The 2nd International Conference on Comparative Studies in Mind (ICCSM 2011)

● Theme: How to understand human mind?

● Date: December 1(Thursday), 2011

● Place: Chug-Ang University, Seoul, Korea

● Organization: Institute of Chung-Ang Philosophical Studies,
                          Chung-Ang University



● The Organizing Committee

  Kwon Jong Yoo(Chung-Ang University), Chair

  Bosuk Yoon(Ewha Woman’s University)

  Choong Shik Park(Young Dong University)

  Hoyoung Choe(Korea University)

  Jong Kwon Lee(Chung-Ang University)

  Joo Man Maeung(Chung-Ang University)

  Jung Mo Lee(SungKyunKwnan University)

  Kwee-Bo Sim(Chung-Ang University)

  Myung Han Lee(Chung-Ang University)

  Sung Hwan Choi(Chung-Ang University)

  Young Chul Youn(Chung-Ang University))

  Young E. Rhee(Kangwon National University), Program Manager

  Nameun Kim(Chung-Ang University), General Secretary

  

● Chung-Ang University

   http://neweng.cau.ac.kr/  

    

● For more information please contact the organizing
   committee at philinst@cau.ac.kr
    

  Tel +82-2-820-6377
  Fax +82-2-825-0150

Program

Time	Program
09:40-10:00	Registration
10:00-10:15	Opening Address: Kwon Jong Yoo(Director, Institute of Chung_Ang Philosophical Studies) Congratulatory Address: Kookshon Ahn(President, Chung_Ang University)
10:15-11:00	Keynote speech Patricia S. Churchland(UCSD, USA)_ Decisions, Responsibility and the Brain
11:00-12:20	Session 1 Yukihiro Nobuhara(University of Tokyo, Japan)_ Responsibility    and Self-control Caleb Liang(National Taiwan University, Taiwan)_ Perceptual    Objectivity and Vision Science Young E. Rhee(Kangwon National University, Korea)_ Distributed    Cognition and Human Agency
12:20-13:30	Lunch
13:30-14:50	Session 2 Stephen Palmquist(Hong Kong Baptist University, China) _ Kant’s     Perspectival Solution to the Mind-Body Problem— Or Why     Eliminative Materialists Must Be Kantians Sung Hwan Choi(Chung_Ang University, Korea)_ Hermeneutics        and Problem of Mind Youngjin Kiem(Kyonggi University, Korea)_ Refining the First-     Person Methodology in the Study of Phenomenal Consciousness
14:50-15:00	Break
15:00-16:20	Session 3 Kwon Jong Yoo(Chung_Ang University, Korea)_Mind and Brain:     How to put the Evidences of Brian and Neuro-science     into   the Confucian Mind Learning? Konstantin S. Khroutski(Novgorod State University, Russia)_     Biocosmological Triadic approach in the study of the mind Chutatip Umavijani(Thammasat University, Thailand)_ Meditative     Mind and the Globalization World
16:20-17:20	Round Table Chutatip Umavijani, Patricia. Churchland, Caleb Liang, Sung Hwan Choi, Konstantin S. Khroutski, Kwon Jong Yoo, Stephen Palmquist, Yukihiro Nobuhara, Young E. Rhee, Youngjin Kiem

Patricia Smith Churchland

Patricia Smith Churchland is a Professor emerita of Philosophy at the University of California, San Diego, and an adjunct Professor at the Salk Institute.

Her research focuses on the interface between neuroscience and philosophy. She explores the impact of scientific developments on our understanding of consciousness, the self, free will, ethics, and religion.

She is author of the groundbreaking book, <Neurophilosophy> (MIT Press 1986), co-author with T. J. Sejnowski of <The Computational Brain> (MIT 1992), co-author with Paul Churchland of <On The Contrary> (MIT 1998). <Brain-Wise> was published by MIT Press in 2002. Her current work focuses on morality and the social brain, and appeared in <Braintrust: What Neuroscience tells us about Morality>, published in March 2011 by Princeton University Press.

