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394Readings in Philosophy of Psychology: 1 (edited book)Harvard University Press. 1980.... PHILOSOPHY OF PSYCHOLOGY is the study of conceptual issues in psychology. For the most part, these issues fall equally well in psychology as in..
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1060Comparing the major theories of consciousnessIn Michael Gazzaniga (ed.), The Cognitive Neurosciences IV, . pp. 1111-1123. 2009.This article compares the three frameworks for theories of consciousness that are taken most seriously by neuroscientists, the view that consciousness is a biological state of the brain, the global workspace perspective and an account in terms of higher order states. The comparison features the “explanatory gap” (Nagel, 1974; Levine, 1983) the fact that we have no idea why the neural basis of an experience is the neural basis of that experience rather than another experience or no experience at …Read more
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564Max Black's objection to mind-body identityOxford Studies in Metaphysics 2 3-78. 2006.considered an objection that he says he thought was first put to him by Max Black. He says.
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164The Anna Karenina Principle and Skepticism about Unconscious PerceptionPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 93 (2): 452-459. 2015.
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325Bodily sensations as an obstacle for representationismIn Murat Aydede (ed.), Pain: New Essays on its Nature and the Methodology of its Study, Mit Press. pp. 137-142. 2005.Representationism 1, as I use the term, says that the phenomenal character of an experience just is its representational content, where that representational content can itself be understood and characterized without appeal to phenomenal character. Representationists seem to have a harder time handling pain than visual experience. I will argue that Michael Tye's heroic attempt at a representationist theory of pain, although ingenious and enlightening, does not adequately come to terms with the r…Read more
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157Semantics, conceptual roleIn [Book Chapter] (Unpublished), . pp. 242--256. 1996.According to Conceptual Role Semantics ("CRS"), the meaning of a representation is the role of that representation in the cognitive life of the agent, e.g. in perception, thought and decision-making. It is an extension of the well known "use" theory of meaning, according to which the meaning of a word is its use in communication and more generally, in social interaction. CRS supplements external use by including the role of a symbol inside a computer or a brain. The uses appealed to are not just…Read more
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204Discussion of J. Kevin O’Regan’s “Why Red Doesn’t Sound Like a Bell: Understanding the Feel of Consciousness”Review of Philosophy and Psychology 3 (1): 89-108. 2012.Discussion of J. Kevin O’Regan’s “Why Red Doesn’t Sound Like a Bell: Understanding the Feel of Consciousness” Content Type Journal Article Pages 1-20 DOI 10.1007/s13164-012-0090-7 Authors J. Kevin O’Regan, Laboratoire Psychologie de la Perception, CNRS - Université Paris Descartes, Centre Biomédical des Saints Pères, 45 rue des Sts Pères, 75270 Paris cedex 06, France Ned Block, Departments of Philosophy, Psychology and Center for Neural Science, New York University, 5 Washington Place, New York,…Read more
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285How not to find the neural correlate of consciousnessIn The Foundations of Cognitive Science, Oxford: Clarendon Press. pp. 1. 2001.There are two concepts of consciousness that are easy to confuse with one another, access-consciousness and phenomenal consciousness. However, just as the concepts of water and H2O are different concepts of the same thing, so the two concepts of consciousness may come to the same thing in the brain. The focus of this paper is on the problems that arise when these two concepts of consciousness are conflated. I will argue that John Searles reasoning about the function of consciousness goes wrong …Read more
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99Ridiculing social constructivism about phenomenal consciousnessBehavioral and Brain Sciences 22 (1): 199-201. 1999.Money is a cultural construction, leukemia is not. In which category does phenomenal consciousness fit? The issue is clarified by a distinction between what cultural phenomena causally influence and what culture constitutes. Culture affects phenomenal consciousness but it is ridiculous to suppose that culture constitutes it, even in part.
