Branches of Philosophy Podcast

Ai generated & human edited. Introduction and summary of "The Paradox of Self-consciousness" By Jose Luis Bermudez 1998In this book, Jos Luis Berm dez addesses two fundamental problems in the philosophy and psychology of self-consciousness: (1) Can we provide a noncircular account of fully fledged self-conscious thought and language in terms of more fundamental capacities? (2) Can we explain how fully fledged self-conscious thought and language can arise in the normal course of human development? Berm dez argues that a paradox (the paradox of self-consciousness) arises from the apparent strict interdependence between self-conscious thought and linguistic self-reference. The paradox renders circular all theories that define self-consciousness in terms of linguistic mastery of the first-person pronoun. It seems to follow from the paradox of self-consciousness that no such account or explanation can be given.Drawing on recent work in empirical psychology and philosophy, the author argues that any explanation of fully fledged self-consciousness that answers these two questions requires attention to primitive forms of self-consciousness that are prelinguistic and preconceptual. Such primitive forms of self-consciousness are to be found in somatic proprioception, the structure of exteroceptive perception, and prelinguistic forms of social interaction. The author uses these primitive forms of self-consciousness to dissolve the paradox of self-consciousness and to show how the two questions can be given an affirmative answer.

Ai generated & human edited. Introduction and summary of "The puzzle of Experience” By J. J. Valberg 1992If we reason in a certain way about our experience, we are driven to the conclusion that what is present to us - the object of our experience - is something that exists only in so far as it is present, hence that it is not part of the world. If, on the other hand, we simply open up to our experience, all we find is the world. This book sets out both to explain why we are entangled in this puzzle and to consider ways of solving it. In examining the puzzle, and possible solutions to the puzzle, Dr Valberg discusses relevant views of Hume, Kant, Heidegger, Wittgenstein, and Strawson, as well as ideas from the recent philosophy of perception. Finally, he describes and analyses a manifestation of the puzzle outside philosophy, in everyday life. Scholars and students of philosophy will find much to challenge and stimulate them in this original and clearly argued work.

Ai generated & human edited. Introduction and summary of "The Spread Mind: Why Consciousness and the World Are One" By Riccardo Manzotti 2021Once we came out of the jungle and found time to think of something besides food, sex, and shelter, we confronted the fundamental questions: what are we? Who are we? Is a person a body, a soul? How do we access the external world if we are nothing but brains encased in bodies?As neuroscientists map the most detailed aspects of the human brain and its interplay with the rest of the body, they remain baffled by what is essentially human: our selves. In most of the existing scientific literature, information processing has taken the place of the soul. Yet thus far, no convincing account has been presented of exactly where and how consciousness is stored in our bodies.In The Spread Mind, Riccardo Manzotti convincingly argues that our bodies do not contain subjective experience. Yet consciousness is real, and, like any other real phenomenon, is physical. Where is it, then? Manzotti's radical hypothesis is that consciousness is one and the same as the physical world surrounding us.Drawing on Einstein's theories of relativity, evidence about dreams and hallucination, and the geometry of light in perception, and using vivid, real-world examples to illustrate his ideas, Manzotti argues that consciousness is not a ''movie in the head.'' Experience is not in our head: it is the actual world we move in.

Ai generated & human edited. Introduction and summary of "If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies: Why Superhuman AI Would Kill Us All" By Eliezer Yudkowsky, Nate Soares 2025In 2023, hundreds of AI luminaries signed an open letter warning that artificial intelligence poses a serious risk of human extinction. Since then, the AI race has only intensified. Companies and countries are rushing to build machines that will be smarter than any person. And the world is devastatingly unprepared for what would come next. For decades, two signatories of that letter—Eliezer Yudkowsky and Nate Soares—have studied how smarter-than-human intelligences will think, behave, and pursue their objectives. Their research says that sufficiently smart AIs will develop goals of their own that put them in conflict with us—and that if it comes to conflict, an artificial superintelligence would crush us. The contest wouldn’t even be close. How could a machine superintelligence wipe out our entire species? Why would it want to? Would it want anything at all? In this urgent book, Yudkowsky and Soares walk through the theory and the evidence, present one possible extinction scenario, and explain what it would take for humanity to survive. The world is racing to build something truly new under the sun. And if anyone builds it, everyone dies.

Ai generated & human edited. Introduction and summary of "Self-knowledge for Humans" By Quassim Cassam 2014Human beings are not model epistemic citizens. Our reasoning can be careless and uncritical, and our beliefs, desires, and other attitudes aren't always as they ought rationally to be. Our beliefs can be eccentric, our desires irrational and our hopes hopelessly unrealistic. Our attitudes are influenced by a wide range of non-epistemic or non-rational factors, including our character, our emotions and powerful unconscious biases. Yet we are rarely conscious of such influences. Self-ignorance is not something to which human beings are immune.In this book Quassim Cassam develops an account of self-knowledge which tries to do justice to these and other respects in which humans aren't model epistemic citizens. He rejects rationalist and other mainstream philosophical accounts of self-knowledge on the grounds that, in more than one sense, they aren't accounts of self-knowledge for humans. Instead he defends the view that inferences from behavioural and psychological evidence are a basic source of human self-knowledge. On this account, self-knowledge is a genuine cognitive achievement and self-ignorance is almost always on the cards.As well as explaining knowledge of our own states of mind, Cassam also accounts for what he calls 'substantial' self-knowledge, including knowledge of our values, emotions, and character. He criticizes philosophical accounts of self-knowledge for neglecting substantial self-knowledge, and concludes with a discussion of the value of self-knowledge.This book tries to do for philosophy what behavioural economics tries to do for economics. Just as behavioural economics is the economics of homo sapiens, as distinct from the economics of an ideally rational and self homo economics, so Cassam argues that philosophy should focus on the human predicament rather on the reasoning and self-knowledge of an idealized homo philosophicus.

Ai generated & human edited. Introduction and summary of "Mothers and Others: The Evolutionary Origins of Mutual Understanding"By Sarah Blaffer Hrdy 2009Somewhere in Africa, more than a million years ago, a line of apes began to rear their young differently than their Great Ape ancestors. From this new form of care came new ways of engaging and understanding each other. How such singular human capacities evolved, and how they have kept us alive for thousands of generations, is the mystery revealed in this bold and wide-ranging new vision of human emotional evolution.Mothers and Others finds the key in the primatologically unique length of human childhood. If the young were to survive in a world of scarce food, they needed to be cared for, not only by their mothers but also by siblings, aunts, fathers, friends—and, with any luck, grandmothers. Out of this complicated and contingent form of childrearing, Sarah Hrdy argues, came the human capacity for understanding others. Mothers and others teach us who will care, and who will not.From its opening vision of “apes on a plane”; to descriptions of baby care among marmosets, chimpanzees, wolves, and lions; to explanations about why men in hunter-gatherer societies hunt together, Mothers and Others is compellingly readable. But it is also an intricately knit argument that ever since the Pleistocene, it has taken a village to raise children—and how that gave our ancient ancestors the first push on the path toward becoming emotionally modern human beings.

