Comments on: Textbook Prices: I Protest! – or – A Brief History of Modern Philosophy

By: bianca steele

bianca steele — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 19:29:23 +0000

Hidari@57: I suppose it is possible to see Chomsky’s insistence that within the mind or human brain there is a Language Acquisition Device, specifically for learning language, as equivalent to the Kantian idea that there are unanalyzable preconditions for human thought. One reason for seeing it that way is Chomsky’s attacks on what he has taken to be the insistence of AI researchers that all intelligence can be modeled using, in effect, pure predicate logic. (Minsky actually took the opposite position, attacking AI researchers who tried to use non predicate logic models, because they were Turing- and thus logically-equivalent to classic AI’s predicate logic models, thus not worth anybody’s time.) I assume that what Chomsky calls rationalism is the latter model which he criticizes.

By: bianca steele

bianca steele — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 17:51:03 +0000

@58: ~~The Stuff of Thought~~How the Mind Works

By: bianca steele

bianca steele — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 17:45:53 +0000

JH@36: I remember sitting in intro philosophy classes 25 years ago as a computer science major and thinking this kind of applied epistemology was a very logical direction for research. Over the years as I learned more about AI, psychology, and philosophy I realized things were more hairy. Also Pinker is very much in a very specific school of AI/cogsci centered within MIT. He made his name ASIR in part by criticizing the (finally) emerging field of neural-network research, something Minsky and his followers at MIT had been doing for years, but on Chomskyan grounds. So The Stuff of Thought reads to me like an AI textbook by a member of the MIT school with the math and the pragmatic considerations elided.

I’ve tried reading Dennett’s Freedom Evolves, which seems somewhat like a critique of this kind of evo-psych essentialism from a more or less pragmatist perspective, but I dislike the style, and haven’t been able to get very far with it.

By: H. E. Baber

H. E. Baber — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 16:45:14 +0000

Ditto to Vargas at #22. Bennett’s site is excellent. All the primary texts are in the public domain and I imagine that most of the secondary literature is in journal articles that are accessible online. Go textbook-free!

The trick is to assemble all readings in a convenient online package which is easy. You put up the syllabus/reading list with links to all the historical texts and articles so they’re organized in one package and accessing them is seamless for the end-user.

By: Hidari

Hidari — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 21:44:37 +0000

Only one more point I’d like to make: it’s widely believed (and Google backs me up on this) that Chomsky is influenced by Kant. And indeed Chomsky does quote Kant once or twice (he agrees with Kant that there are probably absolute limits on what humans can know…but again, I’m not sure as to whether or not Kant believes these limits are biological or conceptual, which makes a big difference). But, to the best of my knowledge, Chomsky never states or implies that Kant was a major influence. Compare and contrast Plato, Descartes, the Port-Royal Grammar, and the Cambridge Platonists (e.g. Cudworth, Cherbury), or for that matter Coleridge or Schlegel, whom he quotes as evidence for linguistic ‘creativity’. All the writers in the immediately preceding sentence really are (and are acknowledged to be) major influences on Chomsky. So while stating that Chomsky is a ‘Kantian’ is not quite a myth, it does seem to be an overstatement. And of course Pinker was and is hugely influenced by Chomsky.

Don’t forget the full title of Chomsky’s favourite of his own books: “Cartesian Linguistics: a Chapter in the History of Rationalist Thought”.

By: shane glackin

shane glackin — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 18:30:21 +0000

More than $52? Ouch.

That’s a pity, because it really is excellent, and gives just the sort of nuanced history you seem to be looking for.

By: Margaret Atherton

Margaret Atherton — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 16:45:59 +0000

To return to the original subject of this thread, I looked up Richard Francks’ book, which was mentioned earlier and which I didn’t know and it does seem as though it might be quite useful for an introductory class in Early Modern Philosophy. But the paperback edition costs more than $52. There is no way that I could possibly use that in addition to the primary texts.

By: John Holbo

John Holbo — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 16:07:36 +0000

I do appreciate the general suggestion, shah8. In general, thanks to everyone for this thread. It has contained numerous good suggestions.

