Explanation and Cognition

These essays draw on work in the history and philosophy of science, the philosophy of mind and language, the development of concepts in children, conceptual.

Two Epistemological Arguments against Two Semantic Dispositionalisms

Even though he is not very explicit about it, in “Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language” Kripke discusses two different, albeit related, skeptical theses ‒ the first one in the philosophy of mind, the second one in the metaphysics of language. Usually, what Kripke says about one thesis can be easily applied to the other one, too; however, things are not always that simple. In this paper, I discuss the case of the so-called “Normativity Argument” against semantic dispositionalism (which I take to be epistemological in nature) and argue that it is much stronger as an argument in the philosophy of mind than when it is construed as an argument in the metaphysics of language

A final solution to the mind-body problem by quantum language

Recently we proposed “quantum language”, which was not only characterized as the metaphysical and linguistic turn of quantum mechanics but also the linguistic turn of Descartes = Kant epistemology. And further we believe that quantum language is the only scientifically successful theory in dualistic idealism. If this turn is regarded as progress in the history of western philosophy (i.e., if “philosophical progress” is defined by “approaching to quantum language”), we should study the linguistic mind-body problem more than the epistemological mind-body problem. In this paper, we show that to solve the mind-body problem and to propose “measurement axiom” in quantum language are equivalent. Since our approach is always within dualistic idealism, we believe that our linguistic answer is the only true solution to the mindbody problem

“Critical Thinking: An Approach that Synthesizes Analytic Philosophy”

This paper concentrates on the resurrection of the journey of analytic philosophy from the perspective of ‘critical thinking,’ a tool of proper thought and understanding. To define an era of philosophy as analytic seems indeed a difficult attempt. However, my attempt would be to look up a few positions from the monumental thoughts of Frege, Russell, Carnap, Wittgenstein, Quine, and Putnam on their ‘analysis’ minded outlooks that developed in different ways based on logic, scientific spirit, conceptual, language etc. Analytic philosophers intend to intertwine between word and world in terms of mind and language guided by critical analysis that I think remarkably encompassed by clarity, truth, analysis, accuracy, and open-mindedness. My attempt would be to resurrect the philosophical development of analytic philosophy in different periods that were enormously nourished by the idea of ‘critical thinking’ and the analysis of natural language

Another cartoon portrait of the mind from the reductionist metaphysicians--a review of Peter Carruthers ‘The Opacity of Mind’ (2011) (review revised 2019)

Materialism, reductionism, behaviorism, functionalism, dynamic systems theory and computationalism are popular views, but they were shown by Wittgenstein to be incoherent. The study of behavior encompasses all of human life, but behavior is largely automatic and unconscious and even the conscious part, mostly expressed in language (which Wittgenstein equates with the mind), is not perspicuous, so it is critical to have a framework which Searle calls the Logical Structure of Rationality (LSR) and I call the Descriptive Psychology of Higher Order Thought (DPHOT). After summarizing the framework worked out by Wittgenstein and Searle, as extended by modern reasoning research, I show the inadequacies in Carruther’s views, which pervade most discussions of behavior, including contemporary behavioral sciences. I maintain that his book is an amalgam of two books, one a summary of cognitive psychology and the other a summary of the standard philosophical confusions on the mind with some new jargon added. I suggest that the latter should be regarded as incoherent or as a cartoon view of life and that taking Wittgenstein at his word, we can practice successful self therapy by regarding the mind/body issue as a language/body issue. Those wishing a comprehensive up to date framework for human behavior from the modern two systems view may consult my book ‘The Logical Structure of Philosophy, Psychology, Mind and Language in Ludwig Wittgenstein and John Searle’ 2nd ed (2019). Those interested in more of my writings may see ‘Talking Monkeys--Philosophy, Psychology, Science, Religion and Politics on a Doomed Planet--Articles and Reviews 2006-2019 3rd ed (2019), The Logical Structure of Human Behavior (2019), and Suicidal Utopian Delusions in the 21st Century 4th ed (2019

