The number of times that the 1956 article ‘Is consciousness a brain process?’ is cited per decade can be found here. On this page, you find a selection of publications that cites the 1956 article. Per publication the context (a sentence or a paragraph) of a citation is reproduced; follow the link “Citing Place (1956) in context”.
Index:
2020-2029 [79]: 2020 [5] Chalmers; Cobb; Fried; Papineau; Potrč 2021 [18] Alter; Azevedo Leite; Azevedo Leite; Curry; Deutscher; Diaper & Huyck; Goldstick; Goodwyn; Kammerer; Mun; Manzotti; Nathan; Pelczar; Pessoa; Rego; Shaw; Tucan; Velmans 2022 [28] Alter & Howell; Armstrong; Awret; Chernoff; Crumley; Elia & Chris-Ciure; Dickins; Fisher; Gouveia; Heil; Heil; James, Keppler, Robershaw & Sessa; Janković; Key, Zalucki & Brown; Lau; Mills; Pelczar; Place; Pockett; Polák; Reed; Rodríguez; Schlicht; Simpson; Skokowski; te Vrugt, Needham & Schmitz; Thagard; Tsou 2023 [21] Alter; Balogun; Cortesi; D’Oro; Edelman; Koslicki & Massin; Galadi; Gascoigne; Holman; Lazzeri & Zilio; Lumsden & Ulatowski; Mørch; Nannini; Pelczar; Pockett; Rainey; Shirvani & Shirvani; Tye; Usher, Negro, Jacobson &Tsuchiya; Weir; Van Lier 2024 [7] Brown; Brown & Papineau; Croxford & Bayne; Curry; Ichaba & Adinoyi; Jungbauer; Loaiza
2010-2019 [70]: 2010 [3] Koksvik; Manzotti & Moderato; Sorem 2011 [6] Aranyosi; Crawford; Kievit et al; Opie; Pereboom; Polger 2012 [7] Bechtel; Beckermann; Brown; Gozzano & Hill; Malatesti; Shapiro & Polger; Sturm 2013 [5] Crawford; Malatesti; Moore; Nath; Van Rysewyk 2014 [5] McLaughlin & Planer; Nath; Nath; Steinhorst & Funke; Wilson 2015 [3] Muñoz-Suárez; Soleimani Khourmoudji; Tiehen 2016 [16] Ball; Burgos; Byrne; Dennett; Frankish; Gusman; Manzotti; Myin; Polger & Shapiro; Siewert; Smith 2017 [4] Manzotti; Neisser; Spurrett; Wright, Colombo & Beard 2018 [15] Azevedo Leite, Bartlett; DiFrisco; Chalmers; Chambliss; Champagne; Dove; Giorgi & Lavazza; Myin & Loughlin; Myin & Zahnoun; Polák & Marvan; Skokowski; Slezak; Wiese; Zahnoun 2019 [6] Leach; Maung; Michel; Strawson; Suojanen; Zilio
2000-2009 [37]: 2000 [1] Potrč 2001 [6] Holth; Leslie; Lyons; Moore; Schneider; Stemmer 2002 [8] Graham & Horgan; Papineau; Slezak; Slezak; Slezak; Slezak; Velmans; Webster 2003 [2] Ludwig; Metzinger 2004 [6] Burgos; Dickins; Evans; Heil; Searle; Tonneau 2005 [0] 2006 [3] LaRock,; Manzotti; Manzotti 2007 [4] Beckermann; Miller; Schouten & Looren de Jong; Smart 2008 [2] Hoffman; Slezak 2009 [5] Block; Hocutt; Horst; Tamminga; Velmans
1990-1999 [15]: 1990 [0] 1991 [1] Velmans 1992 [1] Beckermann 1993 [0] 1994 [2] Marek; Rockwell 1995 [3] Crane, Mumford; Potrč 1996 [3] Crane; Van Fraassen; Velmans 1997 [3] Chalmers; Ros; Stubenberg 1998 [2] Kim; Stubenberg 1999 [0]
1980-1989 [14]: 1981 [1] Lycan 1982 [1] Robinson 1983 [5] Armstrong; Greenberg; Natsoulas; Nichols; Thalberg 1984 [3] Block & Alston; Cole & Foelber; Shepard 1988 [1] Dupré 1989 [3] Macdonald; Smart; Snowdon
1970-1979 [13]: 1970 [1] Heil 1971 [2] Kim, Smart 1972 [2] Bertman; Smart 1973 [2] Armstrong; Polten 1974 [0] 1975 [1] Smart 1976 [0] 1977 [2] Bunge, Pappas 1978 [2] Battista; Dennett 1979 [1] Blumenfeld
1960-1969 [35]: 1960 [1] Smart, 1961 [2] Shaffer; Smart 1962 [1] Baier, 1963 [3] Bradley; Smart; Smart 1964 [2] Hamlyn; Malcolm 1965 [4] Beloff; Farrell; Nagel; Tomberlin 1966 [3] Luce; Passmore; Smart 1967 [10] Deutscher; Gunner; Hinton; Hocutt; Natsoulas; Roberts; Rollins; Sklar; Smart; Taylor 1968 [3] Armstrong; Burt; Maxwell 1969 [6] Burt; Kneale; Medlin; Munsat; Powell; Taylor
1950-1959 [4]: 1957 Smart; Smythies, 1958 Feigl 1959 Smart
Alter, T. (2021). A defense of the supervenience requirement on physicalism. Thought: A Journal of Philosophy, 10(4), 264–274. doi:10.1002/tht3.504
[Abstract]The supervenience requirement on physicalism says roughly that if physicalism is true then mental properties supervene on fundamental physical properties. After explaining the basis of the requirement, I defend it against objections presented by Lei Zhong (“Physicalism without supervenience,” Philosophical Studies 178 (5), 2021: 1529–44), Barbara Gail Montero (“Must physicalism imply supervenience of the mental on the physical?” Journal of Philosophy 110, 2013: 93–110), and Montero and Christopher Devlin Brown (“Making room for a this-worldly physicalism,” Topoi 37 (3), 2018: 523–32).
[Citing Place (1956)]
Alter, T. (2023). The Matter of Consciousness: From the Knowledge Argument to Russellian Monism. Oxford University Press
[Abstract]Torin Alter presents a compelling defence of the 'knowledge argument' against physicalism, pioneered by Frank Jackson. According to physicalism, consciousness is a physical phenomenon. The knowledge argument stars Mary, who learns all objective, physical information through black-and-white media and yet acquires new information when she first sees colors for herself: information about what it is like to see in color. Based partly on that case, Jackson concludes that not all information is physical. Alter argues that the knowledge argument succeeds in refuting all standard versions of physicalism: versions on which consciousness is grounded by what objective science reveals. Alter also argues that given further, plausible assumptions, the knowledge argument leads to Russellian monism, according to which there are intrinsic properties that both constitute consciousness and underlie properties described by physics, such as mass and charge. Alter explains how the knowledge argument establishes those two conclusions and defend it against numerous objections.
[Citing Place (1956)]
Alter, T., & Howell, R.J. (2022). Physicalism, supervenience, and monism. Synthese, 200(6), 515 doi:10.1007/s11229-022-03965-8
[Abstract]Physicalism is standardly construed as a form of monism, on which all concrete phenomena fall under one fundamental type. It is natural to think that monism, and therefore physicalism, is committed to a supervenience claim. Monism is true only if all phenomena supervene on a certain fundamental type of phenomena. Physicalism, as a form of monism, specifies that these fundamental phenomena are physical. But some argue that physicalism might be true even if the world is disorderly, i.e., not ordered by supervenience relations in the way commonly supposed (Montero in J Philos 110:92–110, 2013; Leuenberger in Inquiry 57:151–174, 2014; Montero and Brown in Topoi 37(3):523–532, 2018; Zhong in Philos Stud 178(5):1529–1544, 2021). Unless these authors intend to challenge the claim that physicalism is a type of monism—a claim so central to the dialectic in philosophy of mind that rejecting it risks changing the subject—they are committed to challenging a supervenience requirement for monism. We argue that monism entails that there are substantial supervenience relations among concrete phenomena: relations that would not obtain in a disorderly world. Our argument thus has implications for debates about physicalism and supervenience, and sheds light on an under-discussed issue: what is implied by classifying a theory in the philosophy of mind as a form of monism? We also argue that physicalism’s commitment to monism creates problems for via negativa physicalism, on which the physical is characterized negatively.
[Citing Place (1956)]
Aranyosi, I. (2011). A new argument for mind-brain identity. The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 62(3), 489-517, doi:10.1093/bjps/axr001
[Abstract]In this article, I undertake the tasks: (i) of reconsidering Feigl's notion of a ‘nomological dangler' in light of recent discussion about the viability of accommodating phenomenal properties, or qualia, within a physicalist picture of reality; and (ii) of constructing an argument to the effect that nomological danglers, including the way qualia are understood to be related to brain states by contemporary dualists, are extremely unlikely. I offer a probabilistic argument to the effect that merely nomological danglers are extremely unlikely, the only probabilistically coherent candidates being 'anomic danglers' (not even nomically correlated) and ‘necessary danglers' (more than merely nomically correlated). After I show, based on similar probabilistic reasoning, that the first disjunct (anomic danglers) is very unlikely, I conclude that the identity thesis is the only remaining candidate for the mental-physical connection. The novelty of the argument is that it brings probabilistic considerations in favor of physicalism, a move that has been neglected in the recent burgeoning literature on the subject.
[Citing Place (1956) in context]
Armstrong, D. M. (1968). A materialist theory of the mind. Routledge and Kegan Paul.
[Citing Place (1956)] [24 referring publications by Place] [Reviews]
Armstrong, D. M. (1973). Epistemological foundations for a materialist theory of the mind. Philosophy of Science , 40(2), 178-193 doi:10.1086/288514
[Abstract]A philosophy might take its general inspiration from (1) commonsense; (2) careful observation; (3) philosophical argumentation; (4) the sciences; (5) “higher” sources of illumination. It is argued in this paper that it is bedrock commonsense, and the sciences, which are the most reliable foundations for a philosophy. This result is applied to the discussion and defense of a materialist theory of the mind.
[Citing Place (1956)]
Armstrong, D. M. (1983). Recent work on the relation of mind and brain. In G. Fløistad (Ed.), Philosophy of Mind/Philosophie de l’esprit (pp. 45–79). Contemporary philosophy/La philosophie contemporaine, vol 4. Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-6932-2_3
[Abstract]The decade 1966–1976 saw an immense amount of valuable philosophical discussion concerning the relation between mind and brain. As a result, it has seemed best to be selective, both with respect to topics and to authors. Many important books and papers have had to be passed over. This chronicle confines itself almost entirely to cases where new philosophical positions, or striking new lines of argument, have been developed about the relation of mind and brain.
[Citing Place (1956)]
Armstrong, D. M. (2022). Lewis and the identity theory. In P. R. Anstey, & D. Braddon-Mitchell (Eds.), Armstrong's Materialist Theory of Mind (pp. 24-28). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/oso/9780192843722.001.0001
[Citing Place (1956)]
Awret, U. (2022). Holographic duality and the physics of consciousness. Frontiers in Systems Neuroscience, 16. doi:10.3389/fnsys.2022.685699
[Abstract]This paper introduces a novel dual-aspect theory of consciousness that is based on
the principle of holographic-duality in modern physics and explores the prospects of
making philosophically significant empirical discoveries about the physical correlates
of consciousness. The theory is motivated by an approach that identifies certain
anti-physicalist problem intuitions associated with representational content and spatial
location and attempts to provide these with a consciousness-independent explanation,
while suspending questions about the hard problem of consciousness and the more
problematic “phenomenal character”. Providing such topic neutral explanations is “hard”
enough to make a philosophical difference and yet “easy” enough to be approached
scientifically. I will argue that abstract algorithms are not enough to solve this problem
and that a more radical “computation” that is inspired by physics and that can be
realized in “strange metals” may be needed. While speculative, this approach has
the potential to both establish necessary connections between structural aspects of
conscious mental states and the physical substrate “generating” them and explain why
this representational content is “nowhere to be found”. I will end with a reconsideration
of the conceivability of zombies.
[Citing Place (1956) in context]
Azevedo Leite, D. (2018). The Twenty-First Century Mechanistic Theory of Human Cognition: A Critical Appraisal [Unpublished doctoral dissertation]. University of Trento.
[Citing Place (1956) in context]
Azevedo Leite, D. (2021). The Mechanistic Theory of Human Cognition. In D. A. Leite, The Twenty-First Century Mechanistic Theory of Human Cognition: A Critical Analysis (Chapter 3, 39-70). Springer International Publishing. doi:10.1007/978-3-030-63680-7_3
[Abstract]In the third chapter, the author provides a systematical and analytical exposition of the most central theoretical aspects of the Mechanistic Theory of Human Cognition (MTHC). He shows that the theory is clearly committed to a form of physicalism, on the one hand, but it rejects certain kinds of traditional epistemological reductionist approaches, on the other hand. The framework attempts to offer a pluralist and integrative mechanistic view concerning the relationship between human brain and cognition; a view that is applied to phenomena and to theories overall in cognitive science and cognitive neuroscience. This general pluralist integrative neuro-cognitive relation is the most important pillar grounding the theory's application to human cognition. Besides this, the author also investigates how the framework is applied in concrete to two paradigmatic cases of human cognitive phenomena: the first case is related to the perceptual system; and the second case, to the memory system. In this way, it is possible to evaluate the application of the theory to particular psychological phenomena.
[Citing Place (1956)]
Azevedo Leite, D. (2021). Molecular and Cellular Theory of Human Cognition. In D. A. Leite, The Twenty-First Century Mechanistic Theory of Human Cognition: A Critical Analysis (pp. 73-108). Springer International Publishing. doi:10.1007/978-3-030-63680-7_4
[Abstract]In this chapter, the author compares the neo-mechanistic theory with one of its major contemporary competitors, the Molecular and Cellular Theory of Human Cognition (MCTHC). The aim of the author in this chapter is to evaluate to what extent the main arguments presented by the proponents of MCTHC against the neo-mechanistic theory, directed to particular aspects of it, represent great threats to the aspirations of the neo-mechanists. MCTHC supports a 'ruthless (strong) neuro-cognitive reductionism', as a form of scientific integration for cognitive and neural science, based on current neuroscientific work present in the field of molecular and cellular neuroscience. This theory presents a clear challenge to the neo-mechanistic theory, which is committed to causal and explanatory pluralism and a weak autonomy of higher-level sciences. After characterizing the neuroscientific reductionist position more precisely, the author discusses the neo-mechanists' answer to the challenge and their attempt to stand with pluralism, instead of reduction. A meticulous analysis of their replies shows, however, that the challenge of explanatory reduction cannot be overcome with the arguments the neo-mechanists provide, and their theory, therefore, needs to be understood ultimately as reductionist.
[Citing Place (1956)]
Baier, K. (1962). Smart on Sensations. Australasian Journal of Philosophy, X, 57-68.
[Citing Place (1956)] [Citing Place (1960)] [3 referring publications by Place] [1 reprinting collections]
Ball, D. (2016). No help on the hard problem: Commentary on Reber on Origins of Mind. Animal Sentience, 11(8) doi:10.51291/2377-7478.1177
[Abstract]The hard problem of consciousness is to explain why certain physical states are conscious: why do they feel the way they do, rather than some other way or no way at all? Arthur Reber (2016) claims to solve the hard problem. But he does not: even if we grant that amoebae are conscious, we can ask why such organisms feel the way they do, and Reber’s theory provides no answer. Still, Reber’s theory may be methodologically useful: we do not yet have a satisfactory theory of consciousness, but perhaps the study of simple minds is a way to go about finding one.
[Citing Place (1956)]
Balogun, O.A. (2023). A central state materialistic interpretation of the Yoruba concept of person: A critique. In A. D. Attoe, S. S. Temitope, V. Nweke, J. Umezurike, & J. O. Chimakonam, (Eds), Conversations on African Philosophy of Mind, Consciousness and Artificial Intelligence. Springer. doi:10.1007/978-3-031-36163-0_3
[Abstract]In recent times, there have been a series of unresisted temptations to argue that the Yoruba concept of the human person fits very well into the framework of central state materialism, which states that mental events are identifiable with physical events occurring in the brain and central nervous system. This is because ara (human body), which is purely physical, can be taken to perform both material and immaterial functions. The chapter argues that while this is true; nonetheless, it is totally incorrect to reduce the Yoruba to central state materialists. The chapter states unequivocally that the performance of other vital components of the human person like emi (life-giving entity), ori (the bearer of human destiny), and ese (symbol of physical legs and spiritual efforts), suggests that the Yoruba concept of person, falls within the purview of dualism. It is argued further that the dualism of the Yoruba, which encourages harmonious interaction in the performances of both organs (material and immaterial), is fundamentally different from Cartesian dualism, which operates on the watertight distinction between the functions of the body and mind. The chapter recommends that a proper understanding of the Yoruba concept of a person can serve as a philosophical defence of Yoruba beliefs in spiritual entities, resolution of the traditional mind-body problem, and decolonization of the concept of mind, in contemporary Yoruba thought.
[Citing Place (1956)]
Bartlett, G. (2018). Functionalism and the problem of occurrent states. Philosophical Quarterly, 68(270), 1-20. doi:10.1093/pq/pqx043
[Abstract]In 1956 U. T. Place proposed that consciousness is a brain process. More attention should be paid to his word 'process'. There is near-universal agreement that experiences are processive--as witnessed in the platitude that experiences are occurrent states. The abandonment of talk of brain processes has benefited functionalism, because a functional state, as it is usually conceived, cannot be a process. This point is dimly recognized in a well-known but little-discussed argument that conscious experiences cannot be functional states because the former are occurrent, while the latter are dispositional. That argument fails, but it can be made sound if we reformulate it with the premise that occurrent states are processive. The only way for functionalists to meet the resulting challenge is to abandon the standard individuation of functional states in terms of purely abstract causal roles.
[Citing Place (1956) in context] [Citing Place (1967)]
Download: Bartlett (2018) Functionalism and the Problem of Occurrent States.pdf
Battista, J.R. (1978). The Science of Consciousness. In K. S. Pope, & J. L. Singer (Eds), The Stream of Consciousness. Emotions, Personality, and Psychotherapy. Springer. doi.:10.1007/978-1-4684-2466-9_4
[Citing Place (1956)]
Bechtel, W. (2012). Identity, reduction, and conserved mechanisms: Perspectives from circadian rhythm research. In S. Gozzano, & C. S. Hill: New perspectives on type identity: The mental and the physical (pp. 43-65). Cambridge University Press. mechanism.ucsd.edu/research/bechtel.identityreductionconservationconvergence.pdf
[Citing Place (1956)]
Beckermann A. (1992). Introduction - reductive and nonreductive physicalism. In A. Beckermann (Ed.), Emergence or reduction?: Essays on the prospects of nonreductive physicalism (pp. 1-21). De Gruyter.
[Citing Place (1956)]
Beckermann, A. (2007). Neue Überlegungen zum Eigenschaftsphysikalismus. In M. Pauen , M. Schütte , & A. Staudacher (Eds), Begriff, Erklärung, Bewusstsein. Neue Beiträge zum Qualia-Problem (pp. 143-170). Mentis. pub.uni-bielefeld.de/record/2555625
[Citing Place (1956)] [1 reprinting collections]
Beckermann, A. (2012). Property Identity and Reductive Explanation. In S. Gozzano & C. Hill (Eds.), New Perspectives on Type-Identity (pp. 66-87). Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/cbo9780511687068.004
[Citing Place (1956)] [1 reprinting collections]
Beloff, J. (1965). The identity hypothesis - A critique. In J. R. Smythies (Ed.), Brain and mind. Routledge and Kegan Paul.
[Citing Place (1956)]
Beloff, J. (1996). Searle's fallacy versus Place's nonsense: John Beloff replies to his critics The British Psychological Society, History and Philosophy of Psychology Section Newsletter, 22, 14-16.
[Citing Place (1956)] [Is reply to] [1 referring publications by Place] [Is replied by]
Bertman, M.A. (1972). Basic particulars and the Identity Thesis. Zeitschrift für Allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie, 3, 1–8. doi:10.1007/BF01800815
[Abstract]This paper begins with a discussion of the logical apparatus of Frege, where his use ofSinn suggests a modification of Leibniz's Principle of the Identity of Indiscernibles. Then, it turns to Strawson's “basic particulars” with its essentially Kantian orientation. This brings forward the logical ground upon which the Identity Thesis rests. Finally, following Frege with some modifications, the paper suggests that an “ontological list” where concepts can be treated as objective (materially dependent) subsistent entities would be necessary in order to avoid errors of J. J. C. Smart and other analytic philosophers who hold the Identity Thesis.
[Citing Place (1956)]
Block, N. (2009). Comparing the major theories of consciousness. In M. S. Gazzaniga, E. Bizzi, L. M. Chalupa, S. T. Grafton, T. F. Heatherton, C. Koch, J. E. LeDoux, S. J. Luck, G. R. Mangan, J. A. Movshon, H. Neville, E. A. Phelps, P. Rakic, D. L. Schacter, M. Sur, & B. A. Wandell (Eds.), The cognitive neurosciences (pp. 1111–1122). Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
[Abstract]This article compares the three frameworks for theories of consciousness that are taken most seriously by neuroscientists: the view that consciousness is a biological state of the brain, the global workspace perspective, and an account in terms of higher order states. The comparison features the "explanatory gap", the fact that we have no idea why the neural basis of an experience is the neural basis of that experience rather than another experience or no experience at all. It is argued that the biological framework handles the explanatory gap better than do the global workspace or higher order views. The article does not discuss quantum theories or "panpsychist" accounts according to which consciousness is a feature of the smallest particles of inorganic matter. Nor does it discuss the "representationist" proposals that are popular among philosophers but not neuroscientists.
[Citing Place (1956) in context]
Block, N., & Alston, W. P. (1984) Psychology and philosophy. In M. H. Bornstein (Ed.), Psychology and its allied disciplines (Volume 1: The humanities, ch. 5, pp. 195-). Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
[Citing Place (1956)]
Blumenfeld, J. B. (1979). Phenomenal properties and the identity theory, Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 57(4), 309-323. doi:10.1080/00048407912341341
[Citing Place (1956)]
Borst, C. V. (1970a). Introduction. In C. V. Borst (Ed.), The Mind/Brain Identity Theory. Macmillan.
[Citing Place (1956)] [2 referring publications by Place]
Bradley, M. C. (1963). Sensations, Brain Processes and Colours. Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 41, 385-393.
[Citing Place (1956)] [2 referring publications by Place]
Brown, R. (2012). The brain and its states. In S. Edelman, T. Fekete, & N. Zach (Eds.), Being in time: Dynamical models of phenomenal experience. John Benjamins Publishing Company.
[Citing Place (1956)]
Brown, C. D. (2024). The Hope and Horror of Physicalism: An Existential Treatise. Routledge.
[Abstract]This book assesses the existentially relevant consequences of physicalism. It argues that accepting physicalism is the healthiest stance we can take in the face of an account of the self and world which offers no metaphysical assurances.
Why should we care about physicalism? On one hand, the view seems to be inconsistent with things that many people find valuable, such as the existence of free will, God, the immortal soul, ultimate purpose, and natural laws like karma. On the other hand, physicalism seems to have positive existential implications such as supporting the unlimited potential of scientific understanding or the attitude that we need not fear supernatural powers or forces because they don’t exist. This book argues that physicalism has several consequences that are of existential import. It begins by outlining the history of physicalism and explaining two popular ways of understanding it: the via negativa approach and the theory-based approach. The rest of Part 1 explores the existential consequences of these two versions of physicalism. Part 2 draws on Nietzsche to construct an argument about what attitude we ought to adopt toward physicalism. It argues that we ought to avoid nihilism and despair even when being confronted with a picture of the universe which offers no metaphysical assurances. Finally, Part 3 is dedicated to how well physicalism deals with the hard problem of consciousness, mental causation, and multiple realization.
[Citing Place (1956)]
Brown, C. D., & Papineau, D. (2024). Illusionism and a posteriori physicalism; No fact of the matter Journal of Consciousness Studies
[Abstract]Illusionists and a posteriori physicalists agree entirely on the metaphysical nature of reality—that all concrete entities are composed of fundamental physical entities. Despite this basic agreement on metaphysics, illusionists hold that phenomenal consciousness does not exist, whereas a posteriori physicalists hold that it does. One explanation of this disagreement would be
that either the illusionists have too demanding a view about what consciousness requires, or the a posteriori physicalists have too tolerant a view. However, we will argue that this divergence of opinion is merely an upshot of the semantic indeterminacy of the term ‘conscious’ and its cognates. We shall back up this diagnosis by showing how semantic indeterminacy of the kind in
question is a pervasive feature of language. By illustrating this pattern with a range of historical examples, we shall show how the dispute between the illusionists and their a posteriori physicality opponents is one instance of a common kind of terminological imprecision. The disagreement between the illusionists and the a posteriori physicalists is thus not substantial. In effect, the two sides differ only about how to make an indeterminate term precise. The moral is that they should stop looking for arguments designed to settle the dispute in their favour.
[Citing Place (1956) in context]
Bunge M. (1977). Emergence and the mind. Neuroscience, 2(4), 501–509.
doi:10.1016/0306-4522(77)90047-1
[Citing Place (1956)]
Burgos, J. E. (2004). Realism about behavior. Behavior and Philosophy, 32, 69-95.