Ai generated & human edited. Introduction and summary of "The Phenomenal Basis of Intentionality" By Angela A. Mendelovici 2018Intentionality is the mind's ability to be "of," "about," or "directed" at things, or to "say" something. For example, a thought might "say" that grass is green or that Santa Claus is jolly, and a visual experience might be "of" a blue cup. While the existence of the phenomenon of intentionality is manifestly obvious, how exactly the mind gets to be "directed" at things, which may not even exist, is deeply mysterious and controversial.It has been long assumed that the best way to explain intentionality is in terms of tracking relations, information, functional roles, and similar notions. This book breaks from this tradition, arguing that the only empirically adequate and in principle viable theory of intentionality is one in terms of phenomenal consciousness, the felt, subjective, or qualitative feature of mental life. According to the theory advanced by Mendelovici, the phenomenal intentionality theory, there is a central kind of intentionality, phenomenal intentionality, that arises from phenomenal consciousness alone, and any other kind of intentionality derives from it.The phenomenal intentionality theory faces important challenges in accounting for the rich and sophisticated contents of thoughts, broad and object-involving contents, and nonconscious states. Mendelovici proposes a novel and particularly strong version of the theory that can meet these challenges. The end result is a radically internalistic picture of the mind, on which all phenomenally represented contents are literally in our heads, and any non-phenomenal contents we in some sense represent are expressly singled out by us.

Ai generated & human edited. Introduction and summary of "Materialist Phenomenology: A Philosophy of Perception" By Manuel DeLanda 2021Bringing together phenomenology and materialism, two perspectives seemingly at odds with each other, leading international theorist, Manuel DeLanda, has created an entirely new theory of visual perception. Engaging the scientific (biology, ecological psychology, neuroscience and robotics), the philosophical (idea of 'the embodied mind') and the mathematical (dynamic systems theory) to form a synthesis of how to see in the 21st century. An interdisciplinary and rigorous analysis of how vision shapes what matters.

Ai generated & human edited. Introduction and summary of "A Theory of Sentience" By Austen Clark 2000'A Theory of Sentience is as valuable for the questions it opens up as for the positive theory it puts forward. Austen Clark has brought to our attention a way of thinking about the details of sensory experience which opens up possibilities for fruitful interaction between philosophy, pscychophysics and the neurosciences. It is refreshing to read an exploration of sensory experience which fixes the terrain of investigation firmly within the actual world and which works hard to define tractable problems based around the basic, but often neglected, truth that sensory experience is sensory experience of a three-dimensional environment.' -Mind'There is much of interest to cognitive scientists working on the intentionality of sensation.' -Barbara Montero, Times Literary SupplementAusten Clark presents a ground-breaking philosophical theory of sentience, drawing on and illuminating an abundance of scientific work on this subject. Sensation is one of the fundamental elements of consciousness, but has generally been assigned a lowly place in the mental hierarchy; Clark's rich, lucid, and original study restores it to its due prominence. A Theory of Sentience will be compelling reading for all who work on the interaction of mind and world.

Ai generated & human edited. Introduction and summary of "Becoming Human: From Pointing Gestures to Syntax" By Teresa Bejarano 2011What do the pointing gesture, the imitation of new complex motor patterns, the evocation of absent objects and the grasping of others’ false beliefs all have in common? Apart from being (one way or other) involved in the language, they all would share a demanding requirement – a second mental centre within the subject. This redefinition of the simulationism is extended in the present book in two directions. Firstly, mirror-neurons and, likewise, animal abilities connected with the visual field of their fellows, although they certainly constitute important landmarks, would not require this second mental centre. Secondly, others’ beliefs would have given rise not only to predicative communicative function but also to pre-grammatical syntax. The inquiry about the evolutionary-historic origin of language focuses on the cognitive requirements on it as a faculty (but not to the indirect causes such as environmental changes or greater co-operation), pays attention to children, and covers other human peculiarities as well, e.g., symbolic play, protodeclaratives, self-conscious emotions, and interactional or four-hand tasks.

Ai generated & human edited. Introduction and summary of "The Enigma of Reason: A New Theory of Human Understanding" By Dan Sperber & Hugo Mercier 2017Reason, we are told, is what makes us human, the source of our knowledge and wisdom. But, if reason is so useful, why didn't it also evolve in other animals? If it is that reliable, why do we produce so much thoroughly reasoned nonsense?In their ground-breaking account of the evolution and workings of reason, Hugo Mercier and Dan Sperber set out to solve this double enigma, taking us on a journey from desert ants to modern scientists, and from Aristotle to Daniel Kahneman. Reason, they argue with a compelling mix of real-life and experimental evidence, is not geared to solitary use, to arriving at better beliefs and decisions on our own. What reason does, rather, is help us justify our beliefs and actions to others, convince them through argumentation, and evaluate the justifications and arguments that they address to us.In other words, reason has evolved to help humans better exploit their uniquely rich social environment. This illuminating interpretation of reason makes sense of strengths and weaknesses that have long puzzled philosophers and psychologists - why reason is biased in favour of what we already believe, why it may lead to terrible ideas and yet is indispensable to spreading good ones. Ambitious, provocative, and entertaining, The Enigma of Reason will spark debate among psychologists and philosophers, and make many reasonable people rethink their own thinking.

Ai generated & human edited. Introduction and summary of "Phenomenal Consciousness: A Naturalistic Theory" By Peter Carruthers 2000How can phenomenal consciousness exist as an integral part of a physical universe? How can the technicolour phenomenology of our inner lives be created out of the complex neural activities of our brains? Many have despaired of finding answers to these questions; and many have claimed that human consciousness is inherently mysterious. Peter Carruthers argues, on the contrary, that the subjective feel of our experience is fully explicable in naturalistic (scientifically acceptable) terms. Drawing on a variety of interdisciplinary resources, he develops and defends a novel account in terms of higher-order thought. He shows that this can explain away some of the more extravagant claims made about phenomenal consciousness, while substantively explaining the key subjectivity of our experience. Written with characteristic clarity and directness, and surveying a wide range of extant theories, this book is essential reading for all those within philosophy and psychology interested in the problem of consciousness.

