Steiner's trinitarian view and the philosophy of mind: A critique of Kuhn's landscape of consciousness taxonomy.

A return to the etymology and emergence of Bildung in tandem with the novel offers a means of recovering dimensions of experience that have been somewhat muted in contemporary educational philosophy. The paper takes a critical stance toward recent appropriations of Bildung, particularly within philosophy of mind and education. Although prominent figures such as John McDowell and David Bakhurst bring some breadth to their accounts, their argument is grounded in primarily cognitive and intellectual terms. They interpret Bildung through reason, conceptual mastery, and the formation of the person as a rational being. In response, I turn to Bildung’s earlier associations with experiential, affective, and expressive formation, and to its literary articulation in the Bildungsroman, to show how the Bildungsprozess unfolds through struggle, uncertainty, and lived encounter. Works such as Goethe’s Wilhelm Meister’s Lehrjahre and Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man narrate the unruly and often turbulent nature of formation in their stories, where human becoming resists closure or neat resolution. Revisiting Bildung in this light restores to education a sense of movement, creativity, and transformation that are difficult to contain within intellectual or conceptual accounts alone.

ABSTRACT What is the relationship between pleasure and desire? While some philosophers reduce pleasure to desire, this paper explores the prospects for a hedonic theory of desire, which reduces desire to pleasure instead. I argue that desiring that p is best analyzed not as a disposition to feel pleased that p when you believe that p , but rather as a disposition to feel pleasure in what you imagine when you imagine that p . I give three arguments for this hedonic theory of desire, defend it against objections, and consider its broader theoretical implications for current debates in ethics and philosophy of mind.

ABSTRACT In this paper, I offer a suggestion for incorporating a set of texts in philosophy of mind, written by or about women, that concern how we can improve or emend our understanding, or philosophy of education. These texts challenge a current assumption in philosophy of mind – that the human mind comes fully formed – while also demonstrating the social nature of human cognitive development, challenging more individualist accounts. These texts and the questions they raise highlight that our awareness of the world, our ability to represent and reason about it, subsists alongside habit formation, and that cultivating both reason and proper habits or virtues is important not only for each of us epistemically as individuals but also for the well-functioning of human society. The suggestion situates familiar canonical figures such as Descartes, Spinoza, and Locke alongside Marie le Jars de Gournay, François Poulain de la Barre, Madame de Maintenon, and Mary Astell.

The possibility that insects experience pain is a frontier question at the intersection of behaviour, cognition and philosophy of mind. Interest has been fuelled not only by anatomical discoveries but also by expanding behavioural and comparative evidence. Leading frameworks emphasize behavioural indicators of pain-like experience such as flexible, targeted responses to harm beyond reflexive withdrawal. Here, we tested for such responses in the house cricket (Acheta domesticus), a species of evolutionary and commercial importance. Using a fully blinded, within-subjects design, we applied noxious heat, innocuous tactile contact or no-contact to a single antenna under lower- and higher-stress environmental conditions and recorded grooming behaviour. Crickets were significantly more likely to groom the noxiously stimulated antenna and did so for longer than under control or tactile treatments. Grooming also showed a distinct temporal profile, with elevated activity sustained across the early observation period. Environmental conditions and sex had no effect, indicating that self-protective grooming was expressed consistently throughout. These findings provide robust evidence of flexible, site-directed self-protection in Orthoptera, addressing a key gap in evidence for pain-like states outside vertebrates. This strengthens the case for consideration of insect welfare and bears on how felt experience is distributed across the animal kingdom.

