D.Litt. et Phil. (Philosophy) / Though for a large portion of the twentieth century the question of life’s meaning wasn’t a favorite question among analytic philosophers, recent developments, especially within the last 30 years, show that the meaning of life is no longer ‘the black sheep of normative family’ (Metz 2002: 811). As Thaddeus Metz and others have already noted, most normative philosophers had been more comfortable discussing notions such as ‘happiness’, ‘well-being’ and ‘value’ and, thus, the notion of ‘meaningfulness’ has not been considered as a distinguished category that could account for a good life (cf. Wolf 2010, Metz 2013). However, there is enough evidence to suggest that the question of life’s meaning ‘has come firmly back onto the philosophical agenda’ (Cottingham 2013: 115). Long has passed since the day a distinguished analytic philosopher announced in his presidential address to the American Philosophical Association that ‘once in a time of weakness and lapse of judgment he wrote a paper on the meaning of life’ (Adams 2002: 71). In fact, the very existence of a growing body of literature on the meaning of life shows that ‘the problem does not go away’ (Cottingham 2003: 2) and one is bound to enquire about the ‘problem’ somewhere in one’s life.

Individuals diagnosed with Asperger‟s Syndrome (AS) have marked impairments in social interaction, including difficulty expressing and perceiving thoughts, emotions, and intentions. This deficit may be due in part to a delayed or underdeveloped Theory of Mind (ToM). The previous research investigating ToM in individuals with AS has been inconclusive. The purpose of this study was to compare three Theory of Mind (ToM) tasks, presented via three different modalities, to evaluate the recognition of complex emotions and mental states in adolescents with AS compared to typically developing adolescents. Participants in this study included twenty adolescents: 10 adolescents with AS and 10 typically developing adolescents matched by age and gender. Participants were administered three ToM tasks differing in mode of stimuli presentation: a visual mentalizing (VM) task; an auditory mentalizing (AM) task; and, a visual+auditory mentalizing (VAM) task. . Results were analyzed utilizing a factorial analysis of variance (ANOVA). No significant difference was found between the groups overall, or between the groups by task. A pairwise analysis of the data revealed non-significant differences between visual only (VM) compared to auditory only (AM) presentation of stimuli; however significant differences were found between visual only (VM) stimuli compared to the combination of visual + auditory (VAM) stimuli, and between auditory only (AM) stimuli compared to the combination of visual + auditory (VAM) stimuli. These results indicated that the recognition of complex emotions and mental states increased when the stimuli were presented through the combined visual and auditory channels. Clinical implications of these findings were discussed. Recommendations were made for future research investigating ToM in individuals with AS.

The present study explores the nature and structure of spiritual and aesthetic experiences through the interdisciplinary application of neurophenomenology (NP). This approach merges aspects of psychology, neurophysiology, and phenomenology into a unified methodology. The study is nested within a larger project, Space, Science, and Spirituality, and as such, it carries a common goal to use simulation to evoke spiritual and aesthetic responses similar to those expressed by astronauts and cosmonauts. Careful analysis of previous work in NP provided methodological “lessons learned”, which guided the experimental design, execution, and analysis of the present study. The data collected provides support for experience as a phenomenon that can be studied through empirical means. Further, the articulation of spiritual and aesthetic experiences akin to astronaut experiences corresponds to specific neurological and psychological indicators. Among those indicators are differences in EEG measures during simulation time relative to expressions of spiritual experience following the simulation and changes in visual processing across theta, alpha, and beta signals as correlated with self-identification. These findings support an embodied theory of experience that incorporates memory, executive function, perception, and consciousness. In addition to its academic contribution, this research holds implications for commercial space flight, long-term space missions, post-traumatic stress disorder therapies, and the entertainment industry

