Re: [xmca] Consciousness

[Martin Packer <packer@duq.edu>]

Andy,

I am familiar with what seems to be your general line of argument. It  
runs, indeed, through the philosophers you have highlighted:  
Descartes, Kant, and Husserl (whose 'Cartesian mediations' was both a  
criticism of Kant for being too mystical and an affirmation of the  
continuity of his project with Descartes). But I am surprised that you  
would follow this line for, in my reading at least, Marx and Vygotsky  
took a different line, prompted in my view by Hegel's critique of Kant.

But first, it seems to me there is a central contradiction in what you  
have written, and I take this to mean that perhaps I'm not correctly  
identifying your position, since you seem to affirming and denying the  
same point. You write critically of natural science:

"Natural science is based on the assumption that outside of  
consciousness there is a natural world, which exists independently of  
consciousness and prior to consciousness"

But when you cited Lenin you explained: "Consciousness is what is  
given to us; matter is what exists outside and independently of  
consciousness."

Perhaps your point is that science is not *critical* of this central  
assumption, which was indeed what Kant and Husserl argued? (I think  
this is actually an inaccurate claim: Kuhn's work showed us that  
scientists constantly question their ontological assumptions, and also  
made the important point that these assumptions  are embedded in the  
shared, social practices of a scientific paradigm, not in the thoughts  
of individual scientists.)

Where should I begin with a response to this D-K-H line? Perhaps here:  
you write: "The reality is: you open your eyes, you see things, and  
*then* you question whether what really exists out there (matter)  
corresponds to what you think exists out there (consciousness)."

...for this is precisely the move that Descartes, Kant and Husserl  
made. They each engaged in a reflective attitude of doubt, questioning  
the correspondence of (inner) thought and (external) matter, and even  
the existence of the latter.  The problem is that this epistemological  
scepticism (Is my knowledge valid?) is *always* a sign of an  
underlying ontological dualism (My thoughts are inner; matter is  
outer). If one starts there, it does indeed seem that only a God's eye  
view would be able to resolve the problem.  And with this dualism it  
seems that each individual can form only mental representations of a  
reality that they can never in fact be sure they know. Precisely the  
representational model of human beings that cognitive science has  
accepted, at least until recently.

But there is a different line of thinking about human being, knowledge  
and consciousness. I first learned of it from studying Heidegger, but  
it has been explored by Merleau-Ponty, Garfinkel, and as I read them,  
Marx and Vygotsky. It is a line that gives priority to practical  
activity rather than reflective thinking. (You can see why I am  
puzzled that you would follow the former line, and why, for example,  
you would write that post Heisenberg, "not concsciousness but  
*activity* had to step in to provide a rational foundation for even  
natural science." That seems to imply that for you consciousness and  
activity are distinct.)

The central thrust of Heidegger's Being and Time was that the typical  
and traditional philosophical move is mistaken and unnatural. People  
in their everyday activity do *not* "question what really exists out  
there." If I am digging in my garden, see a strange object and have a  
question about it, I don't reflect on the adequacy of my thought  
categories, I get down on my knees to take a closer look at the  
object. I poke it, I pick it up. Heidegger distinguished three modes  
of engagement (Tony mentioned them recently). These philosophers  
operated in what Heidegger called the present-at-hand mode, in which  
practical activity is completely suspended. But the more fundamental  
mode is the ready-to-hand, in which we are engaged in practical  
activity with artifacts, and there is no separation between subject  
and object, mind and matter. For Heidegger, *this* is consciousness.  
In this mode, Cs is not separate from matter.

I find it particularly helpful to think in terms of children's  
development, because infants have a practical engagement in the world  
without the capacity for reflective thought.

There is obviously much more I could and should say to develop the  
point I'm trying to make. But if I send this message now it might  
reach you before night falls.

cheers

Martin


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