[Abstract]Behavior analysis emphasizes the study of overt animal (human and nonhuman) behavior as a subject matter in its own right. This paper provides a metaphysical foundation for such an emphasis via an elucidation of a thesis that I generically call “realism about behavior,” where by “realism” I mean an assertion of mind-independent existence. The elucidation takes the form of a conceptual framework that combines a property-exemplification account of events with modal realism in the context of three opposing philosophies of mind: property dualism, reductive physicalism, and type behaviorism. Each philosophy leads to the thesis that at least one possible world exists in which counterparts of all actual behavioral events occur and no counterpart of any actual “mental” (either nonphysical, neuro-mental, or behavioro-mental) event occurs. The third thesis is false because it violates the assumption that nothing can exist independently of itself, which leads to a rejection of type behaviorism. The other two theses provide the sought-after foundation through a counterfactual characterization of behavior qua behavior as a scientific subject matter. Its study thus becomes the study of behavior as if the nonphysical and the neural did not exist, even if they may factually exist and play a causal role in behavior. Some implications are discussed.
[Citing Place (1956)] [Citing Place (1997f)]
Burgos, J. E. (2016). Antidualism and antimentalism in radical behaviorism. Behavior and Philosophy, 43 1-37.
[Abstract]Radical behaviorism (RB) is antidualistic and antimentalistic. Antidualism is the rejection of ontological dualism, the partition of reality into physical and nonphysical. Antimentalism is the rejection of the ontological theses that mind is causal, internal, subjective, and nonbehavioral in nature. Radical behaviorists conflate both rejections, based on depictions of mentalism as inherently dualistic. However, such depictions are fallacious. Mental causation and mind as internal are fundamentally incompatible with dualism and hence inherently materialistic. Mind as subjective and nonbehavioral in nature are compatible with dualism, but can be construed materialistically. I exemplify with the mind-brain identity theory. The same arguments apply to functionalism, which is also materialistic and provides a more plausible philosophical interpretation of cognitive psychology as a paradigmatic example of mentalism at work in psychology. I propose that radical behaviorists’ accusations of dualism against mentalism rely on an invalid redefinition of “dualism” in terms other than the physical-nonphysical partition. All of this only weakens RB’s antimentalism. Radical behaviorists are advised to stop making those accusations and adopt a behavioristic ontology of mind, such as mind-behavior identity, to reject alternative nondualistic ontologies.
[Citing Place (1956) in context]
Burt, C. (1968). Brain and consciousness. British Journal of Psychology, 59, 55-69.
[Abstract]What light has been thrown on the problem of consciousness by recent researches on the brain, particularly those carried out by the many new techniques which have become available during the last fifteen years? It appears (i) that the nerve cell differs in no essential way, either in its basic structure or in its metabolic processes, from other gland-like cells, though, like all cells, it is differentiated for its specific function; (ii) that conduction in the nerve fibre is a relatively simple electro-chemical process; (iii) that the transmission of the nerve impulse across the synapse is chemical, and the transmitter substances are of a familiar hormonal character; and (iv) that, apart from the greater complexity and the greater instability of the synaptic thresholds, there are no essential differences between those parts of the neuronal network (n.g. the cortex) which are accompanied by consciousness and those parts (e.g. the spinal cord) which are not. A comparison of the specific micro-neural situations in which consciousness does and does not arise suggests that the brain functions, not as a generator of consciousness, but rather as a two-way transmitter and detector; i.e. although its activity is apparently a necessary condition, it cannot be a sufficient condition, of conscious experience.
[Citing Place (1956)] [2 referring publications by Place] [Is replied by]
Burt, C. (1969). Brain and consciousness. Bulletin of the British Psychological Society, 22, 29-36.
[Citing Place (1956)] [Is reply to] [2 referring publications by Place] [Is replied by]
Byrne, D. (2016) Do phenomenal concepts misrepresent? Philosophical Psychology, 29(5), 669-678, doi:10.1080/09515089.2015.1108398
[Abstract]Many contemporary physicalists concede to dualists that conscious subjects have distinctive “phenomenal concepts” of the phenomenal qualities of their experiences. Indeed, they contend that idiosyncratic characteristics of these concepts facilitate responses to influential anti-physicalist arguments. Like some some other critics of this approach, James Tartaglia (2013) maintains that phenomenal concepts express contents that conflict with physicalism, but as a physicalist, the moral he distinctively draws from this is that phenomenal concepts misrepresent. He contends further that the contemporary physicalists’ account cannot accommodate this feature, and that in consequence, physicalists should abandon phenomenal concepts and return to the identity theory championed by Place and Smart in the 1950s. I respond to Tartaglia by identifying lacunae in his interpretation of contemporary physicalism and arguing that phenomenal concepts as conceived by the contemporary physicalists do not express contents that support either dualist or physicalist metaphysics: they are “metaphysically neutral.”
[Citing Place (1956)]
Chalmers, D. J. (1996). The conscious mind: In search of a fundamental theory. Oxford University Press.
[Abstract]The book is an extended study of the problem of consciousness. After setting up the problem, I argue that reductive explanation of consciousness is impossible and that if one takes consciousness seriously, one has to go beyond a strict materialist framework. In the second half of the book, I move toward a positive theory of consciousness with fundamental laws linking the physical and the experiential in a systematic way. Finally, I use the ideas and arguments developed earlier to defend a form of strong artificial intelligence and to analyze some problems in the foundations of quantum mechanics.
[Citing Place (1956) in context]
Chalmers, D. (2018). The Meta-Problem of Consciousness. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 25(9-10), 6-61.
[Citing Place (1956) in context]
Chalmers, D. J. (2020). Idealism and the mind-body problem. In W. Seager (Ed.), The routledge handbook of panpsychism (pp. 353–373). Routledge.
[Citing Place (1956)]
Chambliss, B. (2018). The mind–body problem. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Cognitive Science, 9(4), e1463. doi:10.1002/wcs.1463
[Abstract]The mind–body problem is the problem of explaining how the happenings of our mental lives are related to physical states, events and processes. Proposed solutions to the problem vary by whether and how they endorse physicalism, the claim that mental states are ultimately “nothing over and above” physical states, and by how they understand the interactions between mental and physical states. Physicalist solutions to the mind–body problem have been dominant in the last century, with the variety of physicalism endorsed (reductive or nonreductive) depending upon both the outcome of philosophical arguments and methodological developments in the cognitive and neural sciences. After outlining the dominant contemporary approach to the mind–body problem, I examine the prospects for a solution in light of developments in the cognitive sciences, especially the scientific study of consciousness.
[Citing Place (1956)]
Champagne, M. (2018). Consciousness and the philosophy of signs: How Peircean semiotics combines phenomenal qualia and practical effects. Studies in the History of Philosophy of Mind, vol 19. Springer. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-73338-8
[Abstract]It is often thought that consciousness has a qualitative dimension that cannot be tracked by science. Recently, however, some philosophers have argued that this worry stems not from an elusive feature of the mind, but from the special nature of the concepts used to describe conscious states. Marc Champagne draws on the neglected branch of philosophy of signs or semiotics to develop a new take on this strategy. The term “semiotics” was introduced by John Locke in the modern period – its etymology is ancient Greek, and its theoretical underpinnings are medieval. Charles Sanders Peirce made major advances in semiotics, so he can act as a pipeline for these forgotten ideas. Most philosophers know Peirce as the founder of American pragmatism, but few know that he also coined the term “qualia,” which is meant to capture the intrinsic feel of an experience. Since pragmatic verification and qualia are now seen as conflicting commitments, Champagne endeavors to understand how Peirce could (or thought he could) have it both ways. The key, he suggests, is to understand how humans can insert distinctions between features that are always bound. Recent attempts to take qualities seriously have resulted in versions of panpsychism, but Champagne outlines a more plausible way to achieve this. So, while semiotics has until now been the least known branch of philosophy ending in –ics, his book shows how a better understanding of that branch can move one of the liveliest debates in philosophy forward.
[Citing Place (1956) in context]
Chernoff, F. (2022). ‘Truth’, ‘justice’, and the American wave… function: comments on Alexander Wendt's Quantum Mind and Social Science.
International Theory, 14, 146 - 158. doi:10.1017/S1752971921000099
[Abstract]This paper examines several aspects of Alexander Wendt's Quantum Mind and Social Science. The paper questions the nature of the task, as ontologies are debated in a scientific field once there is a widely accepted substantive theory that stands in need of interpretation, as with Newtonian physics or quantum mechanics; doing this job for international relations (IR) is highly questionable give that there is no widely accepted substantive theory of IR that needs an interpretation. Second, the paper questions Wendt's view of the consequences for ontology of quantum theory being replaced in the future; Wendt the interpretation of the history of science maintains that in the physical sciences a new theory subsumes the older theory, including its ontology. But, this seems to misread history, while the empirical content of classical physics is subsumed by relativity theory, it is far from true that the former's ontology was subsumed. The ontologies are in sharp contrast. The paper raises questions also about the notion of ‘truth’ and of the meaningfulness of evaluative concepts like ‘justice’.
[Citing Place (1956)]
Churchland, P. M. (1988). Matter and Consciousness (Revised Edition). MIT Press.
Note:
First edition: 1984
[Citing Place (1956)] [7 referring publications by Place]
Cobb, M. (2020). The idea of the brain. A history. Profile Books.
[Citing Place (1956)]
Cole, D. J., & Foelber, R. (1984). Contingent materialism. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 65, 74-85. doi:10.1111/j.1468-0114.1984.tb00214.x
[Citing Place (1956)]
Cortesi, B. (2023). The Thesis of Revelation in the Philosophy of Mind: A Guide for the Perplexed. Argumenta, (2023), 1-20. doi:10.14275/2465-2334/20230.cor
[Abstract]The thesis of experiential revelation—Rev for brevity—in the philosophy of mind claims that to have an experience—i.e., to be acquainted with it—is to know its nature. It is widely agreed that although at least moderate versions of Rev might strike one as plausible and perhaps even appealing, at least up to a certain extent, most of them are nonetheless inconsistent with almost any coherent form of physicalism about the mind. Thus far, the issue of the alleged tension between Rev and physicalism has mostly been put in the relevant literature in terms of phenomenal concepts—those concepts which refer to phenomenal properties, or qualia, and characterize them in terms of the peculiar quality(ies) they exhibit—and some kind of “special feature” those concepts allegedly possess. I call this version of Rev C-Rev. This paper aims to suggest that while it is true that phenomenal concepts reveal the nature of their referent(s)—i.e., it is a priori, for a subject possessing the concept and just in virtue of possessing it, what it is for the referent(s) of the concept to be part of reality—this feature of them, in turn, rests on a non-conceptual non-propositional kind of knowledge, namely, sui generis introspective knowledge by acquaintance of one’s own phenomenally conscious states. I call this version of Rev A-Rev. §1 provides some introductory material. In §2 I discuss two arguments that have recently been put forth to undermine the cogency of C-Rev against physicalism. §3 elaborates on the historical roots of C-Rev. §4 presents some of the major arguments which have been offered for A-Rev. A few concluding remarks close the paper.
[Citing Place (1956)]
Crane, T. (1995). The mental causation debate. Aristotelian Society Supplementary, 69(Supplementary), 211-236.
[Abstract]This paper is about a puzzle which lies at the heart of contemporary physicalist theories of mind. On the one hand, the original motivation for physicalism was the need to explain the place of mental causation in the physical world. On the other hand, physicalists have recently come to see the explanation of mental causation as one of their major problems. But how can this be? How can it be that physicalist theories still have a problem explaining something which their physicalism was intended to explain in the first place? If physicalism is meant to be an explanation of mental causation, then why should it still face the problem of mental causation?
[Citing Place (1956) in context]
Crane, T. (1996). Introduction to "Dispositions: A Debate". In D. M. Armstrong, C. B. Martin, U. T. Place & Tim Crane (Ed.), Dispositions: A Debate. Routledge
[Citing Place (1956)]
Crawford, S. (2011) General Introduction. In S. Crawford, (Ed.), Philospohy of mind (4 volumes): Critical concepts of philosophy www.research.manchester.ac.uk/portal/en/publications/general-introduction(5f3fd60a-e056-4818-8777-8a4b4c33fa6d).html philarchive.org/archive/CRAPOM
[Citing Place (1956)]
Crawford, S. (2013). The Myth of Logical Behaviourism and the Origins of the Identity Theory. In M. Beaney (Ed.), The Oxford Handbook of the History of Analytic Philosophy (1 ed., pp. 621-655). Oxford University Press. www.research.manchester.ac.uk/portal/en/publications/the-myth-of-logical-behaviourism-and-the-origins-of-the-identity-theory(cfcb411c-26f1-4c55-a275-1c4ed0eb949c).html
[Citing Place (1956)] [Citing Place (2000f)]
Croxford, J., Bayne, T. (2024). The case against organoid consciousness. Neuroethics, 17(13). doi:10.1007/s12152-024-09548-3
[Abstract]Neural organoids are laboratory-generated entities that replicate certain structural and
functional features of the human brain. Most neural organoids are disembodied—completely decoupled from sensory input and motor output. As such, questions about their potential capacity for consciousness are exceptionally difficult to answer. While not disputing
the need for caution regarding certain neural organoid types, this paper appeals to two broad constraints on any adequate theory of consciousness — the first involving the dependence of consciousness on embodiment; the second involving the dependence of consciousness on representations—to argue that disembodied neural organoids are not plausible candidates
for consciousness.
[Citing Place (1956)]
Crumley, J. S. (2022). Introduction to metaphysics. Broadview Press
[Citing Place (1956) in context]
Curry, D.S. (2021). How beliefs are like colors. Synthese. doi:10.1007/s11229-021-03144-1
[Abstract]Double dissociations between perceivable colors and physical properties of colored objects have led many philosophers to endorse relationalist accounts of color. I argue that there are analogous double dissociations between attitudes of belief—the beliefs that people attribute to each other in everyday life—and intrinsic cognitive states of belief—the beliefs that some cognitive scientists posit as cogs in cognitive systems—pitched at every level of psychological explanation. These dissociations provide good reason to refrain from conflating attitudes of belief with intrinsic cognitive states of belief. I suggest that interpretivism provides an attractive account of the former (insofar as they are not conflated with the latter). Like colors, attitudes of belief evolved to be ecological signifiers, not cogs in cognitive systems.
[Citing Place (1956) in context]
Curry, D. S. (2024). On IQ and other sciencey descriptions of minds. Philosophers' Imprint. doi:10.3998/phimp.4939
[Abstract]Philosophers of mind (from eliminative materialists to psychofunctionalists to interpretivists) generally assume that a normative ideal delimits which mental phenomena exist (though they disagree about how to characterize the ideal in question). This assumption is dubious. A comprehensive ontology of mind includes some mental phenomena that are neither (a) explanatorily fecund posits in any branch of cognitive science that aims to unveil the mechanistic structure of cognitive systems nor (b) ideal (nor even progressively closer to ideal) posits in any given folk psychological practice. Indeed, one major function of scientific psychology has been (and will be) to introduce just such (normatively suboptimal but real) mental phenomena into folk psychological taxonomies. The development and public dissemination of IQ research over the course of the 20th Century is a case in point.
[Citing Place (1956)]
Dennett, D. C. (1978). Current issues in the philosophy of mind. American Philosophical Quarterly, 15(4), 249-261.
[Citing Place (1956)]
Dennett, D. C. (2016). Illusionism as the obvious default theory of consciousness. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 23(11-12), 65-72.
[Abstract]Using a parallel with stage magic, it is argued that far from being seen as an extreme alternative, illusionism as articulated by Frankish should be considered the front runner, a conservative theory to be developed in detail, and abandoned only if it demonstrably fails to account for phenomena, not prematurely dismissed as 'counter-intuitive'. We should explore the mundane possibilities thoroughly before investing in any magical hypotheses.
[Citing Place (1956) in context]
Deutscher, M. (1967). Mental and physical properties. In C. F. Presley (Ed.), The identity theory of mind (pp. 65-83). University of Queensland Press.
[Citing Place (1956)]
Deutscher, M. (2021). Towards Continental Philosophy. Reason and Imagination in the Thought of Max Deutscher. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.
[Abstract]Through a curated selection of papers written over four decades by one of Australia’s leading philosophers, this collection demonstrates the impact of Continental philosophy on philosophical thought in Australia.
The development of specific philosophical problems, over a period of more than forty years by a philosopher whose first training was ‘pre-continental’, shows that it is possible to achieve interaction between ‘continental’ and ‘pre-continental’ methods in philosophy, even while recognizing their distinctiveness. These essays ‘work towards’ continental philosophy in the ways they pay attention to language, to how we experience things and are experienced by others, and to the structures of language and power that frame what it is possible to say and to hear, to write and to read.
[Citing Place (1956)]
Diaper, D., & Huyck, C. (2022). Cell Assembly-based Task Analysis (CAbTA). In K. Arai (Ed.), Intelligent Computing. Lecture Notes in Networks and Systems, vol 283. Springer. doi:10.1007/978-3-030-80119-9_22 eprints.mdx.ac.uk/33474/
[Abstract]Based on an Artificial Neural Network model, Cell Assembly-based Task Analysis is a new method that outputs a task performance model composed of integrated mind-brain Cell Assemblies, which are currently believed to be the most plausible, general organisation of the brain and how it supports mental operations. A simplified model of Cell Assemblies and their cognitive architecture is described and then used in the method. A brief sub-task is analysed. The method’s utility to research in Artificial Intelligence, neuroscience and cognitive psychology is discussed and the possibility of a General Theory suggested.
[Citing Place (1956)]
Dickins, T. E. (2004). Social constructionism as cognitive science. Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, 34(4), 333-352. doi:10.1111/j.1468-5914.2004.00253.x eprints.mdx.ac.uk/9462/
[Abstract]Social constructionism is a broad position that emphasizes the importance of human social processes in psychology. These processes are generally associated with language and the ability to construct stories that conform to the emergent rules of 'language games'. This view allows one to espouse a variety of critical postures with regard to realist commitments within the social and behavioural sciences, ranging from outright relativism (language constructs all of our concepts) to a more moderate respect for the 'barrier' that linguistic descriptions can place between us and reality. This paper first outlines some possible social constructionist viewpoints and then goes on to show how each of them conforms to the basic principles of information theory. After establishing this relation the paper then argues that this leads to a deal of commonality between social constructionist positions and the baseline aims of cognitive science. Finally, the paper argues that if information theory is held in common this both suggests future research collaborations and helps to 'mop up' some of the arguments surrounding realist commitments.
[Citing Place (1956) in context]
Dickins, D. W. (2022). Bliss in that dawn: The beginnings of operant psychology in the UK History & Philosophy of Psychology, 23(1), 33-49. doi:10.53841/bpshpp.2022.23.1.33
[Abstract]Although the first research in the UK to achieve what amounted to operant conditioning (Grindley, 1932) was published in the same year as Skinner’s pioneer publication no similar procedure seems to have been carried out in Britain until Hurwitz founded an operant laboratory at Birkbeck, (then Birkbeck College), University of London, in the early 1950s, presumably inspired by his meeting with Skinner in 1951, and their subsequent friendship. It certainly was an import from America, fortified by local solutions for providing suitable control equipment. The author was a student of Hurwitz at Birkbeck (1957–1961) and was researching (1961–1964) close by at University College (UCL). There follows a largely biographical account of how operant conditioning, initially mostly in rats, spread around universities in the UK. Many of the people concerned, and others not mentioned, shared their ideas at meetings of the Experimental Analysis of Behaviour Group (EABG) that informally sprang up in the early 1960s, initially without funding or its own journal. In coordination with the later emergence of the European Association for Behaviour Analysis (EABA) and its associated journal (European Journal of Behaviour Analysis) the organisation of the EABG has become established in Bangor, and holds regular biennial meetings at University College, London, alternating with those of the EABA in other parts of Europe. The EABG continues to attract many foreign attendees, including from the US, but some of its earlier enthusiasts no longer attend, whilst those attending mostly see themselves as Behaviour Analysts, reflecting changes both in the theory and practice of operant psychology. While operant technology remains a useful tool for those seeking a broad biological and authentic evolutionary understanding of behaviour, the philosophy of operant psychology as an all-encompassing approach to behavioural science has proved divisive.
[Citing Place (1956)] [Citing Place (1981a)] [Citing Place (1995/6)] [Citing Place (1996a)] [Citing Place (1998d)] [Citing Place (1998e)]
DiFrisco, J. (2018). Token physicalism and functional individuation. European Journal for Philosophy of Science, 8, 309–329. doi:10.1007/s13194-017-0188-y
[Abstract]Token physicalism is often viewed as a modest and unproblematic physicalist
commitment, as contrasted with type physicalism. This paper argues that the
prevalence of functional individuation in biology creates serious problems for token physicalism, because the latter requires that biological entities can be individuated physically and without reference to biological functioning. After characterizing the main philosophical roles for token physicalism, I describe the distinctive uses of functional individuation in models of biological processes. I then introduce some requirements on token identity claims that arise from a position on individuation and identity known as sortalism. An examination of biological examples shows that these sortalist requirements cannot be plausibly met due to differences between individuation by functional biological criteria and by physical criteria. Even without assuming sortalism, token physicalism faces the more basic problem of excluding functionally
irrelevant detail from the individuation of biological tokens. I close by suggesting that the philosophical roles for token identity are better fulfilled by a notion of token composition, which promotes a hierarchical picture of individuality.
[Citing Place (1956) in context]
D'Oro, G. (2023). Why Collingwood Matters: A Defence of Humanistic Understanding. Bloomsbury Publishing.
[Citing Place (1956) in context]
Dove, G. (2018). Redefining physicalism. Topoi, 37(3), 513-522 doi:10.1007/s11245-016-9405-0
[Abstract]Philosophers have traditionally treated physicalism as an empirically informed metaphysical thesis. This approach faces a well-known problem often referred to as Hempel’s dilemma: formulations of physicalism tend to be either false or indeterminate. The generally preferred
strategy to address this problem involves an appeal to a hypothetical complete and ideal physical theory. After demonstrating that this strategy is not viable, I argue that we should redefine physicalism as an interdisciplinary research program seeking to explain the mental in terms of the physical that encompasses the physical sciences, the psychological and brain sciences, and philosophy. Redefining physicalism in this way improves upon previous reconstructive accounts while avoiding the indeterminacy associated with orthodox forms of futurist physicalism.
[Citing Place (1956)]
Dupré, J. (1988). Materialism, physicalism, and scientism, Philosophical Topics, 16(1), 31-56. www.jstor.org/stable/43154014
[Citing Place (1956)]
Edelman, S. (2023). Selfless Consciousness. In: The Consciousness Revolutions (Chapter 1). Springer. doi:10.1007/978-3-031-24012-6_1
[Abstract]Tower of power. The brain’s virtual reality. Identity theory. Computation all the way down. No cognition without representation. What makes representation special and how it can give rise to basic phenomenal awareness. Stimulus and response and awareness and zombies. Slipping into the future. Once again, with feeling. The Gang of Four. Minimal consciousness. The first revolution.
[Citing Place (1956)]
Ellia, F., & Chis-Ciure, R. (2022). Consciousness and complexity: Neurobiological naturalism and integrated information theory. Consciousness and Cognition, 100. doi:10.1016/j.concog.2022.103281
[Abstract]In this paper we take a meta-theoretical stance and aim to compare and assess two conceptual frameworks that endeavor to explain phenomenal experience. In particular, we compare Feinberg & Mallatt’s Neurobiological Naturalism (NN) and Tononi’s and colleagues Integrated Information Theory (IIT), given that the former pointed out some similarities between the two theories (Feinberg & Mallatt 2016c-d). To probe their similarity, we first give a general introduction into both frameworks. Next, we expound a ground-plan for carrying out our analysis. We move on to articulate a philosophical profile of NN and IIT, addressing their ontological commitments and epistemological foundations. Finally, we compare the two point-by-point, also discussing how they stand on the issue of artificial consciousness.
[Citing Place (1956) in context]
Evans, R. (2004). Book Review of Krakow, I (2002) Why the Mind-Body Cannot be Solved. Minds & Machines. 14(3), 403-407.
[Citing Place (1956)]
Farrell, B. A. (1965). Review of the book The Behavioral Basis of Perception by J. G. Taylor. Mind, 74, 259-280
[Citing Place (1956)]
Feigl, H. (1958). The "Mental" and the "Physical", In H. Feigl, M. Scriven, & G. Maxwell (Eds.), Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science (Vol II, pp. 370-497). University of Minnesota Press.
[Citing Place (1956)] [14 referring publications by Place] [1 reprinting collections]
Fisher, A. R. J. (2022). The two Davids and Australian Materialism. In P. R. Anstey, & D. Braddon-Mitschell (Eds.), Armstrong's Materialist Theory of Mind (pp. 29-51). Oxford University Press.
doi:10.1093/oso/9780192843722.003.0004
[Citing Place (1954) in context] [Citing Place (1956) in context]
Frankish, K. (2016). Illusionism as a Theory of Consciousness. Journal of Consciousness Studies 23(11-12), 11-39. https://www.ingentaconnect.com/contentone/imp/jcs/2016/00000023/f0020011/art00002
[Abstract]This article presents the case for an approach to consciousness that I call illusionism. This is the view that phenomenal consciousness, as usually conceived, is illusory. According to illusionists, our sense that it is like something to undergo conscious experiences is due to the fact that we systematically misrepresent them (or, on some versions, their objects) as having phenomenal properties. Thus, the task for a theory of consciousness is to explain our illusory representations of phenomenality, not phenomenality itself, and the hard problem is replaced by the illusion problem. Although it has had powerful defenders, illusionism remains a minority position, and it is often dismissed as failing to take consciousness seriously. This article seeks to rebut this accusation. It defines the illusionist programme, outlines its attractions, and defends it against some common objections. It concludes that illusionism is a coherent and attractive approach, which deserves serious consideration.
