Science as if situation mattered
➤ Gửi thông báo lỗi ⚠️ Báo cáo tài liệu vi phạmNội dung chi tiết: Science as if situation mattered
Science as if situation mattered
1Science as if situation mattered1Michel BitbolCREA/CNRS, Ỉ. rue Descartes. 75(X)5 Paris FRANCEPhenomenology and die Cognitive Science. 1. 181-224. 20 Science as if situation mattered002Abstract: When he formulated the program of Neurophenonumology. Francisco Varela suggested a balanced methodological dissolution of the “ hard problem ” of the philosophy of mind. I show that his dissolution is a paradigm which imposes itself onto seemingly opposite views, including materialist a Science as if situation matteredpproaches. I also point out that Varela’s revolutionary epistemological ideas are gaining wider acceptance as a side effect of a recent controversy beScience as if situation mattered
tween hcrmcneutists and climinativists. Finally, I emphasize a structural parallel between the science of consciousness and the distinctive features o1Science as if situation mattered1Michel BitbolCREA/CNRS, Ỉ. rue Descartes. 75(X)5 Paris FRANCEPhenomenology and die Cognitive Science. 1. 181-224. 20 Science as if situation matteredcs and the philosophy of mind: neglect of the constitutive blindspot of objective knowledge.IntroductionA few years ago, Francisco Varela published a ground-braking paper entitled “ A science of consciousness as if experience mattered ” (Varela. 1998). which provided a striking abstract of the new d Science as if situation matteredisciplin he had called “Neurophenomenology” (Varela, 1996. 1997). There, he advocated an original (dis)solution of the “ hard problem ” of consciousneScience as if situation mattered
ss which involved a consistently methodological approach rather than one more theoretical view.The basis of his approach was the remark according to w1Science as if situation mattered1Michel BitbolCREA/CNRS, Ỉ. rue Descartes. 75(X)5 Paris FRANCEPhenomenology and die Cognitive Science. 1. 181-224. 20 Science as if situation matterederience in the first place. This remark is usually either overlooked (by those philosophers who think invariance is only our way to discover a reality behind the “ superficial ” situated appearances), or overrated (by those philosophers who use it as a weapon against any claim of knowledge). The two Science as if situation mattered former attitudes yield a systematical bias towards conscious experience.Overlooking the effective primacy of situatedness, which is a common trend inScience as if situation mattered
our culture, leads to downplaying the status of1This paper is in memory of Francisco Varela. who first came al the center of my thought, and then al 1Science as if situation mattered1Michel BitbolCREA/CNRS, Ỉ. rue Descartes. 75(X)5 Paris FRANCEPhenomenology and die Cognitive Science. 1. 181-224. 20 Science as if situation matteredtive reality of which we partake, then it is likely to be either completely dismissed (strong eliminativism). or reduced to a field of description which is easy to objectify (physicalist reductionist!!). or treated as an objective entity in its own right (substance or property dualism). Conversely, Science as if situation matteredoverrating the fact that third-person accounts are produced by (communities of) sentient subjects located in a network of natural and social links, usScience as if situation mattered
ually means indulging in skepticism, relativism, or subjective idealism.But Francisco Varela did not overlook or overrate the primacy of situatedness 1Science as if situation mattered1Michel BitbolCREA/CNRS, Ỉ. rue Descartes. 75(X)5 Paris FRANCEPhenomenology and die Cognitive Science. 1. 181-224. 20 Science as if situation matteredh.His central idea was that in the science of consciousness, one should neither try to absorb the subjective into a previously defined objective domain, nor objectivize somehow the subjective, nor give the subjective any kind of supremacy over the objective. One should rather go back to the experien Science as if situation matteredtial realm from which the very dichotomy between subjectivity and objectivity arises, and then establish within it a system of mutual constraints. InScience as if situation mattered
actual fact, mutual constraints are enforced between first person statements of phenomenal contents, and third person descriptions of those phenomenal1Science as if situation mattered1Michel BitbolCREA/CNRS, Ỉ. rue Descartes. 75(X)5 Paris FRANCEPhenomenology and die Cognitive Science. 1. 181-224. 20 Science as if situation matterednd an epistemological one.The practical consequence is that careful elaboration of first person statements is given exactly the same importance as the elaboration of third person statements. After all. a proper mutual constraint can only be set on a firm basis if both sides arc equally mastered. On Science as if situation matteredthe first person side, this requires a phenomenological-like disciplined attention which has to be learned like any other skill. As a preliminary, oneScience as if situation mattered
