The epiphenomenal mind

The Epiphenomenal Mind is both a deflationary attack on the powers of the human mind and a defence of human subjectivity. It is deflationary because in the thesis I argue that consciousness is an epiphenomenal consequence of events in the brain. It is a defence of human subjectivity because I argue that the mind is sui generis real, irreducible, and largely an endogenous product (i.e. not dependent on society or its resources). Part I is devoted to arguing that the conscious mind is epiphenomenal. Arguing from, the irreducibility of mental states, the causal closure of the physical domain, and the principle of causal explanatory exclusion, I seek to demonstrate that all theories of mental causation necessarily violate one or more of these premises. Contemporary approaches to mental causation come under two broad categories, those that argue that mental events are supervenient on physical events (such as Davidson, Kim and Horgan) and those (like Haskar) who argue that the mind is an emergent property of the brain. Supervenience based theories, I argue, end up reducing mental states in their search for a theory of mental causation and emergence based theories end up violating the principle of the causal closure of the physical. In part II, I explore some of the consequences of epiphenomenalism for social theory. This exploration comes in the context of a defence of human subjectivity against (i.) those sociological imperialists who view the mind and self as a 'gift of society', and (ii.) social situationalists who have abandoned the concept of action and an interest in 'what's in the head' of the actor, in favour of a concept of social action which views behaviour as action only to the extent that it is socially meaningful. The conclusion is that the social sciences should return to an interpretative style (Weberian) methodology

Knowledge, science and death: the theory of brain-sign

In today’s paradigmatic climate, the possibility of knowledge, and therefore science, still depends upon our being conscious. However, no scientifically accepted account of consciousness exists. In recent years I have developed the theory of brain-sign which replaces consciousness as a wholly physical neural condition. The first tenet is that the brain is a causal organ, not a knowledge organ. The second is that brain-sign, used in inter-neural communication for uncertain or imprecise collective action, derives at each moment from the causal orientation of the brain. Signs are ubiquitous bio-physical entities. Thus there is no problematic dualism, consciousness and world. We now have two accounts of the brain phenomenon. The first (consciousness) is an inexplicable physical anomaly. The second (brain-sign) belongs in the physical universe, and fulfils a crucial neurobiological function. With brain-sign theory we even ‘discover’ that we do not know we are alive or will die

Psychophysicality: rethinking the physicalist foundations of the mind/body problem

In this thesis, I shall examine the question of physicalism through two papers criticising the formulation of the doctrine. In the first chapter, I discuss Tim Carne's and D.H. Mellor's influential (1990) There Is No Question of Physicalism, in which they argue that there are no real criteria by which the science of psychology can be separated from the paradigmatically physical sciences, and so no principled reason to suppose that the predicates of pyschology do not describe real elements of the world's ontology whereas those of physics do. I shall explain why I find their arguments unconvincing, and to show how some of the reasons they consider not to support the noncontinuity of psychology with physics actually can support the distinction. Crane and Mellor take physicalism to be an epistemological doctrine, according to which the empirical world "contains just what a true and complete physical science would say it contains". Physicalism can, however, be taken as a metaphysical doctrine, and indeed I think that many modern physicalists do take it this way. In his (1998) What Are Physical Properties?, Chris Daly argues that no principled distinction can be drawn between physical and nonphysical properties, and that therefore any metaphysical programme which assumes such a distinction is misguided. I shall agree with much of his reasoning, but not with his 'downbeat' conclusion: while I agree that there are serious difficulties involved in setting constraints on the bounds of the physical, I think that enough can positively be said to make physicalism a meaningful position. Between the two papers, a fairly broad survey of some recent accounts of physicalism is made and these two distinct avenues explored: physicalism construed as a doctrine about science, and physicalism as a doctrine attempting to limit the contents of the world a priori through a definition of what it is to be a physical properties. All in all, I think that there is much to learn from these two papers, but not all of it is as negative, conclusive, or 'downbeat' as their authors might have intended. Rather, I think that some new directions are indicated by the failure of some of the avenues they explore

