Academic literature on the topic 'Chalmers, David John, 1966-'

David Chalmers and John Perry both construe phenomenal concepts as irreducible to descriptive concepts of physical properties or properties, which logically supervene on them. But they draw different conclusions from this point. D. Chalmers in The Conscious Mind argues that the epistemic gap between phenomenal and physical properties shows that the former cannot be ontologically identified with the latter. J. Perry in Knowledge, Possibility and Consciousness claims that we can identify phenomenal properties with physical ones without being committed to reductionism. In this paper I am going to examine Chalmers and Perrys views on meaning and necessity, especially with respect to identity statements, in order to find where exactly their ways of thinking about the content of phenomenal concepts.

Através do pensamento de um dos mais influentes pensadores da filosofia da mente de nosso tempo, o filósofo australiano David John Chalmers, esse trabalho apresentará uma visão dualista da consciência que possibilita o desenvolvimento de teorias não reducionistas da consciência. Para esse propósito, faremos inicialmente uma distinção entre os problemas pertencentes ao desempenho de funções cognitivas com aqueles que envolvem os estados qualitativos da experiência, qualias. Segundo Chalmers, esses problemas estãoinseridos, respectivamente, no chamado problema fácil e problema difícil da consciência. Por fim, após contrastar os problemas apresentados e com objetivo de demonstrar que a ciência empírica ainda não deu conta dos mistérios que envolvem o aspecto fenomênico da consciência, três princípios de Chalmers serão apontados como aspirantes a uma teoria da consciência que engloba tanto os processos físicos do cérebro como também os aspectos fenomênicos da consciência.

Of the works of David Tudor, none would seem to be better known than Rainforest IV, his large-scale performed installation of the 1970s. Although it has received widespread and well documented public performance, Rainforest's germination in the mid-1960s in elements of Bandoneon! (1966) and its evolution over a period of 10 years, from versions I (1968), II (1968–1969), III (1972) and IV (1973) through Forest Speech (1976), have not yet been adequately assessed. This paper follows Rainforest's trajectory chronologically: Matt Rogalsky focuses on the early versions of the work, and John Driscoll describes the collaborative development of Rainforest IV.

In this paper I discuss some aspects of the problem of carriers of human mind and person. The main emphasis is placed on the origin of our idea of the identi­cal self in the stream of perceptions, the need for a physical carrier of our self and person, and on possibility of replacing the biological carriers of self and per­son with artificial analogues. I argue that the idea of identical self is constructed by reflection on memories, that its truth is guaranteed by continuous stream of perceptions kept in memories, and that the stream of perceptions presupposes the presence of a normally functioning brain, which can be considered as a car­rier of our mind and person. Therefore, personal identity turns out to be depen­dent on the identity of the brain in time. An attempt to copy the structures of mind and person onto other possible carriers can thus only lead to creation of duplicates of the original person, but not to the continuation of its existence on another carrier. I argue that the gradual replacement of their components with artificial analogues is a more promising way of transforming the biological carri­ers of human person. To access the possible consequences of such a replacement I analyze arguments of John Searle and David Chalmers, designed to show, re­spectively, the disappearance of consciousness and person with such a replace­ment and, on the contrary, their preservation in a previous state. I explain why Searle’s arguments are unconvincing, and demonstrate that Chalmers’ arguments are based on a hidden premise, the confirmation of which is possible in the con­text of dubious theories of mind-body identity, epiphenomenalism or panpsy­chism only. I conclude that in the current situation it is impossible to predict which consequences for our person would follow such a replacement.

Abstract The concept of an extended cognitive system is central to contemporary studies of cognition. In the paper I analyze the place of the epistemic subject within the extended cognitive system. Is it extended as well? In answering this question I focus on the differences between the first and the second wave of arguments for the extended mind thesis. I argue that the position of Cognitive Integration represented by Richard Menary is much more intuitive and fruitful in analyses of cognition and knowledge than the early argument formulated by Andy Clark and David Chalmers. Cognitive Integration is compatible with virtue epistemology of John Greco’s agent reliabilism. The epistemic subject is constituted by its cognitive character composed of an integrated set of cognitive abilities and processes. Some of these processes are extended, they are a manipulation of external informational structures and, as such, they constitute epistemic practices. Epistemic practices are normative; to conduct them correctly the epistemic subject needs to obey epistemic norms embedded in the cultural context. The epistemic subject is not extended because of the casual coupling with external informational artifacts which extend his mind from inside the head and into the world. Rather, cognitive practices constitute the subject’s mind, they transform his cognitive abilities, and this is what makes the mind and epistemic subject “extended”.

