dmb quoted from Hacker's article, "Why Study Philosophy?":
"The only way to scrutinise concepts is to examine the use of the words that
express them. Conceptual investigations are investigations into what makes
sense and what does not. And, of course, questions of sense precede questions
of empirical truth – for if something makes no sense, it can be neither true
nor false. It is just nonsense – not silly, but rather: it transgresses the
bounds of sense. Philosophy patrols the borders between sense and nonsense;
science determines what is empirically true and what is empirically false. What
falsehood is for science, nonsense is for philosophy.
Let me give you a simple example or two. When psychologists and cognitive
scientists say that it is your brain that thinks rather than nodding your head
and saying, “How interesting! What an important discovery!”, you should pause
to wonder what this means. What, you might then ask, is a thoughtful brain, and
what is a thoughtless one?
Can my brain concentrate on what I am doing, or does it just concentrate on
what it is doing? Does my brain hold political opinions? Is it, as Gilbert and
Sullivan might ask, a little Conservative or a little Liberal? Can it be
opinionated? Narrow-minded? What on earth would an opinionated and
narrow-minded brain be? Just ask yourself: if it is your brain that thinks, how
does your brain tell you what it thinks? And can you disagree with it? And if
you do, how do you tell it that it is mistaken, that what it thinks is false?
And can your brain understand what you say to it? Can it speak English? If you
continue this line of questioning you will come to realise that the very idea
that the brain thinks makes no sense. But, of course, to show why it makes no
sense requires a great deal more work."
Ian replied:
It is far from nonsense to to bring cross-discipline material into the
discussion. In fact that's the very point of IAI (your link DMB).
dmb says:
Hacker never said that it's "nonsense to bring cross-discipline material into
the discussion". Nobody said that, as far as I know, and my Master's degree is
in Interdisciplinary Humanities. What he's complaining about is the brain-mind
identity theory, which is a form of scientism, of scientific reductionism. The
Churchlands call it "eliminative materialism".
Ian continued:
I like Hacker, a good Wittgensteinian, but he protests too much at how much of
brain and consciousness is "unexplained" and therefore excluded from
contributions to the dialogue - blogged much about his debates with Dennett on
this topic - Hacker's (wilful) ignorance of neurophysiology is no defence.
...MD needs to "let some light in" to coin a phrase.
dmb says:
Hacker is willfully ignorant and he protests too much? You need to provide some
kind of case for this to count as a valid criticism. Otherwise is merely
insulting disapproval for no apparent reason. It seems have not addressed his
remarks at all. It's supposed to show that identifying the mind with the brain
is nonsense but you've certainly said nothing to dispute that point. In fact,
you began by grossly distorting the point by pretending he'd made a completely
different and silly claim. (That it's "nonsense to to bring cross-discipline
material into the discussion.")
Go ahead, tell us how some brains are romantic and some classical, and then get
angry when nobody swallows this nonsense. Who cares what those hacks over at
Oxford say, right? You know the neurological facts much better than those guys
because you went to a festival and blogged about it, right?
More Wikipedia on Scientism:
"Scientism may refer to science applied "in excess". The term scientism can
apply in either of two senses:
To indicate the improper usage of science or scientific claims. This usage
applies equally in contexts where science might not apply, such as when the
topic is perceived to be beyond the scope of scientific inquiry, and in
contexts where there is insufficient empirical evidence to justify a scientific
conclusion. It includes an excessive deference to claims made by scientists or
an uncritical eagerness to accept any result described as scientific. In this
case, the term is a counterargument to appeals to scientific authority.
To refer to "the belief that the methods of natural science, or the categories
and things recognized in natural science, form the only proper elements in any
philosophical or other inquiry," or that "science, and only science, describes
the world as it is in itself, independent of perspective" with a concomitant
"elimination of the psychological dimensions of experience."
The term is also used by historians, philosophers, and cultural critics to
highlight the possible dangers of lapses towards excessive reductionism in all
fields of human knowledge.
For social theorists in the tradition of Max Weber, such as Jürgen Habermas and
Max Horkheimer, the concept of scientism relates significantly to the
philosophy of positivism, but also to the cultural rationalization of the
modern West. British writer and feminist thinker Sara Maitland has called
scientism a "myth as pernicious as any sort of fundamentalism." "
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