01/25/2013
This article is an examination of the concept of experience, as it evolves throughout philosophical history: Plato & Aristotle, Locke, and the more modern view. Author sets as the goal to actually be reviewing the different notions of empiricism, but takes the firm subject matter to be the concept of experience (pg71).
Author takes the Greek philosophers to consider experience as a 'know-how', not a 'know-why' matter. Experience can give you the know-how, but the know-why was reserved for reason, and/or understanding causal forces. (pg71-3) Author reviews Aristotle's theory on the progression of experiential knowledge: first there's sensation, then perception, then memory and imagination, finally ending in knowledge in generality, and habituation regarding the subject matter. (pg73) But this is all without applying reason or method to experience: reason was reserved for the pure intellect and universal or necessary truths. In this light, author discusses a difference between Plato and Aristotle in that Aristotle was willing to let politics and society be subject to generalities and intricacies only noticed by the wise and those with practical knowledge, while Plato attempted to sketch out what a rational basis for these institutions would be in The Republic (pg74-5). Author summarizes the Greek thinking on pg77: the contrast is between knowledge (intellect) and opinion or belief (experience), and experience is limited to a subject matter (e.g. farming, crafting) while theoretical knowledge is not. These distinctions are underpinned by the distinction between phenomena and a deeper reality.
The second conception of experience author considers is propounded by Locke. Author admits to skipping intermediary steps, but wants to capture a "typical" conceptual difference from the Greeks. Locke reshaped experience as observation, which gave it a much more direct connection to nature (pg79). Locke then argued that observation is the test of knowledge, thus making the ideas that came from observation the fundamental sources of knowledge. Author summarizes Locke's argument against innate ideas (pg79-80), but shows that Locke did admit to some universals, for instance in the realm of mathematics and morals (pg80-1). The next "stage" author discusses was Locke's move to reduce much of human mentality to sensations or associations with sensations (pg81). Author reviews the effect that this philosophy had on institutions and culture (pg82-3), specifically the skeptical and critical demands it had on old, established institutions, and also on creating new ideals in education and legislation. Author then talks about JS Mill's further refinements on this kind of associational empiricism (pg84-5) and Mill's interest in logic taken from the natural sciences into the social ones.
The last discussion is about some of the primary differences the third "view" of experience has had from the past one(s). Author starts with James and illustrates the pragmatist approach to confirming the validity of ideas: through their consequences (pg86). This directly conflicts with Locke, who wanted ideas to be justified through their antecedents: through what implanted or begat them. Another difference is the development of a biological basis for psychology rather than an introspective or phenomenological one (pg86-7). This seems to be a move back toward Aristotle, author suggests. Author concludes this new view of experience is still "inchoate", and in progress.
1/18/13
Strawson, Galen - Real Naturalism
01/18/2013
Proceedings and Addresses of the APA, Vol 86 Issue 2 Nov 2012
Author starts by claiming that author is a thorough-going naturalist. But what is the substantive conception of the natural? For author, it is that all reality is entirely physical. So this makes author a physicalist or materialist naturalist (pg126). Author takes there to be a conflict, however, with other sorts of physicalists/naturalists when it comes to the philosophy of mind. The problem is that humans are directly knowledgeable about experience, and only indirectly knowledgeable about non-experiential properties of physical objects. Author thinks the move in 20th century philosophy to question whether experience is real when compared to other physical properties has been a wrongheaded evolution, going from a methodological commitment to behaviorism to a ontological commitment against experience (pg127). Author highlights Quine and Smart here.
