The epistemological problem of unity and its development in the philosophy of Bertrand Russell is the main subject of this essay. The first chapter is devoted to naïve realism developed by G. E. Moore and adopted by early Russell. I explain the notion of objective unity of proposition. The second chapter concerns Russell's departure from naïve realism and the multiple relation of judgment which Wittgenstein's criticism rendered as fatally unable to handle the problem of synthetic unity. The breakdown of this theory led Russell to naturalism, which is the topic of the last chapter. I pay special attention to the regressive argument proposed in slightly different versions by Moore, L. Wittgenstein and G. Ryle. Keywords realism, neutral monism, behaviorism, unity, consciousness

The reemergence of artificial intelligence during the last 30 years has introduced severalforms of weak AI to our everyday lives, be it in our smartphones or how the weather ispredicted. Modern approaches to AI, using methods like neural networks and machinelearning, also feel confident about creating strong AI, intelligence that is human-like orsuperior to humans. In this thesis, I discover the philosophical premises of artificialintelligence, how the research program views the mind and what implications this has for theform of intelligence that is being constructed. Furthermore, I derive at several criteria thatneed to be met to qualify a system as intelligent. To cover this rather wide field, the works ofHubert Dreyfus, an early commentator on AI, and David Chalmers, one of the most widelyread philosophers of mind, are interrogated about their views on human intelligence and howsuch a theory relates to the possibility of intelligent machines.Key

Text in English / This work is organised around two main objectives: a) the formulation of a new conceptual framework as the basis for a new scientific aesthetic; and (b) an attempt to explain the possibilities and current limitations of neuroscience in aesthetics. The first part of the work is devoted to the conceptual foundations of aesthetics. In the first chapter, I analyse the philosophical assumptions reflected in neuroaesthetics. In particular, I would like to show that the concept of art on which neuroaesthetics is based is both conceptually and empirically untenable. In the second chapter, I propose a new conceptual framework for a theory of aesthetics; in particular, I present new definitions of key concepts in aesthetics, such as 'art', 'artistic system', 'artistic movement', 'artwork', and so forth. Furthermore, in the second chapter, I advance the view that—even though the neurosciences are an essential part of aesthetics—not every aesthetic problem requires a neuroscientific solution. In other words, there are aesthetic problems that cannot be answered satisfactorily by neuroscience using only its special concepts and terminology. Some questions may require additional sociological, physical and/or semiotic concepts, and explanatory devices. The second part of this thesis deals with the experimental aspects of the neuroscience of artistic appreciation. First, I argue that the conceptual foundations underlying much of the current approaches to neuroaesthetics are still problematic and that the experimental approach cannot be applied in any straightforward manner to conduct neuroaesthetic research. I then review some of the most important results of experimental aesthetics and cognitive neurosciences with regard to the mechanisms of aesthetic appreciation before proposing a new neurocognitive model of artistic appreciation based on the notion of an artistic 'task-set' Finally, I end the second part with a theoretical postulate and a neurocognitive framework pertaining to the interactions between mental images and emotions and their possible role in the process of appreciating literary artworks. In the third and final part of the work, I briefly discuss the central ontological preconditions of the neurocognitive studies of art, namely, the neural hypothesis of identity, ‘mind = brain’, and compare it to other approaches of the mind-brain relationship. I also offer a hierarchical model of mental functions based on both the anatomical and the functional aspects of the brain. / Psychology / Ph. D. (Psychology)