Ai generated & human edited. Introduction and summary of "Wittgenstein's Poker" By David Edmonds & John Eidinow 2001On 25 October 1946, in a crowded room in Cambridge, Ludwig Wittgenstein and Karl Popper came face to face for the first and only time. The encounter lasted only ten minutes, and did not go well. Almost immediately, rumours started to spread around the world that the two philosophers had come to blows, armed with red-hot pokers...

Ai generated & human edited. Introduction and summary of "The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences" By Michel Foucault 1966When one defines "order" as a sorting of priorities, it becomes beautifully clear as to what Foucault is doing here. With virtuoso showmanship, he weaves an intensely complex history of thought. He dips into literature, art, economics and even biology in The Order of Things, possibly one of the most significant, yet most overlooked, works of the twentieth century. Eclipsed by his later work on power and discourse, nonetheless it was The Order of Things that established Foucault's reputation as an intellectual giant. Pirouetting around the outer edge of language, Foucault unsettles the surface of literary writing. In describing the limitations of our usual taxonomies, he opens the door onto a whole new system of thought, one ripe with what he calls "exotic charm". Intellectual pyrotechnics from the master of critical thinking, this book is crucial reading for those who wish to gain insight into that odd beast called Postmodernism, and a must for any fan of Foucault.

Ai generated & human edited. Introduction and summary of "The Phenomenological Mind" By Shaun Gallagher & Dan Zahavi 2008The Phenomenological Mind, Third Edition introduces fundamental questions about the mind from the perspective of phenomenology. One of the outstanding books in the field, now translated into eight languages, this highly regarded exploration of phenomenology from a topic-driven standpoint examines the following key questions and issues:What is phenomenology? phenomenology and the cognitive sciences consciousness and self-consciousness time and consciousness intentionality and perception the embodied mind action knowledge of other minds situated and extended minds phenomenology and personal identity.This third edition has been revised and updated throughout. The chapter on phenomenological methodologies has been significantly expanded to cover qualitative research, and there are new sections discussing important, recent research on topics such as critical phenomenology, imagination, social cognition, race and gender, collective intentionality, and selfhood.Also included are helpful features, such as chapter summaries, guides to further reading, and boxed explanations of specialized topics, making The Phenomenological Mind, Third Edition an ideal introduction to key concepts in phenomenology, cognitive science, and philosophy of mind.0:00 Introduction0:54 Historical Intellectual Landscape2:30 Phenomenology's Distinct Approach3:54 Challenges in Studying Consciousness6:04 Integrating Phenomenology & Science10:23 Intentionality11:54 Consciousness & Self-Consciousness14:04 Temporal Consciousness16:07 Perception18:05 Embodiment & Action21:05 Social Cognition23:10 The Self

Ai generated & human edited. Introduction and summary of "The Intercorporeal Self: Merleau-Ponty on Subjectivity" By Scott L. Marratto 2012Challenging a prevalent Western idea of the self as a discrete, interior consciousness, Scott L. Marratto argues instead that subjectivity is a characteristic of the living, expressive movement establishing a dynamic intertwining between a sentient body and its environment. He draws on the work of the French philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty, contemporary European philosophy, and research in cognitive science and development to offer a compelling investigation into what it means to be a self.

Ai generated & human edited. Introduction and summary of "Mind: Your Consciousness is What and Where?" By Ted Honderich 2017What is mind? Still harder, what is consciousness? In this radical new book, eminent philosopher Ted Honderich tackles this great mystery in philosophy, psychology, neuroscience—and the rest of life. He proposes to replace all competing theories of consciousness with actualism that rests on data you share yourself.Unlike other theories, actualism differentiates among the three sides of consciousness—consciousness that is seeing, consciousness that is thinking, and consciousness that is wanting. Consciousness in seeing is not an image or picture in your head, but the existence out there of a real but subjective thing, dependent on both the objective physical world out there and on you as a person. In its attention to the concrete, actualism is becoming increasingly popular among philosophers, psychologists, and neuroscientists who had previously declared an urgent need for a new theory.Honderich’s readable, understandable, and unpretentious writing lays out these bold concepts and complex thoughts with clarity and verve. He reinvents our understanding of ourselves, our consciousness, and our mind.

Ai generated & human edited. Introduction and summary of "Who's in Charge? Free Will and the Science of the Brain" By Michael Gazzaniga 2011The prevailing orthodoxy in brain science is that since physical laws govern our physical brains, physical laws therefore govern our behaviour and even our conscious selves. Free will is meaningless, goes the mantra; we live in a 'determined' world.Not so, argues the renowned neuroscientist Michael S. Gazzaniga as he explains how the mind, 'constrains' the brain just as cars are constrained by the traffic they create. Writing with what Steven Pinker has called 'his trademark wit and lack of pretension,' Gazzaniga ranges across neuroscience, psychology and ethics to show how incorrect it is to blame our brains for our behaviour. Even given the latest insights into the physical mechanisms of the mind, he explains, we are responsible agents who should be held accountable for our actions, because responsibility is found in how people interact, not in brains.An extraordinary book, combining a light touch with profound implications, Who's in Charge? is a lasting contribution from one of the leading thinkers of our time.

Ai generated & human edited. Introduction and summary of "Herald of a Restless World: How Henri Bergson Brought Philosophy to the People" By Emily Herring 2024The first English-language biography of Henri Bergson, the philosopher who defined individual creativity and transformed twentieth century thought.At the dawn of the twentieth century, Henri Bergson became the most famous philosopher on earth. Where prior thinkers sketched out a predictable universe, he asserted the transformative power of consciousness and creativity. An international celebrity, he made headlines around the world debating luminaries like Bertrand Russell and Albert Einstein about free will and time. The vision of creative evolution and freedom he presented was so disruptive that the New York Times branded him "the most dangerous man in the world."In the first English-language biography of Bergson, Emily Herring traces how his celebration of the time-bending uniqueness of individual experience struck a chord with those shaken by modern technological and social change. Bergson captivated a society in flux like no other. Long after he faded from public view, his insights into memory, time, joy and creativity continue to shape our perceptions to this day. Herald of a Restless World is an electrifying portrait of a singular intellect.

