Neurophilosophy

As hundreds of so-called "psychotherapies" have been foisted onto the public, all claiming to treat "mental illness," newer understandings of how the human brain actually works and the processes which drive the formations of mentation that we refer to as "the mind," demand a reassessment of what exactly we are referring to by the term "mental illness" and what kinds of intervention would be feasible in both the prevention of and recovery from cognitive and behavioral disorder. A fundamental process in the formation of an individual's mentation is the associations of experience. These associations not only account for constructive behavior, but can also lead to deleterious or negative behavior, suggesting that some associations are negative and therefore the negative behavior can be remolded through contrasting positive associations; however, to understand what this really means and how it works, we must start at the beginning and define what exactly is this negative behavior that we refer to by the term "mental illness." One of the most important axioms of life so simply but profoundly phrased by Oscar Wilde, is that "the truth is rarely pure and NEVER simple" (emphasis mine). Nothing can ever be explained by simple sound bites – oversimplification is just another word for misrepresentation – so to understand, we must truly engage the subject, and to engage the subject, we must first and foremost clearly define what it is that we are seeking to understand. In this case, it demands that we understand what exactly is mental illness.

The Greek oracle admonished" Know thyself." But for more than two millennia, the only avenues to self-knowledge were to examine one's own thoughts or to review one's behavior. The idea of knowing oneself by knowing how one's brain worked was at best a philosopher's thought experiment. When, in the middle of the twentieth century, the philosopher Herbert Feigl (1958/1967) proposed the idea of an autocerebroscope through which people could examine the activities of their own brains, no one imagined that by century's end we would ...

I propose and defend the Allocentric-Egocentric Interface Theory of Consciousness. Mental processes form a hierarchy of mental representations with maximally egocentric (self-centered) representations at the bottom and maximally allocentric (other-centered) representations at the top. Phenomenally conscious states are states that are relatively intermediate in this hierarchy. More specifically, conscious states are hybrid states that involve the reciprocal interaction between relatively allocentric and relatively egocentric representations. Thus a conscious state is composed of a pair of representations interacting at the Allocentric-Egocentric Interface. What a person is conscious of is determined by what the contributing allocentric and egocentric representations are representations of. The phenomenal character of conscious states is identical to the representational content of the reciprocally interacting egocentric and allocentric representations.

Among those who reflect on the nature of neuroscience, there is a view about its scope and limits which we will call, with a certain amount of historical license, the neuron doc-trine.1 Roughly, the neuron doctrine is the view that the framework within which the science of ...

The article deals with the so-called free will experiments recently conducted by cognitive psychologists and neuroscientists. The author of the article raises two conceptual objections against the conclusion that the experiments prove that human free will does not exist.
В статье критически обсуждаются два эксперимента, получивших наименование экспериментов со свободой воли, которые были проведены учеными в области когнитивной психологии и нейронауки за последние десятилетия. Автор статьи выдвигает два концептуальных возражения против вывода о том, что эксперименты доказывают отсутствие свободы воли у человека.

This is the framing document for the presentation “English as Therapy” delivered September 27 to the 2015 NeuroELT Brain Days International Conference, Kyoto, Japan. This presentation introduces CNE (Cognitive Neuroeducation), a new learning-based, noninvasive, nonpharmacological modality for intervention in cognitive and behavioral disorder with the promise of full recovery therefrom. CNE is unique in that it is the only modality in the fields of learning and mental health that is strictly tied to how the brain actually works within a tightly constructed, exhaustively comprehensive model of the mind as formed exclusively from rigorous hermeneutic and phenomenological analysis.

Humans – through the biological determinants of evolutionary selection – have developed a uniquely social brain. In the human social brain, learning is the principal mechanism that shapes all behavior, and language is the medium through which learning takes place and cognition is formed. Cognition is the understanding of ourselves, others and the world around us. But the processes of cognitive development – that is, how we learn, what we learn, how we understand the world around us, and, consequently, how we are molded to behave – can be blocked or can become distorted.

In this presentation we explore the processes in the human social brain by which learning is realized and cognition and behavior are shaped, and the principles of CNE that can be applied, both in the classroom and in a remedial setting, to stimulate these processes in engendering positive learning realization and self-affirming, socially adaptable behavior.

