Olivér István Tóth over bewustzijn bij #Spinoza in het licht van geheugen en herinnering

In dit blog wijs ik aan het eind op een zeer ingenieus artikel van Olivér István Tóth over het in de titel genoemde thema.

In het blog van 10 oktober 2018 wees ik al op de MA-2013-thesis van Olivér István Tóth over de eerste kensoort bij Spinoza:

• Olivér István Tóth, IMAGINATION AND THE SOURCE OF ERROR IN SPINOZA'S ETHICS. MA-thesis filosofie aan de Central European University. Budapest, 2013 [PDF]

Daarin gaf hij in een Appendix al alle plaatsen waarin Spinoza scheef over imagination, memory and recollection in the Ethics. Met dit onderwerp (en dus met Spinoza) is hij sindsdien bezig gebleven. Zie zijn curriculum vitae en pagina op academia.edu.
Na die MA-thesis sprak hij op The Second Finnish-Hungarian Seminar in Early Modern Philosophy  [11–12 October 2014 -  University of Jyväskylä]

• Olivér István Tóth over “Spinoza’s Theory of Consciousness – an Epistemic Interpretation” [Cf. en cf. en cf. ’t abstract ook academia.edu]. In 2015 verscheen onder dezelfde titel deze tekst op Theaitetos [Cf.] Daaruit;

In my presentation I introduce an interpretation of consciousness by arguing that consciousness in Spinoza ultimately depends on knowledge in two ways. First, I argue that even though Spinoza does not distinguish between phenomenal and access consciousness, we should do so. Access conscious are those mental states which can rationally coordinate the subject’s speech, action and inferences (Kim, 2010, pp. 310–311). These are in Spinoza mostly adequate ideas of the intellect, by which the agent can act and reason. Phenomenal conscious are mental events that have a special ‘what is it like’ character (Kim, 2010, pp. 304–306). By definition, only temporal mental events can have this character (Crane, 2001, pp. 105–108), therefore adequate ideas of the intellect, which constitute the eternal part of the mind, cannot be phenomenally conscious. Thus, my inadequate ideas of imagination constitute the phenomenally conscious experience.

Op de Second Belgrade Graduate Conference in Philosophy and Logic, Belgrade, 24– 26 April, 2015 sprak
• Olivér István Tóth over "Spinoza’s theory of consciousness – an argument for the distinction between access and phenomenal consciousness." [Cf. PDF met abstracts, waarin we diezelfde tekst zien]

Op de Carinthian Workshop on Topics from Early Modern Philosophy to Kant: Cognition, Self-Knowledge, Self, Sept 18-19 2015 o.l.v. Ursula Renz, sprak op de eerste dag
• Olivér István Tóth over “The epistemic foundations of Spinoza's theory of consciousness.” [Cf.]

Vervolgens publiceerde hij nog diverse artikelen en hoofdstukken over Spinoza, zoals

• Olivér István Tóth, “Inherence of False Beliefs in Spinoza’s Ethics.” In: Society and Politics 10 (2):74-94 (2016) [Cf. PhilPapers en PDF]

• Olivér István Tóth: “Is Spinoza’s Theory of Finite Mind Coherent? – Death, Affectivity and Epistemology in the Ethics.” In: Gábor Boros, Judit Szalai & Olivér István Tóth (eds), The ConceptThe Concept of Affectivity in Early Modern Philosophy, 2017 – [PDF van het hele boek; en hier apart PDF van hoofdstuk X] ]

• Olivér István Tóth, “A fresh look on the role of the second kind of knowledge in Spinoza’s Ethics.” In: Hungarian Philosophical Review (2):37-56 (2017) [cf. PhilPapers en PDF – PDF ook hier én nog eens hier]

• Op het EUROPEAN CONGRESS OF ANALYTIC PHILOSOPHY sprak Thót op vrijdag 15 augustus 2017 over “An Anti-Representationalist Reading of Spinoza's Theory of Ideas” [PDF]

ABSTRACT. In my paper I argue against the representationalist reading of Spinoza’s theory of ideas, according to which the only property individuating the particular idea is its representational content. My argument in short is this: an idea has two elements: a representational content and a belief concerning this content (E2p49); Spinoza allows for change of belief concerning the same representational content (E4p1s); therefore, according to Spinoza, belief cannot be constituted by the representational content alone. This allows for a more liberal understanding of Spinoza’s notion of knowledge and freedom, which allows for finite human beings to be free knowers.

 

En misschien als klap op de vuurpijl [hoewel ik niet denk dat hij met het onderwerp klaar is] verscheen onlangs van hem het volgende artikel in de Special van Society and Politics, Vol 12 (2018), #2 waaraan hij mee redigeerde:

• Martin Klein, Naomi Osori-Kupferblum & Oliver Istvan Toth (Eds.), Consciousness in Medieval and Early Modern Philosophy of Mind, special issue of Society and Politics [Cf. en cf. Preface “Remembering Consciousness en ‘t PDF ervan]

• Olivér István Tóth, “Memory, Recollection and Consciousness in Spinoza’s Ethics.” In: Society and Politics, Vol 12 (2018), #2 [Special] Consciousness and Memory in Medieval and Early Modern Philosophy; Invited editor: Martin Klein, Naomi Osorio-Kupferblum, Olivér István Tóth [Cf. Society and Politics en PDF ook op academia.edu] Uit de Introduction over dit hoofdstuk:

The paper by Olivér István Tóth elaborates on this topic [the systematic role intellectual memory plays for Descartes in the constitution of the conscious self] and explores the way in which the role of intellectual memory was discussed in the later Cartesian tradition by looking at the example of Spinoza. Spinoza famously rejected Cartesian dualism and embraced substance monism. Tóth argues that this raises a number of issues concerning the conscious status of memory. In particular, substance monism seems to rule out the retention of memories in the form of brain states but also intellectual memory understood as a form of memory independent of the body. His central claim is that even though Spinoza considerably modified Descartes‟ philosophy of mind, in responding to it, he nevertheless tried to account for the phenomenon labelled „intellectual memory‟ by Descartes. [Cf.]

Het betrof de nadere uitwerking van een paper dat hij gaf op de workshop van ‘t Central Kolleg “Consciousness in Medieval and Early Modern Philosophy of Mind” aan de Humboldt University Berlin op 18-20 december 2017.

Opvallend is dat hij het uitgebreid heeft over het zgn. “pancreas debat”, en terwijl hij – gezien zijn notenapparaat - duidelijk goed thuis is in de secundaire Spinoza-literatuur, hij het artikel van Henk Keizer erover niet in z’n noten vermeldt.