Account Of Representation Research Articles

Evolutionary Accounts of Religion within a Christian Account of Big History

Big History is a mode of thought that seeks to integrate findings of the natural sciences, social sciences, and history into a coherent overarching story of the universe and of humanity. The humanity-related elements in Big History will necessarily include the emergence of "religion," including Evolutionary Accounts of Religion (EAR). Here we review two programmatic contributions to EAR, by Dunbar and Torrey, and then propose a theistic account of Big History through which to respond to their proposals. We accept their general argument that humanity's religious capacities have emerged through the evolutionary history of the Homo genus, yet we offer a theistic alternative to their accounts of the evolutionary function of religion. We then argue for how one aspect of humanity's evolved religious capacities, namely the proclivity of the Homo sapiens brain to produce transcendent ambiguity (many gods, etc.), reflects not a flaw in God's design but an evolutionary outcome intended by God--to facilitate humanity's search for God.

Evolutionary Accounts of Religion within a Christian Account of Big History

Big History is a mode of thought that seeks to integrate findings of the natural sciences, social sciences, and history into a coherent overarching story of the universe and of humanity. The humanity-related elements in Big History will necessarily include the emergence of "religion," including Evolutionary Accounts of Religion (EAR). Here we review two programmatic contributions to EAR, by Dunbar and Torrey, and then propose a theistic account of Big History through which to respond to their proposals. We accept their general argument that humanity's religious capacities have emerged through the evolutionary history of the Homo genus, yet we offer a theistic alternative to their accounts of the evolutionary function of religion. We then argue for how one aspect of humanity's evolved religious capacities, namely the proclivity of the Homo sapiens brain to produce transcendent ambiguity (many gods, etc.), reflects not a flaw in God's design but an evolutionary outcome intended by God--to facilitate humanity's search for God.

Hill on perceptual relativity and perceptual error

Christopher Hill's Perceptual experience is a must‐read for philosophers of mind and cognitive science. Here I consider Hill's representationalist account of spatial perception. I distinguish two theses defended in the book. The first is that perceptual experience does not represent the enduring, intrinsic properties of objects, such as intrinsic shape or size. The second is that perceptual experience does represent certain viewpoint‐dependent properties of objects—namely, Thouless properties. I argue that Hill's arguments do not establish the first thesis, and then I raise questions about the Thouless‐property view and its role in Hill's defense of representationalism.

The Grounding Problem of Equal Respect

In this paper, I explore three theories of value to illuminate how nontheistic and theistic accounts may differ in grounding human dignity: neo- Aristotelian ethical naturalism, Kantian constructivism, and a theistic account of good simpliciter. The theistic account of good simpliciter that I offer adapts Robert Adams’s notion of the transcendent Good as the Excellent. In this account, I explain how Adams’ thesis that goodness is a property consisting in a sort of resemblance to God may be understood in a new way, using ideas drawn from contemporary mathematics and quantum mechanics. On my account, we must value human beings neither because such valuing would be beneficial or necessary for human flourishing nor because it is a logical outcome of anything we care to value. Rather it is because we recognize the property of self-similarity in all of us, which may be understood as a resemblance to God as good simpliciter.

Russell and American Realism

American philosophical realism developed in two forms: “new” and “critical” realism. While the new realists sought to ‘emancipate’ ontology from epistemology and defended a direct theory of perception, the critical realists promoted a representationalist account of perception and thus argued for an epistemological dualism. Bertrand Russell’s early philosophical writings figured prominently in both of these American realist camps. However, while the new realists quite enthusiastically embraced the Russellian analytic style of reasoning (and Russell himself appreciated the American new realists as anti-idealist allies), the critical realists were significantly more reserved toward Russell’s point of view. In the present paper, I identify the reasons for this difference in reception. In particular, I will show that the critical realists’ reservations pertained primarily to a more traditionalist—‘continental’—account of philosophy, whereas the neo-realists proved instrumental in setting the stage for later full-blown analytic philosophy in the United States.