wersja rozszerzona, nie poprawiona; proszę nie cytowaćprzeznaczone do druku w: R. Poczobut, M. Miłkowski (red.) Przewodnik po filozofii umysłu.) Piotr Przybysz Neurofilozofia i filozofia neuronauk 1. Wprowadzenie Zainteresowanie filozofii współczesnymi naukami o mózgu jest zrozumiałe przynajmniej z trzech powodów: (a) filozofia analizuje schematy wyjaśniania i metody badawcze nauk eksperymentalnych, (b) od funkcjonowania mózgu zależy w dużej mierze kondycja cielesna i psychiczna człowieka, jego życie umysłowe, inteligencja, aktywność poznawcza, świadomość, a nawet twórczość intelektualna i artystyczna, czyli wszystko to, czym od wieków zajmuje się filozofia, (c) dzięki nowym technikom eksperymentalnym oraz integracji dyscyplin zajmujących się mózgiem i umysłem, dysponujemy narzędziami i procedurami, które umożliwiają rozpoznanie, w jaki sposób z pracy mózgu wyłania się aktywność umysłowa. Próby wymiany informacji, wzajemnego inspirowania się, a nawetkonceptualnego zbliżenia, między filozofią a neuronaukami podejmowane były kilkakrotnie w ciągu ostatnich kilkudziesięciu lat. W latach 50-tych XX w. filozofowie U. Place i J. Smart głosili konieczność rozpatrywania doznań umysłowych w powiązaniu z procesami mózgowymi, a nawet -jak w często przytaczanym przykładzie z doznawaniem bólupostulowali ich identyczność. Nieco później bo w latach 70-tych, pojawili się filozofowie (np. D. Dennett, Th. Nagel) zainteresowani odkryciami i eksperymentami dokonywanymi w obszarze neurologii, oraz tym, jakie wypływają z nich wnioski dla filozofii. Interesowało ich, przykładowo, czy i w jaki sposób neurochirurgiczny zabieg komisurotomii (przecięcie spoidła wielkiego) wpływa na tożsamość osobową lub jak neurofizjologiczne badania bólu wzbogacić mogą jego filozoficzne pojmowanie. W roku 1977 ukazała się książka wspólnie przygotowana przez K. Poppera i neurobiologa J. Ecclesa. Jej autorzy, wychodząc z odmiennych perspektyw badawczych, próbowali rzucić nieco światła na relacje pomiędzy umysłem i ciałem, jaźnią a mózgiem, duchowością i fizjologia, świadomością a światem. umysłem, maszynami obliczeniowymi i mózgiem 1 . W ramach kognitywistyki postawiono pytania o (a) sposoby nabywania wiedzy, (b) sposoby jej reprezentowania w mózgu i umyśle. Pytano o to, (c) w jaki sposób wiedza wykorzystywana jest w działaniu, (d) jak usprawnić jej nabywanie i używanie, (e) jak skompensować lub pomniejszyć deficyty poznawcze wywołane wrodzonymi ograniczeniami, przebytymi chorobami i uszkodzeniami aparatu poznawczego 2 . Nie mniej ważnym elementem tła, na jakim pojawiła się neurofilozofia (w mniejszym stopniu dotyczy to filozofii neuronauk) jest sposób, w jaki na rewolucję kognitywistyczną zareagowała filozofia, a szczególnie jej wyspecjalizowany dział -filozofia umysłu. Pytania stawiane przez filozofów umysłu były zbieżne z tymi, które stawiali kognitywiści, chociaż różnił je od tamtych nacisk kładziony na fundamentalne kwestie ontologiczne i substancjalne. Filozofów umysłu interesowało przede wszystkim (a') czym jest umysł, (b') jakie występują rodzaje stanów umysłowych, (c') jakie przysługują im własności, (d') czy i jak rozpoznajemy stany umysłowe innych osób (=inne umysły) oraz najbardziej "gorąca" i kontrowersyjna kwestia, czyli (e') w jakiej relacji pozostaje umysł do ciała (resp. umysł do mózgu, świadomość do jej neuronalnych korelatów itd.). To ostatnie pytanie implikowało szereg dalszych kwestii dotyczących przyczynowości psycho-fizycznej czy możliwość redukcji stanów psychicznych do stanów mózgu 3 . Pomimo zbieżności zainteresowań, udziału filozofów w kognitywistycznych debatach oraz sporego wkładu, jaki niektórzy z nich wnieśli do tych debat (np. P.S. i P.M Churchlandowie, D. Dennett, J. Fodor, H. Putnam, J. Searle), filozofia "nigdy nie osiągnęła stabilnej pozycji w kognitywistyce" porównywalnej z "eksperymentowaniem behawioralnym, modelowaniem obliczeniowym, teorią systemów, a ostatnio, neuronauką kognitywną" 4 . Można sądzić, że wpływ na tę sytuację miały: (1) traktowanie przez filozofów własnych pytań na temat umysłu jako "pierwszych" i bardziej fundamentalnych niż pytania kognitywistów, (2) pozostawanie przez filozofię umysłu w cieniu wielkiej spekulatywnej tradycji rozważań filozoficznych na temat duszy, intelektu czy rozumu, które poprzedzały w filozofii współczesne zainteresowanie umysłem, oraz (3) posługiwanie się przez filozofię specyficznymi i nieco hermetycznymi metodami, jak np. analizy pojęciowe, generowanie możliwych stanowisk w sprawie relacji umysł-ciało czy posługiwanie się eksperymentami 1 Przeglądowo o kognitywistyce w ujęciu problemowym i historycznym, por. np.

