Category: books

Self-Consciousness and “Split” Brains: The Capacity for Self-Distinction

Elizabeth Schechter: Self-Consciousness and 'Split' Brains

Split-brain subjects talk about themselves using the first-person, singular, pronoun. Of course, by hypothesis, it’s always just one of two split-brain thinkers doing the talking. (In some subjects, R seems to have learned to speak a bit, but never in whole sentences.) Still, this thinker and speaker—L—consistently uses the first-person …

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Self-Consciousness and “Split” Brains: The Objection from Unified Behavior

Elizabeth Schechter: Self-Consciousness and 'Split' Brains

In yesterday’s post I argued that a split-brain subject is not unitary qua thinker but is actually composed of two thinkers. The book also defends two further, related duality claims: that R and L are distinct subjects of experience and that they are distinct intentional agents. To many people, however, …

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Self-Consciousness and “Split” Brains: The Duality Claims

Elizabeth Schechter: Self-Consciousness and 'Split' Brains

The book argues for three duality claims: one concerning split-brain consciousness, one concerning split-brain intentional agency, and one concerning split-brain psychology generally. Each of the duality claims amounts to a claim about personal identity. If there are two centers or streams of conscious there must be two subjects of conscious …

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Self-Consciousness and “Split” Brains: The split-brain phenomenon

Elizabeth Schechter: Self-Consciousness and 'Split' Brains

Thanks, John, for this opportunity to talk about my book, and thanks, everyone else, for reading. The book is an empirically informed work of personal identity about the split-brain phenomenon. “Split-brain surgery” is a colloquial term for a surgery that cuts through the corpus callosum (and sometimes additional white matter …

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Philosophy Within Its Proper Bounds: Conceptual Analysis and Conceptual Engineering

analytical philosophy / Concepts / Edouard Machery: Philosophy Within its Proper Bounds / Experimental Philosophy / Explanation

In the previous post, I defended a restricted form of modal skepticism and I concluded that many traditional philosophical issues could not be resolved and should be set aside. One may wonder what is left for philosophers to do: Am I suggesting to close philosophy departments? Fear not, dear reader, …

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Philosophy Within Its Proper Bounds: Modal Skepticism

analytical philosophy / Causation / Concepts / Edouard Machery: Philosophy Within its Proper Bounds / Epistemology / Experimental Philosophy

In the previous post I presented the main arguments against the method of cases developed in Philosophy Within Its Proper Bounds. Various objections can be raised against this argument, some of which have already been put in print. Chapter 5 addresses 8 objections: I defend the experimental quality of the research …

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