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Robert Stalnaker explores the notion of the context in which speech takes place, its role in the interpretation of what is said, and in the explanation of the dynamics of discourse. He distinguishes different notions of context, but the main focus is on the notion of context as common ground, where the common ground is an evolving body of background information that is presumed to be shared by the participants in a conversation. The common ground is the information that is presupposed by speakers and addressees, and a central concern of this book is with the notion of presupposition, and with the interaction of compositional structure with discourse dynamics in the explanation of presuppositional phenomena. Presupposed information includes background information both about the subject matter of a discourse and about the evolving discourse itself, and about the attitudes of the participants in the discourse, including who and where they are, and what they agree and disagree about. Stalnaker provides a way of representing self-locating information that helps to explain how it can be shared and communicated, and how it evolves over time. He discusses the semantic and pragmatics of conditionals and epistemic modals, and their role in representing agreement, disagreement, and the negotiation about how a context should evolve. The book concludes with a discussion of the relations between contextualism and semantic relativism. The Context and Content series is a forum for outstanding original research at the intersection of philosophy, linguistics, and cognitive science. The general editor is François Recanati (Institut Jean-Nicod, Paris).

This book explains the key concepts that surround the issue as well as the nature of the hard problem and the several approaches to it. It gives a comprehensive treatment of the phenomenon, incorporating its main metaphysical and epistemic aspects as well as recent empirical findings, such as the phenomena of blindsight, change blindness, visual-form agnosia and optic ataxia, mirror recognition in other primates, split-brain cases, and visual extinction.

Aspects of Psychologism is a penetrating look into fundamental philosophical questions of consciousness, perception, and the experience we have of our mental lives. Psychologism, in Tim Crane's formulation, presents the mind as a single subject-matter to be investigated not only empirically and conceptually but also phenomenologically: through the systematic examination of consciousness and thought from the subject's point of view.How should we think about the mind? Analytical philosophy tends to address this question by examining the language we use to talk about our minds, and thus translates our knowledge of mind and consciousness into knowledge of the concepts which this language embodies. Psychologism rejects this approach. The philosophy of mind, Crane believes, has become too narrow in its purely conceptual focus on the logical and linguistic formulas that structure thought. We cannot assume that the categories needed to understand the mind correspond absolutely with such semantic categories. A central claim of Crane's psychologism is that intentionality--the'aboutness'or'directedness'of the mind--is essential to all mental phenomena. In addition, Crane responds to proponents of materialist doctrines about consciousness and defends the claim that perception can represent the world in a non-conceptual, non-propositional way.Philosophers must take more seriously the findings of psychology and phenomenology, Crane contends. An investigation of mental phenomena from this broader viewpoint opens up philosophy to a more realistic and plausible account of the mind's nature.

Life is chaotic. But we can choose to live it differently. It doesn't always feel like it, but we do have the freedom to creatively change the everyday little things in our lives so that our path better aligns with our values and passions. The popular blogger and founder of the internationally recognized Simple Mom online community tells the story of her family's ongoing quest to live more simply, fully, and intentionally. Part memoir, part travelogue, part practical guide, Notes from a Blue Bike takes you from a hillside in Kosovo to a Turkish high-rise to the congested city of Austin to a small town in Oregon. It chronicles schooling quandaries and dinnertime dilemmas, as well as entrepreneurial adventures and family excursions via plane, train, automobile, and blue cruiser bike. Entertaining and compelling—but never shrill or dogmatic—Notes from a Blue Bike invites you to climb on your own bike, pay attention to who you are and what your family needs, and make some important choices. It's a risky ride, but it's worth it—living your life according to who you really are simply takes a little intention. It's never too late.

Many of the things we do, we do together with other people. Think of carpooling and playing tennis. In the past two or three decades it has become increasingly popular to analyze such collective actions in terms of collective intentions. This volume brings together ten new philosophical essays that address issues such as how individuals succeed in maintaining coordination throughout the performance of a collective action, whether groups can actually believe propositions or whether they merely accept them, and what kind of evidence, if any, disciplines such as cognitive science and semantics provide in support of irreducibly collective states. The theories of the Big Four of collective intentionality -- Michael Bratman, Raimo Tuomela, John Searle, and Margaret Gilbert -- and the Big Five of Social Ontology -- which in addition to the Big Four includes Philip Pettit -- play a central role in almost all of these essays. Drawing on insights from a wide range of disciplines including dynamical systems theory, economics, and psychology, the contributors develop existing theories, criticize them, or provide alternatives to them. Several essays challenge the idea that there is a straightforward dichotomy between individual and collective level rationality, and explore the interplay between these levels in order to shed new light on the alleged discontinuities between them. These contributions make abundantly clear that it is no longer an option simply to juxtapose analyses of individual and collective level phenomena and maintain that there is a discrepancy. Some go as far as arguing that on closer inspection the alleged discontinuities dissolve

