This book review outlines and comments on the ten sections of Robert Allinson’s edited collection, Understanding the Chinese Mind: The Philosophical Roots. It begins with John E. Smith, whose essay presents three types of intercultural scholarly occurrences: parallels and agreements, divergences, and conflict. Next is Robert Neville, who discusses common ontological and cosmological themes in Confucianism, Daoism, and Sinicized Buddhism. General themes are then tied to Plato and the mystical side of Western monotheistic religions. In the following essay, Chad (...) Hansen discusses his interpretation of the Chinese theory of language, suggesting that the prescriptive and socializing nature of the Chinese language make for a radically different conceptions of language and mind from Western theories (except functionalist theories), one in which concerns for truth are secondary. In response to Hansen, Christoph Harbsmeier draws on Chinese classical philosophy to argue that a concern for truth is central in the Chinese canon. The reviewer then comments on the limitations of Harbsmeier’s critique, which adopts Tarski’s ‘T schema’ of truth to assess notions of truth in Chinese classical philosophy. Continuing with the essays, Chung-ying Cheng compares Chinese and Western metaphysics on the Parmenidean problem of change. Drawing mainly from Xunzi, Antonio Cua sets up a dialogue between Confucianism and Anglo-American moral philosophy on the function and justification of ritual code. Kuang-ming Wu compares and contrasts prominent Chinese and Western approaches to the apprehension of beauty in the arts, the former being heavily analytical and prone to universal generalizations and the latter being more adumbrative and contextualized. The reviewer then comments on Wu’s apparent omission of the difference between a Western experience of beauty and Western philosophizing about the experience of beauty. The last essay, Lao Sze-kwang suggests that the difference between the practical, “orientative” direction of Chinese philosophy which aims at effecting change in the self or the world and the highly theoretical slant of Western philosophy as an absolute difference between the two canons, a difference which the reviewer welcomes but at the same time pulls back from any claims of absoluteness. Finally, the book review turns to Allinson’s introduction, which reflects on the multiplicity of perspectives in both Western and Chinese mind and, like Sze-kwang, draws attention to the higher degree of emphasis that Chinese philosophy places on practice, explaining the difference in part in terms of the propensity of Chinese philosophers to envision humanity as in or capable of regaining fundamental harmony with the cosmos. The reviewer concludes with suggestions for further dialogues. (shrink)

The ideal Chinese thinker is a scholar‐official who is informed by a profound historical consciousness, well seasoned in the fine arts of poetry, lute and calligraphy, and deeply immersed in the daily routine of government. If philosophy is loosely defined as disciplined reflection on insights, Chinese philosophy is distinguished in its commitment to and observation of the human condition. It is a disciplined engaged reflection with insights derived primarily from practical living. The Chinese thinker, unlike the Greek philosopher, the Hebrew (...) prophet, the Indian guru, the Christian priest, or the Buddhist monk, is engaged in society, involved in politics, and dedicated to the spiritual transformation of the world from within. (shrink)

First published in 1982. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Movements of the Mind is about what it is to be an agent. Focusing on mental agency, it integrates multiple approaches, from philosophical analysis of the metaphysics of agency to the activity of neurons in the brain. Philosophical and empirical work are combined to generate concrete explanations of key features of the mind. The book should be relevant and accessible to philosophers and scientists interested in mind and agency.

Matthew Soteriou provides an original philosophical account of sensory and cognitive aspects of consciousness. He explores distinctions of temporal character in our mental lives--especially in relation to the exercise of agency--and illuminates the more general issue of the place and role of mental action in the metaphysics of mind.

ABSTRACTThis paper seeks to share cross-border challenges in the ethical design, establishment, implementation, and evaluation of the performance of alliance...

This book brings together Wollheim's broad and abiding concerns to illuminate human thought at its furthest reaches of introspection and expression.

