PHI 2323 Lecture 3
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Socratic Circles will be on Friday and the following Monday
How to Categorize Philosophers
All philosophers we will be studying this semester may be categorized based on how they would answer the following questions:
- What is my origin/cause?
- What kind of thing am I?
- What am I made up of?
- What is my goal/destiny/purpose in life, if any?
- How do I know things?
Papineau the Materialist
- Papineau calls out other self-proclaimed "materialists" on how they think consciousness "rises" from brain states
- says that consciousness is nothing other than the brain states
- "dualism" - body/matter AND soul/spirit
Papineau's Argument
| phenomenal | non-phenomenal (descriptive) |
|---|---|
| "pain" | "nociceptive-specific neuronal activity" ← describes fully |
| guilt | whatever the scientific term for the brain state of guilt is... |
Bashing Papineau
He's nuts! (according to the professor)
- With regards to knowledge, consciousness is epistemically ("basis for", "comes first") prior to science
- we perceive all things through consciousness
- consciousness as an "illusion" implies that something is being deceived
- what is being deceived? consciousness?
- Therefore, Papineau implicitly assumes that consciousness is a thing after all
- A man born blind cannot experience "blue" the same way that a sighted person can, no matter how much he may know about the subject or be able to stimulate his visual cortex to perceive the color "blue".