Post by Jeff on Sept 20, 2005 16:22:28 GMT -5
For those of you who might be interested in helping me with my dissertation, I will give you a brief sketch of it now while I am preparing the first of my postings. The topic explores the theoretical prerequisites for an adequate account of human consciousness. I do not attempt to actually provide a full-fledged theory of consciousness, rather I argue that the final theory must have certain commitments which we can specify in advance. The value of this is not so much to rule out avenues of research that are alive today, but to give some support to other lines of research that are currently underdeveloped.
The current tentative title, and I have gone through about 5 of them, is Situating Panexperientialism: Metaphysical and Historical Considerations. I am not happy with that, so I will be changing it. I have structured the work into eight chapters. Excluding the Forward, End Notes and Bibliography, it should weigh in at around 300 pages. Here is a brief sketch of each chapter:
Chapter 1: The Nature of Metaphysical Explanations
In which I argue that deflationary accounts of metaphysics don’t work, paying particular attention to W.V.O. Quine’s pragmatic approach, and ending with a brief account of the nature of metaphysical explanations themselves.
Chapter 2: Philosophical Understanding
In which I argue for basic criteria for the evaluation of metaphysical theories, the most important of these is the condition of adequacy, which tells us that a theory must be capable of accounting for the observed data.
Chapter 3: The Revised Subjectivist Principle
In which I argue that the basic data for consciousness is neither 1st nor 3rd person data, but 2nd person. Whatever theory of consciousness we adopt, it must be capable of accounting for the interpersonal, for meaningful relatedness.
Chapter 4: Adequacy Conditions of a Theory of Consciousness
In which I argue that certain common metaphysical concepts are inadequate for this task, specifically the concept of an object with properties must be rejected in favor of a processual understanding of consciousness.
Chapter 5: Elements of the Theory
In which I lay out one possible version of a theory of consciousness that fits with the foregoing recommendations.
Chapter 6: Emergentism and Atomism
This is the first of two chapters dealing with common objections to the adequacy conditions that I’ve discussed. Emergentism claims that there are just inherent gaps in our ability to explain certain complex phenomena. I argue that even if this is true, we are still obliged to sketch a theory that might fill in those gaps. Second, the theory I endorse is committed to a kind of atomism. I show how a processual understanding of atomism avoids its usual dangers, how we are in fact driven to accept it.
Chapter 7: Defending Panexperientialism
The most serious objection to my view is that it entails some form of panexperientialism, the view that all of the fundamental parts of the universe enjoy some rudimentary amount of internal freedom. I defend such a view against many forms of criticism including, most importantly, the pathetic fallacy, i.e., the specious attribution of emotions to the inanimate.
Chapter 8: The Self in Process
In which I draw implications of the theory for human ethical and aesthetic values. This is actually another kind of test for the theory. Whereas most of the dissertation has explored the logical and scientific adequacy of the theory, here I observe the possibility of giving a robust account of the most important features of human existence.
Well, that is a sketch, anyway. If you do help me out, you can expect all this stuff to change over and over again. I’ve got good drafts of Chapters 1, 2, 7, and 8. I will clean up the first two and post them soon. The next four chapters will take several months to write, I expect. The last two will need heavy revisions in light of the new work that I do on the middle chapters. At any rate, I hope to have a good rough draft of the entire work by April. If the department will allow it, I will defend it over the summer.
Jeff
The current tentative title, and I have gone through about 5 of them, is Situating Panexperientialism: Metaphysical and Historical Considerations. I am not happy with that, so I will be changing it. I have structured the work into eight chapters. Excluding the Forward, End Notes and Bibliography, it should weigh in at around 300 pages. Here is a brief sketch of each chapter:
Chapter 1: The Nature of Metaphysical Explanations
In which I argue that deflationary accounts of metaphysics don’t work, paying particular attention to W.V.O. Quine’s pragmatic approach, and ending with a brief account of the nature of metaphysical explanations themselves.
Chapter 2: Philosophical Understanding
In which I argue for basic criteria for the evaluation of metaphysical theories, the most important of these is the condition of adequacy, which tells us that a theory must be capable of accounting for the observed data.
Chapter 3: The Revised Subjectivist Principle
In which I argue that the basic data for consciousness is neither 1st nor 3rd person data, but 2nd person. Whatever theory of consciousness we adopt, it must be capable of accounting for the interpersonal, for meaningful relatedness.
Chapter 4: Adequacy Conditions of a Theory of Consciousness
In which I argue that certain common metaphysical concepts are inadequate for this task, specifically the concept of an object with properties must be rejected in favor of a processual understanding of consciousness.
Chapter 5: Elements of the Theory
In which I lay out one possible version of a theory of consciousness that fits with the foregoing recommendations.
Chapter 6: Emergentism and Atomism
This is the first of two chapters dealing with common objections to the adequacy conditions that I’ve discussed. Emergentism claims that there are just inherent gaps in our ability to explain certain complex phenomena. I argue that even if this is true, we are still obliged to sketch a theory that might fill in those gaps. Second, the theory I endorse is committed to a kind of atomism. I show how a processual understanding of atomism avoids its usual dangers, how we are in fact driven to accept it.
Chapter 7: Defending Panexperientialism
The most serious objection to my view is that it entails some form of panexperientialism, the view that all of the fundamental parts of the universe enjoy some rudimentary amount of internal freedom. I defend such a view against many forms of criticism including, most importantly, the pathetic fallacy, i.e., the specious attribution of emotions to the inanimate.
Chapter 8: The Self in Process
In which I draw implications of the theory for human ethical and aesthetic values. This is actually another kind of test for the theory. Whereas most of the dissertation has explored the logical and scientific adequacy of the theory, here I observe the possibility of giving a robust account of the most important features of human existence.
Well, that is a sketch, anyway. If you do help me out, you can expect all this stuff to change over and over again. I’ve got good drafts of Chapters 1, 2, 7, and 8. I will clean up the first two and post them soon. The next four chapters will take several months to write, I expect. The last two will need heavy revisions in light of the new work that I do on the middle chapters. At any rate, I hope to have a good rough draft of the entire work by April. If the department will allow it, I will defend it over the summer.
Jeff
