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Most philosophical explorations of responsibility discuss the topic solely in terms of metaphysics and the “free will” problem. By contrast, the chapters in this book view responsibility from a variety of perspectives: Metaphysics, ethics, action theory, and the philosophy of law. After a broad, framing introduction by the book’s editors, the contributors consider such subjects as responsibility as it relates to the “free will” problem; the relation between responsibility and knowledge or ignorance; the relation between causal and moral responsibility; the difference, if any, between responsibility for actions and responsibility for omissions; the metaphysical requirements for making sense of “collective” responsibility; and the relation between moral and legal responsibility.

Addictive behavior threatens not just the addict’s happiness and health but also the welfare and well-being of others. It represents a loss of self-control and a variety of other cognitive impairments and behavioral deficits. An addict may say, “I couldn’t help myself.” But questions arise: Are we responsible for our addictions? What responsibilities do others have to help us? This book offers a range of perspectives on addiction and responsibility, and how the two are bound together. Contributors—from theorists to clinicians, from neuroscientists and psychologists to philosophers and legal scholars—discuss these questions using a variety of conceptual and investigative tools. Some offer models of addiction-related phenomena, including theories of incentive sensitization, ego-depletion, and pathological affect; others address such traditional philosophical questions as free will and agency, mind–body, and other minds. Two chapters, written by scholars who were themselves addicts, attempt to integrate first-person phenomenological accounts with the third-person perspective of the sciences. Contributors distinguish among moral responsibility, legal responsibility, and the ethical responsibility of clinicians and researchers. Taken together, the chapters offer the argument that we cannot fully understand addiction if we do not also understand responsibility.

This book describes and defends an ontological-cum-semantic position, asserting that the right ontology is minimal or austere, in that it excludes numerous common-sense posits, and that statements employing such posits are nonetheless true, when truth is understood to be semantic correctness under contextually operative semantic standards. The chapters argue that austere realism emerges naturally from consideration of the deep problems within the naive common-sense approach to truth and ontology. They offer an account of truth that confronts these deep internal problems and is independently plausible: contextual semantics, which asserts that truth is semantically correct affirmability. Under contextual semantics, much ordinary and scientific thought and discourse is true because its truth is indirect correspondence to the world. After offering further arguments for austere realism and addressing objections to it, the chapters consider various alternative austere ontologies. They advance a specific version they call “blobjectivism”—the view that the right ontology includes only one concrete particular, the entire cosmos (“the blobject”), which, although it has enormous local spatiotemporal variability, does not have any proper parts.

Contemporary orthodoxy in philosophy and psychology of emotion construes emotions as falling into two distinct groups, one being largely innate, the Basic Emotions and, the other, being largely socially-constructed, the Higher Cognitive Emotions. In addition, current orthodoxy construes emotions as operating primarily in individual psychological economies, that is, as individualistic. In this monograph I argue that both of these construals are mistaken. I argue that Basic Emotions and, subsequently, Higher Cognitive Emotions develop from inborn emotion precursors (affect expressions) concurrently with language and, by implication, symbolic thought and through the same developmental mechanisms. I argue, further, that emotions operate primarily in social economies to enable human social life, firstly through interpersonal regulation and, subsequently, through intrapersonal regulation. In light of these analyses, I also argue that emotional ontogenesis, which includes the ontogenesis of emotional intentionality, is a world-to-brain transcranial achievement, that is, it is radically externalistic. The development of human emotionality, language and thought is dependent upon the deep functional integration of two exquisitely complementary repertoires of constraints, one neonatal and, the other, maternal (or primary caregiver). Drawing on insights primarily from developmental sciences and philosophy, I show how a limited range of shared developmental mechanisms results in the concurrent development of at least some aspects of human emotionality and language. The deep functional integration of neonatal and maternal constraints repertoires results in the progressively synchronised, mutual modulation of relevant causal processes in both partners together with the neurogenesis and close, linguistically-mediated social relationship prerequisite to such development.

The potential of information-driven disciplines such as biology and clinical science can be realized only if those involved in the production and analysis of data can successfully build upon each other’s work. The quantity and heterogeneity of the data being produced raises challenges to this goal, and so also does the tendency of different communities to describe their data in different, sometimes ad hoc, ways. If computers are effectively to exploit the results of scientific research and enable interoperability among diverse data repositories, then a strategy is needed to counteract such tendencies to data-silo formation. The use of common, consensus-based, controlled vocabularies to tag or describe data is one such strategy. Applied ontology is the discipline which creates, evaluates, and applies such common vocabularies – called ‘ontologies’ – a discipline which involves contributions from philosophers, logicians, and computer scientists, working with researchers in specific scientific disciplines as well as with users and creators of data in extra-scientific fields. Ontologies provide not merely common terms, but also definitions of these terms expressed in a formal language to allow processing by computers. The book describes the concrete steps involved in building and using ontologies for purposes of tagging data. It documents principles of best practice and provides examples of different sorts of errors to be avoided. It also provides an introduction to a specific top-level ontology, the Basic Formal Ontology (BFO), and to the computational resources used in building and applying ontologies, including the Ontology Web Language (OWL).

