Philosophy of Mind

This paper focuses on two enduring features of Gareth Evans’s work. The first is his rethinking of standard ways of understanding the Fregean notion of sense and the second his sustained attempt to undercut the standard opposition between Russellian and Fregean approaches to understanding thought and language. I explore the peculiar difficulties that ‘I’ poses for a Fregean theory and show how Evans’s account of the sense of the first person pronoun can be modified to meet those difficulties.

Artificial intelligence has progressed exponentially and so is progress in Material science. The Ancient dream of immortality, omniscience and omnipotence is sought to be achieved through artificial intelligence and smart materials. However a deeper study of the subject is needed and the insights from eastern yogi Sri Aurobindo will be helpful in this

The basic function of emotion in life is to know what matters in a situation in a way that tightly connects cognition to evaluation and action. Emotions focus our attention on what’s significant in the light of our aims and values, and they dispose us to act. Emotions are thus practical knowledge par excellence. As such, they are indispensable, at least for our kind of agency. To put all of this in a simple slogan: emotions are our way of getting our act together.
This chapter opens with a discussion of how this works in the individual case (1.), and then proceeds to examining how this carries over to joint action (2.). It is argued that in spite of some important differences between these cases, in order for us to get our joint act together, we need to know what matters to us. For such knowledge to be suitably related to action, it has to involve a single unified evaluative perspective (3.). The way in which this perspective is unified is plural self-knowledge: a non-observational and non-inferential sense of our concerns as ours. Such emotion is a collection’s, or a group’s; its subject is plural rather than singular.

The paper discusses a recent phenomenological and a neuroscientific approach, debating how new directions in philosophy and psychology can elaborate accounts of anthropology. It is argued that the methodology of phenomenological anthropology developed by Thomas Fuchs is an effective way to combine the results of philosophy and psychology in a recent anthropological discourse. The paper examines the relevance of social interactions and relations for the formation of the self in Thomas Fuchs Leib, Raum, Person and Das Gehirn – ein Beziehungsorgan. This approach also illustrate that we still lack an account of how philosophy and psychology can productively come together in a recent anthropology. Particularly with regard to the embodied account of mental disorders and psychopathology in general. Some basic concepts from enactive cognitive science and the interdisciplinary discourse are shortly introduced. Based on these, an overview is given and the advantages that integrates philosophical and psychological perspectives are outlined. It is shown how the phenomenological framework and the consideration of psychopathology might serve as a basis for a recent anthropology which considers current neurobiological research.  The understanding of mental disorders and an overcoming disciplinary gap can prevent the temptation of a monistic anthropology.

Die Ergebnisse der empirisch-deskriptiven Wissenschaften stellen eine Anfrage an das moderne Menschenbild. Anthropologie ist im Umbruch begriffen, entzweit durch scheinbar unüberwindliche Erklärungslücken zwischen den Einzelwissenschaften. Die Leibphänomenologie setzt einen Kontrapunkt hin zu interdisziplinären ganzheitlichen Theorien. Anhand der Arbeiten des Philosophen und Psychiaters Thomas Fuchs, wird ein kurzer Überblick über grundlegende Ansätze gegeben und in einem Zwischen von Philosophie und Psychologie eingeordnet. Ausgehend von diesen Ansätzen und unter Rücksicht auf das Projekt einer Psychopathologie, wird die Frage nach einer singulären Anthropologie diskutiert und gezeigt, dass es die eine singuläre (d.i. verabsolutierte, monistische, universelle Anthropologie) scheinbar nicht geben kann. Anthropologie also in einem Prozess des offenen (zeitgebundenen) Fragens verbleibt.

Edited by Rick Repetti. Routledge / Taylor & Francis (August 2016).

Table of Contents:

Introduction
Part 1. Is, Was, or Ought There To Be a Buddhist Theory of Free Will?
1. "Why There Was No ‘Problem of Freedom and Determinism’ in Indian Buddhism," Christopher W. Gowans
2. "Uses of the Illusion of Agency: Why Some Buddhists Should Believe in Free Will," Charles Goodman
3. "Negative Dialectics in Comparative Philosophy: The Case of Buddhist Free Will Quietism," Owen Flanagan
4. "Just Another Word for Nothing Left to Lose: Freedom, Agency and Ethics for Mādhyamikas,” Jay L. Garfield
5. "Why There Ought to Be a Buddhist Theory of Free Will," Rick Repetti

Part 2. Skeptical Perspectives
6. "Free Will and the Sense of Self," Galen Strawson
7."Living without Free Will," Susan Blackmore
8. "Neuroscience, Buddhism, Free will, and Reactive Attitudes," David Pizarro
9. "Freedom from Responsibility: Agent-Neutral Consequentialism and the Bodhisattva Ideal," Christian Coseru

