Rationality + Consciousness = Free Will

Rationality + Consciousness = Free Will PDF Author: David Hodgson
Publisher: OUP USA
ISBN: 0199845301
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 278

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Book Description
The author examines the idea of free will, arguing that consideration of human rationality and consciousness together gives us free will.

Rationality + Consciousness = Free Will

Rationality + Consciousness = Free Will PDF Author: David Hodgson
Publisher: OUP USA
ISBN: 0199845301
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 278

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Book Description
The author examines the idea of free will, arguing that consideration of human rationality and consciousness together gives us free will.

Alchemies of the Mind

Alchemies of the Mind PDF Author: Jon Elster
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521644877
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 468

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Book Description
A comprehensive book on the emotions considering the full range of theoretical approaches.

Why Think?

Why Think? PDF Author: Ronald de Sousa
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 019518985X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 198

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Book Description
In this short and accessible book, Ronald de Sousa shows us that in order to understand what is truly important about our reasoning capacity, we need to change our thinking about what rationality actually is.

The Mind on Paper

The Mind on Paper PDF Author: David R. Olson
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107162890
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 285

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Book Description
Shows why reading and writing are essential to developing a consciousness of language that, in turn, lies at the core of rationality.

Rationality and the Literate Mind

Rationality and the Literate Mind PDF Author: Roy Harris
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135838763
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : en
Pages : 207

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Book Description
This book re-examines the old debate about the relationship between rationality and literacy. Does writing "restructure consciousness?" Do preliterate societies have a different "mind-set" from literate societies? Is reason "built in" to the way we think? How is literacy related to numeracy? Is the "logical form" that Western philosophers recognize anything more than an extrapolation from the structure of the written sentence? Is logic, as developed formally in Western education, intrinsically beyond the reach of the preliterate mind? What light, if any, do the findings of contemporary neuroscience throw on such issues? Roy Harris challenges the received mainstream opinion that reason is an intrinsic property of the human mind, and argues that the whole Western conception of rational thought, from Classical Greece down to modern symbolic logic, is a by-product of the way literacy developed in European cultures.

Reason and Nature

Reason and Nature PDF Author: José Luis Bermúdez
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 9780199256839
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 302

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Book Description
In a series of essays nine philosophers and two psychologists address three main themes: the status of norms of rationality; the precise form taken by them; and the role of norms in belief and actions.

The Rational Mind

The Rational Mind PDF Author: Scott Sturgeon
Publisher:
ISBN: 0198845790
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 384

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Book Description
In The Rational Mind, Scott Sturgeon develops a detailed story of coarse- and fine-grained mental states, a novel perspective on how they fit together, an engaging theory of the rational transitions between them, and a fresh view on the ways in which formal efforts in the area should work.

The Rationality Quotient

The Rationality Quotient PDF Author: Keith E. Stanovich
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262034840
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 479

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Book Description
How to assess critical aspects of cognitive functioning that are not measured by IQ tests: rational thinking skills. Why are we surprised when smart people act foolishly? Smart people do foolish things all the time. Misjudgments and bad decisions by highly educated bankers and money managers, for example, brought us the financial crisis of 2008. Smart people do foolish things because intelligence is not the same as the capacity for rational thinking. The Rationality Quotient explains that these two traits, often (and incorrectly) thought of as one, refer to different cognitive functions. The standard IQ test, the authors argue, doesn't measure any of the broad components of rationality—adaptive responding, good judgment, and good decision making. The authors show that rational thinking, like intelligence, is a measurable cognitive competence. Drawing on theoretical work and empirical research from the last two decades, they present the first prototype for an assessment of rational thinking analogous to the IQ test: the CART (Comprehensive Assessment of Rational Thinking). The authors describe the theoretical underpinnings of the CART, distinguishing the algorithmic mind from the reflective mind. They discuss the logic of the tasks used to measure cognitive biases, and they develop a unique typology of thinking errors. The Rationality Quotient explains the components of rational thought assessed by the CART, including probabilistic and scientific reasoning; the avoidance of “miserly” information processing; and the knowledge structures needed for rational thinking. Finally, the authors discuss studies of the CART and the social and practical implications of such a test. An appendix offers sample items from the test.

The Epistemic Role of Consciousness

The Epistemic Role of Consciousness PDF Author: Declan Smithies
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199917671
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 457

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Book Description
What is the role of consciousness in our mental lives? Declan Smithies argues here that consciousness is essential to explaining how we can acquire knowledge and justified belief about ourselves and the world around us. On this view, unconscious beings cannot form justified beliefs and so they cannot know anything at all. Consciousness is the ultimate basis of all knowledge and epistemic justification. Smithies builds a sustained argument for the epistemic role of phenomenal consciousness which draws on a range of considerations in epistemology and the philosophy of mind. His position combines two key claims. The first is phenomenal mentalism, which says that epistemic justification is determined by the phenomenally individuated facts about your mental states. The second is accessibilism, which says that epistemic justification is luminously accessible in the sense that you're always in a position to know which beliefs you have epistemic justification to hold. Smithies integrates these two claims into a unified theory of epistemic justification, which he calls phenomenal accessibilism. The book is divided into two parts, which converge on this theory of epistemic justification from opposite directions. Part 1 argues from the bottom up by drawing on considerations in the philosophy of mind about the role of consciousness in mental representation, perception, cognition, and introspection. Part 2 argues from the top down by arguing from general principles in epistemology about the nature of epistemic justification. These mutually reinforcing arguments form the basis for a unified theory of the epistemic role of phenomenal consciousness, one that bridges the gap between epistemology and philosophy of mind.

Plotinus on Consciousness

Plotinus on Consciousness PDF Author: D. M. Hutchinson
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108627137
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Book Description
Plotinus is the first Greek philosopher to hold a systematic theory of consciousness. The key feature of his theory is that it involves multiple layers of experience: different layers of consciousness occur in different levels of self. This layering of higher modes of consciousness on lower ones provides human beings with a rich experiential world, and enables human beings to draw on their own experience to investigate their true self and the nature of reality. This involves a robust notion of subjectivity. However, it is a notion of subjectivity that is unique to Plotinus, and remarkably different from the Post-Cartesian tradition. Behind the plurality of terms Plotinus uses to express consciousness, and behind the plurality of entities to which Plotinus attributes consciousness (such as the divine souls and the hypostases), lies a theory of human consciousness. It is a Platonist theory shaped by engagement with rival schools of ancient thought.