Π α ν ε λ λ ή ν ι ο Σ υ ν έ δ ρ ι ο Α ρ ι σ τ ο τ έ λ η ς | 317 «Ο Αριστοτέλης και η Ιατρική» Μπαλογιάννης Σταύρος Ομότιμος Καθηγητής Νευρολογίας ΑΠΘ Νευρολόγος-Ψυχίατρος ΠΕΡΙΛΗΨΗ Ο Αριστοτέλης παρά το γεγονός ότι μετείχεν εις την ιατρικήν σκέψιν παιδιόθεν, εν τούτοις εις το συγγραφικόν έργον του, δεν επεξετάθη ευρέως εις τον χώρον της κλινικής, διαγνωστικής ή θεραπευτικής Ιατρικής, αλλά εστιάσθη κυρίως εις την φιλοσοφίαν της ιατρικής και την ιατρικήν ηθικήν, την οποίαν εθεώρη ως πρότυπον της «πολιτικής» ηθικής. Αναφερόμενος εις την ψυχοσωματικήν υπόστασιν του ανθρώπου ο Αριστοτέλης, επίστευεν ότι η καρδία είναι το κέντρον της αισθήσεως και της σκέψεως και ότι εις αυτήν κατασκηνοί η συνείδησις. Η ψυχή είναι η αρχή και η τελική αιτία του ζώντος σώματος και αντιστοίχως το σώμα αποτελεί το όργανον της εκφράσεως της ψυχής. Ο νους αποτελεί το μέρος της ψυχής, εις το οποίον εδράζονται αι ιδέαι. Ο νους, κατανοεί τον εαυτόν του, νοεί τα όντα και ασκεί κρίσιν επί της διεργασίας της νοήσεως. Ο ιατρός, διά των γνώσεων και της εμπειρίας του, παρέχων την αποκατάστασιν της σωματικής και ψυχικής υγείας, εις τα πλαίσια της ιατρικής ηθικής, της αποτελούσης το αληθές πρότυπον της κοινωνικής ηθικής, συμβάλλει εις την ευδαιμονίαν της κοινωνίας, η οποία αποτελεί το υπέρτατον «πολιτικόν» αγαθόν. Αι αρχαί του Αριστοτέλους επηρέασαν τα μέγιστα τον Γαληνόν, ο οποίος εστηρίχθη, παραλλήλως προς τας Ιπποκρατείους αρχάς, εις τον φιλοσοφικόν στοχασμόν, την μεθοδικότητα, τον πραγματισμόν και τας απόψεις περί Ψυχής και ιατρικής ηθικής του Αριστοτέλους. Διά της βαθείας επιδράσεως επί των Αράβων, αι Αριστοτελικαί και Γαληνικαί αρχαί μεταλαμπαδευθείσαι εις την Δύσιν, συνέβαλον τα μέγιστα εις την διαμόρφωσιν της συγχρόνου ιατρικής σκέψεως και την στοιχειοθέτησιν των θεμελιωδών αρχών της ιατρικής ηθικής.

Concepts of "the self" and "self-awareness", and aspects of the experience of types of consciousness, are explored in terms of "cognitive" systems and their interactions. Some roles of the cerebrum, the cerebellum, and their interactions are considered in relation to sentient consciousness, the sense of self, and conscious regulation of behavior. This 'introductory paper' is composed of modified selected extracts from: totalBRAINtotalMIND Vol.1 : An Integrated Brain/Mind Architecture Part 2: A Cognitive Architecture (pp16 -136) Part 3. Total Brain: structure, development, function, and an integrated neurocognitive architecture (pp137-321). tBtM Vol.1 is now available as an e-book from: http://totalbraintotalmind.co.uk/

Este livro visa, de maneira universalmente compreensível – e a partir de intelecções antigas – abrir novas perspectivas para a filosofia do espírito. O autoconhecimento já se encontra, afinal, há muito tempo no centro da filosofia, e a sua história prévia ajuda a compreender melhor de onde vêm tanto os verdadeiros quanto os aparentes problemas com os quais nos ocupamos até hoje.
Em que medida deveríamos adequar nossa imagem do ser humano ao progresso tecnológico? Para que seja possível lidar de algum modo com questões como essa de maneira sensata, devemos examinar, de modo mais preciso do que estamos habituados a fazer no nosso dia a dia, conceitos de nosso autorretrato tais como consciência, espírito, Eu, pensamento ou liberdade.

What makes us who we are? Are we born good or evil? Do we have free will? What drives our behaviour and why? Can technology change what it means to be human? In this thoroughly revised second edition of Emotional Amoral Egoism, Professor Nayef Al-Rodhan demonstrates the impact of our innate predispositions on key issues, from conflict, inequality and transcultural understanding to Big Data, fake news and the social contract. However, it is the societies we live in and their governance structures that largely determine how we act on our innate predispositions. Consequently, Al-Rodhan proposes a new and sustainable good governance paradigm, which must reconcile the ever-present tension between the three attributes of human nature ('Emotional Amoral Egoism') and the nine critical needs of human dignity. This book is a perfect resource for enlightened readers, academics and policy makers interested in how our innate instincts and tendencies shape the world we live in, and how the interplay between neurophilosophy and policy can be harnessed for pragmatic and sustainable peace, security and prosperity solutions for all, at all times and under all circumstances. Endorsements And Reviews This ambitious and wide-ranging book offers both a synthesis of philosophical and scientific approaches to human nature and a strong plea for a set of universal human values. Its attraction lies in its forceful argument that the emotional aspects of human nature should be taken seriously if we are to design effective systems of political and moral cooperation, and that our political thinking needs to be inspired by the neuro-psychological consequences of our brain chemistry.

Neuro-philosophy and the Healthy Mind (2016) is an intriguing book. The neuroscientist, psychiatrist, and philosopher Georg Northoff offers a careful and alluring investigation of brain-environment relations via treating those brains of his clinical patients with psychiatric disorders, developing a framework for neurophilosophical inquiry, notably raising the question of “ontology of the brain” as the core issue of neurophilosophy.

