This commentary discusses how philosophy and science can collaborate to understand the human mind, considering dialogues involving three philosophers and three cognitive scientists. Their topics include the relation of philosophy and science, the nature of mind, the problem of consciousness, and the existence of free will. I argue that philosophy is more general and normative than science, but...
This paper is an opinionated overview of major developments in philosophy of mind during the past seventy years, with emphasis on the issue of mental causation. Its most prominent positions all embrace a broadly “naturalistic” or “materialistic” conception of human beings, and of mentalityand its place in nature. Included in this paper are discussions of analytical behaviorism, the...
The argument given by strong representationalists about phenomenal consciousness usually has two steps. The first is to identify all phenomenal consciousness with representation. The second is to identify all phenomenal aspects of phenomenal consciousness with certain representational content. Pain is often thought to be a counterexample to representationalism. However, current objections from...
This article will investigate the issue of accessingbenxin本心 (original mind), subsequent operation from Self and, in that process, union with the “greater universe” orbenti本体 (original substance)—a state expressed in the West as “cosmic consciousness.” It is proposed that this allows one to participate as a partner in the creative process of one’s own life and the surrounding world. The equally...