This thesis seeks to explain social participation in pre-schools for children with and without Down’s syndrome. The explanation is achieved by use of an explanatory model of social participation, designed on the basis of critical realism, which has been used in an empirical study of how social participation emerges in practice. Mechanisms have been abstracted. It is assumed that recognition mechanism produces social participation and reification mechanism social exclusion. The results show that the agency of the personnel affects the possibilities for the recognition mechanism to produce social participation. Within the agency of the personnel, the internal relationship between the child perspective, i.e. how children's place in society is understood, and the relationship to the child's perspective, i.e. how children's participation is regarded, either prevents or makes possible activation of the mechanism. The child perspective has, through the empirical study, been seen to take two different forms: either that children are similar, with similar needs, or that they are different, with different needs. If children are defined as similar, the structures will accommodate all children, enabling them to be socially involved in the same activities. If children are defined as different, different structures are created for different groups of children. Groups are segregated from each other, preventing the children from being socially involved in joint activities. The relationship to the child's perspective has emerged in relation to the roles of the child as an agent, as a collective subject, and as an individual subject. The role definition affects the degree of constraint imposed on the possibilities for action that are offered, and thus affects the opportunity costs and degrees of freedom of the children. These determine the activation of recognition mechanism and social participation in the situation.

This thesis presents and evaluates David Chalmers argument that the existence of phenomenal conscious experience constitutes a permanent barrier to the reductive aspirations of a purely materialistic neuroscience. My aim is to defend the possibility of a reductive explanation of consciousness, and argue that continued research in neuroscience and neurophysiology can result in a successful materialistic or reductive solution to the hard problem of consciousness. My argument against Chalmers is two-fold. First, I challenge Chalmers claim that consciousness does not logically supervene on the physical. And second, I argue that his conceivability argument is implausible.

My aim is to challenge recent attempts at reconciling moral realism and naturalism by pushing ethical naturalists into a dilemma. According to one horn of the dilemma, ethical naturalists must either (a) build unique facts and properties about divergent social structures (or varying moral belief systems) into their subvenient sets of natural facts and properties, and so jeopardize the objectivity of moral truths, or (b) insist, in the face of all possible worlds in which people have different moral beliefs than ours, that they are all mistaken—this despite the fact that the belief-forming mechanism responsible for their moral beliefs was never concerned with the truth of those beliefs in the first place. This will bring me to suggest that moral properties might only weakly supervene upon natural phenomena. But, according to the other horn of the dilemma, weak supervenience is a defeater for moral knowledge.

This thesis presents and evaluates David Chalmers argument that the existence of phenomenal conscious experience constitutes a permanent barrier to the reductive aspirations of a purely materialistic neuroscience. My aim is to defend the possibility of a reductive explanation of consciousness, and argue that continued research in neuroscience and neurophysiology can result in a successful materialistic or reductive solution to the hard problem of consciousness. My argument against Chalmers is two-fold. First, I challenge Chalmers claim that consciousness does not logically supervene on the physical. And second, I argue that his conceivability argument is implausible.

This dissertation has three parts. In "Quantum Entanglement, Bohmian Mechanics, and Humean Supervenience," I defend David Lewis's metaphysical doctrine of Humean supervenience, and traditional metaphysical reductionism more generally, against an alleged holistic threat encapsulated in the non-separability argument from quantum entanglement. I argue that, contrary to popular belief, realism about quantum mechanics is compatible with Humean reductionism. / Philosophy

I den här uppsatsen diskuterar jag, med utgångspunkt i Simon Blackburns kvasirealistiska metaetik, den moraliska motivationen. Jag redogör alltså dels för kvasirealis-men som helhetlig teori, dels för den aktuella motivationsteoretiska argumentationen. De centrala frågeställningarana rör i detta fall det sätt varpå våra värderingar motiverar oss att handla. Har de över huvud taget någon normativ kraft, eller består de enbart i kognitiva till-stånd? Utifrån dessa grundvalar bedömer jag sedan å ena sidan hur Blackburns teori funge-rar på det metaetiska planet, och å den andra för hur den svarar mot våra intuitioner om mo-ralföreställningarnas betydelse för vår handlingskraft. På det hela taget är jag emellertid ne-gativt inställd till teorins praktiska användbarhet. / This paper concerns on the one hand Simon Blackburn’s enterprise of quasi-realism, and on the other the problem of moral motivation. The main question in this second case treats the way whereupon our moral propositions motivate us to act. Do they own any normative force at all, or are they only to be seen as cognitive states? From the starting point of this discussion, I have investigated how the quasi-realist theory could work on the meta-ethical level. I have also tried to decide whether or not it corresponds to our intuitions about the real meaning of our moral judgements. The conclusive position of mine is that the fundamental problems of the theory eliminate its practical applicability.

