Anthony Collins on the Status of Consciousness

Anthony Collins (1676-1729) maintains that consciousness might be a material process or result from material processes. On the one hand, Collins accepts Locke’s view that from consciousness, i.e., the activity of thinking, we acquire no knowledge about the nature of the thinking substance. On the other, he takes seriously Samuel Clarke’s challenge that the thinking substance must be suitably unified because consciousness is unified. In this paper, I argue that, throughout his correspondence with Clarke, Collins maintains that consciousness signifies actual thinking and does not refer to the capacity of thinking. His main materialist thesis is that the powers of parts of material systems can…

On the Historiography of Subjectivity

Locke and Active Perception

This article examines whether Locke can consistently maintain that perception is a fully passive process. His view is put under scrutiny under two senses of activity. Does Locke reject active perception in light of his own understanding of activity; or rather, does he treat perception as passive in that the mind has only a general capacity of reception of ideas and does not contribute in specific ways to organizing specific types of perceptions? Locke’s view of perception is evaluated in these respects in three contexts: the role of noticing in perception, visual perception of shape, and reflection as a form of inner perception. It is argued that with respect to noticing and reflection Lock…

Orders of Consciousness and Forms of Reflexivity in Descartes

SUBJECTIVITY AS A NON-TEXTUAL STANDARD OF INTERPRETATION IN THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHICAL PSYCHOLOGY

Contemporary caution against anachronism in intellectual history, and the currently momentous theoretical emphasis on subjectivity in the philosophy of mind, are two prevailing conditions that set puzzling constraints for studies in the history of philosophical psychology. The former urges against assuming ideas, motives, and concepts that are alien to the historical intellectual setting under study, and combined with the latter suggests caution in relying on our intuitions regarding subjectivity due to the historically contingent characterizations it has attained in contemporary philosophy of mind. In the face of these conditions, our paper raises a question of what we call non-textual (as…

On the Standards of Conceptual Change

Abstract It is a necessary condition for recognising change that there is a yardstick against which the change can be perceived. The same applies to changes that philosophical concepts undergo. This paper delineates standards for recognising conceptual change that meet the requirements of conscientious history of philosophy. More particularly, we want to argue for the need of what we will call non-textual standards. These are features of the world of experience that must be assumed to be shared between us and the historical authors we study. While they must be used in tandem with the recognised contextual standards of conceptual change, we will argue that without recourse to at least some n…

Mentaalista materiaa : tieteellinen maailmankuva, mentaalisen ja fysikaalisen suhde ja mentaalinen kausaatio John Searlen biologisessa naturalismissa

Subjectivity as a Non-Textual Standard of Interpretation in the History of Philosophical Psychology

Contemporary caution against anachronism in intellectual history, and the currently mo mentous theoretical emphasis on subjectivity in the philosophy of mind, are two prevailing conditions that set puzzling constraints for studies in the history of philosophical psychol ogy. The former urges against assuming ideas, motives, and concepts that are alien to the historical intellectual setting under study, and combined with the latter suggests caution in relying on our intuitions regarding subjectivity due to the historically contingent charac terizations it has attained in contemporary philosophy of mind. In the face of these condi tions, our paper raises a question of what we call non-textual…

Essays on early modern conceptions of consciousness: Descartes, Cudworth, and Locke

Cudworth on Types of Consciousness

Early Modern Theories

The notion of consciousness was used by early modern philosophers in various ways. In dualist ontologies, the nature of thought was often characterised with the help of consciousness: while matter was understood as extended in space, thought was taken to be that which is accompanied by consciousness. Whether the mind always thinks and whether mental activity in its entirety is conscious were among the questions which addressed the relation between thought and consciousness. The possibility of unconscious thought was generally overlooked. For example, Locke rejected the Cartesian tenet that we always think by appealing to particular phenomena which suggest that we do not always think, such a…