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  • About
  • The Global ETD Search service is a free service for researchers to find electronic theses and dissertations. This service is provided by the Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations.
    Our metadata is collected from universities around the world. If you manage a university/consortium/country archive and want to be added, details can be found on the NDLTD website.
11

'In spaceships they won't understand' : the knowledge argument, past, present and future

Coleman, Sam Joseph January 2006 (has links)
According to Jackson's Knowledge Argument, since one can know everything physical about someone, without being able to know the quality of their experience, this experience is more than physical. Jackson, now a physicalist, no longer accepts the Argument. Through chronological treatment of his evolving position, I defend it against objections, including his own. The Argument, properly understood and reinforced, should still prompt Jackson - and us - away from physicalism. The trajectory of Jackson's thought moves from presenting the Argument to refute physicalism, through developing semantic apparatus to strengthen it and supply arguments against non-reductive physicalism, to adopting reductive physicalism and embracing the Ability Hypothesis. At each stage I propose changes to his view. 1. The Argument's formulation needlessly tempts towards the Ability Hypothesis. I propose small changes to avoid this. 2. Jackson never adequately treats the Ability Hypothesis. I argue against it on two grounds: i. Abilities to which Mary's are assimilated involve phenomenal knowledge. Phenomenal knowledge being basic to abilities - not vice-versa - reduction of Mary's knowledge to ability does not render it fact-free. This depends on prior judgement of whether phenomenal knowledge involves factual knowledge. The hypothesis is dialectically unhelpful therefore. ii. I broadly endorse Tye's argument that phenomenal knowledge is factual. 3. Jackson attacks the a posteriori physicalist orthodoxy using two-dimensionalism, but: i. His neo-descriptivism requires support. I sketch a theory of reference that would provide the necessary foundations. ii. His account as formulated offers a posteriori physicalists a loophole. I defend an ambitious thesis about phenomenal/physical conceptual relations that prevents this. 4. Conceptual-dualist views, where we can't see that experience is physical due to unusual behaviour of phenomenal concepts, are criticised. Considerations involving concepts cannot have sufficient force here. The conceptual-dualist suggests that phenomenal concepts mislead about the nature of their referents. But given popular views of phenomenal concepts, there seems no room for us to be misled as required. 5. Jackson's current view, combining representationalism with the Ability Hypothesis to yield reductive physicalism, is criticised. The representationalist component does not make it conceivable that Mary could work out what it's like. And the Ability Hypothesis cannot 'capture the cognitive novelty Mary encounters. Thus neither part, nor the mixture of them, does its job, and Jackson's new position fails. 6. conclude that, the Knowledge Argument's puzzle undiminished, panexperientialism is the best solution. The theory is first motivated on a Lewisian basis: I emphasise its potential to give physicalists and anti-physicalists what they want. Next, I address some common doubts about panexperientialism, such as its initial implausibility, and the combination problem.
12

Immortality of the soul or resurrection of the body? : the problem of the self and its survival

