Philosophy Of Consciousness Research Articles

О связности, ее свернутости и развернутости

This paper is a full version of the author’s talk at “Procedural Logic and Philosophy of Consciousness”, a discussion dedicated to A.V. Smirnov’s book “The Logic of Mean­ing as a Philosophy of Consciousness: An Invitation to Reflection” (2021). The proposed content can be viewed as a co-reflection on the key concepts of the logical-semantic con­cept of consciousness: coherence, integrity, constriction, extension as the foundations and methods of conceptualization in their existential perspective. It is stressed that the logi­cal-semantic approach of A.V. Smirnov reveals new facets in the understanding of philo­sophical rationality, personal and cultural subjectivity, experience, consciousness and their formation. To demonstrate the general philosophical, methodological status of the system of concepts introduced by the author, analogies are drawn with the understanding of exis­tential experience as a constriction of meaning-forming experiences that are unfolded by the subject in communication, creativity, self-understanding. The concepts that have re­ceived a conceptual justification in the works of A.V. Smirnov bring the origins of experi­ence to another level of comprehension, in accordance with which the spectrum of under­standing of human reflexive capabilities also changes. If we “start with integrity”, as the author advises us, then the idea of recursiveness of experience as a pulsating process of comprehension and self-reflection in the process of human interaction with the world or his “flickering” being-in-the-world is strengthened and acquires new angles. Of partic­ular importance here is the very style of author’s reflection, which is associated with the revision of established philosophical categories and their interpretations, the departure from the usual interpretations to discover one’s own philosophical language: one’s own – both in terms of the individual author’s approach and in aspects of the formation of the modern domestic philosophical tradition.

О логическом смысле понятия «логика смысла»

The article discusses the concept of logic of sense – one of the key concepts in the philos­ophy of A.V. Smirnov. The text details the considerations expressed by the author at the round table “Process logic and philosophy of consciousness”. Unlike the formal-logical approach, the conceptual framework of which is based on the concept of a formal system, the theoretical status of the “logic of sense” is fully manifested only in the context of the concept of culture. The logical form corresponding to the procedures of sense-generation is dynamic, not substantial. In different cultures, it is characterized by a peculiar combi­nation of regulatory and constitutive principles for the generation of intersubjective se­mantics. The necessity, which constitutes logical aspects of sense generation, manifests itself in the fact that it 1) forms the horizon of possible culture-forming conventions fixed by one or another “natural” language and their corresponding practices, and 2) separates the conventions themselves from their consequences, which are already not conventional.

Глубинная логика и проблема схематизации

The article is an extended version of the paper for the round table discussion “Process Logic and Philosophy of Consciousness” devoted to the key ideas of A.V. Smirnov. The paper deals with two topics: the problem of logical and the problem of the connec­tion between deep logic and linguistic-specific cognitive development. The author criti­cizes the widespread reduction of “logical” to university logic and proposes to understand A.V. Smirnov’s logic-sense theory as a program of analysis of the intuitions and proce­dures underlying particular kinds of logic. The distinction between substantive logic and process logic, put forward within this theory, is analyzed in the light of schema theory. The article argues the following: 1) an essential contribution to our cognitive develop­ment is made by innate, as well as sensorimotor schemas formed in the process of onto­genesis and cultural learning; 2) they are proto-representations, which have immanent logic (logical visibility), multimodality and automaticity; 3) the difference between sub­stantive logic and process logic, is due to the dominance of one of the schemas (container vs. action) due to acquisition of language and other cultural practices; 4) this distinction is not only ontogenetic but also permanent, i.e. it is maintained in real time through im­plicit verbalizations, or “inner speech”; 5) the historical appearance of these schemes in language and cultural practices and the dominance of one of them is due to the specifics of human corporality and its embodiment in structurally organized reality.

Познаёт ли сознание само себя в когнитивных науках?

