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For many, putting in doubt the existence of phenomenal consciousness is absurd since the distinction between appearance and reality does not apply to it. Many cognitive scientists and neuroscientists accept the existence of consciousness in virtue of such reasoning. The present work questions that justification. Consciousness is a concept whose scientific meaning comes from philosophy or colloquial language. From this, it concludes that the “self-evident nature of consciousness” is not a scientifically valid statement. This philosophical assumption rests on a category mistake in scientific language use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

Copyright of Arte & Ensaio is the property of Arte & Ensaio and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.) more...

In the present paper, we aim to evaluate the ordinary discourse that underlies folk psychology. Having language as a starting point, as conceived by Francis Bacon, we present the ideas of Jerry Fodor, who, with his intentional realism, seeks to naturalize the mentalist discourse. From this problematization, we present arguments for the validation of folk psychology, in opposition to Paul M. Churchland's eliminative proposal. more...

Se propone entender la relación mente-cuerpo partiendo del emergentismo, aunque esta propuesta no ha estado exenta de dificultades. Los esfuerzos del fisicalismo emergentista por encontrar poderes causales en lo mental han derivado en un eliminativismo de lo mental o a aceptarlo como fenómeno superveniente. En este artículo se intenta mostrar lo mental como un estadio emergente de lo físico pero sin pérdida de propiedades, pasando necesariamente por lo biológico como otro estadio de lo físico. Las propiedades mentales y biológicas, entonces, no se restringen a un ámbito separado del mundo físico, sino que constituyen formas diferentes de la fisicalidad pura. more...

I argue that a dilemma arises for naturalistic philosophers of mind in the naturalised semantics tradition. Giving a naturalistic account of the mind is a pressing problem. Brentano's Thesis -- that a state is mental if, and only if, that state has underived representational content -- provides an attractive route to naturalising the mental. If true, Brentano's Thesis means that naturalising representation is sufficient for naturalising the mental. But a naturalist who accepts Brentano's Thesis thus commits to an eliminativism about the category of the mental. This is because naturalistic theories of representation are reductive, and so over-generalise by applying to patently non-mental states. According to these theories, it has been argued, phenomena like tree rings and saliva come out as representational. Only proposing further Naturalistic conditions on representation could avoid the eliminativist conclusion. But this shows that Naturalists have made only limited progress towards naturalising the mental. And if a Naturalist rejects Brentano's Thesis, then she gives up on a clear link between representation and mentality. Hence, it is incumbent on the Naturalist to propose another, naturalistically acceptable, mark of the mental. This, again, shows that Naturalists have made only limited progress on the issue of naturalising the mental. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

En el presente artículo me concentraré en el estudio filosófico de los delirios, como un caso ejemplificador del vínculo que pueden establecer la filosofía de la mente y la psiquiatría. Frente a versiones radicalmente naturalistas, que proponen variantes reduccionistas o eliminativistas para la explicación de ciertos fenómenos mentales y sus variantes “anormales”, defenderé una versión moderada de la perspectiva naturalista. Al respecto, señalaré que retener algún grado de simpatía hacia el naturalismo en las investigaciones filosóficas sobre los delirios es necesario para desarrollar teorías sobre las creencias empíricamente informadas que no resulten contradictorias con los desarrollos actuales en psicología cognitiva y neurociencias. No obstante, afirmaré también que una perspectiva exclusivamente naturalista -tanto por parte de la filosofía como de la psiquiatría misma- es incapaz de dar cuenta del contexto normativo en donde juegan las creencias. Los criterios normativos, especialmente externos (sociales y pragmáticos) que se emplean para clasificar ciertas creencias como delirantes no resultan inteligibles bajo una explicación puramente natural. Por el contrario, para comprender las creencias delirantes qua delirantes, será preciso acercarnos a un abordaje híbrido que pueda contemplar las causas naturales del fenómeno así como su evaluación normativa. more...

In his strictly private philosophical papers, Leibniz systematically tries to define the concept 'nothingness'. Although Leibniz scholars have not paid special attention to them, the value of these pieces rests on both the aporetic character they have and the need Leibniz had to find a way out from the ontological labyrinth where they lead: the labyrinth of nothingness. The task of this research is to reveal the difficulties involved in --what we call it-- the Leibnizian doctrine of nothingness, pointing out its importance in the light of Leibniz's general ontology. Through an analytic survey of several Leibniz's personal manuscripts, we will try to expose the way in which the difficulties Leibniz threats lead him to admit that nothingness is conceivable. Furtively Leibniz becomes thus in what he rejects: A Scholastic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

Copyright of Revista Estudios de Filosofía is the property of Universidad de Antioquia, Instituto de Filosofia and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.) more...

I propose to understand the mind-body relationship on the basis of emergentism, although this proposal has not been without difficulties. The efforts of emergentist physicalism to find mental causal powers have resulted in either an eliminativist stance regarding the mental or in its acceptance as a supervenient phenomenon. This article sets out to present the mental as an emerging stage of the physical but without any loss of properties, necessarily passing through the biological as another stage of physical. So mental and biological properties are not restricted to an area separate from the physical world, but represent different kinds of pure physicality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

the aim of this article is to examine how and why -- in the current legal context, and because of some relevant changes that are ripening -- the legal practice is supported by a solid professional ethics of the legal roles, summed up in the respect of the rule of law. other elements that in the past seemed crucial to explain the legal order nowadays are inadequate and a legal theory without considering the role of lawyers is incomplete. After indicating the changes in the background, it will follow an analysis of the legal professional ethics and the reasons of its specificity. Against what is supported by the recent literature about eliminativism in legal philosophy, the perspective of professional ethics implies an inquiry about the concept of law and the question about the autonomy of law from Politics and morality. the answer to these questions requires to confute three thesis: the irrelevance of the concept of law for its practice; the realistic reduction of law to power; the moral monism in the field of obligations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

Copyright of Co-herencia is the property of Universidad EAFIT and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.) more...

Copyright of Co-herencia is the property of Universidad EAFIT and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.) more...

The paper analyses the main trends in the discussions about the notion of supervenience in the last decades, putting the emphasis in some crucial problems. The starting point will be the various concepts of supervenience proposed by Jaegwon Kim. Through them, we will identify a dramatic tension between the extremes of eliminativism and dualism (in general, pluralism), being placed in the middle of them the positions of a non-eliminativist reductionism and of a non-dualist epiphenomenism. The open options facing that tension show a very peculiar and valuable sort of philosophical work which could be called “conceptual engineering”. more...

The model of working memory by Alan Baddeley (that includes the Supervisory Attention System) and the eliminativist arguments by Richard Rorty, are both related to cognitive psychology, present distinct and unequal conceptions regarding to the human will and capacity to decide. In this article are drawn the two theories, and reflect to the nature and of its contradiction. Besides there is a possible fundamental methodical basis for the study of the will, based in one of the most well-known cases in neuropsychological study, the one of the amnesic patient H.M. more...

Eliminativism about macroscopic material objects claims that we do not need to include tables in our ontology, and that any job -- practical or theoretical -- they have to do can be done by 'atoms arranged tablewise'. This way of introducing eliminativism faces the worry that if there are no 'atoms', that is, if there are no simples and the world is 'gunky', there are no suitable entities to be 'arranged tablewise'. In this article, I discuss various strategies the eliminativist can have to face this objection, and I conclude by showing that the objection is actually misdirected and does not threaten eliminativism at all. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...