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Spectator in the Cartesian Theater
Where Theories of Mind Went Wrong since Descartes
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2023
Summary
The “Cartesian Theater” is Dennett’s famous metaphor for the idea that a homunculus or “little man” watches the screen on which our thoughts appear. However, contrary to much academic teaching and scholarship, Spectator in the Cartesian Theater: Where Theories of Mind Went Wrong since Descartes shows that Descartes was not guilty of this fallacy for which he has been blamed. In his physiological writings neglected by philosophers, Descartes explained that the pseudo-explanation arises not from what is included in our theory of consciousness, but rather from what is missing. We fail to notice that the theory is incomplete because we are intuitively doing part of the explanatory work. That is, we are the spectators in the Cartesian Theater.
With detailed critiques, Peter Slezak shows that Searle’s Chinese Room Argument, Kripke’s theory of proper names, Davidson’s semantics of natural language and Kosslyn’s theory of visual imagery rely on what is intuitively meaningful to us rather than what follows from the theory. Slezak offers a novel solution to the elusive logic of the Cogito argument, showing it to be akin to the Liar Paradox. Since Descartes’ perplexity is our own, this shows how the subjective certainty of consciousness and the mind-body problem can arise for a physical system. An intelligent computer would think that it isn’t one.
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Bibliographic data
Copyright year
2023
ISBN-Print
978-1-6669-2375-9
ISBN-Online
978-1-6669-2376-6
Publisher
Lexington, Lanham
Language
English
Pages
334
Product type
Book Titles
Table of contents
ChapterPages
Contents No access
Preface No access
Acknowledgements No access
Introduction: Illusions No access Pages 1 - 16
1. Dangerous Meditations No access Pages 17 - 28
2. Illusionism and The Phenomenological Fallacy No access Pages 29 - 48
3. What It’s Like: Conscious Experience Itself No access Pages 49 - 68
4. Cogito, Ergo Sum: The Diagonal Deduction No access Pages 69 - 96
5. The Mind’s Eye: Visual Imagery No access Pages 97 - 118
6. In the Chinese Room: Life Without Meaning1 No access Pages 119 - 134
7. Meaning: Interpretation or Explanation? No access Pages 135 - 151
8. Proper Names: The Omniscient Observer No access Pages 152 - 186
9. The Theory of Ideas: Fodor’s Guilty Passions No access Pages 187 - 213
10. Descartes’ Neurocomputational Philosophy No access Pages 214 - 232
11. What is Knowledge?The Gettier Problem No access Pages 233 - 242
12. Disjunctivism: The Argument from Illusion (Again) No access Pages 243 - 256
13. Newcomb’s Problem: Demons, Deceivers, and Liars No access Pages 257 - 278
