{"id":5730,"date":"2017-03-02T03:50:47","date_gmt":"2017-03-02T03:50:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2017\/03\/02\/nagel-on-dennett-is-consciousness-an-illusion\/"},"modified":"2017-03-02T03:50:47","modified_gmt":"2017-03-02T03:50:47","slug":"nagel-on-dennett-is-consciousness-an-illusion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2017\/03\/02\/nagel-on-dennett-is-consciousness-an-illusion\/","title":{"rendered":"Nagel on Dennett: Is Consciousness an Illusion?"},"content":{"rendered":"

A NYRB review<\/a>. (HT: the enormously helpful Dave Lull<\/a>)<\/span><\/p>\n

To put it bluntly and polemically: Thomas Nagel is the real thing as philosophers go; Daniel Dennett is a sophist.<\/span><\/p>\n

My Nagel<\/a> category; my Dennett<\/a> category.<\/span><\/p>\n

Killer Quote:<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

I am reminded of the Marx Brothers line: \u201cWho are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes?\u201d Dennett asks us to turn our backs on what is glaringly obvious\u2014that in consciousness we are immediately aware of real subjective experiences of color, flavor, sound, touch, etc. that cannot be fully described in neural terms even though they have a neural cause (or perhaps have neural as well as experiential aspects). And he asks us to do this because the reality of such phenomena is incompatible with the scientific materialism that in his view sets the outer bounds of reality. He is, in Aristotle\u2019s words, \u201cmaintaining a thesis at all costs.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

That's right. When a line of reasoning issues in an absurdity such as the absurdity that consciousness and its deliverances are illusions, then what you have is a reductio ad absurdum<\/em> of one or more of the premises with which the reasoning began.  Dennett assumes physicalism and that everything can be explained in physical terms.  This leads to absurdity. But Dennett, blinded by his own brilliance — don't forget, he counts himself one of the 'brights'<\/a> — bites the bullet. He'd rather break his teeth than examine his assumptions.<\/span><\/p>\n

Another thing struck me. Dennett makes much of Wilfrid Sellars' distinction between the manifest and scientific images. 'Image' is not quite the right word. An image is someone's image. But whose image is the scientific image? Who is its subject? It is arguably our image no less than the manifest image.  Nagel quotes Dennett as saying of the manifest image: "It\u2019s the world according to us<\/em>."  But the same, or something very similar, is true of the scientific image: it's the world in itself according to us<\/em>.  Talk of molecules, atoms, electrons, quarks, and strings is our talk just as much as talk of colors and plants and animals and haircuts and home runs.  <\/span><\/p>\n

The world of physics is the world as it is in itself according to us<\/em>.  Arguably, the 'according to us' gets the upper hand over the 'in itself' relativizing what comes within the former's  scope much like Kant's transcendental prefix, Ich denke<\/em>.  Das 'ich denke' muss alle meine Vorstellungen begleiten koennen . . . .  "The ''I think' must be able to accompany all my representations." (KdrV, B 131-2)<\/span><\/p>\n

Arguably, the world of physics is a mind-involving construct arrived at by excluding the mental and abstracting away from the first-person point of view and the life world it reveals.  I am alluding to an idealist approach to the problem of integrating the first- and third-person points of view.  It has its own problems. But why is it inferior to a view like Dennett's which eliminates as illusory obvious data that are plainly not illusory?<\/span><\/p>\n

Time was when absolute idealism was the default position in philosophy. Think back to the days of Bradley and Bosanquet. But reaction set in, times have changed, and the Zeitgeist<\/em> is now against the privileging of Mind and for the apotheosis of Matter.  (But again, matter as construed by us. Arguably, the scientific realist reifies theoretical constructs that we create and employ to make sense of experience.)  Because idealism is out of vogue, the best and brightest are not drawn to its defense, and the brilliant few it attracts are too few to make much headway against the prevailing winds.<\/span><\/p>\n

Now I'll tell you what I really think. The problem of integrating the first- and third-person points of view is genuine and perhaps the deepest of all philosophical problems. But it is insoluble by us.  If it does have a solution, however, it certainly won't be anything like Dennett's.<\/span><\/p>\n

Although Dennett's positive theory is worthless, his excesses are extremely useful in helping us see just how deep and many-sided and intractable the problem is.<\/span>  <\/p>\n

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<\/a>Where Are the Honest Atheists?<\/a><\/div>\n
<\/a>Does the Atheist Deny What the Theist Affirms? Reply to a Comment<\/a><\/div>\n
<\/a>Could There Have Been Nothing at All?<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/fieldset>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A NYRB review. (HT: the enormously helpful Dave Lull) To put it bluntly and polemically: Thomas Nagel is the real thing as philosophers go; Daniel Dennett is a sophist. My Nagel category; my Dennett category. Killer Quote: I am reminded of the Marx Brothers line: \u201cWho are you going to believe, me or your lying … Continue reading “Nagel on Dennett: Is Consciousness an Illusion?”<\/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":[366,54,225],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5730","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dennett","category-mind","category-nagel-thomas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5730","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=5730"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5730\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}