Hello Tim, On Sunday 14 September 2003 02:21, Timothy Estes wrote: > (1) Private Language / Communicability of Qualia > > The movement from a discussion of the ontological status of qualia - > i.e. illusion, representation, or substance - to the communicability of > these items is an engaging turn since the discussion presupposes an > affirmative answer. Essentially, (while this is not precisely > Wittgenstein's argument) the idea that we can sufficiently objective > this idea of qualia suggests that what ever the term 'qualia' means in > the context of this discussion cannot be something limited to someone's > individual, inarticulate experience. This would be a prima facie > contradiction. > > BTW - I would think that this is in line with Wittgenstein's > perspective that this type if private experience would fall outside of > the language game. This is not to say that these notions do not exist. > That would require a strict verificationism and infer that the fact > that such suggestions are uninformative and therefore not valid. This > has fallen apart in the past because such an affirmative statement has > consistently been debunked in the critique of varieties of positivism > (I would suggest that Wittgenstein himself did this to be consistent > with his desire not to reify ANY particular abstract principle as > something with a privileged view, and if you want a straight up > argument, there is always Quine with "Two Dogmas of Empiricism"). > > So, I hope this is a sufficient argument that (a) the private nature of > qualia is out of scope for a DISCUSSION about the private nature of > qualia, and (b) this being out of scope does not preclude it existing > nor suggest that it does in fact exist as some kind of ineffable > phenomenon.
The private nature of qualia cannot be discussed, only accepted or not, I think. If people disagree no discussion is possible. But if people agree that qualia exist, then they can begin to discuss how they exist, how they can be fitted in other ontologies. > > (2) Why Physicalism? or Is there such a thing? > > I am particularly intrigued by the need to force the discussion into an > assumption of physicalism or dualism. Well, qualia are not a problem for the dualists (or idealists). They fit in perfectly there; in idealism they are actually the only entities that exist. Qualia are only a problem for materialists/physicalists, because qualia are prima facie mental non-physical entities. The true distinction should > actually be between a monist model of substance or a dualist/multi > model of substance. The other ontological monist stances are philosophical idealism and neutral monism. But almost nobody holds those theories anymore (not?). Materialism is by far the most dominant monist position. Like Fodor said: we are all materialists now for the same reason Churchill was for democracy: the alternatives are even worse. Physicalism is actually an argument for one type of > description and one principle mode of knowing based on the idea that it > is the most common variety of monism. Basically, it is very loaded. What do you mean? I > think this is some of what you were getting at Ben. Right? > > It is difficult to see if the Physicalist model (or should I say > materialist? - maybe more sincere) is really coherent in any common > variety. This seems very odd to me. What is so incoherent about physicalism? The Dennett variety is actually rather vacuous in terms of its > epistemological justification. Most consistent thinkers who start off > trying to be good materialist/empiricists within analytic philosophy > tend to degrade into postmodern pragmatists (ala Richard Rorty). So, we > need either subjective, shared, or objective truth, with the latter an > impossibility based on the problem of finite induction. I don't quite follow this train of thought. Physicalism to me is justified by the success of the natural sciences with their materialist ontology of atoms, electrons, molecules and so on. Even the phenomenon of human beings that used to be thought to be outof the explanatory reach of the natural sciences is now more and more understood in materialistic terms. Other projects of knowing seem to be far inferior, like mysticism, folk psychology, phenomenology. Where's the incoherence, the tendency to degrade in postmodern pragmatists? Bye, Arnoud ------- To unsubscribe, change your address, or temporarily deactivate your subscription, please go to http://v2.listbox.com/member/[EMAIL PROTECTED]