In section 2, author treats the term "physical" as a natural-kind term, one that denotes a natural kind, and one whose content we can be wrong about. Author briefly discusses the persistent ignorance about the world that plagues physicalism, but also acknowledges that equations like f = ma are likely good approximations of the truth. But the problem with such equations is that they are structural descriptions, where content still needs to be cashed out (pg128-130). Author considers the structural and mathematical elements of the physical sciences to be their strong suit, not because humans know so much about the world, but because they know so little. Author distinguishes between the "intrinsic nature" of reality and its structure, and that logico-mathematical representations of the world do not illuminate its intrinsic nature. In other words, physics has structural descriptive content, and even structural transcendent referential content, but does it have structural transcendent descriptive content? (pg130) If a self-professed physicalist/naturalist is tempted to say "yes", then author objects that physicalism, thus far, has left out consciousness, or qualia, from it description (pg131-2). So, the dilemma is as follows: (1) admit that physics only has Purely Logico-Mathematical Structural Description (PLM) and thus misses the non-structural intrinsic nature of reality, or (2) argue that the Causal-Spatio-Temporal Structural Description given by physics is all that remains to reality and thereby deny that experience is part of reality.
Author briefly summarizes the points made: that physicalism doesn't escape the Locke-Hume-Kant arguments about not knowing the thing-in-itself or understanding causation only by constant conjunction (pg133). Author considers those who think physics is the full fundamental description of the universe to be "not serious ... physicSalists". (pg134) Author uses the concepts of ignorance and knowledge-- what humans are ignorant about and what they know about-- in this discussion. The first and most certainly generally known fact is that there is experience. Naturalism must be "realistic", in that it must include this known fact (pg135). Author discusses prototypical examples of pre-philosophical understandings of experience: the kind of stuff you have when you're 6 years old: in short, having an experience is the knowing of the experience. (pg135-6) Author argues that there is no is/seems distinction when it comes to qualia, and that there are no arguments that can destroy the "real realism" of experience (pg137-8).
Interestingly, author claims that a "reduction" for the identity theorist, who claims that experiential states are identical to brain states, isn't reducing two entities to one in the ontological sense, just the epistemological one (pg138-9). The next discussion changes from defense to offense: is it known that anything non-experiential exists? To assume it does is unwarranted, according to author (pg140-1). Here, physicalism is compatible with panpsychism, which author explores (pg141-2). In conclusion, author asserts that if indeed this was widely accepted by philosophers, panpsychism would be widely acknowledged as a real possibility, which does not seem to be the case (pg143). Author runs through the arguments against false naturalists and finishes by asserting that it is not theoretically or ontologically cheaper to postulate the fundamental constituents of reality aren't experiential; it's either more expensive or, at best, equally pricey (pg146).
Proceedings and Addresses of the APA, Vol 86 Issue 2 Nov 2012
Author starts by claiming that author is a thorough-going naturalist. But what is the substantive conception of the natural? For author, it is that all reality is entirely physical. So this makes author a physicalist or materialist naturalist (pg126). Author takes there to be a conflict, however, with other sorts of physicalists/naturalists when it comes to the philosophy of mind. The problem is that humans are directly knowledgeable about experience, and only indirectly knowledgeable about non-experiential properties of physical objects. Author thinks the move in 20th century philosophy to question whether experience is real when compared to other physical properties has been a wrongheaded evolution, going from a methodological commitment to behaviorism to a ontological commitment against experience (pg127). Author highlights Quine and Smart here.
In section 2, author treats the term "physical" as a natural-kind term, one that denotes a natural kind, and one whose content we can be wrong about. Author briefly discusses the persistent ignorance about the world that plagues physicalism, but also acknowledges that equations like f = ma are likely good approximations of the truth. But the problem with such equations is that they are structural descriptions, where content still needs to be cashed out (pg128-130). Author considers the structural and mathematical elements of the physical sciences to be their strong suit, not because humans know so much about the world, but because they know so little. Author distinguishes between the "intrinsic nature" of reality and its structure, and that logico-mathematical representations of the world do not illuminate its intrinsic nature. In other words, physics has structural descriptive content, and even structural transcendent referential content, but does it have structural transcendent descriptive content? (pg130) If a self-professed physicalist/naturalist is tempted to say "yes", then author objects that physicalism, thus far, has left out consciousness, or qualia, from it description (pg131-2). So, the dilemma is as follows: (1) admit that physics only has Purely Logico-Mathematical Structural Description (PLM) and thus misses the non-structural intrinsic nature of reality, or (2) argue that the Causal-Spatio-Temporal Structural Description given by physics is all that remains to reality and thereby deny that experience is part of reality.