She has been president of the American Philosophical Association and the Society for Philosophy and Psychology, and won a MacArthur Prize in 1991 and the Rossi Prize in 2008. She was chair of the Philosophy Department from 2000-2007. An extended interview can be found on The Science Network www.tsn.org and on Philosophy Bites http://www.philosophybites.libsyn.com/

Decisions, Responsibility and the Brain

Patricia Smith Churchland

Philosophy Department

University of California, San Diego

   As we come to understand the role of genes in neuronal wiring, and neuronal wiring in the production of  behavior, we are newly confronted with questions about choice and responsibility. Although questions concerning what free choice really amounts to have long been at the center of philosophical reflection, new discoveries, especially  from neuropharmacology and neuropsychology, have lent them a special and very practical urgency.  In the courts, in the education of children, and in general in daily life,  we assume that some decisions are freely made and that agents should be held accountable for those decisions. On the other hand, we see the range of allowable excuses from responsibility broadening as we begin to understand the role of certain neuropathologies in aberrant behavior. These developments take place against the public policy debate concerning the right balance between considerations of public safety, justice, fairness, and individual freedom. From the perspective of neurophilosophy, I shall address some of the broad questions in this arena, including the theological and  metaphysical contention that free choice is uncaused choice, and the proposal that pragmatic and scientific considerations can yield the best working basis for assignment of responsibility.

Chutatip Umavijani

Education:

BA (Philosophy and Humanities), Scripps College, Claremont, Calif. (1971)

MA (International Relations Studies), Claremont Graduate University, Claremont, Calif. (1974)

Work Place: Department of Philosophy, Faculty of Liberal Arts, Thammasat University, Bangkok, Thailand (1974- present)

Subjects and interest: Western Philosophy, Modern Philosophy, Integrated Humanities Ethics, Man and Technology, Buddhist Philosophy, Buddhist Meditation

Interested: Mindful meditation (for 45 years) and New World Order.

Books:

Life and Self Knowledge, (6th edition), Thammasat Printing Press, Bangkok, 2009. (Thai)

(ed.) Integrated Humanities (5th edition), Thammasat Printing Press, Bangkok, 2008.(Thai)

(ed. with Sarah Sutro) Buddhist Chanting for Health, Peace and Happiness, Thammasarn Printing Press, Bangkok 2008. (English and Thai) 2008.

(Translated) J.Huxley and J.Bronowski, The Growth of Ideas: Knowledge, Thought, Imagination, Thammasat Printing Press, Bangkok, 2008. (Thai)

 

Articles:

“Bioethics is Love of Life for Happines”s
“Meditation for Peace and Happiness in this Globalized World”
“Analysis principles of Buddha and Aristotle”
“Mt.Merapi and Bah Marajan: Nature’s Fury in relation with the Javanese Mountain Belief
   System”
“Quantum Physics and Three Characteristics of Reality in Buddhism”
“Technology for Peace”
“The Importance of Philosophy”(for Philosophy Day)
“Mind and Environment”
“Wu Wei of Tao and Mindful Meditation to Save Nature in the 21st Century”

Meditative Mind and Globalization World

Chutatip Umavijani

Philosophy Department

Thammasat University, Thailand

   As we are living in this present world, technology helps us to have easy life. We use tools in order to help man work less, hope to have a better life, a happier life than our forefather. But on the contrary, the present world with the propaganda of the capitalistic society, we are overwhelmed by materials around is. As the result the more things are the more we want, self satisfaction, peace and happiness can never be attained.

   There are several books came out that concern about happiness such as, Richard Layard, Happiness: Lessons from a New Science, and Greg Easterbrook, Progress Paradox: How Life Gets Better While People Feel Worse. These books show that happiness does not depend on income or material gains. Luxurious life does not always bring happiness. Such materialistic society can lead man to be more greedy, no satisfaction, emptiness and suicide.

How does meditation effect upon the mind? Meditation can quiet our mind, enable us to look within and able to have self satisfaction. Through meditation one can reach to the constructive state of mind, to have more compassion, inner peace, strength, freedom and happiness. And able to over come the destructive state of the mind, such as jealousy, anger, greediness and obsession. Compassion and altruistic love are the most constructive emotions of mental states.

   Meditative mind can let go things, able to see things as they are. Able to see the true self, reality of the self, or Know Thyself of Socrates. The meditative mind is the mind that is fully aware of the present moment at all times. The more one is in the meditative state, the more one can stay longer in the state of awareness. The practical process is important. Which means one has to fix one's mind at one pointedness and stay in the present moment at all times.

   This mindful meditation enable one to realize the three characteristics of reality in nature: the impermanence, the suffering and no self. Mindful meditation is the path to enlightenment. Enable one to go beyond the negative feeling towards life. Able to understand and accept things as they are. To know and realize reality beyond appearance. Enable one to be self sufficient and know one's limit. Able to manage with greediness, anger, and jealousy. Able to contribute and give to others more. Peace and happiness by self satisfaction can be attained.