Divine Command Theory, Robust Normative Realism, and the Argument from Psychopathy: A Reply to Erik Wielenberg

Erik Wielenberg has offered a fascinating argument from moral psychology against a sophisticated theistic account of moral obligations: Divine Command Theory (DCT). This argument focuses on the pathology known as psychopathy—a perennial interest for those concerned with abnormal and moral psychology. The argument can be labeled the argument from psychopathy for convenience. The strength of the argument is that it forces the DCT-ist to maintain that there are some human beings who have no moral obligations yet still do evil actions. This, he argues, is an implausible thesis. Therefore, DCT is false. In this paper, I defend DCT and argue that there is good reason to be neutral or skeptical that psychopaths have moral obligations and, to the degree that they do, they are able to grasp morality in a way consistent with DCT. Furthermore, if the argument does present a serious problem for DCT, then it does so for Wielenberg’s own view, Robust Normative Realism (RNR), just as much as DCT.

Deus Absconditus: A Dialogue

AbstractIn the tradition of both Cicero and Hume, this paper explores the nature of God in dialogic form. Set at the tomb of Thomas Aquinas, in a church that is now a museum, the dialogue focuses on the central question of divine hiddenness, offering a novel alternative to both the atheistic interpretation of hiddenness in terms of divine amoral aloofness and the theistic account of hiddenness in terms of human indolence. Phenomenologically speaking, God the creator, in order to be God the creator, must be hidden to creatures. Divine hiddenness is, therefore, natural and does not necessarily call into question the moral status of God or of humans.

Descartes on Necessity and the Laws of Nature

This paper is on Descartes’ account of modality and, in particular, his account of the necessity of the laws of nature. He famously argues that the necessity of the “eternal truths” of logic and mathematics depends on God’s will. Here I suggest he has the same view about the necessity of the laws of nature. Further, I argue, this is a plausible theory of laws. For philosophers often talk about something being nomologically or physically necessary because of the laws of nature, but this necessity is thought to be metaphysically contingent. However, they struggle to explain how the laws could be genuinely necessary while being metaphysically contingent. The chief advantage of Descartes view, I argue, is that God’s will can plausibly explain both the necessity of the laws (because God made them necessary) and the contingency of the laws (because God could have done otherwise). So, Descartes’ theistic account of laws provides a plausible explanation, perhaps the best explanation, of the contingent-necessity of laws of nature.

Inferentialist conceptual engineering

ABSTRACT On a representationalist view, conceptual engineering is the practice of changing the extensions and intensions of the devices we use to speak and think. But if this view holds true, conceptual engineering has a bad rationale. Extensions and intensions are not the sorts of things that are better or worse as such. A representationalist account of conceptual engineering thus falls prey to the objection that the practice has a bad rationale. To account for the assumption that conceptual engineering is worthwhile, we propose to view what is being engineered as inferential devices, as opposed to representational devices. The objective is not to establish that being or having an inferential role is all there is to meaning or conceptual content. Rather, our agenda is to recommend a shift of focus from the representational features of content to the inferential features of content for the purposes of doing and thinking about conceptual engineering. Inferentialism about conceptual engineering makes better sense of the practice than a representationalist approach: In addition to accounting for the rationality of engaging in conceptual engineering, inferentialism provides a sound interpretation of what is at stake in concrete examples of conceptual engineering.

The Role of Valence in Perception: An ARTistic Treatment

Attempts to account for the phenomenal character of perceptual experiences have so far largely focused on their sensory aspects. The first aim of this article is to support the claim that (perceptual) phenomenal character has another, significant, aspect—the phenomenal realm is suffused with valence. What it’s like to undergo perceptual experiences—from pains to supposedly “neutral” visual experiences—standardly feels good or bad to some degree. The second aim is to argue, by appealing to theoretical and empirical considerations pertaining to the phenomenon of (perceptual) valence-variance, that perceptual valence cannot be accounted for by extending the prevalent representationalist account of phenomenal character. Thus, a revision in the understanding of phenomenal character is called for. Finally, the phenomenon of valence-variance serves to make some headway toward defending a new Attitudinal-Representational Theory of perceptual valence, according to which perceptual valence is constituted by first-order conative attitudes directed toward the representational objects of experiences.

