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Consciousness

The assertion that consciousness is a property of certain individuals and not others--rather than of the entire universe--implies a very special moment in the ontogeny of those individuals. This is the moment of individual consciousness origination, before which the individual (e.g., a gestating human) is not conscious, and after which it is. Would anyone disagree that this moment is implied by most theories of mind given merit in academia? By consciousness I mean nothing vague but quite simply "the subjective character of experience," a no-nonsense definition as worded by Thomas Nagel. In light of that implication, a physical theory of consciousness must either: (a) address the nature of that moment, describing a physical arrangement that gives rise spontaneously to consciousness; or (b) deny such a moment's existence and ascribe consciousness to the entire universe (some sort of pan-psychism). While (b) is typically considered the mystical and unacceptable stance, as a naturalist I find (a) to seem...

This is a very important and difficult question: how do we get from no consciousness to (our) consciousness? You've put the question in terms of ontogeny (or development), but the same sort of question arises in terms of phylogeny (or evolution)--which animals are conscious and which are not, and how did the latter evolve from the former? The panpsychist alternative (b) may help, and it is advanced by contemporary philosophers such as Galen Strawson (and more tentatively, by David Chalmers). Despite that answer having to assert the seemingly weird claim that rocks have some sort of proto-conscious capacities, it is also unclear if panpsychism helps to answer the problem you raise, since we still need to know what organization of the proto-conscious material parts allows for the more complex consciousness we recognize in some animals and in humans. How do we get from paramecium (or blastocysts) made up of parts that have both physical and conscious properties to monkeys (or babies) that are...
Freedom

I have begun reading Kahneman's Thinking Fast and Slow. He admits that system 1 can react before system becomes conscious of a particular behavior. Once system 2 becomes aware, however, it can modify system 1's response based on reasoning, additional evidence, past experience, etc. Is there any value in thinking of system 2 as the seat of free will (I choose not to accept system 1's acceptance of a "trick question" fallacy)? If so, and we agree that systems 1 & 2 are aspects of one mind, does it follow that we have addressed Harris's claim that free will is an illusion?

The brief answer is yes, I think it makes a lot of sense to think of something like system 2 as the seat of free, autonomous, and responsible action. And if we do--that is, if we think that our capacities for conscious reasoning and self-control are ultimately capacities instantiated in our brains--then the arguments by Harris and others lose a lot of force, since those arguments often play on the misguided idea that if our brains do it, then somehow we don't. I would not want to say that system 1 (or our non-conscious, more automatic processing) is in conflict with our free will, since often its functioning is crucial to our acting freely and we can also shape its functioning to some degree with system 2 processes. However, if we find that some of our actions are produced by system 1 processes (and situational influences) of which we are unaware and that we would not want to influence us, were we aware of them, then I do think our freedom and responsibility are diminished. And I think that...
Freedom

If someone makes a statement, and I not only disagree with that statement, but criticize or condemn her for having made it, do I infringe on her freedom of speech?

I don't see how. I think you have exercised your own freedom of speech. Speech acts can conflict with people's freedoms, including freedom of speech--for instance, if I threaten that I will harm you if you express certain opinions. But the beauty of freedom of speech is the idea that it will expose ideas to opposition with the hope that well-informed people will support the better ideas and reject, or if need be, condemn the others.
Profession

Hey, I'm a freshman majoring in philosophy and economics. My question is: is this a good combination for graduate school in philosophy? Thanks

Yes! Especially if you are interested in the philosophy of economics, which is a small but vibrant subfield. Just make sure you've got enough philosophy classes (and letter writers) to present yourself well for grad schools.
Perception

I recently read an article by a philosopher who stated that physicalism must be false or at least incomplete because it doesn't adequately account for experience. For example, say you knew all the physical information involved in seeing a sunset, even if you convey all that information to a person you'll never actually describe a sunset. Say you know a blind woman (since birth) and she asks you "what's it like to experience a sunset?", do you go off saying well it's a wavelength hitting the photoreceptors in your eyes which send electrical signals to your brain, even if that's true she's still no closer to understanding what experiencing a sunset is like. The point being that you can't reduce experience (or qualia) down to purely physical information. Personally I agree that it's impossible to describe experience with just physical information, even with something as simple as the smell of an orange, you can only communicate a description of what the smell of orange smells like tautologically, i.e. "it...

One way to understand the basic argument you outline, which is advanced most famously by Thomas Nagel in "What is it like to be a bat?" and Frank Jackson in various papers about Mary the color-blind super-scientist, is like this: 1. If physicalism is true, then someone who knew all the relevant physical facts about a conscious being's experience (e.g., a bat or a person seeing red) should know what it is like to have those experiences without having had them (i.e., without experiencing sonar perception or without having seen red). 2. Someone who knew all the relevant physical facts would not know what it is like to have those experiences. 3. So, physicalism is false. I think there are good reasons to reject both premises. Premise 2 looks like an appeal to ignorance. It does seem implausible that any amount of objective (or 3rd personal) information could allow someone to understand conscious experiences she has not experienced. But we do not really know what a physicalist theory of...
Animals
Ethics

The responses to questions on this site regarding the ethics of eating animals seem to indicate that many of you endorse vegetarianism (in some form or another) but have not made a commitment to actually becoming a vegetarian. Though I understand the difficulty of truly living in accordance with certain philosophies that one might, in theory, endorse, the only major challenge faced by vegetarians in today's America is self control. If philosophers themselves find it so difficult to simply not put a piece of flesh in their mouths, how can we hope for considerable progress on this issue? One would think that the people who think so much about the minutiae of the arguments for and against eating meat would be the most likely to make a shift in their behavior. I can't help but worry.