One of the long-standing questions in the field of philosophy of mind is called the mind-body problem.The problem is this: given that minds and mental properties appear to be vastly different thanphysical objects and physical properties, how can the mind and body relate to and interact with eachother? Materialism is the currently preferred response to philosophy’s classic mind-body problem.Most contemporary philosophers of mind accept a materialist perspective with respect to the natureof reality. They believe that there is one reality and it is physical. One of the primary problemswith materialism has to do with the issue of physical reduction, that is, if everything is physical,how does the mental reduce to the physical? I argue that the materialistic model is problematicbecause it cannot sufficiently explain the reduction problem. Specifically, the materialist model doesnot account for our subjective experience, including qualia. I also consider the question of why thematerialist stance is so entrenched, given all the problems with the reduction problem that havebeen raised. I argue that the paradigmatic influence of materialism explains the puzzling conclusionsdrawn by philosophers. In closing, I argue that the failure of materialist perspectives to explainreduction is our invitation to take a fresh look at the alternatives. In support of my position, I will consider the reduction problem in two sections. In the first section I will present some contemporary arguments put forth by Jaegwon Kim, Ned Block, Thomas Nagel, John Searle, David Chalmers, Frank Jackson and Roger Penrose. These contemporary arguments address four different reduction problems. Although the arguments presented by Kim, Block, Searle, Nagel, Chalmers, Jackson and Penrose are compelling, I will argue that their arguments have not succeeded in altering the mainstream materialist viewpoint. In the second section of this paper, I will address three of my concerns regarding the reduction issue, i.e., 1) concerns regarding unresolved issues with respect to the reduction problem, 2) concerns that materialism cannot account for common characteristics of our mental experience 3) concerns regarding the validity of the materialist stance in general. In closing, I will argue that the failure of materialist perspectives to conclusively explain mind and consciousness is our invitation to take a fresh look at the alternatives. mind-body problem; materialism; physical reduction; qualia; point-of-view

Abstract This article considers the theological influences on the Balfour Declaration which was made on the 2 November 1917 and for the first time gave British governmental support to the establishment of a Jewish homeland in Palestine. It explores the principal personalities and political workings behind the Declaration before going on to argue the statement cannot be entirely divested from the religious sympathies of those involved, especially Lord Balfour. Thereafter, the paper explores the rise of Christian Restorationism in the context of Scottish Presbyterianism, charting how the influence of Jonathan Edwards shaped the thought of Thomas Chalmers on the role of the Jews in salvation history which in turn influenced the premillennialism of Edward Irving and his Judeo-centric eschatology. The paper then considers the way this eschatology became the basis of John Darby’s premillennial dispensationalism and how in an American context this theology began to shape the thinking of Christian evangelicals and through the work of William Blackstone provide the basis of popular and political support for Zionism. However, it also argues the political expressions of premillennial dispensationalism only occurred in America because the Chicago evangelist Dwight L. Moody was exposed to the evolving thinking of Scottish Presbyterians regarding Jewish restoration. This thinking had emerged from a Church of Scotland ‘Mission of Inquiry’ to Palestine in 1839 and been advanced by Alexander Keith, Horatius Bonar and David Brown. Finally, the paper explores how this Scottish Presbyterian heritage influenced the rise of Zionism and Balfour and his political judgements.

