This book aims to offer an account of conscious experience and of concepts that help us understand empirical reasoning and empirical dialectic. The account offered possesses, it is claimed, two virtues. First, it provides great theoretical freedom. It allows the theoretician freedom to radically reconceive the world. The theoretician may, for example, begin with the conception that colors are genuine qualities of physical bodies and may, in light of empirical findings, shift to the conception that colors are not genuine qualities (...) at all. Second, the account grants empirical reason a great power to constrain: empirical reason can force a particular conception of the self and the world on the rational inquirer. These seemingly contrary virtues are reconciled through a novel treatment of presentation and appearances in the account offered of conscious experience and a novel treatment of ostensive definitions in the account offered of concepts. The argument of the book is buttressed by a critical study of the principal approaches to experience and reason found in the philosophical literature.--. (shrink)

In this rigorous investigation into the logic of truth Anil Gupta and Nuel Belnap explain how the concept of truth works in both ordinary and pathological..

‘How, then, she had asked herself, did one know one thing or another thing about people, sealed as they were?’ So asks Lily Briscoe in To the Lighthouse. It is this question, rather than any concern about pretence or deception, which forms the basis for the philosophical problem of other minds. Responses to this problem have tended to cluster around two solutions: either we know others’ minds through perception; or we know others’ minds through a form of inference. In the (...) first part of this paper I argue that this debate is best understood as concerning the question of whether our knowledge of others’ minds is based on perception or based on evidence. In the second part of the paper I suggest that our ordinary ways of thinking take our knowledge of others’ minds to be both non- evidential and non-perceptual. A satisfactory resolution to the philosophical problem of other minds thus requires us to take seriously the idea that we have a way of knowing about others’ minds which is both non-evidential and non-perceptual. I suggest that our knowledge of others’ minds which is based on their expressions – our expressive knowledge - may fit this bill. (shrink)

The standard behavioral index for human consciousness is the ability to report events with accuracy. While this method is routinely used for scientific and medical applications in humans, it is not easy to generalize to other species. Brain evidence may lend itself more easily to comparative testing. Human consciousness involves widespread, relatively fast low-amplitude interactions in the thalamocortical core of the brain, driven by current tasks and conditions. These features have also been found in other mammals, which suggests that consciousness (...) is a major biological adaptation in mammals. We suggest more than a dozen additional properties of human consciousness that may be used to test comparative predictions. Such homologies are necessarily more remote in non-mammals, which do not share the thalamocortical complex. However, as we learn more we may be able to make “deeper” predictions that apply to some birds, reptiles, large-brained invertebrates, and perhaps other species. (shrink)

Anil Gupta; XV*—Remarks on Definitions and the Concept of Truth1, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 89, Issue 1, 1 June 1989, Pages 227–246, https.

In the essays which make up The Sovereignty of Good, Iris Murdoch gives us a picture of moral life in which ‘the metaphor of vision [is] almost irresistibly suggested’. This chapter aims to clarify the role played by the metaphor of vision in Murdoch’s philosophical thinking. I’ll examine two different things which might be meant by the term ‘moral vision’: vision of moral things or vision which is itself moral. The suggestion will be that whilst both capture something important about (...) Murdoch’s work, each may mislead about what is distinctive in her views. For Murdoch, I shall suggest, there is no distinctively moral vision. There is only vision: a loving gaze directed upon the reality of others. (shrink)

For Kant, the human cognitive faculty has two sub-faculties: sensibility and the understanding. Each has pure forms which are necessary to us as humans: space and time for sensibility; the categories for the understanding. But Kant is careful to leave open the possibility of there being creatures like us, with both sensibility and understanding, who nevertheless have different pure forms of sensibility. They would be finite rational beings and discursive cognizers. But they would not be human. And this raises a (...) question about the pure forms of the understanding. Does Kant leave open the possibility of discursive cognizers who have different categories? Even if other discursive cognizers might not sense like us, must they at least think like us? We argue that textual and systematic considerations do not determine the answers to these questions and examine whether Kant thinks that the issue cannot be decided. Consideration of his wider views on the nature and limits of our knowledge of mind shows that Kant could indeed remain neutral on the issue but that the exact form his neutrality can take is subject to unexpected constraints. The result would be an important difference between what Kant says about discursive cognizers with other forms of sensibility and what he is in a position to say about discursive cognizers with other forms of understanding. Kantian humility here takes on a distinctive character. (shrink)

