Realism versus mind/body dichotomy

[coberst]

Realism versus mind/body dichotomy

Idealism is a label for the philosophical position that rejects realism. Realism is the view that the world is only matter and that objects are independent of mind and can be known as they really are. Idealism stresses the spiritual (other worldly) characteristic of mind, which is different in kind from body.

Idealism has many definitions but all focus on the assumption that consciousness is detached from its concrete socially situated subjects. Such an assumption leads to the isolation of ideas from the concrete body. Theories, beliefs, human conduct and other products can be understood and analyzed in isolation from the historical subject. A giant unbridgeable gap develops between mind and body.

Idealism holds the twin principles; nature or matter on one hand and spirit, God, ego, etc. on the other. Man and woman are creatures harboring two distinctly different realities within one structure. We are bipartite beings. Thought, especially theoretical thought is a substance of the spirit thus intellectual, moral, artistic and such are activities of the spirit.

Consciousness is the property of the spirit and because spirit transcends the world of matter then philosophers surmise consciousness is autonomous and independent, governed by non-material principles.

This tradition of an autonomous reason began long before evolutionary theory and has held strongly since then without consideration, it seems to me, of the theories of Darwin and of biological science. Cognitive science has in the last three decades developed considerable empirical evidence supporting Darwin and not supporting the traditional theories of philosophy and psychology regarding the autonomy of reason. Cognitive science has focused a great deal of empirical science toward discovering the nature of the embodied mind.

The three major findings of cognitive science are:

The mind is inherently embodied.

Thought is mostly unconscious.

Abstract concepts are largely metaphorical.

These findings of cognitive science are profoundly disquieting for traditional thinking in two respects. “First, they tell us that human reason is a form of animal reason, a reason inextricably tied to our bodies and the peculiarities of our brains. Second, these results tell us that our bodies, brains, and interactions with our environment provide the mostly unconscious basis for our everyday metaphysics, that is, our sense of what is real.

Quotes from “Philosophy in the Flesh by Lakoff and Johnson

Questions for discussion

I think that human nature is animal plus something else. The something else I will call soul but soul does not mean ‘other world’ substance. What do you think?

I think that humans have a need for concepts such as soul, which have been co-opted by religion and thereby given them an ‘other worldly’ character that makes it virtually impossible to use these concepts in a secular manner. What do you think?