abstract: Emergentism offers a promising compromise in the philosophy of mind between Cartesian substance dualism and reductivistic physicalism. The ontological emergentist holds that conscious mental phenomena supervene on physical phenomena, but that they have a nature over and above the physical. However, emergentist views have been subjected to a variety of powerful objections: they are alleged to be self-contradictory, incompatible with mental causation, justified by unreliable intuitions, and in conflict with our contemporary scientific understanding of the world. I defend the emergentist position against these objections. I clarify the concepts of supervenience and of ontological novelty in a way that ensures the emergentist position is coherent, while remaining distinct from physicalism and traditional dualism. Making note of the equivocal way in which the concept of sufficiency is used in Jaegwon Kim's arguments against emergent mental causation, I argue that downward causation does not entail widespread overdetermination. I argue that considerations of ideal a priori deducibility from some physical base, or "Cosmic Hermeneutics", will not themselves provide answers to where the cuts in the structure of nature lie. Instead, I propose reconsidering the question of Cosmic Hermeneutics in terms of which cognitive resources would be required for the ideal reasoner to perform the deduction. Lastly, I respond to the objection that emergence in the philosophy of mind is in conflict with our contemporary scientific understanding of the world. I suggest that a kind of weak ontological emergence is a viable form of explanation in many fields, and discuss current applications of emergence in biology, sociology, and the study of complex systems. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Philosophy 2013

No description available.

[pt] Procurando formular o conceito de mente, a Filosofia da Mente se baseou em três noções fundamentais: causação, identidade e superveniência. A crença na dicotomia entre aspectos físicos e aspectos inextensos de nossa experiência permanece um problema de considerável dificuldade. A possibilidade de diálogo tanto em uma teoria monista quanto dualista é dificultada porque cada abordagem demanda por um princípio, uma relação ou operação que solucione o problema da ligação entre corpo, mente e mundo. Noções subseqüentes, como intencionalidade, consciência ou qualia, permanecerão fechadas em seus próprios escopos conceituais. Por este motivo, analisar como cada noção fundamental é empregada auxilia na compreensão de restrições e avanços, permitindo desde a definição dos métodos apropriados de tratamento aos problemas de cada domínio às teorias que melhor se adequarão às suas possíveis resoluções. / [en] Trying to formulate the concept of mind, the Philosophy of the Mind has based itself on three fundamental notions: causation, identity and supervenience. The belief in the dichotomy between physical aspects and inextense aspects of our experience remains a problem of considerable difficulty. The possibility of dialogue as much in a dualist as in a monist theory is hardened because each boarding demands for a principle, a relation or operation to solve the problem of linking body, mind and world. Subsequent notions, as intentionality, consciousness or qualia, will remain closed in its proper conceptual scopes. For this reason, to analyze as each fundamental notion is used assists in the understanding of restrictions and advances, allowing since the definition of appropriate methods of treatment to the problems of each domain to the theories that will suit better to its possible resolutions.

<p>Denna uppsats analyserar den medvetandefilosofiska debatten mellan Donald Davidson och Jaegwon Kim rörande Davidsons tes om det mentalas superveniens på det fysiska. Tesen utgör ett element i Davidsons generella teori om relationen mellan det mentala och det fysiska; anomal monism. Författaren frågar sig om Kim har rätt i att tesen om mental superveniens inte är tillräcklig för att garantera det mentala kausal kraft. I uppsatsen analyseras de båda filosofernas ståndpunkter i debatten med speciell tonvikt på deras respektive definitioner av superveniensbegreppet. Med utgångspunkt i detta argumenterar författarinnan att Kim i viss utsträckning kan sägas ha missförstått Davidsons superveniens-begrepp. Kim har definierat "svag" respektive "stark" och velat tolka Davidsons superveniens som tillhörande den sistnämnda sorten. Uppsatsförfattaren intar en ståndpunkt motsatt Kims och menar att Davidsons superveniensbegrepp snarare bör förstås som en variant av svag superveniens, men konstaterar samtidigt att det inte är helt säkert att dennes superveniens alls kan inordnas i någon av dessa kategorier; dessa refererar till "möjliga världar", vilka Davidson vägrar acceptera.</p> / <p>This paper analyses the debate between Donald Davidson and Jaegwon Kim concerning Davidsons idea of the supervenience of the mental upon the physical. This thought is part of Davidson's general theory of the relation between mind and body; anomalous monism. The author asks wherther Kim is right that mental supervenience is insufficient to gurantee the mental causal power. The paper analyses the standpoints of both philosophers, especially regarding their definitions of "supervenience" and argues that Kim, to some extent, can be said to have misunderstood Davidson's notion of supervenience. Kim has offered definitons of "weak" and "strong" supervenience and interpreted Davidsons supervenience as being of the kind last mentioned. The author takes a standpoint opposite of Kim's and argues that Davidson's notion of supervenience is better understood as weak supervenience, but at the same time notes that it is by no means obvious that Davidsons supervenience can be said to belong to either of these categories since these refer to "possible worlds", which Davidson refuses to accept.</p>