Visual experiences seem to exhibit phenomenological particularity: when you look at some object, it – that particular object – looks some way to you. But experiences exhibit generality too: when you look at a distinct but qualitatively identical object, things seem the same to you as they did in seeing the first object. Naïve realist accounts of visual experience have often been thought to have a problem with each of these observations. It has been claimed that naïve realist views cannot (...) account for the generality of visual experiences, and that the naïve realist explanation of particularity has unacceptable implications for self- knowledge: the knowledge we have of the character of our own experiences. We argue in this paper that neither claim is correct: naïve realism can explain the generality of experiences, and the naïve realist explanation of particularity raises no problems for our self-knowledge. (shrink)

This book offers a novel account of the relationship of experience to knowledge. The account builds on the intuitive idea that our ordinary perceptual judgments are not autonomous, that an interdependence obtains between our view of the world and our perceptual judgments. Anil Gupta shows in this important study that this interdependence is the key to a satisfactory account of experience. He uses tools from logic and the philosophy of language to argue that his account of experience makes available (...) an attractive and feasible empiricism. (shrink)

This chapter addresses the problem: what is the contribution of experience to knowledge? It argues that the problem is best appreciated by reflection on two commonplace ideas about experience and knowledge—ideas that appear to be in some tension with one another. These ideas are labelled as “Insight of Empiricism” and the “Multiple-Factorizability of Experience”.

Anil Gomes considers Murdoch's view that morality is real and that, with the right conceptual resources, we can perceive it.

According to non-conceptualist interpretations, Kant held that the application of concepts is not necessary for perceptual experience. Some have motivated non-conceptualism by noting the affinities between Kant's account of perception and contemporary relational theories of perception. In this paper I argue (i) that non-conceptualism cannot provide an account of the Transcendental Deduction and thus ought to be rejected; and (ii) that this has no bearing on the issue of whether Kant endorsed a relational account of perceptual experience.

A proposal that the biolinguistic approach to human languages may have identified,beyond the study of language, a specific structure of the human mind.

Oncogenic transformation is often associated with aberrant glycosylation in experimental and human tumors. The carbohydrate epitopes, resulting either from incomplete synthesis or neosynthesis, accumulate in high density, possibly in a novel conformation, at the tumor cell surface. A variety of monoclonal antibodies have been developed that recognize tumor‐associated carbohydrate antigens and their aberrant organization at the cell surface. These carbohydrate epitopes and the antibodies specific to these structures are being exploited to develop novel diagnostic tools and therapeutic strategies for cancer.

We are self-conscious creatures thrown into a world which is not of our making. What is the connection between being self-conscious and being related to an objective world? Descartes and Kant, in different ways and with different emphases, argued that self-conscious subjects must be related to an objective world. But many have worried about their starting points. ‘One should say it is thinking, just as one says, it is lightning’, the eighteenth-century philosopher, physicist, and aphorist Georg Christoph Lichtenberg writes. ‘To (...) say cogito is already too much as soon as one translates it as I am thinking. To assume the I, to postulate it, is a practical requirement.’ Lichtenberg raises a question here about our entitlement to think of ourselves as the agent of our thinking. Sometimes thoughts strike us like lightning. When this happens, we are their patient. It is central to our self-conscious lives that this is the exception: we are first and foremost the agents of our thinking. What right do we have to think of ourselves as such? The Practical Self argues that self-consciousness requires faith in ourselves as the agents of our thinking. But faith can be undermined and it can be sustained. And this provides us with a connection to the world since our faith in ourselves as the agents of our thinking is sustained by practices which relate us to other thinkers. Self-conscious subjects must have faith in themselves as thinking agents and it is our relations to the others which sustain this faith. Self-consciousness connects us to a world of others. (shrink)

