Physicalism and Mental Causation

Physicalism and Mental Causation PDF Author: Sven Walter
Publisher: Andrews UK Limited
ISBN: 1845405838
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 352

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Book Description
Physicalism—the thesis that everything there is in the world, including our minds, is constituted by basic physical entities—has dominated the philosophy of mind during the last few decades. But although the conceptual foundations of the physicalist agenda—including a proper explication of notions such as ‘causation', ‘determination', ‘realization’ or even ‘physicalism’ itself—must be settled before more specific problems (e.g. the problems of mental causation and human agency) can be satisfactorily addressed, a comprehensive philosophical reflection on the relationships between the various key concepts of the debate on physicalism is yet missing. This book presents a range of essays on the conceptual foundations of physicalism, mental causation and human agency, written by established and leading authors in the field.

Physicalism and Mental Causation

Physicalism and Mental Causation PDF Author: Sven Walter
Publisher: Andrews UK Limited
ISBN: 1845405838
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 352

Get Book Here

Book Description
Physicalism—the thesis that everything there is in the world, including our minds, is constituted by basic physical entities—has dominated the philosophy of mind during the last few decades. But although the conceptual foundations of the physicalist agenda—including a proper explication of notions such as ‘causation', ‘determination', ‘realization’ or even ‘physicalism’ itself—must be settled before more specific problems (e.g. the problems of mental causation and human agency) can be satisfactorily addressed, a comprehensive philosophical reflection on the relationships between the various key concepts of the debate on physicalism is yet missing. This book presents a range of essays on the conceptual foundations of physicalism, mental causation and human agency, written by established and leading authors in the field.

The Review of Metaphysics

The Review of Metaphysics PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Metaphysics
Languages : en
Pages : 1048

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Book Description


How Tobacco Smoke Causes Disease

How Tobacco Smoke Causes Disease PDF Author: United States. Public Health Service. Office of the Surgeon General
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Government publications
Languages : en
Pages : 728

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Book Description
This report considers the biological and behavioral mechanisms that may underlie the pathogenicity of tobacco smoke. Many Surgeon General's reports have considered research findings on mechanisms in assessing the biological plausibility of associations observed in epidemiologic studies. Mechanisms of disease are important because they may provide plausibility, which is one of the guideline criteria for assessing evidence on causation. This report specifically reviews the evidence on the potential mechanisms by which smoking causes diseases and considers whether a mechanism is likely to be operative in the production of human disease by tobacco smoke. This evidence is relevant to understanding how smoking causes disease, to identifying those who may be particularly susceptible, and to assessing the potential risks of tobacco products.

Reduction and Emergence in Science and Philosophy

Reduction and Emergence in Science and Philosophy PDF Author: Carl Gillett
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1316776646
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 401

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Book Description
Grand debates over reduction and emergence are playing out across the sciences, but these debates have reached a stalemate, with both sides declaring victory on empirical grounds. In this book, Carl Gillett provides theoretical frameworks with which to understand these debates, illuminating both the novel positions of scientific reductionists and emergentists and the recent empirical advances that drive these new views. Gillett also highlights the flaws in existing philosophical frameworks and reorients the discussion to reflect the new scientific advances and issues, including the nature of 'parts' and 'wholes', the character of aggregation, and thus the continuity of nature itself. Most importantly, Gillett shows how disputes about concrete scientific cases are empirically resolvable and hence how we can break the scientific stalemate. Including a detailed glossary of key terms, this volume will be valuable for researchers and advanced students of the philosophy of science and metaphysics, and scientific researchers working in the area.

Dissertation Abstracts International

Dissertation Abstracts International PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Dissertations, Academic
Languages : en
Pages : 402

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Book Description


The Symbolic Species: The Co-evolution of Language and the Brain

The Symbolic Species: The Co-evolution of Language and the Brain PDF Author: Terrence W. Deacon
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393343022
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 532

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Book Description
"A work of enormous breadth, likely to pleasantly surprise both general readers and experts."—New York Times Book Review This revolutionary book provides fresh answers to long-standing questions of human origins and consciousness. Drawing on his breakthrough research in comparative neuroscience, Terrence Deacon offers a wealth of insights into the significance of symbolic thinking: from the co-evolutionary exchange between language and brains over two million years of hominid evolution to the ethical repercussions that followed man's newfound access to other people's thoughts and emotions. Informing these insights is a new understanding of how Darwinian processes underlie the brain's development and function as well as its evolution. In contrast to much contemporary neuroscience that treats the brain as no more or less than a computer, Deacon provides a new clarity of vision into the mechanism of mind. It injects a renewed sense of adventure into the experience of being human.

