the "Mind"-"Body" problem for phenomenology: Excusing the question

[leafofgrass]

Troubled by my inability to address such a canonical question as how brain chemistry relates to the lived body, I have had several mini-epiphanies as of the last few days. The first relates to my issues with language that I alluded to. By asking the mind-body question in terms of consciousness and physicalism, it becomes virtually impossible for

Comments

Bridging the gulf

[apperception]

When you get deeply into fields like German idealism, Romanticism, phenomenology, deconstruction, and even psychoanalysis and Marxism, its easy to lose any sense of connection to what mainstream philosophers are doing in fields like philosophy of mind, philosophy of language, epistemology, etc. For example, while thinkers like Descartes and Locke could identify something like the freedom vs. determinism debate, it would have seemed foreign and redundant to the majority of thinkers of the 19th century. This problem was considered "solved" by Kant. In order to explain to an analytic student why this question is redundant is not as simple as giving a one-sentence response. It requires bringing in a metaphysical framework that is going to appear totally foreign. You literally have to work from the ground-up. This can be very difficult and tiring. So I relate very much to the spirit of what you're saying

Like over the River Kwai?!?

[leafofgrass]

Well, from the very onset it becomes obvious that we are in agreement concerning a great many things... at least in this regard. What was particularly surprising to me, at least in my own interaction with trenchant analytics, is the total neglect of Kant. I too feel that a return to Kant is the best way to have analytics take continental thought seriously, but, as an analytic formerly of my department says, the history of philosophy begins with Wittgenstein. I just don't understand this ahistorical approach that simply leads to recreating the false grails of the past

Re: regarding Kant

[apperception]

With regard to Kant, I've found that the majority of analytical clearheads who read Kant are exclusively interested in the Transcendental Analytic to the exclusion of not only the rest of the first critique but also of the rest of Kant's philosophy. And with this usually comes the perfunctory dross about how Kant is an epistemologist and how he's trying to ground the natural sciences. The trick to unsettling the clearhead account may be to begin at the other end, starting with issues like orientation and teleology, issues which were essential to Kant's conception of and motivation toward philosophy.

One of the great things about the Critique of Judgment is that it is, in so many ways, a brilliant work in the philosophy of science. It succeeds in demonstrating the consequence of the primacy of the practical for Kant: that the Newtonian account of the universe does not stand on its own, it is not self-grounded, but rather it presupposes a non-conceptual background that has the principle of purposiveness as the condition of the

Re: regarding Kant

[apperception]

between continental and analytic philosophy.

Brain states, mental states, and various states of confusion

[life_as_art]

Oh your livejournal is so much fun.

I'm glad you made this post. I've been thinking about this sort of "mind" stuff for months, since it was examined in a philosophy class . . . and been concluding the same sort of thing as you. The issue would then revert to 'Do mental processes really have to do with the total situation of the lived-body?', and I think the answer to that is no.

Jaimie

L'oeil et l'esprit

[leafofgrass]

I enjoy your posts as well, but they are somewhat infrequent... :-)

At any rate, if you enjoy this kind of thinking you may enjoy the essay "Eye and Mind" by Maurice Merleau-Ponty. I like to think of it as the deep end of the pool, but others disagree. It is primarily about what painting--and art in general--has to show us about the nature of the human relationship to the world.

Re: L'oeil et l'esprit

[life_as_art]

"Eye and Mind" sounds interesting; I shall have to investigate it :) Yep . . . I don't post much in livejournal. I ramble just about daily elsewhere.

My former philosophy prof. was telling me once about a philosopher nearby at Harvard University (I'm in Boston) who writes a lot about aesthetics, art, etc. Since this conversation occured during an elevator ride, it was rather rushed. I can't remember this Harvard philosopher's name! Yikes! (Long shot: do you know who it might be, since you seem to have an interest in the intersection of philosophy and art?) Regardless, there's a lot to read already: I can certainly jump on Merleau-Ponty's essay! I have a book by Nicholas Wolterstorff--Art in Action--that I've begun. He argues that contemporary Western art has divorced itself from practical and everyday life, and that art should serve for more than just contemplation in museums.

Jaimie

Re: L'oeil et l'esprit

[leafofgrass]

Ah, that explains much

[noetickerf]

just for the record, i'm thinking rather hard about how to respond to this. i think it'll take some time...

[leafofgrass]

I'll eagerly be awaiting your reply!

BTW: where is it that you go to school (if you don't mind my asking, that is)?