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12 results

  • Chapter 10 - On justifying neurobiologicalism for consciousness
  • Edited by Simone Gozzano, Università degli Studi dell'Aquila, Italy, Christopher S. Hill, Brown University, Rhode Island
  • Book: New Perspectives on Type Identity
  • Published online: 05 April 2012
  • Print publication: 08 March 2012, pp 207-229
  • View abstract

    Summary

    The authors such as Papineau and Block and Stalnaker mounted a general critique of the thesis that property identities are closely connected to reductive explainability. Kim takes Putnam to argue that identity claims are ideally suited for the role of connecting principles or bridge laws. These identity claims are thus justified by the fact that they enable the reduction of classical thermodynamics to statistical mechanics, and in this way contribute to a substantial simplification of the physical picture of the world. Broad developed a view of mechanistic, i.e. reductive, explanation that, in many respects, is very similar to that of Levine. For Levine, reductive explainability is connected with claims about the identity of properties. Frank Jackson has in recent times given an interesting new twist to the debate about physicalism. Reductive explainability in Broad's sense implies reductive explainability in Jackson's sense, but not vice versa.
  • The Representational vs. the Relational View of Visual Experience
  • Brian P. McLaughlin
  • Journal: Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplements / Volume 67 / October 2010
  • Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 July 2010, pp. 239-262
  • Print publication: October 2010
  • View abstract

    In Reference and Consciousness,1 John Campbell attempts to a make a case that what he calls ‘the Relational View’ of visual experience, a view that he champions, is superior to what he calls ‘the Representational View’.2 I argue that his attempt fails. In section 1, I spell out the two views. In section 2, I outline Campbell's case that the Relational View is superior to the Representational View and offer a diagnosis of where Campbell goes wrong. In section 3, I examine the case in detail and argue that it fails. Finally, in section 4, I mention two very well-known problems for the Relational View that are unresolved in the book.

  • 16 - In Defense of New Wave Materialism: A Response to Horgan and Tienson
  • Edited by Carl Gillett, Illinois Wesleyan University, Barry Loewer, Rutgers University, New Jersey
  • Book: Physicalism and its Discontents
  • Published online: 02 November 2009
  • Print publication: 26 November 2001, pp 319-330
  • View extract

    Summary

    It is fairly widely believed that felt bodily sensations (aches, pains, itches, tickles, throbs, cramps, chills, and the like) have physical or at least functional correlates. That is to say, the following thesis is fairly widely believed:

    Correlation Thesis. For every type of sensation state, S, there is a type of physical or functional state, P/F, such that it is nomologically necessary that for any being, x, x is in S if and only if x is in P/F.

    The Correlation Thesis, if it is true, would not, of course, solve the mind-body problem for sensations. For the Correlation Thesis is compatible with virtually every theory of mind: not only with noneliminativist materialism and functionalism, but also with Cartesian Dualism, dual-aspect theory, neutral monism, and panpsychism.

    Some philosophers, however, myself included, maintain that the following thesis would offer the best explanation of the correlation thesis:

    Type Identity Thesis. For every type of sensation state, S, there is a type of physical or functional state, P/F, such that S = P/F2.

    This thesis implies the Correlation Thesis. For, as Saul Kripke (1971) demonstrated,

    The Necessity of Identity. For any A and B, if A = B, then necessarily A = B.3

    The kind of necessity in question is the strongest sort: if A = B, then there is, unqualifiedly, no way the world could be such that A is not identical with B. Thus, given the necessity of identity, if the Type Identity Thesis is true, then the Correlation Thesis is true as well.

  • Dementia in an Irish population of Down's syndrome people
  • Janette F TyrRell, Mary P Cosgrave, Martin McLaughlin, Brian A Lawlor
  • Journal: Irish Journal of Psychological Medicine / Volume 13 / Issue 2 / June 1996
  • Published online by Cambridge University Press: 13 June 2014, pp. 51-54
  • Print publication: June 1996
  • View abstract

    Objective: To determine the prevalence of dementia in an Irish sample of Down's syndrome (DS) patients and to examine the utility of a number of cognitive and functional scales in the assessment of dementia in this population.

    Method: 76 DS patients diagnosed clinically (range 33–72 years; mean age 47.3 ± 8.8 years) were included in the study. The diagnosis of dementia was made on clinical grounds using DSMIIIR criteria. Cognitive and functional impairment were evaluated using the following scales; Test for Severe Impairment (TSI), Down's Syndrome Mental Status Examination (DSMSE), Daily Living Skills Questionnaire (DLSQ), and the Mental State Performance (MSP).

    Results: The overall prevalence of dementia was 7.9% (95% C.I = 2.95–16.39). The presence of dementia was associated with late onset epilepsy, anticonvulsant medication and deafness. Standard cognitive tests such as the MSP showed an early ‘floor’ effect in this population. In contrast the TSI and DLSQ showed a satisfactory range of scores in these patients with moderate to severe learning disability.

    Conclusions: The low prevalence of dementia in this study may be explained by the strict conservative criteria applied in the clinical diagnosis. Prospective assessment of DS patients on a longitudinal basis using decline on scales such as the TSI and DLSQ may allow more accurate diagnosis of dementia at an earlier stage in this at-risk population.

  • Varieties of Supervenience
  • Edited by Elias E. Savellos, State University of New York, Umit D. Yalcin, East Carolina University
  • Book: Supervenience
  • Published online: 29 March 2010
  • Print publication: 28 July 1995, pp 16-59
  • View extract

    Summary

    In recent years, supervenience has been the subject of extensive philosophical analysis. Varieties of supervenience have been distinguished, their pairwise logical relationships examined, and their usefulness for various purposes scrutinized. However, despite extensive analysis, some details are askew, some controversies unresolved. I will by no means attempt to straighten out all the details or to settle all the controversies. But I will take a detailed look at what others have said and add a couple of wrinkles.

    In Section 1, I present and explore the core intuitive idea of supervenience. In Section 2, I argue that the possible-world versions of weak and strong supervenience do not imply, respectively, the modal-operator versions of weak and strong. In Section 3, I discuss an aspect of global supervenience, in particular what it is for two worlds to have the same total pattern of distribution of properties of a certain sort. In Section 4, I examine the logical relationships between weak and global supervenience, and between strong and global. In Section 5, I make some observations about multiple-domain weak and strong supervenience. In Section 6, I consider whether any variety of supervenience implies reduction. Finally, in Section 7, I briefly note two theoretical uses of supervenience.