The paper critically examines some theses from A.V. Smirnov’s monograph ‘The Logic of Meaning as a Philosophy of Consciousness: An Invitation to Reflection’. In particular, the statement about the inability of cognitive sciences to exhaustively explain conscious­ness because of its de-subjectivation within their framework. It is shown that cognitive sciences are generally able to cope with the intellectual and controlling aspects of con­sciousness. Only its phenomenal aspect remains in question, but this is clearly not what the author of the monograph means. Further, he argues that understanding the workings of consciousness underlies the philosophical foundations of any subject. The analysis shows that if we exclude consciousness as control and the phenomenal consciousness, which are obviously irrelevant here, then the philosophical foundations of anything within this understanding are reduced either to normative requirements in the form of the logical foundations of theories, or to empirical data in the form of cognitive limita­tions of real subjects. Attributing rationalism and universalism to the Western philosophy as its essential properties, the author of the monograph does not take into account that ra­tionalism as anti-empiricism has long been a kind of abandoned trend, and rationalism as a commitment to inferential procedures has also been recently challenged by some strong alternatives. Similarly, the author’s opinion of the Western philosophy of mind as the exe­cution of the Cartesian program, which he reduces to cogito ergo sum, is disputed. This methodological tool – and the metaphysical principle as well – of Descartes is subjected to incessant attacks from representatives of various schools of Western philosophy. More­over, it underlies not the philosophy of mind, but the epistemology of the great philoso­pher. Finally, the author’s concept of ‘unfolding the folded’ comes down to a kind of di­alectical deduction of the empirical features of various cultures from a priori predeter­mined ‘subject-predicate gluings’ and ‘intuitions of integrity’, which paradoxically brings us back to Hegelian-type rationalism.

Wagner's Furious Host

Wagner's Furious Host

Conscious cognitive effort in cognitive control.

Cognitive effort is thought to be familiar in everyday life, ubiquitous across multiple variations of task and circumstance, and integral to cost/benefit computations that are themselves central to the proper functioning of cognitive control. In particular, cognitive effort is thought to be closely related to the assessment of cognitive control's costs. I argue here that the construct of cognitive effort, as it is deployed in cognitive psychology and neuroscience, is problematically unclear. The result is that talk of cognitive effort may paper over significant disagreement regarding the nature of cognitive effort, and its key functions for cognitive control. I highlight key points of disagreement, and several open questions regarding what causes cognitive effort, what cognitive effort represents, cognitive effort's relationship to action, and cognitive effort's relationship to consciousness. I also suggest that pluralism about cognitive effort-that cognitive effort may manifest as a range of intentional or non-intentional actions the function of which is to promote greater success at paradigmatic cognitive control tasks-may be a fruitful and irenic way to conceive of cognitive effort. Finally, I suggest that recent trends in work on cognitive control suggests that we might fruitfully conceive of cognitive effort as one key node in a complex network of mental value, and that studying this complex network may illuminate the nature of cognitive control, and the role of consciousness in cognitive control's proper functioning. This article is categorized under: Philosophy > Consciousness Philosophy > Psychological Capacities Neuroscience > Cognition.

Steve Biko’s Black Theology of Liberation from the Perspective of Ubuntu

AbstractThis article seeks to bring Steve Biko’s Black theology of liberation (BTL) into dialogue with Desmond Tutu’s BTL. Using the philosophy of ubuntu as a lens, the article interrogates the differences in Tutu’s and Biko’s use of this approach in their quest for Black liberation. Several scholars have argued that within the context of BTL, Tutu relied more on Christian theology derived from the Bible and tradition, while Biko relied more on Black consciousness to develop their thinking. In this article, I show how they each used ubuntu as a philosophy, even though they used it differently, especially when read in the context of race and reconciliation. The article concludes that Biko’s understanding of Isintu – African culture, African spirituality, and the African philosophy of ubuntu – can help shape Black consciousness philosophy and thus is important, especially for a contemporary BTL.

Philosophical and Legal Essence of Control in Terms of Ensuring National Security

The main purpose of the study is to determine the philosophical and legal essence of control in terms of ensuring national security. In modern conditions, the rethinking of the fundamental philosophical and legal approaches to the interaction between the state and the individual, the citizen, and public mechanisms is of particular importance. Outdated ideological stereotypes associated with the dominance of the state and its interests in such interaction still prevail in the public philosophy of legal consciousness, which does not contribute to the modern understanding of the legal forms of state acts as a way to ensure the priority of human rights in the sphere of public power. In this regard, great importance is attached to the substantiation of new philosophical approaches to the assessment and formation of state activity. The most important type of such activity has traditionally been controlling and oversight, especially in the context of national security. As a result of the study, the main aspects of the philosophical and legal essence of control in terms of ensuring national security were identified.

