Date: Fri, 9 Jan 1998 01:41:11 -0500 (EST)
From: Justin Schwartz <jschwart-AT-freenet.columbus.oh.us>
Subject: M-TH: Last word on philosophy of mind and realist epistemology



I quit doing philosophy of mind, in which I had worked professionally for
over a decade, in part because I had more pressing business in political
philosophy, in part because i was bored with it, and in part because I had
come to conclusion that given my views about the subject it wasn't clear
tome that there was any philosophical, as opposed to scientific, work to
be done. The philosophical work seemed mainly to lie in knowcking down bad
a priori philosophical arguments about what muast be or what can't be,
which si what I mainly did in my disserattion and the papers that came
out of it, and I wasn't interested in spending any more time doing that. I
also wasn't willing to get down and learn computer programming to do AI or
to do brain research or the sorts of things I concluded you had to do to
make progress studying the mind. So I hung it up.

In view of that I am reluctant to go on discussing phil of mind here. Just
a few clarificatory points. 

On the emotions, I regard emotions as cognitive states. I no more seperate
out the "fear" from "I fear that we will come to a bad end" than I
seperate out the "belief" from "I believe that everything will be OK." I
reject Hugh's process-product distinction and his attempt to stiff the
emotional attitude we have towards the proposition that is its object into
mere nonmental process. As I have explained, on the best theory of mind I
think we have, functionalism, the mind is all process, the internal states
that causally link perceptual input to behavioral output. 

I also do not insist that the mind is transparent to itself in that we
necessarily and certainly know all its contents. I have explicitly said
that we can be wrong about our mental states and I gave an example of how
we can (the "I love my work" but I don't act like it example). Hugh
irrelevantly points out that the example might be subject to other
interpretations. Fine, think of one that can't, if you can. Incidentally
Hugh seems to think it's a defect of my way of thinking that I am
intolerant of contradiction. I think it's a defect of his that he's
tolerant of them. 

We got into this because I claimed against Hugh that we can knwo the
contents of our minds with less problem than it appears that we can know
things that our outside our minds. This led into a discussion of wherther
introspection is perception, which I will concede it's not if perception
is defined as sensory knowledge, and whether awareness of our mental
states is knowledge of them. The last question strikes mea s excatly the
sort of boring and sterile question that makes much of phil of mind
unbearably tedious. If anyone can say why it matters, I'll be surprised.
They can work it out. I won't bother.

Hugh wants to insist on the notion of the unconscious, which I understand
to mean mental states of which we cannot become conscious, aware, or know.
In principle I don't think I object to the postulation of such states. In
practice I'd like to see a credible scientific theory that puts them to
work. Psychoanalysis isn't one in my book. Whether there's an unconscious,
ora nyway whether we are entitled to say there is, depends in my view on
the existence of such a theory.

In a different vein, the Kant, etc. discussion, which was rather more
interesting at least to me, has run out of steam. Probably just as well; I
can't take the time to go back into the CPR and think this stuff through.

Hugh and I agree that realism faces a serious challenge from its
relativist critics. We agree, too, that there are not going to be
knockdown arguments. We agree that this shouldn't bother us too much. Hugh
advocates a chins-up sort of hearty confidence in our necessarily
provisional acceptance of realism, none of your mealy-mouthed "Yes, but,"
rather a spit-in-the-eye Damn-the-torpedos, Full Speed Ahead! sort of
approach. He seems to think this is very important. One might wonder
whether the lady doth protest too much, but I share his attitude, if not
his appraisal of its importance. Strong antirealist arguments have never
moved me to even doubt whether realism is true, just to admire their
cleverness and try to figure out where theygo wrong. So in the end we
don't differ that much here.

Hugh asks me when I say, We are entitled to accept realism without
argument for most purposes, just who is doing the entitling. I myself got
a license from Philosophy Central not to worry about it except when faced
with an antirealist. Who entitles Hugh? I guess the Revolutionary
Proletariat. They also issue these things. 

Would Hugh like it better if I said, It's not unreasonable rather than We
are entitled? I mean the same things by these terms.

Genug und gute nacht.

--jks  
   
 











     --- from list marxism-thaxis-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---