Showing posts with label Churchland. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Churchland. Show all posts
Monday, March 22, 2010
Thursday, January 03, 2008
Mr. Brain looks for an idea
Earlier I made mention what I call "the brain fallacy." To illustrate the point further, I once saw a presentation by Paul Churchland in which, to ridicule certain Fodorian models of folk psychology, showed a cartoon which showed "Mr. Brain" going through a large card file to find an idea. Again, it doesn't follow from the fact that you are using brain-talk that you really have a naturalistic account. Sometimes when people talk about what the brain does I want to say 'Interesting fellow, Mr. Brain. Remarkable what he can do."
The point I want to emphasize here unless the mental states are really analyzed in physical terms, the fact that the word "brain" was used is not to make the analysis genuinely naturalistic. In fact, I could agree with attributions to claims about the brain and then turn around and deny that the brain functions mechanistically. I think that whatever is non-mechanistic in us does actually occupy space, and so I could, on some definitions, be regarded as a materialist!
The point I want to emphasize here unless the mental states are really analyzed in physical terms, the fact that the word "brain" was used is not to make the analysis genuinely naturalistic. In fact, I could agree with attributions to claims about the brain and then turn around and deny that the brain functions mechanistically. I think that whatever is non-mechanistic in us does actually occupy space, and so I could, on some definitions, be regarded as a materialist!
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