Escaping the Shadow

Escaping the Shadow

« Principe barbare » et « Il y a ». Lecture croisée : Merleau-Ponty et Levinas

“The final task of phenomenology as a philosophy of consciousness,” Merleau-Ponty wrote, “is to understand its relationship with non-phenomenology. That which resists phenomenology in us – natural being, the ‘barbaric principle’ of which Schelling spoke – cannot remain extra-phenomenal and must have its place within it.” The barbaric principle (Schelling read by Merleau-Ponty), and the there is (the il y a of Levinas) – such is the confrontation that must be attempted here. Far from remaining simply pre-reflexive or presupposing the signified, the Nietzschean ‘abyss’ (Abgrund), even more radical than the Schellingian ‘groundless ground’ (Urgrund), is an invitation for us today to probe what could also stand ‘outside the phenomenon’ (hors-phénomène).

Embodied artificial intelligence in science fiction

In this paper, I explore the fruitful relationship between science fiction and philosophy regarding the topic of artificial intelligence. I establish a connection between certain paradigms in the philosophy of mind and consciousness and the imagination of possible future scenarios in sci-fi, especially focusing on the different ways of conceiving the role of corporeality in constituting consciousness and cognition. Then, I establish a parallelism between these different conceptions of corporeality in the philosophy of mind and certain representations of AI in sci-fi: from computers to robots and androids. I conclude by stressing the value of exchanging ideas between sci-fi and philosophy to foreshadow and evaluate some scenarios of high ethical relevance.

A Conversation on philosophy of mind and consciousness – illusionism vs critical psychology: An extended dialogue between Keith Frankish and Paul Stenner

Article A Conversation on philosophy of mind and consciousness – illusionism vs critical psychology: An extended dialogue between Keith Frankish and Paul Stenner was published on July 1, 2022 in the journal Human Affairs (volume 32, issue 3).

Phantasía, affectivité et inconscient

The aim of the article is to analyse the role that fantasy plays in the philosophy of consciousness. The article distinguishes first 3 conceptual models of the functioning of fantasy: (1) imagination as a weak version of perception; (2) productive imagination as a fundamental faculty; (3) fantasy as an archaic layer of consciousness. After presenting Husserl’s phenomenological theory of imagination and fantasy, the article focuses on three fundamental problems: (1) atmospheric fantasy and day dreaming; (2) fantasy and auto-affection; (3) the origin of phantasma that proves to be the most enigmatic question. The author argues for the possibility of establishing a link between Kantian schematism and Husserlian genetic phenomenology. This link is supposed to explicate the origin of phantasma. That is the way we can work out the concept of schematised affectivity.

PHILOSOPHY OF EDUCATION AND RESTORATION OF EDUCATIONAL PRINCIPLES IN THE CONCEPT OF JURGEN HABERMAS

The goal is to investigate the modern philosophy of education and the principles of European enlightenment on the example of the concept of Jürgen Habermas, to prove that the European educational project is the heart of modern civilization. Research methods — historical and philosophical, hermeneutics, discourse pragmatics, analytical method. Scientific novelty. In the concept of rationality of Y. Habermas, the following are organically included and synthesized: - the relation of the acting person to the world (Aktor- Welt-Beziehung); - his relation to other people, precisely such an important factor as the processes of "speech", speech, expression of certain language sentences and hearing the counterparties of the action. The teleological orientation of history for Habermas, as well as for one of the founders of the Enlightenment project, Herder, is in the principle of the "formation" of humanity (Bildung), where the progress of civilization is connected with the moral development of the individual, and therefore the improvement of education and upbringing. For Habermas, this is possible primarily through a continuous collective "learning process" (Lernprozess) through overcoming social challenges and cultivating the best moral qualities. Conclusions. The modern philosophy of education and the principles of European enlightenment are based on the need for rationality and critical thinking. This is the basis of Jürgen Habermas' concept of the justification of reason and rational action. The European educational project as the heart of modern civilization is based on the Kantian understanding of the independence of the mind and the understanding of its boundaries, as well as a revived rationality. In his concept, Habermas critically overcomes the subjectivist tendencies of transcendentalist philosophy, which, in the epistemic struggle against substantialist metaphysics, brought the doctrine of mind to the level of the philosophy of consciousness. Reason and rationality are nurtured and corrected in the public sphere, in everyday and political dialogue, acting as a guarantee not only of the education of society, but of its development as a whole.

