Date: Fri, 02 Nov 2001 17:37:47 +0100
Subject: Re: Crucial Questions on Life


Well, Emrah I disagree totally wit you here. Dennett is just a simple 
mind who tries to cut the edges by ignoring the problems. I don't 
understand why you as a sociologist, don't look at things from a 
sociological point of view: reality is a social construct and not an 
object-to-subject event. Luhman f.i. realies heavily on Husserls 
phenomenology and maybe for a good reason, because Husserl takes the 
problem seriously. He's a bit more subtle then guys like Dennett, who 
just explaines away what's at stake.If reality is a social construct 
than it's made possible by language and if one wants to look into that, 
one could turn to semiotics, where the object is a signifier for a lot 
of conventions like 'me', 'mind', 'image', etc.

erik  

Emrah Goker wrote:

>
> Oh well... I guess we should at least thank Berk for awakening the 
> list. I am a simple sociologist, and the tradition of relational 
> realism I feel close to (from Marx to Bhaskar and Bourdieu) has been 
> highly suspicious of (if not hostile to) smuggled-in 
> Cartesianisms like psychologism or rational choice theory (eew!) or 
> other forms of subjectivism which are so common in social scientific 
> research. And personally, I find most philosophies of mind unappealing 
> for my research questions or political position-takings.
>
> However, out of curiosity, I once delved into the neverending debates 
> on "consciousness" (and if you think "Homo Academicus", there is a 
> rich sociology of the field of scientific production where 
> bioevolutionists, philosophers, cognitive psychologists, 
> microbiologists, neurologists, information theorists, etc. fight 
> bloody battles on this topic). I can't say I was ambitious or willing 
> enough to understand the whole clash of paradigms, but I thought 
> Daniel Clement Dennett's take on the subject was appealing.
>
> His 1991 book "Consciousness Explained" and 1993 book "Content and 
> Consciousness" created a lot of controversy inside the field, where he 
> defended a strictly materialist explanation of consciousness 
> (rejecting ALL forms of metaphysics, from those recycled mind-body 
> paradigms to those which assign an unexplained ontological status to 
> "emotions", "thoughts", etc.). I won't try to summarize the argument 
> here (it's too complex for my simple sociological mind anyway), but 
> Berk, you might want to look for answers in Dennett's work. Also check 
> his "Brainchildren: Essays on Designing Mind". Dennett is not a 
> Marxist (as far as I know, but the Marxist in me agreed with what he 
> had to say most of the time) and is sociologically almost illiterate. 
> But his devastating challenge to still very strong Cartesian paradigms 
> inside evolution studies, neurology, cybernetics, etc. is important.
>
> Emrah Goker, Department of Sociology, Columbia University
>
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