Sunday, February 17, 2013

 

Would You Like Another Cup?


I've previously pointed to the critical review of Thomas Nagel's Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature Is Almost Certainly False, by Brian Leiter and Michael Weisberg, entitled "Do You Only Have a Brain?".

Thanks to Neil Rickert at The Heretical Philosopher, I've learned of Mohan Matthen's review, "Thomas Nagel's untutored reaction of incredulity," which I found very instructive.

Here are some more reviews:

"Remarkable Facts: Ending Science As We Know It" by Elliott Sober.

"Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature is Almost Certainly False" by John Dupré.

"Awaiting a New Darwin" by H. Allen Orr.

"Two Perspectives on Thomas Nagel's Mind and Cosmos" by Louis B. Jones and P. N. Furbank.

Also helpful is Jennifer Schuessler's N.Y. Times article, "An Author Attracts Unlikely Allies."

No doubt the creationists will have their usual reaction ... the venom of the reviews shows how much Nagel's criticisms have stung the "Darwinists" ... but, if Nagel was ignored, they would claim it was because the "Darwinists" have no answer to his arguments. Dishonesty always find a way to "win."

Comments:
If you're keeping a collection, I'd also bring to your attention reviews by Peter Godfrey-Snith (London Review of Books) and Alva Noe (NPR on-line). I can provide links if you'd like. Also, interestingly, the predictable response to these reviews at Uncommon Descent and Evolution News and Views.

I'm still sorting through what I think of Nagel's book and the responses it has elicited. As a semi-professional philosopher with strong interests in philosophy of mind, I'm not entirely unsympathetic to Nagel's general approach to the mind-body problem. But his attempt to extend his view about consciousness to life in general is really quite problematic.








 
The Peter Godfrey-Smith review is behind a pay wall (though if you register you can get 24 hour access):

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v35/n02/peter-godfrey-smith/not-sufficiently-reassuring

I did see Noë's review but lost interest when I detected more than a wiff of vitalism:

A living cell is more than just a chemical compound, even if every part of the cell is composed of inorganic elements. A cell, after all, is alive.

First of all, those chemical compounds are undergoing chemical reactions (all of a perfectly natural sort). At least here, Noë assumes there is a difference between the organic and the inorganic which amounts to question begging.

In any case, here is the link:

http://www.npr.org/blogs/13.7/2012/10/12/162725315/are-the-mind-and-life-natural
 
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