Mind and Cosmos by Thomas Nagel: Review

PUBLISHER:

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Shaun Johnston:
In modern times we've made two revolutionary discoveries. One is, how changes in physical matter can be accounted for in terms of physical laws that can predict precisely what will happen next. Having given rise to science (how this can be studied) and industry (how it can be applied) this revolution is well under way.

The second revolution is, how emergence of species of living creatures can be accounted for in terms of them evolving from one another. This revolution, despite its promise of how much it could tell us about ourselves, remains stillborn through the mistaken application to it of principles coming out of the first revolution--reductive physicalism.

For this second revolution to advance it should be taken from under the wing of science and studied on its own terms. Tip: one recent product of evolution is creatures with minds. Minds are better studied through methods of the humanities than through those of science. Tell me, does this interest you?

Details: Written by Shaun Johnston Shaun Johnston; Published: September 3, 2012 September 3, 2012; Hits: 11436 11436

I welcomed this 128-page book as a quick roundup of ideas available for thinking about mind and cosmos and evolution, as reported by a highly-qualified and respected philosopher. Turned out, for me, a philosopher may not be the person best qualified to write on the subject. I relished the promise of his program: “The great advances in the physical and biological sciences were made possible by excluding the mind from the physical world…. I find it puzzling that this view of things should be taken as more or less self-evident, as I believe it commonly is."

And I welcomed his call for new concepts. “The world is an astonishing place, and the idea that we have in our possession the basic tools needed to understand it is no more credible now than it was in Aristotle’s day.” So far, so good. More...