manwithoutqualities

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June 14, 2008buddhism, cognitive science, connectionism, consciousness, embodiment, extended mind, neurophilosophy, neuroscience, personal identity, philosophy of mind, philosophy of social science, social epistemology, social identity, social ontology, sociocognition, sociology

Social Identity

In today’s Guardian there is an article entitled Who do you think I am? with the tag line “It’s all too easy to categorise people but it isn’t inevitable. We can still consider the alternatives.” The writer is quite correct so say that: Identity is a contemporary buzzword and goes onto list instances of its…

June 13, 2008behaviorism, consciousness, philosophy of mind, sex

Behaviorism

Two behaviorists have just had sex. He says to her: “It was great for you, how was it for me?”

June 12, 2008greenleaf, oakeshott, philosophical jurisprudence, philosophy of history, political philosophy

Jack Greenleaf

Jack Greenleaf has died. Greenleaf provided the first full length study of Oakeshott. We did speak in 2001 since I’d hoped he’d come to the inaugural conference of the Michael Oakeshott Association at the LSE. The sense that I got was that he felt somewhat resentful for primarily being known for his work on Oakeshott. It…

June 11, 2008cognitive closure, cognitive modeling, cognitive science, Colin McGinn, consciousness, hayek, neurophilosophy, neuroscience, new scientist, philosophy of mind, psychology, self-referentiality, the "hard" problem

Cognitive Closure

If the human brain were so simple that we could understand it, we would be so simple that we couldn’t. …

June 8, 2008cognitive science, Colin McGinn, connectionism, consciousness, distributed knowledge, Economics, Edelman, extended mind, Fuster, hayek, neurophilosophy, neuroscience, philosophy of mind, philosophy of social science, political philosophy, qualia, social cognition, social epistemology, sociocognition, the sensory order

Hayek: Cognitive Scientist Avant La Lettre

Here is a PowerPoint slide-show intended to accompany my recent talk at Sussex. PowerPoint

June 6, 2008cognitive science, Jonah Lehrer, memetics, psychology, social cognition, social epistemology, sociocognition, sociology, trust

The Memetics of Bullshit

Jonah Lehrer has a nice article on the memetics of social cognition. So much of what passes for “knowledge” and is transmitted and generated through the media, seems to have this character. This is what I have termed media “glove puppetry” – glossy people with an ideological, sentimental or showbiz hand up their arse.

June 6, 2008connectionism, consciousness, conservatism, distributed knowledge, Economics, epistemology, hayek, Jesse Larner, liberalism, oakeshott, philosophy of mind, philosophy of social science, political philosophy, social cognition, social epistemology, sociocognition, sociology

Whose Hayek?

In a recent article in Dessent entitled “Who’s Afraid of Friedrich Hayek? The Obvious Truths and Mystical Fallacies of a Hero of the Right” Jesse Larner expresses his surprise that he finds Hayek to be “nowhere near as extreme as his ideological descendants” and “not the cynic I had braced for.” It is reassuring to know that…

May 25, 2008alvin goldman, criminal verdicts, Dartmouth, episteme, epistemology, forensic science, forensics, forthcoming, social epistemology, sociology, testimony

Testimony conference: abstracts/program

Abstracts and program details for the upcoming Dartmouth conference are now available – see here.