William Teed Rockwell
2419A Tenth St
Berkeley, CA 94710
510/ 548-8779 Fax 548-3326
mcmf@california.com
Married, no children. U.S. Citizen
Education
B.A. Philosophy, University of Pittsburgh.
M.A. Philosophy, Duquesne University
Ph.D., Philosophy, The Union Institute
Thesis: On What the Mind is Identical with: A Critical
Alternative to the Mind-Brain Identity Theory.
Graduate Fellowships and awards
Teaching assistantship, University of Texas at Austin.
Teaching assistantship, DePaul University, (declined).
Tuition waver, Catholic University, (declined).
Major Fields of Study:
Areas of Specialization: Philosophy of Cognitive Science,
Philosophy of Mind, Philosophy of Consciousness, Epistemology, Metaphysics.
Areas of Competence: Continental Philosophy, (Hegel,
Heidegger, Nietzsche) Pragmatism, (Dewey and James,), History and Philosophy of
Science.
Book
Neither Brain nor Ghost: A Non-Dualist Alternative to the
Mind/Brain Identity Theory. Bradford Books, MIT press. (2005)
Articles in Peer Reviewed Publications
"Attractor Spaces as Modules: a Semi-Eliminative Reduction of
Symbolic AI to Dynamic Systems Theory" in Minds and Machines (Jan 2005).
"Rorty, Putnam, and the Pragmatist View of Epistemology and
Metaphysics." in Education and Culture: the Journal of the John Dewey
Society (Spring 2003)
Reprinted in Volume III of Malachowski, A. (ed.) (2004) Pragmatism.
Sage
Publications, London.
Entry on "Atomism and Psychology" in Encyclopedia
of Consciousness and Subjectivity ed. Aaron Mishara, (forthcoming from Kluwer
Publications).
"Experience and Sensation: Sellars and Dewey on the
Non-cognitive aspects of Mental Life." in Education and Culture: the
Journal of the John Dewey Society (vol. XVII Winter 2001).
Entry on Eliminativism in Dictionary of the Philosophy of Mind
http://artsci.wustl.edu/~philos/MindDict/eliminativism.html
Entry on Non-Reductive Physicalism in Dictionary of the
Philosophy of Mind
http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~philos/MindDict/nonreductivephysicalism.html
"The Modularity of Dynamic Systems" Colloquia
Manilana (vol. 6 1998)
"Global Workspace or Pandemonium?" (Commentary on
keynote article by Bernard Baars) Journal of Consciousness Studies (Issue 4 1997)
"Awareness, Mental Phenomena, and Consciousness (a synthesis
of Dennett and Rosenthal)" Journal of Consciousness Studies (Fall 1996)
"Racism and Prejudice" APA Newsletter on Philosophy
and the Black Experience (Summer 1996)
"On What the Mind is Identical with" Philosophical
Psychology (Spring 1994)
"Beyond Determinism and Indignity: a Reinterpretation of
Operant Conditioning" Behavior and Philosophy (Spring 1994a)
"Prescriptive Epistemic Ethics" Zetetic
Scholar 1, 95-99 (Nov 1978).
Selected Other Publications
"The Lesson of the Guru: what was Marpa trying to teach
Milarepa" Buddhism Now (August 96)
"Altruism, Pity and Compassion: Significant and Ignored
Differences" Truth Seeker (Part 1 in Vol 120, No.2, 1993 ; Part 2
in Vol 120, No. 3, 1993)
"How to Listen to Music from other Cultures" Showcase
Music Institute Times 30-31 November 1991. [Reprinted in India Currents (1998)]
"Irrational Rationalists" (with T. Rockwell III
and R.C. Rockwell) in The Battlefield of Psi (translated
into Japanese by Editor) (1987).
"Die Achillesferse der Wissenschaft; die
Wissenschaftler," (with T. Rockwell III) pp. 334-352, in Der
Wissenschaftler und das Irrationale, Hans Peter Duerr, (Editor and translator)
Frankfurt, Syndikat (1981).
Since 1996, I have been the contributing music editor and music
critic for India Currents Magazine. I write a monthly column in
which I review recordings of Indian music, and discuss the aesthetic principles
that differentiate and unite Eastern and Western forms of music.
Book Reviews
"Dynamic Patterns" by J. Scott Kelso Journal of
Consciousness Studies (vol. 6 1999)
"Mind Design II" by John Haugeland Journal of
Consciousness Studies (vol. 6 1998)
"Being There: Bringing Brain, Body and World together
again" by Andy Clark. International Journal of Neural Systems (Winter 1996)
"Frames of Meaning: The Social Construction of
Extraordinary Science" (with T. Rockwell III),Theta 11, 69-71 (April
1983).
