USUPhilosophy

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The philosophy faculty have been discussing the possibility of adding some pre-requisites to some of our courses, and we’d like to have some student feedback on the idea. Let me explain the proposal a bit. Right now, anyone can walk in and take any of our philosophy courses. For many courses this is a fine idea, as we all believe that as many students as possible should be exposed to philosophy. But some courses really are pretty advanced, and some background would be really helpful: e.g., Epistemology and Contemporary European Philosophy. We are thinking of requiring one other, non-ethics philosophy course as a pre-req for these courses. Also, we’re thinking about requiring Ancient (or Intro) before Medieval, and Early Modern (or Intro) before Kant. And once we start offering Contemporary Ethical Theory again, we would require Intro or an ethics course for it.

What do you think? Feel free to add comments below as well.

Over the last year I have been introduced to the work of Edward Feser, a philosopher and writer from California. I read two of his books this last year, and recommend them both.  The first was ‘Aquinas: A Beginners Guide’ which is a great introduction to Aquinas that includes a powerful argument against complexity ID arguments.  The second was ‘The Last Superstition: A Refutation of the New Atheism’, which is a really well executed book.   Much of his work is in the philosophy of mind, and chapter 4 of his Aquinas book would be of particular interest to students who take that Huenemann course.

The link here is to his comments on “neuro-babble.”  Philosopher Tyler Burge, in a recent op-ed in the NY Times, perhaps coined the term “neurobabble” which he called only an “illusion of understanding.” “Neurobabble” is the excited talk of a certain kind of materialist who takes every new discovery in neuroscience to be a demonstration of the the mind’s reducibility to the neural processes.

Feser thinks that one cause of neurobabble is ignorance of the Aristotelian-Thomist position (he refers to it as A-T).  Most materialists think the only alternatives are Cartersian dualism (usually given in unfair caricature) and property dualism, both of which travel with serious mind-body interaction problems.  What is always ignored in the debate is the A-T position (hylomorphic dualism).

For those unfamiliar with A-T, Feser does a nice job of introducing an Aristotelian approach here.  I won’t recast the argument here, what makes Feser so good is his clear and accessible writing and I won’t try to improve upon it.  But, for summary:  Feser explains hylomorphic dualism and contrasts it with other dualisms and with materialism, arguing for its superiority (no interaction problems, not reductionist, etc).  Since the Aristotelian-Thomist position requires bodily activity as a necessary (though not sufficient) condition for acts of the human intellect, the A-T gladly accepts the findings of modern neuro-science, “not as a reluctant concession forced on the theory by the successes of modern neuroscience, but, on the contrary, precisely as a prediction of the A-T position as it has been understood from the beginning.  Were Aristotle and Aquinas to be made familiar with the sorts of neuroscientific discoveries frantically trumpeted by materialists as if they should be an embarrassment to the dualist, they would respond, with a shrug: “Of course.  Told you so.””

Feser concludes, “The fact is that Aristotelian-Thomistic hylemorphic dualism is the theory most clearly consistent with all of the philosophical and neuroscientific evidence.”

Galen Strawson recently posted his review of Dennett’s book. I’m linking to it here because so many of the students who were in Philosophy 4410 last term have expressed a continued interest in making sense of the topic. Happy exploring!

You might want to check out this review of the book A Tenth of a Second: A History by Jimena Canales. Here’s just a sample:

Canales ends with an account of the debate between Bergson and Einstein in which a few references to the tenth of a second or the personal equation occur, although they are not central to the debate. A psychologist participant, Henri Piéron, in a public confrontation referred to the personal equation. Bergson refers to it in a late essay. However, Canales surprisingly does relatively little with Bergson’s reference to the cinema as a model for time consciousness. (She neglects the story that Bertrand Russell, who had never seen a film, went to one only to examine Bergson’s analogy.)