I am just beginning to listen to Daniel Dennett's Explaining Consciousness and am thoroughly enjoying it. That is first of all because it is much less pompous than Freedom Evolves (although he does have a certain fondness for the word 'sophisticated'). Secondly, because he tells a good story. It most certainly is not because what he has to say seems remotely close to the truth.
DD thinks that science can tell us all that's worth knowing about human nature, including what's worth knowing about the nature of knowledge itself. Nagel and Searle, on the other hand, point to the need for the first person perspective to give us insights into aspects our humanity that cannot be obtained through scientific methodology. By "first person perspective" I mean what it's like to to have experiences (including intentions, sensations, feelings, desires, etc.) to the one who is having them. The systematic analysis of the first-person perspective is called "Phenomenology." DD is no friend to phenomenology. In fact, he claims that it practitioners neither agree with each other about the nature of experience nor are able to resolve their disagreements, since they rely on evidence that cannot be examined scientifically. As an alternative to the first first-person centered approach he proposes his own, third-person centered approach, which he calls "hetero (other) phenomenology." It treats first-person reports (i.e., reports of having experiences) from a third person perspective. Its practitioner is like an anthropologist, recording reports of experiences with a detachment about veracity that is much like a field anthropologist's registration of reports of Big Foot sightings. Instead of being detached about the question of the actual existence of Big Foot, however, the hetero-phenomenologist brackets the existence of "Phenomen": he copies down reports of the presence of Phanomen without making a judgment about the existence of that which is reported. In this way, he does not distinguish between a genuine report of experience and one that is non-genuine( be it a randomly generated list of words; a word-string generated by a well-designed Turing machine, blather from a zombie, etc.). He does not concern himself with what is unavailable for scientific query: in that way, he avails himself to (what he thinks is) the only genuinely scientific grasp of the issue
There is plenty to criticize in this proposal, but it's too early for me to do so.
Nevertheless, I take issue with his dismissive remark about phenomenology: what if he is wrong because phenomenologists in fact agree with each other either entirely or for the most part? And supposing they disagree, what would be wrong with adjudicating on the basis of reflection upon one's own experience? Isn't this analogous to adjudicating between scientific claims on the basis of experiments that one has conducted on one's own?
Think of an anthropologist visiting a society in which chemistry is purportedly practiced: if the anthropologist simply copies down the reports of scientific discovery, then he is more or less a mere sociologist of scientist--nothing more. If he stops to look at the evidence himself, however, he is acting like a chemist himself and not just a mere sociologist. A hetero-phenomenologist (HD) as defined by DD is not a phenomenologist at all, but a sociologist of phenomenology.
I suppose that later on in the book DD will anticipate this objection and point out that the HD can also use natural science to corroborate the reports. But arguing against that reply so early on would be putting words in his mouth--or in his text.
Let me point out that practically every sentence in which he discusses HD begins with the word "we." DD does not believe in basing rational inquiry upon statements about evidence that are originally given in the first person singular, but he is totally comfortable with the first person plural. Perhaps the best response to DD's proposal is to propose a method that he himself practices: what is apparent to us rather than what is apparent to the "I" or ego. Perhaps a phenomenology of the we is more accessible than that DD's third-person and Husserl's first person singular phenomenologies.
Take the notion of evidence, for example. How is it that we come to use this word? Is there a scientific answer? I don't think so, for science presupposes that this word is meaningful. The first answer to this question about evidence, therefore, is what we recognize together as evidence. But "recognize" and "we" are likewise pre-scientific terms upon which science must depend. The study of evidence, therefore, takes us into a region that must be objective but which cannot be justified by scientific reasoning. Perhaps science cannot do so because it is a phenomenon. And perhaps it is precisely the sort of phenomenon about which DD cannot be indifferent.