"Margins of Reality: the Role of Consciousness in the
Physical World" (with T. Rockwell III) Ibid 82, 359-365 (Oct
1988). in New Realities , 9 pp. 65-66 (March-April 1989).
Presentations
Commentary on Physicists, Detectives and Historians:
Why Alan Sokal is correct about the Logic of the Causal Relation by H.E. Cline.
Presented at the American Philosophy Association Meeting (Pacific division) in
San Francisco March 2001
The Modularity of Dynamic Systems
presented at the Stanford Research Institute (SRI) 1999
re-presented at the Society of Philosophy and Psychology at
University of Cincinnati 2001
The Hard Problem is Dead, Long Live the Hard Problem presented at Society
for Philosophy
and Psychology Meeting at Stanford University 1999
Perception and Awareness: How the Implicit is made Explicit presented
at Association for the Scientific Study of Consciousness Meeting Pomona
College June 1997
Beyond Eliminative Materialism: Some Unnoticed Implications of
Churchland's Pragmatic Pluralism presented at Society for Philosophy and
Psychology Meeting at New School for Social Research, New York June 1997
Awareness, Mental Phenomena and Consciousness (a synthesis of
Dennett and Rosenthal) presented at Society for Philosophy and Psychology
Meeting in Memphis June 1994. Re-presented at the Center for the Study of
Language and Information (CSLI) Stanford University, April 1996 and at Dennett
conference, Memorial University of Newfoundland, November 1998.
Can Reductionism be Eliminated? presented at
the American Philosophy Association Meeting (Pacific division) in San Francisco
1995 (with commentary by John Bickle)
Psychology and Free Will (How B.F. Skinner confused Science and
Philosophy) presented at Southern Society for Philosophy and Psychology (
SSPP), Atlanta 1994.
On What the Mind is Identical With presented at the
Pacific Coast chapter meeting of the American association for the Advancement
of Science, Davis, CA, 1990. Re-presented to the Washington Philosophical
Society at the Cosmos Club, Washington, D.C., December,1993.
Beyond Determinism and Indignity: a Reinterpretation of Operant
Conditioning presented to the Washington Philosophical Society at the Cosmos
Club, Washington, D.C., December,1992.
Explanatory vs. Classificatory Concepts: A Phenomenological
Defense of Eliminative Dualism. Presented at The Brain Center in Berkeley,
CA. 1989.
An Inquiry concerning Humean Understanding presented at
the National APA convention in Chicago, 1982.
Citations
In Kane, Robert (1996) The Significance of Free Will Oxford
University Press. Correspondence with Kane quoted and discussed at length pp.
152-158.
In Rupert, R.D. (1998) "On the Relationship between
Naturalistic Semantics and Individuation Criteria for Terms in a Language of
Thought" in Synthese, Vol. 117, No. 1, 1998. Footnote #8
In Kane, Robert (Editor) (2002) The Oxford Handbook of
Free Will Oxford University Press. Rockwell 1994a listed in bibliography.
In Holt, Lynn (1999) "Metaphor, History, Consciousness: From
Locke to Dennett" in The Philosophical Forum, XXX #3.
http://socrates.philosophy.msstate.edu/pr/Faculty/papers/histcon_98.html
Footnote #23
In Ainslie, George (2001) Breakdown of Will Cambridge University
Press. Rockwell 1994a cited in Chapter 8, footnote 13.
In Nixon, Greg (1999) Human Culture is Human Consciousness
(Are We Prisoners of Our Own Device?) Presented at the
Annual Conference for The Society for the Anthropology of Consciousness
UC Berkeley, CA, March 24-28.
http://www.northlink.com/~nixer/conf.pris.html
Footnote #1
In Sheilds P.M.(1999) "Zen and the Art of Higher Education
Maintenance: bridging classic and romantic notions of Quality" in Journal
of Higher Education Policy and Management Vol. 21 #2
Footnote #1
In Lucas, Chris (2000) Value, Metascience, and Synergistic
Choice. An invited paper delivered to the 5th International Complex
Systems Conference held at the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand
19-21 November 2000
http://www.calresco.org/cs2000/meta.htm
In Definities van emergentie by Hubert Von Belle ( Engineering
Sciences, Vrije Universiteit Brussel in Belgium). available at:
http://www.vub.ac.be/CLEA/groups/vzw_worldviews/publications/vanbelle-emergentie.html Two citations.
