Continuing our
look at the critics of Thomas Nagel’s recent book Mind
and Cosmos, we turn to philosopher Alva Noë’s very interesting remarks over
at NPR’s 13.7: Cosmos & Culture blog.
Noë’s initial comments might seem broadly sympathetic to Nagel’s
position. He writes:
Science has produced no standard
account of the origins of life.
We have a superb understanding of how
we get biological variety from simple, living starting points. We can thank
Darwin for that. And we know that life in its simplest forms is built up out of
inorganic stuff. But we don't have any account of how life springs forth from
the supposed primordial soup. This is an explanatory gap we have no idea how to
bridge.
Science also lacks even a
back-of-the-envelop [sic] concept explaining the emergence of consciousness
from the behavior of mere matter. We have an elaborate understanding of the
ways in which experience depends on neurobiology. But how consciousness arises
out of the action of neurons, or how low-level chemical or atomic processes
might explain why we are conscious — we haven't a clue.
We aren't even really sure what
questions we should be asking.
These two explanatory gaps are
strikingly similar… In both cases we have large-scale phenomena in view (life,
consciousness) and an exquisitely detailed understanding of the low-level
processes that sustain these phenomena (biochemistry, neuroscience, etc). But
we lack any way of making sense of the idea that the higher-level phenomena
just come down to, or consist of, what is going on at the lower level.
End
quote. Now an Aristotelian would say
that this is precisely what we should expect.
What modern biologists and neuroscientists have uncovered in exquisite
detail are the material-cum-efficient causes of the phenomena of life and
consciousness. But that is only half the
story, for there are also irreducible final
and formal causes -- the inherent teleological features natural objects
exhibit by virtue of their substantial forms -- and you are never going to
capture those features in terms of material and efficient causality. That is (one reason) why there always seems
to be something left out in materialist accounts of life and consciousness.
There is a
mystery here only if you suppose that “lower-level” descriptions are somehow
more privileged than “higher-level” descriptions. And that, we old-fashioned Aristotelians
would argue, is something there is no good reason to believe in the first place. It is merely a metaphysical dogma -- as old
as Democritus and Leucippus but no more plausible now than it was in their day
-- that is read into the scientific
facts rather than read out of them. In
the case at hand, what Noë is describing confirms the traditional Aristotelian
view that there is a difference in kind and not merely degree between the
organic and the inorganic, and between sensory and vegetative forms of life (in
the technical Aristotelian sense of “vegetative,” which does not correspond
exactly to the colloquial use of that term).
This has
nothing to do with vitalism, “Intelligent
Design” theory, and other such bogeymen, and one reason Nagel’s inchoate
neo-Aristotelianism may be troubling to his more ideological critics is
precisely that it undermines the false dilemma that is the naturalist’s main rhetorical
weapon: “Either accept some form of naturalism or you’ll be stuck with magic,
obscurantism, or a god-of-the-gaps.” For
though Nagel’s own version is inchoate,
neo-Aristotelianism cannot be dismissed as philosophically unserious, and has
been worked out in more systematic detail by a number of prominent contemporary
philosophers. (I noted several examples
in the
first post in this series. For a
recent defense of a neo-Aristotelian position in biology, specifically, see David
Oderberg’s Real
Essentialism. I’ve criticized
biological reductionism from an Aristotelian point of view in several earlier posts,
such as this
one, this
one, and this
one; and neuroscientific reductionism in several other posts, such as this
one and this
one.)
Now, Noë
himself is no ideologue. This is
evidenced not only by the comments already cited, but by his recognition of the
depth of the difficulties facing materialism, and of their roots in the very
nature of the scientific revolution:
The scientific revolution took its
impulse from what the philosopher Bernard Williams called the Absolute
Conception of Reality. This is a conception of the world as "it really
is" entirely apart from how it appears to us: a colorless, odorless
value-free domain of particles and complexes moving in accordance with timeless
and immutable mathematical laws. The world so conceived has no place for mind
in it. No intention. No purpose. If there is mind — and of course the great
scientific revolutionaries such as Descartes and Newton would not deny that
there is mind — it exists apart from and unconnected to the material world as
this was conceived of by the New Science.
If modern science begins by shaping a
conception of the cosmos, its subject matter, in such a way as to exclude mind
and life, then it shouldn't come as a surprise that we can't seem to find a
place for them in the natural order so conceived.
This is why Nagel observes, at the
beginning of his book, that the mind-body problem isn't just a local problem
concerning brains, behavior and the mind; correctly understood it invades our
understanding of the cosmos itself and its history.