Well, weakness of will is a human frailty, and philosophers are humans. But I share your intuition that someone who has accepted strong arguments for a conclusion, such as "It is wrong to eat meat," and who faces few difficulties acting on that conclusion, should be able to act on it. It may make you feel better to know that there is a much higher proportion of consistent vegetarians among philosophers than among the general population. But people who study ethics may be no different than other philosophers (except that they condemn meat eating more). See here . Personally, I think that there are good reasons for our society to shut down factory farming (it causes a lot of unnecessary suffering, hurts the environment, and contributes to unhealthy eating habits). But it is not obvious how best to act on that view. I try to avoid factory farmed meat, but mainly to avoid hypocrisy rather than to further the cause (my not purchasing meat is unlikely to have an effect on the industry). But...
Freedom

Has the idea of responsibility for NOT having a certain thought been addressed in the free will literature? Certain forms of compatibilism seem to hinge on denying that we are 'bypassed', a term described very well by Professor Nahmias as referring to "the idea that our conscious deliberations, our desires, or our reasons play no role in what happens" (quoted from his response to question 3236 on 6/1/10). But what about thoughts and ideas that simply don't occur to us? There is no grand buffet of potential thoughts that I (whatever "I" means) get to choose from, I can't prevent myself from having something occur to me and I can't force something to occur to me. So how could I be responsible for the absence of a certain thought. Clearly there are uncountably many situations in which someone's failure to act or someone's decision to act lead to consequences that may not have happened had a different thought occurred to the person. But, in a certain sense, they were definitely bypassed in the ...

Great question. Here's a question for you: Suppose a friend asks you to pick her up at the airport (or water her plants while she's gone). Suppose you promise to do so. Suppose (scenario A) that you fail to put down your obligation in your calendar. Or suppose (scenario B) that you put it in your calendar but fail to check your calendar on the day of your obligation. Question: are you responsible for failing to honor your obligation? It seems to me that, unless there are some mitigating circumstances (e.g., you had a migraine that incapacitated you), you are responsible. But you might retort: "I simply never had the thought (A) to write it in my calendar or (B) to check my calendar that day. How can I be responsible for not doing what I promised when I didn't have a particular thought that [we can assume] is necessary for my doing it?" My response is that you should have had the relevant thoughts and (in the controversial compatibilist sense of "could") you could ...
Profession

I've just graduated with a B.A. in the humanities and hope to attend graduate school for philosophy in the near future. I didn't major in philosophy-even though I have taken many courses in the subject I know that it will be a challenge to get into a good Ph.D program. Would it best suit me to undergo a master's in philosophy first-assuming that I'm accepted to such a program- before undergoing a ph.d? I'm also interested in the subject of religion and am wondering whether a master's in religious studies- e.g. an MTS from Harvard- would hurt my chances at getting into a good philosophy Ph.D program? What do you think of undergoing a master's in religious studies in lieu of a master's in philosophy? Aside from religion my primary philosophical interests are in ethics, social philosophy (esp Marx),philosophy of science, Kant, the history of philosophy and feminist philosophy. Thank you for your time...

Given what you've described, I think your best bet would be to apply to some MA programs in philosophy (full disclosure: I think Georgia State has a good program!), looking for ones that are strong in your areas of interest, while perhaps also trying a couple of PhD programs that fit your interests well, assuming you can get 2-3 good letters from your philosophy professors and your grades in those classes is good (you'll need that for MA applications too). You can also pursue the MA in religious studies but it is unlikely to help you much in the PhD process in philosophy , should you decide to pursue that later (I don't think it will hurt you, and a Harvard transcript might help. Finally, for MA or PhD, you'll need a very good writing sample (12-15 pages) that demonstrates you can develop an argument. I hope this helps!
Language

Suppose Jane, while growing up, somehow learned the wrong meaning for the word "migraine," and came to believe that any particularly strong headache, regardless of whether it occurred on one or both sides of the head, was a migraine - i.e. that "migraine" and "headache" were mostly synonymous terms. Suppose Jane then has what we would call a headache, a severely painful sensation in her head distributed across both sides of her head, and tells us "I have a migraine." According to her understanding of the term "migraine," her statement is true, but according to her community's differing understanding of the term, her statement is false (because we call them migraines only if they affect one side of the head only). Is there a hierarchy between the contexts in which we can understand her claim? Is her claim ultimately either true or false, or is its truth-value ambiguous?

What a great title for a new book on the internalism/externalism debate in semantics: "Are Migraines Just in the Head?" Also, for a more externalist-friendly response, see this recent question: http://www.askphilosophers.org/question/4771
Children

What is a good reason to have kids? Is desiring to have somebody to love a good reason to have kids? Is desiring to be a parent a good reason to have kids? Is desiring to have someone who unconditionally loves you a good reason to have kids? What on earth could justifiably compel someone to instigate such an ontologically significant event fraught with perhaps, if not infinite, vast moral significance, as creating another human existence?

Good questions, ones that are receiving more philosophical treatment recently. As a parent of three I better have some good answers, eh? First off, I haven't read either the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (SEP) entry on Parenthood and Procreation or the book Why Have Children? by Christine Overall (see this article ), but you might find those interesting. So, here are five reasons that I think are good reasons to have children, though of course, they might be outweighed by other reasons (such as worries about overpopulation, or lacking financial resources to raise children well, etc.): 1. Human life has value and humans create valuable and meaningful things (such as art, philosophy, humor, and pleasure), so it is good for humans to continue to exist. So, someone should have kids. It might not be necessary for me or you to have children, but assuming it is better for there to be humans than not (and I think it is), then it is necessary for some people to have...

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