A nice image from southern California, where I was born and raised, suggestive of a tunnel with light at the end.
(Wikimedia Commons public domain)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
For years, I strongly disliked air travel. \u00a0Now, though, I rather like it. \u00a0I cherish the uninterrupted hours that it gives me for reading and for catching up on films that I\u2019ve wanted to see.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Yesterday, I read Dallas Willard and Brandon Rickabaugh, \u201cIntentionality contra<\/em> Physicalism: On the Mind\u2019s Independence from the Body,\u201d Philosophia Christi<\/em> 20\/2 \u00a0(2018): 497-516. \u00a0The late Professor Willard taught in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Southern California; Brandon Rickabaugh teaches in the Department of Philosophy at Baylor University.<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
Herewith, I enter some notes from that reading for my own future use and your potential interest.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Willard and Rickabaugh begin by acknowledging the derision in which some hold the position that mind and brain are distinct. \u00a0Two authors, for instance, describe belief in dualism as \u201cakin to explaining lightning in terms of Thor\u2019s anger\u201d and as \u201cfundamentally primitive and pre-scientific\u201d (497). \u00a0Another writer compares dualism to belief in elves and chupacabras (498). \u00a0(I can already safely predict that one of the atheists who regularly comment on this blog will resonate with these dismissive remarks. \u00a0The comparison to \u201cThor\u2019s anger\u201d is precisely the kind of rhetorical trope in which he likes to indulge.)<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
However, they say, \u201cEven those who reject mind-body independence have argued that the standard reasons for doing so are both exaggerated and ultimately fail\u201d (498). \u00a0As examples, they cite William Lycan, \u201cGiving Dualism Its Due,\u201d Australasian Journal of Philosophy<\/em> 87 (2009): 551-556; and Jos\u00e9 Gusm\u00e3o Rodriques, \u201cThere Are No Good Objections to Substance Dualism,\u201d Philosophy<\/em> 89 (2014): 199-222.<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cOur main thesis . . . is that the ontological nature of intentionality is compelling evidence against physicalism\u201d (499).<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a fairly technical and\/or demanding argument, which I won\u2019t attempt to summarize here. \u00a0Those interested should read the article itself. \u00a0But I\u2019ll pick up some other things here and in the sequel:<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
They cite what Joseph Levine calls \u201cthe explanatory gap<\/em>: our inability to provide or even comprehend a plausible explanation of how consciousness could depend upon a physical nonconscious substrate. . . . \u00a0Attempts at such an explanation constitute what David Chalmers calls \u2018the hard problem of consciousness.\u2019 \u00a0As of late, most think the hard problem is unsolvable, leaving the explanatory gap unresolved. \u00a0Ned Block and Robert Stalnaker observe, \u2018No one has ever given an account, even a highly speculative, hypothetical, and incomplete account, of how a physical thing could have phenomenal states.\u201d \u00a0(504)<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
Posted from Richmond, Virginia<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u00a0 \u00a0 For years, I strongly disliked air travel. \u00a0Now, though, I rather like it. \u00a0I cherish the uninterrupted hours that it gives me for reading and for catching up on films that I\u2019ve wanted to see. \u00a0 Yesterday, I read Dallas Willard and Brandon Rickabaugh, \u201cIntentionality contra Physicalism: On the Mind\u2019s Independence from the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1727,1008,1011,222,683,219,237,2755,255,171],"class_list":["post-70501","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-afterlife","tag-immortality","tag-life-after-death","tag-materialism","tag-mind","tag-mind-and-body","tag-mind-and-brain","tag-mind-body","tag-naturalism","tag-reductionism"],"yoast_head":"\n
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