'My Brain Made Me Do It'

A 22-year-old author discusses the threat that brain science poses to our concept of free will

At age 22, Eliezer Sternberg has just published his second book on neuroscience and philosophy: “My Brain Made Me Do It,” now out from Prometheus Books. In it, he argues that our growing understanding of how the brain works does not mean the end of moral responsibility. Rather, he sees free will as a special property that emerges from more basic brain functions. A student at Tufts Medical School, he took time out from his first-year exams to talk with Mind Matters co-editor Carey Goldberg....(more)

嚇人的是這位作者...才22歲。更嚇人的是...搞什麼，訪問內容中很明顯地，這些事情我們早都知道了。

如果說有什麼自己的觀點，就是「free will is an emergent property」以及「determinism is not compatible with morality/responsibility」兩點。然而訪問中並沒有論證，很好奇他如何論述前者，也質疑後者可能是個天真爛漫的直覺。

總之，一本簡單的入門書，我們都可以寫。為何不呢？（若你們真的想要寫書，讓我參一腳！）

Lynn

What is an argument?

Skit from Monty Python's Flying Circus.

The Philosopher's Magazine & Philosophy Games

自從2005年在美國小鎮的書店中驚訝地發現3種哲普雜誌後，就一直在訂閱其中一本的電子報。他們的網站上有有趣的哲學遊戲以及還蠻不錯的文章，跟大家分享。

The Philosopher's Magazine

Philosophy Games 

之前原本很多，但是因為網站改版所以目前只剩下三個 所以也附一下舊的遊戲網址

Philosophy for Kids

要讓那些不懂哲學的人知道我們在玩什麼，社會中似乎應該要有這種東西才是...

THE LONDON PHILOSOPHY STUDY GUIDE

http://www.ucl.ac.uk/philosophy/LPSG/contents.htm

This guide is intended for use by all students of the London Philosophy degrees, BA, MA and its research degrees. It contains an entry for each of the papers currently available within the B.A. degree. For each of these you will find a number of general hints about studying for that particular paper, together with a number of central readings. These reading lists vary greatly in length, but no inferences should be made on this basis about the comparative difficulty of the papers. In every case these reading lists will be supplemented by others you will receive in lectures or tutorials, and there is no attempt here at comprehensive coverage.

Reading Philosophy: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/philosophy/LPSG/intro.htm#Reading

At no stage in one's career is reading philosophy easy. Some people claim to read philosophy for pleasure. Wittgenstein is reported to have said that he found reading some philosophy 'a kind of agony'. Many people are inclined to agree with this. Whatever good intentions philosophers have to make their works clear, accessible, and fun to read, the result is rarely any better than more dull and dense prose with a few corny jokes. Remember that you read philosophy not for the pleasure of the moment, but for what you can come away with.

It is important, then, that you make your reading of philosophy as efficient and rewarding as possible. In order to do this you must maintain a sympathetic but critical attitude to the text. This can often be best achieved by approaching the text with a number of general questions in mind. Normally you will not have got everything you could have out of the text until you can answer the following questions.

A. WHAT CONCLUSION DOES THE AUTHOR WISH TO REACH?
B. WHY IS THAT CONCLUSION INTERESTING?
C. WHAT IS THE ARGUMENT?
D. IS THE ARGUMENT VALID IN ITS OWN TERMS?
E. SHOULD THE PREMISSES OF THE ARGUMENT BE ACCEPTED?
F. IF WE ACCEPT THE ARGUMENT AND CONCLUSION, WHAT ELSE FOLLOWS?
G. FINALLY: A CAUTION

Writing Philosophy: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/philosophy/LPSG/intro.htm#Writing

Style Sheet for Bibliographical References: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/philosophy/LPSG/intro.htm#StyleSheet

General Works and Series in Philosophy: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/philosophy/LPSG/intro.htm#General

Routledge Arguments of The Philosophers
Oxford Readings in Philosophy
The Blackwell Philosopher Dictionaries
Cambridge Companions
Blackwell Companions to Philosophy
Routledge Philosophy GuideBooks
Philosophy: A Guide Through The Subject (vol. 1) and Philosophy: Further Through the Subject (vol. 2) ed. A. Grayling
The Encyclopedia of Philosophy
The Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy

The Papers:http://www.ucl.ac.uk/philosophy/LPSG/contents.htm
以下是經典paper大收錄!!!