Thesis advisor: Marius Stan / This dissertation is about the immortality of the self and whether from a transcendental idealist perspective, one could sustain this notion based on theoretical grounds. It is well known that Kant closed this door in the Critique, and this is the position that Kantian scholars defend. But has Kant set up a series of dogmatic premises that presuppose that we accept conclusions for which Kant offers no argument? Thus, this dissertation aims at a minimal ontology of the human self within an idealist framework. To do this, I turn to Schopenhauer’s ‘perfected system of criticism.’ Without abandoning idealism, Schopenhauer introduces an objective perspective that suggests a more ontological robust understanding of the self. Although Schopenhauer’s position can be interpreted in a way favorable to theoretical arguments for the immortality of the self, his commitment to an identity of brain/mind, and the consequences that he draws from this, obscures some of his most important contributions. To tackle this issue and others, I analyze the Plotinian perspective, a philosophical position that blends epistemology and ontology which I think solidifies my interpretation of Schopenhauer and breaks the supposed identity between brain/mind. Thus, theoretical arguments for the immortality of the self are possible when idealism is an account in which epistemology and ontology intermingle. Specifically, an argument is supported by a premise that is accepted by both Plotinus and Schopenhauer, namely, that of the existence of Ideas, real objects external to the human mind which are responsible for the existence of sensible individuals. These ideas are in themselves unified by a higher principle which Plotinus names the One and Schopenhauer the Thing in Itself. In absolute terms, this ultimate reality is the root of our true self, but we are not identical to it because in human beings there is multiplicity which manifests itself in us by how we cognize things as external to ourselves (understanding) and how we desire things that we do not find within us (will). Chapter 1 opens with a discussion about the ‘true self’ according to Kant. Although this true self could be identified with the pure apperception of the Transcendental Deduction given that Kant argues that it is the source of unity of experience, after examining the different degrees of unity in representations, I conclude that the unifying principle of all sensible experience and the subject itself exist in a non-sensible world. The intelligible character of the Third Antinomy could be that principle, but I reject this in favor of the thing in itself. Nevertheless, the intelligible character’s residence as an individual in the non-sensible world hints at the construction of theoretical arguments for the immortality of the true self. Chapter 2 argues that Schopenhauer also rejects the role assigned to the pure apperception: only the thing in itself is the original source of unity. Schopenhauer accepts the Kantian intelligible character with clear indications that it is an ontologically real entity. The ontological import of the intelligible character reinforces its role in seeking a theoretical argument for the immortality of our true self. I propose that a pathway to a theoretical argument in favor of the immortality of the true self is also suggested in Schopenhauer’s doctrine of Ideas. The subject of cognition, through the alteration of its cognitive faculties in aesthetic contemplation, discovers itself as the correlate of a Pure Subject of Cognition whose objects are Pure Objects or, as Schopenhauer calls them, Ideas. In this alteration, the empirical subject of cognition is ‘elevated’ to the intuitive grasping of Ideas as a Pure Subject. Among Ideas, I argue that Schopenhauer points to something that can be interpreted as an idea of individual. Given the immortal nature of Ideas, we must also be immortal. Chapter 3 focuses on the question about immortality in both Kant and Schopenhauer. On the one hand, I show that Kant has not abandoned the notion of the human soul or its immortality. Instead, he claims to have clarified the origin of all disputes regarding the human soul while laying out the rules for guarding ourselves against future errors. On the other hand, Schopenhauer has no problem accepting that immortality is a fact of common sense, but he rejects that the individual survives. He bases this conclusion on his conviction that individuality emerges with the intellect, while the intellect only emerges with the brain. The subjection of the intellect to the brain is one of the most salient features of Schopenhauerian psychology. However, I propose that Schopenhauer’s objective perspective, a perspective whose implications are hardly at the center of attention in Schopenhauer’s studies, cannot be used to its full potential – as for example to defend that the individual human being is immortal too – unless this identification of intellect and brain is abandoned. To find arguments that can be used to differentiate the mind from the brain, I propose the study of Plotinus. Chapter 4 aims to provide a framework to illuminate the possibilities built into Schopenhauer’s objective perspective. The survey of Plotinus’ philosophy of self and immortality in this chapter suggests interesting starting points for a new interpretation of some of Schopenhauer’s insights. An important consequence of this study is the formulation of arguments to show that the mind or intellect cannot be characterized as identical to the brain. After studying Plotinus, a fact becomes clear, namely, that Schopenhauer, although critical of the concept ‘soul’, does not discard its content; instead, he finds ample use of it for his own unique purposes. Chapter 5 concludes that the discussion of Kant’s and Schopenhauer’s psychology reveals the flaw in their respective projects, namely, their demand that cognition of the human soul should mirror cognition of sensible objects. This is a conclusion that is also revealed by the study of Plotinus. However, I reaffirm my position that Schopenhauer’s idealism is a step forward in the right direction. I discuss four ‘great themes’ – born from the encounter between Schopenhauer and Plotinus – which provide the general context that helps me propose how the theoretical argument for the immortality of the true self works in transcendental idealism. I argue that these four great themes, areas where ontology and epistemology intersect, refocus not just Schopenhauer’s philosophy by helping us to become aware of the nonverbalized implications of his metaphysics, it even suggests that Plotinus’ metaphysics could benefit from the Schopenhauerian reflection. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2022. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Philosophy.