Konstantin S. Khroutski

Current Title and Affiliation: Associate Professor, Novgorod State University after Yaroslav-the-Wise, Institute of Medical Education, Department of Specialized Therapy, Russia. Office Email: hrucki@gmail.com Konstantin.Khrutsky@novsu.ru

Education:

Medical School, Kirov Military Medical Academy (KMMA), St. Petersburg, Russia, 1974–1980; field of study – medicine, degree – M.D.

PhD Educational Program at the Novgorod State University after Yaroslav-the-Wise, Novgorod Velikiy, Russia; 1994–1997; field of study – philosophy and history of philosophy.

Defense of the thesis “Axiological approach in modern valeology” in the 2000, The obtained degree – Ph.D. (in philosophical anthropology and philosophy of culture).

Dr.Phil (higher doctorate) Educational Program at the Lomonosov Moscow State University (since the 2005) in the field of philosophy of science (the planned date of Doctoral thesis defense – second half of the 2012).

Book (in Russian):

BioCosmology – Universal Science of the Individual Health of a Person. [Novgorod Velikiy, Novgorod University Press]. July 2006.

Selected articles (in English):
Triadic Biocosmological approach in modern science and philosophy // Electronic journal «Биокосмология (Biocosmology) – neo-Aristotelism». Vol. 1. No. 2/3. Spring/Summer 2011. P. 144–146. URL: http://en.biocosmology.ru/electronic-journal-biocosmology---neo-aristotelism

On Biocosmology, Aristotelism and the prospects of becoming of the universal science and philosophy // Electronic journal “Биокосмология (Biocosmology) – neo-Aristotelism”. Vol. 1. No1. Winter 2010. P. 4–17. URL: http://en.biocosmology.ru/electronic-journal-biocosmology---neo-aristotelism

All-Embracing (Triune) Medicine of the Individual’s Health: A Biocosmological Perspective // Journal of Futures Studies. Volume 14, Number 4. 2010. P. 65–84. (accessible: http://www.jfs.tku.edu.tw/sarticles.html)

“Holistics, humanistics, realistics” – three main cosmological spheres of investigative work // SCIENCE WITHOUT BORDERS. Transactions of the International Academy of Science. H&E. Vol.3. 2009. P. 535–546.

Biocosmology – Rehabilitating Aristotle’s Realistic Organicism and Recommencing Russian Universal Cosmism: Response to Arthur Saniotis // Eubios Journal of Asian and International Bioethics. Vol. 18 (7), 2008, pp. 98–105. (accessible at http://www.eubios.info/EJAIB.htm)

The Evolutionary Time of Awakening: Do We Need a Third (neither Eastern, nor Western) Way in the World Evolution? // Journal of Futures Studies. Vol. 12(3), 2008, pp. 101–109.

Cosmist Revolution in Organizing the Civilizational Power // In: Hierarchy and Power in the History of Civilizations: Political Aspects of Modernity / Ed. by L.E. Grinin. Moscow: KD “LIBROCOM”, 2008, pp. 78-89.

Biocosmological Triadic approach in the study of the mind

Konstantin S. Khroutski

Department of Specialized Therapy

Institute of Medical Education

Novgorod State University, Russia

   Biocosmological Triadic approach is put forward as the useful means in the area of comparative study in mind. This approach is based on the restoration (return) to the original sense of the notion “cosmology” and rehabilitation of the genuine meaning (comprehension and use) of Aristotle’s philosophy. A key point is that the Aristotelian philosophical system has the Organicist essence – it is based on its own (Bio)cosmology. In turn, the proposed Biocosmological approach has the neo-Aristotelian essence. The formula of a Biocosmological study (as it was elaborated during the First International seminar on Biocosmology, in Veliky Novgorod, July 2010) is “Bio-3/4”. “Bio” means that Biocosmology uses the universal Organicist relation to the world – the position “within” the one whole organic Cosmos. “3” and “4” mean the universal Triadic (Three-dimensional) approach and the Four-causal (truly Aristotelian) aetiology – of the equal significance of all four main cosmic causes: material, formative, efficient and telic or final (but with the leading role of the latter).