Logic & Metaphysics
Epistemology & Methodology
Ethics
Political Philosophy
Greek Philosophy
Modern Philosophy
Philosophy of Mind
Philosophy of Religion
Philosophy of Language
Philosophy of Science
Aesthetics
Set Theory & Further Logic
Mathematical Logic
Post-Aristotelian Philosophy
Medieval Philosophy
Indian Philosophy (PDF)
Kant
19th Century German Philosophy
Phenomenology
Frege, Russell & Wittgenstein
Philosophy of Psychology
Philosophy of Mathematics
Marxism

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Enjoy!

台大百大維新啟動!!!

http://baidareform.blogspot.com/

直覺的直覺

哲學家做實驗的時代要回來了?

一個新的潮流: X-phil (experimental philosophy) 正在非主流哲學世界燃燒中。

回顧哲學與科學尚未分流的一百年前，所謂的愛好智慧者就是以多重管道了解這個世界，這其中當然包括實驗方法。然而隨著不同的科學領域各自因方法學的專業化和知識的累積而專精，哲學似乎也找到自己的角落，從事armchair上邏輯推演與概念分析的工作。

這是哲學家唯一的樣貌嗎?

今天我們可以看到Alva Noe與科學家共同發表paper, Metzinger與科學家合作離體實驗, Ned Block引用大量的科學資料，但是自己在做實驗的哲學家有多少?

直覺？
對直覺感冒的人有福了...X-phil其中一部分的人在問「直覺」是否真的是「直覺」，真的就是街頭上的人未受理論污染的想法（layman on the street)：

Under the x-phi banner it’s possible to distinguish three types of activity. The first uses new brain-scanning technology, for which philosophers teaming up with neuroscientists, like Katja Wiech, to look for patterns of neuronal activity when subjects are presented with philosophical problems. In the second type, philosophers devise questionnaires to discover people’s intuitions and go out in the street with the trusty clipboard. In the third, they conduct field experiments, observing how people behave in particular situations, often without their knowledge. All three aim to test the philosophers’ assumption that they know from introspection what people are likely to say or believe. The traditional philosophical assertion, “we have strong intuitions that…” or “we can all agree that…” now have to be tested against the evidence. The idea of who “we” are is being challenged, for instance by surveys suggesting broad cultural differences about intuitions. The philosopher in his Oxford study may not share intuitions with the shopper down the road in Queen’s Street, whose intuitions, in turn, may differ from those in Queen’s Road, Hong Kong. Such research raises big issues about our moral education. （http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/article_details.php?id=10638）

上面引述的這篇文章將重點放在討論X-phil做的兩種實驗：問卷來探索一般人的直覺，以及腦造影技術來探討人在面對不同狀況時的機制與反應。

Raymond Geuss on Real Politics 在最近一個podcast談得就是一些政治哲學家把一些自己文化與社會的accidental properties當作law like properties建立理想社會與政治理想的model是錯誤的。

有個X-phil的blog

我之後再把自己的感想post上來...先share這個資訊。

MIND GR¥UP

http://fias.uni-frankfurt.de/philosophie/

MIND GR¥UP
We are a group of young philosophers and scientists with a strong interest in questions concerning the mind, consciousness and cognition. The group – initiated and coordinated by Thomas Metzinger – consists of young researchers from various disciplines such as philosophy, psychology, cognitive science and neuroscience. The basic idea of this group is to create a platform for people with one systematic focus in philosophy (typically analytical philosophy of mind or ethics) and another one in empirical research (typically neuro- or cognitive neuroscience). Our aim is to build a network, and to integrate these different approaches to foster the development of advanced theories of the mind which incorporate most recent empirical findings as well as sophisticated conceptual work. Thus, one major purpose of the group is to help bridging the gap between sciences and humanities. At least twice a year the group meetings take place at the FIAS in Frankfurt with public lectures of well-known cognitive scientists.