Jamesian Philosophy Refreshed

Routledge has published a 14 essay collection of work b y some renowned neuroscientists. NEUROCOGNITIVE FOUNDATIONS OF MIND.  https://www.routledge.com/Neurocognitive-Foundations-of-Mind/Piccinini/p/book/9781032602981      Consider that title. It is NOT saying that the mind simply IS the cognitive consequence of neurology. It is saying that there is genuine cognitive activity going on at different levels, and that the cognitive activity we recognize as ourselves is distinct from but dependent upon cognitive activity at a more primal level, neutral.  The latter is, as the title sounds, foundational re the functioning mindful brain in its environment.   Gualtiero Puccinini and  colleagues call this an "integrationist" view as distinct from  autonomism on the one hand and reductionism on the other. The mind  can be neither reduced to nor is it autonomous from the body. The book appears to have begun as a conference at the University of Turin in ...

There has been much talk of late about a "replication crisis" in psychology. Important experimental results, sometimes results that have generated considerable bodies of literature, peer-reviewed and otherwise, have turned out to have been resting on sand when subjected to rigorous efforts at replication. One notorious example involves the "power pose" (standing, feet apart, hands on hips, chin up). Striking the power pose was supposedly proven to have a range of valuable psychological effects, including the reduction of stress. Except that it doesn't. The effect was the consequence of data mining and statistical noise. Such failed replication efforts have reopened talk about whether psychology deserves the title "science" at all. Fortunately, for those of us who will to believe that there IS such a science, some important results have survived efforts at replication. This is especially so it appears in the study of cognition, a very Jamesian bra...

In 1986 a fellow named Rom Harre wrote a defense of the "social constructivist" view of emotions and discussed loneliness in this connection. Loneliness, in his view, has no somatic component, it is a cognitive emotion, and thus illustrates how emotions are relative to the society in which the individual lives and breathes (and, in this case, sighs) and has his being.   Prinz, in the book I've discussed here before,  replies that, first, he isn't sure loneliness should be classified as an emotion at all. It may be a mood , which he treats as subtly different. But he doesn't seem sure of that point, so for the sake of argument he  regards it as an emotion.   Second, though, it isn't necessarily the case that it lacks physical symptoms. "It is hard to imagine feeling lonely while one's heart is racing, for example."    Third, and cutting to the heart of Harre's point, we don't have any good reason to believe that we need co...