These are all suggestions: I need to think about this more. Meanwhile, I am inclined to dig up the Greek word for "we" (Heemeis) and prefix it to the term "phenomenology" to form the name of phenomenology that DD presupposes in introducing his own, yet which done in the first person (albeit plural rather than singular)
DD thinks that science can tell us all that's worth knowing about human nature, including what's worth knowing about the nature of knowledge itself. Nagel and Searle, on the other hand, point to the need for the first person perspective to give us insights into aspects our humanity that cannot be obtained through scientific methodology. By "first person perspective" I mean what it's like to to have experiences (including intentions, sensations, feelings, desires, etc.) to the one who is having them. The systematic analysis of the first-person perspective is called "Phenomenology." DD is no friend to phenomenology. In fact, he claims that it practitioners neither agree with each other about the nature of experience nor are able to resolve their disagreements, since they rely on evidence that cannot be examined scientifically. As an alternative to the first first-person centered approach he proposes his own, third-person centered approach, which he calls "hetero (other) phenomenology." It treats first-person reports (i.e., reports of having experiences) from a third person perspective. Its practitioner is like an anthropologist, recording reports of experiences with a detachment about veracity that is much like a field anthropologist's registration of reports of Big Foot sightings. Instead of being detached about the question of the actual existence of Big Foot, however, the hetero-phenomenologist brackets the existence of "Phenomen": he copies down reports of the presence of Phanomen without making a judgment about the existence of that which is reported. In this way, he does not distinguish between a genuine report of experience and one that is non-genuine( be it a randomly generated list of words; a word-string generated by a well-designed Turing machine, blather from a zombie, etc.). He does not concern himself with what is unavailable for scientific query: in that way, he avails himself to (what he thinks is) the only genuinely scientific grasp of the issue
There is plenty to criticize in this proposal, but it's too early for me to do so.
Nevertheless, I take issue with his dismissive remark about phenomenology: what if he is wrong because phenomenologists in fact agree with each other either entirely or for the most part? And supposing they disagree, what would be wrong with adjudicating on the basis of reflection upon one's own experience? Isn't this analogous to adjudicating between scientific claims on the basis of experiments that one has conducted on one's own?
Think of an anthropologist visiting a society in which chemistry is purportedly practiced: if the anthropologist simply copies down the reports of scientific discovery, then he is more or less a mere sociologist of scientist--nothing more. If he stops to look at the evidence himself, however, he is acting like a chemist himself and not just a mere sociologist. A hetero-phenomenologist (HD) as defined by DD is not a phenomenologist at all, but a sociologist of phenomenology.
I suppose that later on in the book DD will anticipate this objection and point out that the HD can also use natural science to corroborate the reports. But arguing against that reply so early on would be putting words in his mouth--or in his text.
Let me point out that practically every sentence in which he discusses HD begins with the word "we." DD does not believe in basing rational inquiry upon statements about evidence that are originally given in the first person singular, but he is totally comfortable with the first person plural. Perhaps the best response to DD's proposal is to propose a method that he himself practices: what is apparent to us rather than what is apparent to the "I" or ego. Perhaps a phenomenology of the we is more accessible than that DD's third-person and Husserl's first person singular phenomenologies.
Take the notion of evidence, for example. How is it that we come to use this word? Is there a scientific answer? I don't think so, for science presupposes that this word is meaningful. The first answer to this question about evidence, therefore, is what we recognize together as evidence. But "recognize" and "we" are likewise pre-scientific terms upon which science must depend. The study of evidence, therefore, takes us into a region that must be objective but which cannot be justified by scientific reasoning. Perhaps science cannot do so because it is a phenomenon. And perhaps it is precisely the sort of phenomenon about which DD cannot be indifferent.
These are all suggestions: I need to think about this more. Meanwhile, I am inclined to dig up the Greek word for "we" (Heemeis) and prefix it to the term "phenomenology" to form the name of phenomenology that DD presupposes in introducing his own, yet which done in the first person (albeit plural rather than singular)
Comments