E. J. Lowe

(1950 - 2014)

This paper challenges David Chalmers' proposed division of the problems of consciousness into the `easy' ones and the `hard' one, the former allegedly being susceptible to explanation in terms of computational or neural mechanisms and the latter supposedly turning on the fact that experiential `qualia' resist any sort of functional definition. Such a division, it is argued, rests upon a misrepresention of the nature of human cognition and experience and their intimate interrelationship, thereby neglecting a vitally important insight of Kant. From a Kantian perspective, our capacity for conceptual thought is so inextricably bound up with our capacity for phenomenal consciousness that it is an illusion to imagine that there are any `easy' problems of consciousness, resolvable within the computational or neural paradigms.

N. Denyer, Language, thought and falsehood in ancient Greek philosophy. London and New York: Routledge, 1991. xi + 222 pp. £35.00 Luis Vega, La trama de la demostración.. Madrid: 1990, Alianza Editorial, 413 pp. No price stated Daniel D. Merrill, Augustus De Morgan and the logic of relations. Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1990. xi + 259 pp. Dfl. 185/$ 114.00/£64.00 Georg Cantor, Briefe. Edited by Herbert Meschkowski and Winfried Nilson. Berlin, etc: Springer‐Verlag, 1991, viii + 535 pp. DM 158. The selected letters of Bertrand Russell. Volume 1: the private years. Edited by N. Griffin. London: Allen Lane. The Penguin Press, 1992. xxi + 553 pp. £25.00 Hourya Sinaceur, Corps et modèles. Paris, Vrin, 1991. 496 pp. 198 Ffr William Aspray, John von Neumann and the origins of modern computing. Cambridge, Mass, and London: The MIT Press, 1990. xvii + 376 pp., 8 + 22 pits. £31.50 Charles S. Chihara, Constructibilily and mathematical existence. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990. xv + 282 pp. £32.50 Penelope Maddy, Realism in mathematics. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990. xi + 204 pp. £25.00 Peter Hylton, Russell, idealism, and the emergence of analytic philosophy. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990. xvii + 420 pp. £48.00/$!20.00 R. Barrett and R. Gibson. Perspectives on Quine. Oxford: basil blackweil, 1990. xxiii ‐f 358 pp. £31.50 D. Bell and Cooper, The analytic tradition. Meaning, thought and knowledge. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1990. xi + 225 pp. £35.00 Francis Watanabe, Critical thinking; an introduction to reasoning. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989. xv+542 pp. £25.00 A. Cattani, forme delVargomentare. II ragionamento tra logica e retorica. Padova: Edizicmi C.B. 1990. 174 pp. 22.00 lire J. K. Lambert, Philosophical applications of free logic. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991. 309pp. £40.00 G. Priest, R. Routley and J. Norman, Paraconsistent logic. Essays on the inconsistent. München, Hamden, Wien: Philosophia Verlag, 1989. xxii + 716pp. 398 DM Timoethy Williamson, Identity and discrimination. Oxford: Blackwell. 1990. xi + 173 pp. £30.00 Victor Sánchez, Studies on natural logic and categorial grammar. Amsterdam. 1991. vi + 197 pp. No price stated G. Klima, Ars Artium: essays in philosophical semantics, mediaeval and modern. Budapest: Institute of Philosophy, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, 1988. 185 pp. No price stated Andrea Nye, Words of power: a feminist reading of the history of logic, New York and London, Routlcdge, 1990. xiii + 190pp. £9.99 T. M. Seebhom, D. Follesdal and J. N. Mohanty, Phenomenology and the formal sciences. Dordrecht, Boston and London: Kiuwer Academic Publishers, 1991. viii + 262 pp. £51,00/$!86.00/DK 150 Hans Burkhardt and Barry Smith, Handbook of metaphysics and ontology, 2 vols. Philosophia Verlag, Munich, Philadelphia, Vienna: 1991. 1005 pp. DM650/$ 433.50/£210

A self or person does not appear to be identifiable with his or her organic body, nor with any part of it, such as the brain; and yet selves seem to be agents, capable of bringing about physical events as causal consequences of certain of their conscious mental states. How is this possible in a universe in which, it appears, every physical event has a sufficient cause which is wholly physical? The answer is that this is possible if a certain kind of naturalistic dualism is true, according to which the conscious mental states of selves, although not identifiable with physical states of their brains, are emergent effects of prior physical causes. Moreover, mental causation on this model promises to explain certain aspects of physical behaviour which may appear arbitrary and coincidental from a purely physical point of view.