Raoul Moati intervenes in the critical debate that divided two prominent philosophers in the mid-twentieth century. In the 1950s, the British philosopher J. L. Austin advanced a theory of speech acts, or the'performative,'that Jacques Derrida and John R. Searle interpreted in fundamentally different ways. Their disagreement centered on the issue of intentionality, which Derrida understood phenomenologically and Searle read pragmatically. The controversy had profound implications for the development of contemporary philosophy, which, Moati argues, can profit greatly by returning to this classic debate. In this book, Moati systematically replays the historical encounter between Austin, Derrida, and Searle and the disruption that caused the lasting break between Anglo-American language philosophy and continental traditions of phenomenology and its deconstruction. The key issue, Moati argues, is not whether'intentionality,'a concept derived from Husserl's phenomenology, can or cannot be linked to Austin's speech-acts as defined in his groundbreaking How to Do Things with Words, but rather the emphasis Searle placed on the performativity and determined pragmatic values of Austin's speech-acts, whereas Derrida insisted on the trace of writing behind every act of speech and the iterability of signs in different contexts.

Die drei Ansätze der frühen analytischen Handlungstheorie teilen die Grundannahme, dass körperliches Verhalten durch semantische, nicht durch physikalische Eigenschaften als absichtliches Handeln gekennzeichnet ist. Hart, Anscombe, Melden benennen wesentliche Bedingungen für die Möglichkeit von Handlungszuschreibungen. Ihre Konzeptionen lassen sich zu einem Handlungsmodell integrieren, deren Fokus auf der Sozialität des Handlungsverstehens liegt.

The Objects of Thought addresses the ancient question of how it is possible to think about what does not exist. Tim Crane argues that the representation of the non-existent is a pervasive feature of our thought about the world, and that we will not adequately understand thought's representational power ('intentionality') unless we have understood the representation of the non-existent. Intentionality is conceived by Crane in terms of the direction of the mind upon an object of thought, or an intentional object. Intentional objects are what we think about. Some intentional objects exist and some do not. Non-existence poses a problem because there seem to be truths about non-existent intentional objects, but truths are answerable to reality, and reality contains only what exists. The proposed solution is to accept that there are some genuine truths about non-existent intentional objects, but to hold that they must be reductively explained in terms of truths about what does exist. The Objects of Thought offers both an original account of the nature of intentionality and a solution to the problem of thought about the non-existent.

The book presents the first comprehensive survey of limits of the intentional control of action from an interdisciplinary perspective. It brings together leading scholars from philosophy, psychology, and the law to elucidate this theoretically and practically important topic from a variety of theoretical and disciplinary approaches. It provides reflections on conceptual foundations as well as a wealth of empirical data and will be a valuable resource for students and researchers alike.Among the authors: Clancy Blair, Todd S. Braver, Michael W. Cole, Anika Fäsche, Maayan Davidov, Peter Gollwitzer, Kai Robin Grzyb, Tobias Heikamp, Gabriele Oettingen, Rachel McKinnon, Nachschon Meiran, Hans Christian Röhl, Michael Schmitz, John R. Searle, Gottfried Seebaß, Gisela Trommsdorff, Felix Thiede, J. Lukas Thürmer, Frank Wieber.

Since the late 1970's, the main research program for understanding intentionality -- the mind's ability to direct itself onto the world -- has been based on the attempt naturalize intentionality, in the sense of making it intelligible how intentionality can occur in a perfectly natural, indeed entirely physical, world. Some philosophers, however, have remained skeptical of this entire approach. In particular, some have argued that phenomenal consciousness - - the subjective feel of conscious experience -- has an essential role to play in the theory of intentionality, a role missing in the naturalization program. Thus a number of authors have recently brought to the fore the notion of phenomenal intentionality, as well as a cluster of nearby notions. There is a vague sense that their work is interrelated, complementary, and mutually reinforcing, in a way that suggests a germinal research program. With twelve new essays by philosophers at the forefront of the field, this volume is designed to launch this research program in a more self-conscious way, by exploring some of the fundamental claims and themes of relevance to this program.