must become fluent with the process of phenomenological reduction. This avoids the usual pitfalls of introspection, by promoting intimacy rather than1Science as if situation mattered1Michel BitbolCREA/CNRS, Ỉ. rue Descartes. 75(X)5 Paris FRANCEPhenomenology and die Cognitive Science. 1. 181-224. 20 Science as if situation mattereddescribing structures that are invariant across a more or less extended range of (spatiotemporal. personal, cultural etc.) situations. Its methodological ground is stretched so as to include: (i) regulated mutual relations between situated accounts, and (ii) relations between situated accounts on th Science as if situation matterede one side and3(heir own invariants on the other side. Intersubjectivity complements objectivity stricto sensu and is systematically related to it.NowScience as if situation mattered
, one may wonder how this (dis)solves the “ hard problem “ of the philosophy of mind. In a nutshell, the “ hard problem ” consists in finding a place 1Science as if situation mattered1Michel BitbolCREA/CNRS, Ỉ. rue Descartes. 75(X)5 Paris FRANCEPhenomenology and die Cognitive Science. 1. 181-224. 20 Science as if situation mattered after many other authors (Nagel. 19861 Jackson, 1997; Searle. 1997). pointed out. scientific theories can only yield derivation of structures from structural axioms. They can do nothing to explain nonSt ructural qualitative features of experience, let alone to justify the mere existence of experien Science as if situation matteredce. In other terms, they enable US to predict relations between phenomena2 3, yet have nothing to say about the brute fact of phenomenality, which isScience as if situation mattered
more likely to be taken as “ absolute ■■ than anything else (Blackburn. 1993).Varela defuses this dilemma by proposing nothing less than a radical red1Science as if situation mattered1Michel BitbolCREA/CNRS, Ỉ. rue Descartes. 75(X)5 Paris FRANCEPhenomenology and die Cognitive Science. 1. 181-224. 20 Science as if situation mattered is construed as a collection of such invariants taken as objects and laws, and as long as naturalizing consciousness means cither projecting it onto the plane of these natural objects or inventing for it a new class of objects, the “ hard problem ■■ remains stubbornly unfathomable. But if science i Science as if situation mattereds extended so as to include a “ dance ” of mutual definition taking place between first-person and third-person accounts (Varela, 1998. p. 42) ; if naScience as if situation mattered
ture is made of views and situated experiences as well as of their manifold invariants’’; and if, accordingly, naturalizing consciousness means includ1Science as if situation mattered1Michel BitbolCREA/CNRS, Ỉ. rue Descartes. 75(X)5 Paris FRANCEPhenomenology and die Cognitive Science. 1. 181-224. 20 Science as if situation mattered hard problem ■’ is solved by this approach because consciousness has been straightforwardly naturalized ; and in another, more plausible, sense, it is only dissolved because its motivation has been shown to be ill-founded from the outset. In agreement with the second interpretation, Varela insisted Science as if situation mattered that in the usual formulation of the problem of consciousness, “ (...) what is missing is not the coherent nature of the explanation but its alienatiScience as if situation mattered
on from human life ” (Varela. 1998. p. 41). His2One must be cautious about the term “ phenomenon ”. It can either be synonymous of “ isolated experien1Science as if situation mattered1Michel BitbolCREA/CNRS, Ỉ. rue Descartes. 75(X)5 Paris FRANCEPhenomenology and die Cognitive Science. 1. 181-224. 20 Science as if situation matteredstrued as low-level invariants of perceptions under well-defined technical conditions, one can skip temporarily the distinction for the sake of this argument.3These may include the experiential invariants of phenomenology, and the universal structural invariants which arc typical of the natural scie Science as if situation matterednces as well.4attempt therefore amounted to a systematic reintegration of human life (namely embodied experience) in the framework of the discussion.TScience as if situation mattered
he main difficulty al this point is that, like any other dissolution, this one is convincing only to those who accept to be “ converted ” to a proper 1Science as if situation mattered1Michel BitbolCREA/CNRS, Ỉ. rue Descartes. 75(X)5 Paris FRANCEPhenomenology and die Cognitive Science. 1. 181-224. 20 Science as if situation matteredhey still prefer to reassert a sense of mystery about the emergence of conscious experience from matter (Searle. 1997), or to declare that present science has already an explanation in store, e.g. in some exotic interpretation of quantum mechanics (Penrose 1994: Stapp. 1996). or to express their fai Science as if situation matteredth in some future, but unforeseeable, scientific advance that will dispel the riddle.Facing this deep-lying collective resistance. Varela essentiallyScience as if situation mattered
adopted a scientist’s attitude. He wished to convince his peers by demonstrating that the research program of ncurophenomcnology is “progressive” in LGọi ngay
Chat zalo
Facebook