Cartesian dualism has been viewed by medical theorists to be oneof the chief causes of a reductionist/mechanistic treatment ofthe patient. Although I aver that Cartesian dualism is one culprit for the misapprehension of the genuine treatment of patients in termsof both mind and body, I argue that interactive dualism whichstresses the interaction of mind and body is essential to treatpatients with dignity and compassion. Thus, adequate medical carethat is humanistic in nature is difficult (if not impossible)to achieve without physicians adhering (...) to a dualistic frameworkin which the body and person is treated during illness. (shrink)

Many theorists in epistemology and mind accept externalism with respect to content—namely, the claim that the conditions that individuate mental content are external to the occurrence of that content as a mental fact. Whatever it is that distinguishes a pain in the knee from a pain in the toe—or, alternatively, whatever it is that makes it possible for the subject to discriminate this pain as a pain in the knee from that pain as a pain in the toe—are factors and (...) conditions located in the physical and external world. This much externalism seems to be required even if one is a thoroughly entrenched mentalist. This “content externalism” is captured, fairly effectively, by the more traditional distinction between concepts and percepts. What is then asserted by the mentalist is that concepts have their source or origin in the external world, but the perceptual content does not. Perceptual content can be identified in different ways which are: the view that identifies the distinguishing feature of the perceptual with qualia, a position not far removed from the Lockean distinction between Primary and Secondary qualities; or, the perceptual might also be characterized in terms of representationalism, where qualia are an essential part of the representational medium, but where the representational medium contains conceptual content as well. In either case, the perceptual is Type and/or Token distinct from whatever is the external physical conditions or states of affairs causally responsible for the occurrence of either the conceptual content or the perceptual content. An argument for the claim that percepts are essential and necessary is that, without such percepts, there can be no experience. It is doubtful. (shrink)

Douglas Langston’s book is an important contribution to the literature on ethics since it re-establishes the importance of “conscience” as a useful tool in ethical theorizing. Contemporary ethicists criticize conscience and outwardly reject any use of the concept to develop an adequate ethical theory. Even virtue theorists refrain from talking much about conscience as an important analytic tool. Langston believes that this is an important omission that must be rethought for the purposes of developing an effective ethical theory that is (...) applicable to human beings in their search for living fulfilled lives. Throughout the book, Langston examines some of the main reasons why conscience has been abandoned as a useful analytic tool in ethical theorizing by contemporary theorists. One reason that Langston cites is that, after the seventeenth century, philosophers regarded conscience as a faculty that was distinct from the intellect, will, and memory. It may have been better if some of these theorists postulated some type of interaction between these faculties instead of arguing that each of them should be kept separate and distinct. Another reason may be the long identification of conscience with some set of rules for behaviour. This reduces conscience to a set of observable rules that are followed by an individual. It extricates the person from the action and reduces the responsibility that an individual should feel when acting in a particular situation. In addition, when one removes moral reasoning from conscience, its only function is to make one feel uncomfortable when one refrains from doing the right thing. This is insufficient in building an ethical theory or in living a moral life. What is needed is a more positive view of the notion of conscience, which is possible when one regards it as more than a faculty whose judgements are infallible. One of Langston’s themes in the book is that it is possible to develop a positive view of conscience that can also be used as an analytic tool in developing an effective ethical theory. (shrink)

Mental Reality is concerned with three questions: is reference to non-mental phenomena central and indispensable for an effective account of the nature of mental phenomena? ; is reference to publicly observable phenomena central and necessary for an effective account of every, or even some, mental phenomena? ; and is reference to behaviour essential to any adequate account of all, or almost all, mental states and occurrences?. Galen Strawson’s summary answer to these questions is, on the whole, negative, but there are (...) several qualifications. The view he defends is experiential realism. Experiential realism asserts that experience is contentful and experience is what it is like to be who and what one is. Experience is necessarily conscious experience, and one sense of the meaning of the problematic term “consciousness” is the ordinary, everyday, waking consciousness, as distinct from dream-state consciousness. As Strawson uses the word, “conscious” in the expression “conscious experience” is pleonastic. The other alternative is for the term “conscious” to be central and “experience” becomes pleonastic. This is a matter of strategy, and depends on the audience. Strawson’s audience is the contemporary theorist in the philosophy of mind rather than the phenomenologist, and then only those theorists who insist on reductive or eliminative materialism, or those varieties of functionalism in which consciousness is incidental and ontologically, epistemologically, or explanatorily irrelevant. (shrink)

André Gallois’s book is a sustained defence of first-person authority in epistemology and the philosophy of mind. His work is set against the externalist tide of current epistemology in which many philosophers are sceptical about first-person authority with respect to their beliefs. This implies that other individuals are in a better position to determine what our beliefs are than we ourselves can be, which highlights the authority of third person accounts of justification. Gallois’s work is a direct attack on such (...) views since he argues that it is only from within the first-person perspective that an individual can determine whether s is justified in believing x. Without relying on observation, an individual can justifiably self-attribute consciously held beliefs. Thus, first-person authority is essential for developing an adequate theory of knowledge since the justification of belief is impossible unless the first-person perspective is prior and privileged. (shrink)