Geoffrey Lloyd
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199214617
- eISBN:
- 9780191706493
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199214617.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind
This book presents a study of the problems posed by the unity and diversity of the human mind. On the one hand, as humans we all share broadly the same anatomy, physiology, biochemistry, and certain ...
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This book presents a study of the problems posed by the unity and diversity of the human mind. On the one hand, as humans we all share broadly the same anatomy, physiology, biochemistry, and certain psychological capabilities — the capacity to learn a language, for instance. On the other, different individuals and groups have very different talents, tastes, and beliefs, for instance about how they see themselves, other humans and the world around them. These issues are highly charged, for any denial of psychic unity savours of racism, while many assertions of psychic diversity raise the spectres of arbitrary relativism, the incommensurability of beliefs systems, and their mutual unintelligibility. The book examines where different types of arguments, scientific, philosophical, anthropological and historical, can take us. It discusses colour perception, spatial cognition, animal and plant taxonomy, the emotions, ideas of health and well-being, concepts of the self, agency and causation, varying perceptions of the distinction between nature and culture, and reasoning itself. It pays attention to the multidimensionality of the phenomena to be apprehended and to the diversity of manners, or styles, of apprehending them. The weight to be given to different factors, physical, biological, psychological, cultural, ideological, varies as between different subject areas and sometimes even within a single area. The book uses recent work in social anthropology, linguistics, cognitive science, neurophysiology, and the history of ideas to redefine the problems and clarify how our evident psychic diversity can be reconciled with our shared humanity.Less
This book presents a study of the problems posed by the unity and diversity of the human mind. On the one hand, as humans we all share broadly the same anatomy, physiology, biochemistry, and certain psychological capabilities — the capacity to learn a language, for instance. On the other, different individuals and groups have very different talents, tastes, and beliefs, for instance about how they see themselves, other humans and the world around them. These issues are highly charged, for any denial of psychic unity savours of racism, while many assertions of psychic diversity raise the spectres of arbitrary relativism, the incommensurability of beliefs systems, and their mutual unintelligibility. The book examines where different types of arguments, scientific, philosophical, anthropological and historical, can take us. It discusses colour perception, spatial cognition, animal and plant taxonomy, the emotions, ideas of health and well-being, concepts of the self, agency and causation, varying perceptions of the distinction between nature and culture, and reasoning itself. It pays attention to the multidimensionality of the phenomena to be apprehended and to the diversity of manners, or styles, of apprehending them. The weight to be given to different factors, physical, biological, psychological, cultural, ideological, varies as between different subject areas and sometimes even within a single area. The book uses recent work in social anthropology, linguistics, cognitive science, neurophysiology, and the history of ideas to redefine the problems and clarify how our evident psychic diversity can be reconciled with our shared humanity.
Todd Tremlin
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- February 2006
- ISBN:
- 9780195305340
- eISBN:
- 9780199784721
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195305345.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Philosophy of Religion
This book provides an introduction to the cognitive science of religion, a new discipline of study that explains the origins and persistence of religious ideas and behavior on the basis of evolved ...
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This book provides an introduction to the cognitive science of religion, a new discipline of study that explains the origins and persistence of religious ideas and behavior on the basis of evolved mental structures and functions of the human brain. Belief in gods and the social formation of religion have their genesis in biology — in powerful, often hidden, processes of cognition that all humans share. Arguing that we cannot understand what we think until we first understand how we think, the book describes ways in which evolution by natural selection molded the modern human mind, resulting in mental modularity, innate intelligences, and species-typical modes of thought. The book details many of the adapted features of the brain — agent detection, theory of mind, social cognition, and others — focusing on how mental endowments inherited from our ancestral past lead people to naturally entertain religious ideas, such as the god concepts that are ubiquitous the world over. In addition to introducing the major themes, theories, and thinkers in the cognitive science of religion, the book also advances the current discussion by moving beyond explanations for individual religious beliefs and behaviors to the operation of culture and religious systems. Drawing on dual-process models of cognition developed in social psychology, the book argues that the same cognitive constraints that shape human thought also work as a selective force on the content and durability of religions.Less
This book provides an introduction to the cognitive science of religion, a new discipline of study that explains the origins and persistence of religious ideas and behavior on the basis of evolved mental structures and functions of the human brain. Belief in gods and the social formation of religion have their genesis in biology — in powerful, often hidden, processes of cognition that all humans share. Arguing that we cannot understand what we think until we first understand how we think, the book describes ways in which evolution by natural selection molded the modern human mind, resulting in mental modularity, innate intelligences, and species-typical modes of thought. The book details many of the adapted features of the brain — agent detection, theory of mind, social cognition, and others — focusing on how mental endowments inherited from our ancestral past lead people to naturally entertain religious ideas, such as the god concepts that are ubiquitous the world over. In addition to introducing the major themes, theories, and thinkers in the cognitive science of religion, the book also advances the current discussion by moving beyond explanations for individual religious beliefs and behaviors to the operation of culture and religious systems. Drawing on dual-process models of cognition developed in social psychology, the book argues that the same cognitive constraints that shape human thought also work as a selective force on the content and durability of religions.