Como a mente, que dentro da filosofia foi por vezes tratada como uma substância separada do corpo como algo não físico pode ser objeto da ciência, que lida com elementos físicos? Partindo desta pergunta, iremos examinar como é possível fazer ciência de uma capacidade cognitiva superior, como a atenção ou a memória, e de que modo pode-se estabelecer uma ciência a partir dos elementos observacionais utilizados pelos cientistas. Partindo da Filosofia da Mente em direção à Neurociência Cognitiva, mostraremos quais são estes elementos de observação utilizados na Ciência da Atenção e como se tecem teorias a partir deles. Mostrar que há uma dinâmica entre estes elementos, e expor como ela ocorre, implicará no estabelecimento de uma ciência de capacidades cognitivas superiores; no nosso caso, uma Ciência da Atenção. / How can the mind, which has been sometimes treated in philosophy as a substance separated from the body as something non-physical be object of a science, which deals with physical elements? Starting from this question, we will examine how it is possible to do science of a superior cognitive capacity, such as attention or memory, and in what way a science may be established from the observational elements used by scientists. Starting from the Philosophy of Mind towards Cognitive Neuroscience, we show what are these observational elements used in the Science of Attention, and how theories are built upon them. By showing that there is a dynamics between these elements, and describing how it takes place, leads to the establishment of a science of higher cognitive capacities; in the present case, a Science of Attention.

The current study investigated the interpretation of an agent's actions under the influence of external forces. Participants viewed a series of videos of an agent making a varying series of decisions and forced behaviors and were asked to predict future behavior. Firstly, we found evidence that suggests that perceivers make inferences about an agent that once they have shown a preference toward an object, they will persist with those initial desires, despite, external forces leading them to a different object. Secondly, we found evidence that suggests that submitting to a coerced choice will be perceived as reflecting a conflicting combination of pragmatic behavioral choice (due to concession to external forces) and maintenance of original desires, or, simply put, perceivers infer multiple underlying intentions in others. / by Brian Vail. / Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2012. / Includes bibliography. / Electronic reproduction. Boca Raton, Fla., 2012. Mode of access: World Wide Web.

Locus of an author poses questions of intentionality, how intention is discovered, expressed, hidden, revealed and interpreted. The purpose of the study is to find and apply productive interdisciplinary concepts in intentionality detection, decoding and evaluation in fictional texts. The investigation integrates traditions in literature, linguistics, cognitive science and creative writing, posing a pragmatics of intent that complements and complicates precepts in reader reception-based constructivism. Basic to a vision of pragmatic strategies: 1) situating effect and affect in an embodied mind; 2) acknowledging mutual and/or oppositional intentionalities which an embodied author and embodied reader bring to the process of fictional communication; 3) accepting language as communication that requires cognitive translation of consensually-agreed upon symbols into private representations in an embodied mind; 4) assuming that an author's fictionalizing consciousness is more discernible w hen it is navigating tensions of selection, proportion, intervention and perspective. Perceptual and close reading of J.M. Coetzee's Foe yields descriptive problematics. Analytical readings in a neglected byway of I.A. Richards' New Criticism provide pragmatic cues for detecting and evaluating intentionalities in prose. Three cross-disciplinary strategies emerge to enhance perceptual and close readings of fictional texts: 1) awareness of priming effects in form and content; 2) identification of markedness patterns; and 3) perception of tensible connections in prosaic language and artistic devices. / The study concludes that: reading in tensible awareness of author intentionality adds productively to critical analysis and argument; acknowledging positioned voices in texts supports ethical criticism and multicultural aesthetics; reading to apprehend perceptual units (image structures sensed through story) supports and contextualizes close reading of propositional units(discourse/language) . The formal element of perspective emerges as the most intensive locus of the reader's sense of integrated consciousness and management of effect in fiction. Perspective can create the most ergative construction of authorial perspective, i.e., one in which transitive energy appears equalized and the subject and patient / writer and reader positions in syntax can pivot. / by Lois Wolfe. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2008. / Includes bibliography. / Electronic reproduction. Boca Raton, Fla., 2008. Mode of access: World Wide Web.