Abstract My purpose in this essay is to provide a critical survey of arguments within recent analytic philosophy regarding the so-called "mind-body problem" with aparticular view toward the relationship between these arguments and the philosophy of A.N. Whitehead (and Charles Hartshorne’s closely related views). In course, I shall argue that Whitehead’s panexperientialist physicalism avoids paradoxes and difficulties of both materialist-physicalism and Cartesian dualism as advocated by a variety of analytic philosophers. However, and I believe that this point is not often sufficiently recognized, analytic philosophy of mind is no monolith, and there are those who have found some form of panexperientialism to be attractive enough to merit serious consideration or even full-fledged acceptance (David Chalmers, Thomas Nagel, Ralph Pred, William Seager, and Galen Strawson among them). A critical discussion of such thinkers should be included in any adequate survey of the relation between process panexperientialism and the analytic tradition. Moreover, the revisionary strain of the analytical tradition which looks to natural science for its construction ofworldviews (Broad, Russell, Bunge, Carnap, Quine, etc.) would move us in the direction of examining arguments concerning Whitehead’s view and contemporary empirical scientific considerations. (For a discussion of the basic nature of analytic philosophy and the descriptive and revisionary approaches contained within it, see my Process and Analysis, 5-9, 12-13, 57; and McHenry.) Here I shall argue that Whiteheadian panexperientialism very naturally accommodates important aspects of quantum theory, including the top-down causation involved in neuroplastic phenomena under a quantum mechanical interpretation of brain processes and in so-called Quantum Zeno Effect. The overall picture which emerges is that Whitehead’s position is (at the very least) a strongly plausible alternative in philosophy of mind. While I must confess that this essay can only represent the merest sketch—indeed an adequate treatment of the richly complex interpretive, comparative, and substantive philosophical issues here requires at the very least a monograph—I nonetheless hope to present a coherent and useful précis of major arguments and comparative conceptual relationships, especially for the reader who may not be readily familiar with this terrain. I thus hope that this essay will serve as a short expository and critical introduction to the interface between process and analytic philosophy of mind, and a presentation of the several theoretical advantages gained by listening to Whitehead’s theory as it connects with concerns of analytic philosophers. I shall proceed by first working though the main outlines of John Searle’s important and widely reaching "The Recent History of Materialism," an essay which exposes critical flaws in a variety of materialist theories in ways which Whiteheadians should find especially fitting and congenial. I shall then examine defenses of dualism and the relation of Whitehead to such defenses, followed by a separate section on Chalmers, Nagel, and Pred. I will then consider a number of important objections to process panexperientialism, including objections arising from the work of Jaegwon Kim and John Searle. I close with a discussion of the mentioned empirical scientific arguments.

The article explores the influence of European and Russian Literature on the poets of the Second American Avant-Gard and The New York School, as was coined by John Myers, the artistic director of the Tibor de Nagy Gallery, as David Lehman stated in The Last Avant- Garde. The Making of New York School of Poets [Lehman 1999: 24–25]. The paper mainly focuses on the work of the first generation of the New York School: John Ashbery (1927–2017), Frank O’Hara (1926–1966), Kenneth Koch (1925–2002), and James Schuyler (1923–1991), who edited the first and the last issues of the literary magazine Locus Solus, published by the “quartet” of the aforementioned poets. Their poetry was marked by unexpected comparisons and juxtapositions, collages and pseudotranslations. At first, they drew heavily on Apollinaire, cubists, surrealists, but each of the original four developed his unique style. Alongside Apollinaire and French Surrealists, the works of Mayakovsky and Pasternak were central to the New York School poets. For example, the very title of Ashbery’s book Some Trees was an allusion to Boris Pasternak’s 1922 manifesto “Some Statements,” which was (mis)translated into English as “Some Trees.” In Frank O’Hara’s poems there are allusions not only to his beloved Mayakovsky but, most importantly, to Rachmaninoff and other composers. O’Hara developed syncretic and synthetic poetry, combining sound, color, music, and painting, as in his poem “On Rachmaninoff’s Birthday.” In Kenneth Koch’s poems there are allusions to Victor Shklovsky’s Third Factory and in Koch’s later long poem Possible World (2002), we can trace both Mayakovsky’s and Khlebnikov’s influence.

