Philosophy

Cultural influences are pervasive throughout human behaviour, and as human–robot interactions become more common, roboticists are increasingly focusing attention on how to build robots that are culturally competent and culturally sustainable. The current treatment of culture in robotics, however, is largely limited to the definition of culture as national culture. This is problematic for three reasons: it ignores subcultures, it loses specificity and hides the nuances in cultures, and it excludes refugees and stateless persons. We propose to shift the focus of cultural robotics to redefine culture as an emergent phenomenon. We make use of three research programmes in the social and cognitive sciences to justify this definition. Consequently, cultural behaviour cannot be explicitly programmed into a robot, rather, a robot must be designed with the capability to participate in the interactions that lead to the arising of cultural behaviour. In the final part of the paper, we explore w...

Karen Bennett has recently articulated and defended a solution to the causal exclusion problem. Bennett’s “compatibilist” solution works by rejecting the Exclusion principle on the grounds that even though physical realizers are distinct from the mental states or properties that they realize, they necessarily co-occur such that they fail to satisfy standard accounts of causal over-determination. This is the case, Bennett argues, because the causal background conditions for core realizers being sufficient causes of their effects are identical to the “surround” conditions with which the core realizers are metaphysically sufficient the states or properties that they realize, i.e., with which they form total realizers. Here we demonstrate that the background conditions for the causal sufficiency of core realizers for their effects are not identical to the core realizer’s surrounds. If compatibilist solutions to exclusion can be defended, a different argument will be needed.

G. E. Moore argues that goodness is an intrinsic non-natural property that supervenes irreducibly on the intrinsic natural properties of its bearers. Accordingly, it is often supposed that “Moorean” supervenience is incompatible with physicalism, a naturalistic thesis. In this paper I argue that Moorean supervenience is not in itself incompatible with physicalism, Moore’s ethical non-naturalism notwithstanding. Understanding why will help us to better appreciate the full range of ontological resources available to physicalists.

A common view is that the truth of multiple realization, e.g., about psychological states, entails the truth of functionalism. This is supposed to follow because what is multiply realized is eo ipso realized. I argue that view is mistaken by demonstrating how it misrepresents arguments from multiple realization. In particular, it undermines the empirical component of the arguments, and renders the multiplicity of the realization irrelevant. I suggest an alternative reading of multiple realizability arguments, particularly in philosophy of psychology. And I explain the proper way to understand the relation between realization and multiple realization.

Suppose that consciousness is a natural feature of biological organisms, and that it is a capacity or property or process that resides in a single organ. In that case there is a straightforward question about the consciousness organ, namely: How did the consciousness organ come to be formed and why is its presence maintained in those organisms that have it?

Four different colors are needed to make maps that avoid adjacent countries of the same color. Because the retinal image is two dimensional, like a map, four dimensions of chromatic experience would also be needed to optimally distinguish regions returning spectrally different light to the eye. We therefore suggest that the organization of human color vision according to four-color classes (reds, greens, blues, and yellows) has arisen as a solution to this logical requirement in topology.

Abstract. Some people believe that there is an “explanatory gap” between the facts of physics and certain other facts about the world—for example, facts about consciousness. The gap is presented as a challenge to any thoroughgoing naturalism or physicalism. We believe that advocates of the explanatory gap have some reasonable expectations that cannot be merely dismissed.

ABSTRACT Saul Kripke's (1971, 1972) modal essentialist argument against materialism remains an obstacle to any prospective Identity Theorist. This paper is an attempt to make room for an Identity Theory without dismissing Kripke's analytic tools or essentialist intuitions. I propose an explanatory model that can make room for the Identity Theory within the constraints of Kripke's view; the model is based on ideas from Alan Sidelle's,“Identity and Identity-like”(1992).

Abstract: Rosenberg does not provide arguments for some crucial premises in his argument against physicalism. In particular, he gives no independent argument to show that physicalists must accept the entry-by-entailment thesis. The arguments provided establish weaker premises than those that are needed. As a consequence, Rosenberg's general anti-physicalist argument is found wanting.

Zombies are imaginary creatures that are stipulated to lack consciousness despite being otherwise identical in one way or another to human beings or other conscious creatures. In an essay titled" The Unimagined Preposterousness of Zombies," Daniel Dennett laments the sad state of philosophy in which there is serious debate over whether or not this fictional kind of being is possible: Sometimes philosophers clutch an insupportable hypothesis to their bosoms and run headlong over the cliff edge.

The question of the adaptive advantage of consciousness has been introduced into the debate among philosophers of mind as support for one or another view of the nature and causal efficacy of consciousness. If we can explain how and why we came to be conscious, then that will shed light on what sort of thing, or process, or property consciousness is.

Fifty years ago JJC Smart published his pioneering paper,“Sensations and Brain Processes.” It is appropriate to mark the golden anniversary of Smart's publication by considering how well his article has stood up, and how well the identity theory itself has fared. In this paper I first revisit Smart's (1959) text, reflecting on how it has weathered the years.

1 One might consider the possibility of intra-individual multiple realization, such as variations in the realizers of a particular pain throughout its duration (see, eg, Horgan 1993). Perhaps in this sense instances could be multiply realized. But an account of multiple realization that covers only such cases, and not the more familiar inter-individual cases would be incomplete at best.

Abstract Do facts about water have a priori, transparent, reductive explanations in terms of microphysics? Ned Block and Robert Stalnaker hold that they do not. David Chalmers and Frank Jackson hold that they do. In this paper I argue that Chalmers' and Jackson's critique of Block and Stalnaker crucially hinges on a reductio argument, and that the reductio can be defused. I conclude that the counterexamples given by Block and Stalnaker are cogent.

Consciousness is perhaps the most salient feature of human mental life. The experience of tasting a red wine differs from the experience of tasting coffee, and from that of reading the label on a wine bottle. Whatever else can be said about these differences, they are manifested in us by different conscious experiences. And this seems to be good for us: different experiences are evidently important in our abilities to discriminate among foods, to avoid injury, to identify potential mates, and so on.

A widely accepted theory holds that emotional experiences occur mainly in a part of the human brain called the amygdala. A different theory asserts that color sensation is located in a small subpart of the visual cortex called V4. If these theories are correct, or even approximately correct, then they are remarkable advances toward a scientific explanation of human conscious experience. Yet even understanding the claims of such theories—much less evaluating them—raises some puzzles.

By now it is a cliché to observe that so-called reductionism is not one mammoth doctrine. There are, as it were, many reductionisms. Needless to say, there are at least as many antireductionisms. Despite the fact that neither reductionisms nor their counterparts are single and unified doctrines, there do seem to be some family resemblances. One, it seems to me, is that both reductionisms and antireductionisms are acute responses to certain metaphysical worries.