Author briefly summarizes the points made: that physicalism doesn't escape the Locke-Hume-Kant arguments about not knowing the thing-in-itself or understanding causation only by constant conjunction (pg133). Author considers those who think physics is the full fundamental description of the universe to be "not serious ... physicSalists". (pg134) Author uses the concepts of ignorance and knowledge-- what humans are ignorant about and what they know about-- in this discussion. The first and most certainly generally known fact is that there is experience. Naturalism must be "realistic", in that it must include this known fact (pg135). Author discusses prototypical examples of pre-philosophical understandings of experience: the kind of stuff you have when you're 6 years old: in short, having an experience is the knowing of the experience. (pg135-6) Author argues that there is no is/seems distinction when it comes to qualia, and that there are no arguments that can destroy the "real realism" of experience (pg137-8).
Interestingly, author claims that a "reduction" for the identity theorist, who claims that experiential states are identical to brain states, isn't reducing two entities to one in the ontological sense, just the epistemological one (pg138-9). The next discussion changes from defense to offense: is it known that anything non-experiential exists? To assume it does is unwarranted, according to author (pg140-1). Here, physicalism is compatible with panpsychism, which author explores (pg141-2). In conclusion, author asserts that if indeed this was widely accepted by philosophers, panpsychism would be widely acknowledged as a real possibility, which does not seem to be the case (pg143). Author runs through the arguments against false naturalists and finishes by asserting that it is not theoretically or ontologically cheaper to postulate the fundamental constituents of reality aren't experiential; it's either more expensive or, at best, equally pricey (pg146).
1/11/13
Nagel, Thomas - Value
01/11/2012
Mind And Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature is Almost Certainly False, Ch 5, Oxford University Press, 2012
In this final chapter, author considers how the possibility of objective value (value realism) invalidates Darwinian physicalism. Part of the chapter is spent presenting the case for value realism as opposed to value subjectivism. A significant problem for author is that value subjectivism is a potent and coherent alternative to value realism. Author's strategy seems to be to argue that value realism is incompatible with Darwinian physicalism (similar to Street's argument), and so much the worse for Darwinian physicalism.
Author begins the discussion by assuming that practical reasoning is indispensably conscious. This already casts a shadow (according to author) over the possibility of practical reasoning and judgments being subject to materialist reduction, but author sets that aside for the time being. Author discusses the conflict between value subjectivism and value realism, and admits that value subjectivism is a valid alternative (pg98-100). In this context, "value realism" is the position that "our responses to moral situations try to reflect the evaluative truth and can be correct or incorrect by reference to it." (pg98). Author also defends value realism from the challenge that it needs metaphysical 'baggage', in other words, that something must be real in the world for value realism to be about. Author denies this: what value realism treats as its subject matter are the same worldly facts that we all use, like: there is a dog I might run over with a car if I do not brake (pg101-105). Interestingly, author argues that the best evidence for value realism is "the fruitfulness of evaluative and moral thought in producing results, including corrections of beliefs formerly widely held..." (pg104).
In section 3 author paraphrases the arguments of Sharon Street that moral realism is incompatible with Darwinian physicalism. For Street, this invalidates moral realism. For author, Darwinian physicalism must be re-thought (pg105). Author defends using a philosophical argument to refute empirical findings, arguing that human capabilities (presumably, to find objective moral values) are part of what needs explaining by science (pg106). Author outlines Street's argument, which basically points to a disanalogy between a survival value to having perceptual nodes that get at (some) physical reality and value/judgment nodes that get at (some) value/moral reality. In the first case, abilities that link to physical facts is adaptive. In the second, abilities that link to moral facts is not necessarily adaptive; what is far more adaptive is a co-evolution of species-specific inter-subjective values (pg107-8).