This paper would like to analyse two films, The Elephant Man (David Lynch, 1981) and Blow up (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1966) and one classic myth, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, through the very poignant figure of the voyeur. We will investigate this observer of the unnamable focusing on two characters, two eyewitnesses: the scientist who discovers John Merrick and the photographer who becomes obsessed with finding a corpse in an amplified picture. Both these voyeurs seem to be in search of the bewitching and sublime darkness that lies within, a search that in a way is inaugurated by the Promethean doctor at the break of Modernity. The corporeal distance between monster and voyeur creates the unbearable morbidity that devours our gaze. And at that exact point, the figures are reversed and the voyeur becomes the actual monster. Soon enough, we discover that their perspective as voyeurs becomes ours, because through the cinematic experience the spectator becomes witness of the crime, part of the freak show, morbid viewer of the abject. Lynch and Antonioni, together with Shelley’s creature and creator, put the question of the body through a microscope and dare us spectators to look inside, to find the morbidity of truth and the limits of art.

Disons que je me cogne l’orteil à l’instant. Selon le physicalisme, il est possible d’expliquer l’ensemble de ce qui se produit alors de façon purement physique. Ultimement, il s’agit de certaines interactions entre les particules de mon orteil et de celles du mur, qui mènent à des interactions dans mon système nerveux, qui mènent à d’autres interactions dans mon appareil vocal, de façon à ce qu’on entende « Aïe! ». Je crois qu’il manque quelque chose d’important à cette histoire, en l’occurrence l’effet que cela fait de se cogner l’orteil : ma douleur phénoménale à l’orteil. Plus généralement, l’ontologie de la physique n’est pas suffisante pour rendre compte de la conscience phénoménale. La question est de savoir par quoi la remplacer. Dans ce mémoire, j’explore la possibilité d’une ontologie qui ne serait pas physicaliste, mais qui serait quand même naturaliste, c’est-à-dire qu’elle reposerait quand même sur les sciences naturelles. Après tout, la science n’a pas à se limiter à l’ontologie de la physique actuelle. Pour mener à bien cette exploration, je comparerai les deux possibilités qui me semblent les plus plausibles, c’est-à-dire le naturalisme transcendantal de Colin McGinn et le dualisme naturaliste de David Chalmers. McGinn affirme qu’il existe une réponse naturaliste au problème corps-esprit, mais qu’elle n’est pas cognitivement accessible à l’humain, de la même façon que la solution au problème de la gravité n’est pas accessible à l’écureuil par exemple. Chalmers croit au contraire qu’il est bien possible de répondre au problème, à condition d’introduire la conscience phénoménale dans notre ontologie comme une nouvelle entité, comme Newton l’avait fait avec la gravité. J’expliquerai qu’un compromis est en réalité possible entre McGinn et Chalmers. La position de Chalmers est menacée par des paradoxes et des problèmes qui ne seront ultimement réglés qu’en concédant beaucoup de terrain à McGinn.
Disons que je me cogne l’orteil à l’instant. Selon le physicalisme, il est possible d’expliquer l’ensemble de ce qui se produit alors de façon purement physique. Ultimement, il s’agit de certaines interactions entre les particules de mon orteil et de celles du mur, qui mènent à des interactions dans mon système nerveux, qui mènent à d’autres interactions dans mon appareil vocal, de façon à ce qu’on entende « Aïe! ». Je crois qu’il manque quelque chose d’important à cette histoire, en l’occurrence l’effet que cela fait de se cogner l’orteil : ma douleur phénoménale à l’orteil. Plus généralement, l’ontologie de la physique n’est pas suffisante pour rendre compte de la conscience phénoménale. La question est de savoir par quoi la remplacer. Dans ce mémoire, j’explore la possibilité d’une ontologie qui ne serait pas physicaliste, mais qui serait quand même naturaliste, c’est-à-dire qu’elle reposerait quand même sur les sciences naturelles. Après tout, la science n’a pas à se limiter à l’ontologie de la physique actuelle. Pour mener à bien cette exploration, je comparerai les deux possibilités qui me semblent les plus plausibles, c’est-à-dire le naturalisme transcendantal de Colin McGinn et le dualisme naturaliste de David Chalmers. McGinn affirme qu’il existe une réponse naturaliste au problème corps-esprit, mais qu’elle n’est pas cognitivement accessible à l’humain, de la même façon que la solution au problème de la gravité n’est pas accessible à l’écureuil par exemple. Chalmers croit au contraire qu’il est bien possible de répondre au problème, à condition d’introduire la conscience phénoménale dans notre ontologie comme une nouvelle entité, comme Newton l’avait fait avec la gravité. J’expliquerai qu’un compromis est en réalité possible entre McGinn et Chalmers. La position de Chalmers est menacée par des paradoxes et des problèmes qui ne seront ultimement réglés qu’en concédant beaucoup de terrain à McGinn.

