6 ms·
It's important for people to understand the legacy of the Moderns (in this case, Descartes, though others as well, e.g., Locke) and that legacy's detrimental ho
by danielam 9y ago
It's important for people to understand the legacy of the Moderns (in this case, Descartes, though others as well, e.g., Locke) and that legacy's detrimental hold over contemporary thought. However, while dualism is a problem, materialism as it is generally understood doesn't escape that legacy. For example, the problem of qualia (which is basically what this interview circles around in all by name) is a problem materialism is doomed to languish in precisely because it clings to an Cartesian account of matter, and this impoverished view of matter is wholly incapable of accounting for qualia. So simply dispensing with dualism is not going far enough.
- marojejian 9y ago"this impoverished view of matter is wholly incapable of accounting for qualia" What approach to accounting for qualia do you prefer?
- danielam 9y agoI don't accept the paradigm. The problem of qualia is only an issue if you assume a Cartesian account of matter (CM) while dropping his immaterial account of the mind. Descartes assumes that things like color are not properties of material things but properties of minds. Materialism rejects the notion of an immaterial mind, but does so without rejecting CM, so you're left with a reality made of a kind of matter in which color cannot exist. Materialists are therefore condemned to looking for an impossible solution for as long as they fail to understand the futility of trying to find things like color in CM. Materialism is a halfway house between Cartesian dualism and eliminativism (where the latter denies the existence of things like color because, having accepted CM, it can't account for them -- Procrustean, to be sure). The solution is not to embrace some version of dualism. Dualism has its own issues. The solution is to embrace a richer metaphysics. Aristotle provides such a metaphysics.
- naasking 9y ago> this impoverished view of matter is wholly incapable of accounting for qualia That's conjecture. The only arguments against physicalist explanations for qualia amounts to a bunch of meaningless philosophical hand-waving.
- goatlover 9y agoOnly if one thinks the physicalist explanations so far are satisfactory. I'm guessing the meaningless philosophical hand-wavers find it less than satisfactory. They might even say the same thing about the physicalist explanations.
- naasking 9y agoPhysicalists can't yet explain everything because our knowledge is incomplete. We all know this. Every thought experiment purporting to invalidate physicalism is also either fatally flawed, or simply points to a knowledge gap that we haven't yet explored. None of the above justifies declaring physicalism "insufficient" or "unsatisfactory". People adopt anti-physicalist philosophies because they don't like the idea of being an automaton, not because the arguments against it are sound.
- danielam 9y agoI never said anything about physicalism or that consciousness requires anything immaterial. I suggest you acquaint yourself with the subject matter. You've only offered us a few uninformed claims and bizarre reactions.
- naasking 9y agoI'm quite well acquainted with the subject matter, thanks. I frankly don't see how your original comment could possibly be interpreted other than as an anti-physicalist position.