[Citing Place (1956) in context]
Fried, M. (2020). Kuhn's challenge: conceptual continuity and natural kinds [Unpublished doctoral dissertation]. Birkbeck, University of London. eprints.bbk.ac.uk/id/eprint/40475
[Abstract]Thomas Kuhn poses a fundamental worry about explaining scientific progress, which I call Kuhn's Challenge. The Challenge consists of two related questions: (A) If the meanings of key terms change between theories on either side of a paradigm shift, how can we still say that these theories are about the same thing? (B) Even if we assume that two theories address the same subject matter, how can we determine which one is better? A popular reply to Kuhn is to adopt a semantics for natural kind terms influenced by Kripke in Naming and Necessity and Putnam in "The Meaning of 'Meaning'", according to which such terms rigidly refer - independently of theory changes - to the same kinds across possible worlds and through time. I argue that this approach can explain extra-theoretical conceptual continuity only if we assume that all natural kinds have the same essence type. Though Kripke and Putnam take for granted that this essence type is microstructural, I argue that in practice, many sciences postulate natural kinds with other essence types, such as historical or functional essences; and that when new discoveries are made, prompting paradigm shifts, the relevant essence type may change. Moreover, which type is relevant to which science is as much a matter of decision as of discovery. Such a claim may seem to threaten realism about natural kinds. I argue, however, that we can be both pluralists and realists, if we recognise that conceptual continuity is secured ex post. Contrary to those who have argued for similar positions, I claim that we need not give up the rigidity of natural kind terms or the global ambitions of realism. In the end I show how the framework I have developed illuminates the debate over Kripke's argument against Physicalism in the philosophy of mind.
[Citing Place (1956) in context]
Galadí, J.A. (2023). The Mind-Body Problem: An Overview of Proposed Solutions. In T. Lopez-Soto, A. Garcia-Lopez, & F. J. Salguero-Lamillar (Eds), The Theory of Mind Under Scrutiny (Pp. 435–467). Springer. doi:10.1007/978-3-031-46742-4_13
[Abstract]The Philosophy of Mind consists of problems concerning aspects and properties of the human mind. The most important of these problems is that of the relation between mind and body, or, more generally, between mental and physical phenomena. Usually referred to as the mind-body problem, this has been one of the fundamental problems in Philosophy since René Descartes (1596–1650) and his critics introduced it four centuries ago. The mental seems, at first glance, completely different from the physical. Physical properties are public, i.e., equally observable by everyone, but mental properties are not. It can be deduced that someone feels pain by his behaviour, but only that person can feel it directly. Conscious mental events are private in the sense that the subject has privileged access to them that no one has for the physical. Conscious experiences, such as the smell of jasmine, are completely different from the configurations and movements, however complex, of particles, atoms and molecules, or the physical changes of cells and tissues. Despite this, conscious phenomena do not seem to arise out of nothing, but from physical-biological processes in the body, especially from neural processes in the brain. But how can physical-biological systems have states such as thoughts, fears and hopes?
[Citing Place (1956)]
Gascoigne, N. (2023). Philosophy of mind: Mind-body identity and eliminative materialism. In M. Müller (Eds.), Handbuch Richard Rorty. Springer VS. doi.:10.1007/978-3-658-16253-5_36
[Abstract]A critical outline is given of Rorty’s early, ‘eliminativist’ attempt to formulate a materialist version of the mind-body identity theory that does not fall foul of the ‘irreducible properties objection’ (the thought that if mental states are brain states then the latter must exhibit the same properties as the former). An explanation is offered of why Rorty continued to describe himself as a materialist/physicalist despite having come to reject any version of mind-body identity.
[Citing Place (1956)]
Giorgi, R., & Lavazza, A. (2018). Mental causation. APhEx, 17.
[Abstract]This article aims to provide a brief overview of the mental causation problem and its proposed solutions. Indeed, mental causation turns out to be one of the most difficult philosophical conundrums in contemporary philosophy of mind. In the first two sections, we offer an outline of the problem and the philosophical debate about it, and show that the mental causation problem is pivotal within the contemporary philosophy of mind. In the third section, we focus on the most popular models of mental causation, namely Kim's and Davidson's accounts, also discussing the objections raised against them. In the final section, we take into consideration some recent proposals poised to solve the mental causation problem, including powerism. Given the logical and metaphysical plausibility of almost all these different options, our conclusion is that mental causation is still an open problem and it is far from being resolved.
[Citing Place (1956)]
Goldstick, D. (2021). In Defence of David Armstrong's Materialist Theory of Perception. Dialogue, 1-16. doi:10.1017/S0012217320000438
[Abstract]There are no qualia. The phenomenological difference between seeing and visualizing something is that the propositions which the experient begins to believe in the first case are only entertained in the second. We can know what it's like to be a bat by knowing that their echolocation informs them non-inferentially of the shapes, sizes, and directional distances away of nearby surfaces. The terms for secondary qualities like colours, though, are names of the type-properties they designate, tracing back causally to a verbal 'baptism,' and so experients don't know the character of colour experiences until they study brain physiology.
[Citing Place (1956)]
Goodwyn, E. (2021). Bodies and minds, heaps and syllables. Synthese, 199, 8831–8855. doi:10.1007/s11229-021-03184-7
[Abstract]In this paper the explanatory gap of the philosophy of mind is explored, and found to have a similar structure even in different framings of the mind–body problem (MBP). This leads to the consideration that the MBP may be a special case of the more general whole-part problem: how do properties of wholes arise from the particular assembly of isolated parts? The conclusion is argued that only an approach of mereological holism offers (some) solace from the explanatory gap problem, exchanging it for a reverse explanatory gap problem that has more promising prospects for future solution, possibly in the form of integrated information theory. These considerations, along with the problem of explaining qualia lead to a proposed solution to the MBP in holistic cosmopsychism.
[Citing Place (1956)]
Gouveia, S.S. (2022). Philosophy and Neuroscience: A Methodological Analysis. Springer Nature.
doi:10.1007/978-3-030-95369-0
[Citing Place (1956
)]
Gozzano, S., & Hill, S. C. (2012). Introduction. In S. Gozzano, & C. S. Hill, New perspectives on type identity: The mental and the physical (pp. 1-15).
[Citing Place (1956)]
Graham, G., & Horgan, T. (2002). Sensations and grain processes. In J.H. Fetzer (Ed.), Consciousness Evolving (pp.63-86). John Benjamins. doi:10.1075/aicr.34.08gra
[Abstract]This chapter celebrates an anniversary, or near anniversary. As we write it is just more than 40 years since U. T. Place's "Is consciousness a brain process" appeared in the The British Journal of Psychology, and just less than 40 since J. J. C. Smart's "Sensations and brain processes" appeared, in its first version, in The Philosophical Review. These two papers arguably founded contemporary philosophy of mind.
This paper is about the current status of the philosophy of consciousness (which we take to be phenomenal consciousness) and what the philosophical program for doing the philosophy of the consciousness mind is and where it can, and can't, rely on cognitive science.
The grain project is the scientific program in cognitive science that involves investigating the causal roles associated with phenomenal consciousness at several levels of detail or resolution.
We argue that even if the causal grain of phenomenal consciousness were to become fully understood within cognitive science, various theoretical options concerning qualia that are presently live theoretical options in philosophical discussion would all still remain live theoretical options.
[Citing Place (1956)] [1 referring publications by Place] [Is replied by]
Greenberg, G. (1983). Psychology Without the Brain.
Psychological Record, 33, 49–58. doi:10.1007/BF03394821
[Abstract]This paper presents a critique of the currently dominant neurological reductionism that pervades contemporary psychology. The argument is made that while the brain is certainly involved in behavior it is not the source of it. Rather, a more parsimonious approach to understanding the behavior of organisms can be found in an epigenetic orientation. It is suggested that the concept of evolution holds much promise for theoretical advance within psychology.
[Citing Place (1956)]
Gunner, D. L. (1967). Professor Smart's "Sensations and brain processes". In C. F. Presley (Ed.), The identity theory of mind (pp. 1-20). University of Queensland Press.
[Citing Place (1956)]
Gusman, S. (2016). The Phenomenological Fallacy and the Illusion of Immanence: Analytic Philosophy of Mind and Phenomenology Against Mental Reification. Diametros, (48), 18-37.
[Abstract]Throughout the history of analytic philosophy the notion of the ‘phenomenological fallacy’ originally formulated by Place, has been used to criticize reification of the mental. Although this fallacy was originally not used to criticize the phenomenological tradition, it has popped up recently in debates between analytic philosophers and phenomenologists. However, a study of the history of both traditions reveals that a polemical notion similar, if not identical, to the phenomenological fallacy can be found within the phenomenological tradition, namely Sartre’s ‘illusion of immanence’. In this article, I will explicate these two polemical notions and place them in the context of their respective traditions. This will reveal that both notions must be understood as criticism of a certain form of representationalism I will call ‘dual-world representationalism’. This deep-rooted similarity between analytic philosophy of mind and phenomenology, in turn, sheds a new light on current discussions between the two traditions. On a final note, I compare the criticism to the views of Metzinger, a contemporary analytic philosopher who uses the phenomenological fallacy to accuse his adversaries.
Keywords: phenomenological fallacy
[Citing Place (1954)] [Citing Place (1956)]
Hamlyn, D. W. (1964). Causality and human behaviour. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supplementary Volumes, 38, 125-142. www.jstor.org/stable/4106605
[Citing Place (1956)]
Heil, J. (1970). Sensations, experiences and brain processes. Philosophy, 45(173), 221-226. www.jstor.org/stable/3749624
Keywords: mind-brain identity theory, phenomenological fallacy, topic neutrality
[Citing Place (1956)]
Heil, J. (2004). Philosophy of Mind: A Guide and Anthology. Oxford University Press.
[Citing Place (1956) in context]
Heil, J. (2022). Armstrong's revenge. In P. R. Anstey, & D. Braddon-Mitchell (Eds.), Armstrong's Materialist Theory of Mind. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/oso/9780192843722.001.0001
[Citing Place (1956
)]
Heil, J. (2022). The incremental chain of being. In S. Wuppuluri, & I. Stewart (Eds), From Electrons to Elephants and Elections. Springer. doi:10.1007/978-3-030-92192-7_2
[Citing Place (1956)]
Hinton, J. M. (1967). Illusions and identity. Analysis, 27, 65-76.
doi:10.2307/3326799
Note:
A revised version from February 1969 is reprinted in C. V. Borst (Ed.) (1970), The mind-brain identity theory. Macmillan.
[Citing Place (1956)] [1 reprinting collections]
Hocutt, M. (1967). In defence of materialism. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research , 27(3), 366-385. doi:10.2307/2106063 www.jstor.org/stable/2106063
[Citing Place (1956)]
Hocutt, M. (2009). Private events. Behavior and Philosophy, 37, 105-117.
[Abstract]What are “private events” and what is their significance? The term is B. F. Skinner‟s, but the idea is much older. Before J. B. Watson challenged their methods and their metaphysics, virtually all psychologists assumed that the only way to discover a person‟s supposedly private states of mind was to ask her about them. Not a believer in minds, Skinner nevertheless agreed that sensations, feelings, and certain unspecified forms of “covert behavior” cannot be observed by others, because they take place inside the body underneath the skin. Then he added that these inner events are of interest only to the physiologist; the concern of the behavior analyst is how intact organisms interact with their environment, not how their inward parts interact with each other. That compromise enabled Skinner to pursue behavior analysis in disregard of neurophysiology, which there was at the time no good way to study anyhow. But Skinner‟s talk of ineluctably private events was ill considered and ill conceived. There is no well understood sense in which people observe their own sensations, feelings, and “covert behavior,” but if these take place inside the body, as it is reasonable to believe, the physiologist can observe them given the sophisticated new machines now available. And since these events inside the body vary with circumstances and influence behavior, the psychologist cannot afford to ignore what the physiologist has to say about them. Black box psychology is out of date. Though it is opaque, the skin is not an epistemological barrier.
[Citing Place (1956)]
Hoffman, D. D. (2008). Conscious realism and the mind-body problem. Mind and Matter, 6(1), 87–121 cogsci.uci.edu/~ddhoff/ConsciousRealism2.pdf
[Abstract]Despite substantial efforts by many researchers, we still have no scientific theory of how brain activity can create, or be, conscious experience. This is troubling, since we have a large body of correlations between brain activity and consciousness, correlations normally assumed to entail that brain activity creates conscious experience. Here I explore a solution to the mind-body problem that starts with the converse assumption: these correlations arise because consciousness creates brain activity, and indeed creates all objects and properties of the physical world. To this end, I develop two theses. The multimodal user interface theory of perception states that perceptual experiences do not match or approximate properties of the objective world, but instead provide a simplified, species-specific, user interface to that world. Conscious realism states that the objective world consists of conscious agents and their experiences; these can be mathematically modeled and empirically explored in the normal scientific manner.
[Citing Place (1956)]
Holman, E. L. (2023). Panpsychism and the mind-body problem in contemporary analytic philosophy, Intellectual History Review. doi:10.1080/17496977.2023.2283925
[Abstract]Not so long ago, the idea that analytic philosophers would be taking panpsychism seriously would have been hard to believe. That is because in its early, logical positivist, stage, the analytic movement earned the reputation of being militantly anti-metaphysical. But analytic philosophy has come a long way since the heyday of logical positivism; and, in fact, the dialectic of recent debates on the mind–body problem among analytic philosophers has pushed many of them in the direction of panpsychism. In this paper, I want to explain how this has come about and take a look at some of the versions of panpsychism that have emerged. This will involve running through a quick history of debates on the mind–body problem since about 1960, focusing on how panpsychism has been proposed as a promising, though not unproblematic, way of breaking an apparent impasse that has emerged between more standard physicalist and dualist theories of mind. Along the way, I will also have occasion to comment on the prospects of panpsychism as a respectable scientific theory and how a number of scientists stand on this.
[Citing Place (1956)]
Holth, P. (2001). The persistence of category mistakes in psychology. Behavior and Philosophy, 29, 203-219. [Ullin Place Special Issue] www.jstor.org/stable/27759428
[Abstract]Gilbert Ryle's book The Concept of Mind was published in 1949. According to Ryle, his "destructive purpose" was to show that "a family of radical category mistakes" is the source of the "official doctrine," that is, a "double-life theory," according to which "with the doubtful exception of idiots and infants in arms every human being has both a body and a mind." By numerous examples, Ryle showed quite forcefully how psychology and philosophy at the time were misled into asking the wrong kinds of questions. More than 50 years have elapsed since the original publication of Gilbert Ryle's book and, as Ullin T. Place wrote shortly before passing away, Ryle's conceptual analysis is now due, if not overdue, for a comeback. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the persistent relevance of category mistakes to current problems in the analysis of behavior.
[Citing Place (1956)] [Citing Place (1999a)] [Citing Place (1999e)] [Citing Place (2000f)]
Download: Holth (2001) The Persistence of Category Mistakes in Psychology.pdf
Horst, S. (2009). Naturalisms in Philosophy of Mind. Philosophy Compass, 4(1), 219-254.
[Abstract]Most contemporary philosophers of mind claim to be in search of a ‘naturalistic’ theory. However, when we look more closely, we find that there are a number of different and even conflicting ideas of what would count as a ‘naturalization’ of the mind. This article attempts to show what various naturalistic philosophies of mind have in common, and also how they differ from one another. Additionally, it explores the differences between naturalistic philosophies of mind and naturalisms found in ethics, epistemology, and philosophy of science. Section 1 introduces a distinction between two types of project that have been styled ‘naturalistic’, which I call philosophical naturalism and empirical naturalism. Sections 2 to 6 canvass different strands of philosophical naturalism concerning the mind, followed by a much briefer discussion of attempts to provide empirical naturalizations of the mind in Section 7. Section 8 concludes the essay with a consideration of the relations between philosophical and empirical naturalism in philosophy of mind, arguing that at least some types of philosophical naturalism are incompatible with empirical naturalism.
[Citing Place (1956) in context]
Ichaba, A. A., & Adinoyi. P. (2024). David Armstrong's Materialist Theory of the Mind: A Philosophical Interrogation Nigerian Journal of Philosophical Studies, 3(1), 177-202. acjol.org/index.php/njps/article/download/4775/4658
[Abstract]The Mind-body problem became more explicit and complex in modern times with Descartes' mind-body theory of interactionism. Within the materialist approach, Gilbert Ryle criticized Descartes' mind-body interactionism thesis and proposed analytical behaviourism as an alternative that viewed mental states in terms of behaviours. However, this theory failed to adequately explain mental states like consciousness and sensation, consequently, U.T Place and J.J.C. Smart introduced the Central State Theory to identify these mental states with brain processes. Armstrong was however, dissatisfied with their version of Central State Theory because they restricted their theories to mental states related to conscious experiences and sensations. In deviation, Armstrong was of the opinion that all mental states could be reduced to the central state of the nervous system. To achieve this, Armstrong blended Descartes' idea of an inner state with a redefined Rylean concept of dispositions. This position of Armstrong has been commended mainly because it provides an elegant explanation for mental causation and its consistency with scientific evidence from neuroscience. Nevertheless, it has been criticized, amongst other things, for its failure to account for qualia and also because it faces the problem of multiple realizability. Despite these criticisms, the findings of this article suggests that Armstrong's theory continues to be of significant relevance in contemporary society, mainly because of its potential utility in fields such as neuroscience, artificial intelligence, and mental psychotherapy. His theory has also created new insights into the mind-body problem and the various approaches to resolving the agelong problem. The analytic approach has been adopted for this paper.
[Citing Place (1956)]
James, E., Keppler, J., L Robertshaw, T., & Sessa, B. (2022). N,N-dimethyltryptamine and Amazonian ayahuasca plant medicine. Human psychopharmacology,, e2835 . doi:10.1002/hup.2835
[Abstract]Objective: Reports have indicated possible uses of ayahuasca for the treatment of
conditions including depression, addictions, post‐traumatic stress disorder, anxiety and specific psychoneuroendocrine immune system pathologies. The article assesses potential ayahuasca and N,N‐dimethyltryptamine (DMT) integration with contemporary healthcare. The review also seeks to provide a summary of selected literature regarding the mechanisms of action of DMT and ayahuasca; and assess to what extent the state of research can explain reports of unusual phenomenology.
Design: A narrative review.
Results: Compounds in ayahuasca have been found to bind to serotonergic receptors, glutaminergic receptors, sigma‐1 receptors, trace amine‐associated receptors,
and modulate BDNF expression and the dopaminergic system. Subjective effects are associated with increased delta and theta oscillations in amygdala and hippocampal regions, decreased alpha wave activity in the default mode network, and stimulations of vision‐related brain regions particularly in the visual association cortex. Both biological processes and field of consciousness models have been proposed to explain subjective effects of DMT and ayahuasca, however, the evidence supporting the proposed models is not sufficient to make confident conclusions. Ayahuasca plant medicine and DMT represent potentially novel treatment modalities.
Conclusions: Further research is required to clarify the mechanisms of action and
develop treatments which can be made available to the general public. Integration between healthcare research institutions and reputable practitioners in the Amazon is recommended.
[Citing Place (1956) in context]
Janković, I. (2022). The language of physicalism: A conceptual review of physicalist ontology. Synesis: Journal for Humanities and Social Sciences, 3(3), 7-21. doi:10.7251/SIN2203001J
[Abstract]In this paper, the author explores the development and influence of the language of physicalism on the understanding of the mind and body problem. Firstly, we will address the early development and, later, the transformation of physicalism from a language methodology to a metaphysical theory, which will receive its final form in the philosophy of mind. The chapter will be concluded with a short review of the identity theory, and consequently, the
question about the legitimacy of the identification of philosophical and scientific concepts will arise. Afterwards, in the second chapter, the author will use the so-called problem picture in order to provide a conceptual analysis of the language of physicalism. That way, we will demonstrate how the transformation of crucial philosophical notions emerges from a wider linguistic and contextual background. In this case, philosophical concepts, or language, are influenced by the metaphysics of scientism. Finally, instead of a summary, the last chapter will provide a short sketch of the ontogrammatical method, whose task is to shed light upon ontological transformations via conceptual and linguistic analysis
[Citing Place (1956)]
Jungbauer, T. J. (2024). A Madhyamaka critique of Jaegwon Kims supervenience argument. Comparative Philosophy, 15(1), 67-96. doi:10.31979/2151-6014(2024).150108
[Abstract]Jaegwon Kim’s supervenience argument objects to the possibility of emergent
causation (both downward and same-level) based on both (1) the causal overdetermination of
both (a) higher-level emergent events and (b) lower-level basal events, and (2) the causal
closure principle of the physical domain. Kim argues that emergent causation entails
epiphenomenalism. Madhyamaka Buddhist philosophy skeptically critiques the primary
(ultimate) existence of causal phenomena and instead suggests that all such phenomena may
only be secondarily (conventionally) existent. Mādhyamikas acknowledge that, conventionally,
emergent phenomena appear to cause both basal phenomena and other emergent phenomena.
However, contra Kim, Mādhyamikas doubt that causal relations ultimately exist between, or
among, emergent phenomena and basal phenomena because they doubt that anything
ultimately exists. As such, the Madhyamaka critique of causality may provide a skeptical
response to Kim because Kim assumes that both emergent and basal phenomena are primarily
existent. Altogether, I argue that if we draw upon and accept the Madhyamaka critique of
causality, then we may resolve Kim’s problem of epiphenomenalism by reconceptualizing
causality as a relation obtaining conventionally between phenomena, while remaining silent
on the status of causation at the ultimate level of truth. By arguing this point, I do not mean to
suggest that the Madhyamaka critique of causality, while plausible, is in fact correct. Rather,
I intend only to show that plausible responses to Kim’s argument may be found by considering
less commonly taught philosophical traditions in relation to Kim’s metaphysical assumptions.
[Citing Place (1956) in context]
Kammerer, F. (2021). The illusion of conscious experience. Synthese, 198, 845–866. doi:10.1007/s11229-018-02071-y philpapers.org/archive/KAMTIO-4.pdf
[Abstract]Illusionism about phenomenal consciousness is the thesis that phenomenal consciousness does not exist, even though it seems to exist. This thesis is widely judged to be uniquely counterintuitive: the idea that consciousness is an illusion strikes most people as absurd, and seems almost impossible to contemplate in earnest. Defenders of illusionism should be able to explain the apparent absurdity of their own thesis, within their own framework. However, this is no trivial task: arguably, none of the illusionist theories currently on the market is able to do this. I present a new theory of phenomenal introspection and argue that it might deal with the task at hand.
[Citing Place (1956) in context]
Key, B., Zalucki, O.H., & Brown, D.J. (2022). A first principles approach to subjective experience. Frontiers in Systems Neuroscience, 16. doi:10.3389/fnsys.2022.756224
[Abstract]Understanding the neural bases of subjective experience remains one of the great
challenges of the natural sciences. Higher-order theories of consciousness are typically
defended by assessments of neural activity in higher cortical regions during perception,
often with disregard to the nature of the neural computations that these regions
execute. We have sought to refocus the problem toward identification of those neural
computations that are necessary for subjective experience with the goal of defining
the sorts of neural architectures that can perform these operations. This approach
removes reliance on behaviour and brain homologies for appraising whether non-human
animals have the potential to subjectively experience sensory stimuli. Using two basic
principles—first, subjective experience is dependent on complex processing executing
specific neural functions and second, the structure-determines-function principle—we
have reasoned that subjective experience requires a neural architecture consisting of
stacked forward models that predict the output of neural processing from inputs. Given
that forward models are dependent on appropriately connected processing modules
that generate prediction, error detection and feedback control, we define a minimal
neural architecture that is necessary (but not sufficient) for subjective experience. We
refer to this framework as the hierarchical forward models algorithm. Accordingly,
we postulate that any animal lacking this neural architecture will be incapable of
subjective experience.
[Citing Place (1956) in context]
Kievit, R. A. (2014). Turtles all the way down? Psychometric approaches to the reduction problem [Unpublished doctoral dissertation]. Univerity of Amsterdam hdl.handle.net/11245/1.417009
[Abstract]The question of how different explanatory levels in scientific inquiry are related to each other is known as the reduction problem. This thesis focuses on a specific domain of this question, namely how we should relate brains to (psychological) behaviour. The central position of this thesis is that this question is ultimately a measurement problem. That is, in order to understand the relationship between brains and minds, we need to formulate measurement models that can relate observable variables (e.g. response times, brain activity, brain structure) to the underlying constructs we are interested in (e.g. memory capacity, intelligence or personality differences). Moreover, in the case of relating brains to behaviour, theories from philosophy of mind can be translated into such measurement models, thereby guiding empirical inquiry and simultaneously providing an empirical test of philosophical theories. Further extensions of these ideas focus on the application of representational geometry, whereby the structure of neural and behavioural patterns are used to relate brain and behaviour, and the examination of cases where inferences across explanatory levels goes awry (known as Simpson’s Paradox). Based on empirical applications in several domains it is concluded that supervenience theory, which suggests a fundamentally asymmetrical relationship between brain and mind, is most in line both with theoretical considerations and empirical data.
