It has long been widely agreed that some concepts can be possessed only by those who have undergone a certain type of phenomenal experience. Orthodoxy among contemporary philosophers of mind has it that these phenomenal concepts provide the key to understanding many disputes between physicalists and their opponents, and in particular offer an explanation of Mary’s predicament in the situation exploited by Frank Jackson's knowledge argument. I reject the orthodox view; I deny that there are phenomenal concepts. My arguments exploit (...) the sort of considerations that are typically used to motivate externalism about mental content. Although physicalists often appeal to phenomenal concepts to defend their view against the knowledge argument, I argue that this is a mistake. The knowledge argument depends on phenomenal concepts; if there are no phenomenal concepts, then the knowledge argument fails. (shrink)

The prospect of consciousness in artificial systems is closely tied to the viability of functionalism about consciousness. Even if consciousness arises from the abstract functional relationships between the parts of a system, it does not follow that any digital system that implements the right functional organization would be conscious. Functionalism requires constraints on what it takes to properly implement an organization. Existing proposals for constraints on implementation relate to the integrity of the parts and states of the realizers of roles (...) in a functional organization. This paper presents and motivates three novel integrity constraints on proper implementation not satisfied by current neural network models. It is proposed that for a system to be conscious, there must be a straightforward relationship between the material entities that compose the system and the realizers of functional roles, that the realizers of the functional roles must play their roles due to internal causal powers, and that they must continue to exist over time. (shrink)

How many people should there be? Can there be overpopulation: too many people living? I shall present a puzzling argument about these questions, show how this argument can be strengthened, then sketch a possible reply.

About the book: Contemporary Debates in Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art features pairs of newly commissioned essays by some of the leading theorists working in the field today. Brings together fresh debates on eleven of the most controversial issues in aesthetics and the philosophy of art Topics addressed include the nature of beauty, aesthetic experience, artistic value, and the nature of our emotional responses to art. Each question is treated by a pair of opposing essays written by eminent scholars, (...) and especially commissioned for the volume. Lively debate format sharply defines the issues, and paves the way for further discussion. Will serve as an accessible introduction to the major topics in aesthetics, while also capturing the imagination of professional philosophers. (shrink)

The virtues have been a neglected aspect of morality; only recently has reference been made to their place in professional ethics. Unfashionable as Florence Nightingale is, it is nonetheless worth noting that she was instrumental in continuing the Aristotelian tradition of being concerned with the moral character of persons. Nurses who came under Nightingale’s sphere of influence were expected to develop certain exemplary habits of behaviour. A corollary can be drawn with the current UK professional body: nurses are expected to (...) behave in certain ways and to display particular kinds of disposition. The difference lies in the fact that, while Nightingale was clear about the need for moral education, current emphasis is placed on ethical theory and ethical decision-making. (shrink)

The question "What is mental illness?" raises many issues in many contexts, personal, social, legal, and scientific. This chapter reviews mental health problems as they appear to the person with the problems, and to family and friends-before the person attends the clinic and is given a diagnosis-a time in which whether there really is a problem, as opposed to life's normal troubles and variations, is undecided, as also the nature of the problem, if such it be, and the related matter (...) what kind of expert advice should be sought. Once at the clinic, a diagnosis may be given-using criteria well-worked-out in the diagnostic manuals. The chapter discusses the conceptualizations of mental disorder in the diagnostic manuals, their rationale, and what can and cannot be reasonably expected of them. There are more position statements than definitions, and while they signal many dilemmas, they do not resolve them. Attempts to do so in the surrounding literature on the concept of mental illness are reviewed in the chapter, with conclusions favoring the features emphasized in the diagnostic manuals: distress and impairment. Finally the chapter considers how far the science may help draw boundaries around mental illness. (shrink)

It has recently been alleged that expressivism cannot account for the obvious fact that normative sentences and their negations express inconsistent kinds of attitudes. I explain how the expressivist can respond to this objection. I offer an account of attitudinal inconsistency that takes it to be a combination of descriptive and normative relations. The account I offer to explain these relations relies on a combination of functionalism about normative judgments and expressivism about the norms governing them. It holds that the (...) inconsistency of normative judgments is primitive. One potential problem for this view is that the large number of normative primitives that the expressivist will allegedly need to accept will render the view grossly unparsimonious. In defending this thesis, I suggest that it is a mistake to hold the lack of normative parsimony of expressivism against its core psychological claims. (shrink)

This paper criticises the current orthodoxy that people who engage with fiction fils are exercising their imagination.

