Branches of Philosophy Podcast

An introduction and summary of Elements of Episodic Memory By Endel Tulving 1985 Elements of Episodic Memory was a seminal text in the memory literature, highly cited and influential. It has been unavailable for some years, but is now back in print as in its original form, with this reissue. The book examines the critical role that retrieval processes play in remembering. It proposes that the nature of recollective experience is determined by the interaction between the 'episodic' trace information and the 'semantic' retrieval information. This basic theme is elaborated by tracing the development of the ideas considering relevant empirical evidence, relating a proposed theoretical framework to the ideas held by other theorists, and dealing with criticisms advanced by others. These issues are discussed from two perspectives. Firstly, from the point of view of 'detached science': the emphasis here is on ideas, hypotheses, evidence, logic and theory. The second is a personal commentary on the development of ideas at the first viewpoint, and provides observations about the psychology and sociology of a developing science.

An introduction and summary of "The Gap: The Science of What Separates Us from Other Animals" By Thomas Suddendorf 2013 There exists an undeniable chasm between the capacities of humans and those of animals. Our minds have spawned civilizations and technologies that have changed the face of the Earth, whereas even our closest animal relatives sit unobtrusively in their dwindling habitats. Yet despite longstanding debates, the nature of this apparent gap has remained unclear. What exactly is the difference between our minds and theirs?In The Gap, psychologist Thomas Suddendorf provides a definitive account of the mental qualities that separate humans from other animals, as well as how these differences arose. Drawing on two decades of research on apes, children, and human evolution, he surveys the abilities most often cited as uniquely human -- language, intelligence, morality, culture, theory of mind, and mental time travel -- and finds that two traits account for most of the ways in which our minds appear so distinct: Namely, our open-ended ability to imagine and reflect on scenarios, and our insatiable drive to link our minds together. These two traits explain how our species was able to amplify qualities that we inherited in parallel with our animal counterparts; transforming animal communication into language, memory into mental time travel, sociality into mind reading, problem solving into abstract reasoning, traditions into culture, and empathy into morality.Suddendorf concludes with the provocative suggestion that our unrivalled status may be our own creation -- and that the gap is growing wider not so much because we are becoming smarter but because we are killing off our closest intelligent animal relatives.Weaving together the latest findings in animal behavior, child development, anthropology, psychology, and neuroscience, this book will change the way we think about our place in nature. A major argument for reconsidering what makes us human, The Gap is essential reading for anyone interested in our evolutionary origins and our relationship with the rest of the animal kingdom.

An introduction and summary of "Psychology from An Empirical Standpoint"By Franz Brentano 1874 Franz Brentano is one of the founding fathers of twentieth century philosophy, celebrated for introducing the concept of intentionality to philosophy as well as making significant contributions to ethics and logic. His work exerted great influence on major philosophers such as Edmund Husserl, but also philosophers travelling in the opposite direction, such Gottlob Frege. He counted Sigmund Freud amongst his students and Freud expressed great admiration for his teacher in several letters.Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint is Brentano’s most important and brilliant work. It helped to establish psychology as a scientific discipline, but did so in a highly original and distinctive manner by arguing for a form of introspectionism. Brentano argued that consciousness is always unified and that the hallmark of the mind is that one’s thoughts are always directed towards something – his famous theory of ‘intentionality’ – arguments that have deep implications not just for philosophy but psychology, cognitive science and consciousness studies.

An introduction and summary of "Kantian Subjects Critical Philosophy and Late Modernity" By Karl Ameriks 2019 In this volume, Karl Ameriks explores 'Kantian subjects' in three senses. In Part I, he first clarifies the most distinctive features-such as freedom and autonomy-of Kant's notion of what it is for us to be a subject. Other chapters then consider related 'subjects' that are basic topics in other parts of Kant's philosophy, such as his notions of necessity and history. Part II examines the ways in which many of us, as 'late modern, ' have been highly influenced by Kant's philosophy and its indirect effect on our self-conception through successive generations of post-Kantians, such as Hegel and Schelling, and early Romantic writers such as Holderlin, Schlegel, and Novalis, thus making us 'Kantian subjects' in a new historical sense. By defending the fundamentals of Kant's ethics in reaction to some of the latest scholarship in the opening chapters, Ameriks offers an extensive argument that Holderlin expresses a valuable philosophical position that is much closer to Kant than has generally been recognized. He also argues that it was necessary for Kant's position to be supplemented by the new conception, introduced by the post-Kantians, of philosophy as fundamentally historical, and that this conception has had a growing influence on the most interesting strands of Anglophone as well as Continental philosophy.

An introduction and summary of "Sensation, Perception and Action An Evolutionary Perspective" By Johannes Zanker 2010 With a style that is both detailed and accessible, this new text from Johannes Zanker provides students with a solid understanding of how our sensory and perceptual systems operate, and interact with a dynamic world. It not only explains the scientific mechanisms involved, but discusses the costs and benefits of these mechanisms within an evolutionary, functional framework, to encourage important questions such as: What is a given sensory mechanism needed for? What kind of problem can it solve and what are its limitations? How does the environment determine how senses operate? How does action affect and facilitate perception?This unique, interdisciplinary framework allows students to see perceiving and acting as embedded in particular environments and directs them to think about the functional nature of these systems. The overall effect is an especially readable, authoritative text on Sensation, Perception and Action that really brings this fascinating topic to life.