Ontology and Politics: Interdependence and Radical Contingency in Merleau-Ponty's Political Interworld.

This paper takes as its point of departure Merleau-Ponty’s assertion: “everything will have to begin again, in politics as well as in philosophy”. In pursuing his later work, Merleau-Ponty signalled the need for a reconfiguration of his philosophical vision, so it was no longer caught in Cartesianism and the philosophy of consciousness. This required a turn towards ontology through which he consolidated two key ideas: firstly, a pervasive interdependence articulated in his reversibility thesis and the ontology of ‘flesh’; secondly, a radical contingency at the heart of existence. This paper interrogates the political implications of these ideas, and specifically regarding humanism and human progress. Relatedly, I address the question – how might recognitions of ontological interdependence and radical contingency support a flourishing democracy? Merleau-Ponty’s early political work concerned the issues of his day – Nazism, Marxism and the status of humanism – and did not engage extensively with these emerging onto-political concerns. Nonetheless, there are indicative reflections in the writings and interviews; the political implications of his ontological interrogations become more thematic in the later works. There is no rupture between the earlier and later works regarding his philosophical vision, although he later distanced himself from Marxism with revelations of the gulags under Stalin and the Korean War. The overarching claim of this paper – we need to rethink politics from the ground up beginning with ontology; ontology is political and the political is intrinsically ontologically informed. Getting the ontology ‘right’ is a matter of discovery and not theory choice.

Review: Knowledge, Ideology, and Civilization: An Attempt at Understanding History (Arabic Edition), by Ali Jarbawi

Review: <i>Knowledge, Ideology, and Civilization: An Attempt at Understanding History (Arabic Edition)</i>, by Ali Jarbawi

Michel Foucault in the 1950s: Beyond Psychology towards Radical Ontology

This paper is based on the archives of Michel Foucault collected (since 2013) at the Manuscripts Department of the Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris. Our investigation focuses in particular on a complete manuscript, until now totally unknown and entitled ‘ Phénoménologie et psychologie’ (‘Phenomenology and Psychology’). This manuscript could be the first project for a thesis devoted to ‘The Notion of the “World” in Phenomenology’, written around 1953–4, at the same time as a manuscript on Binswanger and existential psychiatry and as a manuscript on philosophical anthropology. We aim to show the importance that phenomenology seems to have held for Foucault at the beginning of the 1950s and in particular the role that it could have played in Foucault’s distancing himself from a naturalist psychology and a philosophy of consciousness to which he opposes a philosophy of the world, of being and of language. Foucault thus discovers a truth of the phenomenology which rests on the radicality of the transcendental gesture and on the access to an ontology gathering the being, the meaning and the language.

Nature Does Not Yet Say No to Inner Awareness: Reply to Stoljar

One of the major divides in contemporary philosophy of consciousness is on whether phenomenal consciousness requires some form of self-consciousness. The disagreement revolves around the following principle (or something in the vicinity): IA: For any subject S and phenomenally conscious mental state C of S, C is phenomenally conscious only if S is aware of C. We may call the relevant awareness of one’s own mental states “inner awareness” and the principle “Inner Awareness Principle” (IA). In a paper recently published in this Journal, Stoljar (2021) puts forward a massive theoretical criticism of IA. He addresses many extant arguments for IA, and argues, for each of them, that it is unpersuasive. In this paper, I focus on what strike me as the two most compelling arguments in Stoljar’s list: the argument from memory and the argument from attention. I argue that Stoljar’s objections to them can be rebutted; accordingly, those arguments promise to constitute the steadiest theoretical ground for IA.