Many philosophers and cognitive scientists dismiss the notion of qualia, sensory experiences that are internal to the brain. Leading opponents of qualia (and of Indirect Realism, the philosophical position that has qualia as a central tenet) include Michael Tye, Daniel Dennett, Paul and Patricia Churchland, and even Frank Jackson, a former supporter. Qualiaphiles apparently face the difficulty of establishing philosophical contact with the real when their access to it is seen by qualiaphobes to be secondhand and, worse, hidden behind a “veil of sensation”—a position that would slide easily into relativism and solipsism, presenting an ethical dilemma. In this book, chapters defending qualia look at the Indirect Realist position and mount detailed counterarguments against opposing views. The book first presents philosophical defenses, with arguments propounding, variously, a new argument from illusion, a sense-datum theory, dualism, “qualia realism,” qualia as the “cement” of the experiential world, and “subjective physicalism.” Three scientific defenses follow, discussing color, heat, and the link between the external object and the internal representation. Finally, specific criticisms of opposing views include discussions of the Churchlands’ “neurophilosophy,” answers to Frank Jackson’s abandonment of qualia (one of which is titled, in a reference to Jackson’s famous thought experiment, “Why Frank Should Not Have Jilted Mary”), and refutations of Transparency Theory.

The causal theory of action (CTA) is widely recognized in the literature of the philosophy of action as the “standard story” of human action and agency—the nearest approximation in the field to a theoretical orthodoxy. This book brings together work on action theory today and discusses issues relating to the CTA and its applications, which range from experimental philosophy to moral psychology. Some of the chapters defend the theory while others criticize it; some draw from historical sources while others focus on recent developments; some rely on the tools of analytic philosophy while others cite the latest empirical research on human action. All agree, however, on the centrality of the CTA in the philosophy of action. The chapters first consider metaphysical issues, then reasons-explanations of action, and, finally, new directions for thinking about the CTA. They discuss such topics as the tenability of some alternatives to the CTA; basic causal deviance; the etiology of action; teleologism and anticausalism; and the compatibility of the CTA with theories of embodied cognition. Two chapters engage in an exchange of views on intentional omissions that stretches over four chapters, and there are direct responses in follow-up chapters.

Many philosophical naturalists eschew analysis in favor of discovering metaphysical truths from the a posteriori, contending that analysis does not lead to philosophical insight. A countercurrent to this approach seeks to reconcile a certain account of conceptual analysis with philosophical naturalism; prominent and influential proponents of this methodology include the late David Lewis, Frank Jackson, Michael Smith, Philip Pettit, and David Armstrong. Naturalistic analysis (sometimes known as the “Canberra Plan” because many of its proponents have been associated with the Australian National University in Canberra) is a tool for locating in the scientifically given world objects and properties we quantify over in everyday discourse. This book gathers work from a range of prominent philosophers who are working within this tradition, offering important new work as well as critical evaluations of the methodology. Its centerpiece is an important posthumous work by David Lewis, “Ramseyan Humility.” The chapters first address issues of philosophy of mind, semantics, and the new methodology’s a priori character, then turn to matters of metaphysics, and finally consider problems regarding normativity.

A central debate regarding perception in contemporary philosophy concerns the disjunctive theory of perceptual experience. Until the 1960s, philosophers of perception generally assumed that a veridical perception (a perceptual experience that presents the world as it really is) and a subjectively similar hallucination must have significant mental commonalities. Disjunctivists challenge this assumption, contending that the veridical perception and the corresponding hallucination share no mental core. Suppose that while you are looking at a lemon, God suddenly removes it, while keeping your brain activity constant. Although you notice no change, disjunctivists argue that the preremoval and postremoval experiences are radically different. Disjunctivism has gained prominent supporters in recent years, as well as attracting much criticism. This reader collects in one volume classic texts that define and react to disjunctivism. These include an excerpt from a book by the late J. M. Hinton, who was the first to propose an explicitly disjunctivist position, and papers stating a number of important objections.