Munro, Gerald January 1994 (has links)
Religious belief is full of ideas to which multitudes seem able to attach sense, but which philosophers say are unintelligible. The problem of the self and the belief in its survival after death are among the most widespread of these ideas. The main area of difficulty upon which philosophers have concentrated has to do with the so-called mind-body problem. Can the sort of existence envisaged after death be intelligibly described? Can the sort of being whose existence is predicated, even if properly called a self or person, be identified with any particular pre mortem person? My purpose is to explore the religious and philosophical foundations for a belief in an after-life, to examine the ways in which this belief has been given expression and to see whether it is tenable today. My programme of study focuses on the problem of the self and the question of life after death and, in particular, on those religious and philosophical beliefs associated with what has come to be known as pareschatology. Is life after death a real possibility? I seek to show that this is a substantial question and argue that the most serious scientific and philosophical objections to the idea of survival can be met; and that there are rational grounds which point to a basic teleological argument for the survival of the self after death. I hold that any theory which postulates the survival of death without a body of some kind is neither intelligible nor tenable. In addition, any theory which postulates some kind of physical continuity between this existence and the next is untenable, and that a more sophisticatedv ersion of what bodily resurrectionm eanst han has hitherto beenp resented, relies on some concept of body and mind (soul). It is one thing, however, to show that talk of life after death is not illogical, another to find convincing grounds for such a prospect. Traditional religious doctrines have become so attenuated as to be unable to supply any substantial support for the claims they make regarding life after death. I pay special attention therefore, to so-called neardeath experiences; as well as considering the experimental issues involved in psychical research and claimed memories of former lives. While the evidence of psychical research and its allied fields is not sufficient to prove personal survival, the best cases provided are suggestive of continued personal life after death. Distinguishing between man's ultimate state, the eschaton, and the period between death and the ultimate state, the pareschaton, I examine the ideas about the resurrection of the whole person, and the reincarnation of the deeper self (soul) in life after death. I find that they point to a convergencein conceptionso f the ultimate state; that is, in the Hindu 3 teaching concerning liberation - moksha, the Buddhist conception of nirvana, and the Christian mystical doctrine of the unitive state or the beatific vision. Arguments for life after death vary: the most widespread are those for the immortality of the soul and the resurrection of the body. Either or both of these options can, to some extent, be found in almost all theoretical perspectives. The Introduction explains the standpoint from which the thesis is written - clarifying the relationship of the approach adopted to traditional theology, philosophical theology and the study of religions. It outlinest he shapeo f the argumentp resentedin the thesis. In Chapter One, the philosophical background to the concepts of self and personal identity is examined. The following questions are posed: can an intelligible content be given to the various accounts of life after death? Can a 'survivor be identical with a particular being who has passed through physical death? In Chapter Two, the religious background to these problems is considered. Within the Christian philosophical tradition, there is a debate of long standing about the relative merits of belief in the resurrection of the body and belief in the immortality of the soul. I give reasons for preferring the latter belief but contend that neither belief can offer a credible account of life after death. In Chapter Three, the philosophical problems of the self in disembodied existence and the criteria for personal survival are examined. To meet some of the difficulties identified in the notions, some of the concepts employed in non-Christian religions such as Buddhism and Hinduism are consideredin Chapter Four. In Chapter Five, we shall discuss an understanding of resurrection that makes us appeal to souls as identity guarantors. Resurrection is understood as the reconstitution of the bodily person, conceived of as a psychophysical unity. We shall examine whether such notions are philosophically coherent. In Chapter Six, an analysis of the Hindu Vedantic conception of reincarnation is undertaken. A Buddhist variant of this concept is also discussed. Notice is taken of the main features and problems common to both conceptions. Buddhism rejects the notion of an immortal soul but retains a belief in karma and rebirth. How these seemingly conflicting views may be reconciled is the subject of Chapters Seven and Eight. It is contended that the Buddhist doctrine of anatta enshrines a truth about the nature of the self which is in accord with modern physical science. I proceed to summarise the biblical teaching about man. Chapters Nine, Ten and Eleven present a vision of the after-life through an examination of parapsychological evidence. The Gospel narratives of Jesus' resurrection are examined to see how far these support my conclusions. Finally, I reach conclusions based on my analysis of the problem of the self in Reincarnationism and Christianity and seek to answer the question of whether the self can survive bodily death, and in what form.
13

'Little vast rooms of undoing': Exploring identity and embodiment through public toilet spaces