End
quote. This is a point I’ve emphasized in
my own work many times and which (as I’ve emphasized in the earlier posts in
this series) has informed Nagel’s own thinking since his article “What Is It
Like to Be a Bat?” Though materialists
sometimes suggest that dualism represents a reluctance consistently to follow
out the implications of the scientific revolution, the truth is precisely the
reverse -- in fact it was the re-conception of matter put forward by the
founders of the scientific revolution that led
to (Cartesian forms of) dualism.
Noë even
dismisses as “superficial and unsatisfying” the suggestion of critics like
Brian Leiter and Michael Weisberg that Nagel’s arguments have little merit
given that most philosophers today would probably reject the claim that
neuroscience, biology, and chemistry can all be reduced to physics. For as Noë correctly observes:
[T]here is no stable or deeply
understood account of how these autonomous domains fit together. The fact that
we are getting along with business as if there were such an account is, well, a
political or sociological fact about us that should do little to reassure.
End
quote. As I noted in the two previous
posts in this series, the autonomy of these sciences, far from saving
naturalism from critiques like Nagel’s, itself only provides further
vindication of the holistic Aristotelian account of the natural phenomena studied
by these special sciences -- just the sort of position toward which Nagel
points, however sketchily.
All the same,
Noë resists following Nagel’s call for a radical rethinking of the naturalist
consensus. (And now I get to justify my
illustration of Noë as playing Dr. No to Nagel’s James Bond. All in fun, Prof. Noë!) Noë proposes
instead that:
[T]here is another strategy for
responding to the explanatory gaps. This has been one of philosophy's orthodox
strategies at least since Kant and it is an approach championed by many of the
20th century's greatest thinkers, from Carnap and the logical positivists down
through Wittgenstein and Ryle, to Dennett. According to this strategy, the
seeming gaps are, really, a cognitive illusion. We think we can't explain life,
but only because we insist on adhering to a conception of life as vaguely
spooky, some sort of vital spirit. And likewise, we think we can't explain
consciousness, but again this is because we cling to a conception of
consciousness as, well, somehow spiritual, and precisely because we insist on
thinking of it as something that floats free of its physical substrates
("a ghost in the machine"), as something essentially interior and
private. Once we clear away these confusions, so this alternative would have
it, we realize that we don't need to solve any special problems about life and
mind. There never were any problems.
End
quote. There are several things that can
be said in response to this strategy.
For one thing, and as I have already indicated, “vital spirits,” ghosts,
and the like are straw men, at least if directed at Aristotelianism. (Though frankly, they’re not really fair
against Cartesianism either, but I’ll let the Cartesians defend themselves.) It simply is not the case that to reject
materialistic naturalism is to opt for magical or otherwise “spooky” forces and
entities; it is, rather, simply to opt for an alternative metaphysics (and I
have explained the difference between magic and metaphysics elsewhere). Of course, Noë might not really be suggesting
that critics of materialistic naturalism are committed to magic or other pseudo-explanations. He may merely be suggesting that explanations
of a materialistic naturalist sort are preferable
to non-materialist explanations, even if the latter are genuine explanations. But if that is what he means then he is
begging the question, since whether materialistic explanations are to be
preferred to non-materialist ones is part of what is at issue in the larger debate
between Nagel and his critics.
But put to
one side the question of what positive alternatives there might be to the
materialistic naturalism that is Nagel’s target -- neo-Aristotelian
hylemorphism, Cartesian dualism, vitalism, idealism, panpsychism, neutral
monism, or whatever. Noë’s response
would fail even if none of these
alternatives was any good. To see why,
suppose that a critic of Gödel's incompleteness theorems suggested that every true arithmetical statement in a
formal system capable of expressing arithmetic really is in fact
provable within the system, and that the consistency of arithmetic can
in fact be proved from within arithmetic itself -- and that Gödel's
arguments seem to show otherwise only because of a “cognitive illusion” that
makes formal systems seem “vaguely spooky.”
This would
not be a serious response to Gödel precisely because it simply does not show that Gödel is wrong but either presupposes or merely asserts that he is wrong. Gödel purports to demonstrate his claims.
Hence, adequately to answer him would require showing that there is something wrong with his attempted
demonstration, not merely staking out a position that assumes that there is something wrong with it. Similarly, many of the key arguments against
materialistic naturalism -- Chalmers’ “zombie argument,” Jackson’s “knowledge
argument,” Ross’s argument for the immateriality of thought, etc. -- purport to
demonstrate that materialistic
naturalism is false. Adequately to
answer them requires showing that
there is some error in the attempted demonstrations, and the appeal to an alleged
“cognitive illusion” simply assumes
this without showing it. It merely begs
the question.