The central argument of this dissertation is that virtue ethics is overly individualistic. In response, I develop and defend a more relational, ecological account - what I call extended virtues. First, following Andy Clark, Kim Sterelny, and others, I argue that cognition and emotion can be embedded in, scaffolded by, or even extended to include various environmental resources. These arguments undermine default internalism about cognitive and affective processes. Next, I show how recent work in social and personality psychology similarly undermines individualism about the bearers of these cognitive and affective processes. Taken together, these arguments have significant but heretofore underappreciated implications for virtue ethics. After reviewing the literature which attempts to spell out the ethical implications of embedded, scaffolded, and extended cognition, I conclude that a more substantive engagement with virtue ethics is needed. I then show how plausible, mainstream theories of virtue assume default internalism and individualism, and are thus subject to charges of empirical inadequacy. Finally, I formulate my account of extended virtues in response to these shortcomings. I begin by making three explicit arguments for why an account of extended virtues is needed. I then develop two further arguments - the process argument and the bearer argument - which yield the conclusion that the processes relevant to, and the bearers of, moral and intellectual virtues can be embedded, scaffolded, or extended. After providing examples and filling in details about the hypotheses of embedded, scaffolded, and extended virtue, I propose that virtues are less like dispositions and more like relations. I conclude by suggesting that ecological metaphors such as stewardship are more fitting than traditional views of morality as inner strength.

In its many manifestations, psychosis leads to a number of clinical and philosophical debates. Despite their practical and conceptual importance, a number of these debates remain unresolved. Appealing to the connection between phenomenological descriptions, empirical evidence, and philosophical analysis, this dissertation is devoted to the careful examination of five of the main debates surrounding the occurrence of delusions of thought insertion, one of the most complex and severe symptoms of psychotic disorders. Roughly speaking, patients suffering from thought insertion report that external agents of different nature have placed certain thoughts into the patients' minds. The introduction to this compilation clarifies the main distinctions underlying the general discussions about delusions and the specific debates surrounding thought insertion. The introduction is followed by a collection of five papers. The first paper tries to explain the way in which subjects self-attribute their own conscious thoughts in terms of agency. The second paper, assuming that delusions are a type of belief, engages with the discussion about the role that experiential abnormalities have in the process of formation of the delusional belief of thought insertion. The third paper examines the role that affective impairments might have in the process of production of thought insertion, an issue that is often overlooked by current dominant approaches to thought insertion. Taken altogether, the first three papers of this collection offer a novel understanding of the aetiology and architecture of thought insertion. The fourth paper examines a much larger discussion that overlaps with the debate about the subjective features of thought insertion. It is argued that cases of thought insertion - in conjunction with other psychotic phenomena - undermine the current self-presenting theory of consciousness, a theory meant to explain the most fundamental subjective character of conscious experiences. Finally, the fifth paper of the compilation engages with a more general discussion about the nature and role that delusions might play in a subject's life. It is argued against the dominant view that there are good reasons to characterize a certain type of monothematic delusions (including some cases of thought insertion) as biologically adaptive.

This thesis is a study of aboutness. It defends the claim that we have singular thoughts about ordinary objects and argues that an essential part of how we do so is by maintaining singular representations. This proposal allows us to avoid traditional, unsatisfying conceptions of the scope of singular thought while restoring the sense in which such thought is a distinctively epistemic achievement. Reconnecting the study of aboutness with epistemology promises to alleviate the sense of directionlessness in the contemporary literature, offering a firmer grip on the phenomenon along with new, systematic resources for its investigation. Chapters 1-2 explore the effects of contextualist machinery on orthodox views about singular thought. It is widely thought that if there is to be a plausible connection between the truth of a de re attitude report about a subject and that subject's possession of a singular thought, then there can be no acquaintance requirement(s) on singular thought. Chapter 1 shows that this view rests on a faulty picture of how we talk about attitudes. Indeed, the truth of a de re attitude report cannot be taken to track the singular/non-singular distinction without collapsing it. A new, contextualist picture is needed. That there must be a distinction between singular and non-singular intentionality is emphasized in Chapter 2, where a key explanatory role for singular thought - brought out by a thought experiment due to Strawson - is examined. I show that the role does not call for any distinctive kind of mental content. Once we abandon the two widespread views questioned in Chapters 1-2, our grip on the phenomenon of singular aboutness is loosened: it is not constitutively tied to the kinds of attitude-reporting data or mental content by which it is often assumed to be revealed. Where are we to look for insight? What makes something the object of a singular thought? According to Russell, it is a datum of intuition that singular thought involves a kind of knowledge; a theory of aboutness will precisify the intuitive notion of 'knowing which thing one is thinking about' in order to capture this demand in a philosophically revealing way. If Russell is right, teasing out this connection to knowledge will allow us to see what it takes for a particular thing to be the immediate subject matter of thought. Chapter 3 discusses Evans's theory of this kind. Chapter 4 examines recent work by Dickie. While serious concerns emerge in each case, insights recovered are used to precisify Russell's requirement, leading to a novel picture of singular representation and the epistemic character of this achievement. While the chapters follow a narrative, providing an extended rationale for the proposal in Chapter 4, each may be read in isolation by those familiar with the philosophical issues. For those who are not, the Introduction provides sufficient background.