Mind and Supermind offers an alternative perspective on the nature of belief and the structure of the human mind. Keith Frankish argues that the folk-psychological term 'belief' refers to two distinct types of mental state, which have different properties and support different kinds of mental explanation. Building on this claim, he develops a picture of the human mind as a two-level structure, consisting of a basic mind and a supermind, and shows how the resulting account sheds (...) light on a number of puzzling phenomena and helps to vindicate folk psychology. Topics discussed include the function of conscious thought, the cognitive role of natural language, the relation between partial and flat-out belief, the possibility of active belief formation, and the nature of akrasia, self-deception and first-person authority. This book will be valuable for philosophers, psychologists and cognitive scientists. (shrink)

This edited book deepens the engagement between 21st century philosophy of mind and the emerging technologies which are transforming our environment. Many new technologies appear to have important implications for the human mind, the nature of our cognition, our sense of identity and even perhaps what we think human beings are. They prompt questions such as: Would an uploaded mind be 'me'? Does our reliance on smart phones, or wearable gadgets enhance or diminish the human mind? (...) and: How does our deep reliance upon ambient artificial intelligence change the shape of the human mind? Readers will discover the best philosophical analysis of what current and near future 21st technology means for the metaphysics of mind. Important questions are addressed on matters relating to the extended mind and the distributed self. Expert authors explore the role that the ubiquitous smart phone might have in creating new forms of self-knowledge. They consider machine consciousness, brain enhancement and smart ambient technology, and what they can tell us about phenomenal consciousness. While ideas of artificial general intelligence, cognitive enhancements and the smart environment are widely commented on, serious analysis of their philosophical implications is only getting started. These contributions from top scholars are therefore very timely, and are of particular relevance to students and scholars of the philosophy of mind, philosophy of technology, computer science and psychology. (shrink)

The science of linguistics is made accessible by the author of Consciousness and the Computational Mind, who demonstrates evidence for an innate Universal Grammar that provides the building blocks for all human languages.

In this paper, I address one recent objection to Andy Clark and David Chalmers’s functionalist argument for the extended mind thesis. This objection is posed by Kengo Miyazono, who claims that they unjustifiably identify the original cognitive subject with the hybrid one in order to reach their conclusion about the mind extension. His attack consists of three steps: distinguishing hybrid from traditional cognitive subjects based on the systems reply originally directed at Searle’s Chinese room argument; pointing out that (...) the conclusion of the functionalist argument for EM must be rephrased to state that there are hybrid, and not extended, systems with widely realized mental states; and arguing that functionalist EM cannot justify the assumption about the identity of these two kinds of subjects without circularity. I argue that Miyazono’s main argument is ill-founded but that it, nevertheless, points out one important issue, namely, that we need further justification of the identity assumption, without which EM loses much of its flavor. Thus, I am going to challenge Miyazono’s argument, provide a reinterpretation of the argumentation in the EM debate, defend the possibility of wide and extended selves, and offer a justification of the identity assumption, which I find crucial not only for vindicating EM but also for differentiating EM from other similar theses, such as the thesis about group minds. (shrink)

This book develops a new approach to the mind called mental fictionalism. The key idea behind this approach is that the mind is a useful fiction. The book begins with our ordinary conception of the mind (known as folk psychology). At present, the dominant interpretation of folk psychology sees it as an attempt to describe our inner machinery (a view the author calls Cartesianism). The representational theory of mind (or representationalism) argues that our folk theory is (...) true, and that our thoughts (especially our propositional attitudes, such as beliefs and desires) are representations inside our heads. Mental fictionalism offers a new interpretation of folk psychology. According to mental fictionalism, when we attribute beliefs and desires, we do not claim that people have representations inside their heads; we merely pretend that they do. Our ordinary conception of the mind is fundamentally metaphorical: we project the ‘outer world’ of human culture (especially language) onto the ‘inner world’ of the mind. This is an enormously useful way of making sense of people and their behaviour. But we should not forget that this inner world is only a fiction. (shrink)