Philosophical reflections on the environment began with early philosophers’ invocation of a cosmology that mixed natural and supernatural phenomena. Today, the central philosophical problem posed by the environment involves not what it can teach us about ourselves and our place in the cosmic order but rather how we can understand its workings in order to make better decisions about our own conduct regarding it. The resulting inquiry spans different areas of contemporary philosophy, many of which are represented by the fifteen chapters in this book. The chapters first consider conceptual problems generated by rapid advances in biology and ecology, examining such topics as ecological communities, adaptation, and scientific consensus. The chapters then turn to epistemic and axiological issues, first considering philosophical aspects of environmental decision making and then assessing particular environmental policies (largely relating to climate change), including reparations, remediation, and nuclear power, from a normative perspective.

Ludwig Wittgenstein and Martin Heidegger are two of the most important—and two of the most difficult—philosophers of the twentieth century, indelibly influencing the course of continental and analytic philosophy, respectively. This book argues that the views of both thinkers emerge from a fundamental attempt to create a philosophy which has dispensed with everything transcendent so that we may be satisfied with the human. Examining the central topics of their thought in detail, the author finds that Wittgenstein and Heidegger construct a philosophy based on original finitude—finitude without the contrast of the infinite. In the author’s analysis, the two difficult bodies of work studied here offer mutual illumination rather than compounded obscurity. Moreover, bringing the most influential thinkers in continental and analytic philosophy into dialogue with each other may enable broader conversations between these two divergent branches of philosophy. The author’s account shows that both Wittgenstein and Heidegger strive to construct a new conception of reason, free of the illusions of the past and appropriate to the kind of beings that we are.

The idea of place—of topos—runs through Martin Heidegger’s thinking almost from the very start. It can be seen not only in his attachment to the famous hut in Todtnauberg but in his constant deployment of topological terms and images, and in the situated character of his thought and of its major themes and motifs. Heidegger’s work, this book argues, exemplifies the practice of “philosophical topology.” The author examines the topological aspects of Heidegger’s thought and offers a broad elaboration of the philosophical significance of place. In doing so, he provides a distinct approach to Heidegger as well as a new reading of other key figures, notably, Kant, Aristotle, Gadamer, and Davidson, also including Benjamin, Arendt, and Camus. Expanding arguments he made in his earlier book Heidegger’s Topology, the author discusses such topics as the role of place in philosophical thinking, the topological character of the transcendental, the convergence of Heideggerian topology with Davidsonian triangulation, the necessity of mortality in the possibility of human life, the role of materiality in the working of art, the significance of nostalgia, and the nature of philosophy as beginning in wonder. Philosophy, he argues, begins in wonder, and in place and the experience of place. The place of wonder, of philosophy, and of questioning, the author writes, is the very topos of thinking.

This book continues James Austin’s quest to clarify how meditative practices transform our states of consciousness. The book is in five parts. Part I considers how meditation can enhance creativity and how Zen enlightenment (awakening) can help develop altruism and compassion. Part II explores the neural correlates of Self-relationships, of selflessness and allocentric processing. It explains how they differ from Self-centered (egocentric) processing. Part III considers the neural correlates of memory in general and of mindful attention to the present. It then introduces the topic of remindfulness. It defines remindfulness as the quality of recollecting the most appropriate thing at the right time. Related topics include mind wandering, hallucinations, and the reticular nucleus of the thalamus. Part IV discusses the neural mechanisms involved in focal and global attentive processing. Related topics include “pop-out” phenomena, disengaging attention, and “playing in the zone.” Part V examines what a living Zen means during the direct experience of everyday life events. It means repeatedly practicing an earthy flexible empiricism. The haiku poetry of Basho reveals avian Zen influences. Gazing upward spontaneously sometimes helps precipitate an alternate state of consciousness. The appendix and chapter notes illuminate a variety of related topics. Eight chapters provide examples of testable hypotheses.

What is meaning in life? Does anything really matter? How can a life achieve lasting significance? How can we explain the human propensity to struggle for ideals? How is meaning related to contentment, happiness, joy? Is meaning something we discover, or do we create it? What is the nature of value, and what are its sources in human experience? Can there be a meaning in life without religious faith? What is the meaning of death? Is life worth living? What would enable us to have a love of life? Meaning in life, according to this book, and the meaning in our own lives, results from creative efforts on our part. It is not a prior reality awaiting our discovery. Though we talk about a search for meaning, what we are seeking is primarily a mode of creativity that will make our lives meaningful. The first volume of the Meaning in Life trilogy, this book studies the nature of imagination, idealization, and love in the context of humanity’s attempt to define itself through the pursuit of meanings and values that it creates. It confronts life’s most troubling problems: the meaning of death, the presence of anxiety in daily existence, the conditions needed for us to have a life worth living, and the possibility of a love of life in others as well as in ourselves.