Wang Yangming, a Chinese philosopher of the Ming Dynasty, synthesized the philosophical traditions of ancient Confucianism and Song-Ming Neo-Confucianism to establish The Philosophy of Mind (Xinxue), a system with a history exceeding five hundred years. Its theories and practical applications have profoundly influenced social philosophy in East Asian nations such as China, Japan, and Korea, and it is even credited with indirectly contributing to Japan’s Meiji Restoration. While scholars worldwide have continuously researched and discussed Xinxue theoretical foundations, a comprehensive and systematic investigation of remains lacking. Employing a systems-based approach, this paper integrates the core tenets of Xinxue with global philosophical, and constructs a universal, logical, and complete systemic framework for Xinxue through analysis, synthesis, and conceptual expansion. This framework is articulated as the “Tao as One, Morals as Two, and Practice as Three.” philosophical system, corresponding to the Tao Layer “Mind is Principle” (Xin Ji Li), the Morals Layer “Extending Innate Conscience” (Zhi liangzhi), and the Practice Layer “Unity of Knowledge and Action” (Zhixing Heyi). Meanwhile, it is deduced according to Xinxue logic that the “Mind” is the determining factor for artificial products (including both artificial materials and spiritual wealth).

A study of participants attending public concerts that staged classical and contemporary chamber music had the goal to analyse the associations between self-reported experiences and physiological responses, hence addressing a core question of embodied cognition. A sample of 690 participants was recruited, whose physiological signals were recorded with wearable sensors during concerts. After the concerts, music segments were individually presented to participants. The segments were excerpts selected from the concert just attended. Eight segments were shown to each participant in a stimulated-recall procedure, and the participant's experiences of the music in the segment were obtained using rating scales. Cardiac, respiratory, and skinconductance responses were found linked with varying aspects of segment experience. Experiences of beauty and high valence of aesthetic emotions were associated with sympathetic activation and attenuated parasympathetic activation. We discuss the implications of empirical mind–body–music findings within the philosophy of mind and assess their compatibility with materialist, dualist, and emergentist conceptions of the mind–body debate and the science of consciousness.

Co-constructing layers of meaning: Early triadic interactions at the threshold of intentionality

Andrei Tarkovsky’s 1972 science fiction film, Solaris, is a profound philosophical inquiry into the human psyche, memory, and the limits of scientific rationality. This review examines how the film utilizes specific cinematic techniques, including deliberately slow pacing, symbolic mise-en-scène, and its political context within the Soviet "Era of Stagnation", to explore the central conflict between logic and emotion. Focusing on protagonist Kris Kelvin’s struggle with a materialized memory of his deceased wife, Hari, the analysis argues that Solaris ultimately privileges the pursuit of emotional truth over objective, rational fact. The film asserts that unresolved personal history and the need for love fundamentally shape identity and drive human choice, culminating in Kelvin’s decision to embrace a known illusion for emotional satisfaction. In doing so, Tarkovsky crafts not just a critique of rigid ideology but a timeless reflection on the complex, irrational nature of being human.

Abstract It is increasingly common to hear talk of ‘racist perceptions’. While these have begun to be studied in the philosophy of mind (e.g. in debates about the border between perception and cognition), they’ve received relatively little attention in analytic philosophy of race, particularly regarding the analysis of racism. This paper advances an account of racist perceptions and draws out their implications for debates about the nature of racism. First, it argues for an account on which racist perceptions are best seen as manifesting racism rather than being racist-making. Second, it argues that views on which racist attitudes are irrational or immoral will be particularly ill-suited to handle racist perception. A desire to account for racist perception should push us towards either a bias-centred account of racism, or an ideology-based account.

ABSTRACT The concept of anamnesis occupies a pivotal position at the intersection of ancient philosophy and modern neuroscience. Initially developed in Plato’s Meno as the soul’s recollection of innate knowledge, anamnesis later evolved into a cornerstone of medical practice—the patient history. This article explores how the Platonic model of recollection resonates with the conversational structure of clinical interviews, both relying on guided questioning to uncover latent knowledge. Framing this exploration within the evolving landscape of neuroscience, the discussion draws on developments in cognitive science that locate memory functions within the medial temporal lobes and prefrontal cortex. By integrating insights from narrative medicine, medical education, and the philosophy of mind, the article emphasizes the enduring relevance of anamnesis as a conceptual bridge between memory, meaning, and healing. Clinicians are encouraged to see the medical interview not only as a diagnostic tool but as a dialogical event shaped by narrative and interpretation. Likewise, scholars of the history of ideas may find in clinical practice a living context for ancient epistemological concerns. Revisiting anamnesis through this lens reveals that healing entails not only physical treatment but also attentive listening and the shared rediscovery of meaning.

