"The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato." —Alfred North Whitehead
Anyone who posits some form of efficacy or constraint outside the natural order on the basis of some kind of interpretation of ‘experience’ has the same argumentative burden to discharge: How do you know? What justifies such an extraordinary (supernatural) posit?…What makes the question so pressing now is that their instrument, reflection, has finally found […]
Continue reading "response to R. Scott Bakker on transcendental phenomenology and BBT"
“The machinery of the brain does all the work–after all, what else is there? What [Cain] calls ‘thinking of science in normative terms’ is a mechanistic enterprise, something our brains do. Since metacognition is all but blind to the mechanistic nature of the brain, it cognizes cognition otherwise, in nonmechanical, acausal, magical terms. Normative judgements, intentional relations, and so […]
Continue reading "Unnecessary Mechanism: A Reply to R. Scott Bakker"
Discussion has continued beneath my last post about Bakker. Below are a few of my comments there: rsbakkar writes: I advert to common idiom when discussing theoretical incompetence, but it certainly doesn’t turn on any commitment to representationalism – even less correspondance! The fact is, people regularly get things wrong in what appear to be […]
Continue reading "Responding to comments about Bakker’s “blind brain theory”"
R. Scott Bakker and Evan Thompson recently debated the merits of neurophenomenology here: http://philosophyofbrains.com/2015/07/29/is-consciousness-a-stream.aspx. Check out Adam/Knowledge-Ecology’s post, where another comment exchange is taking shape…
Continue reading "Evan Thompson on the “Stream” of Consciousness"
“Every scientific man in order to preserve his reputation has to say he dislikes metaphysics. What he means is he dislikes having his metaphysics criticized.” -Alfred North Whitehead Over at Knowledge-Ecology, Adam Robbert has thrown a few fantastic posts up unpacking his vision of the ecology of ideas. Concepts are capacities skillfully enacted in ecological contexts. […]
Continue reading "The Ecology of Ideas: Enacting Worlds Worth Living In"
Steven Craig Hickman recently posted a fascinating commentary on the fantasy writer R. Scott Bakker’s “Blind Brain Theory.” I’ve offered several of my own commentaries in the past (see HERE). My general sense of unease seems to be shared by Hickman, who ponders towards the end of his post whether Bakker’s BBT might be more […]
Go read Benjamin Cain’s fascinating and tightly argued essay posted at Three Pound Brain (the blog of author R. Scott Bakker). Below is my comment to him: That was a thoroughly enjoyable read. I agree with what may be your most important conclusion: that the real danger “we” face as auto-poetic “minds” is that […]
Continue reading "The Danger of Scientism? (response to Benjamin Cain)"