The Conscious Mind

The Conscious Mind PDF Author: David J. Chalmers
Publisher: Oxford Paperbacks
ISBN: 9780195117899
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 436

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Book Description
Writing in a rigorous, thought-provoking style, the author takes us on a far-reaching tour through the philosophical ramifications of consciousness, offering provocative insights into the relationship between mind and brain.

Albion's Seed

Albion's Seed PDF Author: David Hackett Fischer
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 019974369X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 981

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Book Description
This fascinating book is the first volume in a projected cultural history of the United States, from the earliest English settlements to our own time. It is a history of American folkways as they have changed through time, and it argues a thesis about the importance for the United States of having been British in its cultural origins. While most people in the United States today have no British ancestors, they have assimilated regional cultures which were created by British colonists, even while preserving ethnic identities at the same time. In this sense, nearly all Americans are "Albion's Seed," no matter what their ethnicity may be. The concluding section of this remarkable book explores the ways that regional cultures have continued to dominate national politics from 1789 to 1988, and still help to shape attitudes toward education, government, gender, and violence, on which differences between American regions are greater than between European nations.

Contemporary Dualism

Contemporary Dualism PDF Author: Andrea Lavazza
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136682406
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 301

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Book Description
Ontological materialism, in its various forms, has become the orthodox view in contemporary philosophy of mind. This book provides a variety of defenses of mind-body dualism, and shows (explicitly or implicitly) that a thoroughgoing ontological materialism cannot be sustained. The contributions are intended to show that, at the very least, ontological dualism (as contrasted with a dualism that is merely linguistic or epistemic) constitutes a philosophically respectable alternative to the monistic views that currently dominate thought about the mind-body (or, perhaps more appropriately, person-body) relation.

Inner Presence

Inner Presence PDF Author: Antti Revonsuo
Publisher: Mit Press
ISBN: 9780262513418
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
An overview and critical analysis of the study of consciousness, integrating findings from philosophy, psychology, and cognitive neuroscience into a unified theoretical framework. The question of consciousness is perhaps the most significant problem still unsolved by science. In Inner Presence, Antti Revonsuo proposes a novel approach to the study of consciousness that integrates findings from philosophy, psychology, and cognitive neuroscience into a coherent theoretical framework. Arguing that any fruitful scientific approach to the problem must consider both the subjective psychological reality of consciousness and the objective neurobiological reality, Revonsuo proposes that the best strategy for discovering the connection between these two realities is one of "biological realism," using tools of the empirical biological sciences. This approach, which he calls the "biological research program," provides a theoretical and philosophical foundation that contemporary study of consciousness lacks. Revonsuo coins the term "world simulation metaphor" and uses this metaphor to develop a powerful way of thinking about consciousness as a biological system in the brain. This leads him to propose that the dreaming brain and visual consciousness are ideal model systems for empirical consciousness research. He offers a comprehensive overview and critical analysis of consciousness research and defends his approach against currently popular philosophical views, in particular against approaches that deny or externalize phenomenal consciousness, or claim that brain activity is not sufficient for consciousness. He systematically examines the principal issues in the science of consciousness--the contents of consciousness, the unity of consciousness and the binding problem, the explanatory gap and the neural correlates of consciousness, and the causal powers and function of consciousness. Revonsuo draws together empirical data from a wide variety of sources, including dream research, brain imaging, neuropsychology, and evolutionary psychology, into the theoretical framework of the biological research program, thus pointing the way toward a unified biological science of consciousness. Applying imaginative thought experiments, Inner Presence reaches beyond the current state-of-the-art, revealing how the problem of consciousness may eventually be solved by future science.