Intentionalism debates seek to uncover the relationship between the qualitative aspects of experience—phenomenal character—and the intentionality of the mind. They have been at or near center stage in the philosophy of mind for more than two decades, and in my view need to be reexamined. There are two core distinct intentionalism debates that are rarely distinguished (Sect. 1). Additionally, the characterization of spectrum inversion as involving inverted qualities and constant intentional content is mistaken (Sect. 3). These confusions can be witnessed (...) from an often-ignored and lonely perspective, that of the sense-datum theorist, and in particular of the projectivist (Sect. 2). In my view we have been so wary of sense-datum theory in recent years that we have failed to see that, even if false, it may permit perspectives on intentionalism issues difficult to occupy from other views. (shrink)

Both the theory that traumatic childhood memories can be repressed, and the reliability of the techniques used to retrieve these memories are challenged in this paper. Questions are raised about the robustness of the theory and the literature that purports to provide scientific evidence for it. Evidence to this end is provided by the demographic and qualitative results of a research study conducted by the authors which surveyed New Zealand families in which one member had accused another of sexual abuse (...) on the basis of recovered memories. It is shown that a number of these allegations involve very low probability events. Since memory repression theory is not currently scientifically substantiated it is argued that care needs to be taken in the mental health, legal and insurance compensation arenas. Memories recalled during therapy may be treated as metaphorical but, in the absence of corroborative evidence, should not be considered factually true. Clinicians who wish to use memory recovery techniques should inform patients of their experimental and controversial nature, point out potential adverse effects, and obtain consent before proceeding. (shrink)

Presents actual cases of brain bisection; how we might be able to divide and reunite our minds; what explains the unity of consciousness at any time; the imagined case of full division, in which each half of our brain would be successfully transplanted into the empty skull of another body; why neither of the resulting people would be us; why this would not matter, since our relation to each of these people contains what matters in the prudential sense, giving us (...) reasons to care about these people, which are like our reasons to care about our own future;and how it is hard to believe that personal identity, or our own continued existence, is not what matters. (shrink)

Thomas Hoccleve wrote his Regement of Princes in 1411 and addressed it to the patronage of Henry, Prince of Wales, who was to succeed to the throne as Henry V two years later, on the death of his father, Henry IV. The Regement is a book of the governance of princes, drawn from the De regimine principum of Aegidius Romanus and from other similar works including the Secreta secretorum, which purports to be a compendium of Aristotle's advice on kingship to (...) Alexander the Great. Like these works, Hoccleve's Regement lays out a series of unexceptionable moral principles that should guide a prince's behavior: the prince is exhorted, for instance, to be prudent, just, liberal, and receptive to counsel. These recommendations are supported with citations from biblical and classical authorities and a wealth of narratives exemplary of kingly and unkingly conduct. Princes were to look in such books as in a mirror, and there see displayed the image of what they should truly be. They were “Mirrors for Princes.” Princes welcomed them and on occasion commissioned them, not because they specially desired to have instruction in the business of government from clerks, nor because they would much appreciate being told things they did not wish to hear, but because it was important that they should represent themselves as receptive to sage counsel. They are not simply political public relations exercises but, equally, they are not “books of instruction.”. (shrink)

The prelims comprise: Introduction Virtual Reality Virtual Metaphysics Virtual Identity Economic Reality.

Modern aesthetics is divided into two branches – the Anglo-American and the Continental. A major cause of this division is their divergent views about the place of history in aesthetics, the first tending to minimize historical considerations, while the second readily embraces them. This article explores the place of history in André Malraux's theory of art and argues that his thinking quickly resolves this long-standing disagreement. (This text is a translation of the published French version.).

This paper will suggest some key elements needed to adequately ground a concept of oppression relevant to the ethics of the social professionsFootnote11. The ‘social professions’ is a useful phrase employed by Sarah Banks (2004) and includes social work, community and youth work, and other professions where human services are offered., and demonstrate how a coherent account of such a concept can be offered, drawing on recent work in social, moral and political philosophy: an account that both supports and challenges (...) the social professional. The ethical commitment of social professionals in many countries to an ‘anti-oppressive’ approach to their work has not always been well understood by those who have supported the idea, or by those critical of it. The aim of this paper is to contribute to the understanding and development of anti-oppressive values and practice in the social professions through a review of recent work relevant to the concept of oppression. It argues that a substantial, critical concept of oppression should underpin any social professional ethics. (shrink)

Examines (1) the birth of art-as-beauty in Western art and the concomitant birth of the idea of art itself; (2) the death of art-of-beauty from Manet onwards. Also looks briefly at some major implications for aesthetics (the philosophy of art). Paper includes some relevant reproductions.

O objetivo deste artigo é investigar a filosofia do diálogo, de Martin Buber, e a ética da alteridade, de Emmanuel Lévinas, como propostas filosóficas de mudança de paradigma em relação à alteridade e sensibilidade. Almeja-se expor as aproximações e divergências entre os pensamentos dos filósofos para, na sequência, analisar sua influência sobre o trabalho de Enrique Dussel. Trata-se de pesquisa qualitativa, que emprega a técnica de pesquisa bibliográfica e se divide em três momentos, cada qual representado por um dos autores (...) elencados neste estudo. Como conclusão, destaca-se que ainda que tanto o pensamento levinasiano quanto o buberiano representem formas distintas (ainda que, em diferentes passagens, aproximadas e quiçá comparáveis) de entender a alteridade, Dussel parece reagir mais vividamente à influência de Lévinas, cujas reflexões constituem uma crítica à lógica do eu egocêntrico. (shrink)

