This paper presents Integrated Information Theory (IIT) 4.0. IIT aims to account for the properties of experience in physical (operational) terms. It identifies the essential properties of experience (axioms), infers the necessary and sufficient properties that its substrate must satisfy (postulates), and expresses them in mathematical terms. In principle, the postulates can be applied to any system of units in a state to determine whether it is conscious, to what degree, and in what way. IIT offers a parsimonious explanation of (...) empirical evidence, makes testable predictions, and permits inferences and extrapolations. IIT 4.0 incorporates several developments of the past ten years, including a more accurate translation of axioms into postulates and mathematical expressions, the introduction of a unique measure of intrinsic information that is consistent with the postulates, and an explicit assessment of causal relations. By fully unfolding a system's irreducible cause-effect power, the distinctions and relations specified by a substrate can account for the quality of experience. (shrink)

More than one third of the human brain is devoted to the processes of seeing - vision is after all the main way in which we gather information about the world. But human vision is a dynamic process during which the eyes continually sample the environment. Where most books on vision consider it as a passive activity, this book is unique in focusing on vision as an 'active' process. It goes beyond most accounts of vision where the focus is on (...) seeing, to provide an integrated account of seeing AND looking. The book starts by pointing out the weaknesses in our traditional approaches to vision and the reason we need this new approach. It then gives a thorough description of basic details of the visual and oculomotor systems necessary to understand active vision. The book goes on to show how this approach can give a new perspective on visual attention, and how the approach has progressed in the areas of visual orienting, reading, visual search, scene perception and neuropsychology. Finally, the book summarises progress by showing how this approach sheds new light on the old problem of how we maintain perception of a stable visual world. Written by two leading vision scientists, this book will be valuable for vision researchers and psychology students, from undergraduate level upwards. (shrink)

Existing justifications for exclusionary rules and stays of proceedings in response to pre-trial wrongdoing by police officers and prosecutors are often thought to be counter-productive or disproportionate in their consequences. This article begins to explore whether the concept of standing to blame can provide a fresh justification for such responses. It focuses on a vice related to standing—hypocrisy—and a related vice concerning inconsistent blame. It takes seriously the point that criminal justice agencies, although all part of the State, are in (...) real terms separated from each other, and analyses the so-called separation thesis (or theses). It concludes that hypocrisy and inconsistent blame arguments could plausibly justify exclusion and stays only in relation to lower-level offending, and even there only indirectly. This is in the sense that exclusion and stays are expressions of judicial frustration with other bodies for their failure to take pre-trial wrongdoing seriously. (shrink)

The question of when a person is culpable for taking an unjustified risk of harm has long been controversial in Anglo-American criminal law doctrine and theory. This survey of the approaches adopted in England and Wales, Canada, Australia, the United States, New Zealand and Scotland argues that they are converging, to differing extents, around a 'Standard Account' of culpable unjustified risk-taking. This Standard Account distinguishes between awareness-based culpability and inadvertence-based culpability for unjustified risk-taking. With reference to criminal law theory and (...) philosophical literature, the author argues that, when explained appropriately, the Standard Account is defensible and practical. Defending the Standard Account involves analysing in depth a number of controversial matters, including the meaning of advertence/awareness, the role of attitudes such as indifference in culpable risk-taking, and the question of whether negligence should be used in the criminal law. (shrink)

Arguing for a new direction in postmodern theological thinking, away from the liberalism and nihilism of those who name themselves postmodern theologians, the ...

Recklessness involves unreasonable/unjustified risk-taking. The argument here is that recklessness in the criminal law is best understood as nevertheless containing an element of reasonableness. To be reckless, on this view, the defendant must reasonably believe that she is exposing others to a risk of harm. If the defendant’s belief about the risk being imposed by her conduct is unreasonable, she should not be considered reckless. This point is most important in relation to offences of endangerment where recklessness sets the outer (...) limits of criminal liability. (shrink)

The origin of McLuhan’s notion of acoustic space is described. It is shown that his definition of acoustic space as having its center everywhere and its margin nowhere can be traced back to the Christian mystics of the Middle Ages and the early Renaissance dating as far back as the 12th Century.

Based on Michel Foucault's 1978 and 1979 lectures at the Collège de France on governmental rationalities and his 1977 interview regarding his work on imprisonment, this volume is the long-awaited sequel to Power/Knowledge.

This two-part volume collects the complete fragments and most important testimonies for the leading presocratic philosophers. The Greek and Latin texts are translated on facing pages and accompanied by a brief commentary for each philosopher.

This essay argues for a two-part thesis concerning the deflationist theories of truth and reference. First, I identify two points of contrast between the deflationist theories and their traditional inflationary opponents: (1) they each employ different orders of explanation for the variety of semantic phenomena, and (2) the inflationist is typically taken to be beholden to a reductive explanation of reference, whereas the deflationist is doubtful of this project. Secondly, I argue that these two points of contrast need not come (...) together to exhaust the space of possible views. There is room for a plausible middle ground: a moderate version of inflationism. My moderate inflationism will reject the deflationist's order of explanation, so it counts as genuinely inflationary. However, it also rejects the reductionist ambitions of the earlier inflationists, so it isn’t an apt target for deflationary scepticism. (shrink)

This paper is my second contribution to the Szatkowski volume. In the first paper, I provide a critical discussion of Bob Maydole's ontological arguments. In this second paper, I respond to Maydole's critical response to my first paper. My overall verdict is that Maydole does not successfully defend his arguments against my critical attack.

