Armstrong's Materialist Theory of Mind
December 23, 2021
D. M. Armstrong
This chapter presents Armstrong’s last paper on philosophy of mind, where he recounts the origins of David Lewis’s seminal paper ‘An Argument for the Identity Theory’ which appeared in 1966, two years before Armstrong’s book. Armstrong situates Lewis’s theory in relation to his own theory and in so doing adds an important seam to the familiar narrative of how the causal theory of mind emerged...
Armstrong's Materialist Theory of Mind
December 23, 2021
Daniel Stoljar
This chapter argues that there is a fascinating tension between Armstrong’s perceptual or self-scanning model of introspection, and his account of the function of consciousness. The account of the function of consciousness is roughly that consciousness is necessary for purposive thought: in order to think things through, we must keep track of and be aware of our various thoughts. Thus,...
Armstrong's Materialist Theory of Mind
December 23, 2021
John Heil
This chapter distinguishes two species of functionalism: what Ned Block called, ‘functional specifier functionalism’ (now often called ‘realizer functionalism’) and ‘functional identity functionalism’ (now often called ‘role functionalism’). The first species of functionalism was defended by Armstrong and by David Lewis, and remains the dominant strain in Australian philosophy of mind. The...
December 23, 2021
Bringing together some of the world’s leading philosophers of mind as well as some exciting emerging philosophers, this volume examines origins, impacts, and contemporary relevance of one of the twentieth century’s most important books on the philosophy of mind, D. M. Armstrong’s A Materialist Theory of the Mind, first published in 1968.
Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution
December 20, 2021
Patrick Fraser, Ricard Sole, Gemma de Las Cuevas
Ordinary computing machines prohibit self-reference because it leads to logical inconsistencies and undecidability. In contrast, the human mind can understand self-referential statements without necessitating physically impossible brain states. Why can the brain make sense of self-reference? Here, we address this question by defining the Strange Loop Model, which features causal feedback...
Frontiers in Psychology
December 20, 2021
James W. Moore
An important question in consciousness research concerns its origins. In Julian Jaynes' book, The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, he suggests that consciousness arose rather recently in human history, sometime between the composition of The Iliad and The Odyssey. Although Jaynes' work as a theory of consciousness has achieved a great deal of attention (and indeed...
Political anthropological research on international social sciences
December 17, 2021
Suzanne Klein Schaarsberg
6 citations
Abstract Contemplation, or the practice of sitting still to ‘stop and see’, can expand one’s embodied awareness. This expanded awareness resembles ethnographic sensibility, a disposition practiced by researchers to generate an understanding of the ‘field’. My fieldwork on contemplative activism involves a double thoughtful observation: once as contemplation, and once as ethnographic...
Frontiers in Psychology
December 17, 2021
P. S. Swathi, Raghavendra Bhat, Apar Avinash Saoji
Background and Objective: Attention and memory are essential aspects of cognitive health. Yogasanas, pranayama, and meditation have shown to improve cognitive functions. There has been no assessment of Trataka (yogic visual concentration) on working or on spatial memory. The present study was planned to assess the immediate effects of Trataka and of eye exercise sessions on the Corsi-block...
Routledge eBooks
December 16, 2021
Roy Bailey
Meditating is a proven and practical approach to effective stress management. It exercises the mind and allows the person to engage in ‘detached contemplation’ of an object or phrase. All meditation requires the meditator to participate in ‘dwelling on’ on the subject of contemplation. The visual form of meditation, that is, concentrating on an image, is called ‘yantra’ meditation. When a...
Journal of the American Oriental Society
December 16, 2021
Patrick McAllister
Brains, Buddhas, and Believing: The Problem of Intentionality in Classical Buddhist and Cognitive- Scientific Philosophy of Mind. By Dan Arnold. New York: Columbia University Press, 2012. Pp. xiv+ 311. $50.