Ai generated & human edited. Introduction and summary of "Apperception and Self-Consciousness in Kant and German Idealism" By Dennis Schulting 2020"In Apperception and Self-Consciousness in Kant and German Idealism, Dennis Schulting examines the themes of reflexivity, self-consciousness, representation and apperception in the philosophy of Immanuel Kant and German Idealism more widely. Central to Schulting's argument is the claim that all of human experience is irreversibly self-referential and that this is part of a self-reflexivity, or what philosophers call transcendental apperception, a Kantian insight that was first apparent in the work of Christian Wolff and came to inform all of German Idealism. In a rigorous text suitable for students of German philosophy and upper-level students on metaphysics, epistemology, moral and political philosophy, and aesthetics courses, the author establishes the historical roots of Kant's thought and traces it through to his immediate successors Karl Leonhard Reinhold, Johann Gottlieb Fichte and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. He specifically examines the cognitive role of self-consciousness and its relation to idealism and places it in a clear and coherent history of rationalist philosophy"--

Ai generated & human edited. Introduction and summary of :The Great Guide:What David Hume Can Teach Us about Being Human and Living Well"By Julian Baggini 2021Invaluable wisdom on living a good life from one of the Enlightenment's greatest philosophersDavid Hume (1711–1776) is perhaps best known for his ideas about cause and effect and his criticisms of religion, but he is rarely thought of as a philosopher with practical wisdom to offer. Yet Hume's philosophy is grounded in an honest assessment of nature—human nature in particular. The Great Guide is an engaging and eye-opening account of how Hume's thought should serve as the basis for a complete approach to life.In this enthralling book, Julian Baggini masterfully interweaves biography with intellectual history and philosophy to give us a complete vision of Hume's guide to life. He follows Hume on his life's journey, literally walking in the great philosopher's footsteps as Baggini takes readers to the places that inspired Hume the most, from his family estate near the Scottish border to Paris, where, as an older man, he was warmly embraced by French society. Baggini shows how Hume put his philosophy into practice in a life that blended reason and passion, study and leisure, and relaxation and enjoyment.The Great Guide includes 145 Humean maxims for living well, on topics ranging from the meaning of success and the value of travel to friendship, facing death, identity, and the importance of leisure. This book shows how life is far richer with Hume as your guide.

Ai generated & human edited. Introduction and summary of "John McDowell on Worldly Subjectivity: Oxford Kantianism Meets Phenomenology and Cognitive Sciences" By Tony Cheng 2022John McDowell’s philosophical ideas are both influential and comprehensive, encompassing philosophy of mind, philosophy of language, epistemology, ethics, metaphysics and the history of philosophy. This book is a much-needed systematic overview of McDowell’s thought that offers a clear and accessible route through the main elements of his philosophy. Arguing that the world and minded human subject are constitutively interdependent, the book examines and critically engages with McDowell’s views on naturalism of second nature, the inner space model, intentionality, personhood and practical wisdom. The book presents novel discussions on the debates between McDowell and other key philosophers, including Hubert Dreyfus, Robert Brandom, Hans-Georg Gadamer, Donald Davidson, Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Immanuel Kant, amongst others. Demonstrating a thorough understanding of McDowell’s work, Tony Cheng makes connections to both the phenomenological tradition and cognitive sciences to show the wider relevance of McDowell’s philosophy. In doing so, he sheds light on how influential McDowell’s thought is to the analytic tradition.

Ai generated & human edited. Introduction and summary of "Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics" By Martin Heidegger 1929/1997Since its original publication in 1929, Martin Heidegger's provocative book on Kant's Critique of Pure Reason has attracted much attention both as an important contribution to twentieth-century Kant scholarship and as a pivotal work in Heidegger's own development after Being and Time. This fifth, enlarged edition includes marginal notations made by Heidegger in his personal copy of the book and four new appendices―Heidegger's postpublication notes on the book, his review of Ernst Cassirer's Philosophy of Symbolic Forms, Heidegger's response to reviews by rudolf Odebrecht and Cassirer, and an essay "On the History of the Philosophical Chair since 1866." The work is significant not only for its illuminating assessment of Kant's thought but also for its elaboration of themes first broached in Being and Time, especially the problem of how Heidegger proposed to enact his destruction of the metaphysical tradition and the role that his reading of Kant would play therein.

Ai generated & human edited. Introduction and summary of "Ideas: General Introduction to Pure Phenomenology" By Edmund Husserl 1931/2012Widely regarded as the principal founder of phenomenology, one of the most important movements in twentieth century philosophy, Edmund Husserl’s Ideas is one of his most important works and a classic of twentieth century thought. This Routledge Classics edition of the original translation by W.R. Boyce Gibson includes the introduction to the English edition written by Husserl himself in 1931.Husserl’s early thought conceived of phenomenology – the general study of what appears to conscious experience – in a relatively narrow way, mainly in relation to problems in logic and the theory of knowledge. The publication of Ideas in 1913 witnessed a significant and controversial widening of Husserl’s thought, changing the course of phenomenology decisively. Husserl argued that phenomenology was the study of the very nature of what it is to think, "the science of the essence of consciousness" itself.Husserl’s arguments ignited a heated debate regarding the nature of consciousness and experience that has endured throughout the twentieth and continues in the present day. No understanding of twentieth century philosophy is complete without some understanding of Husserl, and his work influenced some of the great philosophers of the twentieth century, such as Martin Heidegger and Jean-Paul Sartre.

Ai generated & human edited. Introduction and summary of "Galileo's Error: Foundations for a New Science of Consciousness" By Philip Goff 2019 From a leading philosopher of mind comes this lucid, provocative argument that offers a radically new picture of human consciousness—panpsychism.Understanding how brains produce consciousness is one of the great scientific challenges of our age. Some philosophers argue that consciousness is something “extra,” beyond the physical workings of the brain. Others think that if we persist in our standard scientific methods, our questions about consciousness will eventually be answered. Some even suggest that the mystery is so deep that it will never be solved. Decades have been spent in trying to explain consciousness from within our current scientific paradigm, but little progress has been made. Now, Philip Goff offers an exciting alternative that could pave the way forward. Rooted in an analysis of the philosophical underpinnings of modern science and based on the early 20th century work of Arthur Eddington and Bertrand Russell, Goff makes the case for panpsychism, a theory which posits that consciousness is not confined to biological entities but is a fundamental feature of all physical matter—from subatomic particles to the human brain. In Galileo's Error, he has taken the first step on a new path toward the final theory of human consciousness.