Blumenthal, Dara January 2013 (has links)
This thesis is an exploration of sensory-embodied identity grounded in an empirical study of self-body experience of public toilet spaces, through which I challenge dominant conceptions of the 'individual' put forth by the Western philosophical tradition, social constructionism, and post-structuralism. Those conceptions of the self-body which tend to reproduce Cartesian dualism and apply reductionist, representationalist understandings to materiality, typically render the body into passive flesh, rending a materiality in need of constant shaping, management, and control. To challenge these understandings, I put forth a posthumanist, material-feminist approach which takes the body not as the mere basis of the self, but rather the SOUlce of all experience, knowledge, and understanding. Rather than matter being understood as a stable thing or object directed by the rational subject or social power, this approach recognises the active, ongoing unfinished nature of materiality. This exploration is organised through Norbert Elias' concepts of homo clausus (closed person) and homines aperti (people opened) as frameworks for elucidating the experiences of individuals and introduces a Latin neologism - corpora infinita (boundless bodies) - to push his processoriented sociology further via a posthumanist-materialist lens. The empirical study focuses explicitly on individual experiences of sensory-embodiment through a universal daily practice within society: public toileting. My empirical research focuses on sex-segregated public toileting experiences of men, women, gender non-conforming, and trans individuals who have a range of sexual identities. The investigation takes the form of forty-five semistructured interviews and over two hundred 'toilet use' surveys, completed in New York City, London, and South East England. Through a meditation on socially contingent toileting habits and associated emotions, I suggest that experiences within public toilets expose the fissures of individual identity construction and understanding according to both homo clausus and homines aperti identity structures and, in doing so, reveal an opportunity for the reconceptualization of embodied identity as corpus infinitum.
14

Witnessing : ethics and temporality after Heidegger

Zammit, Clive January 2006 (has links)
No description available.
15

Self, narrative and community

Newman, Jeremy Philip January 2003 (has links)
No description available.
16

Self-consciousness and embodied experience

Smith, Joel Alexander January 2004 (has links)
The Body Claim states that a transcendental condition of self-consciousness is that one experience oneself as embodied. The contention of this thesis is that popular arguments in support of the Body Claim are unconvincing. Understanding the Body Claim requires us to have a clear understanding of both self-consciousness and embodied experience. In the first chapter I lay out two different conceptions of selfconsciousness, arguing that the proponent of the Body Claim should think of selfconsciousness as first-person thought. I point out that since arguments for the Body Claim tend to proceed by stating putative transcendental conditions on self-reference, the proponent of the Body Claim must maintain that there is a conceptual connection between self-consciousness and self-reference. In the second chapter I argue against views, originating from Wittgenstein and Anscombe, which reject this connection between self-consciousness and self-reference. In chapter three I show that a well known principle governing the ascription of content, that which Evans calls `Russell's Principle', occupies an ambiguous position with regards to the Body Claim. I argue that Russell's Principle should be rejected. Chapter four distinguishes between two conceptions of embodied experience: bodily-awareness and bodily self-awareness. I argue that there is no such thing as bodily self-awareness and so it cannot be a transcendental condition of self-consciousness. Chapter five looks at, and finds wanting, arguments for the Body Claim that can be found in the work of Strawson. Chapter six argues that it is a transcendental condition of self-consciousness that one enjoy spatial experience. Chapters seven and eight assess two influential arguments that attempt to complete a defence of the Body Claim: the solidity argument and the action argument. I argue that neither argument is convincing. Although the conclusions are primarily negative, much is learned along the way about the nature of both self-consciousness and embodied experience.
17