[Citing Place (1956)] [Citing Place (1999e)]
Kievit, R. A., Romeijn, J. W., Waldorp, L. J., Wicherts, J. M., Scholte, H. S., & Borsboom, D. (2011). Mind the Gap: A psychometric approach to the reduction problem. Psychological Inquiry, 22(2), 67-87. doi:10.1080/1047840X.2011.550181
[Abstract]Cognitive neuroscience involves the simultaneous analysis of behavioral and neurological data. Common practice in cognitive neuroscience, however, is to limit analyses to the inspection of descriptive measures of association (e.g., correlation coefficients). This practice, often combined with little more than an implicit theoretical stance, fails to address the relationship between neurological and behavioral measures explicitly. This article argues that the reduction problem, in essence, is a measurement problem. As such, it should be solved by using psychometric techniques and models. We show that two influential philosophical theories on this relationship, identity theory and supervenience theory, can be easily translated into psychometric models. Upon such translation, they make explicit hypotheses based on sound theoretical and statistical foundations, which renders them empirically testable. We examine these models, show how they can elucidate our conceptual framework, and examine how they may be used to study foundational questions in cognitive neuroscience. We illustrate these principles by applying them to the relation between personality test scores, intelligence tests, and neurological measures.
Note:
A reply to the comments of this target article by the same authors is Modeling Mind and Matter.
[Citing Place (1956) in context]
Kim, J. (1971). Materialism and the criteria of the mental. Synthese, 22, 323–345 doi:10.1007/BF00413431 http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/43820/1/11229_2004_Article_BF00413431.pdf
[Citing Place (1956) in context]
Kim, J. (1998). The mind–body problem after fifty years. Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement, 43, 3-21.
[Citing Place (1956)]
Kneale, W. (1969). [Review of A Materialist Theory of Mind by D. M. Armstrong.] Mind, 78(310), 292-301.
www.jstor.org/stable/2252380
[Citing Place (1956)]
Koksvik, O. (2010). Metaphysics of consciousness. In G. Oppy, & N. Trakakis (Eds.), A Companion to Philosophy in Australasia. Monash University Publishing.
[Citing Place (1956) in context]
Koslicki, K., & Massin, O. (2023). A plea for descriptive social ontology. Synthese, 202(60). doi:10.1007/s11229-023-04263-7
[Abstract]Social phenomena—quite like mental states in the philosophy of mind—are often regarded as potential troublemakers from the start, particularly if they are approached with certain explanatory commitments, such as naturalism or social individualism, already in place. In this paper, we argue that such explanatory constraints should be at least initially bracketed if we are to arrive at an adequate non-biased description of social phenomena. Legitimate explanatory projects, or so we maintain, such as those of making the social world fit within the natural world with the help of, e.g., collective intentionality, social individualism, and the like, should neither exclude nor influence the prior description of social phenomena. Just as we need a description of the mental that is not biased, for example, by (anti)physicalist constraints, we need a description of the social that is not biased, for example, by (anti)individualist or (anti)naturalist commitments. Descriptive social ontology, as we shall conceive of it, is not incompatible with the adoption of explanatory frameworks in social ontology; rather, the descriptive task, according to our conception, ought to be recognized as prior to the explanatory project in the order of inquiry. If social phenomena are, for example, to be reduced to nonsocial (e.g., psychological or physical) phenomena, we need first to understand clearly what the social candidates for the reduction in question are. While such descriptive or naïve approaches have been influential in general metaphysics (see Fine 2017), they have so far not been prominent in analytic social ontology (though things are different outside of analytic philosophy, see esp. Reinach (1913). In what follows, we shall outline the contours of a descriptive approach by arguing, first, that description and explanation need to be distinguished as two distinct ways of engaging with social phenomena. Secondly, we defend the claim that the descriptive project ought to be regarded as prior to the explanatory project in the order of inquiry. We begin, in Section 2, by considering two different ways of engaging with mental phenomena: a descriptive approach taken by descriptive psychology and an explanatory approach utilized in analytic philosophy of mind. We take these two ways of approaching the study of the mind to be analogous to the distinction we want to draw in social ontology between a descriptive and an explanatory approach to the study of social phenomena. We consider next, in Section 3, how our approach compares to neighboring perspectives that are familiar to us from general metaphysics and philosophy more broadly, such as Aristotle’s emphasis on “saving the appearances”, Strawson’s distinction between descriptive and revisionary metaphysics, as well as Fine’s contrast between naïve and foundational metaphysics. In Section 4, we apply the proposed descriptive/explanatory distinction to the domain of social ontology and argue that descriptive social ontology ought to take precedence in the order of inquiry over explanatory social ontology. Finally, in Section 5, we consider and respond to several objections to which our account might seem to be susceptible.
[Citing Place (1956) in context]
LaRock, E. (2006). Why neural synchrony fails to explain the unity of visual consciousness. Behavior and philosophy, 34, 39-58.
[Abstract]A central issue in philosophy and neuroscience is the problem of unified visual consciousness. This problem has arisen because we now know that an object's stimulus features (e.g., its color, texture, shape, etc.) generate activity in separate areas of the visual cortex (Felleman & Van Essen, 1991). For example, recent evidence indicates that there are very few, if any, neural connections between specific visual areas, such as those that correlate with color and motion (Bartels & Zeki, 2006; Zeki, 2003). So how do unified objects arise in visual consciousness? Some neuroscientists propose that neural synchrony is the mechanism that binds an object's features into a unity (e.g., see Crick, 1994; Crick & Koch, 1990; Engel, 2003; Roelfsema, 1998; Singer, 1996; von der Malsburg, 1996, 1999). I argue, on both empirical and philosophical grounds, that neural synchrony fails to explain the unity of visual consciousness
[Citing Place (1956) in context]
LaRock, E. (2008). Is Consciousness Really a Brain Process? International Philosophical Quarterly, 48(2), 201-229. doi:10.5840/ipq20084827
[Abstract]I argue on the basis of recent findings in neuroscience that consciousness is not a brain process, and then explore some alternative, non-reductive options concerning the metaphysical relationship between consciousness and the brain, such as weak and strong accounts of the emergence of consciousness and the constitution view of consciousness. I propose an Aristotelian account of the strong emergence of consciousness. This account motivates a wider ontology than reductive physicalism and makes reference to formal causation as a way explaining the causal power of consciousness. What is meant by formal causation, in this context, is that consciousness has the causal power to organize or control neuronal activity. This notion of causation is elaborated and supported by recent findings in the neurosciences. An advantage of this empirically informed approach is that proponents of the irreducibility of consciousness no longer need to rely upon conceptually based arguments alone, but can build a case against reductive physicalism that has a significant empirical foundation.
[Citing Place (1956)]
Lau, H. (2022). In Consciousness we Trust: The Cognitive Neuroscience of Subjective Experience. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/oso/9780198856771.001.0001
[Abstract]This book puts forward a mechanistic account of subjective experience based on a review of the current cognitive neuroscience literature on conscious perception, attention, and metacognition. It is argued that current empirical studies are often misinterpreted. An undue focus has been placed on perceptual capacity rather than subjective experience per se. Null findings are often overemphasized despite the limited sensitivity of the methods used. A synthesis is proposed to combine the advantages and intuitions of both global and local theories of consciousness. This is discussed in the context of our understanding of the sense of agency, emotion, rationality, culture, philosophical theories, and clinical applications. Taking insights from both physiology and current research in artificial intelligence, the resulting view directly addresses the qualitative nature of subjective experience.
[Citing Place (1956) in context]
Lazzeri, F., & Zilio, D. (2023) Commitments with reductive and emergent relations in behavior. Behavior and Philosophy, 51, 102-124
[Abstract]The philosophical debate on reduction and emergence commonly springs from the division of domains (and subdomains) correlated with the sciences, such as biological domains (e.g., genetics and physiology) and psychological domains (e.g., learning, perception, emotions). These domains are interconnected, with some depending on or composed of elements from others. The debate revolves around whether certain domains are reducible or irreducible to those on which they depend or are composed. In this work, following an examination of common interpretations of the notions of reduction and emergence, we aim to identify and compare radical behaviorism and molar behaviorism as regards the reducibility or irreducibility between the following pairs of domains: (i) behavioral – physiological; (ii) psychological – behavioral; (iii) teleological – contingencies of natural or operant selection; and (iv) cultural – behavioral. This article contributes, among other things, to explaining several core similarities and differences between radical behaviorism (as worked out by B. F. Skinner) and molar behaviorism (as worked out by W. M. Baum and H. Rachlin); as well as some conceptual aspects pertaining to the identity of behavior analysis and its interfaces with related research areas both in natural and social sciences.
[Citing Place (1956) in context]
Leach, S. (2019). U. T. Place and the mystical origin of modern physicalism. Think, 18(53), 75-78. doi:10.1017/S1477175619000228
[Abstract]An introduction to the role of U. T. Place in the development of modern physicalism.
[Citing Place (1956)] [Citing Place (2004)]
Leslie, J. C. (2001). Broad and deep, but always rigorous: Some appreciative reflections on Ullin Place's contributions to Behaviour Analysis. Behavior and Philosophy, 29, 159-165. [Ullin Place Special Issue] www.jstor.org/stable/27759425
[Abstract]Ullin Place's contributions to the literature of behaviour analysis and behaviourism span the period from 1954 to 1999. In appreciation of his scholarship and breadth of vision, this paper reviews an early widely-cited contribution ("Is consciousness a brain process?" British Journal of Psychology, 1956, pp. 47-53) and a late one which should become widely cited ("Rescuing the science of human behavior from the ashes of socialism," Psychological Record, 1997, pp. 649-659). It is noted that the sweep of Place's work links behaviour analysis to its philosophical roots in the work of Ryle and Wittgenstein and also looks forward to the further functional analysis of language-using behaviour.
[Citing Place (1956)] [Citing Place (1981a)] [Citing Place (1981b)] [Citing Place (1982)] [Citing Place (1983d)] [Citing Place (1992f)] [Citing Place (1997b)] [Citing Place (1997d)] [Citing Place (1998e)]
Download: Leslie (2001) Broad and Deep but Always Rigorous - Some Appreciative Reflections on Ullin Place's Contributions to Behaviour Analysis.pdf
Loaiza, J. R. (2024). Functionalism and the emotions. The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 75(1), 233-251 doi:10.1086/715207
[Abstract]Functionalism as a philosophical position has been recently applied to the case of emotion research. However, a number of objections have been raised against applying such a view to scientific theorizing on emotions. In this article, I argue that functionalism is still a viable strategy for emotion research. To do this, I present functionalism in philosophy of mind and offer a sketch of its application to emotions. I then discuss three recent objections raised against it and respond to each of them. These objections claim that functionalism is intractable because (i) it does not support a scientifically interesting taxonomy of emotions for experimental settings, (ii) it is inherently teleological, and (iii) it cannot be falsified. I argue that these objections either rely on a simplified version of functionalism as a philosophical position or they pose challenges that functionalists can readily address. Lastly, I conclude by drawing some lessons these objections suggest for a tractable functionalist account of emotions.
[Citing Place (1956)]
Luce, D. R. (1966). Mind-body identity and psycho-physical correlation. Philosophical Studies, 17(1), 1-7. doi:10.1007/BF00452165
[Citing Place (1956)]
Ludwig, K. (2003). The Mind-Body Problem: An Overview. In S. P. Stich, & T. A. Warfield, (Eds.),The Blackwell Guide to Philosophy of Mind (Chapter 1). Wiley, doi:10.1002/9780470998762.ch1
[Citing Place (1956) in context]
Lumsden, D. & Ulatowski, J. (2023). Virtue, Self-Narratives, and the Causes of Action. Acta Analytica 23 October 2023. doi:10.1007/s12136-023-00569-w
[Abstract]Virtues can be considered to play a causal role in the production of behaviour and so too can our self-narratives. We identify a point of connection between the two cases and draw a parallel between them. But, those folk psychological notions, virtues and self-narratives, fail to reduce smoothly to the underlying human physiology. As a first step towards handling that failure to connect with the scientific framework that is the familiar grounding for our understanding of causation, we consider the causal theory of action, a leading theory of action, which shows how reasons, understood as an appropriate pair of beliefs and desires, can be treated as causes of action. Davidson’s picture is based on cause as a relation between events, which can have both a description in scientific terms and in folk psychological terms. The character of both virtues and self-narratives is not that of events, even extended ones, so we need to refer to examples of scientific explanation that incorporate structural properties of objects. While we retain the spirit of the causal theory, we wish to guard against any unwarranted optimism that an explicitly scientific explanation for human action lies in our future, drawing on Chomsky’s view that a causal explanation of human actions is likely to remain beyond human science forming capacities. We take a mild-realist view of virtues and self-narratives, in the style of Dennett. We argue that, in spite of that limited form of realism, underlined by Chomsky’s mysterian position in this domain, we still need to frame our explanations of behaviour based on virtues and self-narratives in causal terms.
[Citing Place (1956) in context]
Lycan, W. G. (1981). Form, function, and feel. The Journal of Philosophy, 78, 24-50.
[Citing Place (1956) in context]
Lyons, W. (2001). Matters of mind. Routledge
[Citing Place (1956)] [Citing Place (1990a)]
Macdonald, C. (1989). Mind-body identity theories. Routledge.
[Citing Place (1956)] [1 referring publications by Place]
Malatesti, L. (2012). The knowledge argument and phenomenal concepts. Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
[Citing Place (1956)]
Malatesti, L. (2013). Zombies, the uniformity of nature, and contingent physicalism: A sympathetic response to Boran Berčić. Prolegomena, 12(2), 245–259.
[Abstract]Boran Berčić, in the second volume of his recent book Filozofija (2012), offers two responses to David Chalmers’s conceivability or modal argument against physicalism. This latter argument aims at showing that zombies, our physical duplicates who lack consciousness, are metaphysically possible, given that they are conceivable. Berčić’s first response is based on the principle of the uniformity of nature that states that causes of a certain type will always cause effects of the same type. His second response is based on the assumption that the basic statements of physicalism in philosophy of mind are or should be contingently true. I argue that if Berčić’s first defence is aimed at the conceivability of zombies, it is unsatisfactory. Moreover, I argue that a quite similar argument, offered by John Perry in his book Knowledge, Possibility and Consciousness (2001), is afflicted by a similar problem. Nevertheless, under a more plausible interpretation, Berčić’s argument might be taken to attack the metaphysical possibility of zombies. This version of the argument might be effective and has the merit to point out a so far overlooked link between the discussion of the Chalmers’s conceivability arguments against physicalism and the modal strength of causal links and natural laws. Then, I argue that Berčić’s second defence of physicalism, which cannot be combined consistently with his first one, in any case, should not be formulated in the terms of contingent physicalism.
[Citing Place (1956)]
Malcolm, N. (1964). Scientific materialism and the identity theory. Dialogue, III, 115-125
[Citing Place (1956) in context] [2 reprinting collections]
Manzotti, R. (2006). Consciousness and existence as a process. Mind and Matter, 4(1), 7-43.
[Abstract]The problem of consciousness is traditionally conceived as the impossible task of justifying the emergence of an inner world of experiences, qualia and/or mental representations out of a substratum of physical things conceived as autonomously existing. I argue that an alternative approach is possible but it requires a conceptual reconstruction of consciousness and existence, the two being different perspectives on the same underlying process. On this basis, I present a view of direct (conscious) perception that supposes that there is a unity between the activity in the brain and the events in the external world. The outlined process is here referred to as onphene. I will use the example of the rainbow as an intuition pump to introduce the new perspective. Eventually, the same approach is used to explain other kinds of consciousness: illusions, memory, dreams, and phosphenes. The view presented here shares some elements with neo realism and can be considered as a form of radical externalism.
[Citing Place (1956)]
Manzotti, R. (2006). An alternative view of conscious perception. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 13(6), 45-79.
[Abstract]I present a view of conscious perception that supposes a processual unity between the activity in the brain and the perceived event in the external world. I use the rainbow to provide a first example, and subsequently extend the same rationale to more complex examples such as perception of objects, faces and movements. I use a process-based approach as an explanation of ordinary perception and other variants, such as illusions, memory, dreams and mental imagery. This approach provides new insights into the problem of conscious representation in the brain and phenomenal consciousness. It is a form of anti-cranialism different from but related to other kinds of externalism.
[Citing Place (1956) in context]
Manzotti, R. (2016). Experiences are objects. Towards a mind-object identity theory. Rivista internazionale di Filosofia e Psicologia, 7(1), 16-36. doi:10.4453/rifp.2016.0003
[Abstract]Traditional mind-body identity theories maintain that consciousness is identical with neural activity. Consider an alternative identity theory – namely, a mind-object identity theory of consciousness (OBJECTBOUND). I suggest to take into consideration whether one’s consciousness might be identical with the external object. The hypothesis is that, when I perceive a yellow banana, the thing that is one and the same with my consciousness of the yellow banana is the very yellow banana one can grab and eat, rather than the neural processes triggered by the banana. The bottom line is that one’s conscious experience of an object is the object one experiences. First, I outline the main hypothesis and the relation between mind, body, and object. Eventually, I address a series of traditional obstacles such as hallucinations, illusions, and commonsensical assumptions.
[Citing Place (1956)]
Manzotti, R. (2017). Consciousness and object: A mind-object identity physicalist theory. John Benjamins Publishing Company. doi:10.1075/aicr.95
[Abstract]What is the conscious mind? What is experience? In 1968, David Armstrong asked “What is a man?” and replied that a man is “a certain sort of material object”. This book starts from his question but proceeds along a different path. The traditional mind-brain identity theory is set aside, and a mind-object identity theory is proposed in its place: to be conscious of an object is simply to be made of that object. Consciousness is physical but not neural.
This groundbreaking hypothesis is supported by recent empirical findings in both perception and neuroscience, and is herein tested against a series of objections of both conceptual and empirical nature: the traditional mind-brain identity arguments from illusion, hallucinations, dreams, and mental imagery. The theory is then compared with existing externalist approaches including disjunctivism, realism, embodied cognition, enactivism, and the extended mind. Can experience and objects be one and the same?
[Citing Place (1956)] [Citing Place (1988a)]
Manzotti, R. (2021) The boundaries and location of consciousness as identity
theories deem fit. Rivista Internazionale di Filosofica e Psicologia, 12(3), 225-241.
doi:10.4453/rifp.2021.0022
[Abstract]In this paper I approach the problem of the boundaries and location of consciousness in a strictly physicalist way. I start with the debate on extended cognition, pointing to two unresolved issues: the ontological status of cognition and the fallacy of the center. I then propose using identity to single out the physical basis of consciousness. As a tentative solution, I consider Mind-Object Identity (MOI) and compare it with other identity theories of mind.
[Citing Place (1956) in context]
Manzotti, R., & Moderato, P. (2010). Is neuroscience adequate as the forhtcoming “mindscience”? Behavior and Philosophy, 38, 1-29.
[Abstract]The widespread use of brain imaging techniques encourages conceiving of
neuroscience as the forthcoming "mindscience". Perhaps surprisingly for many, this conclusion is still largely unwarranted. The present paper surveys various shortcomings of neuroscience as a putative "mindscience". The analysis shows that the scope of mind (both cognitive and phenomenal) falls outside that of neuroscience. Of course, such a conclusion does not endorse any metaphysical or antiscientific stance as to the nature of the mind. Rather, it challenges a series of assumptions that the undeniable success of neuroscience has fostered. In fact, physicalism is here taken as the only viable ontological framework — an assumption that does not imply that the central nervous system exhausts the physical domain. There are other options like behavior, embodiment, situatedness, and externalism that are worth considering. Likewise, neuroscience is not the only available epistemic option as to the understanding of mind.
[Citing Place (1956)]
Marek, J. C. (1994). On the relation of the mental and the physical In R. Casati, B. Smith, & G. White (Eds.), Philosophy and Cognitive Sciences: Proceedings of the 16th International Wittgenstein Symposium. 15-22 August 1993 Kirchberg am Wechsel (Austria) (pp. 139-145). Hölder-Pichler-Tempsky.
[Citing Place (1956)]
Maung, H.H. (2019). Dualism and its place in a philosophical structure for psychiatry. Med Health Care and Philos, 22, 59-69. doi:10.1007/s11019-018-9841-2
[Citing Place (1956) in context]
Maxwell, N. (1968). Understanding sensations, Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 46(2,) 127-145. doi:10.1080/00048406812341111 philpapers.org/go.pl?id=MAXUS&aid=MAXUS.1
[Abstract]My aim in this paper is to defend a version of the brain process theory, or identity thesis, which differs in one important respect from the theory put forward by J.J.C. Smart. I shall argue that although the sensations which a person experiences are, as a matter of contingent fact, brain processes, nonetheless there are facts about sensations which cannot be described or understood in terms of any physical theory. These 'mental' facts cannot be described by physics for the simple reason that physical descriptions are designed specifically to avoid mentioning such facts. Thus in giving a physical explanation of a sensation we necessarily describe and render intelligible that sensation only as a physical process, and not also as a sensation. If we are to describe and render intelligible a person's sensations, or inner experiences, as sensations, and not as physical processes occurring in that person's brain, then we must employ a kind of description that connot be derived from any set of physical statements
[Citing Place (1956)]
McLaughlin, B. P., & Planer, R. J. (2014). The contributions of U. T. Place, H. Feigl, and J. J. C. Smart to the identity theory of consciousness. In Andrew Bailey (Ed.), Philosophy of Mind: The Key Thinkers (Chapter 6, pp. 103-128). Bloomsbury Academic.
[Citing Place (1956)]
Medlin, B. (1969). Mental states. Australian Humanist, March, 29.
[Citing Place (1956)] [1 referring publications by Place]
Metzinger, T. (2003). Being no one: The self-model theory of subjectivity. MIT Press.
[Abstract]This book is about consciousness, the phenomenal self, and the first-person perspective. Its a main thesis is that no such things as selves exist in the world: Nobody ever was or had a self. All that ever existed were conscious self-models that could not be recognized as models. The author offers a representationalist and functionalist analysis of what a consciously experienced first-person perspective is. This book is also, and in a number of ways, an experiment. The reader will find conceptual tool kits and new metaphors, case studies of unusual states of mind, as well as multilevel constraints for a comprehensive theory of consciousness. The author introduces two theoretical entities--the "phenomenal self-model" and the "phenomenal model of the intentionality relation"--that may form the decisive conceptual link between first-person and third-person approaches to the conscious mind and between consciousness research in the humanities and in the sciences.
Keywords: phenomenological fallacy
[Citing Place (1956) in context]
Michel, M. (2019). The mismeasure of consciousness: A Problem of coordination for the Perceptual Awareness Scale. Philosophy of Science, 86(5), 1239–1249. doi:10.1086/705509
[Abstract]As for most measurement procedures in the course of their development, measures of consciousness face the problem of coordination, i.e., the problem of knowing whether a measurement procedure actually measures what it is intended to measure. I focus on the case of the Perceptual Awareness Scale to illustrate how ignoring this problem leads to ambiguous interpretations of subjective reports in consciousness science. In turn, I show that empirical results based on this measurement procedure might be systematically misinterpreted.
[Citing Place (1956) in context]
Miller, S. M. (2007). On the correlation/constitution distinction problem (and other hard problems) in the scientific study of consciousness. Acta Neuropsychiatrica, 19(3), 159-176. doi:10.1111/j.1601-5215.2007.00207.x
[Abstract]Objective: In the past decade, much has been written about the hard problem of consciousness in the philosophy of mind. However, a separate hard problem faces the scientific study of consciousness. The problem arises when distinguishing the neural correlates of consciousness (NCC) and the neural constitution of consciousness. Here, I explain this correlation/constitution distinction and the problem it poses for a science of phenomenal consciousness. I also discuss potential objections to the problem, outline further hard problems in the scientific study of phenomenal consciousness and consider the ontological implications of these epistemological issues.
Methods: Scientific and philosophic analysis and discussion are presented.
Results: The correlation/constitution distinction does indeed present a hard problem in the scientific study of phenomenal consciousness. Refinement of the NCC acronym is proposed so that this distinction may at least be acknowledged in the literature. Furthermore, in addition to the problem posed by this distinction and to the hard problem, the scientific study of phenomenal consciousness also faces several other hard problems.
Conclusion: In light of the multiple hard problems, it is concluded that scientists and philosophers of consciousness ought to (i) address, analyze and discuss the problems in the hope of discovering their solution or dissolution and (ii) consider the implications of some or all of them being intractable. With respect to the latter, it is argued that ultimate epistemic limits in the study of phenomenal consciousness pose no threat to physicalist or materialist ontologies but do inform our understanding of consciousness and its place in nature.
[Citing Place (1956)] [Citing Place (1990a)] [Citing Place (1999e)] [Citing Place (2000d)]
Mills, J. (2022). A Critique of Materialism. In J. Mills (Ed.), Psychoanalysis and the Mind-Body Problem (Chapter 1). Routledge
[Abstract]In the boon of medical, scientific, and technological progress, materialism has gained increasing explanatory power in deciphering the enigma of mind. But with the proliferation and acceptance of cognitive science, psychic reality has been largely reduced to a physical ontology. In this chapter, the author explores the ground, scope, and limits to the materialist framework and shows that while bio-neurochemical-physiology is a necessary condition for mental functioning, it is far from being a sufficient condition for adequately explaining the human being. This becomes especially significant when examining the question of selfhood, freedom, personal autonomy, and the phenomenal quality of the lived experience.
[Citing Place (1956)]
Moore, J. (2001). On psychological terms that appeal to the mental. Behavior and Philosophy, 29, 167-186. [Ullin Place Special Issue]
[Abstract]A persistent challenge for nominally behavioral viewpoints in philosophical psychology is how to make sense of psychological terms that appeal to the mental. Two such viewpoints, logical behaviorism and conceptual analysis, hold that psychological terms appealing to the mental must be taken to mean (i.e., refer to) something that is publicly observable, such as underlying physiological states, publicly observable behavior, or dispositions to engage in publicly observable behavior, rather than mental events per se.
However, they do so for slightly different reasons. A third viewpoint, behavior analysis, agrees that (a) some terms are functionally related to (i.e., occasioned by) the link between publicly observable behavior and publicly observable features of the environment, (b) some terms are dispositional, and (c) a purely private language could not arise. However, behavior analysis also recognizes that some psychological terms relate to private behavioral events, such as occur when speakers report internal sensations or engage in covert behavior.