Ai generated & human edited. Introduction and summary of "Disclosing the World: On the Phenomenology of Language" By Andrew Inkpin 2016A phenomenological conception of language, drawing on Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, and Wittgenstein, with implications for both the philosophy of language and current cognitive science.In this book, Andrew Inkpin considers the disclosive function of language—what language does in revealing or disclosing the world. His approach to this question is a phenomenological one, centering on the need to accord with the various experiences speakers can have of language. With this aim in mind, he develops a phenomenological conception of language with important implications for both the philosophy of language and recent work in the embodied-embedded-enactive-extended (4e) tradition of cognitive science.Inkpin draws extensively on the work of Martin Heidegger, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and Ludwig Wittgenstein, showing how their respective conceptions of language can be combined to complement each other within a unified view. From the early Heidegger, Inkpin extracts a basic framework for a phenomenological conception of language, comprising both a general picture of the role of language and a specific model of the function of words. Merleau-Ponty's views are used to explicate the generic “pointing out”—or presentational—function of linguistic signs in more detail, while the late Wittgenstein is interpreted as providing versatile means to describe their many pragmatic uses. Having developed this unified phenomenological view, Inkpin explores its broader significance. He argues that it goes beyond the conventional realism/idealism opposition, that it challenges standard assumptions in mainstream post-Fregean philosophy of language, and that it makes a significant contribution not only to the philosophical understanding of language but also to 4e cognitive science.

Ai generated & human edited. Introduction and summary of "The Senses Considered as Perceptual Systems" By James J. Gibson 1966Dr. Gibson does not treat of the different senses as mere producers of visual, auditory, tactual, or other sensations. Rather, he regards them as active seeking mechanisms for looking, listening, touching, and the like. This means that the emphasis is on explanations of how we are able to have the constant perceptions that we need for effective action and avoidance of physical harm in our everyday lives. The author clearly supports his view that the perception of reality is not something assembled or computed by the brain from an ever-varying kaleidoscope of sensations. He emphasizes the importance of regarding the different perceptual systems not only as active, but also interrelated.

Ai generated & human edited. Introduction and summary of "Mind and World" By John McDowell 1994Modern philosophy finds it difficult to give a satisfactory picture of the place of minds in the world. In Mind and World, based on the 1991 John Locke Lectures, one of the most distinguished philosophers writing today offers his diagnosis of this difficulty and points to a cure. In doing so, he delivers the most complete and ambitious statement to date of his own views, a statement that no one concerned with the future of philosophy can afford to ignore.John McDowell amply illustrates a major problem of modern philosophy--the insidious persistence of dualism--in his discussion of empirical thought. Much as we would like to conceive empirical thought as rationally grounded in experience, pitfalls await anyone who tries to articulate this position, and McDowell exposes these traps by exploiting the work of contemporary philosophers from Wilfrid Sellars to Donald Davidson. These difficulties, he contends, reflect an understandable--but surmountable--failure to see how we might integrate what Sellars calls the "logical space of reasons" into the natural world. What underlies this impasse is a conception of nature that has certain attractions for the modern age, a conception that McDowell proposes to put aside, thus circumventing these philosophical difficulties. By returning to a pre-modern conception of nature but retaining the intellectual advance of modernity that has mistakenly been viewed as dislodging it, he makes room for a fully satisfying conception of experience as a rational openness to independent reality. This approach also overcomes other obstacles that impede a generally satisfying understanding of how we are placed in the world.

Ai generated & human edited. Introduction and summary of "Our Final Invention: Artificial Intelligence and the End of the Human Era" By James Barrat 2023Artificial Intelligence helps choose what books you buy, what movies you see, and even who you date. It puts the “smart” in your smartphone and soon it will drive your car. It makes most of the trades on Wall Street, and controls vital energy, water, and transportation infrastructure. But Artificial Intelligence can also threaten our existence.In as little as a decade, AI could match and then surpass human intelligence. Corporations and government agencies are pouring billions into achieving AI’s Holy Grail—human-level intelligence. Once AI has attained it, scientists argue, it will have survival drives much like our own. We may be forced to compete with a rival more cunning, more powerful, and more alien than we can imagine.Through profiles of tech visionaries, industry watchdogs, and groundbreaking AI systems, Our Final Invention explores the perils of the heedless pursuit of advanced AI. Until now, human intelligence has had no rival. Can we coexist with beings whose intelligence dwarfs our own? And will they allow us to?

Ai generated & human edited. Introduction and summary of "Philosophy and Simulation: The Emergence of Synthetic Reason" By Manuel DeLanda 2011In this groundbreaking book, Manuel DeLanda analyzes different genres of simulation, from cellular automata and generic algorithms to neural nets and multi-agent systems, as a means to conceptualize the space of possibilities associated with casual and other capacities.This remarkably clear philosophical discussion of a rapidly growing field, from a thinker at the forefront of research at the interface of science and the humanities, is a must-read for anyone interested in the philosophies of technology, emergence and science at all levels.

Ai generated & human edited. Introduction and summary of "Human Motives:Hedonism, Altruism, and the Science of Affect" By Peter Carruthers 2024Motivational hedonism (often called "psychological hedonism") claims that everything we do is done in pursuit of pleasure (in the widest sense) and to avoid pain and displeasure (again, in the widest sense). Although perennially attractive, many philosophers and experimental psychologists have claimed to refute it. Human Motives shows how decision-science and the recent science of affect can be used to construct a form of motivational hedonism that evades all previous critiques. On this view, we take decisions by anticipating and responding affectively to the alternatives, with the pleasure / displeasure component of affect constituting the common currency of decision-making. But we do not have to believe that the alternatives will bring us pleasure or displeasure in the future. Rather, those feelings get bound into and become parts of the future-directed representation of the options, rendering the latter attractive or repulsive. Much then depends on what pleasure and displeasure really are. If they are intrinsically good or bad properties of experience, for example, then motivational hedonism results. Carruthers argues, in contrast, that the best account is a representational one: pleasure represents its object (nonconceptually, in a perception-like manner) as good, and displeasure represents it (nonconceptually) as bad. The result is pluralism about human motivation, making room for both genuine altruism and intrinsic motives of duty.Clearly written and deeply scientifically informed, Human Motives has implications for many areas of philosophy and cognitive science, and will be of interest to anyone wanting to understand the foundations of human motivation.

Ai generated & human edited. Introduction and summary of "The World of Perception" By Maurice Merleau-Ponty 2004In 1948, Maurice Merleau-Ponty wrote and delivered on French radio a series of seven lectures on the theme of perception. Translated here into English for the first time, they offer a lucid and concise insight into one of the great philosophical minds of the twentieth-century.These lectures explore themes central not only to Merleau-Ponty's philosophy but phenomenology as a whole. He begins by rejecting the idea - inherited from Descartes and influential within science - that perception is unreliable and prone to distort the world around us. Merleau-Ponty instead argues that perception is inseparable from our senses and it is how we make sense of the world.Merleau-Ponty explores this guiding theme through a brilliant series of reflections on science, space, our relationships with others, animal life and art. Throughout, he argues that perception is never something learned and then applied to the world. As creatures with embodied minds, he reminds us that we are born perceiving and share with other animals and infants a state of constant, raw, unpredictable contact with the world. He provides vivid examples with the help of Kafka, animal behaviour and above all modern art, particularly the work of Cezanne.A thought-provoking and crystalline exploration of consciousness and the senses, The World of Perception is essential reading for anyone interested in the work of Merleau-Ponty, twentieth-century philosophy and art.

