Cognitive Neuroscience, Moral Psychology and Psychopathology

Interesting stuff right here.

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Whatever Makes a Person Human Seemed Somehow Missing*

JJ at Feminist Philosophers posted a recent case of a child who appears to have had little social contact for the first five or six years of her life. As JJ notes, feral children, while thankfully rare, are interesting to theorists for a variety of reasons. Questions about the nature of language, human capacity for [...]

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Sense-Data, Perception, and Illusions

Some philosophers- e.g. Frank Cameron Jackson, Howard Robinson- contend that the sense-data theory of perception is the only theory that can make proper sense of the term ‘illusion’. Take, for instance, two birds in a field on a sunny day. One bird, a cardinal, is perched atop a tree branch relatively close to our position; [...]

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Philosophers’ Carnival #53

Class is officially in session for the 53rd Philosophers‘ Carnival!
Since we at the Florida Student Philosophy Blog have recently returned to class, we thought you should too. We would like to thank all those who submitted, and we hope that you find the current selection as engaging as we did. Courses (or posts if you [...]

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Philosophy Soup, the Second Helping

With the Fall semester fully in swing there are great articles and discussions abound. Here are some for your consideration:
In his most recent post, Efficiency and Value, Richard from Philosophy, Etc. wonders whether supporting high-efficiency superstores provides more value than less efficient craft oriented systems.
Over at Brains, the most recent post is a [...]

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How Well Do We Know Ourselves?

Eric Schwitzgebel (UC-Riverside) has an interesting discussion of introspection and self-knowledge at The Splintered Mind. It’s worth a look.

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Why We Should Not Fear Death

Death is a common topic of speculation and frequently anxiety. In the time that Epicurus was laying out his way of life and sharing it with others this was the case. Epicurus, though, claimed that we should not fear death because, “Death, the most frightening of bad things, is nothing to us; since [...]

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An Interview with Richard Swinburne

… on philosophy of mind, compliments of The Sci Phi Show. Click on ‘Outcast 39′.
- Rico Vitz

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An Interview with David Chalmers

… is available here. Click on ‘Outcast #36′.
Thanks to The Brain Science Podcast for the tip.
- Rico Vitz

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Conference on Color

… at FSU, Saturday, April 14th. Details available here.
- Rico Vitz

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More on Buddhism

… here and here, compliments of our friends at R-P-E.
There are also interesting discussions for students both of Le Guin’s “The Ones Who Walked Away from Omelas” as well as of brain damage and moral reasoning.
- Rico Vitz

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“The Emotion Machine”

… a colloquium featuring Marvin Minsky (MIT) at the University of Central Florida, Monday, April 2, 2007; 2:00 - 3:15 P.M.
- Rico Vitz

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Minding the Body

… the inaugural conference of the Center for Mind, Body, and Culture will take place March 29-30. Check out the site for details.
- Rico Vitz

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An Interview with Richard Shusterman

Our good fortune continues. Today, we are very pleased to welcome Richard Shusterman (Florida Atlantic University) to our blog for a brief interview related to the opening of the Center for Body, Mind, and Culture and its inaugural conference, which will take place this week.
FSPB: Richard, thank you for joining us. Congratulations to [...]

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Concept Possession and the Ability to Sort

The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy’s entry on concepts explains three commonly held views of concepts. On the first, concepts are taken to be psychological entities that serve as constituents of the mental representations that feature in the representational theory of mind. On the second, concepts are understood in terms of concept possession which is explained [...]

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The Peculiar Phenomenology of Hallucination

It seems to me that when hallucination is discussed in Phenomenology, it is generally in the context of perception. Hallucination might be considered a type of perception, but this is not very illuminating for a phenomenon that seems to be so apart from what we consider normal perception. In the phenomenological context of [...]

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Freedom and Neurobiology

… a review and discussion of Searle’s new book is available at the GFP, as is an interesting discussion of Searle’s claim that “we cannot escape the presupposition of freewill.”
- Rico Vitz

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Nature of Mind: Dualism vs. Monism vs. ?

I’ve always had a deep interest in the nature of the human mind, but I have never been able to comfortably assert a philosophical stance on the subject, i.e. am I a dualist, monist, or something else entirely. This winter break I read The Mysterious Flame by McGinn and found myself less certain than ever. [...]

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USF Colloquium

Leslie Thiele will be speaking at USF on Friday, February 2nd.
(UPDATE 02/01: The title of Professor Thiele’s paper is “The Education of Eros: Aristotle and Neuroscience.” For more details, see comments.)
- Rico Vitz

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Interview: John Martin Fischer

The FSPB welcomes John Martin Fischer (UC-Riverside) to our blog.
FSPB: Hi, John, thank you for joining us. Congratulations to you and to UC-Riverside on being ranked, along with Florida State, as the top program in the nation for Philosophy of Action.

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The Moral Significance of Animal Cognition

Dr. Robert Jones (Stanford) will present his paper, “The Moral Significance of Animal Cognition,” at the University of North Florida on Friday, Jan. 26th. The lecture is free and open to the public. For more information, contact UNF’s Department of Philosophy.
- Rico Vitz

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The Checkershadow Illusion

Brian Weatherson of Thoughts, Arguments, and Rants has an interesting discussion of the Checkershadow Illusion here. The accompanying Powerpoint presentation is helpful in clarifying the illusion … and it might be a useful tool for those teaching (or attending) classes concerning, e.g., external world skepticism, philosophy of mind, philosophy of psychology, etc.
Josh Gert (FSU) has recently done some [...]

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