[Citing Place (1956)] [Citing Place (1992f)] [Citing Place (1993c)] [Citing Place (1999a)] [Citing Chomsky, Place & Schoneberger (2000)]
Download: Moore (2001) On Psychological Terms that Appeal to the Mental.pdf
Moore, J. (2013). Mentalism as a Radical Behaviorist Views It — Part 2. The Journal of Mind and Behavior, 34(3), 205-232. doi:10.2307/43854394
[Abstract]Part 1 of this review suggested that mentalism consists in explanations of behavior in terms of causal mental states and processes. These causal mental states and processes are inferred to reside in an unobservable dimension beyond that in which behavior occurs, and to function differently from environmental events, variables, and relations. One of those functions is inferred to be mediation, in which environmental events trigger a mediating state or process, which in turn triggers a response. For mentalism, an explanation should properly focus on specifying the causal role of the mediator, rather than talking about observable relations. Part 1 further suggested that mentalism is actually as integral to mediational neobehaviorism as it is to cognitive psychology, even though each claims to differ from the other. Part 2 continues the review of mentalism by addressing the relations among mentalism, operationism, and the meaning of scientific verbal behavior, especially when the verbal behavior involves private behavioral events. The review then considers some sources of mentalism, along with examples of how mentalism is supported in philosophy. Finally, the review summarizes the radical behaviorist opposition to mentalism. Overall, the review concludes that radical behaviorism differs from both cognitive psychology and mediational neobehaviorism, which radical behaviorism regards as comparably mentalistic.
[Citing Place (1956)]
Mørch, H. H. (2023). Non-Physicalist Theories of Consciousness. Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/9781009317344
[Abstract]Is consciousness a purely physical phenomenon? Most contemporary philosophers and theorists hold that it is, and take this to be supported by modern science. But a significant minority endorse non-physicalist theories such as dualism, idealism and panpsychism, among other reasons because it may seem impossible to fully explain consciousness, or capture what it's like to be in conscious states (such as seeing red, or being in pain), in physical terms. The main non-physicalist theories of consciousness are introduced and the most important arguments for them, are explained and considered how they each respond to the scientific and other arguments in support of physicalism.
[Citing Place (1956)]
Mumford, S. (1995). Dispositions, bases, overdetermination and identities. Ratio, 8, 42-62.
[Abstract]In this paper I aim to make sense of our pre-theoretic intuitions about dispositions by presenting an argument for the identity of a disposition with its putative categorical base. The various possible ontologies for dispositions are outlined. The possibility of an empirical proof of identity is dismissed. Instead an a priori argument for identity is adapted from arguments in the philosophy of mind. I argue that dispositions occupy, by analytic necessity, the same causal roles that categorical bases occupy contingently and that properties with identical causal roles are identical. The validity of the argument depends upon the possibility of overdetermination of disposition manifestations being rejected. ‘Ungrounded dispositions’ are dismissed as not genuine dispositions. Identity conditions for dispositions and categorical bases are outlined.
[Citing Place (1956)]
Mun, C. (2021). We are living in a material world. In C. Mun, Interdisciplinary Foundations for the Science of Emotion (Chapter 5). Palgrave Macmillan. doi:10.1007/978-3-030-71194-8_5
[Abstract]In this chapter, I begin by providing a brief history of the mind-body problem, and I argue that the philosophical commitment to dualism stands as a barrier to a thoroughly unified interdisciplinary approach to research and theorizing in the science of emotion. I then explain the significance of David J. Chalmers’ (The Conscious Mind: In Search of A Fundamental Theory. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996) hard problem of consciousness and meta-problem of consciousness (Chalmers Journal of Consciousness Studies 25: 6–61, http://consc.net/papers/metaproblem.pdf, 2018; Journal of Consciousness Studies 27: 201–226, 2020) for interdisciplinary research and theorizing in the science of emotion. Finally, I present and argue in favor of a materialistic solution to Chalmers’ hard problem of consciousness, which will also include a solution to the meta-problem of consciousness, over eliminative materialism, eliminativism, and interactionist dualism. In doing so, I provide an additional foundation—semantic dualism—for my proposed framework for interdisciplinary research and theorizing in the science of emotion (meta-semantic pluralism about emotion), as well as the first foundation for my theory of emotion as a sui generis kind of embodied cognition, which I refer to as semantic dualism about emotion (semantic dualisme).
[Citing Place (1956)]
Muñoz-Suárez, C. (2015). Introduction: Bringing Together Mind, Behavior, and Evolution. In C. Muñoz-Suárez, & F. De Brigard (Eds), Content and Consciousness Revisited (Chapter 1, pp. 1-27). Springer. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-17374-0_1
[Abstract]In Sect. 1.1 I discuss the main concepts and hypotheses introduced in Content and Consciousness . In Sect. 1.2 I sketch the context of interdisciplinary research surrounding Content and Consciousness’s birth. Finally, in Sect. 1.3, I introduce the chapters of this volume.
[Citing Place (1956)]
Munsat, S. (1969). Could Sensations be Processes? Mind, lxxvii, 24-251.
[Citing Place (1956)] [1 referring publications by Place] [Is replied by]
Myin, E. (2016). Perception as something we do. Journal of consciousness studies, 23(5-6), 80-104. https://www.academia.edu/download/43094596/PASWD_JCS_resubmission_clean.pdf penultimate draft
[Abstract]In this paper, I want to focus on the claim, prominently made by sensorimotor theorists, that perception is something we do. I will argue that understanding perceiving as a bodily doing allows for a strong non-dualistic position on the relation between experience and objective physical events, one which provides insight into why such relation seems problematic while at the same time providing means to relieve the tension. Next I will show how the claim that perception is something we do does not stand in opposition to, and is not refuted by, the fact that we often have perceptual experience without moving. In arguing that cases of motionless perception and perception-like experience are still doings it will be pointed out that the same interactive regularities which are engaged in in active perception still apply to them. Explaining how past interactive regularities can influence current perception or perception-like experience in a way which remains true to the idea that perception is a doing, so I will argue, can be done by invoking the past -- the past itself, however, not its representation. The resulting historical, non-representational sensorimotor approach can join forces with Gibsonian ecological psychology -- provided that such is also understood along lines that don't invoke externalist remnants of contents.
[Citing Place (1956) in context]
Myin, E., & Loughlin, V. (2018). Sensorimotor and Enactive Approaches to Consciousness. In R. J. Gennaro (Ed.), The Routledge Handbook Of Consciousness (pp. 202-215). Routledge.
[Abstract]According to the sensorimotor approach, perceptual experience is something we do, not something that happens in us. That is, having perceptual experience is fundamentally a matter of engaging with our environments in particular ways. We will argue that the sensorimotor position should best be seen as a form of identity theory. Unlike in the classical identity position however, the sensorimotor approach identifies conscious experience, not with internal or neural processes, but with bodily processes in spatially and temporally extended interactions with environments. After having considered some of the most common objections to the sensorimotor view of perception and perceptual awareness as something we do, we will compare the sensorimotor approach with other enactivist positions, namely Mind/Life Continuity Enactivism, and Radical Enactivism.
[Citing Place (1956)]
Myin E., & Zahnoun, F. (2018). Reincarnating the identity theory. Frontiers in Psychology, 9, 2044. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2018.02044 www.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.02044
[Abstract]The mind/brain identity theory is often thought to be of historical interest only, as it has allegedly been swept away by functionalism. After clarifying why and how the notion of identity implies that there is no genuine problem of explaining how the mental derives from something else, we point out that the identity theory is not necessarily a mind/brain identity theory. In fact, we propose an updated form of identity theory, or embodied identity theory, in which the identities concern not experiences and brain phenomena, but experiences and organism-environment interactions. Such an embodied identity theory retains the main ontological insight of its parent theory, and by invoking organism-environment interactions, it has powerful resources to motivate why the relevant identities hold, without posing further unsolvable problems. We argue that the classical multiple realization argument against identity theory is built on not recognizing that the main claim of the identity theory concerns the relation between experience and descriptions of experience, instead of being about relations between different descriptions of experience and we show how an embodied identity theory provides an appropriate platform for making this argument. We emphasize that the embodied identity theory we propose is not ontologically reductive, and does not disregard experience.
[Citing Place (1956)]
Nagel, T. (1965). Physicalism. The Philosophical Review, 74(3), 339–356. doi:10.2307/2183358
[Citing Place (1956)] [2 reprinting collections]
Nannini, S. (2023) The mind-body problem in philosophy and the cognitive sciences. Rivista Internazionale di Filosofia e Psicologia, 14(1-2), 118-134. doi:10.4453/rifp.2023.0009
[Abstract]Here, I examine the main philosophical solutions to the mind-body problem distinguishing between “historicist” solutions that (more or less clearly) separate philosophy from science and solutions that instead result from a double “cognitive turn”, and see “continuity” between philosophy of mind and the cognitive sciences. The “historicist” solutions include ontological dualism (together with “skepticism” and “new mysterianism”), epistemological dualism, subjective idealism, and absolute idealism. In this group, transcendental idealism, phenomenology, and neutral monism are the solutions most open to a dialogue between philosophy and science. The “naturalistic” solutions can be divided into four groups: (1) behaviorism (psychological, logical, philosophical-analytical behaviorism); (2) materialism (identity theory, physicalism); (3) “weak naturalism” (functionalism, anomalous monism, “biological naturalism”, liberal naturalism, emergentism); (4) “strong naturalism” (“cognitive neo-evolutionism”, eliminativism). These offer a physicalist-eliminative solution to the mind-body problem (here called “soft physicalistic eliminativism”) that allows for more continuity between philosophy of mind and the cognitive sciences.
[Citing Place (1954) in context] [Citing Place (1956) in context] [Citing Place (1988a) in context] [Citing Place (1998a) in context]
Nath, S. (2013). U. T. Place as a Behaviourist. International Journal of Scientific and Research Publications, 3(9), 183-185. www.ijsrp.org/research-paper-0913/ijsrp-p2125.pdf
[Abstract]U. T. Place is rightly called the forerunners of Physicalism or Identity Theory of Mind. But he also claims himself to be a behaviourist. Like the behaviourist he believed that mental events can be elucidated purely in terms of hypothetical propositions about behaviour. These can also be elucidated by the reports of the first person’s experiences. He has many arguments in favour of behaviourism for which he is called a behaviourist. In this article I shall give a glimpse of behaviourism, particularly of logical behaviourism and then explain the circumstances under which Place is called a behaviourist.
[Citing Graham & Valentine (2004)] [Citing Place (1954)] [Citing Place (1956)] [Citing Place (1960)] [Citing Place (1967)] [Citing Place (1988a)] [Citing Place (1989a)] [Citing Place (1990a)] [Citing Place (1999d)]
Download: Nath (2013) UT Place as a Behaviourist.pdf
Nath, S. (2014). J. J. C. Smart in defence of Place's identity theory of mind. IOSR Journal Of Humanities And Social Science, 19(2), 26-29.
[Abstract]In the history of philosophy different philosophers have extended their efforts to give a solution of mind body problem. In modern period Rene Descartes explained the mind –body problem from the dualistic point of view. Behaviourism, on the other hand, does not believe [in] the existence of [the] mind. This theory emphasises only on behaviour. But none could give a satisfactory solution of the problem. Identity theory of mind also attempted to give a solution from the materialistic point of view. This theory is developed by U.T.Place, J.J.C. Smart,H. Feigl and some other thinkers. This theory came into existence as a reaction to the behaviourism. The main thesis of the theory is - the mental states and processes and the brain states and processes are identical. Before the establishment of his own theory Smart tries to answer some of the possible objections that might be raised by the critics against Place‟s theory. But this does not mean that Smart accepts Place‟s theory to the full extent. Rather he claims that his arguments for identity theory is very much different from that of Place and this he very sharply stated in his article “Sensations and Brain Processes” (1959). In this paper I shall try to explore some possible objections that might be raised by the critics against Place‟s theory as well as answers given by Smart and subsequently tries to show the issues on which Smart agrees with Place. Finally, efforts will be made to highlight Smart‟s difference from that of Place and his own view on the Identity Theory.
[Citing Place (1954)] [Citing Place (1956)] [Citing Place (1960)] [Citing Place (1967)] [Citing Place (1988a)] [Citing Place (1989a)] [Citing Place (1990a)] [Citing Place (1999d)] [Citing Graham & Valentine (2004)]
Download: Nath (2014) JJC Smart in Defence of Place's Identity Theory of Mind.pdf
Nath, S. (2014). Type-token dichotomy in the identity theory of mind. Journal of Business Management & Social Sciences Research, 3(4), 1-5
[Abstract]Identity theory of mind occupies an important place in the history of philosophy of mind. According to his theory mental events are nothing but physical events in the brain. This theory came into existence as a reaction of behaviourism and developed by U. T. Place, J. J. C. Smart, H. Feigl and others. But there is a debate among the profounder of the theory and this is- whether it is said about concrete particulars, (e.g., individual instances of occurring in particular subject at particular times), or about a kind to which such concrete particulars belong. With this question two answers are found and they are called Type identity and Token identity. According to token identity theory, every concrete particular that falls under a mental kind can be identified with some physical happenings. Type identity theory, on the other hand, holds that mental kinds themselves are physical kinds. Thus in this article I shall try to delineate the different arguments given by the profounder of this theory in favour of both the theories and finally show that which one is stronger than the others.
[Citing Graham & Valentine (2004)] [Citing Place (1956)] [Citing Place (1999e)]
Download: Nath (2014) Type-Token Dichotomy in the Identity Theory of Mind.pdf
Nathan M. J. (2021). The Mind-Body Problem 3.0. In F. Calzavarini, & M. Viola (Eds.), Neural Mechanisms (Studies in Brain and Mind, vol 17). doi:10.1007/978-3-030-54092-0_12
[Abstract]This essay identifies two shifts in the conceptual evolution of the mind-body problem since it was molded into its modern form. The “mind-body problem 1.0” corresponds to Descartes' ontological question: what are minds and how are they related to bodies? The "mind-body problem 2.0" reflects the core issue underlying much discussion of brains and minds in the twentieth century: can mental states be reduced to neural states? While both issues are no longer central to scientific research, the philosophy of mind ain't quite done yet. In an attempt to recast a classic discussion in a more contemporary guise, I present a "mind-body problem 3.0." In a slogan, this can be expressed as the question: how should we pursue psychology in the age of neuroscience?
[Citing Place (1956)]
Natsoulas T. (1967). What are perceptual reports about? Psychological bulletin, 67(4), 249–272. doi:10.1037/h0024320
[Abstract]This article presents a discussion of some methodological and substantive issues associated with the use of reports in perceptual experiments. The distinction between "report" and "response" is first clarified and a definition of report behavior is proposed. The relation of reference (aboutness) is next considered in the context of phenomenal vs. cognitive reports. At a less level, two pairs of contrasting proposals on the referents of perceptual reports are used to bring earlier questions to focus. One pair stems from philosophical approaches to the question of this article. The other arises in a current controversy concerning what psychophysical scales measure. A brief discussion of the role of e's own perceptual experience is followed by a review of methods for establishing report validity.
[Citing Place (1956)]
Natsoulas T. (1983). What are the objects of perceptual consciousness? American Journal of Psychology, 96(4), 435-67. doi:10.2307/1422567
[Abstract]Four answers to the title question are critically reviewed. (a) The first answer proposes that we perceive our brain events, certain occurrences in our brain that appear to us as parts of the environment. (b) Gestalt psychology distinguishes the phenomenal from the physical and proposes that we always perceive some aspect of our own phenomenal world--which is isomorphic but not identical to certain of our brain events. (c) J. J. Gibson held that our perceptual experiences are registrations of properties of the external environment--which is, therefore, perceived directly (i.e., without experiencing anything else). (d) The fourth answer comprehends perceptual experience to be a qualitative form of noninferential awareness of the apparent properties of specific environmental things. It differs from Gibson's answer in several respects, including the claim that some aspect of the external world appears to us whenever we have perceptual experience.
[Citing Place (1956)]
Neisser, J. (2017). What subjectivity is not. Topoi, 36, 41-53. doi:10.1007/s11245-014-9256-5
[Abstract]An influential thesis in contemporary philosophy of mind is that subjectivity is best conceived as inner awareness of qualia. (Purple Haze: The Puzzle of Consciousness. Oxford University Press, London, 2001) has argued that this unique subjective awareness generates a paradox which resists empirical explanation. On account of this "paradox of subjective duality," Levine concludes that the hardest part of the hard problem of consciousness is to explain how anything like a subjective point of view could arise in the world. Against this, I argue that the nature of subjective thought is not correctly characterized as inner awareness, that a non-paradoxical approach to the first-person perspective is available, and that the problem about subjectivity should be distinguished from the perennial problem of qualia or phenomenal properties.
[Citing Place (1956) in context]
Nichols, C. (1983) Neurobiology and Social Theory: Some Common and Persistent Problems. Philosophy of the Social Sciences, 13(2), 207-234.
doi:10.1177/004839318301300207
[Citing Place (1956
)]
Opie, J. (2011). Consciousness. In Graham Oppy & Nick Trakakis (Eds.), A companion to philosophy in Australia & New Zealand. Melbourne VIC 3004, Australia. philarchive.org/archive/OPIC
[Citing Place (1956) in context] [Citing Place (1989a) in context]
Papineau, D. (2002). Thinking about consciousness. Clarendon Press. doi:10.1093/0199243824.001.0001
[Abstract]Elaborates a materialist view of consciousness. The central thesis of the book is that while conscious states are material, we humans have two quite different ways of thinking about them. We can think about them materially, as normal parts of the material world, but we can also think about them phenomenally, as states that feel a certain way. These two modes of thought refer to the same items in reality, but at a conceptual level they are distinct. By focusing on the special structure of phenomenal concepts, David Papineau is able to expose the flaws in the standard arguments against materialism, while at the same time explaining why dualism can seem so intuitively compelling. The book also considers the prospects for scientific research into consciousness, and argues that such research often promises more than it can deliver. Once phenomenal concepts are recognized for what they are, many of the questions posed by consciousness research turn out to be irredeemably vague.
[Citing Place (1956) in context]
Papineau, D. (2020). The problem of Consciousness. In U. Kriegel (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of the Philosophy of Consciousness. Oxford University Press.
[Abstract]Consciousness raises a range of philosophical questions. We can distinguish between the How?, Where?, and What? questions. First, how does consciousness relate to other features of reality? Second, where are conscious phenomena located in reality? And, third, what is the nature of consciousness? In line with much philosophical writing over the past fifty years, this chapter will focus mostly on the How? question. Towards the end I shall also say some things about the Where? question. As for the What? question, a few brief introductory remarks will have to suffice.
Keywords: phenomenological fallacy
[Citing Place (1956) in context]
Pappas, G. S. (1977). Armstrong’s Materialism. Canadian Journal of Philosophy, 7(3)- 569-592. doi:10.1080/00455091.1977.10717033
[Citing Place (1954)] [Citing Place (1956)]
Passmore, J. A. (1966). A hundred years of philosophy (second edition). Duckworth.
[Citing Place (1956)] [Citing Place (1960)] [1 referring publications by Place]
Pelczar, M. (2021). Modal arguments against materialism. Noûs, 55(2), 426-444. doi:10.1111/nous.12320
[Abstract]We review existing strategies for bringing modal intuitions to bear against materialist theories of consciousness, and then propose a new strategy. Unlike existing strategies, which assume that imagination (suitably constrained) is a good guide to modal truth, the strategy proposed here makes no assumptions about the probative value of imagination. However, unlike traditional modal arguments, the argument developed here delivers only the conclusion that
we should not believe that materialism is true, not that we should believe that it is false.
[Citing Place (1956)]
Pelczar, M. (2022). The case for panpsychism: a critical assessment. Synthese, 200(4), 1-22. doi:10.1007/s11229-022-03775-y
[Abstract]According to panpsychists, physical phenomena are, at bottom, nothing but experiential phenomena. One argument for this view proceeds from an alleged need for physical phenomena to have features beyond what physics attributes to them; another starts by arguing that consciousness is ubiquitous, and proposes an identification of physical and experiential phenomena as the best explanation of this alleged fact. The first argument assumes that physical phenomena have categorical natures, and the second that the world’s experience-causing powers or potentials underdetermine its physical features. I argue that panpsychists are not entitled to these assumptions.
[Citing Place (1956)]
Pelczar, M. (2023). Phenomenalism: A metaphysics of chance and experience. Oxford University Press
[Citing Place (1956)]
Pereboom, D. (2011). Consciousness and the prospects of physicalism. Oxford University Press.
[Abstract]This book explores how physicalism might best defended and formulated. Two responses to the knowledge and conceivability arguments are set out. The first draws on the open possibility that introspective representations fail to represent mental states as they are in themselves. More specifically, introspection represents phenomenal properties as having certain characteristic qualitative natures, and it may be that these properties really lack such features. The seriousness of this open possibility is enhanced by an analogy with our perceptual representations of secondary qualities. Our vision represents colors as having certain qualitative natures, and it is an open possibility, widely regarded as actual, that colors actually lack them. If it’s possible that representing phenomenal properties introspectively attributes to them qualitative natures that they actually lack, then the force of the anti-physicalism arguments might well be blunted. The second response exploits the possibility that our ignorance of things in themselves consists in part in our lack of knowledge of the fundamental intrinsic properties of things. This idea has been developed by Bertrand Russell and more recently by David Chalmers into a framework for a unified account of the mental and the physical. Currently unknown or incompletely understood fundamental intrinsic properties provide the categorical bases for the known physical dispositional properties, and would also yield an account of consciousness. While there are non-physicalist versions of this position, some are amenable to physicalism. The book’s third theme is a defense of a nonreductive account of physicalism. The version of the nonreductive view endorsed departs from others in that it rejects the token identity of psychological and microphysical entities of any sort. The deepest relation between the psychological and the microphysical is constitution, where this relation is not to be explicated by the notion of identity.
[Citing Place (1956)]
Pessoa Jr., O. (2021). The colored-brain thesis. Unisinos Journal of Philosophy, 22(1), 84-93. doi: 10.4013/fsu.2021.221.10
[Abstract]The “colored-brain thesis”, or strong qualitative physicalism, is discussed from historical and philosophical perspectives. This thesis was proposed by Thomas Case (1888), in a non-materialistic context, and is close to views explored by H. H. Price (1932) and E. Boring (1933). Using Mary’s room thought experiment, one can argue that physicalism implies qualitative physicalism. Qualitative physicalism involves three basic statements: (i) perceptual internalism, and realism of qualia; (ii) ontic physicalism, charaterized as a description in space, time, and scale; and (iii) mind-brain identity thesis. In addition, (iv) structuralism in physics, and distinguishing the present version from that suggested by H. Feigl and S. Pepper, (v) realism of the physical description. The “neurosurgeon argument” is presented, as to why the greenness of a visually perceived avocado, which (according to this view) is present in the brain as a physical-chemical attribute, would not be seen as green by a neurosurgeon who opens the observer’s skull. This conception is compared with two close views, Russellian (and Schlickian) monisms and panprotopsychism (including panqualityism). According to the strong qualitative physicalism presented here, the phenomenal experience of a quale q is identical to a physico-chemical quality q, which arises from a combination of (1) the materiality ω associated with the brain, and (2) the causal organization or structure of the relevant elements of the brain Σ, including in this organization the structure of the self: (Σω)q. The “explanatory gap” between mental and physical states is shifted to a gap between the physico-chemical qualities q and the organized materiality of a specific brain region (Σω)q, and is seen as being bridged only by a set of non-explanatory postulates.
[Citing Place (1956) in context] [Citing Place (2000f) in context]
Place, T. W. (2022). Understanding the types of language in behavioural science: Reply to Phil Reed on the work of Ullin T. Place. Behavior and Philosophy, 50, 52-64. behavior.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/BP-v50-Place.pdf
[Abstract]Reed (2022) states that according to Ullin Place’s latest view, intensional statements are not necessarily connected with mentalist language and explanations, and intensionality is the mark of the conversational. This is false. Place’s view is that intensionality is the mark of a quotation. Quotations are sentences that express the content of propositional attitudes. They are characterised by what Frege called ‘indirect reference’ and Quine ‘referential opacity’. Intensionality is nothing more than this. Intensional statements stating propositional attitudes are at the heart of the mentalist language. Propositional attitudes are dispositions. Dispositions are the nature of things and are at the core of all sciences. The doings of a person are the active manifestations of dispositions. Place defines mentalism at the level of the
person, which is also the level of behaviourism. This contrasts with a standard definition of mentalism at the subpersonal level, also known as centrism. Doing or behaving is interacting with the environment. This is common to the scientific approaches at the level of the person. Articulating the same conceptual foundation and language and each approach having its dialect must be possible. This is “relevan[t] for understanding the types of language that
could be used in explanations given by behavioural science” (Reed, 2022).
