Haugeland offers a theory of systems along the following lines: A component is a relatively independent and self-contained portion of a system in the sense that it relevantly interacts with other components only through interfaces between them (and contains no internal interfaces at the same level). An interface is a …
The next issue of the New York Times Magazine has an article on the way neuroscience is changing the law and judicial system. More reasons why philosophers of mind and ethicists should not ignore neuroscience.
I got an interesting letter from the grandmother of a child with hydranencephaly (reproduced by permission):Mr. Piccinini,Your response to Dr. Merker’s paper, Consciousness without a CerebralCortex: A Challenge for Neuroscience and Medicine, was educational anddisappointing. I appreciated the evaluation of phenomenal versuscreature consciousness and the application of state consciousness;however I …
As a factoid from intellectual history, there is reason to believe that Descartes would be much more sympathetic to the hypothesis of embodied cognition than his critics (e.g. Haugeland, 1998, Rowlands, 1999, 2003) and some of his supporters (e.g., Grush, 2003) have suggested. There is, for example, the well-known passage …
Thanks to Buddy, I came up with a way of reconstructing Bechtel and Mundale’s argument that does not rely on the tacit premise that univocal localization entails univocal realization. Recall that B&M state: Nevertheless, it is important to note that in interpreting these deficits, researchers implicitly reject multiple realization among …
William Bechtel and Jennifer Mundale make the following comment regarding lesion studies and multiple realization: Nevertheless, it is important to note that in interpreting these deficits, researchers implicitly reject multiple realization among human brains and assume that damage to a brain area in anyone will result in a deficit to …
A recent article in the Washington Post discusses an interesting study by Harrison Pope, in which he and his collaborators attempt to test the thesis that dissociative (traumatically-induced) amnesia is a comparatively recent historical phenomenon that should not be grouped with ‘biologically-based’ psychiatric disorders such as dementia and schizophrenia. Here …