Contextualism in Context: Interview with Michael Williams

This interview was carried out on 13 December 2018 as Michael Williams was in Porto for a meeting of the Contextualism Network organised by the MLAG – Mind, Language, and Action Research Group (Institute of Philosophy of the University of Porto). We would like to thank him for his willingness to reply to our questions

Review of 'The Outer Limits of Reason' by Noson Yanofsky 403p (2013) (review revised 2019)

I give a detailed review of 'The Outer Limits of Reason' by Noson Yanofsky from a unified perspective of Wittgenstein and evolutionary psychology. I indicate that the difficulty with such issues as paradox in language and math, incompleteness, undecidability, computability, the brain and the universe as computers etc., all arise from the failure to look carefully at our use of language in the appropriate context and hence the failure to separate issues of scientific fact from issues of how language works. I discuss Wittgenstein's views on incompleteness, paraconsistency and undecidability and the work of Wolpert on the limits to computation. To sum it up: The Universe According to Brooklyn---Good Science, Not So Good Philosophy. Those wishing a comprehensive up to date framework for human behavior from the modern two systems view may consult my book ‘The Logical Structure of Philosophy, Psychology, Mind and Language in Ludwig Wittgenstein and John Searle’ 2nd ed (2019). Those interested in more of my writings may see ‘Talking Monkeys--Philosophy, Psychology, Science, Religion and Politics on a Doomed Planet--Articles and Reviews 2006-2019 3rd ed (2019) and Suicidal Utopian Delusions in the 21st Century 4th ed (2019

Impossibility and Impossible Worlds

Possible worlds have found many applications in contemporary philosophy: from theories of possibility and necessity, to accounts of conditionals, to theories of mental and linguistic content, to understanding supervenience relationships, to theories of properties and propositions, among many other applications. Almost as soon as possible worlds started to be used in formal theories in logic, philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, metaphysics, and elsewhere, theorists started to wonder whether impossible worlds should be postulated as well. In many applications, possible worlds face limitations that can be dealt with through postulating impossible worlds as well. This chapter examines some of the uses of impossible worlds, and philosophical challenges theories of impossible worlds face

Aesthetics and the philosophy of spirit: from Plotinus to Schelling and Hegel

'Aesthetics & the philosophy of spirit' examines the aesthetics of Plotinus, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von Schelling, and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. It discusses the Platonic bases of the aesthetics of Plotinus and the Plotinian bases of the aesthetics of Schelling and Hegel in the philosophy of spirit, identity philosophy, and transcendental idealism. Examining the notion of art as philosophy, as a product of mind, and as an instrument of intellect in the relation between reason and perception, the book involves concepts of the universal and particular, freedom and necessity, the beautiful and sublime, allegory and symbolism, consciousness and self-consciousness, subjective and objective spirit, and forms of artistic representation. Keywords: aesthetics, art, architecture, Philosophy of Spirit, Idealism, Transcendental Idealism, Identity Philosophy, Plato (Symposium, Republic, Phaedrus, Timaeus), Plotinus (Enneads), Intellectual Principle, Proclus (Commentary on the First Book of Euclid’s Elements), Neoplatonism, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (Monadology), Organic Rationalism, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von Schelling (The Philosophy of Art; System of Transcendental Idealism; Bruno, or On the Natural and the Divine Principle of Things), Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (Introductory Lectures on Aesthetics; Phenomenology of Sprit; Philosophy of Mind, Reason in History), Caspar David Friedrich (Two Men Observing the Moon), Correggio (Adoration of the Shepherds), Titian (The Annunciation), Raphael (The Parnassus), Pablo Picasso (Guernica), Arshile Gorky (The Betrothal II), Subjective Spirit, Objective Spirit, Absolute Spirit, Geist, Johann Gottlieb Fichte (Wissenschaftslehre), Immanuel Kant (Critique of Judgment, Critique of Pure Reason, Critique of Practical Reason), Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (Oration on the Dignity of Man), Renaissance, Leon Battista Alberti (De re aedificatoria, De pictura, Santa Maria Novella, Sant’Andrea in Mantua), Jacques Lacan (The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psycho-Analysis), Nicolas Cusanus (De circuli quadratura, De coniecturis, De Docta Ignorantia), Vorstellung, Romanticism, Marsilio Ficino (Theologia Platonica, De amore), Georges Bataille (Visions of Excess), Roger Caillois (The Necessity of the Mind), Athanasius Kircher (Ars Magna Lucis et Umbrae, Primitiae Gnomonicae Catopticae, Oedipi Aegyptiaci), Piero della Francesca (De prospectiva pingendi), Euclid (Elements of Geometry), Jacques Derrida (Speech and Phenomena, Writing and Difference, Positions), Paul Cézanne, Sigmund Freud (The Ego and the Id, Beyond the Pleasure Principle), Noam Chomsky (Aspects of the Theory of Syntax, Language and Mind, Syntactical Structures), Peter Eisenman, Giuseppe Terragni (Casa Giuliani Frigerio), Fredric Jameso