The epiphenomenal mind

The Epiphenomenal Mind is both a deflationary attack on the powers of the human mind and a defence of human subjectivity. It is deflationary because in the thesis I argue that consciousness is an epiphenomenal consequence of events in the brain. It is a defence of human subjectivity because I argue that the mind is sui generis real, irreducible, and largely an endogenous product (i.e. not dependent on society or its resources). Part I is devoted to arguing that the conscious mind is epiphenomenal. Arguing from, the irreducibility of mental states, the causal closure of the physical domain, and the principle of causal explanatory exclusion, I seek to demonstrate that all theories of mental causation necessarily violate one or more of these premises. Contemporary approaches to mental causation come under two broad categories, those that argue that mental events are supervenient on physical events (such as Davidson, Kim and Horgan) and those (like Haskar) who argue that the mind is an emergent property of the brain. Supervenience based theories, I argue, end up reducing mental states in their search for a theory of mental causation and emergence based theories end up violating the principle of the causal closure of the physical. In part II, I explore some of the consequences of epiphenomenalism for social theory. This exploration comes in the context of a defence of human subjectivity against (i.) those sociological imperialists who view the mind and self as a 'gift of society', and (ii.) social situationalists who have abandoned the concept of action and an interest in 'what's in the head' of the actor, in favour of a concept of social action which views behaviour as action only to the extent that it is socially meaningful. The conclusion is that the social sciences should return to an interpretative style (Weberian) methodology.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceEconomic and Social Research Council (Great Britain) (ESRC)GBUnited Kingdo

Machines for Living: Philosophy of Technology and the Photographic Image

This dissertation examines the relationship that exists between two distinct and seemingly incompatible bodies of scholarship within the field of contemporary philosophy of technology. The first, as argued by postmodern pragmatist Barry Allen, posits that our tools and what we make with them are epistemically important; disputing the idea that knowledge is strictly sentential or propositional, he claims instead that knowledge is the product of a performance that is both superlative and artefactual, rendering technology importantly world-constituting. The second, as argued by Heidegger and his inheritors, is that technology is ontologically problematic; rather than technology being evidence of performative knowledge, it is instead existentially threatening by virtue of the fact that it changes the tenor of our relationship with the world-as-given. Despite the fact that these claims seem prima facie incompatible, I argue that they may be successfully reconciled by introducing a third body of scholarship: the philosophy of photography. For it is the case, I argue, that although we, qua human beings, occupy lifeworlds that are necessarily constituted by technology, technology also induces a kind of phenomenological scepticism: a concern that mediated action precludes us from the possibility of authentic experience. Arguing in favour of the sentiment that photographs serve as a kind of phenomenal anchor—a kind of machine for living—I claim that photographic images provide a panacea to this existential concern: despite being epistemically problematic, it is this selfsame epistemic “specialness” of photographs that forces us to phenomenologically recommit, if only temporarily, to the world in a serious way. Consequently, it is my belief that an analysis of our artefacts and the way they function is fundamentally incomplete without an analysis of the epistemic and ontological problems introduced of the photographic image; as I will demonstrate, the photographic image casts an extremely long shadow over the philosophy of technology

The Naturalisation of Intentionality and Rationality Using Systems: A Functional Explanation of Mind, Agency and Intentionality in Human Linguistic Communities

