books — The Brains Blog

1. Consciousness Problems

Peter Carruthers January 13, 2020 January 13, 2020 Consciousness / Peter Carruthers: Human and Animal Minds

A number of factors make the problem of consciousness seem harder than it is. I will say something briefly about two of them here. One is that people the world over are tacit dualists about the mental, making them much more receptive towards non-physical qualia than they otherwise would be. …

Now Featured

John Schwenkler January 12, 2020 January 21, 2020 books

We are pleased to have Peter Carruthers (University of Maryland) blogging this week on Human and Animal Minds: The Consciousness Questions Laid to Rest (Oxford, 2019). To view all of Peter’s posts on a single page, please click here.

3. Aspects of the Self

Majid D. Beni November 2, 2019 November 9, 2022 Consciousness / Ethics / Majid Davoody Beni: Structuring the Self

In the previous post, I showed how the self-structure could be specified. The self has also some properties, e.g., phenomenal, social, and ethical ones, that are capable of being specified in structural terms. Let us begin with phenomenal aspects, which amount to the capacity to have consciousness and intentional states. …

2. Specifying Self-Structures

Majid D. Beni October 31, 2019 November 9, 2022 Majid Davoody Beni: Structuring the Self / Neuroscience; Philosophy of Science

The Structural Realist theory of the Self (SRS) is presented as an extension of structural realism in the philosophy of many-particle physics. Structural realism addresses the problem of conflicting ontological consequences with regards to the existence of individual objects at the sub-particle level by making commitments to commonalities. In the …

1. Structuring the Self, a new metaphysical enterprise

Majid D. Beni October 30, 2019 November 9, 2022 Majid Davoody Beni: Structuring the Self / Philosophy of Mind / Philosophy of Science / Self-consciousness

As before, I am very grateful to John for letting me present my work. My new book Structuring the Self (2019, Palgrave Macmillan, Series New Directions in Philosophy and Cognitive Science), did not initially aim to introduce a new insight into the nature of selfhood so much as to give …

Now Featured

John Schwenkler October 30, 2019 December 2, 2019 books

We are grateful to Majid Davoody Beni for blogging this week on Structuring the Self, newly published by Palgrave Macmillan in the New Directions in Philosophy and Cognitive Science series. To view all of Majid’s posts on a single page, please click here.

5. Memory as an epistemically generative source

Jordi Fernandez October 25, 2019 October 22, 2019 Epistemology / Jordi Fernandez: Memory - A Self-Referential Account / Memory

This week, I’m writing a series of posts on my new book Memory: A Self-Referential Account (Oxford University Press, 2019). The post today concerns the topic of chapter seven, the epistemically generative character of memory. There is a debate on whether memory generates justification for beliefs about the past, or …