Ordinary language arguments and the philosophy of mind

[Extract] To engage your interest in this dissertation I offer to you a curious question to ponder. How often does a psychiatrist or a psychologist get the chance to ask themselves whether the words that they use to describe the mental life of their patient mean the same thing to the patient as they do to the doctor or analyst using them? Does the patient understand what the doctor or analyst is telling them? Equally importantly there is a question whether the patient’s verbal reports mean the same thing to the doctor or analyst as the patient thinks they mean. At first this may seem trivial given the doctor or analyst’s extensive training and education. Surely this is a one sided question one might say. Surely the doctor or analyst can understand the patient but the patient may not have the educational background and training to understand the doctor’s or analyst’s terms, which the doctor or analyst is using to describe the patient’s own mental life. One might persist in reasoning in this way, claiming that knowledge is all on the medical practitioner’s side, until the point is raised that the patient may have experiences the analyst or doctor does not have. For instance, one might ask whether a psychological analyst can ever truly understand what it is like to have bipolar and experience a manic high? What about schizophrenia or Attention Deficit (Hyperactive) Disorder or Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome? On what foudnations are the communications between a patient and a doctor built? What underlies their ability to talk about deeply personal experiences given that one person has them while another has not? This is the central philosophical issue wrestled with by this paper. On what rests our ability to talk about personal and private experiences which do not have publicly observable parts, components or properties? Communication seems to take place, but what allows such communication to take place? How does one cross the gulf of private unobservable experience with words? Ordinary Language Arguments are one attempt at solving this otherwise seemingly unsolvable mystery. This introduction is aimed at acquainting the theorist of mind, common practitioner, researcher, cognitive therapist or curious layman with the problems that surround Ordinary Language Arguments. This paper will begin with the problems arising from referential indeterminacy in theories of mind. The ‘Problem of the Indeterminacy of Reference’ is a significant issue for research theorists and arises from the language they use to describe the mind. How do the terms they use relate to the mind? Do they propositionally ‘picture’ entities ‘in’ the mind in true ways? Are terms like ego, anger, jealousy and inner-child merely conveinant fictions and metaphors to talk about the mind? Do these terms refer to and label ‘parts’ of the mind? What is the relationship between these terms and the mind? One possible solution emerges from an Analytic Philosopher who wrote in the immediate post-war era called Gilbert Ryle. Gilbert Ryle developed Ordinary Language Arguments as one possible solution to a number of intersecting philosophical and psychological problems. However, I argue that the Ordinary Language Argument Solution, though on first glance seems promising, is fundamentally flawed. Instead, I argue that sources for the study of the mind are better understood by a Heterophenomenological and Autophenomenological distinction. This raises the question as to which of the two is stronger and/or prior to the other when these sources produce claims that clash or contradict each other