This thesis recognises two axioms of materialism. Firstly, that the human or other agent is within and is comprised of the same stuff as, a universe made up of material things, each of which is, in principle, explicable in materialist terms. Secondly, that the theorist is himself an agent, explicable within the theory of agency that he propounds. The author contends that any attempt to explain complex conscious human agency 'from the top down' faces either a potential regress of explaining the aetiology of human agency in terms of some agency of design or the view, canvassed by Colin McGinn, (1989), that the human mind is 'cognitively closed' to the concepts that would explain how human consciousness can arise from the material substance of the brain. The author has avoided this dilemma by postulating an austere characterisation of agency, from which the rich and manifold nature of human agency and intentionality has developed by the accidents of evolution. He holds that this austere agency may be explained by natural accidents of chemical combination that have led, by the accidents of evolution, to the phenomena of reproductive life, functionally characterised in this explanation by agency and autopoiesis. This austere characterisation of agency is an example of a functional system. Agency is a capacity of an entity within the physical system of an agent in the world. This capacity is enabled by functions that the author has named; 'perception', 'representation', 'cognitive process' and 'action'. Through the processes of perception, physical states of the world physically cause changes in representational states of agency; within cognitive processes, representational states combine to cause actions of agency that change states of the world, that includes the agent, in ways that maintain or tend towards those goal states of the agent in the world, that are postulated in a theory of agency. It is argued that this concept of agency is functionally isomorphic with the technological concept of regulation. Two theorems from regulation are particularly relevant. Firstly, Ashby's theorem that for successful regulation the variety of possible states in the regulator must at least match the variety of states regulated against. Secondly, the very idea of regulation stems from the epistemic contingency for the agent, of events regulated against. Life, as we know it on earth, is reproduced by reproductive behaviour that follows and reproduces the programmes encoded in DNA. The autopoietic maintenance of the structure of the living organism against the contingencies of an unpredictable world is enabled by the mechanisms of agency. The structure of the thesis and the ontological commitments of the author are set out in a first introductory chapter. In the second chapter the author summarises the history and currant range of application of the system concept and describes the philosophical implications of his notion of a physical system. The notions of physical cause, accident, function, supervenience, representation and alternative realisation that are assumed within the thesis are also described in this chapter. The third chapter is devoted to the development of the concept of agency as a capacity, characterized by goals and intentionality and enabled by the functions listed above. Examples of agency in the world are described in the fourth chapter. These range from the simple reflex agency of a governor, unicellular organism or part of a plant to the complex integrated agency of production control systems, advanced vertebrates, including us, and social groupings such as a colony of social insects or some aspects of a human corporation. Also, within this chapter, the author considers the impact of language on human social agency, the implications of social agency for the attribution of personhood and through semantic ascent, the social practices of attribution of meaning, truth and mind, and the prepositional attitudes. He concludes that, since agency necessarily involves an agent in its world and human language is about the world as it is for the human agent; language, agency and the world are explanatorily inseparable. In the fifth and sixth chapters the author applies his theory of human agency to the computational theory of mind and the apparent tension between determinism, free will and personal responsibility. The author concludes: Firstly, that the brain as an organ of representation, is not a computer since computation is an act of agency, although parts of the brain may have a combinatorial function within such acts. Secondly, if freedom is defined as an absence of physical constraint then a free agent is physically responsible for its acts. Within the social practice of attribution of personhood to the continuous ongoing agent within the community, each person is held responsible for his actions, including those that change the future agency of himself and others, for better or for worse, according to the valuation of the community. In a final chapter the author summarises some of the philosophical implications of his thesis. The notions of variety in regulation and of autopoiesis as a necessary criterion of life are used in the thesis and are explained in each of two appendices

The Contemporary Relevance of Kant’s Transcendental Psychology

The purpose of this thesis is to demonstrate the contemporary relevance of Kant’s transcendental psychology against the orthodoxy of the dominant analytic school of philosophy, in an aim to salvage it from criticisms that resulted in the widespread view that Kant had little to say about the mind that was correct or useful. Historically, this had led to the near exclusion of Kant’s views of the mind from mainstream philosophical debate; those who acknowledged intellectually the psychological import of the work deemed as having transgressed the bounds of proper philosophy. It is argued that this was, and still is, an unfortunate and narrow view, since an interpretation which fully embraces the transcendental aspect can provide invaluable insights and direction for contemporary research in cognitive science and cognitive neuroscience. A major focus of this work is to provide a rigorous conceptual analysis of the modern problem of consciousness and to show that every approach has become a response, positive or negative, to the Cartesian distinction between body and mind. Today, more than three hundred years after Descartes’ philosophical dualism, this powerful and persuasive argument still continues to hold fast. Cognitive neuroscientists have amassed a deep and detailed understanding of how our brains process information from the external world, but the question of how this information is transformed into conscious experience is deemed an unsolved problem. It is proposed that, although Kant never uses the concept of consciousness in the now dominant sense of phenomenal qualia, his theory of the transcendental subject is a valuable tool in unravelling the philosophical complexities that are commonplace in current theories