Anthropology is the study of humanness, and the tension between cultural particularity and human universals has always enlivened the sub-discipline of ethnology. For example, efforts to show that logic and emotion vary with culture raise meta-theoretical questions of ontology and epistemology. Since the Boazian and Malinowskian revolution, however, the trend has been to delineate humanness in terms suggested by a given people, avoiding the fraught terrain of species ontology. But just as there is a global ecology, so there is a (...) global culture, seen as the sum of human intelligibilia. Linking the two is the central human problem, which evolved consciousness must solve. Critical realism offers a meta-theoretical description of the human-world relation capable of grounding both particular and comparative discussions. This paper uses a critical realist anthropology of consciousness to indicate its ethnological potential. Then by applying the result to two contemporary ethnological statements, by Kirsten Hastrup and Tim Ingold, it explores the approach's practical utility. Essentially, there must be a reality that exists independently of human consciousness, for consciousness evolved. With it emerged morality, and a morally warranted anthropological task is to accurately describe the world's structure as it impinges on any cultural mode of knowing. (shrink)

This paper considers the account of the content of pictures provided by T.J. Clark. It concludes that Clark's account has many virtues, but is marred by an unjustified commitment to semiotics and to an untenable Marxist theory of explanation.

A brief discussion of André Malraux's concept of the musée imaginaire (Imaginary Museum or Museum without Walls) and a comment on the neglect of Malraux's theory of art. (Link provided).

Critical notice of Derk Pereboom's "Consciousness and the Prospects of Physicalism". Discusses Pereboom's idea that conscious states might be misrepresented in introspection, and his idea that instantiations of mental properties are composed of instantiations of physical properties.

In her commentary, Kennett helpfully reiterates Pickard’s criticism of Strawsonian theories of blame. Angry forms of blame like resentment are, according to Pickard, characterized by a sense of entitlement and are counterproductive to therapy. Some disagree that entitlement is a necessary condition for emotional blame, but also more permissive understandings of Strawsonian emotional blame have been considered inappropriate and counterproductive in a therapeutic relationship and on a psychiatric ward.We proposed to bracket definitional issues about the meaning of emotional blame and (...) instead looked at the possible therapeutic role of negative affect in clinical settings. Our paper conceptualizes... (shrink)

Examines an aspect of Malraux's exploration of action as a value.

This study provides a step by step explanation of André Malraux’s theory of art. Drawing on his major works, such as "The Voices of Silence" and "The Metamorphosis of the Gods," it examines topics such as the nature of artistic creation, the psychology of our response to art, the birth of the notion of “art” itself and its transformation after Manet, the birth and death of the idea of beauty, the neglected question of the relationship between art and the passage (...) of time, the emergence of our “first universal world of art,” the contemporary role of the art museum and the musée imaginaire, and the contentious question of the relationship between art and history. -/- Rejecting negative criticisms from writers such as Maurice Merleau-Ponty and E. H. Gombrich, the study argues that Malraux offers us a theory of art that is fully coherent and highly illuminating. In addition, the analysis shows that he presents a radical challenge to the traditional explanations of art inherited from the Enlightenment that have dominated Western thinking for some three hundred years. In short, the study unveils a way of understanding art that is nothing short of an intellectual revolution. -/- The book is the English version of a study entitled André Malraux et l’Art: Une Révolution Intellectuelle published in French by Peter Lang in April 2021. (shrink)

There are some Marxist moral philosophers who think that a distinctive and defensible ethic can be unearthed from Marx's writings. The task of unearthing it must, of course, be kept distinct from the task or elaborating and defending it. Professor Aronovitch undertakes both tasks in his paper, but he does not always succeed in keeping them apart. As a result, I believe, damage is done to the exegetical side of his project.The question of whether there is a Marxian ethic is (...) a problem both of textual interpretation and of moral philosophy. Consider, for instance, the claim that Marx has an ethic whose centrepiece is a principle of selfrealization. It is an exegetical problem to provide evidence that a principle of self-realization is to be found in Marx and to explain how he understands it. (shrink)

My main concern in this paper is with Trudy Govier’s acceptability criterion for the adequacy of the premises of an argument considered independently of whether they are “properly connected” to the conclusion. I consider arguments she makes against the view that a good argument must have true premises, and I con-tend that a theory of argument could hold both that for an argument to be a good argument its premises must be true and that for it to be a good (...) argument relative to its audience, the audience must be epistemically justified in accepting its premises as true. (shrink)

Discusses the psychology of the terrorist Tchen in Malraux's 'Man's Fate'.

All teachers need to know how children and adolescents learn and develop. Traditionally, this knowledge had been informed by a mix of speculative and scientific theory. However, in the past three decades there has been substantial growth in new scientific knowledge about how we learn. The Science of Learning and Development in Education provides an exciting and comprehensive introduction to this field. This innovative text introduces readers to brain science and the science of complex systems as it applies to human (...) development. Section 1 examines the science of learning and development in the 21st century; Section 2 explores the emotional, cultural, moral and empathetic brain; and Section 3 focuses on learning, wellbeing and the ecology of learning environments. Written in an engaging style by leading experts and generously illustrated with colour photographs and diagrams, The Science of Learning and Development in Education is an essential resource for pre-service teachers. (shrink)