Sketch for a General Theory of Human Psychology Is it possible to come up with high-level organizational principles of human psychology? The task has been attempted before–as in associationist psychology, classical conditioning theory, and computationalism. The hope is to discover general principles that cover a wide variety of psychological phenomena, thus unifying […]
What is Physicalism? Suppose for the sake of argument that panpsychism is true. Suppose also that a physicist investigating panpsychism finds evidence of its truth in the form of anomalous motions of elementary particles—motions that cannot be explained by the usual forces. She formulates a “psychic-field theory” that postulates a […]
Posing the Mind-Body Problem Often the best (and only) way to make progress on a problem is to pose it in the right form. In that spirit I propose that we divide the classic mind-body problem into three interconnected but distinguishable problems: the problem of substance, the problem of structure, […]
It is often supposed that consciousness has something to do with self-reference. Thus it is held that to be conscious is to be conscious of oneself: consciousness is the same as self-consciousness. This view comes in several versions: referring to oneself with “I”, having higher-order thoughts, perceiving one’s own mental states, self-monitoring, introspective […]
Biological Philosophy of Language Linguistics has grown accustomed to viewing human language as a biological phenomenon. This view stands opposed to two other views: supernaturalism and cultural determination. Ancient thought conceived of language as a gift from God, closely adjoined to the immaterial soul: this accounted for its origin, its seemingly […]
