Some
philosophers have a problem with Daniel Dennett because he's what
they call a "pop philosopher". I don't. After all, although
Dennett has written many "popular philosophy" books, many
of his arguments can also be found in his academic (i.e., technical)
papers. Still, it's true that as time has gone by Dennett has written
less and less academic stuff.
Is
that automatically a bad thing?
Having
said that, in Dennett's book, Intuition
Pumps and Other Tools for Thinking, some of his ad
hominems against his detractors are terrible: i.e., really
blatant and crude. So, yes, I was a little surprised by the many dismissive
and crude comments Dennett uses against his philosophical
opponents.
Here
are some examples:
“'I
just can't conceive of a conscious robot!' Nonsense, I replied.
What you mean is that you won't conceive of a conscious robot.”
“We
found his [John Searle's] though experiment fascinating because it
was, on the one hand, so clearly fallacious and misleading argument,
yet, on the other hand, just as clearly a tremendous crowd-pleaser
and persuader.”
“You
don't want me to disable this device [this person's “intuition
pump”]; you like the conclusion so much – Strong AI is
impossible, whew! - that your eyes glaze over at the prospect
of being dragged through a meticulous critique of a vivid,
entertaining argument that supports your fervent hope.... The details
don't really interest you, only the conclusion. What an
anti-intellectual copout!”
“To
many people consciousness is 'real magic'. If you're not talking
about something that is supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, then
you're not talking about consciousness, the Mystery Beyond All
Understanding.” (313
“I
am suggesting, then, that David Chalmers has – unintentionally – perpetrated the same feat of conceptual sleight of hand in declaring
that he has discovered 'The Hard Problem'.”
[The
last quote may be a little unfair to Dennett because he does, after
all, use the word “unintentionally”. However, I'm struggling to
see how David Chalmers could carry out a “conceptual sleight of
hand” and do so “unintentionally”.]
Having
quoted all that, the very mentioning of someone else's ad hominems
(rather than his arguments) could itself be deemed to be an example
of an ad hominem. Then again, one shouldn't take a pure or
absolute position on ad homs. Sometimes they may be perfectly
acceptable. In any case, I said that I was surprised by Dennett's ad
homs. I also said they were crude. I didn't say that ad homs
- in and of themselves - are automatically a bad thing.
To
put more meat on that claim.
For
a long time I've thought that Dennett believes that many/all the
philosophers - and other people - who don't agree with his
philosophical views are... well, religious – or, at the very least,
that they have "secret religious leanings" (not Dennett's
own words!). Now that's
simply false. It may be true about some of Dennett's critics;
though it's certainly not true about all of them. And even if some of
Dennett's critics are indeed religious, he (as a philosopher) shouldn't simply assume that they are. What's
more, he must still concentrate on their arguments.
Talking
about religion.
I
certainly suspect that Dennett is a little dogmatic when it comes,
specifically, to his behaviourist and verificationist positions on
philosophical matters. Though, at the same time, I also feel that I'd
need to conclusively refute all his arguments before I could class
him as dogmatic.... which is a silly position, I admit.
So
it can certainly be said that
materialists/physicalists/reductionists/verificationists/scientists/etc.
can be dogmatic - as can those who uphold literally any position on
any subject. Anti-materialists/etc. can be dogmatic too. This is why it's wise to make a distinction between
materialism/reductionism/verificationism/etc. and those people who
uphold these philosophical positions.
This
means that materialism/reductionism/etc. itself can't be dogmatic because there are so many varieties of such a theory/position. And
an abstract philosophical position/theory can't be dogmatic anyway.
No comments:
Post a Comment