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Essays - BA Philosophy Category


Dissertation - Wittgenstein on Following a Rule | Posted by joh at 05:57 PM on October 15, 2002
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What exactly is the Augustinian picture of the nature of language, and what does Wittgenstein think is wrong with it? Wittgenstein opens his Philosophical Investigations with a quote from Augustine in his Confessions: When they (my elders) named some object,...
Philosophy of Language - Augustinian View | Posted by joh at 05:49 PM on October 14, 2002
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To what extent is the verification principle relevant to the meaning of a statement? The Verification Principle was used by a group of scientists and philosophers known as the Vienna Circle who wanted an account of what constitutes meaningfulness in...
Philosophy of Language - Verificationism | Posted by joh at 05:47 PM on October 14, 2002
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Which is the more basic, thought or language. Is there a language of thought? Traditionally language and thought have been considered to be one and the same, or at least so similar that it is not possible to have one...
Philosophy of Language - Language of Thought | Posted by joh at 05:46 PM on October 14, 2002
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Can justice be done to the special status of knowledge of our own minds without making it impossible to know anything about the minds of others? To consider whether justice can be done to the special status of our knowledge...
Philosophy of Mind - Other Minds | Posted by joh at 05:44 PM on October 13, 2002
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Is Functionalism any significant improvement on Behaviourism? To assess whether functionalism is any significant improvement on behaviourism we need to first consider both the theories in regard to their strengths and weaknesses. Once that has been done it will be...
Philosophy of Mind - Functionalism | Posted by joh at 05:40 PM on October 13, 2002
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Is Hume right about causation? If I am to consider whether Hume’s ideas of causation are correct, I must first discuss exactly what is meant by causation and, indeed, what exactly Hume’s views were on the matter. Causality according to...
Philosophy of Mind - Hume on Causation | Posted by joh at 05:35 PM on October 13, 2002
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What is wrong with the Ontological arguments for the existence of God? Although we can conceive of the negation of something which exists in reality, it seems strange to think of a supremely powerful being with no beginning or end,...
Epistemology and Metaphysics - Ontological Argument | Posted by joh at 05:38 PM on October 12, 2002
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Is Goodman’s new riddle of induction distinct from the old one? Causality is the relationship between cause and effect, or the principle that everything has a cause. In this essay I shall be concentrating on the difficulty with prediction using...
Epistemology and Metaphysics - Goodman's Grue | Posted by joh at 05:31 PM on October 12, 2002
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Can Representationalism Be Defended? To assess whether the representationalist theory of perception is defensible, it must first be considered whether the theory that it is opposing is in some way unsustainable, and subsequently whether it provides a stronger basis as...
Epistemology and Metaphysics - Representationalism | Posted by joh at 05:29 PM on October 12, 2002
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How can we know that there are Other Minds? We take it for granted that other people have minds like our own.  We can accept that they may not be exactly similar; having different beliefs, views of the world etc,...
Philosophy of Cognitive Science - Other Minds | Posted by joh at 11:41 PM on October 11, 2002
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“If the human brain were so simple that we could understand it, we would be so simple that we could not.” (Emerson Pugh) Discuss the dilemma in relation to advances made in Cognitive Science The human brain is a very...
Philosophy of Cognitive Science - The Human Brain | Posted by joh at 11:18 PM on October 11, 2002
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The Poplog Version of Eliza As a child I remember going round to a friend’s house and playing on their computer. At home we only had a Spectrum, which had failed to catch my attention, but my friends had a...
Philosophy of Cognitive Science - Eliza | Posted by joh at 11:11 PM on October 11, 2002
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Could There Be Several Persons “In” One Body? As Shakespeare once put it: “This above all: to thine own self be true”[i].  It is through our selves, our personal identity that we remember the past and look to the future. ...
Philosophy of Cognitive Science - Several Minds | Posted by joh at 10:44 PM on October 11, 2002
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Does Searle show that a system cannot "understand" merely in virtue of processing symbols in a particular way? With the advent of computers came a view of the human mind which paralleled their operation. The hardware of the brain was...
Philosophy of Cognitive Science - Chinese Room | Posted by joh at 04:38 PM on October 11, 2002
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Why might one think that Functionalism is better than Behaviourism? To assess whether functionalism is any significant improvement on behaviourism we need to first consider both the theories in regard to their strengths and weaknesses. Once that has been done...
Philosophy of Cognitive Science - Functionalism vs. Behaviourism | Posted by joh at 04:35 PM on October 11, 2002
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Is Folk Psychology a Theory? Folk psychology, or commonsense psychology, is something that we are all familiar with, and that we all use in everyday life. It is the way that we ascribe people with such things as ‘beliefs’, desires’,...
Philosophy of Cognitive Science - Folk Psychology | Posted by joh at 04:19 PM on October 11, 2002
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What are the Advantages/Disadvantages of Machine Functionalism as regards Cognitive Science? The purpose of this essay is to consider the advantages and disadvantages of Functionalism, and more specifically Machine Functionalism, as regards Cognitive Science. It can be seen that with...
Philosophy of Cognitive Science - Machine Functionalism | Posted by joh at 03:51 PM on October 11, 2002
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What makes a system a true believer? Daniel Dennett claims that there are ‘two opposing views on the nature of belief attribution’.[i] One, which is a type of realism, claims that it is a purely objective matter about which it...
Philosophy of Cognitive Science - Dennett's True Believers | Posted by joh at 03:42 PM on October 11, 2002
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What is the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis? Discuss the motivations for and predictions of such a view, with particular reference to cognitive semantics. Cognitive semanticists are particularly interested in the relation between language, culture and cognition. Because of this, they have paid...
Cognitive Linguistics - Sapir Whorf | Posted by joh at 11:06 PM on October 10, 2002
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On the basis of ‘goodness-of-example’ rating tests, Rosch (1975) argues that categories are formed on the basis of prototypes. Collect judgements from three non-linguists for the following 34 members of the category KITCHEN UTENSIL, by asking them to rank members...
Cognitive Linguistics - Prototypes | Posted by joh at 10:29 PM on October 10, 2002
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Outline and discuss the main differences between formal and cognitive approaches to linguistic meaning. Which type of approach do you find most persuasive? Since any discussion of linguistic meaning is traditionally the realm of semantics, in order to discuss the...
Cognitive Linguistics - Semantic Approaches | Posted by joh at 10:05 PM on October 10, 2002
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What is the modularity hypothesis? What kinds of evidence argue for or against this hypothesis? Discuss with particular reference to cognitive semantics. The Modularity Hypothesis is most strongly associated with the view advocated by Fodor in his book The Modularity...
Cognitive Linguistics - Modularity Hypothesis | Posted by joh at 09:58 PM on October 10, 2002
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Discuss the following financial report from the Evening Standard newspaper, in the light of Lakoff and Johnson’s (1980) claims concerning the cognitive basis of metaphor. The punters pile in for a piece of C&W: The buyers came pouring in today...
Cognitive Linguistics - Prices Rise | Posted by joh at 09:42 PM on October 10, 2002
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Mind-as-machine Lakoff objects in chapter 19 of Women, Fire and Dangerous Things to what he calls the mind-as-machine paradigm. He describes the mind-as-machine paradigm as claiming that ‘the mind is a computer with biological hardware and runs using programs essentially...
Cognitive Linguistics - Lakoff Notes | Posted by joh at 09:14 PM on October 10, 2002
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