The Phenomenal Basis of Intentionality PDF Download

Author: Angela A. Mendelovici
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190863803
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 297

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Book Description
Mendelovici proposes a novel theory of intentionality in terms of phenomenal consciousness, arguing that the view avoids the problems of its competitors and can accommodate a wide range of cases, including those of thought and nonconscious states.

Author: Uriah Kriegel
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199720525
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 271

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Book Description
Since the late 1970's, the main research program for understanding intentionality -- the mind's ability to direct itself onto the world -- has been based on the attempt naturalize intentionality, in the sense of making it intelligible how intentionality can occur in a perfectly natural, indeed entirely physical, world. Some philosophers, however, have remained skeptical of this entire approach. In particular, some have argued that phenomenal consciousness - - the subjective feel of conscious experience -- has an essential role to play in the theory of intentionality, a role missing in the naturalization program. Thus a number of authors have recently brought to the fore the notion of phenomenal intentionality, as well as a cluster of nearby notions. There is a vague sense that their work is interrelated, complementary, and mutually reinforcing, in a way that suggests a germinal research program. With twelve new essays by philosophers at the forefront of the field, this volume is designed to launch this research program in a more self-conscious way, by exploring some of the fundamental claims and themes of relevance to this program.

Author: Angela Mendelovici
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190863811
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 297

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Book Description
Intentionality is the mind's ability to be "of," "about," or "directed" at things, or to "say" something. For example, a thought might "say" that grass is green or that Santa Claus is jolly, and a visual experience might be "of" a blue cup. While the existence of the phenomenon of intentionality is manifestly obvious, how exactly the mind gets to be "directed" at things, which may not even exist, is deeply mysterious and controversial. It has been long assumed that the best way to explain intentionality is in terms of tracking relations, information, functional roles, and similar notions. This book breaks from this tradition, arguing that the only empirically adequate and in principle viable theory of intentionality is one in terms of phenomenal consciousness, the felt, subjective, or qualitative feature of mental life. According to the theory advanced by Mendelovici, the phenomenal intentionality theory, there is a central kind of intentionality, phenomenal intentionality, that arises from phenomenal consciousness alone, and any other kind of intentionality derives from it. The phenomenal intentionality theory faces important challenges in accounting for the rich and sophisticated contents of thoughts, broad and object-involving contents, and nonconscious states. Mendelovici proposes a novel and particularly strong version of the theory that can meet these challenges. The end result is a radically internalistic picture of the mind, on which all phenomenally represented contents are literally in our heads, and any non-phenomenal contents we in some sense represent are expressly singled out by us.

Author: Angela A. Mendelovici
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780190863838
Category : Intention (Logic)
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
Some mental states seem to be 'of' or 'about' things or to 'say' something. For example, a thought might represent that grass is green, and a visual experience might represent a blue cup. This is intentionality. The aim of this work is to explain this phenomenon. Once we understand intentionality as a phenomenon to be explained, rather than a posit in a theory explaining something else, we can see that there are glaring empirical and in-principle difficulties with currently popular tracking and functional role theories of intentionality, which aim to account for intentionality in terms of tracking relations and functional roles.

Author: Uriah Kriegel
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199380317
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 286

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Book Description
What do thoughts, hopes, paintings, words, desires, photographs, traffic signs, and perceptions have in common? They are all about something, are directed, are contentful - in a way chairs and trees, for example, are not. This book inquires into the source of this power of directedness that some items exhibit while others do not. An approach to this issue prevalent in the philosophy of the past half-century seeks to explain the power of directedness in terms of certain items' ability to reliably track things in their environment. A very different approach, with a venerable history and enjoying a recent resurgence, seeks to explain the power of directedness rather in terms of an intrinsic ability of conscious experience to direct itself. This book attempts a synthesis of both approaches, developing an account of the sources of such directedness that grounds it both in reliable tracking and in conscious experience.

Author: Fabian Dorsch
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0191644455
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 301

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Book Description
Many different features of the world figure consciously in our perceptual experiences, in the sense that they make a subjective difference to those experiences. These features are thought to range from colours and shapes, to volumes and backsides, from natural or artefactual kinds, to reasons for perceptual belief, and from the existence and externality of objects, to the relationality and wakeful-ness of our perceptual awareness of them. Phenomenal Presence explores the different ways in which features like these may be phenomenally present in perceptual experience. In particular, it focuses on features that are rarely discussed, and the perceptual presence of which is more controversial or less obvious because they are out of view or otherwise easily overlooked; for example, they are given in a non-sensory manner, or they are categorical in the sense that they feature in all perceptual experiences (such as their justificatory power, their wakefulness, or the externality of their objects). The book divides into four parts, each dealing with a different kind of phenomenal presence. The first addresses the nature of the presence of perceptual constancies and variations, while the second investigates the determinacy and ubiquity of the presence of spatial properties in perception. The third part deals with the presence of hidden or occluded aspects of objects, while part four discusses the presence of categorical aspects of perceptual experience. The contributions provide a thorough examination of which features are phenomenally present in perception, and what it is for them to figure in experience in this way.

Author: Galen Strawson
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 019155619X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 488

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Book Description
Real Materialism draws together papers written over twenty years by Galen Strawson in philosophy of mind and metaphysics. Strawson focuses on five main areas of enquiry: [1] the nature of the physical, consciousness, the 'mind-body problem', and the prospects for panpsychism; [2] the self, the subject of experience, self-consciousness, and the 'narrative' self; [3] free will and moral responsibility; [4] the nature of thought and intentionality and their connection with consciousness; [5] the problem of causation with particular reference to the philosophy of David Hume.

Author: Brian Loar
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199673357
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 341

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Book Description
One of the most important problems of modern philosophy concerns the place of subjectivity in a purely physical universe. Brian Loar was a major contributor to the discussion of this problem for over four decades. This volume brings together his most important and influential essays in the philosophy of language and of mind.

Author: Raimo Tuomela
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 019061238X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 327

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Book Description
This volume presents a systematic philosophical theory related to the collectivism-versus-individualism debate in the social sciences. A weak version of collectivism (the "we-mode" approach) that depends on group-based collective intentionality is developed in the book. We-mode collective intentionality is not individualistically reducible and is needed to complement individualistic accounts in social scientific theorizing. The we-mode approach is used in the book to account for collective intention and action, cooperation, group attitudes, social practices and institutions as well as group solidarity.

Author: Denis Fisette
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 9780792359074
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 382

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Book Description
The papers collected here had their origin in a conference held in Montreal, 1-3 June 1995. The conference drew together researchers of all persuasions, from Europe and North America, to discuss the philosophy of mind. The volume is divided into four sections, each section being prefaced by a specific introduction. The first section deals mainly with the problem of consciousness in relation to intentionality. The second section's main topic is the problem of `qualia', a notion closely related to phenomenal consciousness, approached in the context of perception. The last two sections raise several problems related to what has been called `folk psychology'. Readership: Philosophers interested in philosophy of mind, psychologists, cognitive scientists.