Part 3. Optimistic Perspectives
10. “Psychological versus Metaphysical Agents: A Theravāda Buddhist View of□Free Will and Moral Responsibility,” Peter Harvey
11. "Degrees of Freedom: The Buddha’s Views on the (Im)possibility of Free Will," Martin T. Adam
12. "Relating Vasubandhu’s Philosophies of Mind and Action to the Contemporary Problem of Free Will," Karin Meyers
13. "Buddhism and Free Will," Marie Friquegnon
14. "Paleo-Compatibilism and Buddhist Reductionism," Mark Siderits
15. "Shifting Coalitions, Free Will, and the Responsibility of Persons in Buddhist Philosophy," Ben Abelson

Part 4. Pragmatic Perspectives
16. "A Buddhist View of Free Will: Beyond Determinism and Indeterminism," B. Alan Wallace
17. "Reactive Attitudes without Reactivity: Does Mindfulness Take Us beyond Moralizing?" Jake Davis
18. "Choosing Our Emotions: Lessons about Responsible Agency from Tsongkhapa," Emily McCrae
19. "Free Will in Contemporary Mindfulness-based Programmes," Asaf Federman
20. "Buddhist Meditation, Mental Freedom, and Free Will," Rick Repetti

I argue that central Buddhist tenets and meditation methodology support a view of free will similar to Harry Frankfurt’s optimistic view and contrary to Galen Strawson’s pessimistic view. For Frankfurt, free will involves a relationship between actions, voli- tions, and “metavolitions” (volitions about volitions): simplifying greatly, volitional actions are free if the agent approves of them. For Buddhists, mental freedom involves a relationship between mental states and “metamental” states (mental attitudes toward mental states): simplifying greatly, one has mental freedom if one is able to control one’s mental states, and to the extent one has mental freedom when choosing, one has free will. Philosophical challenges to free will typically question whether it is compatible with “determinism,” the thesis of lawful universal causation. Both Frankfurt’s metavolitional approval and the Buddhist’s me- tamental control are consistent with determinism. Strawson has argued, however, that free will is impossible, determinism not- withstanding, because one’s choice is always influenced by one’smental state. I argue, however, that Buddhist meditation culti- vates control over mental states that undermine freedom, whether they are deterministic or not, making both mental free- dom and free will possible. The model I develop is only a sketch of a minimally risky theory of free will, but one that highlights the similarities and differences between Buddhist thought on this subject and relevantly-related Western thought and has explana- tory promise.

This is the third article in a four-article series that exam- ines Buddhist responses to the Western philosophical problem of whether free will is compatible with “determinism,” the doctrine of universal causation. The first ar- ticle (“Earlier”) focused on the first publications on this issue in the 1970s, the “early period.” The second (“Paleo- compatibilism”) and the present articles examine key responses published in the last part of the Twentieth and the first part of the Twenty-first centuries, the “middle period.” The fourth article (“Recent”) examines responses published in the last few years, the “recent period.” Whereas early-period scholars endorsed a compatibilism between free will and determinism, in the middle period the pendulum moved the other way: Mark Siderits argued for a two tiered compatibilism/incompatibilism (or semi-compatibilism) that he dubs “paleo-compatibilism,” grounded in the early Buddhist reductionist notion of “two truths”: conventional truth and ultimate truth; and Charles Goodman argued that Buddhists accept hard determinism—the view that because determinism is true, there can be no free will—because in the absence of a real self determinism leaves no room for morally responsible agency. In “Paleo-compatibilism,” I focused on Siderits’s reductionist account. The present article focuses on Goodman’s hard determinism, and the fourth article will examine the most recent publications expressing Buddhist views of free will. Together with my own meditation based Buddhist account of free will (“Meditation”), this series of articles provides a comprehensive review of the leading extant writings on this subject.

This is the first part of a three-article series that examines Buddhist accounts of free will. The present article introduces the issues and reviews earlier attempts by Frances Story, Walpola Rāhula, Luis Gómez, and David Kalupahana. These “early-period” authors advocate compatibilism between Buddhist doctrine, de- terminism (the doctrine of universal lawful causation), and free will. The second article reviews later attempts by Mark Siderits, Gay Watson, Joseph Goldstein, and Charles Goodman. These“middle-period” authors embrace either partial or full incompatibilism. The third article reviews recent attempts by Nicholas F. Gier and Paul Kjellberg, Asaf Federman, Peter Harvey, and B. Alan Wallace. These “recent-period” authors divide along compatibilist and incompatibilist lines. Most of the scholarly Buddhist works that examine free will in any depth are reviewed in this series. Prior to the above-mentioned early-period scholarship, scholars of Buddhism were relatively silent on free will. The Buddha’s teachings implicitly endorse a certain type of free will and explicitly endorse something very close to determinism, but attempts to articulate the implicit theory bear significant interpretive risks. The purpose of this three-article series is to review such attempts in order to facilitate a comprehensive view of the present state of the discussion and its history.