John Foster
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- May 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780199297139
- eISBN:
- 9780191711398
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199297139.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Moral Philosophy
The aim of the book is to refute physical realism and establish in its place a form of phenomenalistic idealism. Physical realism, in the relevant sense, takes the physical world to be something ...
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The aim of the book is to refute physical realism and establish in its place a form of phenomenalistic idealism. Physical realism, in the relevant sense, takes the physical world to be something whose existence is both logically independent of the human mind and philosophically fundamental. There are a number of problems for this realist view, but the main objection is that it does not accord the world the empirical immanence it needs if it is to qualify as our world, as a world for us. Phenomenalistic idealism rejects the realist view in both its aspects. It takes the world to be something whose existence is ultimately constituted by facts about human sensory experience, or by some richer complex of non-physical facts in which such experiential facts centrally feature. The book seeks to establish a specific version of this idealism, in which the experiential facts that centrally feature in the constitutive creation of the world concern the organization of human sensory experience. The basic idea of this version is that, in the context of certain other constitutively relevant factors, this sensory organization creates the physical world by disposing things to appear systematically worldwise at the human empirical viewpoint. Chief among the other relevant factors is the role of God as the one who is responsible for the sensory organization and ordains the system of appearance it yields. It is this that gives the idealistically created world its objectivity and allows it to qualify as a real world.Less
The aim of the book is to refute physical realism and establish in its place a form of phenomenalistic idealism. Physical realism, in the relevant sense, takes the physical world to be something whose existence is both logically independent of the human mind and philosophically fundamental. There are a number of problems for this realist view, but the main objection is that it does not accord the world the empirical immanence it needs if it is to qualify as our world, as a world for us. Phenomenalistic idealism rejects the realist view in both its aspects. It takes the world to be something whose existence is ultimately constituted by facts about human sensory experience, or by some richer complex of non-physical facts in which such experiential facts centrally feature. The book seeks to establish a specific version of this idealism, in which the experiential facts that centrally feature in the constitutive creation of the world concern the organization of human sensory experience. The basic idea of this version is that, in the context of certain other constitutively relevant factors, this sensory organization creates the physical world by disposing things to appear systematically worldwise at the human empirical viewpoint. Chief among the other relevant factors is the role of God as the one who is responsible for the sensory organization and ordains the system of appearance it yields. It is this that gives the idealistically created world its objectivity and allows it to qualify as a real world.
T.L.S. Sprigge
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- May 2006
- ISBN:
- 9780199283040
- eISBN:
- 9780191603662
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0199283044.003.0005
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Religion
This chapter examines the philosophy of T. H. Green, the initial leading figure among the absolute idealists who dominated British philosophy in the late 19th century. Green sought to establish that ...
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This chapter examines the philosophy of T. H. Green, the initial leading figure among the absolute idealists who dominated British philosophy in the late 19th century. Green sought to establish that the existence and nature of human beings, especially of the human mind, was not susceptible of a purely empirical or scientific explanation. He claimed that the only possible explanation involved reference to the existence of an Eternal Consciousness, which was gradually realizing itself in the temporal world, more especially in the life of human beings. Further issues in his philosophy are examined, such as that things count as real only if they are in unchanging relations to each other, the difference between negative and positive freedom, the nature of moral choice, the superiority of a virtue ethic to a utilitarian one.Less
This chapter examines the philosophy of T. H. Green, the initial leading figure among the absolute idealists who dominated British philosophy in the late 19th century. Green sought to establish that the existence and nature of human beings, especially of the human mind, was not susceptible of a purely empirical or scientific explanation. He claimed that the only possible explanation involved reference to the existence of an Eternal Consciousness, which was gradually realizing itself in the temporal world, more especially in the life of human beings. Further issues in his philosophy are examined, such as that things count as real only if they are in unchanging relations to each other, the difference between negative and positive freedom, the nature of moral choice, the superiority of a virtue ethic to a utilitarian one.