BackgroundSimilar to many other countries, in Germany patients with alcohol-related liver disease are obliged to prove their abstinence before being accepted on a waitlist for liver transplantation. Health care professionals (HCPs) must both treat patients and ensure that patients have proven their abstinence. The aim of this exploratory study was to develop a deeper understanding of how HCPs deal with this dual role.MethodsThe study used semi-structured interviews as the source of data. 11 healthcare professionals from ten of the 22 German (...) transplant centers were interviewed. After transcription, a qualitative content analysis was performed.ResultsWe found that these HCPs faced an ethical dilemma, as they must balance the roles of being both a treatment provider (the therapist role) and an assessor (the monitoring role). To solve this dilemma, the strategy seems to be a tendency for the HCPs to take on one dominant role amongst these two roles. HCPs who prefer to take on the therapist role seem to feel burdened by the 6-month abstinence rule and the obligation to monitor their patients. HCPs who prefer to take on the monitoring role tend to have negative assumptions about the patients. HCPs also reported the impression that patients perceive HCPs as more involved in monitoring and less open to the therapeutic role. From this it can be deduced that current regulations and structures lead both to stress for HCPs and to suboptimal therapy for those affected.ConclusionsThe results showed that current transplantation guidelines can have a negative impact on both patient care and the burdens on the HCPs. From our point of view, there are various changes that could be made to the current clinical practice that would help solve this dilemma. For instance, integrating other assessment criteria that are more closely adapted to the health status trajectory and psychosocial background of the individual patient would be both possible and would lead to improvements in practice. (shrink)

C HL is Noam Chomsky's shorthand for "Single Computational System of human language." C HL is that part of the faculty of language (FL) that integrates lexical information to form linguistic expressions at the interfaces where language interacts with other cognitive systems. In this paper, I am asking whether the elements of FL are dedicated to language alone, or whether significant parts of FL might apply beyond language. From a close examination of the properties of the principles of C HL (...) , I argue that they might well apply to a class of natural symbol systems that includes language and other cognitive systems. This issue of linguistic specificity differs from a similar issue raised recently by Chomsky. For Chomsky, while the "elements" of the linguistic system per se are drawn from all over nature, general principles of computational efficiency control the operation of the system. Currently, there is little empirical motivation for this vast generalization to all of nature. The more restricted generalization proposed here looks better suited to the current form of inquiry on language and related system. (shrink)

Bruineberg and colleagues helpfully distinguish between instrumental and ontological interpretations of Markov blankets, exposing the dangers of using the former to make claims about the latter. However, proposing a sharp distinction neglects the value of recognising a continuum spanning from instrumental to ontological. This value extends to the related distinction between “being” and “having” a model.

The concept of »similarity« lies at the centre of this interview with Anil Bhatti. Distinguishing itself from a culturalistic hermeneutic of the familiar and the strange, it concentrates on the »as-well-as«, on the area »between« theories of difference and such aspects of identity. Through the notions of »translation« and »over-lapping«, of »the vague« and »the preliminary« this concept seeks to ameliorate cultural theory.

James Van Cleve has argued that Kant’s Transcendental Deduction of the categories shows, at most, that we must apply the categories to experience. And this falls short of Kant’s aim, which is to show that they must so apply. In this discussion I argue that once we have noted the differences between the first and second editions of the Deduction, this objection is less telling. But Van Cleve’s objection can help illuminate the structure of the B Deduction, and it suggests (...) an interesting reason why the rewriting might have been thought necessary. (shrink)

What is the status of the claims which make up Kant’s arguments in the Critique of Pure Reason? This question seemed to Kant’s contemporaries to require a metacritique. Strawson’s criticisms of Kant should be understood in this context: as raising a metacritical challenge about Kant’s grounds for the claims which make up his arguments. What about the claims which make up Strawson’s own arguments in The Bounds of Sense? I argue in this chapter, against what I take to be the (...) general consensus, that Strawson did not and should not have understood these claims to be analytic. Rather he is somewhat puzzlingly committed to our possessing non-analytic but still a priori knowledge of his claims. What could such knowledge consist in? I’ll extract from G.E. Moore’s early writings on Kant a model for understanding such knowledge, one which enables us to better appreciate the way in which Strawson’s methodology dovetails with Kant’s own. (shrink)

The twelve exploratory essays collected in this volume examine forms and limits of human inquiry. Where does scientific inquiry significantly apply? Can it cover the vast canvas of human experience? Where do other forms of inquiry, such as philosophy and the arts, attain their salience? With the emergence of the cognitive sciences, these questions have become more intriguing. Can human inquiry investigate its own nature? They are examined by a philosopher whose academic work concerns the study of language and mind; (...) as such, the sceptical inquiry turns on itself. [The] essays are reflections of a fine scholar... Their range is wide, and they are at once rigorous and accessible. They... are wise in their understanding of the limits of science's reach into the domain of what he calls 'common life'. They will be a source of much pleasure and instruction and insight to the serious reader. Akeel Bilgrami, Johnsonian Professor of Philosophy, Columbia University With remarkable range and depth, these tantalizing essays explore scientific and cultural forms of inquiry,... and other topics that have inspired reflection on the world and ourselves for ages. At each point, there are instructive and challenging new perspectives and insights... a welcome gift to the inquiring mind. Noam Chomsky, Institute Professor of Linguistics and Philosophy, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Mukherji's interests go well beyond narrow academic concerns. His writings reflect the breadth of his aspirations and should appeal to the general public as well as to the experts. Francois Recanati, Senior Fellow, CNRS, Paris. (shrink)