Abstract It has been fashionable in recent times to posit an ontology of consciousness that saturates all features of the universe and is the organizational ground of the cosmos itself. Against current trends in the philosophy of mind that adopt a return to panpsychism, metaphysical attempts to revitalize and rehabilitate a Neoplatonic paradigm of Oneness, and neo-Jungian perspectives that conceive of a macrosynthetic principle that explains multiplicity within holism as emanating from a transpersonal cosmopsychism, I argue that these speculations superimpose an anthropomorphic fallacy onto the natural world itself. Rather than postulate the cosmos as conscious, I suggest it is unconscious of itself despite comprising dynamic interactional patterns of evolving information processing exchange as complex process systems underlying its organizational thrust and spaciotemporal ontology. Respecting the limits of human language in ascribing consciousness to the cosmos avoids a category mistake that so often seeps into current discussions on cosmology. Understanding psychic experience does not require a metaphysical leap to postulating a fundamental ontology of cosmic consciousness.

The Brain Abstracted tackles the question of how we should interpret neuroscience for the purposes of doing philosophy of mind. Neurophilosophy rests on the premise that the findings presented in the theories and models of neuroscience are directly relevant to longstanding philosophical topics such as the nature of perception and agency. Insufficient attention has been paid to the challenge of brain complexity and how it fundamentally shapes neuroscientific practice. Given that all models and theories in neuroscience are highly simplified, relying on numerous abstractions and idealisations, as well as experimental controls which reduce the complexity of datasets elicited, it is reasonable to worry that such results may not be informative about the inherent natures of the neural processes associated with the cognitive kinds of interest to neurophilosophers.

Mazviita Chirimuuta’s The Brain Abstracted (2024) is a fascinating intervention into the philosophy of mind and neuroscience, containing deeply interesting ideas and arguments. Our aim is to critically probe whether Haptic Realism is neutral on some substantive issues which Chirimuuta would like it to be neutral on. Firstly, it is unclear whether Haptic Realism is compatible with Chirimuuta’s metaphysical neutrality. Causal notions feature heavily in Haptic Realism, including construction and interaction, without which it is unclear what the haptic component of Haptic Realism amounts to. We argue that the interpretation of these causal notions forces a choice that jeopardises metaphysical neutrality, since it is doubtful that there are any relevantly neutral theories of causation. Secondly, we ask the question ‘Do all brains have neurons?’ Haptic Realism trades on the idea of ideal patterns, patterns that are coaxed into existence by the interaction between practitioners and the world. If ideal patterns only exist within the confines of the lab, and neurons are idealizations, then brains out in the wild do not have neurons. Worryingly, this commitment of Haptic Realism undermines our ability to project neurological knowledge that we gain from studying particular brains to what is happening inside the everyday human beings.

ABSTRACT This article reconstructs Thomas Hobbes’s theory of nonverbal reasoning and examines its implications for animal cognition. While Hobbes is often read as reducing reason to verbal computation, close analysis of Leviathan, De Corpore, and earlier texts reveals a more nuanced account in which reasoning originates as the imaginative “computation” of phantasms. While acknowledging discrepancies between different works, the article emphasizes their underlying coherence and development. It argues that Hobbes recognizes a form of nonverbal animal reasoning grounded in perceptual “comparison,” though he denies animals the capacity to engage in reasoning involving mnemonic or imaginary content. This account reveals a structural continuity between human and animal logical thinking, while also highlighting the limitations of the latter. The article situates Hobbes within early modern debates on reason, prudence, and universals, showing how his radical nominalism reinforces the primacy of imagination in reasoning. In doing so, it clarifies Hobbes’s contribution to the philosophy of mind and underscores his relevance to ongoing debates about the nature and limits of animal cognition.