§ 1. Remarks on the Current Status of the Problematic. The literature treating the relationship between the phenomenologies of Husserl and Heidegger has not been kind to Husserl. Heidegger's'devastating'phenomenologically ontological critique of traditional epistemology and ontology, advanced under the rubric of'fundamental ontology'in Being and Time, has almost been universallyl received, despite the paucity of its references to Husserl, as sounding the death knell for Husserl's original formulation of phenomenology. The recent publication of Heidegger's lectures from the period surrounding his composition of Being and Time, lectures that contain detailed references and critical analyses of Husserl's phenomenology, and which, in the words of one respected commentator, Rudolf Bernet,'offer at long last, insight into the principal sources of fundamental ontology,'2 will, if 3 the conclusions reached by the same commentator are any indication, serve only to reinforce the perception of Heidegger's phenomenological /I superiority'over Husserl. This is not to suggest that the tendency toward Heidegger partisan­ ship in the literature treating the relationship of his phenomenology to Husserl's has its basis in extra-philosophical or extra-phenome­ nological concerns and considerations. Rather, it is to draw attention to the undeniable'fact'that Heidegger's reformulation of Husserl's phenomenology has cast a'spell'over all subsequent discussions of the basic problems and issues involved in what has become known as their'controversy.

Philosophers contributing new ideas are commonly caught within a received philosophical vocabulary and will often coin new, technical terms. Husserl understood himself as advancing a new theory of intentionality, and he fashioned the new vocabulary of `noesis'and `noema'. But Husserl's own statements regarding the noema are ambiguous. Hence, it is no surprise that controversy has ensued. The articles in this book elucidate and clarify the notion of the noema; the book includes articles which phenomenologically describe and analyze the noemata of various experiences as well as articles which undertake the `metaphenomenological'explication of the doctrine of the noema. These two enterprises cannot be isolated from one another. Any analysis of the noema of a particular type of experience will necessarily illustrate, at least by instantiating the general notion of noema. And any metaphenomenological account of the noema itself will guide particular researches into the noemata of particular experiences.

The cross-disciplinary studies in this volume are of special interest because they link human purpose to the present debate between religion and the process of secularization. If that debate is to be a creative one, the notion of the'human orderer'must be related significantly both to the sacred and secular realms. In fact, if man were not a purposive being, he would have neither religious nor secular problems. Questions about origins and destiny, divine purposiveness and the order of human development, would not arise as topics of human concern. It would appear, then, that few would deny the fact of man's purposiveness in existence, that the pursuit of these purposes constitutes the dramas of history and culture. Yet the case is otherwise. For, concerning'purposes'itself, widely divergent, even antithetical, views have been held. The common man has mistrusted its guidance for purpose, much too often,'changes its mind'. Its fluctuations and whimsical nature are too much even for common sense. The sciences have identified purpose with the personal life and viewed it as a function of the subject self. Consequently they had no need for it in scientific method and objective knowledge. The religions of the world have used purpose in its holistic sense, for purposes of establishing grandious systems of religious totality and for stating the ultimate goals in man's destiny.

Philosophical theories of emotions, and to an extent some theories of scientific psychology, represent attempts to capture the essence of emotions basically as they are conceived in common sense psychology. Although there are problems, the success of explanations of our behavior in terms of believes, desires and emotions creates a presumption that, at some level of abstraction, they reflect important elements in our psychological nature. It is incumbent on a theory of emotions to provide an account of two salient facts about emotions as conceived in common sense psychology. As intentional states, emotions have representational and rational properties: emotions represent states of affairs; and they are rationally related to other mental representations, figure in rational explanations of behavior, and are open to rational assessment. Emotions also have a close relationship to a range of non-intentional phenomena: in typical cases, emotions involve physiological changes, usually associated with the activation of the autonomic nervous system, which are proprioceptively experienced; and they often involve behavioral tendencies, as well.

Brace yourself for a magical adventure beyond what you ever thought possible. Experience a journey that will propel you to want “more” out of life and understand through the words of Napoleon Hill, “… that your only limitations are those you set up in your own mind or permit others to set up for you.” Enter the world of a young girl, named “Jackie” Jenkins, who has just been released from a 4-year prison term. Prior to that, she had a tumultuous childhood where drugs, alcohol, and abuse were all this poor young girl has ever known, and no real family to go to upon her release from prison. It isn't until a total stranger, who is her parole officer, informs her of an ancient closely guarded “secret” that sends Jackie on an exciting adventure beyond her wildest dreams. In this secret, are step-by-step techniques which she applies that also serves as a blueprint for the reader in attaining “success” in their life… whatever that may be. Witness a life-changing book that has every reader claiming it to be the one of the greatest books, if not the greatest book they have ever read on success where they clearly understand and can start applying the principles in their own lives. It is a book which you'll not only cherish but would want everyone you care about and love, to read.

