Philosophy Dictionary of ArgumentsHome
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| Other minds, philosophy: in relation to the mind of other persons, it is about the extent to which experiences and thoughts of others are recognizable to us. See also Privileged access, First person, Consciousness, Perception, Qualia, Perspective, Objectivity, Subjectivity, Inverted spectra, Theory of Mind._____________Annotation: The above characterizations of concepts are neither definitions nor exhausting presentations of problems related to them. Instead, they are intended to give a short introduction to the contributions below. – Lexicon of Arguments. | |||
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Chris Frith on Other Minds - Dictionary of Arguments
I, 15ff Foreign psychological/Frith: the brain creates the illusion that the world of thought is isolated and private. The brain conceals from ourselves the unconscious conclusions it draws. Culture: culture has influenced the functioning of the brain. >Brain, >Brain states, >Brain/Frith, >Thoughts, >Thinking, >World/thinking. Culture: culture has influenced the way the brain works. >Culture. I 199 Empathy/foreign psychological/imitation/Frith: thesis: imitation opens the access to the private thought-world of others. Pain/Frith: we learn something about the pain of another by observing what he/she is doing and listening to what he/she says. >Pain, >Pain/Wittgenstein, >Intersubjectivity. Pain Matrix: are certain regions in the brain that become active when someone suffers. N.B.: therefore the physiological correlates of this experience are by no means private. Pain/N.B.: the subjective experience is not directly linked to the physical nature of the pain stimulus. A red-hot iron bar feels less painful when one is distracted. Placebos: can also alleviate the feeling of pain when the person merely assumes that they do alleviate the pain. Brain/pain: some regions correspond to the physical temperature of the iron bar, others with the subjective pain sensation. I 200 Foreign psychological/empathy: when we observe that someone is suffering pain, the same brain regions become active as if we have pain. I 201 Foreign psychological/pain/Frith: we construct mental models based on the stimuli that we would have ourselves. Because we are developing thought models of the physical world, we can share our experience in the mental world. I 202 Originator/action/movement/foreign psychological/sovereignty/Frith: something that is as private as pain: the experience that we are the originators of our actions. >Authorship, >First Person, >Actions, >Subject, cf. >Libet experiment. Cause/effect/Frith:cause and effect are connected here to units, as e.g. color, form and movement are connected to form objects. >Cause, >Effect. Object/thing/Frith: thesis: the object arises from a combination of form, color and movement. >Objects. I 208 Foreign psychological/Frith: precisely because we are not directly connected with the physical world, not even with the world of our body, we can enter the mental world of others. But there are problems because our image of the world is a fantasy image: Def "Supported Communication"/Frith: people with severe disability can communicate through an assistant. In tests, it can be found that it is the moderator who answers the questions. Until this is pointed out, he/she does not know this! The moderator is deceived about the origin. I 238 Foreign psychological/"thought reading"/Frith: it is possible to determine quite directly what is going on in the mind of another person, e.g. in a video of someone who lifts a box: one can see if it is heavier or lighter than what was the person told in the video before. So one can recognize wrong ideas in someone else._____________Explanation of symbols: Roman numerals indicate the source, arabic numerals indicate the page number. The corresponding books are indicated on the right hand side. ((s)…): Comment by the sender of the contribution. Translations: Dictionary of Arguments The note [Concept/Author], [Author1]Vs[Author2] or [Author]Vs[term] resp. "problem:"/"solution:", "old:"/"new:" and "thesis:" is an addition from the Dictionary of Arguments. If a German edition is specified, the page numbers refer to this edition. |
Frith I Chris Frith Making up the Mind: How the Brain Creates Our Mental World, Hoboken/NJ 2007 German Edition: Wie unser Gehirn die Welt erschafft Heidelberg 2013 |
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> Counter arguments against Frith
> Counter arguments in relation to Other Minds
Ed. Martin Schulz, access date 2024-04-27