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Markus Gabriel

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My recent reading includes a book entitled I AM NOT A BRAIN by Markus Gabriel, a prominent German philosopher who sometimes calls himself a neo-existentialist.

I mentioned Gabriel's unorthodox view of 19th century Germany idealism in a post here last week.

Today I wish to add only that the title of I AM NOT A BRAIN makes transparent one of its theses: that it is impossible to reduce the mind to facts about the brain or nervous system in the Dennett manner.

He also debelieves in a transcendental soul, which works somehow within the otherwise mechanical human body.

He acknowledges of course that the activity of the brain is a necessary condition for the activity of the mind. But he thinks it never a sufficient condition for understanding consciousness, or self-consciousness, or the self, or freedom.

So far so good. But he seems to argue for this in a roundabout and very 'continental' way that makes me suspect this is all supposed to unclog my overly burdened anglophonic mind.

I resist the unclogging.


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