Contemporary philosophers of mind tend to assume that the world of nature can be reduced to basic physics. Yet there are features of the mind consciousness, intentionality, normativity that do not seem to be reducible to physics or neuroscience. This explanatory gap between mind and brain has thus been a major cause of concern in recent philosophy of mind. Reductionists hold that, despite all appearances, the mind can be reduced to the brain. Eliminativists hold that (...) it cannot, and that this implies that there is something illegitimate about the mentalistic vocabulary. Dualists hold that the mental is irreducible, and that this implies either a substance or a property dualism. Mysterian non-reductive physicalists hold that the mind is uniquely irreducible, perhaps due to some limitation of our self-understanding. In this book, Steven Horst argues that this whole conversation is based on assumptions left over from an outdated philosophy of science. While reductionism was part of the philosophical orthodoxy fifty years ago, it has been decisively rejected by philosophers of science over the past thirty years, and for good reason. True reductions are in fact exceedingly rare in the sciences, and the conviction that they were there to be found was an artifact of armchair assumptions of 17th century Rationalists and 20th century Logical Empiricists. The explanatory gaps between mind and brain are far from unique. In fact, in the sciences it is gaps all the way down.And if reductions are rare in even the physical sciences, there is little reason to expect them in the case of psychology. Horst argues that this calls for a complete re-thinking of the contemporary problematic in philosophy of mind. Reductionism, dualism, eliminativism and non-reductive materialism are each severely compromised by post-reductionist philosophy of science, and philosophy of mind is in need of a new paradigm. Horst suggests that such a paradigm might be found in Cognitive Pluralism: the view that human cognitive architecture constrains us to understand the world through a plurality of partial, idealized, and pragmatically-constrained models, each employing a particular representational system optimized for its own problem domain. Such an architecture can explain the disunities of knowledge, and is plausible on evolutionary grounds. (shrink)

In this paper I analyze the conceptions of internationalism and the international mind that Mead uses in "The Psychological Bases of Internationalism" (1915); in his 1917 Chicago Herald columns defending U.S. entry into the war; in Mind, Self, and Society (1934); and in "National Mindedness and International Mindedness" (1929). I show how the terms "internationalism" and "the international mind" arose within conversations among some Anglo-American thinkers. While Mead employs these terms in his own philosophical and sociological theorizing, (...) he draws their meaning from these conversations and does not generate their meaning from within his own theorizing. This places Mead among the "conservative internationalists" of his time. With this analysis, I then show how Hans Joas's criticisms of Mead's support for the war are misplaced. I also show how Mead's internationalism, correctly understood, cannot support Mitchell Aboulafia's construction of Mead's cosmopolitan self. Throughout, I demonstrate how Mead's discussions of internationalism need to be read in historical context, and are more political than scholars such as Aboulafia and Joas have supposed. (shrink)

Most Indian and Tibetan religious traditions have some theory of yogic perception-a profound type of sentience afforded by meditative practice. And most consider it the bedrock of their religious authority, the primary means by which one gains spiritual insight. Disagreements about what yogis perceive abound, however, spanning many philosophical topics, including epistemology, ontology, phenomenology, and language. Out of Sight, Into Mind is a groundbreaking exploration of debates over yogic perception, revealing their contemporary relevance as a catalyst for comparative philosophy. (...) Jed Forman examines intellectual and philosophical developments over a millennium in India and Tibet, offering rich analyses of many previously untranslated texts. He traces divergences and confluences between thinkers within and across traditions, demonstrating that accounts of yogic perception shifted from theories based on vision to ones based on the mind. Drawing on this investigation, Forman calls for broadening philosophical discourse, arguing that subjects like yogic perception have often been deemed "religious" and thus neglected. He contends that these Indian and Tibetan debates hold important lessons for present-day topics such as hermeneutics and exegesis, the relationship between conception and perception, representationalism versus phenomenalism, and the limits of language. Shedding new light on the intellectual history of yogic perception, this book models how a comparative approach can yield novel philosophical insights. (shrink)

