Experiencing Phenomenology: Why Phenomenology?
First of all, thanks very much to John Schwenkler for inviting to me to blog about Experiencing Phenomenology (Routledge 2016). Long-time lurker, first-time blogger.
Category: books
Mental Time Travel: When and Why Did Memory Emerge?
There has been a great deal of research on episodic memory in animals. But debates over the uniqueness of human episodic memory continue. These debates can be understood as concerning two questions: When in evolution did episodic memory emerge? And why did it emerge?
Mental Time Travel: How Does Memory Give Us Knowledge?
If memory is a form of imagination, how can it give us knowledge of the past? Does it give us knowledge of the past at all? The simulation theory of memory discussed in my previous post threatens to push us towards a form of scepticism about memory knowledge.
Mental Time Travel: What Is Memory?
What is memory? How does it give us knowledge? When and why did it emerge? These are the questions that I grapple with in Mental Time Travel: Episodic Memory and Our Knowledge of the Personal Past (MIT Press, 2016). In this and the next two posts, I’ll give an overview …
Hylomorphism and the Problem of Mental Causation (Part 2)
Jaegwon Kim’s discussions of the problem of mental causation have been enormously influential, so it should come as no surprise that some critics have tried to apply his reasoning to the hylomorphic solution discussed in Part 1.
Hylomorphism and the Problem of Mental Causation (Part 1)
The problem of mental causation is a central problem in the metaphysics of mind, but hylomorphism implies an elegant solution to it.
Hylomorphism and Emergence
What exactly are hylomorphic structures? According to traditional hylomorphists like Aristotle, as well as some contemporary hylomorphists such as Mike Rea (2011) and myself (2012, 2014, 2016), structures are powers. More specifically, hylomorphic structures are powers to configure (or organize, order, or coordinate) things.