VOLUME 8 (1995), ISSUE 4

Manuscripts:

CELIA GREEN & GRANT GILLETT
Are mental events preceded by their physical causes?

• Abstract: Libet's experiments, supported by a strict one-to-one identity thesis between brain events and mental events, have prompted the conclusion that physical events precede the mental events to which they correspond. We examine this claim and conclude that it is suspect for several reasons. First, there is a dual assumption that an intention is the kind of thing that causes an action and that can be accurately introspected. Second, there is a real problem with the method of timing the mental events concerned given that Libet himself has found the reports of subjects to be unreliable in this regard. Third, there is a suspect assumption that there are such things as timable and locatable mental and brain events accompanying and causing human behavior. For all these reasons we reject the claim that physical events are prior to and explain mental events.

JOEL J. KUPPERMAN
An anti-essentialist view of the emotions

• Abstract: Emotions normally include elements of feeling, motivation, and also intentionality; but the argument of this essay is that there can be emotion without feeling, emotion without corresponding motivation, and emotion without an intentional relation to an object such that the emotion is (among other things) a belief about or construal of it. Many recent writers have claimed that some form of intentionality is essential to emotion, and then have created lines of defense for this thesis. Thus, what look like troublesome cases of emotions can be regarded as having a global intentionality or as being "mood-like". Alternatively, surges of non-intentional joy or ecstasy can be regarded as merely feelings rather than as emotions, and what people experience in response to absolute music can be treated similarly. A clear view of how we normally talk about moods, emotions, and feelings, however, undermines these defenses; and in particular we can understand the role of emotions in relation to absolute music once we become clear about the way in which musical content stands in for intentional objects.

MIRIAM SOLOMON
Naturalism and generality

• Abstract: Naturalistic epistemologists frequently assume that their aim is to identify generalities (i.e. general laws) about the effectiveness of particular reasoning processes and methods. This paper argues that the search for this kind of generality fails. Work that has been done thus far to identify generalities (e.g. Goldman, Kitcher, Thagard) overlooks both the complexity of reasoning and the relativity of assessments to particular contexts (domain, stage and goal of inquiry). Examples of human reasoning which show both complexity and contexuality are given. The paper concludes with a discussion of the kind of multivariate model of reasoning that naturalistic epistemologists can use to evaluate processes and methods for specific domains.

JAMES W. GARSON
Chaos and free will

• Abstract: This paper explores the possibility that chaos theory might be helpful in explaining free will. I will argue that chaos has little to offer if we construe its role as to resolve the apparent conflict between determinism and freedom. However, I contend that the fundamental problem of freedom is to find a way to preserve intuitions about rational action in a physical brain. New work on dynamic computation provides a framework for viewing free choice as a process that is sensitive and unpredictable, while at the same time organized and intelligent. I conclude that this vision of a chaotic brain may make a modest contribution to an intuitively acceptable physicalist account of free will.

STUART S. GLENNAN
Computationalism and the problem of other minds

• Abstract: In this paper I discuss Searle's claim that the computational properties of a system could never cause a system to be conscious. In the first section of the paper I argue that Searle is correct that, even if a system both behaves in a way that is characteristic of conscious agents (like ourselves) and has a computational structure similar to those agents, one cannot be certain that that system is conscious. On the other hand, I suggest that Searle's intuition that it is "empirically absurd" that such a system could be conscious is unfounded. In the second section I show that Searle's attempt to show that a system's computational states could not possibly cause it to be conscious is based upon an erroneous distinction between computational and physical properties. On the basis of these two arguments, I conclude that, supposing that the behavior of conscious agents can be explained in terms of their computational properties, we have good reason to suppose that a system having computational properties similar to such agents is also conscious.

Book Reviews:

JUSTIN LEIBER
Review of WILLEM J.M. LEVELT's Speaking: From intention to articulation

W.J. TALBOTT
Review of RICHARD E. NISBETT's Rules for reasoning

ANTHONY DARDIS
Review of ALVIN I. GOLDMAN's Readings in philosophy and cognitive science

DALE JAMIESON
Review of SUE SAVAGE-RUMBAUGH, JEANNINE MURPHY, ROSE A. SEVCIK, KAREN BRAKKE, SHELLY WILLIAMS, & DUANE RUMBAUGH's Language comprehension in ape and child

DOUGLAS DEMPSTER
Review of DIANA RAFFMAN's Language, music, and mind

JOHN SNAPPER
Review of LANCE J. RIP's Psychology of proof

DENISE D. CUMMINS
Review of P. JOHNSON-LAIRD's Human and machine thinking

MICHAEL WHEELER
Review of DAVID McFARLAND & THOMAS BOSSER's Intelligent behavior in animals and robots

HARRY HEFT
Review of CHARLES LANDESMAN's The eye and the mind: Reflections on perception and the problem of knowledge

DONALD LEVY
Review of GIL G. NOAM & THOMAS WREN's The moral self

LINDLEY DARDEN
Review of SCOTT A. KLEINER's The logic of discovery: A theory of the rationality of scientific research

ALASTAIR TAIT
Review of S.M. CHRISTENSON & D.R. TURNER's Folk psychology and the philosophy of mind