Furthermore,
there would only be pressure to take the “cognitive illusion” suggestion
seriously if we had independent reason to think that materialistic naturalism simply
has to be right. And there is no such reason. Its defenders often point to the “success” of
materialistic explanations as reason to think materialistic naturalism is true,
but as I have pointed out many times (e.g. here),
this sort of argument, however popular, is blatantly fallacious. To argue:
1. The
predictive power and technological applications of materialistic modes of
explanation are unparalleled by those of any other purported source of
knowledge.
2. Therefore
what materialistic explanations reveal to us is all that is real.
is as silly
as arguing:
1. Metal
detectors have had far greater success in finding coins and other metallic
objects in more places than any other method has.
2. Therefore
what metal detectors reveal to us (coins and other metallic objects) is all
that is real.
Metal detectors
are keyed to those aspects of the natural world susceptible of detection via
electromagnetic means (or whatever). But however well they perform this
task -- indeed, even if they succeeded on every single occasion they were
deployed -- it simply wouldn’t follow for a moment that there are no aspects of
the natural world other than the ones they are sensitive to. Similarly,
what materialistic explanations do is to capture those aspects of the natural
world susceptible of a materialist analysis -- breaking down larger systems
into component material parts, mathematically modeling the parts and their combinations,
testing the predictions that follow from these models, and so forth. But here too, it simply doesn’t follow for a
moment that there are no other aspects of the natural world.
Suppose
someone beholden to the idea that coins and other metallic objects are all that
exist was confronted with all the obvious counterevidence -- trees, rocks,
people, animals, glass, plastic, and all the other non-metal objects there
are. And suppose he acknowledged that
there is an “explanatory gap” here but that it rested on a “cognitive illusion”
that made trees, rocks, etc. seem “vaguely
spooky” insofar as they appeared to “float
free of their metallic substrates.” Of
course, no one would take such an absurd suggestion seriously for a
moment. But neither is there any
non-question-begging reason to take seriously the suggestion that all the
counterevidence to materialistic naturalism rests on a “cognitive illusion.”
As E. A.
Burtt warned in his classic book The
Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Physical Science, those impressed by
the methods of modern science are prone to “make a metaphysics out of [that] method,”
to judge reality by the method rather than judging the method against
reality. That is in fact the “cognitive illusion” operative in the debate between
materialistic naturalism and its critics, and it seems it is an illusion to
which even a reasonable man like Noë might be subject.
Hmmm back then, I think there were many! Esquizo! lol.
ReplyDeleteBut yeah when I started asking those questions, my mind was in crumbles so who knows how many observers could have been XD.
*a little bit more and we will be talking about gnosticism (at least the one my friend likes to talk about)XD*
Gnosticism? Not at all. St. Paul wrote, "the good I would do I do not; the evil I would not, that I do." I take this to be about, amongst other things, how he was aware that there were different interactions taking place inside. I'm pretty sure St. Paul wasn't a gnostic, and I'm pretty sure that most of us at one time or another--some more frequently, some less frequently--have had the experience of things not being as quite as solid, jelled or smoothly united as we would like. It's a common enough experience, so far as I know.
ReplyDeleteWell that can be quite so, after all many intellectual breakthroughs happen because someone suspects something XD.
ReplyDeleteBut quite sincerely you would have A TIME with my friend if were to talk about Christianity or any related subject XD.
Oh boy, I snapped so many times with his straight up denial of logic that sometimes I felt like turning myself into electrons and killing him with a shockwave!
But then again that is just the other I talking loud XD.
Glenn: "If the brain itself were sufficient to explain the mind, how is it that 5-yr olds can outthink cadavers?"
ReplyDeleteI think a functional brain = mind, not a non-functional one. :-)
Touché!
ReplyDeleteRank - if you're still reading this thread, I just want to say, as a lurker around here for the past, oh, six months, I've really appreciated your succinct way of putting things. It's been very instrumental in clarifying certain ideas, very often in a way that makes it more crystal clear for me than even Prof. Feser does. In a few cases, when I've been pressed for time, I've even developed the habit of just scrolling thru the comments looking for what you had to say on the topic! So I too hope you still keep commenting from time to time...
ReplyDelete@Glenn
ReplyDeleteRe 'the mind is what the brain does', I personally have not a problem with this being employed as a basic rule of thumb meant to indicate that the workings of our minds are influenced by our brains.
What I do have a problem with is when, as is so very commonly the case, 'the mind is what the brain does' is employed as a shortened version of the "mind is only, solely, and nothing but what the brain does", i.e., when mind and brain are taken to be synonymous.
You see, that's one of the problems. Most unthinking materialists conflate the various layers of reality into one incoherent reduction. Instead of acknowledging (as they should) that the brain operates as the mind thinks, they believe that the brain operates and that there is no mind (empirical style arguments ensue).