MASTER I -UFR 10 PHILOSOPHIE CONTEMPORAINE (Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne)

Résumé

Nous associons spontanément la conscience à une activité mentale liée à un état d’éveil des facultés. À l’inverse puisque nous rêvons lorsque nous dormons, nous associons cette activité mentale à un processus inconscient, c’est-à-dire lorsque nos fonctions cognitives sont à l’état de veille. Nous comprenons que dans la tradition philosophique, rêve et conscience ou bien, sommeil et conscience sont opposés voir inconciliables. Les philosophes, précisément depuis Descartes, s’interrogent sur la frontière entre rêve et réalité et plus précisément au phénomène de conscience ré- flexive. Ne gagnerait-on pas à envisager le phénomène du rêve sous un aspect de présence à soi et de conscience ? Nous croyons que le rêve est l’outil de mesure idéal pour comprendre nos différents seuils de conscience.

Mots-clés
Rêve lucide - Conscience - Inconscient - Psychanalyse - Neurosciences - Onirologie


Title
Lucid dreaming, a phenomenon between consciousness and unconsciousness
Philosophical readings of the nineteenth century on the conscious dream (from psychoanalysis to neurophilosophy) 

Abstract
We spontaneously associate consciousness with a mental activity linked to a state of awakening of the faculties. Conversely, since we dream when we sleep, we associate this mental activity with an unconscious process, that is, when our cognitive func- tions are in the waking state. We understand, therefore, that in the philosophical tra- dition, dream and consciousness, or in any case, sleep and consciousness are opposed and irreconcilable. Philosophers, precisely since Descartes, question the border bet- ween dream and reality and more precisely to the phenomenon of reflective consciousness. So, would not one gain to consider the phenomenon of the dream un- der an aspect of presence to oneself and conscience? We believe that the dream is the ideal measuring tool to understand our different thresholds of consciousness.

Keywords
Lucid Dream - Consciousness - Unconscious - Psychoanalysis - Neuroscience - Onirology



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The 2004 film, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, allows Jim Carrey to develop himself in a role unlike what he typically appears to play: enter Joel Barish, the character which the movie opens with, and a voiceover of Joel's voice tells the audience, "Random thoughts for Valentine 's Day, 2004. Today is a holiday invented by greeting card companies to make people feel like crap." This contemptuous and quietly-spoken statement, along with the events of Joel's life the movie reviews over the course of the first two minutes or so, may give one the impression that this protagonist main character, Joel, is a bit reserved and perhaps even cynical, despite his suggested intelligence. Kate Winslet's character, Clementine, appears about three or four minutes into the film, and gives the impression that Clementine is quite free-spirited and impulsive, as deemed by the scene in which Clementine is pouring alcohol into her drink at the café, as well as her admittance that she changes her hair color frequently after speaking to the stranger on the train (Joel) whom she is trying to determine if she has previously met. The film covers the story of Joel and Clementine, who are thought to be "boyfriend-and-girlfriend", and the audience later can believe that what appeared to be their initial meeting, was not actually by chance, and that Clementine and Joel have a history together that neither remembers due to Clementine erasing Joel from her memory, with Joel angrily doing the same after he discovers that Clementine has done just that. "The film shows associations, bridges by which memories are interconnected, still persist even after the deletion of the memories to which they are tied" ). Before I delve too deeply into the other points to address, I shall provide examples and definitions of seven ineffective listening types, and assign certain examples from the film that fall into each category if applicable.

Forthcoming Chapter in "Neurointerventions and the Law" with Oxford University Press ed. Nicole Vincent.
Feedback Appreciated

Abstract: Current legal arguments for gay rights use gay primarily to refer to individuals that have same-sex erotic desires. However, as this chapter argues using a thought experiment based on a neurointervention that would alter the orientation of one’s erotic desires, the term gay should be understood in a broader sense to include a more diverse group of individuals, including some individuals that do not have same-sex erotic desires. For this reason, the current restrictive use of the term gay presumed in legal discourse doesn’t capture the entire gay community that we should want to extend rights to. To rectify this problem with the way that arguments for gay rights are being framed, this chapter suggests that we expand the use of the term gay in legal discourse to encompass a more heterogeneous population than the one picked out by same-sex-attracted individuals, and it explains some of the advantages of doing so.

Shaun Gallagher presents an interesting case for the social extension of mind. I argue that there is one way in which Gallagher can argue for social extension, which is continuous with an enculturated model of cognition, such as cognitive integration. This way requires us to think of the mind as extended by social/cultural practices that are specifically targeted at cognitive tasks. The other way in which Gallagher argues for social extension is that social institutions -such as museums or the law -are literal constituents of our minds. This second way involves a number of problems and objections and is inconsistent with an enculturated or practice based approach. I conclude by urging Gallagher to endorse the first way.

To a significant extent, mainstream Western philosophy is not empirically minded. The neurophilosophy of the Churchlands seems to exhibit the greatest divergence from this orientation by far. Extending and neuralizing Quine’s naturalism, the Churchlands have been known to challenge most assumptions and principles of contemporary mainstream analytic and even existing naturalistic philosophies. Even the philosophers who identify themselves as full-blown naturalists have an inexplicably negative attitude toward the Churchlands. For many philosophers of the mind, the Churchlands’ problem is not that they are philosophically wrong, but that they have no philosophical approach that could be wrong. They are nonphilosophers working at philosophy departments. Proper philosophy is not what they do or think they are doing. In this article, I argue to the contrary. The Churchlands would seem surprisingly moderate, and neither trivial nor near-trivial, when closely scrutinized.

