Explaining without language
It’s natural to think we need language to explain—after all, isn’t an explanation an answer to a why question? It can be, but it can also be a resolution of a wondering why state.
Category: Concepts
SpaceTimeMind
You may (or may not) have noticed that Pete Mandik and Richard Brown (me) have started a podcast, called SpaceTimeMind, where we talk about tax law updates for 2014, uh, I mean, er, we talk about space and time and mind! The first episode is up now (and has been …
Aliens versus materialists (Part III): Phenomenal concepts to the rescue?
A year ago we met an alien species (Part I) that lacked subjective conscious states but were virtuoso scientists. They developed a detailed understanding of cat brains at every level of organization, but still did not realize that cats were conscious. This was parlayed into an argument for dualism (Part …
Conference on Concepts at North Carolina State University
North Carolina State University’s Logic and Cognitive Science Initiative (LACSI) is hosting a conference on Concepts on September 20-21, 2013. The speakers are Christopher Hill (Philosophy, Brown University), Edouard Machery (History and Philosophy of Science, University of Pittsburgh), Eric Margolis (Philosophy, University of British Columbia), Gregory Murphy (Psychology, New York …