This final book in the Meaning in Life trilogy studies the interaction between nature and the values that define human spirituality. It examines the ways in which we overcome suffering in life by resolving our sense of being divided between them, and suggests that the accord between nature and spirit arises from an art of life which affords meaning, happiness, and love by employing the same principles as those that exist in all artistic achievements. The book argues that it is through the meaningfulness created by imagination and idealization that we make life worth living. This human art form, it claims, enables us to unite our selfish interests with our compassionate and loving inclinations. We thereby effect a vital harmonization within which the naturalistic values of ethics, aesthetics, and religion can find their legitimate place. The good life, as envisioned by the book, includes the love of persons, things, and ideals so intricately intermeshed that the meaning in one contributes to the meaningfulness of the other two. The result is a kind of happiness that we all desire.

The trilogy The Nature of Love traced the development of the concept of love in history and literature from the Greeks to the twentieth century. This second volume returns to the subject of earlier work, exploring a different approach. Without denying previous emphasis on the role of imagination and creativity, this book investigates the ability of them both to make one's life meaningful. A “systematic mapping” of the various facets of love (including sexual love, love in society, and religious love), the book is an extended work that offers personal philosophical and psychological theory of love. Rich in insight into literature, the history of ideas, and the complexities of our being, it is a thought-provoking inquiry into fundamental aspects of all human relationships.

In cognitive science, conceptual content is frequently understood as the “meaning” of a mental representation. This position raises largely empirical questions about what concepts are, what form they take in mental processes, and how they connect to the world they are about. This book reviews some of the proposals put forward to answer these questions and find that none of them is remotely defensible. The text determines that all of these proposals share a commitment to a two-factor theory of conceptual content, which holds that the content of a concept consists of its sense together with its reference. It argues instead that there is no conclusive case against the possibility of a theory of concepts that takes reference as their sole semantic property. Such a theory, if correct, would provide for the naturalistic account of content that cognitive science lacks—and badly needs. The book offers a sketch of how this theory might be developed into an account of perceptual reference that is broadly compatible with empirical findings and with the view that the mental processes effecting perceptual reference are largely preconceptual, modular, and encapsulated.

This book is a defense of the methods of analytic philosophy against a recent empirical challenge to the soundness of those methods. The challenge is raised by practitioners of “experimental philosophy” (xphi) and concerns the extent to which analytic philosophy relies on intuition—in particular, the extent to which analytic philosophers treat intuitions as evidence in arguing for philosophical conclusions. Experimental philosophers say that analytic philosophers place a great deal of evidential weight on people’s intuitions about hypothetical cases and thought experiments. This book argues that this view of traditional philosophical method is a myth, part of “metaphilosophical folklore.” Analytic philosophy makes regular use of hypothetical examples and thought experiments, but philosophers argue for their claims about what is true or not true in these examples and thought experiments. It is these arguments, not intuitions, that are treated as evidence for the claims. The book discusses xphi and some recent xphi studies; critiques a variety of other metaphilosophical claims; examines such famous arguments as Gettier’s refutation of the JTB (justified true belief) theory and Kripke’s Gödel Case argument against descriptivism about proper names, and shows that they rely on reasoning rather than intuition; and finds existing critiques of xphi, the “Multiple Concepts” and “Expertise” replies, to be severely lacking.

This first volume of the author’s trilogy The Nature of Love begins by studying love as appraisal and bestowal as well as imagination and idealization, and then examines the contrasting views of Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus, Ovid, Lucretius, Saint Augustine, Saint Thomas Aquinas, and Martin Luther. After having described the nature of erotic idealization, the author analyzes the religious idealization in Judeo-Christian concepts of eros, philia, nomos, and agape. Medieval Catholicism sought to combine these four ideas of love in the “caritas synthesis”. Luther repudiated that attempt on the grounds that love exists only in God’s agapastic bestowal of unlimited goodness upon humanity and all of nature. In relation to the different modes of theorizing, the author explores the humanistic implications of each.

This second volume of the author’s trilogy The Nature of Love studies the ideas and ideals of medieval courtly love and nineteenth-century Romantic love, as well as the transition between these two perspectives. According to the traditions of courtly love in the twelfth century and thereafter, not only God but also human beings in themselves are capable of authentic love. The pursuit of love between man and woman was seen as a splendid ideal that ennobles both the lover and the beloved. It was something more than libidinal sexuality and involved sophisticated and highly refined courtliness that emulated religious love in its ability to create a holy union between the participants. Adherents to Romantic love in later centuries affirmed the capacity of love to effect a merging between two people who thus became one. The author analyzes the transition from courtly to Romantic love by reference to the writings of many artists beginning with Dante and ending with Richard Wagner, as well as Neoplatonist philosophers of the Italian Renaissance, Descartes, Spinoza, Rousseau, Hume, Kant, Hegel, and Schopenhauer. In relation to romanticism itself, he distinguishes between two aspects—“benign romanticism” and “Romantic pessimism”—that took on renewed importance in the twentieth century.