[Citing Place (1954)] [Citing Place (1956)] [Citing Place (1978a)] [Citing Place (1981a)] [Citing Place (1983d)] [Citing Place (1984a)] [Citing Place (1984c)] [Citing Place (1985c)] [Citing Place (1987a)] [Citing Place (1991f)] [Citing Place (1996g)] [Citing Place (1996j)] [Citing Place (1996l)] [Citing Place (1998c)] [Citing Place (1998d)] [Citing Place (1999)] [Citing Place (1999a)] [Citing Place (1999f)] [Citing Place (1999g)] [Citing Place (2000a)] [Citing Place (2000d)] [Is reply to]
Download: Place (2022) Understanding the Types of Language in Behavioural Science - Reply to Phil Reed on the Work of Ullin T Place.pdf
Pockett , S. (2022). Midwifing a science of consciousness: the role of Kuhnian paradigms. Journal of NeuroPhilosophy, 1(1). doi:10.5281/zenodo.6637736
[Abstract]It is argued that in terms of Thomas Kuhn's analysis of how different fields of science develop and progress, consciousness research is still in the pre-paradigm or pre-science phase that precedes the advent of any universally accepted paradigm. A means by which this long-standing situation may be escaped is here suggested. This is to treat each of the three distinct theoretical positions that presently drive experimental research on the nature of consciousness as mini-paradigms and then apply the same logic that Kuhn sees as underpinning paradigm shifts in mature sciences to decide which of these three mini-paradigms becomes the first universally accepted paradigm of a mature science of consciousness. At present, the three mini-paradigms that drive experimental research on the nature of consciousness are: (1) the cognitive-science process theory mini-paradigm ("consciousness is a process, not a thing"), (2) the neurophysiologists' preferred psychoneural identity theory mini-paradigm ("consciousness is brain activity") and (3) the EMF field theory mini-paradigm ("consciousness is a 4-D electromagnetic pattern generated by brain activity"). In established science, paradigms shift when enough 'anomalies' – falsified predictions or largely unrecognised but once-recognised-unacceptable consequences – build up to make the existing paradigm uncomfortable for those who operate within it. At this point, a sudden paradigm shift occurs, ushering in another long period of 'normal science' during which the new paradigm drives experimentation. With regard to the three existing mini-paradigms on the nature of consciousness, it is argued that (1) recognition that processes are abstract entities –and that this renders the "consciousness is a process, not a thing" mini-paradigm dualist – makes this mini-paradigm unacceptable to practitioners who regard dualism as unscientific and who prefer to see themselves as staunchly scientific, and therefore as monists. (By definition, monists equate consciousness with physical entities, while dualists equate it with abstract entities). (2) The strong prediction of the "consciousness is brain activity" mini-paradigm – that conscious experiences should invariably correlate with the firing of either particular single neurons or groups of single neurons in the brain – has now been falsified often enough to make this mini-paradigm unacceptable to its practitioners. And this leaves intact only the "consciousness is a 3-D electromagnetic field" mini-paradigm – the idea that conscious experiences are particular 3-dimensional (or, given that they change in time, strictly speaking 4-dimensional) patterns in the electromagnetic field generated by brain activity. And as a result, it is suggested that this third mini-paradigm might usefully become the first universally accepted full paradigm, which would finally allow announcement of the birth of a Kuhnian science of consciousness.
[Citing Place (1956)]
Pockett , S. (2023). What are Conscious Sensations? Journal of NeuroPhilosophy, 2(1), 56-75. doi:10.5281/zenodo.7740150
[Abstract]Existing theories about the nature of conscious sensations are discussed. The oldest classification system contrasts dualist theories (which say consciousness is an abstract entity) with monist theories (which say consciousness is a concrete entity). A more recent system contrasts process theories ("consciousness is a process, not a thing") with vehicle theories (consciousness is a property of one or more of the things associated with brain processes). The present paper first points out that processes are abstracta, which makes process theories dualist. It then argues that (a) dualist theories are untestable and therefore unscientific and (b) process theories which invoke information are at odds with the normal definition of information. Then two separate kinds of vehicle theory are discussed: first the neural identity theory and then a theory that pulls together the enormous volume of data generated by Crick's suggestion to forget about theories and simply measure the neural correlates of consciousness into a proposal equating sensory consciousness with certain patterns in the electromagnetic fields generated by brain function. The paper concludes with an injunction to stop researching this topic altogether, on the grounds that the results are likely to be used in unacceptably dystopian developments.
[Citing Place (1956)]
Polák, M. (2022). Heat and Pain Identity Statements and the Imaginability Argument. European Journal of Analytic Philosophy, 18(2), A1-31. doi:10.31820/ejap.18.2.1
[Abstract]Even after many years of empirical and conceptual research there are underlying controversies which lead scholars to dispute identity theory. One of the most influential examples is Kripke’s modal argument leading to the rejection of the claim that pain and C-fibres firing are identical. The aim of the first part of the paper is to expose that Kripke does not rigorously distinguish the meaning of individual relata entering the identity relation, and therefore his claim about the faultiness of the analogy between propositions “heat is molecular motion”, and “pain is C-fibres firing”, is mistaken. Moreover, whilst much emphasis within metaphysics of mind-brain relations has been placed upon conscious phenomenal states, it might be worthwhile to also consider cases of unconscious phenomenal states. If one admits the unconscious phenomenal states, such as unconscious pain, then, Kripke’s claim is further discredited by the fact that even pain can be individuated through its contingent property. Identity statements about pain could therefore be analogous to any other identity statements. The second part of the paper focuses on the relevance of the modal argument in confrontation with empirical evidence. It argues against the assumption embedded in the modal argument that an identical neurobiological pattern occurs regardless of whether conscious pain is present or completely absent.
[Citing Place (1956) in context]
Polák, M., & Marvan, T. (2018) Neural Correlates of consciousness meet the theory of identity. Frontiers in Psychology, 9, 1269. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01269 www.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01269
[Abstract]One of the greatest challenges of consciousness research is to understand the relationship between consciousness and its implementing substrate. Current research into the neural correlates of consciousness regards the biological brain as being this substrate, but largely fails to clarify the nature of the brain-consciousness connection. A popular approach within this research is to construe brain-consciousness correlations in causal terms: the neural correlates of consciousness are the causes of states of consciousness. After introducing the notion of the neural correlate of consciousness, we argue (see Against Causal Accounts of NCCs) that this causal strategy is misguided. It implicitly involves an undesirable dualism of matter and mind and should thus be avoided. A non-causal account of the brain-mind correlations is to be preferred. We favor the theory of the identity of mind and brain, according to which states of phenomenal consciousness are identical with their neural correlates. Research into the neural correlates of consciousness and the theory of identity (in the philosophy of mind) are two major research paradigms that hitherto have had very little mutual contact. We aim to demonstrate that they can enrich each other. This is the task of the third part of the paper in which we show that the identity theory must work with a suitably defined concept of type. Surprisingly, neither philosophers nor neuroscientists have taken much care in defining this central concept; more often than not, the term is used only implicitly and vaguely. We attempt to open a debate on this subject and remedy this unhappy state of affairs, proposing a tentative hierarchical classification of phenomenal and neurophysiological types, spanning multiple levels of varying degrees of generality. The fourth part of the paper compares the theory of identity with other prominent conceptions of the mind-body connection. We conclude by stressing that scientists working on consciousness should engage more with metaphysical issues concerning the relation of brain processes and states of consciousness. Without this, the ultimate goals of consciousness research can hardly be fulfilled.
[Citing Place (1956) in context] [Citing Place (1988a) in context]
Polger, T. W. (2011). Are sensations still brain processes? Philosophical Psychology, 24(1), 1–21.
[Abstract]Fifty years ago J. J. C. Smart published his pioneering paper, ‘‘Sensations and Brain
Processes.’’ It is appropriate to mark the golden anniversary of Smart’s publication
by considering how well his article has stood up, and how well the identity theory itself
has fared. In this paper I first revisit Smart’s (1959) text, reflecting on how it has
weathered the years. Then I consider the status of the identity theory in current
philosophical thinking, taking into account the objections and replies that Smart
discussed as well as some that he did not anticipate. Finally, I offer a brief manifesto
for the identity theory, providing a small list of the claims that I believe the contemporary
identity theorist should accept. As it turns out, these are more or less the ones that Smart
defended fifty years ago.
[Citing Place (1956)] [Citing Place (1960)] [Citing Place (1988a)]
Polger, T W., & Shapiro, L. A. (2016). The Multiple Realization Book. Oxford University Press.
[Citing Place (1956)]
Polten, E. P. (1973). Critique of the psycho-physical identity theory: A refutation of scientific materialism and an establishment of mind-matter dualism by means of philosophy and scientific method. Mouton.
[Citing Place (1956)] [Reviews]
Potrč, M. (1995). U. T. Place. The British founder of physicalism: from behaviorism to connectionism. In Jaakko Hintikka & Klaus Puhl (Eds.), The British tradition in 20th century philosophy. Proceedings of the 17th International Wittgenstein-Symposium, 14th to 21th August 1994, Kirchberg am Wechsel (Schriftenreihe der Wittgenstein-Gesellscha
[Abstract]Dualism recognized the existence of inner mental processes and states, but without any material or physical foundation. Behaviourism, on the contrary, even if it did not deny their existence, refused to attribute any explanatory role to inner states and processes. In the British Journal of Psychology, in 1956, Place published a paper Is Consciousness a Brain Process?, There, he advocated a form of physicalism which steers a middle course between dualism and behaviourism. Mental processes were considered to be literally inside the body and identical with material/physical processes in the brain. It is well known that dualism was seriously undermined by this theory. But it is less well known that Place held his theory to be compatible with behaviourism. He draws a distinction between mental processes which he thinks are processes in the brain and mental states which he thinks, following Ryle (1949), are dispositions to talk and behave in a variety of broadly specifiable ways. The identity theory as applied to mental processes is seen as complementing rather than replacing Ryle's behaviourism. The exclusion of mental states allows Place to avoid the difficulties which confront the attempt to extend type identity theory to cover propositional attitudes, and which have led many to adopt the token identity version. Unlike token identity physicalism which regards any attempt to establish psycho-physical correlations as futile, Place's version of type identity theory predicts such correlations across individuals in the case of mental processes and within individuals in the case of mental states. This, combined with an emphasis which comes from his background in behaviourist psychology on learning as the primary source of mental/behavioural dispositions, makes it easy for Place (1991) to embrace connectionism which he regards as entirely compatible with behaviourism. He does not emphasize the compatibility between type identity theory and connectionism, probably because this point is obvious to him. There is no analogous way of establishing links with brain science in the case of token identity theory.
[Citing Place (1956)] [Citing Place (1989d)] [Citing Place (1994a)]
Download: Potrc (1995) U T Place - The British Founder of Physicalism - from Behaviorism to Connectionism.pdf
Potrč, M. (2000). In memoriam - Ullin Thomas Place. Acta Analytica, 15(25), 7-18.
[Abstract]Ullin Thomas Place is known as the Australian materialist who introduced the thesis of type identity. But his work is of [a] much larger spectrum, involving behaviorism, connectionism, dispositions, natural laws, picture theory of meaning and consciousness. Place's relationship with Slovenia is reviewed, beginning with some personal memories.
[Citing Armstrong & Place (1991)] [Citing Place (1956)] [Citing Place (1977a)]
Potrč, M. (2020). Zero point content Synthesis Philosophica, 69(1), 113–133.
[Abstract]The strategy is to first present the usual content atomistic fullness approaches, in their occurrent and dispositional guises. Then, the focal point semantic treatments are summarized. This difference may be explained through workings of chromatic illumination from the local external information inviting incline surrounding at the background cognitive landscape, in two directions. First, the external information is appreciated, and thus becomes a total cognitive state non-dimensional point at the middle level of the cognitive system’s description. At the upper level of description, total cognitive state content obtains its experiential richness from the multiple characteristics present in the mentioned local environment, and appreciated in it, without which they would be explicitly represented in epistemic agent’s consciousness. Failure of this second step leads to the requirement of content’s explicit representation. In comparison, the failure to apply chromatic illumination to the external information leads to the externalist focal point semantic strategies.
[Citing Place (1956)]
Powell, J. P. (1969). The brain and consciousness: a reply to Professor Burt. Bulletin of the British Psychological Society, 22, 27-28.
[Abstract]This article presents a criticism of C. Burt's article. Essentially, Burt's "mental field" theory is questioned in terms of its plausibility and scientific status. It is argued that the "astonishing complexity of the brain may well baffle us, but our lack of understanding can scarcely be ameliorated by mystery-mongering.
[Citing Place (1956)] [Is reply to] [1 referring publications by Place] [Is replied by]
Rainey, S. (2023). Clinical Implications. In S. Rainey, Philosophical Perspectives on Brain Data (Chapter 3, pp. 65-91). Palgrave Macmillan. doi:10.1007/978-3-031-27170-0_3
[Abstract]Scientific realism is the philosophical conviction that the posits of science—quarks, electrons, forces—are real, not just ways of accounting for the world. If true, we might take from this the view that a full story of the world and everything in it is most possible through the pursuit of scientific experimentation and observation. The truths of science, on this view, are the truths of nature. Scientific truths are true despite what anyone may actually think of them. This poses a problem for one of the more salient objects in our world—human beings. From the perspective of each of us, what’s most notable about the world is that it’s a place that we are in at a time. We can’t help but experience the world in terms of our subjectivity, in other words. Even the simplest cases of perspectival relativism attest to that. From a person’s point of view, a full story of the world given in objective terms will describe all but one fact; the fact of that point of view itself (or the ‘I’ that describes).
[Citing Place (1956)]
Reed, P. (2022). The concept of intensionality in the work of Ullin T. Place. Behavior and Philosophy, 50, 20-38. behavior.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/BPv50-Reed.pdf
[Abstract]The current paper overviews of the notion of intensionality as it is presented in the work of Ullin Place, with the aim of characterising Place’s somewhat neglected thinking about this topic. Ullin Place’s work showed a development regarding his views concerning this topic, which, in themselves, illustrate a variety of possible stances that can be taken towards the concept of intensionality. Ultimately, Place suggested that ‘intensional’ statements are not necessarily connected with ‘mentalistic’ language, nor with ‘mentalistic’ explanations. Rather, Place came to the view that intensionality should be taken to be the mark of the ‘conversational’ – that is, it is a property of verbal behaviour that characterises nonscientific everyday discourse. This view has relevance to furthering the understanding of Place’s work regarding intensionality, and also relevance for understanding the types of language that could be used in explanations given by behavioural science.
Note:
Place (2022) argues that this article is a rather misleading exposition of Ullin T. Place's work on intensionality and the types of language in behavioural science.
[Citing Place (1954)] [Citing Place (1956)] [Citing Place (1978a)] [Citing Place (1981a)] [Citing Place (1984c)] [Citing Place (1987a)] [Citing Place (1996g)] [Citing Place (1999e)] [Citing Place (1999f)] [Is replied by]
Download: Reed (2022) The Concept of Intensionality in the Work of Ullin T Place.pdf
Rego, F. (2021). Relationship Between Body and Soul According to Saint Thomas: An Obsolete Issue? In P. Á. Gargiulo, & H. L. Mesones Arroyo (Eds.), Psychiatry and Neuroscience Update: From Epistemology to Clinical Psychiatry (Vol. IV, 73-88). Springer International Publishing. doi:10.1007/978-3-030-61721-9_8
[Abstract]In spite of the opinion of materialistic thinkers, from ancient times, the soul was understood as the principle of life, and far from restricting its activity to purely vegetative and sentient functions, it was extended to the rational field as well. For better understanding, see what happens to a tree leaf, when at the end of its cycle of life, it falls and changes color from bright green to grey and turns brittle. It happens because it is a leaf deprived of life. And the same thing happens with the human body when it stops having the vital impulse of its own soul, initiating an irreversible corruption process. This is a point of view that gives way to the reasonableness of the human existence and to the justification of the question because of the relationship that soul and body have between them. Said briefly, the soul, although not understood as a sensitive reality, does not have to be considered as a nonexistent or mythological reality but also as a real order that links to the body as substantial formal essential principle. It determines the body in the order of being and the way of being, that is, the soul makes man to be and to be what he is and, at the same time, enlivens him and founds all his spiritual and organic activities.
[Citing Place (1956)]
Roberts, H. (1967). The Construction of Consciousness. Psychological Reports, 20(1), 99–102. doi:10.2466/pr0.1967.20.1.99
[Abstract]Consciousness is analyzed after a brief review of some aspects of the present stage of understanding of consciousness. Discerned as its elements are brain configurations, in principle as described by Wolfgang Koehler or D. O. Hebb, and which are functionally termed “schemata.” Basic schemata represent, that is, are activated by and associated with, environmental, somatic, and psychic conditions. Self, being, and relation schemata are defined. Primal and self consciousness (collectively basic consciousness), relational consciousness, and metaconciousness (conciousness of consciousness) are formulated as organizations of schemata.
[Citing Place (1956)]
Robinson, H. (1982). Matter and sense: A critique of contemporary materialism. Cambridge University Press
[Abstract]Published in 1982 by CUP it discusses the forms of materialism then current, including Davidson, early Rorty, but concentrating on Smart and Armstrong, and arguing that central state materialism fails to give a better 'occurrent' account of conscious states than does behaviourism/functionalism, as Armstrong claims. The book starts with a version of the 'knowledge argument' and ends with a chapter claiming that our conception of matter/the physical is more problematic than our conception of mind.
[Citing Place (1956)]
Rockwell, W. T. (1994). On what the mind is identical with. Philosophical Psychology, 7(3), 307–323. doi:10.1080/09515089408573126
[Abstract]The unity of mind and body need not imply accepting the unity of mind and brain, because the mind‐brain identity is something that science has presupposed, not discovered. I cite evidence from modern neuroscience that cognitive activities are distributed throughout the human nervous system, which challenges the ‘scientific’ assumption (believed by Descartes, among others) that the brain is the seat of the soul, and the rest of the nerves are mere message cables to the brain. Dennett comes close to accepting this point when he criticizes ‘Cartesian materialism’, and yet he still claims that Vie head is headquarters’. Accepting that the mind is the entire nervous system solves some philosophical problems, for Dennett and others. There is also some evidence that indicates that some cognitive activities may be hormonal rather than neural, which raises some challenging problems for the once obvious distinction between causing a mental state and embodying that state.
[Citing Place (1956)]
Rodríguez, S.S. (2022). The ontology of perceptual experience. Rowman & Littlefield.
[Abstract]Contemporary philosophy of perception typically focuses on discussions concerning the content and the phenomenology of perceptual experience. In a significant departure from this tradition, The Ontology of Perceptual Experience explores the very conscious phenomena to which intentional or phenomenal features are thus ascribed. Drawing on a new wave of research— including the work of maverick philosophers like Helen Steward, Brian O’Shaughnessy, and Matthew Soteriou—this book examines two ways of categorizing perceptual experiences in accordance to their dynamic structure: on the one hand, Experiential Heracliteanism, an approach striving to describe perceptual experiences in terms of irreducibly dynamic components; and, on the other, Experiential Non-Heracliteanism, which conceives perceptual experiences as dynamic phenomena that may nevertheless be described in terms of non-dynamic elements. Sebastián Sanhueza Rodríguez describes both proposals and makes a modest case on behalf of the Non-Heraclitean approach against its increasingly popular Heraclitean counterpart. This case crucially turns on the fact that the Heracliteanist engages in a controversial and perhaps unnecessary commitment to irreducibly dynamic processes. The ontological framework this book unpacks offers a platform from which traditional issues in the philosophies of mind and perception may be revisited in refreshing and potentially fruitful ways.
[Citing Place (1956)]
Rollins, C. D. (1967). Are mental events actual physical? In C. F. Presley (Ed.), The identity theory of mind (pp. 21-37). University of Queensland Press.
[Citing Place (1956)]
Ros, A. (1997). Reduktion, Identität und Abstraktion. Philosophie der Psychologie Bemerkungen zur Diskussion um die These von der Identität physischer und psychischer Phänomene. In M. Astroh, D. Gerhardus & G. Heinzmann (Eds.), Dialogisches Handeln. Eine Festschrift für Kuno Lorenz (pp. 403-425). Spektrum Verlag. Republished in: e-Journal Philosophie der Psychologie, 2007, 7. www.jp.philo.at/texte/RosA1.pdf
[Citing Place (1956)]
Schlicht, T. (2022}. Minds, Brains, and Deep Learning: The development of Cognitive Science through the lens of Kant’s approach to cognition. In H. Kim, & D. Schönecker (Eds.), Kant and Artificial Intelligence (Chapter 1, pp. 3-38). De Gruyter.
[Abstract]This paper reviews several ways in which Kant’s approach to cognition has been influential and relevant for the development of various paradigms in cognitive science, such as functionalism, enactivism, and the predictive processing model of the mind. In the second part, it discusses philosophical issues arising from recent developments in artificial intelligence in relation to Kant’s conception of cognition and understanding. More precisely, it investigates questions about perception, cognition, learning, understanding, and about the age-old debate between empiricists and rationalists in the context of so-called deep neural network architectures as well as the relevance of Kant’s conception of cognition and understanding for these issues.
[Citing Place (1956) in context]
Schneider, S. (2001). Identity theory. Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. iep.utm.edu/identity/
[Abstract]Identity theory is a family of views on the relationship between mind and body. Type Identity theories hold that at least some types (or kinds, or classes) of mental states are, as a matter of contingent fact, literally identical with some types (or kinds, or classes) of brain states. The earliest advocates of Type Identity—U.T. Place, Herbert Feigl, and J.J.C. Smart, respectively—each proposed their own version of the theory in the late 1950s to early 60s. But it was not until David Armstrong made the radical claim that all mental states (including intentional ones) are identical with physical states, that philosophers of mind divided themselves into camps over the issue.
Over the years, numerous objections have been levied against Type Identity, ranging from epistemological complaints to charges of Leibniz’s Law violations to Hilary Putnam’s famous pronouncement that mental states are in fact capable of being “multiply realized.” Defenders of Type Identity have come up with two basic strategies in response to Putnam’s claim: they restrict type identity claims to particular species or structures, or else they extend such claims to allow for the possibility of disjunctive physical kinds. To this day, debate concerning the validity of these strategies—and the truth of Mind-Brain Type Identity—rages in the philosophical literature.
Note:
Central-State Materialism is falsely attributed to Place and Smart. It is Armstrong who defended this. The alternative of Central-State Materialism is the Two Factor theory as defended by Place, see, e.g., Place (2000d).
[Citing Place (1956)] [Citing Place (1969)] [Citing Place (1967)] [Citing Place (1988a)]
Schouten, M., & Looren de Jong, H. (2007). Mind matters; The roots of reductionism In M. Schouten, & H. Looren de Jong (Eds.), The matter of the mind: Philosophical essays on psychology, neuroscience, and reduction (Chapter 1, pp. 1-27). Blackwell Publishing.
[Citing Place (1956)]
Searle, J. R. (2004). Mind: A brief introduction. Oxford University Press
[Citing Place (1956)]
Shaffer, J. (1961). Could mental states be brain processes? Journal of Philosophy, 58, 813-822.
[Citing Place (1956)] [2 reprinting collections]
Shapiro, L. A., & Polger, T. W. (2012). Identity, variability, and multiple realization in the special sciences. New Perspectives on Type Identity: The Mental and the Physical (pp. 264-88).
[Abstract]Compositional variation and variability in nature is abundant. This fact is often thought to entail that multiple realization is also ubiquitous. In particular, compositional variability among cognitive creatures is thought to provide conclusive evidence against the mind-brain type identity theory. In this chapter we argue that the type identity theory, properly understood, is compatible with a wide range of compositional and constitutional variation and variability. Similarly, contrary to received wisdom, variation poses no threat to reductionist ventures. Multiple realization as we understand it, requires a specific pattern of variation. Multiple realization is not self-contradictory; the kinds of variation that qualify as multiple realization are not impossible, but they are less common in general than is widely supposed.
[Citing Place (1956) in context] [Citing Place (1960) in context] [Citing Place (1988a
)]
Shaw, J. (2021). Feyerabend Never Was an Eliminative Materialist: Feyerabend’s Meta-Philosophy and the Mind–Body Problem. In K. Bschir & J. Shaw (Eds.), Interpreting Feyerabend: Critical Essays (pp. 114-131). Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/9781108575102.007 https://www.researchgate.net/publication/340065806_Feyerabend_Never_was_an_Eliminative_Materialist
[Abstract]Most contemporary philosophers of mind cite Feyerabend as an early proponent of eliminative materialism, or the thesis that there are no mental processes. This attribution, I argue, is incorrect. Rather, Feyerabend only showed that common objections against materialism presuppose problematic meta-philosophical commitments. In this paper, I show how Feyerabend’s meta-philosophy leads him to the conclusion that the mind-body problem admits of many different solutions which are to be sorted out as science progresses. Moreover, I show how Feyerabend’s view evolves from a methodological to an ethical view on what a proper solution to the mind-body problem would entail.
[Citing Place (1956) in context]
Shepard, R. N. (1984). Ecological constraints on internal representation: Resonant kinematics of perceiving, imagining, thinking, and dreaming.
Psychological Review, 91(4), 417–447. doi:10.1037/0033-295X.91.4.417
[Abstract]Attempts a rapprochement between J. J. Gibson's (1961) ecological optics and a conviction that perceiving, imagining, thinking, and dreaming are similarly guided by internalizations of long-enduring constraints in the external world. Phenomena of apparent motion illustrate how alternating presentations of 2 views of an object in 3-dimensional space induce the experience of the simplest rigid twisting motion prescribed by kinematic geometry—provided that times and distances fall within certain lawfully related limits on perceptual integration. Resonance is advanced as a metaphor for not only how internalized constraints such as those of kinematic geometry operate in perception, imagery, apparent motion, dreaming, hallucination, and creative thinking, but also how such constraints can continue to operate despite structural damage to the brain.
[Citing Place (1956)]
Shirvani, E., & Shirvani, M. (2023). Evaluation of the Relation between Cognitive Science and Embodied Cognition. World Journal of Neuroscience, 13, 210-227. doi:10.4236/wjns.2023.134014
[Abstract]This article delves into the intricate relationship between cognitive science and embodied cognition, offering transformative philosophical insights with profound implications for our understanding of the mind-body connection. In response to the journal’s feedback, we have enhanced the abstract to provide a more comprehensive overview of our study.
