tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3736365491401043672.post8671474912447221959..comments2024-01-16T09:31:45.073-04:00Comments on Anderson Brown's Philosophy Blog: Does "Naturalism" Mean Anything?Anderson Brownhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18358008464457746997noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3736365491401043672.post-77962709086784906772008-12-19T08:10:00.000-04:002008-12-19T08:10:00.000-04:00Presskorn, I read the PI as a sustained attack on ...Presskorn, I read the PI as a sustained attack on mental content. The private language argument being the most prominent example. Language is intersubjective, out in the world (outside bodies). I can no more tell myself something than I can give myself a dollar. Programmatically, if W. can persuade us that our experience of the world is not mediated by an "inner" representation of the world, Cartesian scepticism is undone (shown to be based on an error), and the problem of "intentionality" disappears. In the case of phenomenal "properties," while we can intelligibly use the word "blue," there is no such use for "blue-for-me," etc., thus "phenomenology" is a conceptually confused attempt to transgress the limits of language. Sorry this is so cryptic. Many of the earlier posts rehearse these ideas (ab nauseum I'm afraid).Anderson Brownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18358008464457746997noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3736365491401043672.post-30440930693568510072008-12-17T22:34:00.000-04:002008-12-17T22:34:00.000-04:00Pressed on the same question as you, John McDowell...Pressed on the same question as you, John McDowell has several times stated that his self-labelled "naturalism" does not amount to much more than simply denying the "super-natural", i.e. to more than not doing ghost and goblins, angels and demons. <BR/><BR/>I don't think there is any reason to embrassed just because one does not do neuro-psychology or does not belong to the Churchland-family. <BR/><BR/>Who said that something like that exclusively deserves the label "naturalism"?<BR/><BR/>Really, it seems that it's people "like that" that saddles the concept of naturalism with more than it, so to speak, naturally contains. <BR/><BR/>In brief, I guess my point is: Don't worry. <BR/><BR/>PS: But I am more curious to know which part of Wittgenstein's writings that might commit him to anything like eliminativism about mental content?Presskornhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03480116067878605339noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3736365491401043672.post-5457518095918663752008-12-04T15:23:00.000-04:002008-12-04T15:23:00.000-04:00Three responses to the various comments:1) In resp...Three responses to the various comments:<BR/>1) In response to Kevin, I think that the very essence of the activity of metaphysics and epistemology is as originally explained by Socrates: we must try to fix what it is that we truly believe to be true (relativists, according to Socrates, are running from their own nature), and then try to state what that is as clearly and courageously as possible. In the present example, one thinks either that immaterial minds are possible, or not. I see no reason to try to avoid a literal interpretation of this question.<BR/>2) In response to Fido (and this is something that I find myself repeating when talking to professionals), yes, human beings are distinct from other things, and yes, they are very fancy things. Very fancy indeed. But if we ever hope to understand them (to understand the origins of language for example), we must see that they are continuous with the rest of nature. Starting off with human exceptionalism is backwards: we must go from animal genera to human specifics.<BR/>3) As to the other questions, my eliminativism about mental content is one of my basic themes, so for now I must simply refer everyone to the main body of posts here. Better still, look for these ideas in Wittgenstein.Anderson Brownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18358008464457746997noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3736365491401043672.post-88653176435770994952008-12-02T22:47:00.000-04:002008-12-02T22:47:00.000-04:00I, too, am curious about your denial of mental con...I, too, am curious about your denial of mental content, or maybe I'm just curious about your philosophy of denying. When one says, "there are no mental contents" (or "there are no witches"), I find it puzzling to identify what exactly they are talking about. (Surely there are permissible ways of believing that witches exist--such as by believing that their spells never do any causal work--just as there are permissible ways of believing that they don't. It matters how 'witch' is definable.) How do you characterize the objects of your denial?Kevin Schuttehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04562007179161022792noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3736365491401043672.post-22732598959937015312008-12-02T12:38:00.000-04:002008-12-02T12:38:00.000-04:00Anderson,Would you mind expanding a bit on 1.b? Wh...Anderson,<BR/><BR/>Would you mind expanding a bit on 1.b? What motivates your rejection of mental content and what bearing do you think this has on the mind-body problem (and is the rejection independent of your view of the mind-body problem)?Owenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05407265890708796268noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3736365491401043672.post-60482363400408941502008-11-30T21:00:00.000-04:002008-11-30T21:00:00.000-04:00I'm not sure what the problem is with applying cor...I'm not sure what the problem is with applying correctness to ontology - a correct ontology countenances the things that exist "cutting nature at the joints" - the standard, if you like, is the world. A dualist ontology, for example., is incorrect if there are no mental substances (or properties). And no, it is not a question of what works unless you have prior, independent reasons for an instrumentalist (and notably, anti-realist) view.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3736365491401043672.post-49591058192653226002008-11-30T01:18:00.000-04:002008-11-30T01:18:00.000-04:00Hi, Anderson. I'm going to do something potential...Hi, Anderson. I'm going to do something potentially quite annoying and illustrate your point that "A tricky thing in philosophy is not to toss out some bone that is not really essential to the argument, that people will then pick up and worry, at the expense of the intended project." I think you should talk to a physical anthropologist about the possibility of being both a naturalist and a humanist, or much more likely an anti-antihumanist. I have a sense that <I>sapiens</I> is unique and can be meaningfully differentiated from <I>erectus</I>, for instance. Your linguist friends may be telling you a version of the same story. A naturalist has no reasonable justification for disregarding what is unique to <I>sapiens</I> that I can see, or the usefulness of uniquely identifying species of organism, but of course there is much that I cannot see. Your critique of representationalist views of psychic processes interests me and I have a vague sense of why this would be a challenge to much contemporary cognitive science. Perhaps you are indeed a naturalist or an empiricist on some level. Just passing by and thought I'd comment.Fido the Yakhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04068567345146364385noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3736365491401043672.post-54309208733910407542008-11-26T20:31:00.000-04:002008-11-26T20:31:00.000-04:00Anderson: "some functionalists point out that func...Anderson: "some functionalists point out that functionalism need not commit itself to a materialist ontology. That might be fair enough, but there is still a question as to whether or not a materialist ontology is correct."<BR/><BR/>kvond; This sounds a bit off to my ear. "Correct"? Correct usually means according to some authority or standard. What would be the standard which would establish which "ontology" (ontological assumption) is the correct one? Is this word spelled correctly? Is this mathematical problem done correctly? But the correct ontology? <BR/><BR/>Is it not the question of what works?kvondhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07709562524431261018noreply@blogger.com