While it’s quite easy to say who was first to suggest that the mind is a computational system (Leibniz, if you don’t remember, in De arte combinatoria), I cannot remember who was first to say that the computer is just a metaphor of the (human) mind. (Well, I think that …
Contrary to what many doctors apparently assume, there is overwhelming evidence (cf. here and here) that hydranencephalic children, who lack a cerebral cortex, are creature conscious in a robust sense. That is, they have a sleep-wake cycle, they respond appropriately to some features of stimuli, and they express emotions and preferences. …
Justin Sytsma and I (Pittsburgh, HPS) are surveying people’s intuitions about mental states. We would appreciate if the readers of this blog took part in this survey. We ask participants to complete a 5-minute questionnaire and we ask a few biographic questions. The questionnaire is entirely anonymous and your response …
Josh Dever is concerned that philosophers don’t cite Ph.D. dissertations enough. To try to counter that, he has created a webpage with links to some philosophy dissertations. (Link couresy of Brandon Towl.)
Price announcement. Some comments on it. (Courtesy of Zvi Biener.)
Here.
In response to his message quoted below, I asked John Roberts if we would expand on why he thinks that even allowing the observability of singular causal facts, most leading anti-Humean accounts of laws remain incompatible with Earman and Roberts’ argument. At any rate, John Roberts wrote as follows (it would be interesting to know what supporters of anti-Humeanism about laws have to say about it):