Ai generated & human edited. Introduction and summary of "What Is It Like to Be a Bat?" By Thomas Nagel 2024A 50th anniversary edition of one of the most widely influential articles of 20th Century philosophy“Consciousness is what makes the mind-body problem really intractable.” So begins Thomas Nagel's classic 1974 essay “What is it Like to be a Bat?” Nagel's essay initiated the now widespread attention to consciousness as a central problem for philosophy, psychology, and neuroscience; it also influenced the recognition of the consciousness of nonhuman creatures as an important subject of study. Nagel argued that the essential subjectivity of conscious experience--what it is like for the creature undergoing it--means that reductionist theories of mind, which attempt to analyze it in physical terms, can never succeed. It follows that the physical sciences cannot provide a complete description of reality, and that the physical conception of objective reality must be transcended if science is going to comprehend the mind.This edition reissues this classic and widely influential article on its 50th anniversary, along with a new preface discussing the origins and influence of the essay, as well as “Further Thoughts: The Psychophysical Nexus,” a supplementary essay which describes Nagel's later thoughts about how to respond to the problem posed by “What Is It Like to Be a Bat?” This second essay suggests that the most promising path forward for the mind-body problem, if one accepts the irreducible subjectivity of consciousness, is to seek a necessary connection between mental and neurophysiogical states through a more fundamental type of state which is neither mental nor physical but necessitates them both as essential aspects. In other words, a state that is physical from the outside and mental from the inside, just as we are. This would be a form of monism, requiring the formation of new concepts, since our present concepts of the mental and the physical do not entail such a necessary connection. The essay explains why the relation between the mental and the physical may be necessary, even though our present concepts make it appear contingent.

Ai generated & human edited. Introduction and summary of "Being We: Phenomenological Contributions to Social Ontology" By Dan Zahavi 2025What does it take to constitute a we with others and how does feeling, thinking, and acting as part of a we, transform one's sense of self, one's relation to others, and the way one experiences the world? Is individual subjectivity something that necessarily requires a communal grounding or does a we-relationship always presuppose a plurality of pre-existing selves? What kind of understanding of and relation to others is required if a we is to emerge? Questions regarding the ontological, epistemological, and social character of we is not only of contemporary societal relevance, but are also questions that were intensively discussed by early phenomenological philosophers such as Husserl, Reinach, Stein, Scheler, Walther, Gurwitsch, and Schutz.Drawing on and engaging with ideas and distinctions found in these historical resources, Being We combines historical scholarship and systematic theorizing. It breaks new ground by interweaving work on selfhood and first-personal experience, social cognition, and collective intentionality, offers a much-needed cross fertilization between philosophy and theoretical considerations in the social sciences (sociology, anthropology, and social psychology), and provides a novel account of the complex interrelation between we, you, and I.

Ai generated & human edited. Introduction and summary of "The Character of Consciousness" By David J. Chalmers 2010What is consciousness? How does the subjective character of consciousness fit into an objective world? How can there be a science of consciousness? In this sequel to his groundbreaking and controversial The Conscious Mind, David Chalmers develops a unified framework that addresses these questions and many others. Starting with a statement of the "hard problem" of consciousness, Chalmers builds a positive framework for the science of consciousness and a nonreductive vision of the metaphysics of consciousness. He replies to many critics of The Conscious Mind, and then develops a positive theory in new directions. The book includes original accounts of how we think and know about consciousness, of the unity of consciousness, and of how consciousness relates to the external world. Along the way, Chalmers develops many provocative ideas: the "consciousness meter", the Garden of Eden as a model of perceptual experience, and The Matrix as a guide to the deepest philosophical problems about consciousness and the external world. This book will be required reading for anyone interested in the problems of mind, brain, consciousness, and reality.

Ai generated & human edited. Introduction and summary of "The Parallax View" By Slavoj Zizek 2009In Žižek's long-awaited magnum opus, he theorizes the "parallax gap" in the ontological, the scientific, and the political—and rehabilitates dialectical materialism.The Parallax View is Slavoj Žižek's most substantial theoretical work to appear in many years; Žižek himself describes it as his magnum opus. Parallax can be defined as the apparent displacement of an object, caused by a change in observational position. Žižek is interested in the "parallax gap" separating two points between which no synthesis or mediation is possible, linked by an "impossible short circuit" of levels that can never meet. From this consideration of parallax, Žižek begins a rehabilitation of dialectical materialism.Modes of parallax can be seen in different domains of today's theory, from the wave-particle duality in quantum physics to the parallax of the unconscious in Freudian psychoanalysis between interpretations of the formation of the unconscious and theories of drives. In The Parallax View, Žižek, with his usual astonishing erudition, focuses on three main modes of parallax: the ontological difference, the ultimate parallax that conditions our very access to reality; the scientific parallax, the irreducible gap between the phenomenal experience of reality and its scientific explanation, which reaches its apogee in today's brain sciences (according to which "nobody is home" in the skull, just stacks of brain meat—a condition Žižek calls "the unbearable lightness of being no one"); and the political parallax, the social antagonism that allows for no common ground. Between his discussions of these three modes, Žižek offers interludes that deal with more specific topics—including an ethical act in a novel by Henry James and anti-anti-Semitism.The Parallax View not only expands Žižek's Lacanian-Hegelian approach to new domains (notably cognitive brain sciences) but also provides the systematic exposition of the conceptual framework that underlies his entire work. Philosophical and theological analysis, detailed readings of literature, cinema, and music coexist with lively anecdotes and obscene jokes.

