-
190Consciousness 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
-
4Phenomenal and Access Consciousness Ned Block and Cynthia MacDonald: Consciousness and Cognitive AccessProceedings of the Aristotelian Society 108 (1pt3). 2008.
-
77States' 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.
-
43Anti-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
-
4Jack 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.
-
15An 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.
-
1What narrow content is notIn Barry M. Loewer (ed.), Meaning in Mind: Fodor and His Critics, Blackwell. 1991.
-
27Sexism, 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
-
180Consciousness, Big Science and Conceptual ClarityIn Gary Marcus & Jeremy Freeman (eds.), in The Future of the Brain: Essays by the World’s Leading Neuroscientists, Princeton University Press. pp. 161-176. 2014.
-
197Do causal powers drain awayPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 67 (1): 133-150. 2003.In this note, I will discuss one issue concerning the main argument of Mind in a Physical World (Kim, 1998), the Causal Exclusion Argument. The issue is whether it is a consequence of the Causal Exclusion Argument that all macro level causation (that is, causation above the level of fundamental physics) is an illusion, with all of the apparent causal powers of mental and other macro properties draining into the bottom level of physics. I will argue that such a consequence would give us reason to…Read more
-
269The mind as the software of the brainIn Daniel N. Osherson & Edward E. Smith (eds.), An Invitation to Cognitive Science: Visual cognition. 2, Mit Press. pp. 377-425. 1990.In this section, we will start with an influential attempt to define `intelligence', and then we will move to a consideration of how human intelligence is to be investigated on the machine model. The last part of the section will discuss the relation between the mental and the biological
-
221Consciousness Explained by Daniel C. Dennett (review)Journal of Philosophy 90 (4): 181-193. 1993.
-
54QualiaIn Richard L. Gregory (ed.), Oxford Companion to the Mind, Oxford University Press. 1987.Qualia include the ways things look, sound and smell, the way it feels to have a pain; more generally, what it's like to have mental states. Qualia are experiential properties of sensations, feelings, perceptions and, in my view, thoughts and desires as well. But, so defined, who could deny that qualia exist? Yet, the existence of qualia is controversial. Here is what is controversial: whether qualia, so defined, can be characterized in intentional, functional or purely cognitive terms. Opponent…Read more
-
4The computer model of mindIn Daniel N. Osherson & Edward E. Smith (eds.), An Invitation to Cognitive Science: Visual cognition. 2, Mit Press. 1990.
-
7Begging the question against phenomenal consciousnessBehavioral and Brain Sciences 15 (2): 205-206. 1992.
-
55Mental paintIn Martin Hahn & Björn T. Ramberg (eds.), Reflections and Replies: Essays on the Philosophy of Tyler Burge, Mit Press. pp. 165--200. 2003.The greatest chasm in the philosophy of mind--maybe even all of philosophy-- divides two perspectives on consciousness. The two perspectives differ on whether there is anything in the phenomenal character of conscious experience that goes beyond the intentional, the cognitive and the functional. A convenient terminological handle on the dispute is whether there are
-
6Are mechanistic and teleological explanations of behaviour incompatible?Philosophical Quarterly 21 (April): 109-117. 1971.
-
7How to Find the Neural Correlate of Consciousness*: Ned BlockRoyal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 43 23-34. 1998.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 H 2 O 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 Searle's reasoning about the function of consciousness goes wron…Read more
-
2530Seeing‐As in the Light of Vision SciencePhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 89 (1): 560-572. 2014.
-
114The Canberra Plan Neglects GroundIn Terence Horgan, Marcelo Sabates & David Sosa (eds.), Qualia and Mental Causation in a Physical World: Themes From the Philosophy of Jaegwon Kim, Cambridge University Press. pp. 105-133. 2015.This paper argues that the “Canberra Plan” picture of physicalistic reduction of mind--a picture shared by both its proponents and opponents, philosophers as diverse as David Armstrong, David Chalmers Frank Jackson, Jaegwon Kim, Joe Levine and David Lewis--neglects ground (Fine, 2001, 2012). To the extent that the point of view endorsed by the Canberra Plan has an account of the physical/functional ground of mind at all, it is in one version trivial and in another version implausible. In its mo…Read more
-
29Functional Role and Truth ConditionsProceedings of the Aristotelian Society 88 (1): 273-292. 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:/
-
7Response to Kouider et al. : which view is better supported by the evidence?Trends in Cognitive Sciences 16 (3): 141-142. 2012.
-
The philosophy of psychologyIn Ned Block & Gabriel Segal (eds.), Philosophy 2: Further Through the Subject, Oxford University Press. 1998.
-
153Conceptual Role SemanticsIn Edward Craig (ed.), Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Genealogy to Iqbal, Routledge. pp. 242-256. 1998.According to Conceptual Role Semantics, 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 actual,…Read more
-
1464Rich conscious perception outside focal attentionTrends in Cognitive Sciences 18 (9): 445-447. 2014.Can we consciously see more items at once than can be held in visual working memory? This question has elud- ed resolution because the ultimate evidence is subjects’ reports in which phenomenal consciousness is filtered through working memory. However, a new technique makes use of the fact that unattended ‘ensemble prop- erties’ can be detected ‘for free’ without decreasing working memory capacity.
New York City, New York, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
Perception |
Philosophy of Cognitive Science |
Philosophy of Neuroscience |
Philosophy of Mind |