Knowledge Tree
John Foster
Facts (11)
Sources
Dualism (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy/Winter 2016 Edition) plato.stanford.edu Aug 19, 2003 6 facts
perspectiveJohn Foster expresses a view similar to George Berkeley's, arguing that individuals are aware of their experiences from the inside, not as something presented, but as an experiential state they are in, which implies being aware of oneself being aware.
perspectiveJohn Foster, Zeno Vendler, and Geoffrey Madell hold the 'no-analysis' view, which posits that attempting to analyze the nature of the self is a mistake.
quoteJohn Foster (1991) wrote: '…it seems to me that when I focus on myself introspectively, I am not only aware of being in a certain mental condition; I am also aware, with the same kind of immediacy, of being a certain sort of thing…It will now be asked: ‘Well, what is this nature, this sortal attribute? Let's have it specified!’ But such a demand is misconceived. Of course, I can give it a verbal label: for instance, I can call it ‘subjectness’ or ‘selfhood’. But unless they are interpreted ‘ostensively’, by reference to what is revealed by introspective awareness, such labels will not convey anything over and above the nominal essence of the term ‘basic subject’. In this respect, however, there is no difference between this attribute, which constitutes the subject's essential nature, and the specific psychological attributes of his conscious life…'
claimJohn Foster argues that defining the self through consciousness is an attempt to explain what the immaterial self is 'made of,' which incorrectly assimilates the self toward a physical substance model.
claimJohn Foster (1991) argues against bundle theory by claiming that human intuition favors belief in a subject and that arguments for the bundle alternative are unsuccessful.
claimJohn Foster argues that René Descartes only partially escaped the 'ectoplasmic' model of the self because, while Descartes avoided attributing non-mental properties to the self, he still attempted to explain the material composition of the self.
Consciousness (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy/Fall 2025 ... plato.stanford.edu Jun 18, 2004 3 facts
claimWhile substance dualism is currently largely out of favor, it maintains some contemporary proponents, including Richard Swinburne (1986) and John Foster (1989, 1996).
claimNeodualists, such as John Foster and David Chalmers, have attempted to use the existence of an explanatory gap between the physical and consciousness to refute physicalism.
perspectiveDualists, such as Howard Robinson (1982), John Foster (1989, 1996), and David Chalmers (1996), interpret current explanatory impasses as evidence of the bankruptcy of the physicalist program and argue that consciousness should be recognized as a fundamental constituent of reality.
Hard Problem of Consciousness | Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy iep.utm.edu 1 fact
referenceJohn Foster authored the book 'The Immaterial Self: A Defence of the Cartesian Dualist Conception of Mind,' published by Routledge in 1991.
Non-physicalist Theories of Consciousness cambridge.org Dec 20, 2023 1 fact
claimContemporary idealists John Foster (1982) and Howard Robinson (1982) argue that the concept of an observer-independent physical world is unproven and difficult to conceptualize, and they posit God as the source of human ideas and the explanation for regularities in perception.