This paper aims to show that the thought of Aristotle can shed much light on the irksomeproblems that lurk around the philosophical foundations of neuroscience. First, we will explorethe ramifications of Aristotle’s mereological principle, namely, that it is not the eye that sees, butthe human person that sees by the eye. Next, we shall draw upon the riches of Maxwell Bennett’sand Peter Hacker’s Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience (=PFN) in order to elucidate howAristotle’s mereological principle can be of service to contemporary neuroscientists, psychologists,and philosophers. In the third and fourth parts we aim to complement the project of PFN byshowing how Aristotle’s philosophical anthropology and doctrine of pros hen equivocation canstrengthen PFN’s response to eliminativists, reductionists, and other critics of “folk psychology.”Finally, our last section will investigate the kinds of correlations involved in brain scanningtechniques, such as fMRI, so as to determine whether the most recent empirical discoveries do infact support various critics’ rejection of “folk psychology.” We will show that the empiricalevidence does not in fact favor eliminativist or reductionist views, and that we would do well toturn to the more Aristotelian approaches to neuroscience adopted by PFN and ourselves.

Wicked Tactics – UX/XD explores and describes strategies for design in a post-virtual world.  Wicked - as in wicked complexity, tactics as actions that cross strategic fields to create stunning solutions and User eXperience / eXperience Design (UX/XD) as a user-driven design methodology assuming humans interface everywhere. As the semantic web parses meaning from the big data of the internet of everything, designers explore affinities between social/philosophical and mathematical/programming expressions to move beyond stylistic parametric expressions to meaningful parametric expressions.

“Every age has its own ideas; it must have also words adapted to those ideas.” –Victor Hugo

We have a disconnect. New technologies have created a new age with its own ideas. Contemporary design terminology must be adapted to those ideas (semantic shift). Ultimately, the goal is to develop a common language - shared by makers of objects, spaces, and means of communication: a language of our contemporary condition. This work takes up the cause to reframe the language and processes of design in order to develop new strategies and to generate novel solutions.
In the post-virtual world, we reside in seamless space where the tactics and strategies for designing human-computer interface are based on human experience. You are likely interfacing with the digital realm right now; thus, a part of your body-based consciousness is concurrently residing in the shared space of the internet. This phenomenon is creating a new human: the Internet of Me (IoMe). Designers of space are expected to provide solutions for the distributed experiences of new humans in post-virtual space. These solutions require building worlds before designing buildings. Architectures must become epigenetic/control spaces satisfying the spatial, functional and experiential needs of a post-virtual society.

Recent research suggests that romantic love may be literally addictive. Although the exact nature of the relationship between love and addiction has been described in inconsistent terms throughout the literature, we offer a framework that distinguishes between a narrow view and a broad view of love addiction. The narrow view counts only the most extreme, harmful forms of love or love-related behaviors as being potentially addictive in nature. The broad view, by contrast, counts even basic social attachment as being on a spectrum of addictive motivations, underwritten by similar neurochemical processes as more conventional addictions. We argue that on either understanding of love-as-addiction, treatment decisions should hinge on considerations of harm and well-being rather than on definitions of disease. Implications for the ethical use of anti-love biotechnology are considered.

Philosophy and Memory Traces defends two theories of autobiographical memory. One is a bewildering historical view of memories as dynamic patterns in fleeting animal spirits, nervous fluids which rummaged through the pores of brain and body. The other is new connectionism, in which memories are ‘stored’ only superpositionally, and are reconstructed rather than reproduced. Both models depart from static archival metaphors by employing distributed representation, which brings interference and confusion between memory traces. Both raise urgent issues about control of the personal past, and about relations between self and body.

The book’s historical argument is anchored by a reinterpretation of Descartes’ dynamic physiology of memory and strange philosophy of the body. English critics of Descartes’ view of memories as motions complained that mechanistic neurophilosophy could not guarantee order in memory, and instead sought techniques for controlling the brain. In a new account of 18th-century philosophers’ fears of confusion in remembering, the author demonstrates the role of bizarre body fluids in moral physiology, as philosophers from Locke to Reid and Coleridge struggled to control their own innards and impose cognitive discipline on ‘the phantasmal chaos of association’. Finally, in a defence of connectionism against Jerry Fodor and against phenomenological and Wittgensteinian critics of passive mental representations, the author shows how problems of the self are implicated in contemporary sciences of mind. The book is an experiment in historical cognitive science, based on a belief that the interdisciplinary study of memory can exemplify the simultaneous attention to brain, body, and culture towards which psychological sciences must aim.

