phenomenological aspects of conscious experience; others on the world at large, especially the importance of basic ontological categories. Some develop ideas drawn from historical figures (e.g., Descartes, Husserl, Aristotle, Whitehead), while looking to structures of consciousness and the world. I want to put these essays between the covers of one book because, as I see them, their views work together like photos of a common field taken from different perspectives.
The ideas gathered here have evolved mostly in the terroir of California, where ideas and cultures mix uncommonly. California phenomenology. California ontology. California syncretism. Not without a sense of history (even in California).
The essays cut across the fields of phenomenology and ontology. The interdependence of ontology and phenomenology, as well as its significance for philosophy of mind, is a running theme of the collection as a whole. This interdependence I see as part of the systematic character of philosophy as a whole, a systematic unity rejected by much of twentieth century philosophy, not least in separating phenomenology from wider metaphysics (in the wake of Kantianism, positivism, pragmatism, existentialism).
5 - Background Ideas
- David Woodruff Smith, University of California, Irvine
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- Mind World
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- 15 March 2004, pp 147-175
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Abstract. Here we study the background of intentionality and what I call background ideas. This chapter shows how everyday experiences depend for their intentional force on ideas extant in one's background culture. These ideas are abstract meaning entities (as in the classical Husserlian model of intentionality), but they arise only in particular historical cultures (they do not exist in a Fregean or Platonic heaven of ideas). And they could not mean what they do without that cultural background. Accordingly, the content of one's thinking, perceiving, willing, and so forth depends ontologically on one's background culture.
Segue. In “Consciousness in Action” we showed that our experience is not isolated within a solitary subject or disembodied mind: our conscious bodily actions are carried out in a physical and indeed social context, and that is part of their intentional content, their volitional meaning. But there is a further, logical reason why consciousness itself normally implicates the social world in which we live. For, as we see in the present chapter, the contents of our intentional experiences are themselves typically composed of concepts and rules of practice that are drawn from and depend on a rich background of ideas that form part of the cultural context in which we live. Normally, then, consciousness is not only embodied but en-cultured. This aspect of consciousness requires a sensitive basic ontology, as we shall explore in later chapters.
The world is so you have something to stand on.
Krauss and Sendak, A Hole Is to Dig
Contents
- David Woodruff Smith, University of California, Irvine
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- Mind World
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- 05 June 2012
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- 15 March 2004, pp vii-viii
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