Phenomenal particularism is the view that particular external objects are sometimes part of the phenomenal character of perceptual experience. It is a central part of naïve realist or relational views of perception. We consider a series of recent objections to phenomenal particularism and argue that naïve realism has the resources to block them. In particular, we show that these objections rest on assumptions about the nature of phenomenal character that the naïve realist will reject, and that they ignore the full (...) resources that naïve realism has to offer in explaining phenomenal character. (shrink)

Early twentieth-century philosophers of perception presented their naïve realist views of perceptual experience in anti-Kantian terms. For they took naïve realism about perceptual experience to be incompatible with Kant’s claims about the way the understanding is necessarily involved in perceptual consciousness. This essay seeks to situate a naïve realist account of visual experience within a recognisably Kantian framework by arguing that a naïve realist account of visual experience is compatible with the claim that the understanding is necessarily involved in the (...) perceptual experience of those rational beings with discursive intellects. The resultant view is middle way between recent conceptualist and non-conceptualist interpretations of Kant, holding that the understanding is necessarily involved in the kind of perceptual consciousness that we, as rational beings, enjoy whilst allowing that the relations of apprehension which constitute perceptual consciousness are independent of acts of the understanding. (shrink)

In this paper I distinguish two ways of raising a sceptical problem of others' minds: via a problem concerning the possibility of error or via a problem concerning sources of knowledge. I give some reason to think that the second problem raises a more interesting problem in accounting for our knowledge of others’ minds and consider proposed solutions to the problem.

Are social sciences that are indigenous to the West necessarily universal for other cultures? This collection of South Asian scholarship draws on the experiences of the region to discuss this question in depth.

In this paper I defend the claim that testimony can serve as a basic source of knowledge of other people’s mental lives against the objection that testimonial knowledge presupposes knowledge of other people’s mental lives and therefore can’t be used to explain it.

Internalism and externalism disagree about whether agents who are internally the same can differ in their mental states. But what is it for two agents to be internally the same? Standard formulations take agents to be internally the same in virtue of some metaphysical fact, for example, that they share intrinsic physical properties. Our aim in this chapter is to argue that such formulations should be rejected. We provide the outlines of an alternative formulation on which agents are internally the (...) same in virtue of facts about their epistemic capacities. The resulting formulation is one on which internalism and externalism are views about the extent to which an agent’s mental states can vary independently of the capacity for introspective discrimination. We suggest that this epistemic formulation of internalism and externalism picks out a substantive disagreement in philosophical theorizing about the nature of the mind. (shrink)

This book attempts to unravel the worldview of two prominent Indians of recent Indian history — Tagore and Vivekananda. Both suggested emancipation through political struggles but without transgressing the boundaries of humanism. This is significant, as identifying an enemy was an intrinsic part of nationalistic formulations. The larger philosophy of life, for Tagore and Vivekananda, was to reach out across geographical borders. In this work, their alternative idea of India is analysed in the larger context of the many formulations of (...) nationalism with special reference to theoretical as well as literary works in European and Indian contexts. The author brings on board critiques that have emerged recently —secularist, feminist and postcolonial — and defends his subjects against them. This book is essentially an intellectual interrogation of two eminent thinkers of their time, and falls within the rubric of intellectual history. (shrink)

In a recent paper, Gray, Knickman, and Wegner present three experiments which they take to show that people perceive patients in a persistent vegetative state to have less mentality than the dead. Following on from Gomes and Parrott, we provide evidence to show that participants' responses in the initial experiments are an artifact of the questions posed. Results from two experiments show that, once the questions have been clarified, people do not ascribe more mental capacity to the dead than to (...) PVS patients. There is no reason to think that people perceive PVS patients as more dead than dead. (shrink)