Mark and Wes further explore J.J.C. Smart's "Sensations and Brain Processes" (1959). Place had established that it's not the meanings of the words "brain" and "mind" that show their identity; they're metaphysically identical despite this difference in words. Start with part one. However, Smart claims that when referring to a mental state, a speaker is unknowingly still Continue Reading …
Ep. 401: Mind/Brain Identity Theory (U.T. Place, J.J.C. Smart) (Part One)
Subscribe to get parts 1 and 2 of this now, ad-free, plus tons of bonus content. On U.T. Place's "Is Consciousness a Brain Process?" (1956) and J.J.C. Smart's "Sensations and Brain Processes" (1959). Featuring Mark, Wes, Seth, and Chris Heath. Is there some a priori reason for denying that the mind can actually be the brain? Obviously those two words don't mean the same Continue Reading …
Ep. 401: Mind/Brain Identity Theory (U.T. Place, J.J.C. Smart) (Part Two for Supporters)
Finishing up U.T. Place's "Is Consciousness a Brain Process?" (1956) and starting on J.J.C. Smart's "Sensations and Brain Processes" (1959). Start with part one. Place (presaging Dennett), argues against the "phenomenological fallacy," which involves recognizing people's descriptions of the appearances of things as descriptions of the actual state of the world in a Continue Reading …
Ep. 401: Mind/Brain Identity Theory (U.T. Place, J.J.C. Smart) (Part One for Supporters)
On U.T. Place's "Is Consciousness a Brain Process?" (1956) and J.J.C. Smart's "Sensations and Brain Processes" (1959). Featuring Mark, Wes, Seth, and Chris Heath. Is there some a priori reason for denying that the mind can actually be the brain? Obviously those two words don't mean the same thing, but can we think of them as a single thing under two descriptions (e.g. Continue Reading …
Ep. 400: Dennett Rejects Qualia (Part Two)
Subscribe to get parts 1 and 2 of this now, ad-free, plus tons of bonus content, including a supporter-exclusive part three. Continuing from part one (and before that, ep. 399) on Consciousness Explained (1991), ch. 12-14. We continue discussing Dennett's response in ch. 14 to Nagel's "What Is It Like to Be a Bat?" which gets us in a whole conversation about animal Continue Reading …
Ep. 400: Dennett Rejects Qualia (Part One)
Subscribe to get parts 1 and 2 of this now, ad-free, plus tons of bonus content. Continuing from ep. 399 on Dan Dennett's Consciousness Explained (1991), now focusing on ch. 12-14, and again featuring Mark, Seth, Dylan, and Chris Heath. Sponsor: Visit functionhealth.com/PEL to get the data you need to take action for your health. We've given the basic outline of Continue Reading …
Ep. 400: Dennett Rejects Qualia (Part Two for Supporters)
Continuing from part one (and before that, ep. 399) on Consciousness Explained (1991), ch. 12-14. We continue discussing Dennett's response in ch. 14 to Nagel's "What Is It Like to Be a Bat?" which gets us in a whole conversation about animal consciousness. What is it like to be any languageless creature? Dennett thinks we can say a lot of things about what it can't be like, Continue Reading …
Ep. 400: Dennett Rejects Qualia (Part One for Supporters)
Continuing from ep. 399 on Dan Dennett's Consciousness Explained (1991), now focusing on ch. 12-14, and again featuring Mark, Seth, Dylan, and Chris Heath. We've given the basic outline of Dennett's positive view of what consciousness is: By advocating the multiple drafts model, he's argued that consciousness is essentially a matter of information availability, and that it's Continue Reading …
Ep. 399: Dan Dennett’s Model of Mind (Part Two)
Subscribe to get parts 1 and 2 of this now, ad-free, plus tons of bonus content. Continuing from part one on Consciousness Explained, ch. 5, with some reference to ch. 12. Sponsor: Get your free trial at shopify.com/pel. Dennett seemed to be saying that the phi-phenomenon (where we see a dot as having moved and transformed into another dot, whereas it was really just Continue Reading …
Closereads: Donald Davidson on Self-Knowledge (Part One)
Sign up for Closereads at patreon.com/closereadsphilosophy to get previous and future installments of this podcast. On "First Person Authority" (1984). What warrants our superior knowledge of our own mental states, as oppose to those of others? Why is this not obvious? Read along with us. You can choose to watch this on video: Continue Reading …
