Course Notes

Course Notes – Paul Churchland, “Eliminative Materialism and the Propositional Attitudes”

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by Daniel A. Kaufman https://ruccs.rutgers.edu/images/personal-zenon-pylyshyn/class-info/FP2012_readings/Churchland_EliminativeMaterialsm.pdf In the philosophy of mind, apart from sensations, with their perplexing “qualia,” intentional states, the so-called “propositional attitudes,” have proven materialism’s biggest headache.  Materialism’s greatest hope, functionalism – and particularly its computational variety – ran into trouble with the propositional attitudes by way of the Chinese (or at least, one of their Rooms), and disputes […]

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Essay

Philistinism and Philosophy

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by Daniel A. Kaufman Art is a means of union among men, joining them together in the same feelings, and indispensable for the life and progress towards well-being of individuals and of humanity. If men lacked this capacity of being infected by art, people might be more savage still, and above all, more separated from, and more hostile to, one […]

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Essay

Selves and Social Ontology

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by Daniel A. Kaufman The ongoing philosophical (and to a good extent, the scientific) discussion of selves is in very poor shape, much like the discussion concerning minds and for much the same reason. We talk as if selves are things, and of course, they are, but the sense of ‘thing’ that most seem to have in mind is the […]

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