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 […]
Consciousness Science People often accuse me of being opposed to a science of consciousness. Nothing could be further from the truth. I see no reason of principle why there could not be a science of consciousness, though admittedly we do not yet have much in the way of such a […]
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 […]
The Disunity of the Unconscious Consciousness has enjoyed the limelight for some time now. It is time for its neglected sister, Unconsciousness, to be let out of the attic and investigated in her own right. One question we can ask is whether the unconscious mind has the kind of unity possessed […]
Feeling Philosophy Philosophy is an emotional subject. There are philosophical emotions. But are these emotions specific to philosophy or just instances of more general emotions? Is the emotional life of a philosopher essentially identical to that of a physicist or an historian, or is it a life of a different emotional […]
Necessity and Truth It is generally assumed that necessity implies truth: from “Necessarily p” we can infer “It is true that p”. In possible worlds terms, if a sentence is true in every world, it is true in the actual world. This is taken to be self-evident and to my […]
Skeletons of the Mind The skeletons of all mammals are said by biologists to be “homologous”. If you look at the skeleton of a bat, say, and compare it with the skeleton of a human or a dog, you find the same number and arrangement of bones (give or take a […]
The Concept of a Person I have come to the conclusion that the concept of a person, as philosophers employ that concept, is a bad concept. It leads to the formulation of bad questions that have no answers. The concept does not pick out any natural kind and is quite misleading. […]
Why Thoughts Cannot be Chemical Events The usual kinds of theoretical identity exhibit a common feature: we can give a compositional analysis of the thing being identified in terms of what it is being identified with. Thus in the case of “water is H2O” we can analyze water as composed […]
Turing Tests The classic Turing test involves a robot that passes for a conscious thinking human being. The examiner spends time with the robot, asking questions, interacting, and the question is whether it presents a convincing enough appearance of intelligence and consciousness. It is like an audition for playing the part […]