Author takes time to discuss the case for value realism using moral simples like pleasure and pain (pg110-1), and then moves to a positive account of the capacities for recognizing value, including free will (pg112-3). In short, humans can be "motivated by their apprehension of values and reasons, whose existence is a basic type of truth, and that the explanation of action by such motives is a basic form of explanation, not reducible to something of another form, either psychological or physical." (pg114) The idea author has in mind is that human action is explainable by "judgments", and those are irreducible or 'emergent' properties of a unified, conscious, mind. It is here when author states that epiphenomenalism in consciousness is incompatible with value realism (pg115-6).
Author then looks through the familiar lens of asking for both a constitutive and an historical account of a capacity to appreciate objective value. Author admits the historical account is 'obscure' or sketchy, but outlines how it might go, broadly as part of the development of life story (pg117-8). If value is tied to life, and to specific things that make certain lives go better and worse, then it is acceptable to treat value realism as life-dependent, or even species-dependent. Or perhaps even organism-relative. (pg119-120) Author discusses how the causal historical explanation seems implausible and turns instead to a teleological one that aims at a multiplicity of values (pg121-2). Author then defends teleology on its own, and compares it to the causal account, which author charges still cannot account for the evolution of the cell (pg123-4). Author concludes by saying that though this theory seems bizarre, so too do older theories when viewed through today's lens, and that the future remake of Darwinian physicalism will make the current en vogue theory also look ridiculous.
Mind And Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature is Almost Certainly False, Ch 5, Oxford University Press, 2012
In this final chapter, author considers how the possibility of objective value (value realism) invalidates Darwinian physicalism. Part of the chapter is spent presenting the case for value realism as opposed to value subjectivism. A significant problem for author is that value subjectivism is a potent and coherent alternative to value realism. Author's strategy seems to be to argue that value realism is incompatible with Darwinian physicalism (similar to Street's argument), and so much the worse for Darwinian physicalism.
Author begins the discussion by assuming that practical reasoning is indispensably conscious. This already casts a shadow (according to author) over the possibility of practical reasoning and judgments being subject to materialist reduction, but author sets that aside for the time being. Author discusses the conflict between value subjectivism and value realism, and admits that value subjectivism is a valid alternative (pg98-100). In this context, "value realism" is the position that "our responses to moral situations try to reflect the evaluative truth and can be correct or incorrect by reference to it." (pg98). Author also defends value realism from the challenge that it needs metaphysical 'baggage', in other words, that something must be real in the world for value realism to be about. Author denies this: what value realism treats as its subject matter are the same worldly facts that we all use, like: there is a dog I might run over with a car if I do not brake (pg101-105). Interestingly, author argues that the best evidence for value realism is "the fruitfulness of evaluative and moral thought in producing results, including corrections of beliefs formerly widely held..." (pg104).
In section 3 author paraphrases the arguments of Sharon Street that moral realism is incompatible with Darwinian physicalism. For Street, this invalidates moral realism. For author, Darwinian physicalism must be re-thought (pg105). Author defends using a philosophical argument to refute empirical findings, arguing that human capabilities (presumably, to find objective moral values) are part of what needs explaining by science (pg106). Author outlines Street's argument, which basically points to a disanalogy between a survival value to having perceptual nodes that get at (some) physical reality and value/judgment nodes that get at (some) value/moral reality. In the first case, abilities that link to physical facts is adaptive. In the second, abilities that link to moral facts is not necessarily adaptive; what is far more adaptive is a co-evolution of species-specific inter-subjective values (pg107-8).
Author takes time to discuss the case for value realism using moral simples like pleasure and pain (pg110-1), and then moves to a positive account of the capacities for recognizing value, including free will (pg112-3). In short, humans can be "motivated by their apprehension of values and reasons, whose existence is a basic type of truth, and that the explanation of action by such motives is a basic form of explanation, not reducible to something of another form, either psychological or physical." (pg114) The idea author has in mind is that human action is explainable by "judgments", and those are irreducible or 'emergent' properties of a unified, conscious, mind. It is here when author states that epiphenomenalism in consciousness is incompatible with value realism (pg115-6).