Ai generated & human edited. Introduction and summary of "The World as Will and Presentation: Volume I" By Arthur Schopenhauer, Daniel Kolak (Editor), Richard Aquila (Translator) c.1818/2019Taking the transcendental idealism of Immanuel Kant as his starting point, Schopenhauer argues that the world humans experience around them—the world of objects in space and time and related in causal ways—exists solely as "representation" (Vorstellung) dependent on a cognizing subject, not as a world that can be considered to exist in itself (i.e., independently of how it appears to the subject's mind). One's knowledge of objects is thus knowledge of mere phenomena rather than things in themselves. Schopenhauer identifies the thing-in-itself — the inner essence of everything — as will: a blind, unconscious, aimless striving devoid of knowledge, outside of space and time, and free of all multiplicity. The world as representation is, therefore, the "objectification" of the will. Aesthetic experiences release one briefly from one’s endless servitude to the will, which is the root of suffering. True redemption from life, Schopenhauer asserts, can only result from the total ascetic negation of the "will to life". Schopenhauer notes fundamental agreements between his philosophy, Platonism, and the philosophy of the ancient Indian Vedas.The World as Will and Representation marked the pinnacle of Schopenhauer's philosophical thought; he spent the rest of his life refining, clarifying and deepening the ideas presented in this work without any fundamental changes. The first edition was met with near-universal silence. The second edition of 1844 similarly failed to attract any interest. At the time, post-Kantian German academic philosophy was dominated by the German idealists—foremost among them G. W. F. Hegel, whom Schopenhauer bitterly denounced as a "charlatan".

Ai generated & human edited. Introduction and summary of "Structure Phenomenology: Preconscious Formation in the Epistemic Disclosure of Reality" By Herbert Witzenmann 1983/2022This is the first English translation of Herbert Witzenmann's seminal work, Strukturphänomenologie, which departs from the traditional phenomenological methods of Husserl, Sartre, and Merleau-Ponty to introduce a fresh approach to the nexus of consciousness and reality.In Structure Phenomenology, published open access, Witzenmann argues for the active mental, yet mostly pre-reflective, participation of humans in the emergence of individual consciousness of all kinds and the basic structure that determines it. While Witzenmann ascribes a derivative or memorative status to habitual states of phenomenal consciousness, even if they seem to refer to present objectivity, he proposes that the underlying formative processes be unveiled and explored through systematic first-person observation. Through his logically grounded and experience-based approach, he contends that it is not neural processes that produce consciousness, but rather one's own preconscious rootedness in reality which can be made conscious.Influenced by the writings of Rudolf Steiner and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Witzenmann's innovative approach casts new light on a number of philosophical, psychological, and scientific issues: from being and becoming to temporality and presence, and from remembering to mind and body. Even freedom takes on a new meaning when reality is not pre-given to human consciousness, but is rather a result of human participation in the basic process.This annotated translation makes Witzenmann's text accessible to an English audience for the first time and, with a comprehensive editorial introduction by Johannes Wagemann, situates his ground-breaking insights within the development of phenomenology, as well as in current philosophical and psychological debates. The ebook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com.

Ai generated & human edited. Introduction and summary of "Kant's Construction of Nature: A Reading of the Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science" By Michael Friedman 2013Kant's Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science is one of the most difficult but also most important of Kant's works. Published in 1786 between the first (1781) and second (1787) editions of the Critique of Pure Reason, the Metaphysical Foundations occupies a central place in the development of Kant's philosophy, but has so far attracted relatively little attention compared with other works of Kant's critical period. Michael Friedman's book develops a new and complete reading of this work and reconstructs Kant's main argument clearly and in great detail, explaining its relationship to both Newton's Principia and eighteenth-century scientific thinkers such as Euler and Lambert. By situating Kant's text relative to his pre-critical writings on metaphysics and natural philosophy and, in particular, to the changes Kant made in the second edition of the Critique, Friedman articulates a radically new perspective on the meaning and development of the critical philosophy as a whole.

Ai generated & human edited. Introduction and summary of "Self-Knowledge and Self Identity" By Sydney Shoemaker 1963Sydney Shoemaker's 1963 book, Self-Knowledge and Self-Identity, investigates the philosophical concepts of how we know ourselves and what constitutes our individual identity. The text critically examines various historical and contemporary theories regarding the self, including those positing a substantial ego, a bundle of perceptions, and the importance of memory and the body. Shoemaker analyzes the nature of first-person statements, particularly those concerning psychological states and past experiences, questioning whether self-knowledge relies on criteria in the same way as knowledge of external objects. He explores thought experiments involving bodily transfer and considers the relationship between personal identity and bodily continuity. Ultimately, the work aims to clarify the logical foundations of our understanding of self and identity.

Ai generated. Human edited. Introduction and summary of "Self-Awareness and Alterity: A Phenomenological Investigation" By Dan Zahavi 1999Winner of the 2000 The Edward Goodwin Ballard Prize in PhenomenologyIn the rigorous and highly original Self-Awareness and Alterity, Dan Zahavi provides a sustained argument that phenomenology, especially in its Husserlian version, can contribute something decisive to the analysis of self-awareness. Taking on recent discussions within both analytical philosophy (Shoemaker, Castaneda, Nagel) and contemporary German philosophy (Henrich, Frank, Tugendhat), Zahavi argues that the phenomenological tradition has much more to offer when it comes to the problem of self-awareness than is normally assumed. As a contribution to the current philosophical debate concerning self-awareness, the book presents a comprehensive reconstruction of Husserl's theory of pre-reflective self-awareness, thereby criticizing a number of prevalent interpretations and a systematic discussion of a number of phenomenological insights related to this issue, including analyses of the temporal, intentional, reflexive, bodily, and social nature of the self.

Ai generated. Human edited. Introduction and summary of "The Evolved Apprentice: How Evolution Made Humans Unique" By Kim Sterelny 2012A new theory of the evolution of human cognition and human social life that emphasizes the role of information sharing across generations.Over the last three million years or so, our lineage has diverged sharply from those of our great ape relatives. Change has been rapid (in evolutionary terms) and pervasive. Morphology, life history, social life, sexual behavior, and foraging patterns have all shifted sharply away from those of the other great apes. In The Evolved Apprentice, Kim Sterelny argues that the divergence stems from the fact that humans gradually came to enrich the learning environment of the next generation. Humans came to cooperate in sharing information, and to cooperate ecologically and reproductively as well, and these changes initiated positive feedback loops that drove us further from other great apes.Sterelny develops a new theory of the evolution of human cognition and human social life that emphasizes the gradual evolution of information-sharing practices across generations and how these practices transformed human minds and social lives. Sterelny proposes that humans developed a new form of ecological interaction with their environment, cooperative foraging. The ability to cope with the immense variety of human ancestral environments and social forms, he argues, depended not just on adapted minds but also on adapted developmental environments.

Ai generated. Human edited. Introduction and summary of 'Descartes's Method: The Formation of the Subject of Science" By Tarek R. Dika 2023Descartes's Method develops an ontological interpretation of Descartes's method as a dynamic and, within limits, differentiable problem-solving cognitive disposition or habitus, which can be actualized or applied to different problems in various ways, depending on the nature of the problem. Parts I-II develop the foundations of an habitual interpretation of Descartes's method, while Parts III-V demonstrate the fruits of such an interpretation in metaphysics, natural philosophy, and mathematics. The first book to draw on the recently discovered Cambridge manuscript of Descartes's Rules for the Direction of the Mind, Descartes's Method concretely demonstrates the efficacy of Descartes's method in the sciences and the underlying unity of Descartes's method from Rules for the Direction of the Mind to Principles of Philosophy (1644).

