Le 17-mars-06, à 06:47, Stathis Papaioannou a écrit :
> > Bruno Marchal writes: > >> Le 11-mars-06, à 10:59, Georges Quénot wrote (to John): >> >> <snip> >> >> >>> >>> Yes also and indeed, the way of thinking I presented >>> fits within a reductionist framework. Nobody is required >>> to adhere to such a framework (and therefore to the way >>> of thinking I presented). If one rejects the reductionist >>> approach, all I can say isn't even worth reading it for >>> him. And, again, all of this is pure speculation. >> >> >> Personally I disagree with any reductionist approach. But, given that >> I >> agree with many of your statement, perhaps we have a "vocabulary" >> problem. >> I do even believe that a thoroughly "scientific attitude" is >> automatically anti-reductionnist, whatever theories are used. Science, >> being modest, just cannot be reductionist(*). >> Even the numbers are nowadays no more completely reductible to any >> "unifying theory". >> Only pseudo-scientist (or some scientist during the week-end) can be >> reductionist. > > I'm afraid I don't understand the version of reductionism to which you > so > strongly object. I guess I react strongly because the comp theory is sometimes confused with reductionist interpretation of it. > Are you perhaps referring to the mistake of trying to > explain too much with too little? Not necessarily. Perhaps. It is more the error of explaining *away*, at the level of the interpretation of some theory. > Or are you referring to what Daniel > Dennett has called "greedy reductionism": where something is not so > much > explained in terms of what it reduces to as dismissed or explained > away, > like saying there is no such thing as mental states because it's all > just > neurophysiology? Ah, you say it! That is certainly a form of reductionism. > Well, it is "all just neurophysiology", in that the > neurophysiology is necessary and sufficient for the mental states. Honestly, I find the expression "neurophysiology is necessary and sufficient for the mental states" rather ambiguous. It can be reductionist (example are given in the writing of Patricia Churchland). John Searle would say the same sentence in a much less reductionist spirit, except that he has some reductionist notion of matter in the background. > The > mental states in this sense can be said to reduce to the underlying > brain > states. OK, but saying is not explaining. According to the explanation given, we could decide if we are lead to a reductionist conception of the mind/brain relation. > But this is not the same as saying that the mental states therefore > do not exist, or are not important. Saying that mental state does not exist is not just a reductionist position, I think it is just wrong. Saying that mental states exist and are "just" brain states is a form of reductionism. It is hard to define "reductionism", but I would say it consists in explaining away problems by imposing some univocal interpretation of a theory. In "consciousness explained" Dennett explains *away* not only consciousness but mainly matter. But his general view on consciousness is not necessarily reductionist per se. Its notion of matter is very reductionist, and from this follows a sort of reductionism in his approach of the whole the mind-body question. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