Author then looks through the familiar lens of asking for both a constitutive and an historical account of a capacity to appreciate objective value. Author admits the historical account is 'obscure' or sketchy, but outlines how it might go, broadly as part of the development of life story (pg117-8). If value is tied to life, and to specific things that make certain lives go better and worse, then it is acceptable to treat value realism as life-dependent, or even species-dependent. Or perhaps even organism-relative. (pg119-120) Author discusses how the causal historical explanation seems implausible and turns instead to a teleological one that aims at a multiplicity of values (pg121-2). Author then defends teleology on its own, and compares it to the causal account, which author charges still cannot account for the evolution of the cell (pg123-4). Author concludes by saying that though this theory seems bizarre, so too do older theories when viewed through today's lens, and that the future remake of Darwinian physicalism will make the current en vogue theory also look ridiculous.
1/4/13
Nagel, Thomas - Cognition
01/04/2012
Mind And Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature is Almost Certainly False, Ch 4, Oxford University Press, 2012
This chapter focuses on cognition, specifically the use of reason, as a feature of mind that is incapable of being considered valid by an evolutionary account of how it evolved. The general argument leveled by author is as follows:
1) modes of getting at true facts (that have been developed by evolution) are prone to certain kinds of errors, and/or are adaptations that are useful only in some local conditions (e.g. perception)
2) use of reason is not prone to error when used, and is not contained to only local applications (pg81)
3) Therefore, for reason to be a mode developed by evolution for getting at true facts, it is extraordinary.
Author starts by setting aside the possibility that computers can have knowledge, or that "higher-level cognitive capacities" can be done without consciousness. (pg71) Author then proceeds to take a common-sense approach to epistemology: there are true, objective facts about the world and most of the time perceptual and primitive minds have access only to how those facts appear, not their objective features (pg72-3). (This contrasts with some instrumentalist or nominalist 'anitrealist' theories of science and epistemology (pg74-5)) For author, appreciating the difference between appearance and reality is a higher-level cognitive capacity and is a rare ability in the animal kingdom (pg73), possibly partially attributable to language use. Author raises two questions: (pg74)
1. is it likely that evolution could have created a faculty that gets at the objective truth of the world using the faculty of reason?
2. can the faculty of reason be understood as an evolved mechanism?
Author first sketches out what an answer to the first question might be (pg76-78), with emphasis on language use, theory of mind, and cultural transmission of knowledge. What is distinctive about author's "just-so" story is that author is a realist: the objective facts of science and morals are there to be discovered and thus the faculty that develops in humans is one that reaches "discovers" those facts.
Author then moves to the second question: is the faculty of reason at all similar to other evolved faculties? Surely there are biases and distortions with our perceptual apparati, as there are also with emotional responses and intuitive probability calculations and value judgments (pg79). And yet the appreciation (and correction) of these distortions is not further subject to bias or distortion: it is taken as valid and justified. Further, the authority of reason isn't due to cultural history (pg70-80). A key difference for author here is that beliefs formed about objective truths using perceptual nodes are done through inference, while beliefs formed using reason are 'grasped directly' (pg80, pg82-3). Because of this, author asserts the inferential truth of evolutionary theory is only backstopped by reason, not the other way around, and thus cannot independently give validity to reason. (pg81) Author claims that the attempt to understand ourselves as creatures of evolution must "bottom out" in something recognized as "valid in itself" (pg81), which can only be reason and not evolutionary theory since that theory is itself held to the standards of reason.
The ability to reflect on modes of perception and intuition using reason is a kind of freedom (pg84), and one that author claims is not compatible with a "purely physical analysis". Author also wonders aloud as to whether language use is also not a radical development that is difficult to account for using evolution (pg84-5). Author reiterates the call that a historical explanation for the emergence of reason not show it to be "a complete accident" (pg86-8). Author then talks about the possibilities for a constitutive account (using the same language as in previous chapters: a call for a constitutive account and an historical one). Author is skeptical that a reductive account of reason is possible, thus a holistic or emergent one is more likely (pg87-8).