How Might God Have Guided Evolution? Scientific and Theological Viewpoints

Recent contributions to this journal by J. B. Stump, Chris Barrigar, and Randy Isaac discuss two related questions: that of God's intention to use an evolutionary process to create human beings, and whether God may have actively guided this process. I offer a more detailed analysis of the concepts of quantum complementarity and cognitive dualism used by Stump to differentiate the scientific narrative from the theistic. Both of these concepts need to be qualified, and I conclude that the theistic and scientific pictures can be kept together. The theistic account is well articulated within a creation framework. In the evolutionary account, the presence of mentality in higher animals is an important but neglected element, which will affect the scientific description. If the process of evolution was guided by God, an influence on animals' behavior through their mental nature is an attractive option. However, the matter remains open as to whether this actually happened.

A Temporal First Cause?

In a recent paper in this journal, I argued that William Craig’s theistic account of the origin of the universe implies that at the first moment of time, t1, God is both timeless and temporal, a contradiction (Wielenberg 2021). Craig responded to that argument; I here reply to Craig’s response.

Minds, materials and metaphors

AbstractWhat is the relationship between mental states and items of material culture, like notebooks, maps or lists? The extended mind thesis (ExM) offers an influential and controversial answer to this question. According to ExM, items of material culture can form part of the material basis for our mental states. Although ExM offers a radical view of thelocationof mental states, it fits comfortably with a traditional, representationalist account of thenatureof those states. I argue that proponents of ExM would do better to adopt afictionalistapproach to mental states. In so doing, I suggest, they could retain the important insights underlying the extended mind thesis, while avoiding its more problematic consequences.

Craig's Contradictory Kalam: Trouble at the Moment of Creation

William Lane Craig’s much-discussed kalam cosmological argument for God’s existence is intended to provide support for a particular theistic explanation of the origin of the universe. I argue here that Craig’s theistic account of the origin of the universe entails two contradictions and hence should be rejected. The main contribution of the paper is the identification of some relatively straightforward but previously unrecognized problems in Craig’s hypothesis that the beginning of the universe was a temporal effect of a timeless personal cause.

Force, content and the varieties of subject

This paper argues that to account for group speech acts, we should adopt a representationalist account of mode / force. Individual and collective subjects do not only represent what they e.g. assert or order. By asserting or ordering they also indicate their theoretical or practical positions towards what they assert or order. The ‘Frege point’ cannot establish the received dichotomy of force and propositional content. On the contrary, only the representationalist account allows a satisfactory response to it. It also allows us to give a more satisfactory analysis of the speech act of inviting a joint commitment and to answer two important questions Bernhard Schmid has raised about group speech acts, namely whether there are 1st person plural forms of Moore’s paradox and of 1st person authority.

Talking about nothing

Some singular terms are referentially empty by necessity. Oliver and Smiley have recently introduced the term ‘zilch’ for illustrating this kind of emptiness. The emptiness of ‘zilch’ is supposed to arise from the fact that its extension has been defined by a logically unsatisfiable condition. Casati and Fujikawa disagree with this explanation and claim that ‘zilch’ refers to some null thing. In this paper, I argue that neither of these positions is correct, since, for different reasons, they both misinterpret the phenomenon of referential emptiness. As an alternative, I propose a representationalist account of emptiness, which can explain the properties of ‘zilch’ and similar terms more effectively.

Can Theories of Mental Representation Adequately Explain Mental Imagery?

