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Full-Text Articles in Philosophy of Language

Why Minds Need Bodies: Organismic Unity And Limits Of Artificial Consciousness, Renée Snow Aug 2026

Why Minds Need Bodies: Organismic Unity And Limits Of Artificial Consciousness, Renée Snow

Comparative Philosophy

This paper argues that functional organization alone is not sufficient for phenomenal consciousness or the existence of a unified subject of experience. While many contemporary accounts of artificial consciousness assume that replicating the causal or computational structure of the brain would be sufficient for subjective experience, this paper identifies a deeper constraint: consciousness depends on organismic unity. The argument proceeds through a triangulation of conceptual, empirical, and metaphysical considerations. First, Zuboff’s thought experiment shows that functional organization can be preserved while the unity of the subject dissolves, suggesting that causal pattern replication alone cannot secure subjectivity. Second, findings from neuroscience …


Fang Zhu’S Shen-Mie-Lun And Contemporary Physicism: A Cross-Cultural Dialogue, Soo Lam Wong Aug 2026

Fang Zhu’S Shen-Mie-Lun And Contemporary Physicism: A Cross-Cultural Dialogue, Soo Lam Wong

Comparative Philosophy

Fan Zhen’s 范缜 “Shen-Mie-Lun 神灭论” can be read as a debate between a physicalist and a dualist in the philosophy of mind. Many of Fan’s arguments found in the “Shen-Mie-Lun” correspond to contemporary physicalism in Western analytic philosophy. My aim in this essay is to bring Fan's “Shen-Mie-Lun” into conversation with contemporary physicalism in the following way: (1) offer an outline of Fan’s physicalism as presented in the “Shen-Mie-Lun” (2) map his view onto the key positions and concepts of contemporary physicalism, (3) show how his view is (a) incompatible with eliminative …


Challenging The Double-Negation Principle: An Analysis Of Strategic Theories Of Sun Zi, Carnot, And Clausewitz Through Intuitionist Logic, Antonino Drago Jan 2026

Challenging The Double-Negation Principle: An Analysis Of Strategic Theories Of Sun Zi, Carnot, And Clausewitz Through Intuitionist Logic, Antonino Drago

Comparative Philosophy

To study a subject similarly represented in Eastern and Western cultures, I examine some classical theories of war strategy according to a new analytical method. This method is based on the recognition that the most important strategic theories are organized as theories essentially not deduced from axioms according to classical logic. Such theories reason through doubly negated propositions (DNPs), whose meanings differ from those of their affirmative counterparts. This corresponds to the use of intuitionist logic instead of classical logic. An inspection of the works of the texts of Sun Zi, Lazare Carnot, and Clausewitz reveals many such propositions, and …


Ineffability, Emptiness And The Aesthetics Of Logic, Andreas Kapsner Jan 2023

Ineffability, Emptiness And The Aesthetics Of Logic, Andreas Kapsner

Comparative Philosophy

In this essay, I explore the nature of the logical analysis of Buddhist thought that Graham Priest has offered in his book The Fifth Corner of Four (5of4). The paper traces the development of a logical value in- troduced in 5of4, which Priest has called e. The paper points out that certain criticisms I have made earlier still stand, but focuses on a recon- ceptualization of 5of4 in which these arguments carry less weight. This new perspective on the book, inspired by a response to my arguments by Priest himself, sees the logical analysis of Buddhism …


A Unifying Pluralist Account Of Truth And The Case Of Chinese Philosophy Examined From The Cross-Tradition Engaging Vantage Point: Reply To Chenyang Li, Bo Mou Jul 2021

A Unifying Pluralist Account Of Truth And The Case Of Chinese Philosophy Examined From The Cross-Tradition Engaging Vantage Point: Reply To Chenyang Li, Bo Mou

Comparative Philosophy

No abstract provided.


Truth In Chinese Philosophy: A Commentary On Bo Mou’S Semantic-Truth Approaches In Chinese Philosophy, Chenyang Li Jul 2021

Truth In Chinese Philosophy: A Commentary On Bo Mou’S Semantic-Truth Approaches In Chinese Philosophy, Chenyang Li

Comparative Philosophy

No abstract provided.


Don’T Be So Fast With The Knife: A Reply To Kapsner, Graham Priest Jul 2020

Don’T Be So Fast With The Knife: A Reply To Kapsner, Graham Priest

Comparative Philosophy

The is a brief reply to the central objection against the construction of my The Fifth Corner of Four by Andi Kapsner in his “Cutting Corners: A Critical Note on Priest’s Five-Valued Catuṣkoṭi. This concerns the desirability of adding a fifth corner (ineffability) to the four of the catuṣkoṭi.


