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2Review of Jackson's P erception: A representative theory (review)Journal of Philosophy 82 (1): 28--41. 1985.
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188In these comments on Bernard Williams's probing and provocative paper, I shall first try to develop a line of response to the pair of problems Williams poses concerning Aristotle's account of soul. I shall then offer some reactions, of a more general sort, to his discussion of hylomorphism (henceforth "HMism"). In particular, I want to suggest that, though HMism is in part a form of inoffensive materialism, it is more than just that. And I want to urge also that HMism need not be tempted towards…Read more
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16617. Will and the Theory of JudgmentIn Amélie Oksenberg Rorty (ed.), Essays on Descartes’ Meditations, University of California Press. pp. 405-434. 1986.Contemporary discussions typically give somewhat sort shrift to the theory of judgment Descartes advances in the Fourth Meditation.' One reason for this relative neglect is presumably the prima facie implausibility of the theory. It sounds odd to say that, in believing something, one's mental affirmation is an act of free will, on a par with freely deciding what to do. In addition, Descartes advances the theory as a way to explain the possibility of human error, which doubtless strikes many as a…Read more
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115There are a few things I’d like to say in reply to Adrienne Prettyman’s interesting paper, “Empty Thoughts: An Explanatory Problem for Higher-Order Theories of Consciousness,” in which she discusses the objection to higher-order theories from the possibility those theories leave open that a higher-order awareness represents one as being in a state that one is not actually in
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842Higher-Order Awareness, Misrepresentation, and FunctionHigher-Order Awareness, Misrepresentation and Function 367 (1594): 1424-1438. 2012.Conscious mental states are states we are in some way aware of. I compare higher-order theories of consciousness, which explain consciousness by appeal to such higher-order awareness (HOA), and first-order theories, which do not, and I argue that higher-order theories have substantial explanatory advantages. The higher-order nature of our awareness of our conscious states suggests an analogy with the metacognition that figures in the regulation of psychological processes and behaviour. I argue…Read more
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114The Rosenthal-Sellars correspondence on intentionalityIn Ausonio Marras (ed.), Intentionality, Mind, And Language, University of Illinois Press. 1972.In response to your kind offer to read through portions of the typescript of my thesis pertaining to your views on intentionality, I am sending you a copy of an introductory section to such a chapter.{1} The enclosed typescript represents a first draft, for which I apologize, but I thought it might be useful to get any comments you might have in at the ground floor, so to speak
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2Emotions and the selfIn K. Irani & Gerald E. Myers (eds.), Emotion: Philosophical Studies, Haven. 1983.Much of the perplexity that motivates modern discussion of the nature of mind derives indirectly from the striking success of physical explanation. Not only has physics itself advanced at a remarkable pace in the last four centuries; every hope has been held out that, in principle, all science can be understood and ultimately studied in terms of mechanisms proper to physics. Seeing all natural phenomena as explicable in terms appropriate to physics, however, makes the mental seem to be a singula…Read more
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159Multiple drafts and the facts of the matterIn Thomas Metzinger (ed.), Conscious Experience, Ferdinand Schoningh. pp. 275--290. 1995.
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12The insignificance of incommensurate variationsBehavioral and Brain Sciences 1 (3): 364-364. 1978.
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135PowerPoint presentation at Tucson VII, Toward a Science of Consciousness 2006, session on Self-Representational Approaches to Consciousness.
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266State consciousness and transitive consciousnessConsciousness and Cognition 2 (3): 355-63. 1994.
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153Being conscious of ourselvesThe Monist 87 (2): 161-184. 2004.What is it that we are conscious of when we are conscious of ourselves? Hume famously despaired of finding self, as against simply finding various impressions and ideas, when, as he put it, “I enter most intimately into what I call myself.” “When I turn my reflexion on myself, I never can perceive this self without some one or more perceptions; nor can I ever perceive any thing but the perceptions.”
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403How to think about mental qualitiesPhilosophical Issues 20 (1): 368-393. 2010.It’s often held that undetectable inversion of mental qualities is, if not possible, at least conceivable. It’s thought to be conceivable that the mental quality your visual states exhibit when you see something red in standard conditions is literally of the same type as the mental quality my visual states exhibit when I see something green in such circumstances. It’s thought, moreover, to be conceivable that such inversion of mental qualities could be wholly undetectable by any third-person mea…Read more
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1Reductionism and knowledgeIn L. S. Cauman, Isaac Levi, Charles D. Parsons & Robert Schwartz (eds.), How Many Questions?, Hacket. 1983.
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514The Higher-Order Model of ConsciousnessIn Rita Carter (ed.), Consciousness, Weidenfeld & Nicolson. 2002.All mental states, including thoughts, feelings, perceptions, and sensations, often occur consciously. But they all occur also without being conscious. So the first thing a theory of consciousness must do is explain the difference between thoughts, feelings, perceptions, and sensations that are conscious and those which are not.
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23Unity Of Consciousness And The SelfProceedings of the Aristotelian Society 103 (3): 325-352. 2003.
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Perceptual and cognitive models of consciousnessJournal of the American Psychoanalytic Association 45. 1997.
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19The modularity and maturation of cognitive capacitiesBehavioral and Brain Sciences 3 (1): 32-34. 1980.
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507Consciousness, the self and bodily locationAnalysis 70 (2): 270-276. 2010.(No abstract is available for this citation)
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139Materialism and the Mind-Body Problem (edited book)Prentice-Hall. 1971.An expanded and updated edition of this classic collection
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735Two concepts of consciousnessPhilosophical Studies 49 (May): 329-59. 1986.No mental phenomenon is more central than consciousness to an adequate understanding of the mind. Nor does any mental phenomenon seem more stubbornly to resist theoretical treatment. Consciousness is so basic to the way we think about the mind that it can be tempting to suppose that no mental states exist that are not conscious states. Indeed, it may even seem mysterious what sort of thing a mental state might be if it is not a conscious state. On this way of looking at things, if any mental sta…Read more
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150Consciousness and the mindJerusalem Philosophical Quarterly 51 (July): 227-251. 2002.Everyone — or almost everyone — was agreed that what is [mental] … has a common quality in which its essence is expressed: namely the quality of being conscious — unique, indescribable, but needing no description. All that is conscious … is [mental], and conversely all that is [mental] is conscious; that is self-evident and to contradict it is nonsense
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688Concepts and definitions of consciousnessIn P. W. Banks (ed.), Encyclopedia of Consciousness, Elsevierin Encyclopedia of Consciousness, ed. William P. Banks, Amsterdam: Elsevier, forthcoming in 2009
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CUNY Graduate CenterDepartment of Philosophy
Cognitive Science
Linguistics
Cognitive NeuroscienceProfessor
New York City, New York, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
Philosophy of Mind |
Philosophy of Language |
Cognitive Sciences |