Questa tesi si occupa di percorrere il percorso di evoluzione del King Lear attraverso due secoli e mezzo di adattamenti teatrali e riscritture. Prende in esame gli adattamenti di Nahum Tate, David Garrick, George Colman, John Philip Kemble, Edmund Kean e William Charles Macready. La tesi propone anche l’analisi del melodramma di W.T. Moncrieff nonché i burlesques di John Chalmers, Joseph Halford e C.J. Collins, e Frederick Marchant.
This doctoral thesis focuses on the evolution of the story of King Lear through two centuries and a half of theatrical history. The research is concentrated on the adaptations proposed by Nahum Tate, David Garrick, George Colman, John Philip Kemble, Edmund Kean and William Charles Macready. The analysis also takes into considerations some rewritings such as the melodrama written by W.T. Moncrieff and the burlesques produced by John Chalmers, Joseph Halford and C.J. Collins, and Frederick Marchant.

Chapter 9 concerns what contemporary philosopher David Chalmers has called the “hard problem of consciousness”—the problem of explaining how conscious experience arises. The chapter provides an in-depth reconstruction of Vivekananda’s Sāṃkhya-Vedāntic solution to the hard problem of consciousness and demonstrates its relevance to contemporary philosophical debates. The chapter first outlines Ramakrishna’s mystically grounded views on consciousness and the views of five of Vivekananda’s prominent Western contemporaries: John Tyndall, T. H. Huxley, William James, W. K. Clifford, and Alfred Russel Wallace. It then examines Vivekananda’s own approach to the hard problem of consciousness and his critique of modern materialist theories of consciousness. Combining elements from Sāṃkhya, Advaita Vedānta, and the teachings of Ramakrishna, Vivekananda defends a metaphysics of panentheistic cosmopsychism, according to which the sole reality is Divine Consciousness, which manifests as everything in the universe.

This introductory chapter provides an overview of Michael Reeves's Witchfinder General (1968), which occupies a unique place in British cinema. Based on the 1966 novel by Ronald Bassett, the film stars Vincent Price as the title character. On the one hand, it is frequently cited as a landmark film, well-regarded, influential, and critically acclaimed. Critic Julian Petley describes it as ‘one of the towering achievements, not simply of British horror but of British cinema tout court’, while David Pirie suggests it ‘brings UK horror to some kind of maturity’ and compares director Michael Reeves to the poet John Keats. However, for many critics, it remains a disreputable work with a troubled history. Nevertheless, both Witchfinder General and its director continue to resonate, being frequently discussed, studied, and referenced.

Addressing the under-discussed area of Scottish Great War prose, this chapter argues that Scots with first-hand wartime experience did generate accounts comparable with those emerging in other countries throughout the 1920s, such as All Quiet on the Western Front (1929) and The Middle Parts of Fortune (1929). Rennie highlights John Reith’s Wearing Spurs (1966), David Rorie’s A Medico’s Luck in the War (1929), George Blake’s The Path of Glory (1929), and Edward Gaitens’s Dance of the Apprentices (1948) as notable examples – stylistically and thematically – of Scottish writers engaging with the topics of militaristic bureaucracy, the general physical discomfort of army life, and graphic wounding. Furthermore, this chapter challenges the notion that Scottish writing was dominated by North Britons, arguing these works present specifically Scottish war experience not necessarily subsumed within a wider British identity.