CONTENTS (Download at http://www.johnsutton.net/PhilosophyandMemoryTraces.htm)
1 Introduction: traces, brains, and history
                  Appendix: memory and connectionism

Part I Animal spirits and memory traces
Introduction to Part I: Animal Spirits and Memory Traces
2 Wriggle-work: the quick and nimble animal spirits
3 Memory and 'the Cartesian philosophy of the brain'
                  Appendix 1: nerves, spirits, and traces in Descartes
                  Appendix 2: Malebranche on memory

Part II Inner discipline
Introduction to Part II: Inner Discipline
4 Spirit sciences, memory motions
5 Cognition, chaos, and control in English responses to Descartes' theory of memory
6 Local and distributed representations
7 John Locke and the neurophilosophy of self
                  Appendix: memory and self in Essay II.27
8 The puzzle of survival
9 Spirits, body, and self
10 The puzzle of elimination

Part III 'The phantasmal chaos of association'
Introduction to Part III: 'The phantasmal chaos of association'
11 Fodor, connectionism, and cognitive discipline
12 Associationism and neo-associationism
13 Hartley's distributed model of memory
14 Attacks on neurophilosophy: Reid and Coleridge

Part IV Connectionism and the philosophy of memory
Introduction to Part IV: connectionism and the philosophy of memory
15 Representations, realism, and history
16 Attacks on traces
17 Order, confusion, remembering

References
Index

This thesis considers the notions of consciousness, subjectivity, and the self after the “new materialist” or “ontological” turn in the humanities, which seeks to decenter the human subject from discourse. In bringing Karen Barad’s performative metaphysics into consciousness studies, traditional notions of the self as a sovereign, individuated subject are undone, in favor of a dynamic and agential approach to consciousness. Two theories of the subject are read through Barad’s performative metaphysics: Julia Kristeva’s subject-in-process, and Michael Graziano’s Attention Schema Theory. The diffraction patterns that thus emerge reveal the “self” as a performative process of transiently stabilized agencies, which collapse the essentialist correspondence between the represented, and the real. A qualitative mathematics is proposed, as a way of speculatively modeling the subject of a performative metaphysics, as these agencies are continuously, and iteratively, de- and re-territorialized.

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.

6 Acknowledgements 8 Das Problem des Bewusstseins ist traditionell eine philosophische Fragestellung, die sich darauf bezieht, wie das Gehirn qualitative Zustände hervorbringen kann, die singulär, privat und subjektiv sind. Solche qualitativen Zust¨ande werden als Qualia bezeichnet. Sie werden gemeinhin als ein Problem für neurowissenschaftliche Theorien des Bewusstseins angesehen. Dualistische Philosophen behaupten, Qualia seien nicht auf Gehirnzustände reduzierbar, weil Qualia nichtphysikalische Eigenschaften seien, die im Rahmen bewusster Erfahrungen zustande kämen. Funktionalistische und physikalistische Theorien hingegen halten Bewusstsein für eine Leistung des Gehirns. Dualisten kritisieren Funktionalismus und Physikalismus, indem sie darauf hinweisen, dass in deren Erklärungen die Qualia nicht vorkommen. Egal wie vollständig eine physikalistische und funktionalistische Erklärung ist da sie in der Dritte-Person-Perspektive verfasst ist, werde sie niemals qualitative Zustände erfassen können. Bis vor Kurzem wurde die Bewusstseinsdebatte durch diesen Kritikpunkt blockiert. Neue Erkenntnisse aus den kognitiven Neurowissenschaften deuten jedoch darauf hin, dass Bewusstsein ein Resultat mehrerer miteinander verschränkter Gehirnmechanismen ist. Genauer gesagt werden bewusste Ereignisse von Verbänden neuronaler Netzwerke hervorgebracht, die sich hauptsächlich in der Gehirnrinde benden. Entgegen dualistischen wie physikalistischen/funktionalistischen Theorien argumentiert dieser Text für die neurophilosophische Hypothese, dass Qualia auf der Neurobiologie sensorischer Systeme basieren. Bewusstsein ist vor allem ein neurobiologisches Phänomen, ein Produkt evolutionärer Prozesse. Daher muss die Erforschung von Bewusstsein und Qualia diesen biologischen Status berücksichtigen. Die zentrale Hypothese dieser Dissertation fuÿt auf mechanistischen neurobiologischen Erklärungen. Weder der Dualismus noch das physikalistische/funktionalistische Programm nehmen den neurobiologischen Bedingtheit des Bewusstseins zur Kenntnis. Die (hier vertretene) Diagnose ist, dass die traditionellen philosophischen Werkzeuge sich mit dem Lösen erkenntnistheoretischer Probleme erschöpfen. Deswegen nehme ich eine neue Perspektive ein, nämlich die der Neurophilosophie, d.h. der Verschmelzung von Neurowissenschaften und Philosophie. Die sich aus dieser neuen Perspektive ergebende Schlussfolgerung ist, dass Qualia sensorische Qualitäten sind, die jedes bewusste Ereignis begleiten. Qualia sind neurobiologische Phänomene, die phänomenologisch auf der Ebene des Bewusstseins erfahren werden. Drei zentrale Makromechanismen sind verantwortlich und notwendig für die Entstehung von Qualia: (1) sensorische Modalitäten, die zwischen Organismen und ihrer Umwelt vermitteln; (2) der globale neuronale Arbeitsbereich (Global Neuronal Workspace) zusammen mit Aufmerksamkeitsprozessen (ein Bewusstseinsraum im Gehirn, der von mehreren miteinander verschränkten neuronalen Netzwerken erzeugt wird); und (3) Erinnerungen auswertende Prozesse (Gedächtnis-und Wertungsprozesse), die den Sinnesinformationen spezische und singuläre Qualitäten aufprägen. Die Emergenz von Qualia auf der Basis dieser drei Makromechanismen nenne ich dreifache Modulation . Die Instanziierung von Qualia verdankt sich der Verbindung und Integration dieser neurobiologischen Mechanismen. Ohne sie wäre es unmöglich, Qualia zu erleben. Die Hypothese der Dreifacher Modulation wird von verschiedenen neurowissenschaftlichen Befunden gestützt und kann empirisch überprüft werden. Eine Schlussbemerkung besagt, dass die Mechanismen, die an der Erzeugung von Qualia beteiligt sind, das Produkt evolutionärer Prozesse sind und Organismen dazu befähigen, relevante Informationen aus ihrer unmittelbaren Umgebung aufzunehmen. Bewusstsein ist mit Qualia verbunden, weil bei jeder bewussten Erfahrung spezische Qualitäten präsent sind. Qualia sind keine besonderen Eigenschaften oder nichtphysikalischen Aspekte des Gehirns, sondern eine evolutionäre Reaktion auf Umweltzwänge, d.h. neurobiologische Mechanismen zum Erkennen von Veränderungen in der inneren und der äuÿeren Umwelt.