By: shah8

shah8 — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 15:41:32 +0000

I thought you wanted to know more about Godfrey-Smith’s ideas, not insert him into your class.

As far as function goes, I suspect there were many fairly undeveloped thoughts on function in the sciences, given the itty bitty bits and pieces strewn in history of science sections of books like Jablonsky and Lamb’s Evolution in Four Dimensions. There definitly were some oddball ancient greeks with evolution-like theories, but I take it about as seriously as I do Democritus…

I really wish everyone had to take some kind of in-depth survey of world religions and philosophies, but then the books would burn!

By: Hidari

Hidari — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 10:51:33 +0000

‘There are various superior philosophy of mind books for the popular audience like something from Andy Carter’s ouevre, like Being There…’

Andy Clark.

By: John Holbo

John Holbo — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 09:25:25 +0000

Thanks for noting the history of my writings on Godfrey-Smith! Actually, the point would be a bit different. One thing I want to note (without making it anything like the hinge of my presentation of the History of Modern) is the absence of ‘functional’, biology-style theories of mind in 7 figures I’ll be surveying. Unsurprisingly, there weren’t Darwin-style theories before Darwin. But there could have been Aristotlian one’s. But that sort of falls off the radar, from Descartes to Kant. (Unless you can show me otherwise. Maybe it’s in Leibniz somewhere and I missed it.) At any rate, if I want to say ‘no one is really thinking in this possible, functionalist way’ I want to be able to sketch what I mean by ‘function’ a bit.

I haven’t actually tackled Godfrey-Smith’s books, just a few articles, which I have liked. So maybe the book would be good. But probably too much to try to bring into my history class.

By: Random Somebody

Random Somebody — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 09:24:48 +0000

Off-topic and somewhat late in the day – but I have to ask – is it entirely necessary to teach philosophy exclusively by reference to people ? I mean, I’m sure physics teaches that so-and-so came up with such-and-such theory, but will concentrate on teaching the theory rather than so-and-so. Why is it apparently so important to teach the so-and-so in philosophy as the primary framing rather than the such-and-such?

By: shah8

shah8 — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 08:43:44 +0000

I’ve read part of Godfrey Smith’s Complexity and the Function of Mind in Nature, and first the book is essentially a general attempt at repudiating internalist (and computationalist) theories of the mind (though this doesn’t really cover language per se) that Chomsky and Pinker advocate. Moreover, the way Herbert Spencer’s material is handled in the philosophical first part makes me believe that Godfrey-Smith would have an antipathy toward Pinker. The line of thought in the historical presentation leaves little doubt that the good author believes that some people are just a little too easily tempted by naturalistic materialism into self-serving panglossian just-so thesises. He would have almost certainly have taken a very dim view of Pinker’s defense of Larry Summer’s comment about women and math :~).

I found a direct attack on Chomsky and Pinker in which Godfrey-Smith handed a one-liner at the end of the paper
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/innateness-language/index.html

And yeah, I think the book I have is what you wanted. Godfrey-Smith essentially does a compare and contrast of naturalistic materialism and pragmatism to inch people pass the “woo elements” of thinking of a mind in terms of a gestalt derived from complex interactions with the environment.

Your note might have been related to this internet posting at the Valve you did…

http://www.thevalve.org/go/valve/article/how_to_do_things_with_things1/

By: praisegod barebones

praisegod barebones — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 07:16:56 +0000

No-one’s mentioned Richard Francks’ book on ‘Modern Philosophy’ which might fit your agenda quite well. Very accessible, and appropriately skeptical about the ‘standard narrative’. Also a paid-up member of what I like to think of as ‘The Campaign for Real History of Philosophy.’

(Full disclosure: he’s a former colleague. But its a very nice book from an ‘overview’ point of view)

By: Patrick S. O'Donnell

Patrick S. O'Donnell — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 07:15:42 +0000

On Pinker (and others), absolutely essential is David J. Buller’s Adapting Minds: Evolutionary Psychology and the Persistent Quest for Human Nature (2006). I recall Jerry Fodor reviewing it somewhere (perhaps it was the TLS).