On Alien Philosophy

On Alien Philosophy by R Scott Bakker

Given a sufficiently convergent cognitive biology, we might suppose that aliens would likely find themselves perplexed by many of the same kinds of problems that inform our traditional and contemporary philosophical debates. In particular, we can presume that ‘humanoid’ aliens would be profoundly stumped by themselves, and that they would possess a philosophical tradition organized around ‘hard problems’ falling out of their inability to square their scientific self-understanding with their traditional and/or intuitive self-understanding. As speculative as any such consideration of ‘alien philosophy’ must be, it provides a striking, and perhaps important, way to recontextualize contemporary human debates regarding cognition and consciousness.

See the critique by Hankins over at Conscious Entities as well, for a Materialist vs Materialist debate.

Feser and Bakker debated certain aspects of the above as well, if one is interested in a Scholasticism vs Eliminative Materialism debate.


Segall also has some critiques for those interested in a Whiteheadian critique of the above Elimantive Materialist conjecture.


I think this a good set of links for anyone seeking to find the divergences in what is usually grouped (admittedly in part b/c of me) into "Materialism" and "Immaterialism".

Thanks Psi,