Traditionally it is taken for granted that mental imagery (MI) is a mental representation (MR) of some kind or format. This yields that theory of MR can give an adequate and exhaustive explanation of MI. Such co-relation between the two is usually seen as unproblematic. But is it really so? This article aims at challenging the theoretical claim that the dominant ‘two-world’ account of MR can adequately explain MI. Contrary to the standard theory of MR, there are reasons to believe that: (a) MI has different cognitive architecture, (b) the relations between elements of MI are dynamic, (c) relations between elements of MI are context-dependent. Consequently, it follows that dominant account of MR neglects important characteristics of MI and, thus, fails to give a comprehensive explanation of the latter. Alternatively, I will argue that a sign-theoretic approach, proposed by C. S. Peirce, can suggest a promising explanation of MI and fully account for the divergent empirical data on the matter.

By Whose Authority: A Political Argument for God's Existence

In The Problem of Political Authority, Michael Huemer argues that the contractarian and consequentialist groundings of political authority are unsuccessful, and, in fact, that there are no adequate contemporary accounts of political authority. As such, the modern state is illegitimate and we have reasons to affirm political anarchism. We disagree with Huemer’s conclusion. But we consider Huemer’s critiques of contractarianism and consequentialism to be compelling. Here we will juxtapose, alongside Huemer’s critiques, a theistic account of political authority from Nicholas Wolterstorff’s book The Mighty and the Almighty. We think that Wolterstorff’s model does better than contractarianism and consequentialism at answering Huemer’s critiques. We also think that an abductive basis for God’s existence emerges from the inadequate authority accounts that Huemer surveys.

Emergence of meaning, signals and the concept of consciousness

De acordo com uma certa explicação dos jogos de sinalização, pode-se mostrar como o significado emerge e é preservado com base nas interações entre os indivíduos e seus ambientes. É aqui argumentado que, como todos os conceitos, um conceito de consciência é formado a partir de um conjunto de jogos de sinalização e é a ele atribuído um sentido, a partir do qual sua referência extensional pode ser postulada. Será útil entender o contraste entre o que podemos chamar de uma descrição representacionalista da consciência e uma explicação enactivista. Como argumentado, um estado de consciência pode ser assumido e fixado por referência intensional. Assim, embora a noção de consciência possa ser explicitamente excluída, em princípio, de uma linguagem neurobiológica, ela permanece relevante de maneira semântica. Isso é uma consequência do que podemos chamar de lacuna semântica entre o mental e o físico.

Why faith makes sense: On Graham Ward’s Unbelievable

Ward’s recent volume on the entwining of belief and perception, while not being an explicitly theological monograph, nonetheless evinces a subtle texture that displays his continuing fidelity to certain aspects of Radical Orthodoxy’s vision. (Ward, Graham 2013. Unbelievable: Why We Believe and Why We Don’t. London and New York: I. B. Tauris; ISBN: 971780767352) This can be seen in its interdisciplinary focus and its rejection of dualistic philosophies (including the supposed divisions between the sacred and the secular, nature and grace, transcendence and immanence, visibility and invisibility). He argues for the ultimate ‘fittingness’ between mind and world, thereby rejecting any representationalist account of this relation. Viewing the practices of belief within a re-telling of evolutionary history and phenomenological accounts of perception, Ward seeks to show the pervasiveness of dispositional beliefs within all worldly interactions. Consequentially, ‘belief’ cannot therefore be relegated to an epiphenomenal or lesser form of knowing, since all seeing is a seeing-as, with the result being that it is imbued with the valences of affect and valuation. Religious faith then is simply a deepening of the logic that is already present within ordinary modes of finite engagement, and therefore should not be seen as an ‘unnatural’ intervention within the realm of human culture. Overall then, this work can be summarized as an apologetic for the rationality of belief in our ‘secularized’ societies, and furthermore, for the constitutive role of belief and faith for sensibility as such.