This brief paper builds on my recently published work on financial capitalism. My objective here is (a) to sketch an account of the primary social features of post-1970s financialised capitalism, (b) to identify select dynamics or mechanisms that have resulted in these features, (c) to outline a programme of research to enhance our explanatory understanding of the ‘fractured society’ via the sociological concepts of structure, culture and agency, and (d) to broach, characterize and assess likely prospects and triggers for the (...) accomplishment of a credible, defensible post-capitalist societal formation. (shrink)

Most phobias are focussed on a small number of fear-inducing stimuli (e.g., snakes, spiders). A review of the evidence supporting biological and cognitive explanations of this uneven distribution of phobias suggests that the readiness with which such stimuli become associated with aversive outcomes arises from biases in the processing of information about threatening stimuli rather than from phylogenetically based associative predispositions or “biological preparedness.” This cognitive bias, consisting of a heightened expectation of aversive outcomes following fear-relevant stimuli, generates and maintains (...) robust learned associations between them. Some of the features of such stimuli which determine this expectancy bias are estimates of how dangerous they are, the semiotic similarity between them and their aversive outcomes, and the degree of prior fear they elicit. Ontogenetic and cultural factors influence these features of fear-relevant stimuli and are hence important in determining expectancy bias. The available evidence does not exclude the possibility that both expectancy biases and specific evolved predispositions coexist, but the former can explain a number of important findings that the latter cannot. (shrink)

In this article I assess the problems and prospects of a microstructural approach to chemical substances. Saul Kripke and Hilary Putnam famously claimed that to be gold is to have atomic number 79 and to be water is to be H2O. I relate the first claim to the concept of element in the history of chemistry, arguing that the reference of element names is determined by atomic number. Compounds are more difficult: water is so complex and heterogeneous at the molecular (...) level that `water is H2O' seems false under some interpretations. I sketch a response to this problem. (shrink)

Altered state theories of hypnosis posit that a qualitatively distinct state of mental processing, which emerges in those with high hypnotic susceptibility following a hypnotic induction, enables the generation of anomalous experiences in response to specific hypnotic suggestions. If so then such a state should be observable as a discrete pattern of changes to functional connectivity (shared information) between brain regions following a hypnotic induction in high but not low hypnotically susceptible participants. Twenty-eight channel EEG was recorded from 12 high (...) susceptible (highs) and 11 low susceptible (lows) participants with their eyes closed prior to and following a standard hypnotic induction. The EEG was used to provide a measure of functional connectivity using both coherence (COH) and the imaginary component of coherence (iCOH), which is insensitive to the effects of volume conduction. COH and iCOH were calculated between all electrode pairs for the frequency bands: delta (0.1–3.9Hz), theta (4–7.9Hz) alpha (8–12.9Hz), beta1 (13–19.9Hz), beta2 (20–29.9Hz) and gamma (30–45Hz). The results showed that there was an increase in theta iCOH from the pre-hypnosis to hypnosis condition in highs but not lows with a large proportion of significant links being focused on a central-parietal hub. There was also a decrease in beta1 iCOH from the pre-hypnosis to hypnosis condition with a focus on a fronto-central and an occipital hub that was greater in high compared to low susceptibles. There were no significant differences for COH or for spectral band amplitude in any frequency band. The results are interpreted as indicating that the hypnotic induction elicited a qualitative change in the organization of specific control systems within the brain for high as compared to low susceptible participants. This change in the functional organization of neural networks is a plausible indicator of the much theorized “hypnotic-state”. (shrink)

Examines the influence of the physical and biological sciences on society, ethics, and philosophy during the twentieth century.

This monograph reappraises the role of Bertrand Russell's philosophical works in establishing the analytical tradition in philosophy. It's main aims are to: * improve our understanding of the history of analytical philosophy * engage in the important disputes surrounding the interpretation of Russell's philosophy * make a contribution to central issues in current analytical philosophy. Drawing extensively from Russell's less well known and unpublished works, this book is a welcome addition to the literature and will undoubtedly find a place on (...) the bookshelves of philosophers around the world. (shrink)

Even though disquotationalism is not correct as it is usually formulated, a deep insight lies behind it. Specifically, it can be argued that, modulo implicit commitment to reflection principles, all there is to the notion of truth is given by a simple, natural collection of truth-biconditionals.