Ai generated. Human edited. Introduction and summary of "Self-Consciousness" By Sebastian Rödl 2007The topic of this book is self-consciousness, which is a kind of knowledge, namely knowledge of oneself as oneself, or self-knowledge. Sebastian R dl's thesis is that self-knowledge is not empirical; it does not spring from sensory affection. Rather, self-knowledge is knowledge from spontaneity; its object and its source are the subject's own activity, in the primary instance its acts of thinking, both theoretical and practical thinking, belief and action.The chapters of this book cover action and belief, freedom and reason, receptive knowledge and the second person. Each of these topics deserves its own book. And yet they would all be books on self-consciousness, for self-consciousness is the principle of their respective subject matters. Contemporary theories have been badly served by failing to acknowledge this. Taking the full measure of this insight requires a major conceptual reorientation in action theory, the philosophy of mind, and epistemology, which is begun in this book. As it can be said to be the principal thought animating Kant and his Idealist successors that self-consciousness occupies this central position, the book can be read as an attempt to recover and rejuvenate the achievement of the German Idealist tradition.

Ai generated. Human edited. Introduction and summary of "The Varieties of Reference" By Gareth Evans 1982Evans' book The Varieties of Reference (1982) was unfinished at the time of his death. The introduction and first two chapters being rewritten by him in the last months of his life.[8] It was edited for publication, and supplemented with appendices drawn from his notes, by McDowell. It has subsequently been influential in both philosophy of mind and philosophy of language. Its central chapters have, according to Martin Davies, had "a profound influence on subsequent work in philosophy of psychology, particularly concerning the perception and representation of space, and more generally the conditions for an objective conception of a spatial world."Covering the work of Frege, Russell, and more recent work on singular reference, this important book examines the concepts of perceptually-based demonstrative identification, thought about oneself, and recognition-based demonstrative identification.The discussion in this book range over all the main kinds of referring expressions, starting with the work of Frege and Russell on singular reference. The work is guided by the view that an understanding of how singular thoughts relate to objects is essential for a proper treatment of the linguistic device by which such thoughts are expressed. It will be of interest to psychologist and philosophers of mind as well as to philosophers of language and linguists.

Ai generated. Human edited. Introduction and summary of "Hume on Causation" By Helen Beebee 2006Causation is one of the most important and enduring topics in philosophy, going as far back as Aristotle. In this lucid and enthralling account, Helen Beebee covers all the major debates and issues in the philosophy of causation, making it the ideal starting point for those approaching the subject for the first time.Beginning with an introduction to the concept, the book examines the most significant philosopher of causation – David Hume – and assesses the problems of induction and necessary connection in light of his thought. Helen Beebee then investigates different theories of causation and challenges to the Humean approach. She considers the concepts of regularity, causal experience, necessity and essences. Throughout the book, she also critically discusses other key philosophers on causation, including J.L. Mackie, John Wright and Brian Ellis.

Ai generated. Human edited. Introduction and summary of "Origins of Objectivity" By Tyler Burge 2010Tyler Burge presents a substantial, original study of what it is for individuals to represent the physical world with the most primitive sort of objectivity. By reflecting on the science of perception and related psychological and biological sciences, he gives an account of constitutive conditions for perceiving the physical world, and thus aims to locate origins of representational mind. Origins of Objectivity illuminates several long-standing, central issues in philosophy, and provides a wide-ranging account of relations between human and animal psychologies.

Ai generated. Human edited. Introduction and summary of "The Given: Experience and Its Content" By Michelle Montague 2016What is given to us in conscious experience? The Given is an attempt to answer this question and in this way contribute to a general theory of mental content. The content of conscious experience is understood to be absolutely everything that is given to one, experientially, in the having of an experience. Michelle Montague focuses on the analysis of conscious perception, conscious emotion, and conscious thought, and deploys three fundamental notions in addition to the fundamental notion of content: the notions of intentionality, phenomenology, and consciousness. She argues that all experience essentially involves all four things, and that the key to an adequate general theory of what is given in experience--of 'the given'--lies in giving a correct specification of the nature of these four things and the relations between them. Montague argues that conscious perception, conscious thought, and conscious emotion each have a distinctive, irreducible kind of phenomenology--what she calls 'sensory phenomenology', 'cognitive phenomenology', and 'evaluative phenomenology' respectively--and that these kinds of phenomenology are essential in accounting for the intentionality of these mental phenomena.

Ai generated. Human edited. "Husserl and Transcendental Intersubjectivity: A Response to the Linguistic-pragmatic Critique" By Dan Zahavi 2001Husserl and Transcendental Intersubjectivity analyzes the transcendental relevance of intersubjectivity and argues that an intersubjective transformation of transcendental philosophy can already be found in phenomenology, especially in Husserl. Husserl eventually came to believe that an analysis of transcendental intersubjectivity was a conditio sine qua non for a phenomenological philosophy. Drawing on both published and unpublished manuscripts, Dan Zahavi examines Husserl's reasons for this conviction and delivers a detailed analysis of his radical and complex concept of intersubjectivity, showing that precisely his reflections on transcendental intersubjectivity are capable of clarifying the core-concepts of phenomenology, thus making possible a new understanding of Husserl's philosophy.Against this background the book compares his view with the approaches to intersubjectivity found in Heidegger, Sartre, and Merleau-Ponty, and it then attempts to establish to what extent the phenomenological approach can contribute to the current discussion of intersubjectivity. This is achieved through a systematic confrontation with the language-pragmatical positions of Apel and Habermas.

Ai generated. Human edited. Introduction and summary of "Memory, Consciousness and Temporality" By Gianfranco Dalla Barba 2002Memory, Consciousness, and Temporality presents the argument that current memory theories are undermined by two false assumptions: the `memory trace paradox' and `the fallacy of the homunculus'. In these pages Gianfranco Dalla Barba introduces a hypothesis - the Memory, Consciousness, and Temporality (MCT) hypothesis - on the relationship between memory and consciousness that is not undermined by these assumptions and further demonstrates how MCT can account for a variety of memory disorders and phenomena.With a unique approach intended to conjugate phenomenological analysis and recent neuropsychological data, the author makes an important contribution to our understanding of the central issues in current cognitive science and cognitive neuroscience.