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604Wittgenstein and QualiaPhilosophical Perspectives 21 (1): 73-115. 2007.endorsed one kind of inverted spectrum hypothesis and rejected another. This paper argues that the kind of inverted spectrum hypothesis that Wittgenstein endorsed is the thin end of the wedge that precludes a Wittgensteinian critique of the kind of inverted spectrum hypothesis he rejected. The danger of the dangerous kind is that it provides an argument for qualia, where qualia are contents of experiential states which cannot be fully captured in natural language. I will pinpoint the difference …Read more
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117Functional role and truth conditionsProceedings of the Aristotelian Society 88 (1): 157-181. 1988.Ned Block, John Campbell; Functional Role and Truth Conditions, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 88, Issue 1, 1 June 1988, Pages 273–292, https:/
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Reply: Causation and Two Kinds of LawsIn Cynthia MacDonald & Graham MacDonald (eds.), Philosophy of Psychology: Debates on Psychological Explanation, Blackwell. pp. 78--83. 1994.
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207The photographic fallacy in the debate about mental imageryNoûs 17 (4): 651-62. 1983.There has been considerable debate among philosophers and psychol- ogists about whether the internal representations of imagery represent in the manner of pictures or in the manner of language. One side, pictorialism,holds that an internal imagery representation of Reagan is like a picture of Reagan. The other side, descriptionalism,holds that an internal imagery representation of Reagan is more like a string of words denoting or describing Reagan. My aim here is to expose a widespread fallacy o…Read more
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23Consciousness, philosophical issues aboutIn L. Nadel (ed.), Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science, Nature Publishing Group. 2003.
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130Phenomenal and Access Consciousness Ned Block and Cynthia MacDonald: Consciousness and Cognitive AccessProceedings of the Aristotelian Society 108 (1pt3). 2008.
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645The higher order approach to consciousness is defunctAnalysis 71 (3). 2011.The higher order approach to consciousness attempts to build a theory of consciousness from the insight that a conscious state is one that the subject is conscious of. There is a well-known objection1 to the higher order approach, a version of which is fatal. Proponents of the higher order approach have realized that the objection is significant. They have dealt with it via what David Rosenthal calls a “retreat” (2005b, p. 179) but that retreat fails to solve the problem.
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1452Consciousness and accessibilityBehavioral and Brain Sciences 13 (4): 596-598. 1990.This is my first publication of the distinction between phenomenal consciousness and access consciousness, though not using quite those terms. It ends with this: "The upshot is this: If Searle is using the access sense of "consciousness," his argument doesn't get to first base. If, as is more likely, he intends the what-it-is-like sense, his argument depends on assumptions about issues that the cognitivist is bound to regard as deeply unsettled empirical questions." Searle replies: "He refers …Read more
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30Jack and Jill have shifted spectraBehavioral and Brain Sciences 22 (6): 946-947. 1999.There is reason to believe that people of different gender, race or age differ in spectra that are shifted relative to one another. Shifted spectra are not as dramatic as inverted spectra, but they can be used to make some of the same philosophical points.
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167States' rightsBehavioral and Brain Sciences 3 (1): 73-74. 1980.This is a response to Jerry Fodor’s article, Fodor, J. (1980). "Methodological solipsism as a research strategy in cognitive psychology." Behavioral and Brain Sciences 3: 63-109.
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680Anti-Reductionism Slaps BackNoûs 31 (s11): 107-132. 1997.For nearly thirty years, there has been a consensus (at least in English-speaking countries) that reductionism is a mistake and that there are autonomous special sciences. This consensus has been based on an argument from multiple realizability. But Jaegwon Kim has argued persuasively that the multiple realizability argument is flawed.1 I will sketch the recent history of the debate, arguing that much --but not all--of the anti-reductionist consensus survives Kim's critique. This paper was origi…Read more
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276Sexism, ageism, racism, and the nature of consciousnessPhilosophical Topics 26 (1-2): 39-70. 1999.If a philosophical theory led to the conclusion that the red stripes cannot look red to both men and women, both blacks and whites, both young and old, we would be reluctant (to say the least) to accept that philosophical theory. But there is a widespread philosophical view about the nature of conscious experience that, together with some empirical facts, suggests that color experience cannot be veridical for both men and women, both blacks and whites, both young and old
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138An argument for holismProceedings of the Aristotelian Society 95 151-70. 1995.Ned Block; IX*—An Argument for Holism1, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 95, Issue 1, 1 June 1995, Pages 151–170, https://doi.org/10.1093/aristot.
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1What narrow content is notIn Barry M. Loewer (ed.), Meaning in Mind: Fodor and His Critics, Blackwell. 1991.
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