"Here is an excerpt. If you like where Collier goes with this you'll like the rest of the book: "I believe we make a mistake if we think that modern man is a rational creature. While it is a mark of primitive man to respond directly to the non logical and less rationally defensible images projected by the psyche, similar primitive or elemental responses lurk behind the civilized faced of which we are so proud. For example, we might be somewhat (...) amused by the cave dweller's belief that because he possessed the image of an animal he had gained some power capable of controlling the creature's life. But do we not believe something of the sort when we cherish the photograph of someone important to us and think carefully as to where it should be placed - where is the place we can contemplate it the most effectively? Can we honestly say that in possessing this image of a person we do not feel that some intangible link exists between us and them? And could we willfully and with passion deface the photograph without the irrational thought overtaking us that we had done some harm to the relationship and to the person concerned?"" -- customer review, Amazon.com. (shrink)

Teleosemantics seeks to explain meaning and other intentional phenomena in terms of their function in the life of the species. This volume of new essays from an impressive line-up of well-known contributors offers a valuable summary of the current state of the teleosemantics debate.

This book provides a sustained and penetrating critique of a wide range of views in modern cognitive science and philosophy of the mind, from Turing's famous test for intelligence in machines to recent work in computational linguistic theory. While discussing many of the key arguments and topics, the authors also develop a distinctive analytic approach. Drawing on the methods of conceptual analysis first elaborated by Wittgenstein and Ryle, the authors seek to show that these methods still have a great deal (...) to offer in the field of the cognitive theory and the philosophy of mind, providing a powerful alternative to many of the positions put forward in the contemporary literature. Amoung the many issues discussed in the book are the following: the Cartesian roots of modern conceptions of mind; Searle's 'Chinese Room' thought experiment; Fodor's 'language of thought' hypothesis; the place of 'folk psychology' in cognitivist thought; and the question of whether any machine may be said to 'think' or 'understand' in the ordinary senses of these words. Wide ranging, up-to-date and forcefully argued, this book represents a major intervention in contemporary debates about the status of cognitive science an the nature of mind. It will be of particular interest to students and scholars in philosophy, psychology, linguistics and computing sciences. (shrink)

A theory of truth is language-transcendent if it ascribes truth conditions to truth-bearers that are not expressible in our natural language; a theory is language-immanent if it is not language-transcendent. In this paper, I argue for the following theses. Whether the correct theory of truth is language-transcendent or language-immanent will have significant consequences for general philosophy. Prima facie, a language-transcendent theory is preferable. However, language-transcendent theories tend to require substantive metaphysical commitments concerning truth. Deflationist theories are particularly interesting in this (...) context. I argue that, if deflationism is to remain consistent with its motivations, then it must opt for a language-immanent conception of truth. (shrink)

This paper attempts to explain what a protest is by using the resources of speech-act theory. First, we distinguish the object, redress, and means of a protest. This provided a way to think of atomic acts of protest as having dual communicative aspects, viz., a negative evaluation of the object and a connected prescription of redress. Second, we use Austin’s notion of a felicity condition to further characterize the dual communicative aspects of protest. This allows us to distinguish protest from (...) some other speech acts which also involve a negative evaluation of some object and a connected prescription of redress. Finally, we turn to Kukla and Lance’s idea of a normative functionalist analysis of speech acts to advance the view that protests are a complex speech act constituted by dual input normative statuses and dual output normative statuses. (shrink)

I am addressing you this evening in a somewhat unfamiliar theme: that of “logical values” or “values in speaking.” I do so since the points I want to raise come up very constantly in contemporary discussion, and yet are seldom made the object of explicit reflection. There are, it is plain, a large number of qualities which appeal to us in our utterances, whether in the setting forth of our notions in words, or in the weaving of such words into (...) sentences. And they may be said to appeal to us in a peculiar manner, and to satisfy a special set of interests in us, which we may group together as the “logical side” of our nature. Thus most people would say that clarity, relevance, coherence, solid significance and simplicity were merits in speaking, and that so also was truthful conformity to the facts of experience, whether in their general outline or their concrete detail. And everyone would admit readily that such excellences “belonged together,” that they were somehow akin, and that they differed profoundly from such virtues in speaking as poetic felicity, practical helpfulness, or moral and religious inspiration. And most people would also be willing to say, with a great deal of obscurity and most puzzling conviction, that the appeal of such qualities wasn't “merely momentary and personal,” but had something “solid” and “universal” about it, that a man would be foolish not to value such qualities, and that he couldn't help valuing them if he only thought of them sufficiently. And we should recommend such qualities to the approval of others with an air of earnestness and authority, setting them on a level, in this respect, with those other excellences that are called “ethical” and “aesthetic.” But while we could back our recommendation in the last two types of case with a great deal of systematic doctrine, built up in centuries of reflection, we should have little to bring forward in the former case, since the excellences that I want to call “logical,” though often acknowledged, have seldom been made the objects of systematic reflection. Perhaps this is due to the fact that the “true” has generally been ranged alongside of the “good” and the “beautiful” as a species of “ultimate value.”. (shrink)

Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection is central to modern biology, but is resisted by many people. This paper discusses the major psychological obstacles to accepting Darwin’s theory. Cognitive obstacles to adopting evolution by natural selection include conceptual difficulties, methodological issues, and coherence problems that derive from the intuitiveness of alternative theories. The main emotional obstacles to accepting evolution are its apparent conflict with valued beliefs about God, souls, and morality. We draw on the philosophy of science and on (...) a psychological theory of cognitive and emotional belief revision to make suggestions about what can be done to improve acceptance of Darwinian ideas. (shrink)