In the last two sections of the chapter, author explores the possibility of a teleological explanation as one for the development of mind. For author, this is a third option to a Darwinian physicalism or a theistic intentionalism. For author, the world would have to be probabilistic, not deterministic, and of the probabilities, one would have to be more likely than the rest based on its outcome fulfilling some sort of value or telos (pg92-3).
Mind And Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature is Almost Certainly False, Ch 4, Oxford University Press, 2012
This chapter focuses on cognition, specifically the use of reason, as a feature of mind that is incapable of being considered valid by an evolutionary account of how it evolved. The general argument leveled by author is as follows:
1) modes of getting at true facts (that have been developed by evolution) are prone to certain kinds of errors, and/or are adaptations that are useful only in some local conditions (e.g. perception)
2) use of reason is not prone to error when used, and is not contained to only local applications (pg81)
3) Therefore, for reason to be a mode developed by evolution for getting at true facts, it is extraordinary.
Author starts by setting aside the possibility that computers can have knowledge, or that "higher-level cognitive capacities" can be done without consciousness. (pg71) Author then proceeds to take a common-sense approach to epistemology: there are true, objective facts about the world and most of the time perceptual and primitive minds have access only to how those facts appear, not their objective features (pg72-3). (This contrasts with some instrumentalist or nominalist 'anitrealist' theories of science and epistemology (pg74-5)) For author, appreciating the difference between appearance and reality is a higher-level cognitive capacity and is a rare ability in the animal kingdom (pg73), possibly partially attributable to language use. Author raises two questions: (pg74)
1. is it likely that evolution could have created a faculty that gets at the objective truth of the world using the faculty of reason?
2. can the faculty of reason be understood as an evolved mechanism?
Author first sketches out what an answer to the first question might be (pg76-78), with emphasis on language use, theory of mind, and cultural transmission of knowledge. What is distinctive about author's "just-so" story is that author is a realist: the objective facts of science and morals are there to be discovered and thus the faculty that develops in humans is one that reaches "discovers" those facts.
Author then moves to the second question: is the faculty of reason at all similar to other evolved faculties? Surely there are biases and distortions with our perceptual apparati, as there are also with emotional responses and intuitive probability calculations and value judgments (pg79). And yet the appreciation (and correction) of these distortions is not further subject to bias or distortion: it is taken as valid and justified. Further, the authority of reason isn't due to cultural history (pg70-80). A key difference for author here is that beliefs formed about objective truths using perceptual nodes are done through inference, while beliefs formed using reason are 'grasped directly' (pg80, pg82-3). Because of this, author asserts the inferential truth of evolutionary theory is only backstopped by reason, not the other way around, and thus cannot independently give validity to reason. (pg81) Author claims that the attempt to understand ourselves as creatures of evolution must "bottom out" in something recognized as "valid in itself" (pg81), which can only be reason and not evolutionary theory since that theory is itself held to the standards of reason.
The ability to reflect on modes of perception and intuition using reason is a kind of freedom (pg84), and one that author claims is not compatible with a "purely physical analysis". Author also wonders aloud as to whether language use is also not a radical development that is difficult to account for using evolution (pg84-5). Author reiterates the call that a historical explanation for the emergence of reason not show it to be "a complete accident" (pg86-8). Author then talks about the possibilities for a constitutive account (using the same language as in previous chapters: a call for a constitutive account and an historical one). Author is skeptical that a reductive account of reason is possible, thus a holistic or emergent one is more likely (pg87-8).
In the last two sections of the chapter, author explores the possibility of a teleological explanation as one for the development of mind. For author, this is a third option to a Darwinian physicalism or a theistic intentionalism. For author, the world would have to be probabilistic, not deterministic, and of the probabilities, one would have to be more likely than the rest based on its outcome fulfilling some sort of value or telos (pg92-3).
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