“Until the people govern”: the Black students’ movement at Rhodes University in the 1980s

This paper examines the emergence of the Black Students’ Movement (BSM), a black organization formed at Rhodes University in the 1980s. The BSM aligned its anti-apartheid politics with the United Democratic Front (UDF) and black consciousness philosophy. It emerged due to the conservative disposition of the Student Representative Council (SRC), and sought to address both the issues that black students faced on campus and to draw attention to the broader political context of the time. The central argument of the paper is that the BSM, as an anti-apartheid students’ organization, used protest as a tool to represent the issues of black students at Rhodes. This paper demonstrates that the BSM’s demands were largely recognised by the Rhodes senate, and its politics created small but significant changes in the university’s policies. During the 2015 period, Rhodes University once again saw a formation of a new BSM, raising the issues of ‘decolonization’ and transformation.

Being You: A New Science of Consciousness by Anil Seth

Reviewed by: Being You: A New Science of Consciousness by Anil Seth Felix Haas Anil Seth Being You: A New Science of Consciousness New York. Dutton. 2021. 352 pages. THEORIZING ABOUT consciousness was long left to philosophers. Venturing into the field as a neuroscientist was risking ridicule and, possibly, career suicide, until things started changing in the 1980s and ’90s. Even though the decades since have seen several prototheories of consciousness develop, we still seem far from a full theory, or even an accepted analytical definition of what consciousness means. Many neuroscientists and philosophers thus fall back on a working definition that equates the existence of an agent’s subjective inner experience with what it means for that agent to be conscious. Anil Seth—a director of the Sackler Centre for Consciousness Science in Sussex, England—too follows this definition in his recent book, Being You. This much-anticipated publication goes on to present the author’s views on central topics connected to consciousness, often developing surprisingly counterintuitive arguments with strong epistemological implications. In the philosophy of consciousness, people are frequently classified by their stance on the so-called hard problem of consciousness—the question of how and why our brains’ neuronal activity should be accompanied by any subjective experience at all. Interestingly, Seth falls somewhat in the middle of the usual two camps: he does not think that the question posed by the hard problem is inherently meaningless but also does not believe that facing it head-on will lead to any real progress. Rather, he maintains research should focus on [End Page 72] what he calls the “real problem” of consciousness: “why a particular pattern of brain activity . . . maps to a particular kind of conscious experience.” This does not directly explain why consciousness exists in the first place (i.e., the hard problem), but the hope is that building more explanatory bridges between neuronal activity and different subjective experiences will diminish, if not dissolve, the need to answer the hard problem at all. In tackling this so-called real problem, perception takes a pivotal role in Seth’s thinking. He proposes that perception does not happen outside-in, with external physical signals being detected and processed to constitute our view of the world, but rather inside-out. According to Seth, our brains constantly make predictions about the causes of our sensory signals. Perception then “happens through a continual process of prediction error minimization.” What sounds technical should not conceal the magnitude of this claim: Seth proposes that we do not see, hear, or smell the world as it is, but rather that we live in what he calls a “controlled hallucination.” We only have an internal model (a “hallucination”) of the world and our bodies. This model is continuously updated and corrected (“controlled”) through new incoming signals. What we normally refer to as a “hallucination” is but a failure of the control step of this process. But Seth extends the role of prediction far beyond the perception of our environment and bodies. He sees our emotions as being “control-oriented perceptions which regulate [our] body’s” temperature, blood sugar, and other “essential variables.” Even the notion of our self is a prediction of our mind, one which, just as any prediction, can disintegrate to various degrees—most completely under the influence of large doses of psychedelics, or due to damage or disease. Lastly, Seth discusses the possibility of consciousness emerging in artificial intelligence. He argues that our brains’ principal function—to control our bodies’ essential variables—firmly connects our consciousness with our biology. However, the pivotal role that our biology plays in the structure of our minds does not rule out the possibility of artificial consciousness in principle. Seth thus suggests that it might require silicon-based minds to mimic certain aspects of our evolved embodied minds to become conscious. Despite much progress, the scientific field of consciousness is still in its infancy. We might hold a growing number of individual puzzle pieces and ideas but are likely still far from finding a single theoretical frame that can put them all together. What is exciting to the researcher might be frustrating to the novice. Each introductory text comes...