In order to find a convincing position in the ‘free will’ debate, two sorts of determinism are distinguished. The merits of encompassing determinism, which is determinism as it is usually understood, and individual determinism, which focuses on the agent, are brought to the fore. The existence of encompassing determinism cannot conclusively be proven, but it may be demonstrated, on the basis of individual determinism, that actions come about in a determined way, leaving no room for ‘free will’. In order to facilitate the discussion, recent scientific developments in such diverse fields as, e.g., quantum mechanics and neuropsychology are incorporated. Balancing the arguments, I aspire to a consistent and nuanced viewpoint, not eschewing divergent conclusions.

The concept of form is to be found on the border between internal and external between mind and body. It is also, within the contemporary cultural context, crucial in the philosophical interpretation of neurosciences. The contribution examines the relation between the biological and the mental signification of ‘form’ on the basis of the ancient paradox of the homunculus in order to deepen a phenomenological reflection on the meaning of the anthropomorphical representation of the mind

Empirically informed accounts of the origin of selfhood tend to subscribe to one or the other of two competing schools of thought: (1) social constructionism about the self or (2) individualistic theories that locate the origin of the self in the cognitive system of the individual organism. According to social constructionism, it is only by the acquisition of socially instituted responses (specifically, of language) that the individual constructs a self. Thus, G. H. Mead holds that social processes are a necessary condition for the ability to recognize oneself as an object (self-objectification), and for an integrated sense of self to emerge.
I shall oppose such purely social constructionist accounts of the self with a neuro-cognitive theory of selfhood. Drawing on work by neuroscientists and neurophilosophers (A. Damasio, P. S. Churchland), I shall argue that the self is at least in part constituted pre-socially, at the level of the individual, by the self-representational capacities of the mammalian brain. The integration of the self and the capacity for self-objectification will be shown to have a neurobiological origin. This account will be defended against objections that neuro-cognitive theories of selfhood are empirically false or explanatorily poor.
But while neuro-cognitive theories of the self deny that the self is purely social in origin, this does not entail that the self is not shaped by our social interactions. Evidence from both developmental psychology and neuroscience (Decety & Chaminade) suggests that social interactions do play a role in the shaping of the self in human development. It will be proposed, therefore, that a ‘multi-dimensional account’ (D. Zahavi) of the self should include both neurobiological and social factors, without however imperilling the priority of the neurobiology of selfhood over its social psychology.

This seminar was portrayed both by title and in the syllabus as an intellectual examination of three distinct research approaches to the understanding of human experience in various contexts. These approaches — phenomonology, hermeneutics, and heuristics — incorporate techniques that in varying degree are generally lumped together under the umbrella of qualitative research. The syllabus describes the seminar as examining the distinction between “hermeneutic phenomenology” and “structural phenomenology,” drawing from the works of Gadamer and Ricoeur and required readings by Giorgi, Moustakas, Patton and Van Manen, stressing what is referred to as “descriptive methodologies” within the larger context of qualitative research and in the dialog within the philosophy of science. I will argue however, that the both the definitions of the distinct approaches and the techniques and methodologies applied thereto, as presented in this seminar, fundamentally misrepresent both the theorectical premises and the practice of the respective research paradigms.