In George Graham and Elizabeth R. Valentine, ed. (2003) Identifying
the Mind: Selected Papers of U.T. Place (Oxford University Press).
Correspondence with U.T. Place quoted in introduction.
In Ramsey, William (2003) Article on "Eliminative
Materialism" in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/materialism-eliminative/.
My article on Eliminativism is listed as one of three supplementary
internet sources.
Other On Line Publications and Citations
Why Study Philosophy?
on philosophy department website, University of Herfordshire,
England. http://www.herts.ac.uk/humanities/philosophy/why.html
Cognitive Questions:
Original papers on the Philosophy of Cognitive Science with
commentary by Andy Clark, David Chalmers, Robert Kane, U.T. Place, Tim Van
Gelder and others.
www.california.com/~mcmf
Cognitive Questions(CQ) received the Original Contribution
Award
for 2001 from the Philosophy Research Base at erraticimpact.com
http://www.erraticimpact.com/~awards/html/original_contribution_index.htm
Papers from CQ are listed in the International Directory of Online
Philosophy Papers maintained by the University of Hong Kong, and on link pages
of over 100 other Websites, including philosophy resource pages in Malaysia,
Turkey, Denmark, Switzerland, Poland, Portugal, Israel, Germany, and England.
CQ is also listed on David Chalmers' Philosophy of Mind page (5 links), and
appears on the Philosophy of Mind link pages maintained by Google, Altavista,
OpenHere, DMOZ, and Borland, among many others.
Links and/or listings of my work are also maintained by the
following academic and research sites:
The Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy
http://www.rep.routledge.com/philosophy/cgi-bin/linkframe.cgi?it=V038
The Online Learning Center that supplements the book Doing
Philosophy: An Introduction Through Thought Experiments, by Theodore Schick
and Lewis Vaughn (McGraw-Hill) contains links to three of my online papers at:
http://highered.mcgraw-hill.com/sites/0072878274/student_view0/
chapter2/theories.html
Complexity and Artificial Life Research Concept for Self
Organizing Systems(CALRESCO)
http://www.calresco.org/papers.htm
Problems from Wilfrid Sellars
http://www.ditext.com/sellars/forum.html
Recommended reading for Honors Philosophy 365 (Philosophy of
Science) Augsburg College, Minneapolis.
http://www.honors.org/Courses/365/365.html
“Selected articles about Daniel C. Dennett” (University
of California, Irvine Philosophy Department)
http://sun3.lib.uci.edu/~scctr/philosophy/dennett/works_about.html
Noesis: Philosophical Research on Line (Universtity of Evansville)
http://noesis.evansville.edu/bin/author.cgi?s=p&c=R
The Epistemology Research Guide (University of Louisiana,
Lafayette Philosophy Dept.)
http://www.ucs.usl.edu/~kak7409/EpistemologicalResearch.htm
Metaphysics Resource Page (Augustana University College)
http://www.augustana.ab.ca/~janzb/metaphysics.htm
Philosophy and the Neurosciences Bibliography (Washington
University)
http://artsci.wustl.edu/~pjmandik/neurphilbib.html
Some Consciousness Web Resources: ( CUNY Graduate Center, David
Rosenthal, Coordinator)
http://web.gc.cuny.edu/dept/cogit/dr.htm#cn
Teaching Experience
Designed and taught "Minds, Brains and Computers"
for Sonoma State University (Summer 2001)
For every term since Summer 2001, I have taught the following
courses at CSU Hayward and Sonoma State University: Logic, Critical Thinking,
History of Science, Minds Brains and Computers.
Comments Made by Students in Blind (Unsigned) Faculty
Evaluations
The professor was very open to other people’s opinions and
gave constructive criticism in a very nice way. I would take this instructor
again, and the class was very helpful in other papers I had to write.
It was really my pleasure to be in this class. Dr. Rockwell is a
real teacher, he is GREAT. I want to say more, but I think the philosophy dept.
knows that they really have a treasure.
Taught the course very well. I didn’t think philosophy would
be interesting, but it was . . . whenever any student had a question, he was
always there ready to answer.
Does a superb job in presenting the material, and is fair in his
treatment of students. Knows his subject matter and is always on time and well
prepared for lectures.