   In the presentation, a comparative analysis of the three Biocosmological spheres (AntiCosmist, ACosmist and RealCosmist, and their produced methodological and practical approaches) is realized. The latter (RealCosmist or BioCosmological) characteristics include the analysis of the achievements of Russian neurophysiologists and psychologists (I.M. Sechenov, I.P. Pavlov, A.A. Ukhtomsky, P.K. Anokhin, P.V. Simonov and other). Their achievements might be integrated into the notion “the school of Russian or Cosmist functionalism”. Therefore, understanding of the human mind ought to be realized at least from the three equal and independent cosmological (aetiological, methodological) foundations.

Caleb Liang

Caleb Liang (Ph. D. Indiana-Bloomington, 2001) is associate professor of philosophy at National Taiwan University. His research interests are in the philosophy of mind and perception. He and his collaborator recently published “Higher-Order Thought and Pathological Self: the Case of Somatoparaphrenia” in Analysis (2009), and “Self-Consciousness and Immunity” in Journal of Philosophy (2011).

Perceptual Objectivity and Vision Science

Caleb Liang

Department of Philosophy

National Taiwan University

   What is the most fundamental relationship between visual perception and the world? Most philosophers of perception have felt no need to take empirical research into consideration. In recent years, this situation has begun to change. This paper discusses the most advanced theory in this new development by Tyler Burge.

   In Origins of Objectivity (2010), Burge applies his well-known anti-individualism to perceptual psychology. According to his perceptual anti-individualism (PAI), the natures and individuation of perceptual states constitutively depend on relations, including causal relations, between perceivers and the environment. Perception delineates the lower border of representational mind and exhibits the most basic sort of objectivity. This view, he argues, is presupposed by the empirical research of perceptual psychology, particularly vision science. I raise three issues to examine Burge’s positive theory of perception. First, I consider two essential ideas of Burge’s theory: the representational function of perception and the proximality principle. I point out that there is a serious tension between these two claims. Second, I discuss what Burge calls the biological functions of perception. I argue that the current best empirical accounts in this regard run counter to some central aspects of PAI. Third, I consider some empirical theories of vision and argue that none of them can be considered as providing the sort of empirical support that PAI requires. Vision science neither uniquely nor substantially favors PAI. I conclude that, pace Burge, perceptual anti-individualism is not the only framework within which vision science can be understood.

Yukihiro Nobuhara

Qualifications:

PhD, the University of Tokyo, 2000. Title of Thesis Naturalizing the Mind (in Japanese)

BA, the University of Tokyo, 1977

Employment:

2008 - Professor, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, the University of Tokyo

1995-2008 Associate Professor, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, the University of Tokyo

Current Research Interests:

Philosophical psychology, Neuroethics, Neuroliteracy.

Books:

2002. Philosophy of Consciousness: How to Naturalize Qualia, Iwanamishoten (in Japanese).

2000. A Connectionist View of Mind, Koudansha (in Japanese).

1999. Naturalizing the Mind, Keisoshobo (in Japanese).

Responsibility and Self-control

Yukihiro Nobuhara

Philosophy Department

University of Tokyo

   There are a variety of ways we lose self-control. Here I focus on one interesting case of loss of self-control: hijacking of belief by desire. Belief should reflect a fact so that in order to form a rational belief, we should form a belief independently of our desires. But sometimes the process of belief formation is affected by desires. In particular it is sometimes affected by desires when we are forming evaluative beliefs. Evaluative belief should reflect a fact about value. It should not be distorted by desires. However, the desire formation process sometimes hijacks the belief formation process unconsciously. In this case we form an evaluative belief which does not correspond to a value but rather to a desire. We are forced to form the evaluative belief which justifies the desire ex post. I explore in what respects we lose self-control in the case of hijacking and whether we are responsible for an action resulting from the hijacking. Obviously we fail to control the belief formation process. But I argue that we also fail to control the desire formation process. Desire should be formed in accordance with an evaluative belief or if it is formed otherwise, it should be adjusted so as to accord with a corresponding evaluative belief. Rationality of desire requires it. Finally I argue that we are responsible for an action in the hijacking case if we have the capacity for self-control but fail to exercise it.

Stephen Palmquist

Stephen R. Palmquist is Professor in the Religion and Philosophy Department at Hong Kong Baptist University, where he has taught since obtaining his doctorate from Oxford University (St. Peter's College) in 1987. Focusing his research on the architectonic structure and perspectival orientation of Kant’s philosophical System, he has become a leading figure in what is now called the "affirmative" approach to interpreting Kant’s philosophy of religion; he is also currently exploring the relevance of Kant's philosophy to modern revolutions in science.