Ep. 399: Dan Dennett’s Model of Mind (Part One)
Subscribe to get parts 1 and 2 of this now, ad-free, plus tons of bonus content. On Daniel C. Dennett's Consciousness Explained (Ch. 1, 5, and a bit of 12; ep. 400 will complete ch. 12 along with 13). Featuring Mark, Seth, Dylan, and Chris Heath. Sponsor: Every self-made person started somewhere. Yours starts free at shopify.com/pel. What is the mind? Dennett claims Continue Reading …
Ep. 399: Dan Dennett’s Model of Mind (Part Two for Supporters)
Continuing from part one on Consciousness Explained, ch. 5, with some reference to ch. 12. Dennett seemed to be saying that the phi-phenomenon (where we see a dot as having moved and transformed into another dot, whereas it was really just two dots shown successively in different places) showed that there's no distinction between experiencing the dot as moving and judging Continue Reading …
Ep. 399: Dan Dennett’s Model of Mind (Part One for Supporters)
On Daniel C. Dennett's Consciousness Explained (Ch. 1, 5, and a bit of 12; ep. 400 will complete ch. 12 along with 13). Featuring Mark, Seth, Dylan, and Chris Heath. What is the mind? Dennett claims that we are intuitively Cartesians: It seems like sensory input gets fed into us, processed unconsciously, and then the conscious mind examines the result (this is our stream of Continue Reading …
Ep. 398: Donald Davidson on Mind vs. Body (Part Two)
Subscribe to get parts 1 and 2 of this now, ad-free, plus tons of bonus content. We finish up "Mental Events" (1970) and move on to "Actions, Reasons, and Causes" (1963), still with guest Chris Heath. Start with part one. Davidson gives us some more technical ways to think about the difference between the mental sphere and the physical. The failure of behaviorism to Continue Reading …
Ep. 398: Donald Davidson on Mind vs. Body (Part One)
Subscribe to get parts 1 and 2 of this now, ad-free, plus tons of bonus content. On "Mental Events" (1970) and "Actions, Reasons, and Causes" (1963), featuring Mark, Wes, and returning guest Chris Heath. Sponsor: Every self-made person started somewhere. Yours starts free at shopify.com/pel. Davidson was roughly in the "ordinary language" camp of analytic philosophy, Continue Reading …
Ep. 398: Donald Davidson on Mind vs. Body (Part Two for Supporters)
We finish up "Mental Events" (1970) and move on to "Actions, Reasons, and Causes" (1963), still with guest Chris Heath. Start with part one. Davidson gives us some more technical ways to think about the difference between the mental sphere and the physical. The failure of behaviorism to give us robust laws about the mental should be a lesson that mental explanation does not Continue Reading …
Ep. 398: Donald Davidson on Mind vs. Body (Part One for Supporters)
On "Mental Events" (1970) and "Actions, Reasons, and Causes" (1963), featuring Mark, Wes, and returning guest Chris Heath. Davidson was roughly in the "ordinary language" camp of analytic philosophy, but (like Kripke) thought that he could draw certain metaphysical conclusions from his analyses of what we mean when we talk about "mental events" and "reasons for Continue Reading …
Ep. 396: Peirce on Knowledge (Part Two)
Subscribe to get parts 1 and 2 of this now, ad-free, plus tons of bonus content. Continuing from part one on "Questions Concerning Certain Faculties Claimed for Man" and "Some Consequences of Four Incapacities." Sponsor: Every self-made person started somewhere. Yours starts free at shopify.com/pel. We start by looking more closely at the idea that all mental Continue Reading …
Ep. 396: Peirce on Knowledge (Part One)
Subscribe to get parts 1 and 2 of this now, ad-free, plus tons of bonus content. On essays by Charles Sanders Peirce: "Questions Concerning Certain Faculties Claimed for Man" and "Some Consequences of Four Incapacities," both from 1868. Featuring Mark, Wes, Seth and Dylan. Sponsor: Every self-made person started somewhere. Yours starts free at shopify.com/pel. Are Continue Reading …
Ep. 396: Peirce on Knowledge (Part Two for Supporters)
Continuing from part one on "Questions Concerning Certain Faculties Claimed for Man" and "Some Consequences of Four Incapacities." We start by looking more closely at the idea that all mental causation is a form of reasoning, i.e. inference. Peirce sees these as valid deductive (or inductive or abductive) arguments even if they are not sound, i.e. if the premises are false. Continue Reading …