Background: We trace the historical evolution of ideas, from the inception of cognitive science rooted in analytic philosophy to the groundbreaking contributions of Rodney Brooks and others in the field of artificial intelligence. We also explore the work of scholars such as Agre, Chapman, and Dreyfus, shedding light on the role of cognitive metaphor and the concept of the cognitive unconscious in shaping our understanding of embodied cognition.
Purpose: Our study aims to shed light on the central theme that unites these various strands of thought—the rejection of the traditional, transcendental view of the subject in favor of the concept of an embodied subject. This embodied subject actively engages with its environment, shaping consciousness and cognition. This shift in perspective challenges classical epistemological theories and opens new avenues for inquiry.
Method: We have conducted a comprehensive literature review to explore the historical development and key concepts in the field of embodied cognition, with a particular focus on the philosophical underpinnings and their integration into cognitive science.
Results: Our examination of embodied cognition reveals that the mind is intimately connected to the body, with cognition emerging through interactions with the environment and perceptual experiences. This perspective challenges reductionist notions and demonstrates that mental states cannot be reduced to brain states alone. We also explore the relationship between functionalism and computational states of the brain, illustrating that mental states can be understood in the context of mathematical functions.
Conclusion: In conclusion, this paper highlights the profound implications of embodied cognition and suggests that the mind is not isolated from the body but intimately tied to it. This perspective provides a fresh approach to the mind-body problem, emphasizing the role of the environment and perceptual experiences in shaping cognition. We invite further research into the practical applications of embodied cognition in fields like artificial intelligence, robotics, and psychology, and encourage investigations into the intersections between cognitive science and various branches of philosophy, offering valuable insights into the nature of consciousness and cognition. In essence, this study provides a comprehensive overview of the evolution and implications of embodied cognition, laying the groundwork for further research and fostering a deeper appreciation of the profound shifts in perspective that this theory brings to our understanding of the human mind.
[Citing Place (1956)]
Siewert, C. (2016), Consciousness and Intentionality, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Fall 2016 (first version Fall 2002). plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2016/entries/consciousness-intentionality/
[Abstract]To say you are in a state that is (phenomenally) conscious is to say—on a certain understanding of these terms—that you have an experience, or a state there is something it’s like for you to be in. Feeling pain or dizziness, appearances of color or shape, and episodic thought are some widely accepted examples. Intentionality, on the other hand, has to do with the directedness, aboutness, or reference of mental states—the fact that, for example, you think of or about something. Intentionality includes, and is sometimes seen as equivalent to, what is called “mental representation”.
Consciousness and intentionality can seem to pervade much or all of mental life—perhaps they somehow account for what it is to have a mind; at any rate they seem to be important, broad aspects of it. But achieving a general understanding of either is an enormous challenge. Part of this lies in figuring out how they are related. Are they independent? Is one (or each) to be understood in terms of the other? How we address the issues to which these questions give rise can have major implications for our views about mind, knowledge, and value.
Note:
The first time Place (1956) is cited is in the Fall 2016 version.
[Citing Place (1956) in context]
Simpson, A. (2022). The museums and collections of higher education. Taylor & Francis.
[Abstract]The Museums and Collections of Higher Education provides an analysis of the historic connections between materiality and higher education, developed through diverse examples of global practice.
Outlining the different value propositions that museums and collections bring to higher education, the historic link between objects, evidence and academic knowledge is examined with reference to the origin point of both types of organisation. Museums and collections bring institutional reflection, cross-disciplinary bridges, digital extension options and participatory potential. Given the two primary sources of text and object, a singular source type predisposes a knowledge system to epistemic stasis, whereas mixed sources develop the potential for epistemic disruption and possible change. Museums and collections, therefore, are essential in the academies of higher learning. With the many challenges confronting humanity, it is argued that connecting intellect with social action for societal change through university museums should be a contemporary manifestation of the social contract of universities.
[Citing Place (1956) in context]
Sklar, L. (1967). Types of inter-iheoretic reduction. The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 18(2), 109–124. www.jstor.org/stable/686579
[Citing Place (1956)]
Skokowski, P. (2018). Temperature, color and the brain: An externalist reply to the knowledge argument. Review of Philosophy and Psychology, 9(2). 287–299
[Abstract]It is argued that the knowledge argument fails against externalist theories of
mind. Enclosing Mary and cutting her off from some properties denies part of the
physical world to Mary, which has the consequence of denying her certain kinds of physical knowledge. The externalist formulation of experience is shown to differ in vehicle, content, and causal role from the internalist version addressed by the knowledge argument, and is supported by results from neuroscience. This means that though the knowledge argument has some force against material internalists, it misses the mark entirely against externalist accounts.
[Citing Place (1956) in context]
Skokowski, P. (2022). Sensing Qualia. Frontiers in Systems Neuroscience, 16. doi:10.3389/fnsys.2022.795405
[Abstract]Accounting for qualia in the natural world is a difficult business, and it is worth understanding why. A close examination of several theories of mind — Behaviorism, Identity Theory, Functionalism, and Integrated Information Theory — will be discussed, revealing shortcomings for these theories in explaining the contents of conscious experience: qualia. It will be argued that in order to overcome the main difficulty of these theories the senses should be interpreted as physical detectors. A new theory, Grounded Functionalism, will be proposed, which retains multiple realizability while allowing for a scientifically based approach toward accounting for qualia in the natural world.
[Citing Place (1956) in context]
Slezak, P. P. (2002). The Imagery Debate: Déjà-vu all over again. [Commentary to Pylyshyn’s article: Mental Imagery]. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 25, 209–210.
[Citing Place (1956)]
Slezak, P. P. (2002). Thinking about thinking: language, thought and introspection. Language & Communication, 22, 353–373.
doi:10.1016/S0271-5309(02)00012-5 Link Text
[Abstract]I do not think that the world or the sciences would ever have suggested to me any philosophical problems. What has suggested philosophical problems to me is things which other philosophers have said about the world or the sciences. (G.E. Moore, 1942, p. 14)
Peter Carruthers has made a vigorous attempt to defend the admittedly unfashionable doctrine that we think ‘in’ language, despite its displacement by something like Fodor’s ‘language of thought’. The idea that we think in language has considerable intuitive persuasiveness, but I suggest that this is not the force of good argument and evidence, but a familiar kind of introspective illusion. In this regard, the question of language and thought derives a more general interest, since the illusion is independently familiar from other notorious disputes in cognitive science such as the ‘imagery debate’.
[Citing Place (1956)]
Slezak P. P. (2002) Talking to ourselves: The intelligibility of inner speech. [Comments to Carruthers: The Cognitive Functions of Language.] Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 25(6), 699-700 doi:10.1017/S0140525X02490127 Link Text
[Abstract]The possible role of language in intermodular communication and non-domain-specific thinking is an empirical issue that is independent of the “vehicle” claim that natural language is “constitutive” of some thoughts. Despite noting objections to various forms of the thesis that we think in language, Carruthers entirely neglects a potentially fatal objection to his own preferred version of this “cognitive conception.”
[Citing Place (1956
)]
Slezak P. P. (2002). The tripartite model of representation. Philosophical Psychology, 15, 239 - 270. doi:10.1080/0951508021000006085 Link Text
[Abstract]Robert Cummins [(1996) Representations, targets and attitudes, Cambridge, MA: Bradford/MIT, p. 1] has characterized the vexed problem of mental representation as “the topic in the philosophy of mind for some time now.” This remark is something of an understatement. The same topic was central to the famous controversy between Nicolas Malebranche and Antoine Arnauld in the 17th century and remained central to the entire philosophical tradition of “ideas” in the writings of Locke, Berkeley, Hume, Reid and Kant. However, the scholarly, exegetical literature has almost no overlap with that of contemporary cognitive science. I show that the recurrence of certain deep perplexities about the mind is a systematic and pervasive pattern arising not only throughout history, but also in a number of independent domains today such as debates over visual imagery, symbolic systems and others. Such historical and contemporary convergences suggest that the fundamental issues cannot arise essentially from the theoretical guise they take in any particular case.
[Citing Place (1956) in context]
Slezak P. P. (2008). The 'Hard' Problem and Neural Correlates of Consciousness. Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, 30, 525
Link Text
[Citing Place (1956
)]
Slezak, P. P. (2018). Is There Progress in Philosophy? The Case for Taking History Seriously. Philosophy, 93(4), 529-555. doi:10.1017/S0031819118000232 Link Text
[Abstract]In response to widespread doubts among professional philosophers (Russell,
Horwich, Dietrich, McGinn, Chalmers), Stoljar argues for a ‘reasonable optimism’
about progress in philosophy. He defends the large and surprising claim that ‘there is progress on all or reasonably many of the big questions’. However, Stoljar’s caveats and admitted avoidance of historical evidence permits overlooking persistent controversies in philosophy of mind and cognitive science that are essentially unchanged since the 17th Century. Stoljar suggests that his claims are commonplace in philosophy departments and, indeed, the evidence I adduce constitutes an indictment of the widely shared view among professional analytic philosophers.
[Citing Place (1956)]
Smart, J. J. C. (1957) Plausible reasoning in philosophy. Mind, 66(261), 75-78.
[Citing Place (1956)]
Smart, J. J. C. (1959). Sensations and brain processes. Philosophical Review, LXVIII, 141-156.
Note:
A revised version with new references appeared in V. C. Chappell (Ed.) (1962), The philosophy of mind. Prentice-Hall. Later reprints are of this version.
[Citing Place (1956) in context] [Citing Place (1960)] [24 referring publications by Place] [Is replied by] [7 reprinting collections]
Smart, J. J. C. (1960). Sensations and brain processes: A rejoinder to Dr. Pitcher and Mr. Joske. Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 38, 252-254.
[Citing Place (1956)]
Smart, J. J. C. (1961). Colours. Philosophy, 36(137), 128-142. doi:10.1017/S0031819100057995
Note:
This article is reprinted as Chapter IV, The Secondary Qualities, "with some interpolations" of J. J. C. Smart (1963). Philosophy and Scientific Realism.
[Citing Place (1956)]
Smart, J. J. C. (1963), Philosophy and scientific realism. Routledge and Kegan Paul
Note:
Much of Chapter IV, The Secondary Qualities “consists, with some interpolations, of” Smart (1961).
Chapter VI, Man as a Physical Mechanism, is reprinted in O'Connor (Ed.) (1969). Modern Materialism: Readings on Mind-Body Identity.
[Citing Place (1956)]
Smart, J. J. C. (1963). Materialism. Journal of Philosophy, 60(22), 651-662.
Keywords: phenomenological fallacy
[Citing Place (1956) in context] [1 reprinting collections]
Smart, J. J. C. (1966). Philosophy and scientific plausibility. In P. K. Feyerabend & G. Maxwell (Eds.), Mind, matter and method: Essays in Philosophy and Science in Honor of Herbert Feigl (pp. 377-390). University of Minnesota Press.
[Citing Place (1956)] [Citing Place (1959)] [Citing Place (1960)]
Smart, J. J. C. (1967). Comments on the papers. In C. F. Presley (Ed.), The Identity Theory of Mind (pp. 84-93). University of Queensland Press.
[Citing Place (1956)] [Citing Place (1960)] [6 referring publications by Place]
Smart, J. J. C. (1971). Reports of immediate experiences. Synthese, 22, 346-359.
doi:10.1007/BF00413432
[Citing Place (1956) in context] [Citing Place (1960) in context] [Citing Place (1967) in context]
Smart, J. J. C. (1972). Further thoughts on the identity theory. The Monist, 56(2), 149-162 doi:10.5840/monist19725621
[Citing Place (1956)] [1 referring publications by Place]
Smart, J. J. C. (1975). Book review of Critique of the Psycho-Physical Identity Theory. Eric P. Polten. The Hague: Mouton, 1973. Pp. xviii+290. 34 Guilders. Philosophy of the Social Sciences, 5(1), 83-86.
[Citing Place (1956) in context] [Reviewed publication(s)]
Smart, J. J. C. (1989). C. B. Martin: A biographical sketch. In J. Heil (Ed. ), Cause, mind and reality: Essays honoring C. B. Martin (pp. 1-3). Kluwer Academic Publishers.
[Citing Place (1956)] [1 referring publications by Place]
Smart, J. J. C. (2007). The Mind/Brain Identity Theory. In E. N. Zalta (Ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2017 Edition, originally published in 2000, substantive revision in 2007). plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2017/entries/mind-identity/
[Citing Graham & Valentine (2004)] [Citing Place (1954)] [Citing Place (1956)] [Citing Place (1960)] [Citing Place (1967)] [Citing Place (1988a)] [Citing Place (1989a)] [Citing Place (1990a)] [Citing Place (1999d)]
Download: Smart (2007) The Mind-Brain Identity Theory.pdf
Smith, E. (2016) How to teach philosophy of mind Teaching Philosophy, 39(2), 177-207. doi:10.5840/teachphil201651649
[Abstract]The most notable contributions to contemporary philosophy of mind have been written by philosophers of mind for philosophers of mind. Without a good understanding of the historical framework, the technical terminology, the philosophical methodology, and the nature of the philosophical problems themselves, not only do undergraduate students face a difficult challenge when taking a first course in philosophy of mind, but instructors lacking specialized knowledge in this field might be put off from teaching the course. This paper is intended to provide a framework for instructors with little background in this area of philosophy to develop a course in philosophy of mind. This course, aimed at the advanced undergraduate student, provides students with the tools necessary for understanding some of the key readings in contemporary philosophy of mind and offers unique benefits to both majors and non-majors. The course described here focuses on just two of the main problems in philosophy of mind—the mind-body problem and the problem of phenomenal consciousness—and briefly touches on other issues one might address. Finally, several solutions to common challenges that arise in an advanced philosophy course are discussed.
[Citing Place (1956) in context]
Smythies, J. R. (1957) A note on the fallacy of the 'phenomenological fallacy'. British Journal of Psychology, 48, 141-144.
Keywords: phenomenological fallacy
[Citing Place (1956)] [1 referring publications by Place] [Is replied by]
Snowdon, P. F. (1989). On formulating materialism and dualism. In J. Heil (Ed.), Cause, mind and reality: Essays honoring C. B. Martin (pp. 137-158). Kluwer Academic Publishers.
[Citing Place (1956)]
Soleimani Khourmouji, M. (2015). Place goes wrong in treating mind-brain relationship. Clarifying why identity theory is neither reasonable nor a mere scientific problem in disguise. Philosophical Investigations, 9(17), 173-202. http://philosophy.tabrizu.ac.ir
[Abstract]U. T. Place claims that philosophical problems concerning the true nature of mind-brain relationship disappears or is settled adhering to materialism, especially type identity theory of mind. He takes above claim as a reasonable scientific hypothesis. I shall argue why it is not as he claims. At first, to pave the way for refutation, I will briefly clarify Place's approach to the subject in hand; although the rest of the paper will also contain more details about his position. Then, I will reduce his position into four theses and try to prove that the main claim of type identity theory is neither reasonable nor a mere scientific problem in disguise. I think that we ought to regard type identity theory, at most, just as a hypothesis which approximately displays the function of mind-brain relationship but tells us nothing justifiably about its true nature.
[Citing Place (1956)] [Citing Place (1960)] [Citing Place (1960)] [Citing Place (1988a)] [Citing Place (1991f)] [Citing Place (1996j)] [Citing Place (1999e)] [Citing Place (2000d)] [Citing Place (2000b)] [Citing Place (2000a)] [Citing Place (2004)]
Download: Soleimani (2015) Place Goes Wrong in Treating Mind-Brain Relationship.pdf
Sorem, E. (2010). Searle, materialism, and the mind-body problem. Perspectives: International Postgraduate Journal of Philosophy, 3, 30-54. www.ucd.ie/philosophy/perspectives/resources/issue3/Perspectives_volumeIII_SearleMaterialismMindBody.pdf
[Abstract]In The Rediscovery of Mind, Searle gives a spirited attempt to offer a “simple solution” to the mind-body problem in his “biological naturalism.” It is the purpose of this paper, however, to show that the solution he offers is not
simple and is arguably incoherent as it currently stands. I focus on Searle’s claim that the key to solving the mind-body problem is to first reject the system of conceptual categories that underlies materialism and then adopt his biological naturalism. I argue that the positions articulated in this theory, however, appear to generate serious inconsistencies that make his proposal look either incoherent or suggestive of the sort of property dualism he wants to reject. Because Searle lacks a sufficient metaphysical scheme to produce compelling arguments against these particular accusations and because it is not clear that biological naturalism is the obvious or common-sense position he says it is, I conclude that his proposal cannot be a “simple solution.”
[Citing Place (1956)]
Spurrett, D, (2017). Physicalism as an empirical hypothesis.
Synthese, 194, 3347–3360. doi:10.1007/s11229-015-0986-
[Abstract]Bas van Fraassen claims that materialism involves false consciousness. The thesis that matter is all that there is, he says, fails to rule out any kinds of theories. The false consciousness consists in taking materialism to be cognitive rather than an existential stance, or attitude, of deference to the current content of science (whatever that content is) in matters of ontology, and a favourable attitude to completeness claims about the content of science at a time. The main argument Van Fraassen provides for saying that materialism is not cognitive is an account according to which materialism has responded, so far, to changes in science by abandoning previous hallmarks of the material (or physical), and accepting new ones instead of by taking materialism to have been refuted. I argue that van Fraassen’s conclusions run far ahead of what his arguments establish. The fact of revision and revolution in the history of science, and
the undoubted provisionality and incompleteness of science as we have it, do indeed tell against simply letting current science determine what the physical (or material) is for philosophical purposes. But the alternative to betting on current science need not be unconditional open-endedness. The changes that materialists have accepted so far do not, furthermore, support the false consciousness interpretation. The reason for this is not that materialists will swallow anything, but rather that the changes accepted are consistent with the truth of materialism when appropriately characterized.
[Citing Place (1956)]
Steinhorst A. , & Funke, J. (2014). Mirror neuron activity is no proof for action understanding. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 8 doi:10.3389/fnhum.2014.00333
[Abstract]Mirror neurons, which have been discovered by single cell recordings in the parieto-frontal areas of the macaque's brain (Rizzolatti et al., 1996), are neurons that discharge in the monkey's brain both when a specific action is observed and when the same action is performed by the monkey himself. In healthy humans, a direct measuring of neural activity is not possible for ethical reasons as the scalp has to be opened for single cell recordings. Still, there is broad evidence from indirect studies that a similar parieto-frontal mirror mechanism also exists in humans (for an overview see Rizzolatti and Sinigaglia, 2008).
In this opinion paper, we will focus on the thesis that action understanding is a function of the mirror neuron system. We will not address intention understanding. According to our opinion, understanding is a process that runs through hermeneutic circles from the “Vorverständnis” (“previous understanding”) to steps of deeper understanding, capturing assigned meaning in its “Bedeutungszusammenhang” (coherence) and recognizing the historical and cultural conditionality of understanding (Dilthey, 1961; Gadamer, 1990). In the following, however, we will focus on the narrow neuroscientific definition of action understanding: the capacity to recognize several movements as belonging to one action. Following Rizzolatti and Sinigaglia (2008), a person “understands” the “action” of a friend moving her arm to an apple if she recognizes this movement to be a grasp toward an apple, if she is able to distinguish it from other movements and if she can use this information to organize appropriate future actions (p. 106). Thus, [by] saying “The person grasps the apple,” she understands the action. This definition equates “understanding” with “recognition,” explaining why sometimes the latter term is chosen (Rizzolatti et al., 1996; Buccino et al., 2004; Iacoboni et al., 2005; Jacob, 2008).
After a reconstruction of the model's developments, we will challenge the claims of the model by Rizzolatti and Sinigaglia (2010). By analyzing the relation between the experimental results and its interpretation, we will conclude that there is no proof that mirror neuron activity leads to action understanding.
[Citing Place (1956)]
Stemmer, N. (2001). The mind-body problem and Quine's repudiation theory. Behavior and Philosophy, 29, 187-202. [Ullin Place Special Issue]
[Abstract]Most scholars who presently deal with the Mind-Body problem consider themselves monist materialists. Nevertheless, many of them also assume that there exist (in some sense of existence) mental entities. But since these two positions do not harmonize quite well, the literature is full of discussions about how to reconcile the positions. In this paper, I will defend a materialist theory that avoids all these problems by completely rejecting the existence of mental entities. This is Quine's repudiation theory. According to the theory, there are no mental entities, and the behavioral or physiological phenomena that have been attributed to mental entities, or that point to the existence of these entities, are exclusively caused by physiological factors. To be sure, several objections have been raised to materialist theories that do not assign some role to mental entities. But we will see that Quine is able to give convincing replies to these objections.
"Since Ullin Place would surely have agreed with the materialist position defended in this paper, I dedicate this paper to his memory."
[Citing Place (1956)] [Citing Place (1988a)] [Citing Place (1989c)]
Download: Stemmer (2001) The Mind-Body Problem and Quine's Repudiation Theory.pdf
Strawson, G. (2019). A hundred years of consciousness: “a long training in absurdity”. Estudios de Filosofía, 59, 9-43.
[Abstract]There occurred in the twentieth century the most remarkable episode in the history of human thought. A number of thinkers denied the existence of something we know with certainty to exist: consciousness, conscious experience. Others held back from the Denial, as we may call it, but claimed that it might be true — a claim no less remarkable than the Denial. This paper documents some aspects of this episode, with particular reference to two things. First, the development of two views which are forms of the Denial — philosophical behaviourism, and functionalism considered as a doctrine in the philosophy of mind — from a view that does not in any way involve the Denial: psychological methodological behaviourism. Second, the rise of a way of understanding naturalism — materialist or physicalist naturalism — that wrongly takes naturalism to entail the Denial.
Note:
Isaiah Berlin Lecture, Wolfson College, Oxford, May 25, 2017 (audio)
[Citing Place (1956)]
Stubenberg, L. (1997). Austria vs. Australia: Two versions of the identity theory. In K. Lehler, & J. C. Marek (Eds.), Austrian Philosophy Past and Present: Essays in Honor of Rudolf Haller (pp. 125-146). Kluwer Academic Publishers.
[Abstract]According to the received view the identity theory was developed in the decade stretching from the mid fifties to the mid sixties. At the time the identity theory seemed like an outrageous minority view. In the face of near universal opposition the early identity theorists developed a remarkable esprit de corps—they emphasized the similarities and de-emphasized the differences of their respective views. This sort of team spirit may have seemed essential to win a philosophical battle; but it also helped to obscure the crucial differences between the various theories that sailed under the flag of the identity theory. Today I want to invert the strategy of the early identity theorist—I want to emphasize the differences and de-emphasize the similarities between the early versions of the identity theory.
[Citing Place (1956)]
Stubenberg, L. (1998). Consciousness and qualia. John Benjamins.
[Abstract]Consciousness and Qualia is a philosophical study of qualitative consciousness, characteristic examples of which are pains, experienced colors, sounds, etc.
[Citing Place (1956
)]
Sturm, T. (2012). Consciousness regained? Philosophical arguments for and against reductive physicalism. Dialogues in Clinical Neuroscience, 14(1), 55–63.
[Abstract]This paper is an overview of recent discussions concerning the mind–body problem, which is being addressed at the interface between philosophy and neuroscience. It focuses on phenomenal features of consciousness or “qualia,” which are distinguished from various related issues. Then follows a discussion of various influential skeptical arguments that question the possibility of reductive explanations of qualia in physicalist terms: knowledge arguments, conceivability arguments, the argument of multiple realizability, and the explanatory gap argument. None of the arguments is found to be very convincing. It does not necessarily follow that reductive physicalism is the only option, but it is defensible. However, constant conceptual and methodological reflection is required, alongside ongoing research, to keep such a view free from dogmatism
and naivety.
[Citing Place (1956)]
Suojanen, M. (2019). Conscious experience and quantum consciousness theory: Theories, causation, and identity. E-LOGOS – Electronic Journal for Philosophy, 26(2), 14–34. doi:10.18267/j.e-logos.465
[Abstract]Generally speaking, the existence of experience is accepted, but more challenging has been to say what experience is and how it occurs. Moreover, philosophers and scholars have been talking about mind and mental activity in connection with experience as opposed to physical processes. Yet, the fact is that quantum physics has replaced classical Newtonian physics in natural sciences, but the scholars in humanities and social sciences still operate under the obsolete Newtonian model. There is already a little research in which mind and conscious experience are explained in terms of quantum theory. This article argues that experience is impossible to be both a physical and non-physical phenomenon. When discussing causality and identity as transcendental, quantum theory may imply the quantum physical nature of conscious experience, where a person associates causality to conscious experience, and, thus, the result is that the double-aspect theory and the mind/brain identity theory would be refuted.
[Citing Place (1954)] [Citing Place (1956)]
Tamminga, A. (2009). In de ban van de metafysica. De identiteitstheorieën van Place, Smart en Armstrong [Under the spell of metaphysics. Place's, Smart's and Armstrong's identity theories.]. Tijdschrift voor filosofie, 71, 553-575.
[Abstract]We investigate the genesis of metaphysical physicalism and its influence on the development of Place's, Smart's, and Armstrong's ideas on the relation between the mental and the physical. We first reconstruct the considerations that led Armstrong and Smart to a 'scientific' world view. We call 'metaphysical physicalism' the comprehensive theory on reality, truth, and meaning which ensued from this world view. Against the background of this metaphysical physicalism we study Armstrong's and Smart's analyses of secondary properties and the genesis of their identity theories of mind and matter. We argue that fundamental revisions in Smart's theories on colour and consciousness were driven by his aspiration to fully work out the philosophical consequences of metaphysical physicalism. Finally, we briefly consider the role metaphysical physicalism has played in twentieth-century philosophy of mind.