CoordenaÃÃo de AperfeÃoamento de Pessoal de NÃvel Superior / Certamente a consciÃncia à algo extremamente familiar e, ao mesmo tempo, enigmÃtico para nÃs. Seu aspecto fenomenal, denominado de consciÃncia fenomenal, impÃe inÃmeras barreiras Ãs abordagens reducionistas propostas pelo quadro teÃrico fisicista/funcionalista. Tamanhas sÃo as dificuldades suscitadas pela consciÃncia fenomenal a estas abordagens reducionistas que o problema referente a este aspecto da consciÃncia constitui o âproblema difÃcil da consciÃnciaâ. Considerando sua aparente irredutibilidade, se faz necessÃrio analisar um quadro teÃrico que tenha como cerne a tentativa de conciliar a consciÃncia fenomenal com um compromisso mÃnimo com o fisicismo, na medida em que se pressupÃe a necessidade de um substrato fÃsico que instancie nossas experiÃncias conscientes. Diante deste impasse a teoria da superveniÃncia da consciÃncia surge com o objetivo de demonstrar uma relaÃÃo de dependÃncia/determinaÃÃo estabelecida entre o conjunto de propriedades da consciÃncia e o conjunto de propriedades fÃsicas do cÃrebro sem, no entanto, implicar necessariamente em uma reduÃÃo do primeiro ao segundo conjunto. Desta forma, o objetivo estabelecido neste trabalho consiste em analisar pormenorizadamente a teoria da superveniÃncia da consciÃncia e o quadro teÃrico no qual esta se insere e, posteriormente, argumentar sobre os motivos que fazem desta uma teoria incapaz de fornecer uma relaÃÃo substancial entre a consciÃncia e seu substrato fÃsico. / Certainly consciousness is something extremely familiar and, at the same time, enigmatic for us. Its phenomenal aspect, called phenomenal consciousness, imposes a number of barriers to reductionist approaches proposed by physicist/functionalist framework. Such are the difficulties raised by phenomenal consciousness to that reductionist approaches that the problem concerning that aspect of consciousness is the âhard problem of consciousnessâ. Considering its apparent irreducibility, it is necessary to analyze a framework which have as core an attempt to conciliate the phenomenal consciousness with a minimum commitment with physicalism, insofar as the necessity of a physical substrate that instantiates our conscious experiences is presupposed. Given that impasse the supervenience of consciousness theory arises with the aim of demonstrating a relation of dependence/determination established between the set of consciousness proprieties and the set of physical proprieties of the brain without, however, necessarily entailing a reduction of the former to the last set. Thus, the aim established in this work consist in analyzing in details the supervenience of consciousness theory and the framework which it inserts and, posteriorly, arguing about the reasons that make that theory unable to provide a substantial relation between consciousness and its physical substrate.