Andy Clark
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- January 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780195333213
- eISBN:
- 9780199868858
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195333213.003.0010
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind
This chapter presents some concluding thoughts. It argues that work on embodiment, action, and cognitive extension likewise invites us to view mind and cognition in a new and illuminating manner. The ...
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This chapter presents some concluding thoughts. It argues that work on embodiment, action, and cognitive extension likewise invites us to view mind and cognition in a new and illuminating manner. The human mind emerges at the productive interface of brain, body, and social and material world. Unravelling the workings of these embodied, embedded, and sometimes extended minds requires an unusual mix of neuroscience, computational, dynamical, and information-theoretic understandings, ‘brute’ physiology, ecological sensitivity, and attention to the stacked designer cocoons in which we grow, work, think, and act.Less
This chapter presents some concluding thoughts. It argues that work on embodiment, action, and cognitive extension likewise invites us to view mind and cognition in a new and illuminating manner. The human mind emerges at the productive interface of brain, body, and social and material world. Unravelling the workings of these embodied, embedded, and sometimes extended minds requires an unusual mix of neuroscience, computational, dynamical, and information-theoretic understandings, ‘brute’ physiology, ecological sensitivity, and attention to the stacked designer cocoons in which we grow, work, think, and act.
Nancey Murphy and Warren S. Brown
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199215393
- eISBN:
- 9780191707025
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199215393.003.0002
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind
This chapter explores the legacy of Descartes in attempting to understand the human mind, a legacy often referred to as Cartesian materialism. An account is given of the many ways in which Cartesian ...
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This chapter explores the legacy of Descartes in attempting to understand the human mind, a legacy often referred to as Cartesian materialism. An account is given of the many ways in which Cartesian assumptions about human nature are embedded in most versions of physicalism. The chapter criticizes the tendency to substitute brain-body dualism for mind-body dualism, the assumption that emotion is opposed to rationality, and the idea of mental processes as occurring in an inner space — no longer the ‘Cartesian theater’ but nonetheless inside the head. In contrast, this chapter emphasizes that mind is embodied, not merely ‘embrained’, and that mental events must be understood as contextualized brain events.Less
This chapter explores the legacy of Descartes in attempting to understand the human mind, a legacy often referred to as Cartesian materialism. An account is given of the many ways in which Cartesian assumptions about human nature are embedded in most versions of physicalism. The chapter criticizes the tendency to substitute brain-body dualism for mind-body dualism, the assumption that emotion is opposed to rationality, and the idea of mental processes as occurring in an inner space — no longer the ‘Cartesian theater’ but nonetheless inside the head. In contrast, this chapter emphasizes that mind is embodied, not merely ‘embrained’, and that mental events must be understood as contextualized brain events.
Christian Moevs
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- April 2005
- ISBN:
- 9780195174618
- eISBN:
- 9780199835430
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195174615.003.0003
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Literature
This chapter seeks to recover the medieval understanding of the fundamental relations that link the human mind, the world, and God, relations that make the pilgrim's journey possible. The first ...
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This chapter seeks to recover the medieval understanding of the fundamental relations that link the human mind, the world, and God, relations that make the pilgrim's journey possible. The first section engages Aristotle's penetrating analysis of the metaphysical notion of form and its relation to mind — an analysis that provides the philosophical foundation for medieval reflections on how human intelligence can transcend space and time, in both the Neoplatonic tradition and the late-medieval Aristotelian revival. The second section traces the Neoplatonic (and Christianized) heritage of Aristotle's analysis in a few essential features, focusing on the relation, and ascent, of the human mind to its “source”. The third section traces this inherited philosophical understanding in Dante as the framework for the Comedy's salvific mission and poetics, which is relevant in the last subsection of the chapter, and in the remaining chapters of the book.Less
This chapter seeks to recover the medieval understanding of the fundamental relations that link the human mind, the world, and God, relations that make the pilgrim's journey possible. The first section engages Aristotle's penetrating analysis of the metaphysical notion of form and its relation to mind — an analysis that provides the philosophical foundation for medieval reflections on how human intelligence can transcend space and time, in both the Neoplatonic tradition and the late-medieval Aristotelian revival. The second section traces the Neoplatonic (and Christianized) heritage of Aristotle's analysis in a few essential features, focusing on the relation, and ascent, of the human mind to its “source”. The third section traces this inherited philosophical understanding in Dante as the framework for the Comedy's salvific mission and poetics, which is relevant in the last subsection of the chapter, and in the remaining chapters of the book.
