How to leave Descartes behind. On the relevance of Marxism for post- Cartesian philosophy of mind (original) (raw)
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Rationalists' Concept of Mental Activity: The Cartesian Example
The philosophical criticisms of the last two centuries have prosecuted a very searching analysis of the cognitive capacity of the human mind to know if there is a real world outside the mind. With the transition to the modern period, there was enormous transformation in the conception of thinking and knowing. Philosophers of some certain persuasions began to set the philosophical agenda to understand the objective world based on the foundations of rationalism. These philosophers have insisted that the human mind naturally possess innate ideas, principles or capacity to know things independent of senseexperience. Given these antecedence, this paper extrapolates the rationalists' concept of mind using the Cartesian example as a case study 1 . It argues that for Descartes, the deliverances of external objects by the senses are deceptive and cannot lead us to the true knowledge of things. For him, the human mind possesses the modalities of thought and has at its disposal certain innate principles produced by the mechanism of reasoning that lead to our knowledge of the world. His attempt to investigate the cognitive activities of the subject as the key source of understanding the objective universe opens the door to the development of an epistemology that sees the mind as a 'productive' process. In this way, Descartes' theory of mind and consciousness represents a move away from the investigation of reality (the structures, categories of reality/object) as conceived by classical philosophers to the investigation of the knowing process (the structures, categories of the knowing process/subject) as initiated by modern philosophers.
Emergent Representations: Dialectical Materialism and the Philosophy of Mind
This thesis is the result of a simple conviction: since minds are produced by brains then surely studying brains will tell us something about issues in the philosophy of mind? Moreover, if minds are also produced by our evolution and history then surely studying these will also tell us something about minds? Of course I am not the first to suggest these lines of inquiry but they have both usually lead to anti-realist scepticism about our ability to know the world. We seem to be stuck in a Faustian bargain in which we can only gain scientific knowledge at the expense of philosophical doubt. This thesis is an attempt to break this bargain, in which I start from the conviction that we can know the world, and then ask what kind of science, both natural and social, can make sense of this ability. We do not just need a philosophy of mind that fits our science, we also need a science that fits our philosophy of mind. We must fiddle with both sides of the equation in order to get a fit. In the course of this fiddling I challenge reductionist and empiricist assumptions about science, I question the philosophical tradition that dates back to Frege’s ‘linguistic turn’, and I draw parallels between Marx’s theory of history and Darwin’s theory of natural selection. The result is a realist philosophy of mind that is built on our ability to interact with and change the world, rather than on our ability to contemplate it passively. CONTENTS PART I: MATTER Re-examining two basic principles of how science understands complex systems 2 Anti-Reductionism 2.1 Reductionism and Materialism -- p9 2.2 Anti-ReductiveMaterialism -- p11 2.3 Downwards Causation -- p14 2.4 Conclusion -- p17 3 Naturalisation 3.1 Descriptions and Biases -- p19 3.2 Naturalisation -- p21 3.3 Theoretical Terms, Dispositions, and Causal Explanation -- p23 3.4 Laws and Exceptions -- p27 3.5 Prediction and Induction -- p29 3.6 Conclusion -- p31 PART II:MIND Applying this new take on complex systems to brains and epistemology 4 Brains and Behaviour 4.1 Neuropsychology and Neuroethology -- p33 4.2 Representation and Explanation -- p37 4.3 South Coast AI -- p39 4.4 Conclusion -- p45 5 Intentionality: The Insides 5.1 Opening the Black Box -- p46 5.2 Anti-Turing -- p48 5.3 Externalism -- p52 5.3.1 Epistemological Externalism -- p53 5.3.2 Metaphysical Externalism -- p54 5.3.3 Brains-In-Vats -- p58 5.4 Emergent Representation -- p59 6 Intentionality: The Outsides 6.1 Sense and Reference -- p61 6.2 Non-Conceptual Content -- p65 6.3 Affordances and Objects -- p68 6.4 Conclusion -- p70 PART III: NATURAL HISTORY Putting this in the context of natural selection Functions and Norms 7.1 Functional Explanation and Darwinian Norms -- p73 7.2 The Function of ‘Function’ -- p75 7.3 The Function of Behaviour -- p77 7.4 Conclusion -- p78 The Role of Genes in Natural Selection 8.1 Evolution and Mendelian Inheritance -- p80 8.2 Nature and Nurture -- p82 8.3 Inheritance and Mechanism -- p86 8.4 Evolution and Development -- p88 8.5 Conclusion -- p90 9 The Role of Vehicles in Natural Selection 9.1 Burying Vehicles -- p92 9.2 Counting Genes -- p94 9.3 Counting Replicators -- p97 9.4 Fitness -- p101 9.5 Conclusion -- p102 PART IV: SOCIAL HISTORY And understanding how social history fits in 10 Social Evolution 10.1 Natural and Social History -- p105 10.2 Memes and Vehicles -- p107 10.3 Memes and Power -- p110 10.4 Marx’s Theory of History -- p112 10.5 Memes and Symbols -- p116 10.6 Lamarckian Inheritance and Signalling -- p119 10.7 Memes and Adaptation -- p121 10.8 Conclusion -- p122 11 The Good, The True, The Beautiful 11.1 Truth and Success -- p125 11.2 Scienti?c Objectivism -- p128 11.3 Ethical Relativism -- p130 11.4 Conclusion -- p133 Bibliography
