User:Jaredscribe/Cognitive Science

Goethe exorcising the ghost of Kant
Goethe, who is by common consent Germany's greatest poet, also "did more than any man before him to advance the discovery of the mind". The diametrically opposite mind of Kant "operated with a mistaken conception of science. As a result, [Kant and Hegel] provided models that were almost as harmful as those which Kant cleared out of the way." "Kant was, despite his virtues, a disaster. The lack of progress we have made in the discovery of the mind was due in several ways to his fateful influence." One disastrous feature was his insistence "that in the philosophy of mind, we cannot tolerate anything less than absolute certainty, necessity and completeness." Schiller tried to reconcile these two irreconciliables, and many others from Hegel to Sartre also tried to mediate between Goethe and Kant in different ways. Hegel advanced discovery of the mind by accepting four points discussed in connection with Goethe, and he correctly "rejected Kant's model of the mind and his grotesque notion of autonomy." However he was "corrupted by Kant's impossible style, his misguided method, and his insistence on certainty, completeness, and necessity." Nietzsche and Freud developed Goethe's legacy without trying to reconcile it with Kant. Analysis by Walter Kauffman. See also, Draft:Peter K.J. Park on Kantian rationalisation for racist pseudo-science, Anglo-European economic imperialism, and general ignorance.

Late 20th Century Analysis
David Lewis's counterfactual conditionals are relevant to theory of causation, modal realism is a distraction. Counterpart theory. Stalnaker-Lewis theory.

Quine–Putnam indispensability argument, an argument for the reality of mathematical entities.

He also advocated ontological relativity in science, known as the Duhem–Quine thesis.

Metaphysical cognition properly basic to mental health
Wittgenstein 4.1.12? "Philosophy is not a body of doctrine, but an activity"

6.4.3.11? "eternity is not infinite duration of space or time, but timelessness. Thus eternal life is to truly live in the present"

Mathematics is the science of metaphysics.

Man is a "Metaphysical Animal"
Analytical Thomism within Analytic philosophy

Draft:Rachael Wiseman on Elizabeth Anscombe, Mary Midgley, Philippa Foot, Iris Murdoch. On their experience learning with the overlooked Oxbridge metaphysicians H.H. Price, H.W.B Joseph, Susan Stebbing, R.G. Collingwood, Dorothy Emmet, Mary Glover, Donald MacKinnon, Lotte Labowsky

Influential but Dubious

 * First published 1987) Intellectually dishonest to introduce "final cause" of Aristotelian teleology, without either crediting Aristotle, responding to his argument, or accepting his conclusions.  Dennett admits that the evidence of design in nature is undeniable.   He proposes that we must "take the stance [of intelligent design]" in order to explain nature and succeed in the arts, but he firmly insists that we must also, simultaneously deny that intention [intelligent design] actually exists.  This is an incoherent worldview, and Dennett insists on it dogmatically.  Also, he specifically avoids using the term "intelligent design" because he cannot cope with the argument and prefers to simply ignore it while scoffing from a distance.  This is an unsound method of analysis.   He has sucessfully represented the religion of modern scientism, and he has successfully argued that it is dogmatically incoherent, and also inadequate to explain the basic facts of life which every child understands by common sense.
 * An act of imagination is not an insight into the way that the facts actually stand.
 * with selections from Jorge Luis Borges, Richard Dawkins, John Searle, and Robert Nozick
 * Yes, language was and is invented by people who want to understand and be understood. But that does not imply that language was a mere "accidental invention", by our ancestral Prometheus.   It was, and is, intentional.  This is obvious and self-evident, and even admitted by the authors.   The 90's era position that the universal grammar is biologically hardwired into humans, and always has been in some inchoate form, is rejected by the authors, and I concur without sharing their conclusion.   The third possibility is that Promethus obtained fire (and language) from "the gods".   He could have purchased it, or asked for it as a gift.  Instead he stole it, hence the "ordinary language" marked by misuse of that gift through cryptolect, equivocation and confusion, priestcraft, dishonest business practices, poetic lies and such "inventions" as the authors propose.  Language and life itself may be "a game" for some people, but not everyone.  Most people, most of the time, aim seriously at some goal.
 * Yes, language was and is invented by people who want to understand and be understood. But that does not imply that language was a mere "accidental invention", by our ancestral Prometheus.   It was, and is, intentional.  This is obvious and self-evident, and even admitted by the authors.   The 90's era position that the universal grammar is biologically hardwired into humans, and always has been in some inchoate form, is rejected by the authors, and I concur without sharing their conclusion.   The third possibility is that Promethus obtained fire (and language) from "the gods".   He could have purchased it, or asked for it as a gift.  Instead he stole it, hence the "ordinary language" marked by misuse of that gift through cryptolect, equivocation and confusion, priestcraft, dishonest business practices, poetic lies and such "inventions" as the authors propose.  Language and life itself may be "a game" for some people, but not everyone.  Most people, most of the time, aim seriously at some goal.