Category: Naturalism
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Elliot Sober on Thomas Nagel, Mind and Cosmos
This is the fourth in a series of posts on Thomas Nagel's Mind and Cosmos (Oxford 2012). The posts are conveniently collected under the rubric Nagel, Thomas. Before proceeding with my account of Chapter 4, I will pause in this entry to consider Elliot Sober's serious, substantial, and sober Boston Review review. Sober's sobriety lapses…
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Can Reason Be Understood Naturalistically? More Notes on Nagel
This is the third in a series of posts on Thomas Nagel's Mind and Cosmos (Oxford 2012). The first is an overview, and the second addresses Nagel's reason for rejecting theism. This post will comment on some of the content in Chapter 4, "Cognition." In Chapter 4, Nagel tackles the topic of reason, both theoretical and…
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Thomas Nagel, Mind and Cosmos: Overview
I think I shall have to write a number of posts on this exciting and idea-rich book by one of our best philosophers. Here is the first. Short (128 pp.) and programmatic, Thomas Nagel's new book explores the prospects of an approach in the philosophy of mind that is naturalistic yet not materialistic. His approach is…
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Any Good Reviews Yet of Nagel’s New Book?
So far I have run across David Gordon's very good treatment of one aspect of Thomas Nagel's project in Mind and Cosmos (Oxford 2012) entitled Moral Realism vs. Evolutionary Biology? Other than that it has been slim pickin's when it comes to informed, nontendentious discussions of Nagel's latest. I've heard that Plantinga is writing a review,…
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Thomas Nagel Reviews Alvin Plantinga
Plantinga's latest is entitled, Where the Conflict Really Lies: Science, Religion, and Naturalism. Here is Nagel's review. Like everything Nagel publishes, it is well worth careful reading. The review ends as follows: The interest of this book, especially for secular readers, is its presentation from the inside of the point of view of a philosophically…
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Are There Indexical Facts? Are They a Threat to Materialism?
1. Ernst Mach Spies a Shabby Pedagogue. In The Analysis of Sensations (Dover, 1959, p. 4, n. 1) Ernst Mach (1838-1916) offers the following anecdote: Not long ago, after a trying railway journey by night, when I was very tired, I got into an omnibus, just as another man appeared at the other end.…
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Where the Conflict Really Lies: Science, Religion, and Naturalism: Notes on the Preface
I now have Alvin Plantinga's new book in my hands. Here are some notes on the preface. Since I agree with almost everything in the preface, the following batch of notes will be interpretive but not critical. Words and phrases enclosed in double quotation marks are Plantinga's ipsissima verba. 1. Plantinga is concerned with the…
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More on Naturalism and Nihilism
A reader comments: You say: "I would argue that a naturalist/physicalist/materialist ought to be a moral nihilist, and that when these types fight shy of moral nihilism that merely shows an inability or unwillingness on their part to appreciate the logical consequences of their own doctrine, or else some sort of psychological compartmentalization. " …
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Could Intentionality be an Illusion? A Note on Rosenberg
Could intentonality be an illusion? Of course not. But seemingly intelligent people think otherwise: A single still photograph doesn't convey movement the way a motion picture does. Watching a sequence of slightly different photos one photo per hour, or per minute, or even one every 6 seconds won't do it either. But looking at the…
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Intentionality Not a ‘Hard Problem’ for Physicalists?
The qualia-based objections are supposed to pose a 'hard' problem for defenders of physicalism. The implication is that the problems posed by intentionality are, if not exactly 'easy,' then at least tractable. An earlier post discussed a version of the knowledge argument, which is one of the qualia-based objections. (Two others are the absent qualia…
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Could Brains Have Mental Properties?
1. Many philosophers of mind who eschew substance dualism opt for a property dualism. Allowing only one category of substances, material substances, they allow at least two categories of properties, mental and physical. An example of a mental property is sensing red, or to put it adverbially, the property of sensing redly, or in a Chisholmian…
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The Mysterian Materialist Speaks
There are different sorts of materialism about the mind, among them eliminative materialism, identity-materialism, and functionalism. There is also mysterian materialism. Here is a little speech by a mysterian materialist: Look, we are just complex physical systems, and as such wholly understandable in natural-scientific terms, if not now in full, then in the future. And yet…
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The Philosophizing Hiker: The Derivative Intentionality of Trail Markers
You are out hiking and the trail becomes faint and hard to follow. You peer into the distance and see what appear to be three stacked rocks. Looking a bit farther, you see another such stack. Now you are confident which way the trail goes. Your confidence increases as further cairns come into view. On…
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Nagel on Evolutionary Naturalism and the Fear of Religion
I have in my hand a copy of Thomas Nagel, The Last Word (Oxford University Press, 1997). The last essay in The Last Word is entitled, "Evolutionary Naturalism and the Fear of Religion." One hopes that Nagel does not consider it the last word on the topic given its fragmentary nature and occasional perversity. But…
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If the Universe Can Arise out of Nothing, then so can Mind
Over breakfast yesterday morning, Peter Lupu uncorked a penetrating observation. The gist of it I took to be as follows. If a naturalist maintains that the physical universe can arise out of nothing without divine or other supernatural agency, then the naturalist cannot rule out the possibility that other things so arise, minds for example — a result that appears curiously…