His 125 publications, mostly on Kant, include nine books (e.g., the first two volumes of a projected four-volume work, entitled <Kant's System of Perspectives>) and multiple articles in the following journals: Kant-Studien, Faith & Philosophy, Heythrop Journal, Journal of Religion, Philosophy & Theology, Polish Journal of Philosophy, and Review of Metaphysics. He organized the Kant in Asia conference, held in Hong Kong in May of 2009, and recently edited the proceedings, entitled <Cultivating Personhood: Kant and Asian Philosophy>(de Gruyter, 2010).

Academic Degrees

D.Phil. (Philosophical Theology), Oxford University (St. Peter’s College), 1987.

B.A. (Religious Studies), Westmont College, Santa Barbara, 1979 (magna cum laude).

Academic Positions

1987- : Department of Religion and Philosophy, Hong Kong Baptist University (rank: Professor).

Visiting Scholar, Stanford University, 2006-2007.

Visiting Scholar, University of California, Berkeley, 2001.

Selected Publications

‘The Kantian Grounding of Einstein’s Worldview: (II) Simultaneity, the Synthetic A Priori and God’, Polish Journal of Philosophy V:1 (Spring 2011).

‘The Unity of Architectonic Reasoning in Kant and I Ching’, in Cultivating Personhood: Kant and Asian Philosophy, ed. Stephen R. Palmquist (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2010), pp.811-821.

‘The Ethics of Grace: Kant’s Perspectival Solution to the Moral Problems with Divine Assistance’, Journal of Religion 90:4 (2010), pp.530-553.

‘The Kantian Grounding of Einstein’s Worldview: (I) The Early Influence of Kant’s System of Perspectives’, Polish Journal of Philosophy 4:1 (2010).

‘Introduction’, in Immanuel Kant’s Religion within the Bounds of Bare Reason, tr. Werner Pluhar (Indianapolis: Hackett, 2009), pp.xv-xlix.

‘Kant’s Religious Argument for the Existence of God—The Ultimate Dependence of Human Destiny on Divine Assistance’, Faith and Philosophy 26 (January 2009), pp.3-22.

‘Kant’s Quasi-Transcendental Argument for a Necessary and Universal Evil Propensity in Human Nature’, The Southern Journal of Philosophy 46.2 (Summer 2008), pp.261-297.

‘Philosophers in the Public Square’, in Kant and the New Philosophy of Religion, ed. Stephen R. Palmquist and Chris L. Firestone (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2006).

Kant’s Critical Religion: Volume Two of Kant’s System of Perspectives (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2000).

Kant’s System of Perspectives: An architectonic interpretation of the Critical philosophy (Lanham: University Press of America, 1993).

Kant’s Perspectival Solution to the Mind-Body Problem—

Or Why Eliminative Materialists Must Be Kantians

Stephen R. Palmquist

Department of Religion and Philosophy

Hong Kong Baptist University

   Kant’s pre-1770 philosophy responded to the mind-body problem by applying a theory of “physical influx”. His encounter with Swedenborg’s mysticism, however, left him disillusioned with any dualist solution to Descartes’ problem. One of the major goals of the Critical philosophy was to provide a completely new solution to the mind-body problem. Kant’s new solution is “perspectival” in the sense that all Critical theories are perspectival: it acknowledges a deep truth in both of the controversy’s extremes (i.e., what we might nowadays call eliminative materialism and an absolutely ideal folk psychology), by viewing both as ways of considering the issue, rather than as the only correct approach. Once we take into account its perspectival character, a new way of understanding Kant’s philosophy of mind emerges. The mind is no longer separate from the body, but is a manifestation of it, viewed from another (specifically human, rational) perspective.

   Kant’s transcendental conditions of knowledge (spatio-temporal intuition, categorial conception, and principled schematization) do not portray the mind as somehow creating the physical world; rather, they imply the opposite, that knowledge of objects is necessarily structured by a set of unconscious assumptions about the physical world. Our pre-conscious (or pre-mental, in Descartes’ sense of “mental”) encounter with an assumed spatio-temporal, causal nexus is entirely physical. A reincarnated Kant’s solution to today’s mind-body problem would be: eliminative materialism is good science; but only the “explanatory idealist” can consistently be an eliminative materialist. Philosophically, multiple perspectives are necessary in order to understand anything we say or do.