Reflections on Nagel's Mind & Cosmos

Interesting article by neuroscientist-philosopher Raymond Tallis concerning Nagel's Mind & Cosmos

Bringing Mind to Matter

If the nature and existence of basic subjective consciousness cannot be fully explained through evolutionary theory, then neither can the higher cognitive functions, regardless of any putative survival advantage they may ultimately confer. There is, moreover, a problem in trying to envisage a process of natural selection generating creatures like ourselves that have the capacity, as Nagel puts it, “to discover by reason the truth about a reality that extends vastly beyond the initial appearances.” It is strange that such a capacity should have been produced by natural selection, given that the advantages it has brought have been fully realized only in theoretical pursuits which are relatively new. Just how strange this is becomes evident if we accept — as many evolutionary psychologists do — the “truths” in question do not correspond to anything constitutive of the natural world. If reason, knowledge, and thought are merely devices to improve our chances of survival, then it is appropriate to adopt an anti-realistic view of what they tell us about the world. Scientists, like the rest of us, would have to define “truth” as whatever set of beliefs happen to be of adaptive value — regardless of whether they are, well, true. This makes it difficult to understand how they could gradually build up to the great theoretical edifices of natural science that have huge scope and immense explanatory, predictive, and practical power.

Consider, for example, the words of British political philosopher and celebrity misanthrope John Gray. In his diatribe against humanism, Straw Dogs (2003), Gray argued that the belief that “through science humankind can know the truth” is a mere article of faith — and one that is ill-founded, as Darwin has taught us that “the human mind serves evolutionary success, not truth. To think otherwise is to resurrect the pre-Darwinian error that humans are different from all other animals.” Unlike Gray, Nagel is able to see the self-contradiction in this claim: The theory put forward by the bearded, upright primate Charles Darwin would have demonstrated itself to be groundless — a consequence that could be considered ironic were it not logically impossible.

This part of Nagel’s case is closely connected with his discussion of the final defining feature of consciousness that cannot be accommodated by scientific naturalism: value — our sense of what is good and what is bad, and our judgment of right and wrong. He critiques a different type of subjectivism, the one which holds that moral and value judgments of all kinds can be traced to natural, adaptive responses of attraction and aversion to pleasurable and painful experiences. Against this view, Nagel upholds a kind of moral realism which views our value judgments as attempts, however error-prone, to apprehend real truths about the world, just as mathematics attempts to discern real logical truths and science aims to uncover real empirical truths. Even if one does not accept the notion that value judgments have “truth,” there remains the awkward fact that they are explicit, argued over, and associated with the idea of unassailable validity — not characteristics one associates with the material world as described by the laws of physics, chemistry, and biology.

Catholic theologian-philosopher Feser's Mind and Cosmos roundup:

Part I: Here I present some criticisms of my own, noting how Nagel has needlessly opened himself up to certain objections and other respects in which his book could have been stronger.

Part II: Here I respond to the objections raised fairly aggressively by naturalist philosophers Brian Leiter and Michael Weisberg in their review of Nagel in The Nation.  I argue that Leiter and Weisberg misinterpret Nagel, beg the question against him, and in other ways utterly fail to justify their dismissive approach to the book.

Part III: This post addresses the more measured response to Nagel presented by Elliott Sober in his review in the Boston Review.

Part IV: Here I comment on Alva Noë, who responded to Nagel at his NPR blog and who is, among Nagel’s naturalist critics, perhaps the most perceptive and certainly the least hostile.  (In a follow-up post I commented on some later remarks made by Noë on the subject of Nagel and the origin of life.)

Part V: This post responds to the very hostile remarks about Nagel made by John Dupré in Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews.  I argue that, like Leiter and Weisberg, Dupré has simply missed the point and failed to address Nagel’s position at the deepest level.

Part VI: Here I respond to the serious and measured criticisms of Nagel raised by Eric Schliesser at the New APPS blog.  (In a follow-up post I comment on Schliesser’s remarks about Alvin Plantinga’s “Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism,” which Nagel cites approvingly.)

Part VII: This post responds to Mohan Matthen, who reviewed Nagel’s book in a serious and measured way in The Philosophers Magazine and has also commented on it at the New APPS blog.

Part VIII: Here I reply to Simon Blackburn’s review of Nagel in New Statesman.  As I note in the review, Blackburn is fairer to Nagel than he is sometimes given credit for.

Part IX: Here I comment on a symposium on Nagel’s book in Commonweal magazine, which included pieces from philosopher Gary Gutting, biologist Kenneth Miller, and physicist Stephen Barr.  Unlike some other reviewers, these three are not writing from an atheist perspective.

Part X: In this final post in the series, I respond to some other reviewers writing from a theistic point of view -- specifically, Alvin Plantinga (who reviewed Nagel’s book in The New Republic), J. P. Moreland (who reviewed it in Philosophia Christi), John Haldane (who wrote on Nagel in First Things), and William Carroll (who commented on Nagel over at Public Discourse).