Science is that there is a level of analysis, the information-processing level (there may be more He realizes that if he is going to have any hope of defeating the parts of it he is dead setĪgainst, he is going to have to attack it root and branch. Searle has discovered that the whole cognitivist enterprise "hangs together," thanks to a lot ofĭetailed supporting arguments, some of them counterintuitive, others quite generally accepted. (IĪm also happy to accept his attempt at a Cognitivist Credo of sorts on pp.197-98.) Say Searle has done a good job of identifying the enemy and its foundational assumptions. So aside from that revision of emphasis, I would Searle's discussion (p.18-19) makes plain. That cognitive science is wise not to start with consciousness, I endorse the spirit of (1), as Mental phenomenon, not the foundation of all intentionality, all mentality. Revision of (1), that consciousness, while of major importance, is an advanced or derived Orthodoxy, I for one accept all seven propositions, with only one demurrer: I would insist, in a I think he is almost exactly right about this foundational list. The only things that exist are ultimately physical, as the physical is traditionally conceived, In the universe is in principle knowable and understandable by human investigators. Relations to intelligent behavior are in some way the essence of the mental. System?' is: We know by observing its behavior. To the epistemological question 'How would we know about the mental phenomena of another (4) From the third-person, objective point of view, the only answer Reality is objective, the best method in the study of the mind is to adopt the objective or third-person point of view. Special features are of rather minor importance. Here they are: "(1) Where the scientific study of the mind is concerned, consciousness and its To show that each of the seven is "at best, false."
Propositions that compose the "foundations of modern materialism" (p10-11), and undertakes Scientific revolution in the past, Searle is particularly intent to challenge the arguments thatĬlaim that functionalism (and its family of supporting doctrines) is nothing more than anĪpplication of standard scientific method to the phenomena of mind. Recognizing, however, that common sense has had an embarrassing history of bowing to Unsullied common sense is his chief ally, and his frequent invocations ofĬommon sense and its endorsement of his views give the book a characteristic populist flavor. Orthodoxy" of functionalistic materialism that has unjustly captured the flag of the scientificĮstablishment. He sees himself as an iconoclast, waging lonely battle against "the tradition"-the "mainstream
Those confusions, the subjective ontology of the mind, he claims, will lose its aura of Requires, and dismiss the misbegotten field of cognitive science that has been engendered by Once we clear away some widespread confusions about what science John Searle's view, defended with passion in thisīook, is highly idiosyncratic: what is special about consciousness is its "subjective ontology,"īut normal science can accommodate subjective ontology alongside (not within) its otherwise There is scant agreement on just how special it is, and whether or not an explanation of it canīe accommodated within normal science. Review of John Searle, The Rediscovery of the Mind, MIT Press, 1992, 270pp, $22.50Įveryone agrees that consciousness is a very special phenomenon, unique in several ways, but Mind Review of Searle, The Rediscovery of the
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