[Citing Place (1954)] [Citing Place (1956)] [Citing Place (1960)]
Download: Tamminga (2009) In de Ban van de Metafysica.pdf
Tartaglia, J. (2013). Conceptualizing physical consciousness. Philosophical Psychology, 26(6), 817-838. doi:10.1080/09515089.2013.770940
[Abstract]Theories that combine physicalism with phenomenal concepts abandon the phenomenal irrealism characteristic of 1950s physicalism, thereby leaving physicalists trying to reconcile themselves to concepts appropriate only to dualism. Physicalists should instead abandon phenomenal concepts and try to develop our concepts of conscious states. Employing an account of concepts as structured mental representations, and motivating a model of conceptual development with semantic externalist considerations, I suggest that phenomenal concepts misrepresent their referents, such that if our conception of consciousness incorporates them, it needs development. I then argue that the "phenomenal concept strategy" (PCS) of a purely cognitive account of the distinction between phenomenal and physical concepts combines physicalism with phenomenal concepts only by misrepresenting physical properties. This is because phenomenal concepts carry ontological commitment, and I present an argument to show the tension between this commitment and granting ontological authority to physical concepts only. In the final section, I show why phenomenal concepts are more ontologically committed than PCS theorists can allow, revive U.T. Place's notion of a “phenomenological fallacy” to explain their enduring appeal, and then suggest some advantages of functional analyses of concepts of conscious states over the phenomenal alternative.
Keywords: phenomenological fallacy
[Citing Place (1954)] [Citing Place (1956)] [Citing Place (2002a)] [Related]
Download: Tartaglia (2013) Conceptualizing Physical Consciousness.pdf
Taylor, C. (1967). Mind-body identity, a side issue? Philosophical Review, 76, 201-213.
[Citing Place (1956)] [1 reprinting collections]
Taylor, C. (1969). Two issues about materialism. The Philosophical Quarterly, 19(74), 73–79. doi:10.2307/2218192
[Citing Place (1956)] [Reviewed publication(s)]
te Vrugt, M., Needham, P., & Schmitz, G. J. (2022) Is thermodynamics fundamental? arXiv:2204.04352v1 [physics.hist-ph] 9 Apr 2022
doi:10.48550/arXiv.2204.04352
[Abstract]It is a common view in philosophy of physics that thermodynamics is a non-fundamental theory. This is motivated in particular by the fact that thermodynamics is considered to be a paradigmatic example for a theory that can be reduced to another one, namely statistical mechanics. For instance, the statement "temperature is mean molecular kinetic energy" has become a textbook example for a successful reduction, despite the fact that this statement is not correct for a large variety of systems. In this article, we defend the view that thermodynamics is a fundamental theory, a position that we justify based on four case studies from recent physical research. We explain how entropic gravity (1) and black hole thermodynamics (2) can serve as case studies for the multiple realizability problem which blocks the reduction of thermodynamics. Moreover, we discuss the problem of the reducibility of phase transitions and argue that bifurcation theory (3) allows the modelling of "phase transitions" on a thermodynamic level even in finite systems. It is also shown that the derivation of irreversible transport equations in the Mori-Zwanzig formalism (4) does not, despite recent claims to the contrary, constitute a reduction of thermodynamics to quantum mechanics. Finally, we briefly discuss some arguments against the fundamentality of thermodynamics that are not based on reduction.
[Citing Place (1956) in context]
Thagard, P. (2022). Energy requirements undermine substrate independence and mind-body functionalism. Philosophy of Science, 89(1), 70-88. doi:10.1017/psa.2021.15
[Abstract]Substrate independence and mind-body functionalism claim that thinking does not depend on any particular kind of physical implementation. But real-world information processing depends on energy, and energy depends on material substrates. Biological evidence for these claims comes from ecology and neuroscience, while computational evidence comes from neuromorphic computing and deep learning. Attention to energy requirements undermines the use of substrate independence to support claims about the feasibility of artificial intelligence, the moral standing of robots, the possibility that we may be living in a computer simulation, the plausibility of transferring minds into computers, and the autonomy of psychology from neuroscience.
[Citing Place (1956) in context]
Thalberg, I. (1983). Immateriality. Mind, 92(365), 105–113. www.jstor.org/stable/2253934 doi:10.1093/mind/XCII.365.105
[Citing Place (1956)]
Tiehen, J. (2015). Grounding Causal Closure. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 96 3), 501-522. doi:10.1111/papq.12126 philarchive.org/archive/TIEGCC
[Abstract]What does it mean to say that mind-body dualism is causally problematic in a way that other mind-body theories, such as the psychophysical type identity theory, are not? After considering and rejecting various proposals, I advance my own, which focuses on what grounds the causal closure of the physical realm. A metametaphysical implication of my proposal is that philosophers working without the notion of grounding in their toolkit are metaphysically impoverished. They cannot do justice to the thought, encountered in every introductory class in the philosophy of mind, that dualism has a special problem accounting for mental causation.
[Citing Place (1956)]
Tomberlin, J. E. (1965). About the identity theory. Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 43(3), 295-299. doi:10.1080/00048406512341251
[Citing Place (1956)]
Tonneau, F (2004). Consciousness outside the head.
Behavior and Philosophy, 32, 97-123
[Abstract]Brain-centered theories of consciousness seem to face insuperable difficulties. While some philosophers now doubt that the hard problem of consciousness will ever be solved, others call for radically new approaches to conscious experience. In this article I resurrect a largely forgotten approach to consciousness known as neorealism. According to neorealism, consciousness is merely a part, or cross-section, of the environment. Neorealism implies that all conscious experiences, veridical or otherwise, exist outside of the brain and are wholly independent of being perceived or not; nonveridical perceptions of the environment over an arbitrarily short period of time are supposed to be objective constituents of the environment over a more extended time scale. I argue here that neorealism fares at least as well as brain-centered theories of consciousness on a number of fundamental issues. On one fundamental issue—the nature of the relation between veridical and nonveridical perceptions—neorealism outperforms its competitors.
[Citing Place (1956) in context]
Tsou, J.Y. (2022). Philosophical naturalism and empirical approaches to philosophy. In M. Rossberg (Ed.), Cambridge Handbook of Analytic Philosophy. Cambridge University Press.
[Abstract]This chapter examines the influence of the empirical sciences (e.g., physics, biology, psychology) in contemporary analytic philosophy, with focus on philosophical theories that are guided by findings from the empirical sciences. Scientific approaches to philosophy follow a tradition of philosophical naturalism associated with Quine, which strives to ally philosophical methods and theories more closely with the empirical sciences and away from a priori theorizing and conceptual analysis.
In contemporary analytic philosophy, ‘naturalism’ is an ambiguous and equivocal term (Papineau, 2020) that can be distinguished into weaker and stronger methodological commitments:
N1. Philosophy should be constrained by scientific results. Philosophical
theories should not be inconsistent with the findings of empirical science (e.g., the positing of supernatural entities).
N2. Philosophy is continuous with science. Philosophical standards (e.g., the assumption that knowledge is fallible) and methods (e.g., empirical and experimental methods) should not be different in kind from those adopted in the natural sciences. Moreover, genuine philosophical problems should be tractable with naturalistic empirical methods.
N3. Philosophy should be empirically driven. Philosophical theorizing should be guided by the results of science and empirical science provides the most promising route to formulating sound philosophical theories.
N1 implies that philosophical theories should be consistent with scientific theories. N2 implies that philosophical standards and methods should be continuous with those adopted in science. N3 implies that the empirical scientific findings should be utilized to direct philosophical inquiry. Whereas N1 is a platitude among many contemporary analytic philosophers, fewer are committed to N2 or N3. This chapter examines philosophical theories (e.g., theories of mind and ethics) that are committed to N2 and N3, with particular emphasis on N3.
[Citing Place (1956) in context]
Tucan, G. (2021). A Cognitive Approach to Ernest Hemingway’s Short Fiction. Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
[Abstract]How do readers make sense of Hemingway’s short stories? How is it possible that the camera-like quality of his narrative can appeal to our senses and arouse our emotions? How does it capture us? With reserved narrators and protagonists engaged in laconic dialogs, his texts do not seem to say much. This book consciously revisits our responses to the Hemingway story, a belated response to his invitation to discover what lies beneath the surface of his iceberg. What this pioneering critical endeavor seeks to understand is the thinking required in reading Hemingway’s short fiction. It proposes a cognitively informed model of reading which questions the resources of the reader’s imaginative powers. The cognitive demonstrations here are designed to have potentially larger implications for the short story’s general mode of knowing. Drawing from both cognitively oriented poetics and narratology in equal measure, this book explains what structures our interaction with literary texts.
[Citing Place (1956)]
Tye, M. (2023). A new solution to the hard problem of consciousness. In Alex Grzankowski (Ed.), Thought: Its Origin and Reach, Essays for Mark Sainsbury. Routledge.
[Citing Place (1956)]
Usher, M., Negro, N., Jacobson, H., & Tsuchiya, N. (2023). When philosophical nuance matters: Safeguarding consciousness research from restrictive assumptions. Frontiers in Psychology, 14(1306023). doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1306023
[Abstract]In this paper, we revisit the debate surrounding the Unfolding Argument (UA) against causal structure theories of consciousness (as well as the hard-criteria research program it prescribes), using it as a platform for discussing theoretical and methodological issues in consciousness research. Causal structure theories assert that consciousness depends on a particular causal structure of the brain. Our claim is that some of the assumptions fueling the UA are not warranted, and therefore we should reject the methodology for consciousness science that the UA prescribes. First, we briefly survey the most popular philosophical positions in consciousness science, namely physicalism and functionalism. We discuss the relations between these positions and the behaviorist methodology that the UA assumptions express, despite the contrary claim of its proponents. Second, we argue that the same reasoning that the UA applies against causal structure theories can be applied to functionalist approaches, thus proving too much and deeming as unscientific a whole range of (non-causal structure) theories. Since this is overly restrictive and fits poorly with common practice in cognitive neuroscience, we suggest that the reasoning of the UA must be flawed. Third, we assess its philosophical assumptions, which express a restrictive methodology, and conclude that there are reasons to reject them. Finally, we propose a more inclusive methodology for consciousness science, that includes neural, behavioral, and phenomenological evidence (provided by the first-person perspective) without which consciousness science could not even start. Then, we extend this discussion to the scope of consciousness science, and conclude that theories of consciousness should be tested and evaluated on humans, and not on systems considerably different from us. Rather than restricting the methodology of consciousness science, we should, at this point, restrict the range of systems upon which it is supposed to be built.
[Citing Place (1956)]
Van Fraassen, B. C. (1996). Science, materialism, and false consciousness. In J. Kvanvig (Ed.), Warrant in Contemporary Epistemology: Essays in Honor of Alvin Plantinga's Theory of Knowledge (pp. 149-181). Rowman Littlefield.
[Abstract]As activity, science has become a large-scale cultural phenomenon. As product, it is drawn on by industry, agriculture, and medicine, thus affecting not only the scene of its activity but all the rest of the world as well. Western philosophy has always harboured a tradition which regards scientific inquiry as a paradigm for rational inquiry in general. Yet almost every philosopher in that tradition has pointed to limits of this paradigm and its scope.
Every philosophy provides a different lens through which to view this object of common admiration. In this essay I shall reflect on two views of science which are at first glance inimical to each other. The first is Pierre Duhem's, who saw science as neutral on all issues of metaphysics, theology, and religion. The second is exemplified by Paul Feyerabend, who called for alternate research programs guided by rival metaphysics, and argued that such rivalry has always been a driving force in science. I will argue that Duhem is right, in the main, though our picture of science must be leavened by the insights of the contrary point of view. This will not be an archaeological inquiry into those thinkers' thought; I will make it mainly an independent reflection on these same issues.
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van Lier, M. (2023). Introducing a four-fold way to conceptualize artificial agency. Synthese, 201(85). doi:10.1007/s11229-023-04083-9
[Abstract]Recent developments in AI-research suggest that an AI-driven science might not be that far off. The research of [for] Melnikov et al. (2018) and that of Evans et al. (2018) show that automated systems can already have a distinctive role in the design of experiments and in directing future research. Common practice in many of the papers devoted to the automation of basic research is to refer to these automated systems as ‘agents’. What is this attribution of agency based on and to what extent is this an important notion in the broader context of an AI-driven science? In an attempt to answer these questions, this paper proposes a new methodological framework, introduced as the Four-Fold Framework, that can be used to conceptualize artificial agency in basic research. It consists of four modeling strategies, three of which were already identified and used by Sarkia (2021) to conceptualize ‘intentional agency’. The novelty of the framework is the inclusion of a fourth strategy, introduced as conceptual modeling, that adds a semantic dimension to the overall conceptualization. The strategy connects to the other strategies by modeling both the actual use of ‘artificial agency’ in basic research as well as what is meant by it in each of the other three strategies. This enables researchers to bridge the gap between theory and practice by comparing the meaning of artificial agency in both an academic as well as in a practical context.
[Citing Place (1956) in context]
Van Rysewyk, S (2013, April 30). Philip Ball on neuroaesthetics. Simon van Rysewyk. simonvanrysewyk.com/tag/philip-ball/
[Citing Place (1956) in context]
Velmans, M. (1991). Consciousness from a first-person perspective, Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 14(4), 702-719.
Note:
Reply to commentaries on Velmans, M. (1991), Is human information processing conscious? BBS, 651-669.
[Citing Place (1956) in context]
Velmans, M. (1996). An introduction to the science of consciousness. In M. Velmans (Ed.), The science of consciousness: (Chapter 1, pp. 1-22). Routledge.
[Citing Place (1956)]
Velmans, M. (2002). How could conscious experiences affect brains? Journal of Consciousness Studies, 9(11), 2002, pp.3-29.
[Abstract]In everyday life we take it for granted that we have conscious control of some of our actions and that the part of us that exercises control is the conscious mind. Psychosomatic medicine also assumes that the conscious mind can affect body states, and this is supported by evidence that the use of imagery, hypnosis, biofeedback and other mental interventions can be therapeutic in a variety of medical conditions. However, there is no accepted theory of mind/body interaction and this has had a detrimental effect on the acceptance of mental causation in science, philosophy and in many areas of clinical practice. Biomedical accounts typically translate the effects of mind into the effects of brain functioning, for example, explaining mind/body interactions in terms of the interconnections and reciprocal control of cortical, neuroendocrine, autonomic and immune systems. While such accounts are instructive, they are implicitly reductionist, and beg the question of how conscious experiences could have bodily effects. On the other hand, non-reductionist accounts have to cope with three problems: 1) The physical world appears causally closed, which would seem to leave no room for conscious intervention. 2) One is not conscious of one's own brain/body processing, so how could there be conscious control of such processing? 3) Conscious experiences appear to come too late to causally affect the processes to which they most obviously relate. This paper suggests a way of understanding mental causation that resolves these problems. It also suggests that conscious mental control needs to be partly understood in terms of the voluntary operations of the preconscious mind, and that this allows an account of biological determinism that is compatible with experienced free will.
[Citing Place (1956) in context]
Velmans, M. (2009). Understanding consciousness (2nd Edition). Routledge. Understanding_Consciousness_(2nd_ed__Routledge__2009).pdf
[Abstract]Understanding Consciousness, 2nd Edition provides a unique survey and evaluation of consciousness studies, along with an original analysis of consciousness that combines scientific findings, philosophy and common sense. Building on the widely praised first edition, this new edition adds fresh research, and deepens the original analysis in a way that reflects some of the fundamental changes in the understanding of consciousness that have taken place over the last 10 years. The book is divided into three parts; Part one surveys current theories of consciousness, evaluating their strengths and weaknesses. Part two reconstructs an understanding of consciousness from first principles, starting with its phenomenology, and leading to a closer examination of how conscious experience relates to the world described by physics and information processing in the brain. Finally, Part three deals with some of the fundamental issues such as what consciousness is and does, and how it fits into to the evolving universe. As the structure of the book moves from a basic overview of the field to a successively deeper analysis, it can be used both for those new to the subject and for more established researchers. Understanding Consciousness tells a story with a beginning, middle and end in a way that integrates the philosophy of consciousness with the science. Overall, the book provides a unique perspective on how to address the problems of consciousness and as such, will be of great interest to psychologists, philosophers, neuroscientists and other professionals concerned with mind/body relationships, and all who are interested in this subject.
[Citing Place (1956) in context]
Velmans, M. (2021). Is the universe conscious? Reflexive monism and the ground of
being. In E. Kelly, & P. Marshall (Eds.), Consciousness Unbound (pp. 175-228). Rowman & Littlefield. Is-the-Universe-Conscious-Reflexive-Monism-and-the-Ground-of-Being.pdf
[Abstract]This chapter examines the integrative nature of reflexive monism (RM), a psychological/philosophical model of a reflexive, self-observing universe that can accommodate both ordinary and extraordinary experiences in a natural, non-reductive way that avoids both the problems of reductive materialism and the (inverse) pitfalls of reductive idealism. To contextualize the ancient roots of the model, the chapter touches briefly on classical models of consciousness, mind and soul and how these differ in a fundamental way from how mind and consciousness are viewed in contemporary Western philosophy and
psychological science. The chapter then travels step by step from such contemporary views towards reflexive monism, and towards the end of the chapter, to more detailed comparisons with Hindu Vedanta and Samkhya philosophy and with Cosmopsychism (a recently emergent, directly relevant area of philosophy of mind).
[Citing Place (1956) in context]
Webster, W.R. (2002). A Case of Mind/Brain Identity: One Small Bridge for the Explanatory Gap. Synthese, 131, 275-287. doi:10.1023/A:1015726204005
[Abstract]Based on the technique of pressure blinding of the eye, two types of after-image (AI) were identified. A physicalist or mind/brain identity explanation was established for a negative AI produced by moderately intense stimuli. These AI's were shown to be located in the neurons of the retina. An illusory AI of double a grating's spatial frequency was also produced in the same structure and was both prevented from being established and abolished after establishment by pressure blinding, thus showing that the location was not more central. The illusory AI was predicted from the known non-linearity in the retina and this is the first case of a clear cut type-type identity of a sensation and a neural process. Some implications for the concepts of the explanatory gap between neurology and consciousness and multiple neural realizations of conscious states and topic neutrality are discussed.
[Citing Place (1956)]
Weir, R. S. (2023). The Mind-Body Problem and Metaphysics: An Argument from Consciousness to Mental Substance. Routledge. doi:10.4324/9781003378600
[Abstract]This book evaluates the widespread preference in philosophy of mind for varieties of property dualism over other alternatives to physicalism. It takes the standard motivations for property dualism as a starting point and argues that these lead directly to nonphysical substances resembling the soul of traditional metaphysics.
In the first half of the book, the author clarifies what is at issue in the choice between theories that posit nonphysical properties only and those that posit nonphysical substances. The crucial question, he argues, is whether one posits nonphysical things that satisfy an Aristotelian-Cartesian independence definition of substance: nonphysical things that could exist in the absence of anything else. In the second half, the author argues that standard and Russellian monist forms of property dualism are far less plausible than we usually suppose. Most significantly, the presuppositions of one of the leading arguments for property dualism, the conceivability argument, lead by parity of reasoning to the view that conscious subjects are nonphysical substances. He concludes that if you posit nonphysical properties in response to the mind-body problem, then you should be prepared to posit nonphysical substances as well. Mainstream philosophy of mind must take nonphysical substances far more seriously than it has done for the best part of a century.
[Citing Place (1956)]
Wiese, W. (2018). Toward a mature science of consciousness. Frontiers in Psychology, 9. www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00693 doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00693
[Abstract]In Being No One, Metzinger (2004[2003]) introduces an approach to the scientific study of consciousness that draws on theories and results from different disciplines, targeted at multiple levels of analysis. Descriptions and assumptions formulated at, for instance, the phenomenological, representationalist, and neurobiological levels of analysis provide different perspectives on the same phenomenon, which can ultimately yield necessary and sufficient conditions for applying the concept of phenomenal representation. In this way, the “method of interdisciplinary constraint satisfaction (MICS)” (as it has been called by Weisberg, 2005) promotes our understanding of consciousness. However, even more than a decade after the first publication of Being No One, we still lack a mature science of consciousness. This paper makes the following meta-theoretical contribution: It analyzes the hurdles an approach such as MICS has yet to overcome and discusses to what extent existing approaches solve the problems left open by MICS. Furthermore, it argues that a unifying theory of different features of consciousness is required to reach a mature science of consciousness.
[Citing Place (1956) in context]
Wilson, J. M. (2014). No work of a theory of grounding. Inquiry, 57(5-6) ,535–579. doi:10.1080/0020174X.2014.907542
[Abstract]It has recently been suggested that a distinctive metaphysical relation —‘Grounding’—is ultimately at issue in contexts in which some goings-on are said to hold ‘in virtue of’’, be (constitutively) ‘metaphysically dependent on’,or be ‘nothing over and above’ some others. Grounding is supposed to do good work (better than merely modal notions, in particular) in illuminating metaphysical dependence. I argue that Grounding is also unsuited to do this work. To start, Grounding alone cannot do this work, for bare claims of Grounding leave open such basic questions as whether Grounded goings-on exist, whether they are reducible to or rather distinct from Grounding goings-on, whether they are efficacious, and so on; but in the absence of answers to such basic questions, we are not in position to assess the associated claim or theses concerning metaphysical dependence. There is no avoiding appeal to the specific metaphysical relations typically at issue in investigations into dependence—for example, type or token identity, functional realization, classical mereological parthood, the set membership relation, the proper subset relation, the determinable/determinate relation, and so on—which are capable of answering these questions. But, I argue, once the specific relations are on the scene, there is no need for Grounding.
[Citing Place (1956)]
Wright, C., Colombo, M., & Beard, A. (2017). HIT and Brain Reward Function: A Case of Mistaken Identity (Theory). Studies in History and Philosophy of Science: Part A, 64, 28-40 doi:10.1016/j.shpsc.2017.04.002
[Abstract]This paper employs a case study from the history of neuroscience - brain reward function - to scrutinize the inductive argument for the so-called ‘Heuristic Identity Theory’ (HIT). The case fails to support HIT, illustrating why other case studies previously thought to provide empirical support for HIT also fold under scrutiny. After distinguishing two different ways of understanding the types of identity claims presupposed by HIT and considering other conceptual problems, we conclude that HIT is not an alternative to the traditional identity theory so much as a relabeling of previously discussed strategies for mechanistic discovery.
[Citing Place (1956)]
Zahnoun, F. (2018). Mind, mechanism and meaning: Reclaiming social normativity within cognitive science and philosophy of mind [Unpublished doctoral dissertation]. University of Antwerp. www.academia.edu/37116459/Mind_Mechanism_and_Meaning
[Abstract]The dissertation, titled Mind, Mechanism and Meaning, critically investigates two central assumptions of mainstream cognitive science and philosophy of mind: the commitment to the notion of internal representation on the one hand, and to the idea of the multiple realizability of the mental on the other. With regard to the notion of internal representation, the dissertation argues that this notion is ultimately untenable in that, to the effect that internal representations are understood as content-carrying vehicles with causal explanatory power, the notion is grounded in a confusion between the descriptive and the prescriptive/normative. The thesis is defended that all content-carrying entities, including representations, are socio-normatively constituted and should therefore be excluded from non-normative causal explanations of cognition. The results of the research support a non-representational approach to mind and cognition, as exemplified in various forms of E-Cognition, particularly in radical enactive/embodied approaches. Understanding human cognition requires taking into account the whole subject, that is, the subject as ‘embrained', embodied, and embedded within an enacted normative intersubjective niche. With regard to the idea of the multiple realizability of the mental, the dissertation argues that the idea can only be made intelligible against a particular metaphysical background, one that does not sit well with the intersubjective normative notions the idea of multiple realization conceptually relies on (types). Furthermore, it is argued that, even if we were to accept such a metaphysics, multiple realization is still not capable of providing the argument against identity theory which has come to be so widely accepted. The thesis is defended that there really is no strong argument against an identity theory, and that, in addition, assuming a strict identity between the mental and the physical is still a viable, perhaps even the only viable approach to the Hard Problem of Consciousness.
[Citing Place (1956) in context]
Zilio, F. (2019). (Never) minding the gap? Integrated Information Theory and Philosophy of Consciousness. In M. Curado, & N. Gouveia (Eds.), Automata's inner movie: Science and Philosophy of Mind (chapter 6, pp. 103-124). Vernon Press. www.researchgate.net/publication/333136202_Neverminding_the_Gap_Integrated_Information_Theory_and_Philosophy_of_Consciousnessxt www.academia.edu/44452243/_Never_Minding_the_Gap_Integrated_Information_Theory_and_Philosophy_Of_Consciousness
[Abstract]The aim of the article is to discuss the strengths and weaknesses
of the Integrated Information Theory of consciousness and challenge it
through contemporary issues in philosophy of mind and phenomenology.
I argue that some objectivist theories of consciousness underestimate the
constitutive role of the subjective perspective and seem to face the same
problems of the dualism that contemporary sciences would like to avoid.
IIT faces the hard problem of consciousness from the axioms of
experience to the postulates of its physical substrate and considers the
phenomenal aspect not as an illusory property to be reduced, rather as the
theoretical starting point of the research. The aim of IIT is to account for
both the quantity and quality of consciousness in a non-reductive way.
However, despite the potential relevance in the empirical domain, this
theory presents some theoretical limitations, which are here discussed
from a metaphysical, epistemological and phenomenological perspective.
Based on this critical discussion it will be suggested to recalibrate IIT in
order to redefine its ontological and epistemological grounds.
[Citing Place (1956) in context]