Do Away With People Blowing My Mind
DO AWAY WITH PEOPLE BLOWING MY MIND
I have been a student of philosophy of mind – on and off – since the 1980s. Or earlier, if you count childhood musings on consciousness and cosmos. But after reading Thomas Nagel’s Mind and Cosmos and witnessing the firestorm of hysterical abuse showered upon him, I made the hard decision to cut myself off. I would read no new books in philosophy of mind.
The 1980s was a good time to begin work in philosophy of mind: Not too early, not too late. But then the reductionism started getting me down. Me – an atheist! And where was I to turn for succor? Not dualism. Not theism. I was dissatisfied and my eye began to wander. Poetry started looking mighty hot. At first it was just reality sandwiches in the Village, nothing serious, but then I started to develop feelings.
Philosophy of mind never entirely lost its allure and from time to time I would be tempted back. Then I would indulge myself and even the papers that incensed me in the past took on the charm of the familiar. But as every philanderer knows, it does not last. And then one is off again, strolling the halls of art museums and reading history and psychology and literary criticism.
The latest return of this prodigal scholar was in 2012. I had become aware of Nagel’s common sense critique of reductionism and I hurried home to embrace it. I stayed long enough for Midgley’s dull defense and then I made my decision. I foreswore any philosophy of mind to come – and for that matter, most of the output of the 21st century. I’ll dally with mystics and theologians before I spend another moment defending my mind from the reductionists.
Nowadays I am more interested in how we got into this mess than in participating in it. I don’t strain my neck to look at car crashes on the side of the road and I don’t want anything to do with this wreck either. I consider the present age a lacuna in rational thought, a modern medievalism that consigns philosophy once again to the status of handmaid.
I’ll leave the critique to Nagel and others. The cathedrals are still being built and I cannot bear to watch their construction. The shadows they cast are oppressive and I cannot see in the dark.