Eine systematische Neubewertung der transzendentalen Phänomenologie Husserls vor der Folie aktueller Diskussionen in der Philosophie des Geistes steht unerachtet einiger neuerer Annäherungsversuche bislang aus. Die Arbeit lotet die Möglichkeiten, aber auch die methodologischen Grenzen eines solchen Brückenschlages aus. In detaillierten Analysen werden dabei gravierende konzeptuelle und metatheoretische Äquivokationen zwischen der phänomenologischen und den (sprach-)analytischen bzw. kognitivistischen Modellen des Mentalen aufgeklärt. Kritisch fokussiert werden insbesondere repräsentationalistische Projekte der Naturalisierung des phänomenalen und intentionalen Bewusstseins, neuere Selbstbewusstseinstheorien sowie Husserls Sonderstellung gegenüber der semantischen und geisttheoretischen Internalismus/Externalismus- und der Realismus/Anti-Realismus-Debatte. Die Studie zeigt so das deskriptive und explanatorische Potenzial von Husserls Bewusstseinstheorie auf und präsentiert die Phänomenologie als ernstzunehmende Diskussionspartnerin nicht nur der Philosophie des Geistes und der Kognition, sondern auch der analytischen Sprachphilosophie und Erkenntnistheorie.

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.

In exploring the nature of excess relative to a phenomenology of the limit, Testing the Limit claims that phenomenology itself is an exploration of excess. What does it mean that'the self'is'given'? Should we see it as originary; or rather, in what way is the self engendered from textual practices that transgress—or hover around and therefore within—the threshold of phenomenologial discourse? This is the first book to include Michel Henry in a triangulation with Derrida and Levinas and the first to critique Levinas on the basis of his interpolation of philosophy and religion. Sebbah claims that the textual origins of phenomenology determine, in their temporal rhythms, the nature of the subjectivation on which they focus. He situates these considerations within the broader picture of the state of contemporary French phenomenology (chiefly the legacy of Merleau-Ponty), in order to show that these three thinkers share a certain'family resemblance,'the identification of which reveals something about the traces of other phenomenological families. It is by testing the limit within the context of traditional phenomenological concerns about the appearance of subjectivity and ipseity that Derrida, Henry, and Levinas radically reconsider phenomenology and that French phenomenology assumes its present form.

The rift which has long divided the philosophical world into opposed schools-the'Continental'school owing its origins to the phenomenology of Husserl and the'analytic'school derived from Frege-is finally closing. But this closure is occurring in ways both different and in certain respects at odds with one another. On the one hand scholars are seeking to rediscover the concerns and positions common to both schools, positions from which we can continue fruitfully to address important philosophical issues. On the other hand successors to both traditions have developed criticisms of basic assumptions shared by the two schools. They have suggested that we must move not merely beyond the conflict between these two'modem'schools but beyond the kind of philosophy represented in the unity of the two schools and thereby move towards a new'postmodern'philosophical style. On the one hand, then and for example, Husserl scholarship has in recent years witnessed the development of an interpretation of Husserl which more closely aligns his phenomenology with the philosophical concerns of the'analytic'tradition. In certain respects, this should come as no surprise and is long overdue. It is true, after all, that the early Husserl occupied himself with many of the same philosophical issues as did Frege and the earliest thinkers of the analytic tradition. Examples include the concept of number, the nature of mathematical analysis, meaning and reference, truth, formalization, and the relationship between logic and mathematics.

Premodern Buddhists are sometimes characterized as veritable'mind scientists'whose insights anticipate modern research on the brain and mind. Aiming to complicate this story, Dan Arnold confronts a significant obstacle to popular attempts at harmonizing classical Buddhist and modern scientific thought: since most Indian Buddhists held that the mental continuum is uninterrupted by death (its continuity is what Buddhists mean by'rebirth'), they would have no truck with the idea that everything about the mental can be explained in terms of brain events. Nevertheless, a predominant stream of Indian Buddhist thought, associated with the seventh-century thinker Dharmakirti, turns out to be vulnerable to arguments modern philosophers have leveled against physicalism.By characterizing the philosophical problems commonly faced by Dharmakirti and contemporary philosophers such as Jerry Fodor and Daniel Dennett, Arnold seeks to advance an understanding of both first-millennium Indian arguments and contemporary debates on the philosophy of mind. The issues center on what modern philosophers have called intentionality—the fact that the mind can be about (or represent or mean) other things. Tracing an account of intentionality through Kant, Wilfrid Sellars, and John McDowell, Arnold argues that intentionality cannot, in principle, be explained in causal terms.Elaborating some of Dharmakirti's central commitments (chiefly his apoha theory of meaning and his account of self-awareness), Arnold shows that despite his concern to refute physicalism, Dharmakirti's causal explanations of the mental mean that modern arguments from intentionality cut as much against his project as they do against physicalist philosophies of mind. This is evident in the arguments of some of Dharmakirti's contemporaneous Indian critics (proponents of the orthodox Brahmanical Mimasa school as well as fellow Buddhists from the Madhyamaka school of thought), whose critiques exemplify the same logic as modern arguments from intentionality. Elaborating these various strands of thought, Arnold shows that seemingly arcane arguments among first-millennium Indian thinkers can illuminate matters still very much at the heart of contemporary philosophy.