An introduction and summary of "The Basic Problems of Phenomenology"By Martin Heidegger 1975 A lecture course that Martin Heidegger gave in 1927, The Basic Problems of Phenomenology continues and extends explorations begun in Being and Time. In this text, Heidegger provides the general outline of his thinking about the fundamental problems of philosophy, which he treats by means of phenomenology, and which he defines and explains as the basic problem of ontology.

An introduction and summary of "Consciousness and the Limits of Objectivity The Case for Subjective Physicalism" By Robert J. Howell 2013 In Consciousness and the Limits of Objectivity Robert J. Howell argues that the options in the debates about consciousness and the mind-body problem are more limited than many philosophers have appreciated. Unless one takes a hard-line stance, which either denies the data provided by consciousness or makes a leap of faith about future discoveries, one must admit that no objective picture of our world can be complete. Howell argues, however, that this is consistent with physicalism, contrary to received wisdom. After developing a novel, neo-Cartesian notion of the physical, followed by a careful consideration of the three major anti-materialist arguments—Black's 'Presentation Problem', Jackson's Knowledge Argument, and Chalmers' Conceivability Argument—Howell proposes a 'subjective physicalism' which gives the data of consciousness their due, while retaining the advantages of a monistic, physical ontology.

An introduction and summary of "Open Minds The Social Making of Agency and Intentionality" By Wolfgang Prinz 2012 A novel proposal that the cognitive architecture for volition and cognition arises from particular kinds of social interaction and communication.In Open Minds, Wolfgang Prinz offers the novel claim that agency and intentionality are first perceived and understood in others, and that it is only through practices and discourses of social mirroring that individuals come to apply these features to themselves and to shape their architectures for volition and cognition accordingly. Developing a (social science) constructive approach within a (cognitive science) representational framework, Prinz argues that the architectures for agency (volition) and intentionality (cognition) arise from particular kinds of social interaction and communication. Rather than working as closed, individual systems, our minds operate in ways that are fundamentally open to other minds.Prinz describes mirror systems and mirror games, particular kinds of representational mechanisms and social games that provide tools for aligning closed individual minds with other minds. He maps the formation of an architecture for volition, addressing issues of agency and intention-based top-down control, then outlines the ways the same basic ideas can be applied to an architecture for cognition, helping to solve basic issues of subjectivity and intentionality.Addressing the reality and efficacy of such social artifacts as autonomy and free will, Prinz contends that our beliefs about minds are not just beliefs about their workings but powerful tools for making them work as we believe. It is through our beliefs that our minds work in a particular way that we actually make them work in that way.

An introduction and summary of "Inner Presence Consciousness as a Biological Phenomenon" By Antti Revonsuo 2006 The question of consciousness is perhaps the most significant problem still unsolved by science. In "Inner Presence, Antti Revonsuo proposes a novel approach to the study of consciousness that integrates findings from philosophy, psychology, and cognitive neuroscience into a coherent theoretical framework. Arguing that any fruitful scientific approach to the problem must consider both the subjective psychological reality of consciousness and the objective neurobiological reality, Revonsuo proposes that the best strategy for discovering the connection between these two realities is one of "biological realism," using tools of the empirical biological sciences. This approach, which he calls the "biological research program," provides a theoretical and philosophical foundation that contemporary study of consciousness lacks.Revonsuo coins the term "world simulation metaphor" and uses this metaphor to develop a powerful way of thinking about consciousness as a biological system in the brain. This leads him to propose that the dreaming brain and visual consciousness are ideal model systems for empirical consciousness research. He offers a comprehensive overview and critical analysis of consciousness research and defends his approach against currently popular philosophical views, in particular against approaches that deny or externalize phenomenal consciousness, or claim that brain activity is not sufficient for consciousness. He systematically examines the principal issues in the science of consciousness -- the contents of consciousness, the unity of consciousness and the binding problem, the explanatory gap and the neural correlates of consciousness, and the causal powers and function ofconsciousness.Revonsuo draws together empirical data from a wide variety of sources, including dream research, brain imaging, neuropsychology, and evolutionary psychology, into the theoretical framework of the biological research program, thus pointing the way toward a unified biological science of consciousness. Applying imaginative thought experiments, "Inner Presence reaches beyond the current state-of-the-art, revealing how the problem of consciousness may eventually be solved by future science.

An introduction and summary of "From a Biological Point of View Essays in Evolutionary Philosophy" By Elliott Sober 1994 Elliott Sober is one of the leading philosophers of science and is a former winner of the Lakatos Prize, the major award in the field. This new collection of essays will appeal to a readership that extends well beyond the frontiers of the philosophy of science. Sober shows how ideas in evolutionary biology bear in significant ways on traditional problems in philosophy of mind and language, epistemology, and metaphysics. Amongst the topics addressed are psychological egoism, solipsism, and the interpretation of belief and utterance, empiricism, Ockham's razor, causality, essentialism, and scientific laws. The collection will prove invaluable to a wide range of philosophers, primarily those working in the philosophy of science, the philosophy of mind, and epistemology.