2011
Philosophers often use classical positions as paradigms for de ning their own views, usually in contrast. In the philosophy of mind, the notion of the Cartesian subject is one such paradigm. This notion is often used to represent tendencies in the conception of the subject that today's philosophers wish to avoid. John McDowell and Hilary Putnam 1 , among others, portray the Cartesian subject-and speci cally the Cartesian mind-as a step backward from an earlier, preferable Aristotelianism, whose concept of mind might be made serviceable today if adjusted to t modern science. Such paradigms, whose use is unavoidable, are typically caricatures, whether slight or gross. The Cartesian mind as standardly portrayed by McDowell, Putnam, and others 2 is a gross caricature. This would be important enough for its potential to mislead us about the actual historical development of philosophy. But even more crucially for the philosophy of mind, the use of a caricatured picture as a counterparadigm against which one de nes one's own, comparatively better position, can lead to a pyrrhic victory that avoids or misrepresents the real problems. If the opponent has been tailored to one's desired virtues as conquering hero, one may give the impression that one's own position solves great problems, deeply embedded in the tradition, when in fact one has simply rejected a fairly recent problematic position, which one has perhaps also misunderstood and misidenti ed. 3 The Cartesian mental paradigm is frequently de ned in terms of four factors: consciousness as essence, intentionality as exclusively mental, the veil of perception, and the transparency of mind. More fully: (S1) The Cartesian mind collects "the mental" into an immaterial substance, divorced from nature, whose essence is consciousness; (S2) In the mind-body divide, intentionality is removed from material nature and becomes the sole preserve of mind; (S3) The mind is cut off from direct epistemic contact with the material world by a veil of perception (epistemic indirect realism);
The Problem of Mind-Body Dichotomy: A Critique of the Cartesian Approach
2019
The mind-body problem is a perennial philosophical problem that seeks to uncover the relationship or causal interaction that exists between the corporeal and incorporeal aspects of the human person. It thrives under the assumption that the human person is made up of two distinct entities, that is, mind and body, which explains their assumed causal relation. As attractive as this may seem, not all philosophers agree to this feigned idea of interaction and bifurcation of the human person. One philosopher of note, who sorts to address this problem in the 17th century, is René Descartes. For Descartes, minds and bodies are distinct kinds of substance, where bodies are spatially extended substances (a res extensa) and minds are unexpended substances characterised primarily by thought (a res cogitans). But, if minds and bodies are radically dissimilar, how could they causally interact? This paper therefore attempts to examine the philosophical foundations of Cartesian dualism. It also art...
Journal of Mind and Behavior, 1985
The problem of explaining the interaction of mind and body has been a central issue in the human sciences since the time of Descartes. However. a careful re-examination of Descartes' epistemological procedure in the Medirations (1641/1960) reveals the "fallacious origin" of the classic mind-body division. In fact, the mind-body problem is not a genuine ontological split "discovered" by Descartes' method, but rather an artifact of using a method already laden with ontological preconceptions about mental being. Furthermore, Descartes inadvertently shifted from his original (epistemological) goal of establishing certain knowledge to an implicit (ontological) investigation of mental being, which then compelled him to investigate his own mental existence. Unfortunately, this phenomenological investigation was severely biased by the exclusive attentive state of reflective thinking that is generated by the method. Consequently. Descartes' inadequate phenomenological analysis further exacerbated the illusory "insight" that mind is separable from body.