Contents
Vol. 13, No. 12, December 2006
Refereed Papers
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Harry Hunt abstract
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The Truth Value of Mystical Experience
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Greg Janzen abstract
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Phenomenal Character as Implicit Self-Awareness
Review Paper
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Michel Ferrari & Adrien Pinard abstract
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Death and Resurrection of a Disciplined Science of Consciousness
Reflection
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J. Andrew Ross full
text
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Will Robots See Humans as Dinosaurs?
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Zoltan L. Torey full
text
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The Immaculate Misconception
Conference Report
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Chris Nunn full
text
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Exploring the Boundaries of Experience and Self
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Jeremy T. Burman
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Ralph D. Ellis and Natika Newton, eds. Consciousness & Emotion,
vol. 1
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Johnjoe McFadden
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S. Pockett, W. Banks and S. Gallagher, eds., Does Consciousness Cause
Behaviour?
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Lynne Sharpe
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Susan Hurley and Matthew Nudds, eds, Rational Animals?
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Books received
Annual Index Volume 13 (2006) full
text
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Index of Titles
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Index of Authors
ABSTRACTS
H. Hunt
The Truth Value of Mystical Experience
Abstract: Can mystics intuit something of what modern physicists calculate?
And if so, how? The question of the relation between the classical mysticisms
and modern science is approached in Part I in terms of the multiple forms
and definitions of ‘truth value’. Intuition/epiphany, pragmatism, coherence,
and correspondence are considered as forms of truth that have also been
proposed for unitive mystical experience. Since ‘correspondence’ or ‘representation’
has been the definition at the core of modern science, it in particular
is approached by combining Lakoff and Johnson on the roots of all abstract
knowledge in physical metaphor and Gibson on the ecological array of perception
as the template from which such metaphors must be drawn. A series of similarities
between the maximally inclusive metaphors underlying unitive mystical experience
and cosmological physics, as abstracted from an ecological array already
resonant with multiple levels of physical reality, suggests a basis for
the correspondence between these otherwise distinct cognitive domains.
Part II extends this approach to widely posited cross cultural values of
spiritual or mystical realization, in terms of gratitude, compassion, faith,
and inner freedom. When fully embodied as forms of personal conduct, these
are also ultimately derivable from the openness and flow patternings of
the ecological array itself. The possibility that the more abstract spiritual
values of the major world mysticisms exemplify not only revelatory and
pragmatic forms of truth, but are also broadly correspondent with both
the principles of immediate concrete perception and modern physics, may
eventually allow a contemporary re- formulation of the microcosm-macrocosm
unities basic to traditional cultures.
Correspondence: H. Hunt, Department of Psychology, Brock University,
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada, L2S 3A1. hhunt@brocku.ca
Michel Ferrari & Adrien Pinard
Death and Resurrection of a Disciplined Science of Consciousness
Abstract: The Latin conscius does not translate anything like mind or consciousness.
Only in the mid-nineteenth century do we find the first attempts to study
consciousness as its own discipline. Wundt, James, and Freud disagreed
about how to approach the science of consciousness, although agreeing that
psychology was a ‘science of consciousness’ that takes lived biological
experience as its object. The behaviorists vetoed this idea. By the 1950s,
for cognitive science, mind (conscious and unconscious) was considered
analogous to computer software. Recently, the science of consciousness
has returned as Consciousness Studies, a new interdisciplinary synthesis
of neuroscience, psychology, philosophy, and cultural anthropology. But
what is new in this renaissance of the science of consciousness? New first,
second and third person approaches all propose to take consciousness itself
as a variable. This approach is as controversial as the nineteenth-century
science of consciousness — controversy perhaps inherent to any science
of consciousness.
Correspondence: Michel Ferrari, Dept. Human Development and Applied
Psychology, OISE/ University of Toronto, 252 Bloor Str. W., Toronto, ON
(M5S 1V6), Canada.
Greg Janzen
Phenomenal Character as Implicit Self-Awareness
Abstract: One of the more refractory problems in contemporary discussions
of consciousness is the problem of determining what a mental state’s being
conscious consists in. This paper defends the thesis that a mental state
is conscious if and only if it has a certain reflexive character, i.e.,
if and only if it has a structure that includes an awareness (or consciousness)
of itself. Since this thesis finds one of its clearest expressions in the
work of Brentano, it is his treatment of the thesis on which I initially
focus, though I subsequently bring in Sartre where he is required to improve
on Brentano, i.e., where he addresses himself to an important point not
considered by Brentano. As part of this investigation, the paper also,
more specifically, aims to exhibit as perspicuously as possible the relationship
between self-awareness and the phenomenal, or ‘what-it-is-like’, dimension
of conscious experience. I attempt to show, in particular, that the phenomenal
character of at least perceptual consciousness can be fully explained in
terms of self- awareness, i.e., in terms of a low-level or ‘implicit’ self-awareness
that is built into every conscious perceptual state.
Correspondence: Greg Janzen, Department of Philosophy, University of
Calgary, 2500 University Drive N.W., Calgary, AB, Canada, T2N 1N4.
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