ΕΓΚΕΦΑΛΟΣ 54, 30-40, 2017 «…καί όσα γε ψυχήν έχει... πάντων νους κρατεί» Αναξαγόρας (DΚ Β12.12) Περίληψις Εν μέσω των προσωκρατικών φιλοσόφων, ιδιαιτέ-ρως εντυπωσιάζει η πρωτοποριακή σκέψις του Αναξα-γόρου, ο οποίος χρησιμοποιών ισχυρόν, συμπαγή και σύγχρονον επιστημονικόν λόγον συνδέει την φιλοσο-φίαν με τας φυσικάς επιστήμας, την μεταφυσικήν και τον άνθρωπον, αναγνωρίζει την υφισταμένην σχέσιν μεταξύ ύλης και ενεργείας, αναφέρεται εις την σύνθεσιν και διά-σπασιν της ύλης και κυρίως θέτει υπερ άνω όλων των στοιχείων τον Νουν, ως πρωταρχικήν, άχρονον, άναρ-χον, αΐδιον και αυτουσίαν δημιουργικήν υπόστασιν, ενεργοποιούσαν και εποπτεύουσαν τα πάντα. Αι ιδιότη-τες του Νου, όπως περιγράφονται υπό του Αναξαγόρου, υπερέχουν των μετρητών διαστάσεων του χρόνου και του χώρου και όλων των γνωστών δυνατοτήτων ετέρων υποστάσεων.Ο Αναξαγόρας επίστευεν εις την άνευ τέ-λους δυνατότητα διαιρέσεως της ύλης, η οποία δύναται διηνεκώς να ελαχιστοποιήται, καταλήγουσα εις αόρατα στοιχεία, τα οποία δύνανται να συνεχίσουν διαιρούμενα διηνεκώς, χωρίς να καταλήξουν εις το απολύτως ελάχι-στον.Τα πάντα υπάρχουν κατά τον Αναξαγόραν εκ προ-ϋπαρχόντων απείρων ομοιομερών στοιχείων, τα οποία πολυμόρφως μεταβαλλόμενα και δυναμικώς διαιρού-μενα, ουδέποτε οδηγούνται εις την ανυπαρξίαν. Η κίνη-σις, ως αναπόσπαστον στοιχείον της μεταβλητότητος της ύλης κατά τον Αναξαγόραν, αποτελεί τον παράγοντα μεταβάσεως εκ της υλικής υποστάσεως εις την ενεργει-ακήν έκφρασιν.Αι κοσμολογικαί απόψεις του Αναξαγό-ρου προηγούντο κατά πολλούς αιώνας της εποχής του. Προ της δημιουργίας του σύμπαντος υπό του Νου δεν υπήρχεν ο χωροχρόνος και τα πάντα ευρίσκοντο αδια-φοροποίητα εις χαώδη κατάστασιν, μέχρι της κινητοποι-ήσεως αυτών υπό του Νου και της εντάξεων αυτών εις συνεχή στροφικήν περιέλιξιν υπό μορφήν δίνης (περι-* Ομότιμος Καθηγητής Νευρολογίας ΑΠΘ, Ινστιτούτον Ερεύνης διά την νόσον του Alzheimer χώρησιν), κατά την οποίαν επείρχοντο συντήξεις και αποσπάσεις των υλικών στοιχείων προς σχηματισμόν ορατών υλικών μαζών. Αι απόψεις του Αναξαγόρου, συνδυάζουσαι την θεωρητικήν ενατένισιν με τον πραγ-ματισμόν, τροφοδοτούν συνεχώς την επιστημονικήν σκέψιν και την φιλοσοφίαν, διανοίγουσαι, συγχρόνως, νέα πεδία ερεύνης εις τον ευρύ χώρον των νευροεπι-στημών. Λέξεις κλείδες: Αναξαγόρας, νους, φιλοσοφία, κοσμο-γονία, νευροεπιστήμαι Εισαγωγή Θεμελιώδες πρωτοποριακόν βήμα εις τον χώρον της φιλοσοφίας και των νευροεπιστημών υπήρξεν τον 5ον π.Χ αιώνα η θεωρία του Αναξαγόρου επί του απείρου, αυτοδυνάμου, αυτοτελούς και αυτεξουσίου Νου, ο οποίος ως υπερτάτη δύναμις κυριαρχεί,κατευθύνει και θέτει εις την αρμόζουσαν τάξιν τα πάντα, ενώ εκ παραλ-λήλου αι κοσμολογικαί 1 και αι επί της ύλης απόψεις του, αξιολογούμεναι σήμερον, καθίσταται διαυγώς αντιλη-πτόν, ότι προσεγγίζουν κατά τρόπον άμεσον τας συγ-χρόνους αντιλήψεις της Φυσικής Επιστήμης 2. Αι διατυθωθείσαι απόψεις του Αναξαγόρου επί του Νου, εκφράζουν κατά τρόπον εύγλωττον και σαφή την αιωνίαν αγωνίαν του ανθρώπου διά την αναζήτησιν της αληθείας επί της δημιουργίας του σύμπαντος και του πε-ριβάλλοντος αισθητού κόσμου, την αγωνίαν του διά την ύπαρξιν υπεραισθητού κόσμου,την ανίχνευσιν της οδού, η οποία συνδέει το αισθητόν μετά του υπεραισθητού και κυρίως την αγωνίαν του διά την ουσιαστικήν γνώσιν του εαυτού του και την συνειδητήν θέσιν αυτού εντός του κόσμου.

Ever since the rise of modern neuroscience, there has been a controversial discussion about its potential influence on topics that were traditionally seen as part of the domain of social sciences and humanities. At present, the formation of a large number of neuro-hyphenated disciplines such as neuro-theology, neuro-psychoanalysis, or neuro-economics shows the appeal of applying neuroscientific methods to traditional scientific fields. In philosophy, two distinct ways of dealing with the problems and prospects of neuroscience have been developed: While the philosophy of neuroscience tries to apply methods and classical approaches from the philosophy of science to neuroscience, so-called neurophilosophy takes a 2 different approach by applying neuroscientific findings to classical philosophical issues. I evaluate the premises and chances of both approaches by discussing their methods, theoretical assumptions, and explanatory aims. Finally, I will look into neurophilosophy´s claim to integrate neuroscientific findings into philosophical theory by analyzing the relation between memory and personal identity.