{"id":5526,"date":"2017-05-11T05:30:22","date_gmt":"2017-05-11T05:30:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2017\/05\/11\/consciousness-a-hard-nut-to-crack\/"},"modified":"2017-05-11T05:30:22","modified_gmt":"2017-05-11T05:30:22","slug":"consciousness-a-hard-nut-to-crack","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2017\/05\/11\/consciousness-a-hard-nut-to-crack\/","title":{"rendered":"David Chalmers and the Purely Theoretical Conception of Philosophy"},"content":{"rendered":"

John Horgan reports<\/a> in Scientific American<\/em> on a conversation with David Chalmers. (HT: the ever-helpful Dave Lull)<\/span><\/p>\n

There is some discussion of the so-called 'hard problem' in the philosophy of mind. 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.    It seems to me, though, that intentionality is also a damned hard problem for physicalists to solve, so hard in fact as to be insoluble within physicalist constraints and another excellent reason to reject physicalism. I give my reasons here<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

But this is not the topic of this entry. What caught my eye was a metaphilosophical item.<\/span><\/p>\n

Chalmers' is a purely theoretical conception of philosophy:<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Does philosophy help him [Chalmers] deal with personal problems? \u201cI\u2019m not sure how deep an integration there is between what I think about philosophically and the way I live,\u201d he replied. \u201cI\u2019d love to be able to say, \u2018Here is how the insights I\u2019ve had about consciousness have transformed my life.\u2019\u2026 I\u2019ve basically lived my life the way I want to live it without necessarily being all that reflective at the practical level.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

A striking admission. Here we have a philosopher who frankly admits to living his life more or less unreflectively and thus more or less unphilosophically. On such an approach, philosophy has little to do with the life of the "existing individual" to employ a signature phrase from Kierkegaard. This is a widespread attitude among contemporary philosophers for whom philosophy is a purely theoretical discipline aimed at the solution of certain puzzles such as the 'hard problem.'  <\/span><\/p>\n

Well, that is a conception of philosophy one might have.  I'll say a few words in its defense. The central problems of philosophy are genuine problems, and the attempts by logical positivists, ordinary language philosophers, and others to show them to be pseudo have failed.  Whether or not they are humanly important or socially relevant or such that their solution contributes to human flourishing, they are legitimate objects of inquiry.  And a pox upon anyone or any government that thinks otherwise.<\/span><\/p>\n

But some of us favor a more classical conception of philosophy. For some of us, the signature Socratic saying remains normative: "The unexamined life is not worth living."  These are words Plato puts into the mouth of Socrates at Apology<\/em> 38a:<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

. . . and if again I say that to talk every day about virtue and the other things about which you hear me talking and examining myself and others is the greatest good to man, and that the unexamined life is not worth living, you will believe me still less. This is as I say, gentlemen, but it is not easy to convince you.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

To contrast it with the purely theoretical conception we could call this an 'existential' conception of philosophy as long as we don't confuse it with existentialism narrowly construed.   Obviously, one whose approach to philosophy is broadly existential can also have a strong theoretical bent.  It might be interesting to attempt a list of some prominent 'existential' philosophers, and then distill the shared attributes that make them such.<\/span><\/p>\n

Broadly 'existential' philosophers include Socrates, Plato, Plotinus, Epicurus, Stoics such as Epictetus, Pyrrhonian Skeptics such as Sextus Empiricus, Christian Platonists such as St. Augustine, all of the medieval thinkers such as St Thomas Aquinas for whom philosophia ancilla theologiae.<\/em> Add to them all those whose  concerns are religious first and foremost  Blaise Pascal being a prominent example, and even Kant.<\/span><\/p>\n

Kant?  Well yes.  In the preface to the second edition (1787) of his magnum opus, Critique of Pure Reason<\/em>, he famously declares that his aim is to "deny reason in order to make room for faith."  The highest concerns of humanity are God, freedom, and immortality, and Kant's labors are for the purpose of securing these noble objects.<\/span><\/p>\n

These 'broadly existential' philosophers have in common a concern for ultimate human well-being that trumps the merely theoretical. I'm with them.<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

\nRelated articles<\/legend>\n
\n
<\/a>Is Reason a White Male Euro-Christian Construct?<\/a><\/div>\n
<\/a>Is the Enlightenment the Problem?<\/a><\/div>\n
<\/a>More Liberal Insanity: 'Trigger Warning' for Kant's Critiques<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/fieldset>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

John Horgan reports in Scientific American on a conversation with David Chalmers. (HT: the ever-helpful Dave Lull) There is some discussion of the so-called 'hard problem' in the philosophy of mind. 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 … Continue reading “David Chalmers and the Purely Theoretical Conception of Philosophy”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[96,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5526","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-consciousness-and-qualia","category-metaphilosophy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5526","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5526"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5526\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5526"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5526"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5526"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}