Reading quickly through the Szalai essay, what first came to mind were the remarks from years ago by the likes of Hawking, Mlodinow, and Krauss about the worthlessness (or death) of philosophy. And what struck me most was how that alleged worthlessness is especially applicable to deterministic naturalistic philosophy (naturalism/physicalism) as distinguished from natural philosophy (science). With regards to the conundrum referred to as the mental, the shame is that there really does not seem to be any way in which deterministic naturalistic philosophy has anything at all to contribute to natural philosophy. A relatively non-deterministic naturalistic philosophy could be less objectionable and might be more useful, but when deterministic naturalistic philosophy puts forth "supervenience" as an explanation, it really needs to take pause to consider what is being said. In ordinary usage, something which is supervenient is something which occurs additionally, extraneously, or unexpectedly. Where "extraneous" indicates irrelevance, the supervenient mental would be epiphenomenal. Noting - but ignoring - the belief that the mental is epiphenomenal, there is then the issue of "supervenience" as "unexpected". Meaning "unexpected", supervenience as applied to the mental is not an explanation; it is a stand-in for an explanation. There is no doubt that the physical can affect the mental. That makes it perfectly reasonable and legitimate for natural philosophy (science) to restrict its concerns to the physical as it seeks to find ways by which neurological diseases that affect the mental might at least be stanched. The erasure of such a legitimately restricted physicalist approach/perspective is frequently the current basis of naturalistic philosophy. And, more often than not, the result is an unreasoned, unwarranted, and illegitimate philosophical (over)confidence. "Supervenience" as a stand-in for an explanation would be fine if what followed from that philosophical stance was at all useful. But, so far as I am aware, the philosophy of supervenience has effected nothing worthwhile.
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Reading quickly through the Szalai essay, what first came to mind were the remarks from years ago by the likes of Hawking, Mlodinow, and Krauss about the worthlessness (or death) of philosophy. And what struck me most was how that alleged worthlessness is especially applicable to deterministic naturalistic philosophy (naturalism/physicalism) as distinguished from natural philosophy (science). With regards to the conundrum referred to as the mental, the shame is that there really does not seem to be any way in which deterministic naturalistic philosophy has anything at all to contribute to natural philosophy. A relatively non-deterministic naturalistic philosophy could be less objectionable and might be more useful, but when deterministic naturalistic philosophy puts forth "supervenience" as an explanation, it really needs to take pause to consider what is being said. In ordinary usage, something which is supervenient is something which occurs additionally, extraneously, or unexpectedly. Where "extraneous" indicates irrelevance, the supervenient mental would be epiphenomenal. Noting - but ignoring - the belief that the mental is epiphenomenal, there is then the issue of "supervenience" as "unexpected". Meaning "unexpected", supervenience as applied to the mental is not an explanation; it is a stand-in for an explanation. There is no doubt that the physical can affect the mental. That makes it perfectly reasonable and legitimate for natural philosophy (science) to restrict its concerns to the physical as it seeks to find ways by which neurological diseases that affect the mental might at least be stanched. The erasure of such a legitimately restricted physicalist approach/perspective is frequently the current basis of naturalistic philosophy. And, more often than not, the result is an unreasoned, unwarranted, and illegitimate philosophical (over)confidence. "Supervenience" as a stand-in for an explanation would be fine if what followed from that philosophical stance was at all useful. But, so far as I am aware, the philosophy of supervenience has effected nothing worthwhile.
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