Neutral Monism
DOWNLOAD
FREE
|
Entrapment within subjectivity, ideas
Equations are omitted for technical reasons - download the original pdf
The problem posed by the entrapment within subjectivity is the claim that it self-evidently true that every object presented to consciousness depends on consciousness. It is often convenient to express this doctrine by the statement "all objects of consciousness are in the mind"; however, this can lead to confusions. In fact, it has led Russell to propose an ingenious but arguably very confused solution to this argument. Russell argues in The Problems of Philosophy that the term in the mind is an incorrect description of the relationship between objects of perception and consciousness. He argues that the objects of perception should be described as being before the mind. He replaces the term in by before. Having done so he claims that the objects of perception exist independently of the mind, and hence there is no entrapment within subjectivity. "Taking the word 'idea' in Berkeley's sense, there are two quite distinct things to be considered whenever an idea is before the mind. There is on the one hand the thing of which we are aware – say the colour of my table – and on the other hand the actual awareness itself, the mental act of apprehending the thing. The mental act is undoubtedly mental, but is there any reason to suppose that the thing apprehended is in any sense mental? … Acquaintance with objects essentially consists in a relation between the mind and something other than the mind; it is this that constitutes the mind's power of knowing things. If we say that the things known must be in the mind, we are either unduly limiting the mind's power of knowing, or we are uttering a mere tautology. We are uttering a mere tautology if we mean by 'in the mind' the same as by 'before the mind'." However, this is confused and diverts attention away from the fundamental issue of the status of any object of consciousness. The term in when we use the phrase in the mind is only a metaphor. There is no spatial relationship of one object contained within another that can logically apply to the relationship between objects of consciousness and the mind. It is a category mistake to interpret it literally. Objects of consciousness (such as a perception of a blue blob) are not literally in the mind. The phrase in the mind means only this: if I was not conscious of the blue blob, then the blue blob would not be an object of my consciousness. All perceptual objects depend on consciousness. The switch from the term in to the term before does not alter this "fact" which is claimed to be self-evidently true. An object may be before my mind, but that does not mean that I know it without being consciousness of it. The phrase before the mind means exactly the same thing as the phrase in the mind. Hence Russell's "solution" to the problem is mistaken.
|
Contents of
Neutral Monism
1 Sense data, atoms of perception
2 Hume, sense-data, sense impressions and atoms of experience
3 Entrapment within subjectivity, ideas
4 Neutral monism, realism, Russell, A.J. Ayer, Qualia
5 Is the whole a composite of its parts?
6 Space, time, continuity and atomism
7 Phenomenalism
8 The philosophy of logical atomism
9 Logical atomism, complex sentences and intensional contexts
10 Human identity in the context of naive realism
|
