Dear all, The next USyd philosophy postgraduate colloquium will be held on Monday May 26 @ 2pm in the Muniment room (Quadrangle building, University of Sydney). All very welcome!!
Talk details: *John Duns Scotus on Mind Expanding Substances (Xavier Symons)* In this paper I will argue that the extended mind thesis (EMT), expounded by Clarke and Chalmers (2008, 1998), is also found in the writings of John Duns Scotus (1308). Scotus asserted that a thing’s physical location ‘in’ the head was irrelevant to it’s being part of the mind. I will begin with a discussion of Scotus’s theory of intuitive cognition, the notion that we intellectually intuit the existence and presence of objects in the world around us. According to Scotus, the objects of such cognitions play direct causal roles in the process. Following this I will discuss Scotus’s criteria for something being ‘in’ the mind. He argued that something is ‘in’ the mind if it bears a direct causal relation to the ‘passive intellect’ (the ‘*knowing*’ part of the mind). It is not necessary for something to actually ‘inhere’ in the mind; it is sufficient for it to have this causal relation. Insofar as this is true objects that directly cause cognition are ‘in’ the mind, despite not inhering in it. To this extent, the idea that mind is ‘in the skin’ (as Clarke and Chalmers put it) breaks down. I conclude my paper with the suggestion that we can profit from Scotus’s heavily ‘metaphysical’ treatment of the EMT. >
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