Color ontology is the philosophical study of the nature of color. Synesthesia is a neurological condition in which the stimulation of one sensory modality or cognitive pathway leads involuntarily to experiences in a second modality or cognitive pathway. Synesthetic colors are thus colors reliably induced by non-visual stimuli. Currently, there is no philosophical theory of color that explicitly addresses synesthetic color. This omission raises three questions which underlie this thesis. How would the main theories in color ontology interpret synesthetic colors? Which, if any, of these theories would be able to treat synesthetic color as being more than misperception? What would be the costs of adopting such a theory? In Part I, I introduce and discuss four prominent theories of color: physicalism (chapter 1), eliminativism (chapter 2), role functionalism (chapter 3), and sensory classificationism (chapter 4). In Part II, I introduce perceptual pragmatism as an alternative to these views. Perceptual pragmatism consists in the defence of two main theses: (i) that colors are properties of interactions between a color perceiver and an external stimulus that induces color experience, and (ii) that perceptual states are correct insofar as they are useful to the perceiving organism. In chapter 5, I defend the first thesis. In chapter 6, I defend the second thesis. In chapter 7, I assess each theory’s ability to account for synesthetic color. In chapter 8, I address the common sense objection that colors do not look like properties of events. In conclusion, I find perceptual pragmatism to be the only theory capable of offering a satisfactory account of synesthetic color. However, it is also the theory most at odds with common sense. I conclude that if we want a theory that can account for the uncommon colors of synesthesia, we must reject the common sense view of color. / Thesis / Master of Arts (MA) / Color ontology is the philosophical study of the nature of color. Synesthesia is a neurological condition in which the stimulation of one sensory modality or cognitive pathway leads involuntarily to experiences in a second modality or cognitive pathway. Synesthetic colors are thus colors reliably induced by non-visual stimuli. As it stands, there is no philosophical theory of color that explicitly addresses synesthetic color. Of the current theories in color ontology I argue that only one—perceptual pragmatism—is able to offer a satisfactory account of synesthetic color. However, perceptual pragmatism is also the theory most at odds with common sense. I conclude that if we want a theory that can account for the uncommon colors of synesthesia, we must be willing to reject the common sense view of color.

The mind as it is found in Aristotle's great work De Anima is a special capacity of the soul. It has both active and passive properties that work together to allow discursive thinking and moral ethical behavior to emerge. This work will look at Aristotle's philosophy of mind, and I will forward a new interpretation of the mind as he understood it: what I call the active and passive mind property dualism. Aristotle's four causes allow for a unique application of a form of dualism that accounts for the ontological status of the mind and the emergence of rational thinking. The importance of potentiality and actuality in Aristotle's metaphysics gives a different sort of formulation of the mind-body problem than is traditionally understood in the philosophy of mind. The first section of this paper will look at the terms used, especially actuality and potentiality. A comparison to Plato's tripartite soul will be given. Next, Aristotle's different kinds of soul and their varied capacities will be explored. Finally, the active mind will be explained as it appears in Book III, chapter 5.

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Does consciousness differ between and within entities? What then makes one conscious experience differ from another? That has been discussed for millennia, yet the more we learn about consciousness the more it seems the differences come from other aspects of our experiences than consciousness itself. Knowing whether consciousness has categories, is degreed or is binary, affects the way we model and look for signs of consciousness and possibly find better treatments for unresponsive patients. This paper (1) examines the two most common views on the variability of consciousness, the multidimensional view and the degreed view, in regards to how consciousness could vary, (2) identifies constricting aspects for both views indicating that the variability of consciousness itself isn’t really argued for in either view, and (3) argues that consciousness is binary by providing a schematic idea of what is needed for being conscious and consciousness.

[pt] David J. Chalmers, um dos mais influentes autores contemporâneos em filosofia da mente, defende a irredutibilidade ontológica da consciência a propriedades físicas. Para o filósofo australiano, a consciência - ou a qualidade subjetiva da experiência - escapa a qualquer abordagem materialista, pois permanece um mistério por que processos físico-funcionais são acompanhados de experiência. Assim, segundo o autor, pelo fato de não poder ser logicamente derivada de fatos físicos, a consciência precisa ser considerada uma propriedade fundamental do universo. Para sustentar sua tese e refutar o materialismo, Chalmers explora três tipos de argumentos, bem como suas diversas objeções: o argumento explanatório, o argumento do conhecimento e o argumento da conceptibilidade (ou argumento dos zumbis). Este trabalho visa investigar, à luz desses três argumentos e da plausibilidade de posições não materialistas, se realmente devemos desistir do materialismo para darmos conta do fenômeno da consciência. / [en] David J. Chalmers, one of the most influential contemporary philosophers of mind, defends the ontological irreducibility of consciousness to physical properties. According to the Australian philosopher, consciousness – or the subjective quality of experience – escapes all materialist approaches, once it remains a mystery why physical/functional processes should be accompanied by experience. Chalmers argues that, because consciousness cannot be logically entailed from physical facts, it must be considered as a fundamental property of the universe. To support his thesis and refute the doctrine of materialism, the author explores three types of argument, as well as its objections: the explanatory argument, the knowledge argument and the conceivability argument (or the zombie argument). The aim of the present work is to investigate, in the light of these three arguments and the plausibility of non-materialist positions, if we should really give up on materialism to account for the phenomenon of consciousness.