Jamesian Philosophy Refreshed

Last week I quoted from a 19th century article by Chauncey Wright, mentor of the Harvard-based Metaphysical Club, concerning the beginnings of self-consciousness in humans.  He compared it with flight in birds. I'll try to elucidate. "The derivation of this power [self-consciousness], supposing it to have been observed by a finite angelic (not animal) intelligence, could not have been foreseen to be involved in the mental causes, on the conjunction of which it might, nevertheless, have been seen to depend. The angelic observation would have been a purely empirical one." The bracketing is mine, the parenthesis is Wright's.  Our observing angel presumably is aware of mental activity in a range of animals  -- stimulus is followed (often after some gap in time as if for deliberation) by response.  Monkey sees some food out of reach. Monkey looks around, sees a long stick, uses it to extend his reach for the food.  But then a particular "naked ape" appears who ha...

  A few words from Chauncey Wright, famously of the "Metaphysical Club" that gave rise to the pragmaticism of Peirce and the pragmatism of James.   "The derivation of this power [self-consciousness], supposing it to have been observed by a finite angelic (not animal) intelligence, could not have been foreseen to be involved in the mental causes, on the conjunction of which it might, nevertheless, have been seen to depend. The angelic observation would have been a purely empirical one. The possibility of a subsequent analysis of these causes by the self-conscious animal himself, which would afford an explanation of their agency, by referring it to a rational combination of simpler elements in them, would not alter the case to the animal intelligence, just as a rational explanation of flight could not be reached by such an intelligence as a consequence of known mechanical laws, since these laws are also animal conditions, or rather are more material ones, of which our ange...

 I hope I have made clear to regular readers of this humble mind that I am not a believer in panpsychism.  My own view of the mind-body relation, on the other hand, is a form of emergentism, which ends up in a place quite similar to old-fashioned mind-body dualism and interactionism.  But I did find of interest a recent paper's breakdown of the three broad arguments for panpsychism: the continuity argument, the Hegelian argument, and the Agnostic argument.  In brief that means: 1) Continuity.  All matter must have some element of mind in it because otherwise there would be a radical and incomprehensible discontinuity in the history of matter in the world. 2) Hegelian. Panpsychism offers a sort of dialectical synthesis between materialism and dualism with the upside of each and the downside of neither. 3) Agnostic. No idea of the intrinsically non-experiential [something neither mental nor proto-mental] could even be intelligible to us. The overall point of the p...

In a Facebook group recently, a FB friend asked me why I believe there is a "mind-body problem" that requires resolution. I responded with reference to the classic historical novel (and television mini-series) I,Claudius. Instead of thinking of something new and clever to say in this blog today, I'll repeat what I said there.  There is in general the appearance of something intangible in the world, to which one person has privileged access, and the question of how it relates to the tangibles of the world, to which anyone has access.  I, Claudius is about a  man who appeared from his physicality, from all tangible and public evidence, to be a stuttering idiot. Yet "inside," in some intangible way, he was cunning and clear-eyed -- facts that allowed him to survive as others around him died and in time to become Emperor. (I don't think that really counts as a spoiler -- the charm of the series does not depend on how it will turn out.)  ...