A Russellian Analysis Of Buddhist Catuskoti, Nicholaos Jones Jul 2020

A Russellian Analysis Of Buddhist Catuskoti, Nicholaos Jones

Comparative Philosophy

Names name, but there are no individuals who are named by names. This is the key to an elegant and ideologically parsimonious strategy for analyzing the Buddhist catuṣkoṭi. The strategy is ideologically parsimonious, because it appeals to no analytic resources beyond those of standard predicate logic. The strategy is elegant, because it is, in effect, an application of Bertrand Russell's theory of definite descriptions to Buddhist contexts. The strategy imposes some minor adjustments upon Russell's theory. Attention to familiar catuṣkoṭi from Vacchagotta and Nagarjuna as well as more obscure catuṣkoṭi from Khema, Zhi Yi, and Fa Zang motivates the …


The “Indirect Message” In Kierkegaard And Chán Buddhism, Zdeněk Zacpal Jan 2020

The “Indirect Message” In Kierkegaard And Chán Buddhism, Zdeněk Zacpal

Comparative Philosophy

The article seeks to analyse Kierkegaard’s indirecte Meddelelse, which the author proposes to translate as ‘indirect message’. It attempts to consider and illuminate this concept and its general characteristics, types and cases in Kierkegaard's work. They are to serve as a baseline for investigations of indirect messages in Buddhism, especially the famous ‘public cases’ (gong-àn / kōan 公案) of the Chán Buddhists. The author tries to specify indirect messages on both sides of the cultural divide in terms of some Western philosophers. Kierkegaard’s theoretical rationale for his indirect message is profound, sophisticated and appropriate to the theoretical …


Recapture, Transparency, Negation And A Logic For The Catuṣkoṭi, Adrian Kreutz Jan 2019

Recapture, Transparency, Negation And A Logic For The Catuṣkoṭi, Adrian Kreutz

Comparative Philosophy

The recent literature on Nāgārjuna’s catuṣkoṭi centres around Jay Garfield’s (2009) and Graham Priest’s (2010) interpretation. It is an open discussion to what extent their interpretation is an adequate model of the logic for the catuskoti, and the Mūla-madhyamaka-kārikā. Priest and Garfield try to make sense of the contradictions within the catuskoti by appeal to a series of lattices – orderings of truth-values, supposed to model the path to enlightenment. They use Anderson & Belnaps's (1975) framework of First Degree Entailment. Cotnoir (2015) has argued that the lattices of Priest and Garfield …


In Memoriam: Richard Lane Tieszen (1951-2017) Jul 2017

In Memoriam: Richard Lane Tieszen (1951-2017)

Comparative Philosophy

No abstract provided.


Vol 8 No 2 Editor's Words, Bo Mou Jul 2017

Vol 8 No 2 Editor's Words, Bo Mou

Comparative Philosophy

No abstract provided.


Vol 8 No 2 Contents Page Jul 2017

Vol 8 No 2 Contents Page

Comparative Philosophy

No abstract provided.


Vol 8 No 2 Information Page Jul 2017

Vol 8 No 2 Information Page

Comparative Philosophy

No abstract provided.


Vol 8 No 2 Cover Page Jul 2017

Vol 8 No 2 Cover Page

Comparative Philosophy

No abstract provided.


The Perspective And Perspective-Transcending Dimensions Of Consciousness And Its Double-Aboutness Character: Bridging Searle And Zhuang Zi, Bo Mou Jan 2017

The Perspective And Perspective-Transcending Dimensions Of Consciousness And Its Double-Aboutness Character: Bridging Searle And Zhuang Zi, Bo Mou

Comparative Philosophy

What I intend to do here are closely related three things. First, in response to Searle’s “reply” comments on my previous article “Searle, Zhuang Zi, and Transcendental Perspectivism”, I will clarify and further elaborate one of the central points concerning the “perspective” dimension and “perspective-transcending” dimension of consciousness there. Second, more substantially, I will strengthen my point by explaining the “double-aboutness” character of consciousness which is intrinsically related to the foregoing two dimensions of consciousness concerning its “hooking-up-to-objects” capacity; through a semantic-ascent strategy, I will also explain how the point has substantial theoretic implications for exploring the issue of how …


Fiction As An Institution, A. P. Martinich Jan 2017

Fiction As An Institution, A. P. Martinich

Comparative Philosophy

John Searle and I agree about many important aspects about individual speech acts within fiction. I hope to reduce the area of disagreement by explaining how much work an analysis of fiction as linguistic behavior can do to solve the problems of truth and reference in fiction. The elements of the analysis include a concept of suspending H. P. Grice’s maxims of conversation, a view about criteria for the application of words and concepts, and the acceptance of institutions and institutional facts.


Editor's Words, Bo Mou Jan 2017

Editor's Words, Bo Mou

Comparative Philosophy

No abstract provided.


Vol 8 No 1 Contents Page Jan 2017

Vol 8 No 1 Contents Page

Comparative Philosophy

No abstract provided.


Vol 8 No 1 Information Page Jan 2017

Vol 8 No 1 Information Page

Comparative Philosophy

No abstract provided.


Vol 8 No 1 Cover Page Jan 2017

Vol 8 No 1 Cover Page

Comparative Philosophy

No abstract provided.


Vol 7 No 2 Contents Page Jul 2016

Vol 7 No 2 Contents Page

Comparative Philosophy

No abstract provided.


Vol 7 No 2 Information Page Jul 2016

Vol 7 No 2 Information Page

Comparative Philosophy

No abstract provided.


Vol 7 No 2 Cover Page Jul 2016

Vol 7 No 2 Cover Page

Comparative Philosophy

No abstract provided.


Vol 7 No 1 Contents Page Dec 2015

Vol 7 No 1 Contents Page

Comparative Philosophy

No abstract provided.


Vol 7 No 1 Information Page Dec 2015

Vol 7 No 1 Information Page

Comparative Philosophy

No abstract provided.


Vol 7 No 1 Cover Page Dec 2015

Vol 7 No 1 Cover Page

Comparative Philosophy

No abstract provided.