This course was unlike any philosophy course I’ve taken at
CSUH . . . really opened your mind to Artificial Intelligence and human
intelligence What I think made this course was the teacher. He was obviously
really interested in this subject and made the course alive. He has a voice
that pulls you into his lectures. Good job.
I thought that this course would be boring. But after attending
the first few lectures, I began to form a genuine interest in the subject
matter. I’m sure this was also due to the level of enthusiasm brought to
the lectures.
Very knowledgeable in this topic, and his lectures were
interesting and stimulating. . . I would say this was one of my most difficult
classes, but it was very rewarding at the end.
Nice to have a fresh and modern course that helps you think . . .
I thoroughly enjoyed this class and would recommend it and Rockwell to others.
One of the best courses I have taken at CSUH.
Excellent. Knows course subject very well . . . allows us to
ask questions and gives clear, interesting answers.
Instructor showed genuine interest in subject matter and in the
students, and was always intent on motivating and involving those in the class.
He has a vast knowledge of his subject. . . he made sure that we
were prepared for the class meeting. . . His enthusiasm kept me interested.
He encouraged open discussion in class, and made everybody feel
like he cared about what they were saying . . . This class has taught me things
that I didn’t even think I was interested in.
Rockwell knows his stuff. . .Not only has he stimulated my
pre-existing interest in philosophy, but has fed my interest in cognitive
science. . . a great asset to the CSU Hayward philosophy program.
Was fair to the students and listened to their points of view.
The instructor seems extremely knowledgeable about this subject
and subjects outside of this but related. He was also very helpful and
motivated outside of class in office hours.
Rockwell is full of information and insights. I thought he had an
amazing knowledge of his subject.
Service to the Profession
Created “Why Study Philosophy?” Public Service
Announcement, which is played on numerous campus radio stations throughout the
USA and Canada.
Peer review for Society for Philosophy and Psychology (SPP)
meeting in San Francisco, June 1996
Peer Review for Journal of Consciousness Studies and Brain and
Mind ,
Chaired Session On Swampkinds by Ruth Millikan at Society for
Philosophy and Psychology (SPP) meeting in San Francisco, June 1996
Chaired Session on the Knowledge Argument, SSPP 1994.
Chaired session on Hysteria in a Neural Network at Society for
Philosophy and Psychology Meeting (SPP) in Vancouver, B.C. June 1993
Other Education:
Electronics Technician Certificate, Columbia Institute of
Technology.
Programmer training, Neuro-Linguistic Programming Center for
Advanced Studies.
Classes in Buddhist Meditation and Philosophy of Mind with
Namkai Norbu, Kalu Rinpoche, Ole Nydal, Tich Nat Hanh, and the Dalai Lama.
Classes in Classical Indian Music with Ustad Ali Akbar Khan,
Salamat Ali Khan, and Habib Khan.
Musical Recordings:
The Endless Staircase with Dr. Marc Lehrer, Institute of
Professional Hypnosis.
The Musical Body with Dr. Charles Tart, Psychology,
University of CA, Davis.
Encounter Yourself with Dr. Meir Schneider, Center for
Self-Healing.
Moods of Light with Geist, original music ensemble.
More Light with Geist, original music ensemble.
Music from the Ganges, Classical Indian Ragas on Chapman Stick
with tabla accompaniment
Dance of the Kora with Moussa Kanoute, Alex
Degrassi, and others. (on EarthBeat/Warner Brothers)
Harpestry with Geist and a variety of other Harp based music
ensembles and soloists (on Imaginary Roads/Polygram)
Other Professional Experience
Perform professionally on new musical instrument the Chapman
Stick® All the above recordings made with the musical group Geist
have been nationally distributed. Dance of the Kora and Harpestry
internationally distributed. (Harpestry reached the top ten
in the Billboard New Age charts). Extensive radio and television airplay for
Moods of Light and More Light.. Endless Staircase has been used
by therapists to treat insomnia and nightmares. Endless Staircase and The
Musical Body performed live at the Esalen Institute. Toured as musician with
the Palisades Theater Company 1980-81. Perform Indian classical ragas on
Chapman Stick at Ganges and Kamal Palace restaurants. President and
co-founder of the MultiCultural Music Fellowship of San Francisco, a 501(c) 3
Non-profit corporation that produces the Festival of Harpssm, a concert
series featuring Harp music from all over the world. Frequently present Lecture
-Demonstration "History of the Harp" for schools, churches, and music
societies. Contributing music editor and music critic, India Currents magazine.
Freelance music writer for The San Francisco Examiner and other Northern
California Publications.