These layers I mentioned are the various higher level, holistic structures (see: forms) that permeate reality and are both linked (causality "flowing" both ways) and interdependent with lower level constituents but not reducible or exhaustible by said constituents. Yesterday in fact, I was reading Herman Dooyeweerd's theory of modal aspects, which deals with precisely this issue. His ideas I think are very interesting and original and I wouldn't be surprised if soon enough, his name started popping up in contemporary works done on emergence.
He's an incredible thinker!
Off-topic, but this just appeared to tell you why your should do philosophy the natural way.
ReplyDeleteWell I think there are two remarks!
ReplyDeleteone is just to troll because, well I way better at trolling than most of you and the second is a bit of a question, it will most likely not be answered but here we go.
First Psychology is not science!!! *there ya go, no need to hear that TWICE now!*
I wonder what analytical philosophers have to say to Thagard's characterization of their overall view of things, or dogmas in this case XD.
By the way, Thagard IS A philosopher, of naturalistic school... wha really? His remarks; quite sincerely are very funny to me, I got so used to the standard trash-can naturalistic "philosophy" you get on the net that I seriously wondered how was that even possible! but then I remember where my data came from and it was clear after the rain was gone.
@Anonymous:
ReplyDelete"Off-topic, but this just appeared to tell you why your should do philosophy the natural way."
The article is really really bad. It offers eleven alleged "dogmas" of analytic philosophy (what else could they be? right. Nevermind that many of them are not defended by anyone, but really, who cares?) and then goes on to propose its own eleven dogmatic, unargued prescriptions.
There are several howlers, but point 5. is a real gem:
"5. People are rational. Natural alternative: recognize that people are commonly ignorant of physics, biology, and psychology, and that their beliefs and concepts are often incoherent. Philosophy needs to educate people, not excuse them."
Some people are just completely blind to irony.
Black Luster,
ReplyDeleteIf you want a layman's introduction to David Bentley Hart, read The Doors of the Sea. It summarizes many of the key ideas from The Beauty of the Infinite in much friendlier language.
Alypius,
Rank - if you're still reading this thread, I just want to say, as a lurker around here for the past, oh, six months, I've really appreciated your succinct way of putting things. It's been very instrumental in clarifying certain ideas, very often in a way that makes it more crystal clear for me than even Prof. Feser does. In a few cases, when I've been pressed for time, I've even developed the habit of just scrolling thru the comments looking for what you had to say on the topic! So I too hope you still keep commenting from time to time...
Wow. I really, really appreciate that comment. Considering how many mistakes I've caught myself in during my time on this blog, I just hope my comments haven't misled you. In any case, many thanks.
@Glenn: I'm pretty sure St. Paul wasn't a gnostic
ReplyDeleteWhat of the gnosticizing cosmology of II Cor. 4, 4; Rom. 8, 38f.; I Cor. 15, 24, 26; Col. 1, 16; 2, 10, 15; Eph. 1, 21; 2, 2; 3, 10; 6, 12; &c., &c.?
Let me grab my popcorn n_n!
ReplyDeleteNow gentleman keep it clean so I can learn from you!
-----------------------------------
Otherwise I will use all the tactics of left against both of you, which comprise of: using logic only when it suits me; Using of ridicule and ignoring that I got my ass kicked in debate; Tell lies about you...because yeah; spam your email with p0rn!!!!
yeah that is about all I can say with a straight face before puking.
James,
ReplyDeleteThere are those who are pretty sure that St. Paul wasn't a gnostic, and those who are pretty sure that he was (or may have been). Two possibilities here:
(1) I'm in one camp, you're in the other. In this case, rehashing things here will not, from my perspective, accomplish much (if anything) of value. If you have something new to add, I would guess that, without intending any slight to Dr. Feser's blog, a more conducive launch pad can be found elsewhere.
(2) We're both in the same camp. In this case, were we to discuss the matter, we'd likely end up agreeing to agree.
No offense intended.
u_u oh shoot, I thought you guys were going to do someone awesome discussion like never before!!!
ReplyDeleteu_u guess I just have to stop being a lazy bum and research myself.
Is the Godelian Argument against mechanist explanations of the mind still any good?
ReplyDeleteAnonymous,
ReplyDeleteHadn't heard of Dooyeweerd before, but with a quick check and some poking around, I can see his work is of interest to me. Thanks for mentioning him.
You are very welcome, Glenn.
ReplyDeleteIs the Godelian Argument against mechanist explanations of the mind still any good?
ReplyDeleteOf course it is. There have been numerous forms and improvements of the argument. Mechanist explanations of the mind are utter failure, one doesn't even need to go as far as Godel to refute them.