Another reminder: check out the special themed EPISTEME issue edited by Igor Douven.
iCub hype
Telling aspect to this article:
“Is perception consciousness? The ability to understand that somebody has a goal, is that consciousness?” he asked.
“These kinds of questions, we will be able to ask with much more precision because we can have a test bed, this robot, or zombie, that we can use to implement things,” he said, describing working with iCub as “an outstanding pleasure.”
Away from such highbrow concerns, the aim is also to develop iCub so that it can have practical applications.
Critical Notices: Thompson and Strawson
I want to bring your attention to two superb reviews on the work of Evan Thompson and Galen Strawson. These very thoughtful reviews are not space fillers nor point scoring exercises, but represent a close engagement with the material. If you would like a copy of either review please don’t hesitate to get in touch with the authors – see here for their contact details. If you appreciate these reviews check out another recent review: there are several more in the pipeline.
1. Mind in Life: Biology, Phenomenology, and the Sciences of Mind is reviewed by Dorothée Legrand.
2. Consciousness and its Place in Nature: Does Physicalism Entail Panpsychism? is reviewed by my sometime collaborator Christian Onof.
The Elusive Oakeshott
Here is a characteristically lucid piece by Ken Minogue on Oakeshott’s supposed conservatism. It should be noted that conservatism as Oakeshott understood it, is an anathema to “conservatism” understood in the American context. I take the view that these the terms are not at all helpful and are, for the most part, vulgarized. Oakeshott was merely an epistemological skeptic and had a “high” liberality as his central value. (By the way, I don’t view Minogue’s characterization of Hayek as a libertarian as particularly accurate, but that’s a side issue). Oakeshott understood that culture was necessarily dynamic: a culture that didn’t change or was frozen by a nostalgic foundationalism, was moribund.
P.S. Thanks to Gene Callahan for alerting me to Minogue’s piece.
The Extended Mind and Religious Thought
THE EXTENDED MIND AND RELIGIOUS THOUGHT Zygon symposium (Volume 44 Issue 3 September 2009) is now available online. The lineup as follows:
MINDSCAPES AND LANDSCAPES: EXPLORING THE EXTENDED MIND (p 625-627)
Leslie Marsh
THE EXTENDED MIND (p 628-641)
Mark Rowlands
PERSONS AND THE EXTENDED-MIND THESIS (p 642-658)
Lynne Rudder Baker
MINDS, INTRINSIC PROPERTIES, AND MADHYAMAKA BUDDHISM (p 659-674)
Teed Rockwell
EMPATHY AND THE EXTENDED MIND (p 675-698)
Joel W. Krueger
QUINTUPLE EXTENSION: MIND, BODY, HUMANISM, RELIGION, SECULARISM (p 699-718)
Leonard Angel
CONSTRUCTING RELIGION WITHOUT THE SOCIAL: DURKHEIM, LATOUR, AND EXTENDED COGNITION (p 719-737)
Matthew Day
Rob Rupert’s Cognitive Systems and The Extended Mind
Earlier this year I trailed Rob Rupert’s new book. I now want to give a plug to a workshop that is going to be held to discuss this eagerly awaited book. I’ve commissioned a Critical Review for The Journal of Mind and Behavior to be written by the very able Colin Klein.
Oakeshott Avenue
Oakeshott Avenue was, I think, named after Michael’s father a prominent Fabian of the day. Google map.
Evidence and Law: Free Download
Jerry Cohen dead
The formidable mind that is Jerry Cohen is no longer. I have his latest Rescuing Justice and Equality on the back-burner and am now more than ever motivated to get to it. GEM de Ste Croix tried valiantly to apply Jerry’s seminal Karl Marx’s Theory of History: A Defence to his brilliant The Class Struggle in the Ancient Greek World. Update: Times On Line obituary. Another update: Jo Wolff, a student of Jerry’s, will be interviewed in an oral obituary.
EPISTEME 2009
Here are some photos from the recent EPISTEME conference held at Northeastern.