In this paper, I investigate whether metacognition — the ability to monitor, evaluate, and regulate one’s own cognitive processes and performance — can arise in non-biological systems, especially Large Language Models (LLMs). Drawing on cognitive science and philosophy of mind, I contrast embodied and enactivist accounts, which tie metacognition to biological consciousness and embodied entities, with functionalist perspectives that define it as a substrate-independent process. I argue that the absence of evidence is not evidence of impossibility and propose a functional definition of metacognition based on internal representation, monitoring, and self-regulation. Recent studies on LLMs show early functional signatures of self-monitoring, suggesting the emergence of limited operational introspection. While I do not claim that artificial metacognition has been demonstrated, I advocate an epistemically open, non-anthropocentric approach. Metacognition, I conclude, should be conceived as a functionally realizable property across different substrates, evaluated by what systems do, not what they are.

Can eliminativism save evolutionary naturalism from defeat?

ABSTRACT I compare Adam Toon’s pretense-theoretic mental fictionalism – which views folk psychology (FP) as reliant on indispensable metaphors of an ‘inner world’ – with Wittgenstein’s philosophy of mind, interpreted therapeutically. First, I argue Toon’s theory presents a challenge to Wittgenstein. If FP metaphors are essential, as Toon claims, Wittgenstein’s therapeutic goal of eliminating misleading ‘pictures’ seems problematic. I propose a modified Wittgensteinian approach, ‘numbers to leave numbers’, suggesting therapeutic techniques can still be effective even if the problematic metaphors cannot be fully discarded. This involves cultivating a habit of focusing on behavioral criteria to transcend certain philosophical puzzles, irrespective of whether the underlying metaphors are optional. Second, I present a Wittgensteinian critique of Toon’s fictionalism. By examining debates in cognitive psychology, such as the status of the ‘mental lexicon’, I question whether Toon’s theory can adequately distinguish between harmless metaphorical pretense in FP and potentially problematic reifications in empirical science. I suggest that Toon’s account might struggle to define when extensions of folk metaphors become ‘too serious’. Alternative mental fictionalisms are briefly considered in this light.

Why some physical systems are accompanied by subjective experience remains unresolved in neuroscience and philosophy of mind. Building on predictive processing and the Free Energy Principle, I propose that phenomenal consciousness (what-it-is-like-ness) arises when an information-processing system enters a regime of dynamic entropic closure: a metastable condition in which (i) internally generated predictions and (ii) incoming sensory signals are recursively coupled such that net informational entropy exchange with the environment is minimized while internal informational dynamics remain high. In this regime, inference loops become phase-coherent and self-referential, producing a persistent informational pattern-resonant closure-that constitutes awareness. The framework is compatible with, but conceptually distinct from, Integrated Information Theory and global-workspace style accounts. I formalize core constructs at the level of operational constraints, address objections regarding trivial closure and "stationarity," and derive falsifiable empirical predictions for neurophysiology.

Abstract Within the space of monotheistic options, trinitarian monotheism holds a puzzling place. It asserts that God is a single being who is, somehow, also three distinct persons. This form of monotheism has regularly been charged with being either inconsistent, unintelligible, or undermotivated – and possibly all three. While recent explorations of trinitarian monotheism have tended to rely on work in metaphysics, this paper turns to the philosophy of mind, showing that functionalist theories of mind prove to be surprisingly hospitable to trinitarian monotheism. This paper will address only the inconsistency and unintelligibility objections, showing that if role-functionalism (or something near enough) is both consistent and conceivable, then it is both consistent and conceivable that: God is a single being who is exactly three distinct persons because there is one primary divine person who interacts with exactly one system-sharing re-realisation of his own person-type.