_The Disordered Mind: An Introduction to Philosophy of Mind and Mental Illness, second edition_ examines and explains, from a philosophical standpoint, what mental disorder is: its reality, causes, consequences, and more. It is also an outstanding introduction to philosophy of mind from the perspective of mental disorder. Revised and updated throughout, this _second edition_ includes new discussions of grief and psychopathy, the problems of the psychophysical basis of disorder, the nature of selfhood, and clarification of the relation (...) between rationality and mental disorder. Each chapter explores a central question or problem about mental disorder, including: what is mental disorder and can it be distinguished from neurological disorder? what roles should reference to psychological, cultural, and social factors play in the medical/scientific understanding of mental disorder? what makes mental disorders undesirable? Are they diseases? mental disorder and the mind–body problem is mental disorder a breakdown of rationality? What is a rational mind? addiction, responsibility and compulsion ethical dilemmas posed by mental disorder, including questions of dignity and self-respect. Each topic is clearly explained and placed in a clinical and philosophical context. Mental disorders discussed include clinical depression, dissociative identity disorder, anxiety, religious delusions, and paranoia. Several non-mental neurological disorders that possess psychological symptoms are also examined, including Alzheimer’s disease, Down’s syndrome, and Tourette’s syndrome. Containing chapter summaries and suggestions for further reading at the end of each chapter, _The Disordered Mind, second edition_ is a superb introduction to the philosophy of mental disorder for students of philosophy, psychology, psychiatry, and related mental health professions. (shrink)

This volume is a collective exploration of major themes in the work of Crispin Wright, one of today's leading philosophers. These newly commissioned papers are divided into four sections, preceded by a substantial Introduction, which places them in the context of the development of Wright's ideas. The distinguished contributors address issues such as the rule-following problem, knowledge of our meanings and minds, truth, realism, anti-realism and relativism, as well as the nature of perceptual justification, the cogency of arguments such as (...) G. E. Moore's celebrated proof of an external world, and skepticism about the material world. Some papers explore the relationship of Wright's ideas with those of Ludwig Wittgenstein, whose influence has always been a prominent aspect of Wright's philosophy. The essays collectively testify to the enormous interest and relevance of Wright's seminal contributions for present-day debates in areas as diverse as the philosophy of language and mind, metaphysics, and epistemology, and significantly advance research in these areas. The volume also contains Wright's substantial responses to his critics, which offer the most up-to-date versions of his ideas and a vigorous defense of his philosophy. (shrink)

This dissertation analyzes the three main philosophical movements which informed the intellectual world of Paul and his Greco-Roman contemporaries during the 1st century B.C.E. through the 2nd century C.E. In Part I, I analyze the moral transformation systems of the Middle Platonists , Neo-Stoics , and Greco-Roman Epicureans . I pay attention to the language of power in the analyses of Chapters 1--3, and to how power plays a salient role in philosophical discussions on the passions and on their role (...) in moral progress. What emerges from Part I are the following main conclusions: Despite the very different conceptualizations of the passions in Platonism, Stoicism, and Epicureanism, all three schools nonetheless viewed desire as a form of power and self-mastery over them as an expression of the sage's power. The power of the philosopher was the power of sight. That is, the sage saw himself and his potential errors correctly; and the sage saw the moral standard according to which one should conform. ;Part II is an attempt to show how a study of ancient philosophy of mind can help inform our understanding of Paul's letter recipients and Paul himself. The test case is the situation at Roman Corinth. Of all the philosophies of mind discussed in Part I, I make the initial case that the ideological framework which best explains the attitudes of the Corinthian strong over such issues such as sex with prostitutes is Epicurean philosophy and their ethics of the stomach. Sex is a natural desire and so is permissible in their moral framework. Finally, Chapter 5 examines extensively the external evidence for an Epicurean movement in the city of Roman Corinth. It makes the case for the presence of Epicurean converts among Corinth's urban leadership who, as immigrants, moved to Corinth from neighboring Greek cities and from Rome itself when Corinth was refound as a Roman colony in 44 B.C.E. The greatest epigraphic evidence for Corinthian Epicureans are the inscriptions dedicated to Junia Theodora and Gallio. (shrink)

This volume presents a selection of essays by the leading philosopher Christopher S. Hill. Together, they address central philosophical issues related to four key concerns: the nature of truth; the relation between experiences and brain states; the relation between experiences and representational states; and problems concerning knowledge.