The anatomy of the abyss : Kierkegaard, modernity and the self before God

Podmore, Simon David January 2005 (has links)
No description available.
18

Mindedness : on the minimal conditions for possessing a mind

Aguilera, Bernardo January 2013 (has links)
This thesis explores the grounds for justifying the ascription of mentality to non-human agents. In the first part, I set my research within the framework of scientific naturalism and the computational theory of mind. Then I argue that while the behaviour of certain agents demands a computational explanation, there is no justification for attributing mentality to them. I use these examples to backup my claim that some authors indulge in unnecessary ascription of mentality to certain animals (e.g. insects) on the main grounds that they possess computational capacities. The second part of my thesis takes up recent literature exploring the line that divides computational agents with and without mentality. More precisely, I criticise the proposals put forward by Fodor, Dretske, Burge, Bermúdez and Carruthers. My main argument takes the form of a reductio ad absurdum by showing that their criteria apply to artefacts to which the attribution of mentality is unjustified. Overall, I conclude that even though the views advanced by the mentioned authors help to elucidate the computational grounds that could make the emergence of a mind possible, they do not offer a satisfactory criterion for the ascription of mentality to some computational agents but not others. In the final part I develop my own proposal for grounding the attribution of mentality. My strategy consists in drawing upon the distinction between personal and subpersonal levels of explanation, according to which properly psychological descriptions have whole-agents as their subject matter, use a distinctive theoretical vocabulary, and are constrained by norms of rationality. After showing that the personal-subpersonal distinction is compatible with a naturalistic framework, I adapt the distinction so that it can be applied to non-human agents, and conclude that it imposes constraints in cognitive architecture that point in the direction of cognitive access, generality and integration.
19

How opacity spawns transparency : a theory of self-knowledge of beliefs

Peters, Uwe January 2016 (has links)
This thesis develops a theory of self-knowledge of beliefs that suggests that when the same resources employed to identify other people’s beliefs are applied to oneself then non-interpretive and non-inferential self-knowledge of beliefs results. Like many other accounts, the proposal is based on the transparency of beliefs, i.e. the phenomenon that we can determine whether we believe p by determining whether p. However, it is superior to extant accounts of this kind because it makes the transparency of beliefs intelligible without presupposing any representation of one’s own mind. The account does so by proposing that the transparency of beliefs relies on a combination of practical and theoretical reasoning that, as soon as it has been executed once, remains subsequently implicit or unarticulated in the transition from the result of one’s determining whether p to one’s self-ascription of a belief about p. The transition at issue then leads to non-inferential self-knowledge. I argue that this account of selfknowledge, the implicit dual-reasoning (IDR) theory, is not threatened by the psychological data often taken to undermine the existence of non-interpretive and noninferential self-knowledge of attitudes and can be integrated with a well-supported interpretation-based account of self-knowledge of attitudes in general. On the resulting hybrid view, self-knowledge of attitudes is typically interpretive but beliefs retrievable in conscious thinking remain knowable non-inferentially. Toward the end, I supplement this view with an account of the function of self-knowledge of beliefs. The overall theory of self-knowledge that emerges from the thesis supports a hitherto unexplored picture of the relation between the nature of self-knowledge of beliefs and the nature of other-knowledge of them. It suggests that the existence of transparency-based, noninferential self-knowledge of beliefs is grounded in the prima facie entirely unrelated fact that other people’s beliefs are opaque, i.e. only interpretively accessible, to us.
20

Self-knowledge and morality

Powell, Betty January 1957 (has links)
This thesis is concerned with certain aspects of self-knowledge which are important for morality. It is an attempt to show the inadequacy of the theory of self-knowledge by parity with knowledge of others put forward by Professor Ryle in The Concept of Kind, whilst accepting his criticisms of the traditional theory of self-knowledge. The thesis is largely concerned with knowing what we do, and the things that we do, and its purpose is to emphasise differences between agent and observer. It is maintained (Chapter II) that knowing what I did is different in kind from knowing what others did, and an account is given of knowing what I did, which involves some consideration of the place of motives. Chapter I is an attempt to justify the rejection of the thesis that every action must have a motive. Chapters III and IV are attempts to deny that we know all that there is to know about a man from his behaviour. It is claimed that there are things which we do in thought, which may be said to be constituents of our 'inner lives'. Some attention is given to one of the most important 'inner life' concepts, that of self-deception. Finally, it is shown that the admission that we do not know all that there is to know about a man from his observable behaviour does not materially affect our ability to predict his behaviour, and that the account of motives and our knowledge of what we did, given previously, allows us to account for a man's doing one generous action in the whole of his life. This thesis is in no sense itself a theory of self-knowledge, for there are many aspects of self-knowledge which have not been considered. But it is an attempt to show that there are things to be said about self-knowledge which are neglected if we believe with Ryle, that there are no differences between self-knowledge and our knowledge of others.

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