This is the fourth article in a four-article series that exam- ines Buddhist responses to the Western philosophical problem of whether free will is compatible with “determinism,” the scientific doctrine of universal lawful causation. The first article focused on “early period” scholar- ship from the 1970’s, which was primarily compatibilist, that is, of the view that the Buddhist conception of causation is compatible with free will. The second and third articles examined “middle period” incompatibilist and semi-compatibilist scholarship in the remainder of the twentieth century and first part of the twenty-first. The present article examines work published in the past few years. It largely agrees that Buddhism tacitly accepts free will (although it also explores an ultimate perspective from which the issue appears moot), but mostly divides along compatibilist and incompatibilist lines, mirroring Theravāda and Mahāyāna Buddhist perspectives, respectively. Of the writers I emphasize, Gier and Kjellberg articulate both perspectives; Federman and Harvey advocate Theravāda compatibilism; and Wallace argues that although determinism and free will are incompatible, subtle complexities of Mahāyāna Buddhist metaphysics circumvent the free will and determinism dichotomy. Although the pre- sent article focuses on these writers, as the culminating article in the series it also draws on and summarizes the other articles in the series, and directs the reader to other recent period works that, due to space constraints, cannot be reviewed here.

Andrews’s Do Apes Read Minds? Toward a New Folk Psychology is very clear and interesting, and highly recommendable not only for philosophers of mind, psychology, and biology but also for developmental, social, evolutionary, and comparative psychologists. In this book, she argues that the standard folk psychology (SFP) is misguided because our actual folk psychology is more various and not fully described in terms of attribution of propositional attitudes. Moreover, while the SFP argues that folk psychological prediction and explanation require attribution of propositional attitudes, she argues that they do not necessarily. Although I agree with the basic line of her argument, especially with her criticisms on the SFP, as even many great books often do so, this book also contains some ambiguities and problems. The aim of this short paper is to point out such problems especially in her evolutionary story of the capacity for attribution of propositional beliefs and desires.

According to the theory of natural pedagogy, humans have a set of cognitive adaptations specialized for transmitting and receiving knowledge through teaching; young children can acquire generalizable knowledge from ostensive signals even in a single interaction, and adults also actively teach young children. In this article, we critically examine the theory and argue that ostensive signals do not always allow children to learn generalizable knowledge more efficiently, and that the empirical evidence provided in favor of the theory of natural pedagogy does not defend the theory as presented, nor does it support a weakened version of the theory. We argue that these problems arise because the theory of natural pedagogy is grounded in a misguided assumption, namely that learning about the world and learning about people are two distinct and independent processes. If, on the other hand, we see the processes as interrelated, then we have a better explanation for the empirical evidence.

I argue that an analysis of Buddhist meditation theory and practice may be used to ground a model of the possibility of free agency that stands up against four powerful arguments for free will skepticism in contemporary analytic philosophy: Peter van Inwagen’s consequence argument, which asserts that if choices are lawfully necessary consequences of prior events, then they are unfree; Derk Pereboom’s two arguments for hard incompatibilism: the manipulation argument, which asserts that manipulated choices are unfree, determinism is functionally equivalent to manipulation, and thus determined choices are unfree; and the randomness argument, which asserts that we cannot claim au- thorship over random neural events; and Galen Strawson’s impossibility argument, which asserts that choices are always conditioned by mental states, so unconditioned free will is impossible. Although Buddhism sees the entire process that begins with beliefs and desires and culminates in actions as an ultimately impersonal, agentless process, Buddhism is nonetheless capable of formulating the diametrical opposite of Strawson’s impossibilism and Pereboom’s hard incompatibilism, what I call possibilism or soft compatibilism, the view that free choices and actions can emerge from conditioned or unconditioned mental states, independently of whether the world is deterministic. This is not to suggest that Buddhism contains or endorses a theory of free will, but that Buddhism may formulate such a theory.

A number of possibilities arise from the question: (i) new quantified versions of multi-agent epistemic logic capture locutions involving object identification, giving rise to applications in representing knowledge in multi-agent systems and parallel processing. (ii) The framework of game-theoretic semantics for the ensuing logics enjoys increased cognitive plausibility as the true semantics for epistemic notions. (iii) Recent findings in cognitive neuroscience pertaining to awareness and explicit versus implicit processing contribute to logical studies. These three connections are explored from both logical and cognitive perspectives. Neuroscientific research suggests new epistemic logics that handle unconscious and unaware information processing in the brain, making formalism thus amenable to knowledge representation in complex multi-agent configurations.