Steven Mithen
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780197264522
- eISBN:
- 9780191734724
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- British Academy
- DOI:
- 10.5871/bacad/9780197264522.003.0022
- Subject:
- Psychology, Evolutionary Psychology
The adoption of an explicitly cognitive approach has become prominent in archaeological research during the last decade, helping to place Palaeolithic archaeology into a driving role in the ...
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The adoption of an explicitly cognitive approach has become prominent in archaeological research during the last decade, helping to place Palaeolithic archaeology into a driving role in the development of archaeological theory and developing inter-disciplinarity with the cognitive sciences. Two prominent approaches have emerged: the social brain hypothesis and the distributed mind. Precisely how these can be integrated into a single, unified approach for the study of the evolution and nature of the human mind remains unclear, if indeed it is desirable to do so. This chapter reflects on the emergence of these approaches within archaeology and comments upon their relative strengths and weakness.Less
The adoption of an explicitly cognitive approach has become prominent in archaeological research during the last decade, helping to place Palaeolithic archaeology into a driving role in the development of archaeological theory and developing inter-disciplinarity with the cognitive sciences. Two prominent approaches have emerged: the social brain hypothesis and the distributed mind. Precisely how these can be integrated into a single, unified approach for the study of the evolution and nature of the human mind remains unclear, if indeed it is desirable to do so. This chapter reflects on the emergence of these approaches within archaeology and comments upon their relative strengths and weakness.
Peter Carruthers
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- January 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780195179675
- eISBN:
- 9780199869794
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195179675.003.0005
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Metaphysics/Epistemology
This chapter addresses the main challenge facing massively modular theories of the architecture of the human mind. This is to account for the distinctively flexible, non-domain-specific character of ...
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This chapter addresses the main challenge facing massively modular theories of the architecture of the human mind. This is to account for the distinctively flexible, non-domain-specific character of much human thinking. It shows how the appearance of a modular language faculty within an evolving modular architecture might have led to these distinctive features of human thinking with only minor further additions and non-domain-specific adaptations.Less
This chapter addresses the main challenge facing massively modular theories of the architecture of the human mind. This is to account for the distinctively flexible, non-domain-specific character of much human thinking. It shows how the appearance of a modular language faculty within an evolving modular architecture might have led to these distinctive features of human thinking with only minor further additions and non-domain-specific adaptations.
John Foster
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- May 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780199297139
- eISBN:
- 9780191711398
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199297139.003.0005
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Moral Philosophy
If there is a physical world, its existence must be understood in accordance with canonical idealism, which takes the world to be constitutively created by more fundamental factors and assigns the ...
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If there is a physical world, its existence must be understood in accordance with canonical idealism, which takes the world to be constitutively created by more fundamental factors and assigns the central role in this creation to the sensory organization. But such idealism, and indeed any form of phenomenalistic idealism, seems to be excluded by our basic understanding of the ontological status of the physical world in relation to the human mind. In the first place, this understanding seems to require the world to have an existence which is logically independent of the human mind. Secondly, an idealistically created world seems to lack the objectivity it needs if it is to qualify as a real world. Unless these difficulties for the idealist account can be overcome, we shall be forced to embrace physical nihilism. This chapter shows how the idealist can overcome the first. He can do this by simply acknowledging that, in the context of the psychophysical reality that is idealistically sustained, the physical world and the human mind are interactive partners, with neither partner logically depending for its existence on the other.Less
If there is a physical world, its existence must be understood in accordance with canonical idealism, which takes the world to be constitutively created by more fundamental factors and assigns the central role in this creation to the sensory organization. But such idealism, and indeed any form of phenomenalistic idealism, seems to be excluded by our basic understanding of the ontological status of the physical world in relation to the human mind. In the first place, this understanding seems to require the world to have an existence which is logically independent of the human mind. Secondly, an idealistically created world seems to lack the objectivity it needs if it is to qualify as a real world. Unless these difficulties for the idealist account can be overcome, we shall be forced to embrace physical nihilism. This chapter shows how the idealist can overcome the first. He can do this by simply acknowledging that, in the context of the psychophysical reality that is idealistically sustained, the physical world and the human mind are interactive partners, with neither partner logically depending for its existence on the other.
