 |
[email protected] |
 |
3275638434 |
 |
 |
| Paper Publishing WeChat |
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
The Paradox of “New Mysterianism” vs. Esotericism: An Approach in Philosophy of Mind
Paulo Alexandre e Castro
Full-Text PDF
XML 1081 Views
DOI:10.17265/2159-5313/2021.10.006
Universidade de Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal
In 1995, David Chalmers published in Scientific American Revue his famous essay called “The Puzzle of Conscious Experience”, where he analyses the hard and easy problems of consciousness, and objected at the same time against the “esoteric” that claim to be impossible understand consciousness. In fact, Chalmers is just presenting a position that became known from the works of Colin McGinn (The Problem of Consciousness, 1991) and Owen Flanagan (The Science of the Mind, 1991) as the “New Mysterianism”. According to this philosophical position, the hard problem of consciousness cannot be solved by humans (it is impossible to explain the existence of qualia). Although esotericism may refer to an exploration of the hidden meanings and symbolism in various philosophical, historical, and religious texts, the new mysterianism is however nothing more than a profound paradox, since there is no knowledge to preserve or meanings to discover. However, if this argument is true, then the esotericism is wrong. The purpose will discuss this topic through the philosophical literature produce in the last years.
new mysterianism, esotericism, mind-body problem, qualia, consciousness, cognition
Paulo Alexandre e Castro. (2021). The Paradox of “New Mysterianism” vs. Esotericism: An Approach in Philosophy of Mind. Philosophy Study, October 2021, Vol. 11, No. 10, 782-784.
Armstrong, D. (1968). A materialist theory of the mind. Oxford: Routledge.
Block, N. (Ed.). (1980). What is functionalism? In Readings in philosophy of psychology (Vol. 2, pp. 171-184). Cambridge: Harvard.
Jackson, F. (1986). What Mary didn’t know? Journal of Philosophy, 83(5), 291-295.
Levine, J. (1983). Materialism and qualia: The explanatory gap. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 64(4), 354-361.
McGuinn, C. (1989). Can we solve the mind-body problem? Mind, 98(391), 349-366.
Nagel, T. (1974). What is it like to be a bat? Philosophical Review, 83(4), 435-456.
Place, U. (1956). Is consciousness a brain process? British Journal of Psychology, 47(1), 44-50.
Putnam, H. (2000). The threefold cord: Mind, body, and world. New York: Columbia University Press.
Smart, J. J. C. (2002). Identity theory. In E. N. Zalta (Ed.), The Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy. Stanford, CA: The Metaphysics Research Lab.
Stanton, W. L. (1983). Supervenience and psychological law in anomalous monism. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 64(1), 72-79.