Check out the recently completed online conference. Bravo to Richard Brown for this great initiative. Also check out the forthcoming issue of Consciousness and Cognition that features papers from CO2.
Hayek’s Speculative Psychology, The Neuroscience of value Estimation, and the Basis of Normative Individualism
Here’s the opening paragraph of Don Ross’ paper from Hayek in Mind: Hayek’s Philosophical Psychology.
Philosophers of mind who re-visit Friedrich Hayek’s The Sensory Order almost sixty years after its publication should feel humbled, perhaps sheepish, on behalf of their discipline. The book is essentially an exercise in abstract speculative mental architecture construction, the kind of project that has dominated the philosophy of mind since it began to reflect the rise of cognitive science in classic texts such as Dennett’s Content and Consciousness (1969) and Fodor’s Language of Thought (1975). Remarkably, Hayek’s effort is less in need of revision today, despite the mountain of intervening empirical work and technical refinement, then any of these works in its most obvious comparison class that were written by philosophers.
Lockean Social Epistemology
As mentioned in this paper, Locke and social epistemology is an improbable relation but . . .
Locke’s reputation as a sceptic regarding testimony, and the resultant mockery by epistemologists with social inclinations, is well known. C.A.J. Coady paints Locke as an extreme example of epistemological individualism; Frederick F. Schmitt argues that Locke regards testimony neither as a source of knowledge nor as a means to justify belief, whilst Michael Welbourne, in The Community of Knowledge (1981), depicts Lockean epistemology as fundamentally opposed to a social conception of knowledge; that he „could not even conceive of the possibility of a community of knowledge‟ (Welbourne: 1981, 303). This interpretation of Locke is flawed. Whilst Locke does not grant the honorific „knowledge to anything short of certainty, he nonetheless held what we would call „testimonial knowledge‟ in appropriate esteem. This can be shown by his careful distinction between testimony and mere received opinion. Furthermore, this distinction is dependent upon a knowledge community which enables hearers of testimony to access alternative accounts.
Chalmers’ Singularity
Check out the latest issue of the Journal of Consciousness Studies, a themed issue built around Dave Chalmers’ 2010 JCS paper “The Singularity“.
What happens when machines become more intelligent than humans? One view is that this event will be followed by an explosion to ever-greater levels of intelligence, as each generation of machines creates more intelligent machines in turn. This intelligence explosion is now often known as the ‘singularity’.
By way of a taster here is an excerpt from Dan Dennett’s contribution in his usual inimitably bold style entitled “The Mystery of David Chalmers.”
‘The Singularity’ is a remarkable text, in ways that many readers may not appreciate. It is written in an admirably forthright and clear style, and is beautifully organized, gradually introducing its readers to the issues, sorting them carefully, dealing with them all fairly and with impressive scholarship, and presenting the whole as an exercise of sweet reasonableness, which in fact it is. But it is also a mystery story of sorts, a cunningly devised intellectual trap, a baffling puzzle that yields its solution — if that is what it is (and that is part of the mystery) — only at the very end. It is like a ‘well made play’ in which every word by every character counts, retrospectively, for something. Agatha Christie never concocted a tighter funnel of implications and suggestions. Bravo, Dave.
Clouding Conservatism
Yet more Oakeshottiana. Here is a brief review by Elizabeth Corey of The Meanings of Michael Oakeshott’s Conservatism (table of contents). Corey summarizes why Oakeshott’s supposed conservatism equally frustrates self-avowed conservatives and liberal critics: in the second excerpt she neatly captures the appeal of Oakeshott for someone such as myself. (See also another recent posting).
In a certain sense, then, to call Oakeshott’s thought “conservative” is to court danger; for it implies that some sort of common understanding of conservatism might apply rather straightforwardly to Oakeshott. It does not.
The heart of Oakeshott’s conservatism thus lay in both recognition and acceptance of the world’s imperfections. He hoped that we might see and appreciate the goods worthy of enjoyment, and that in addition we might know how to enjoy them. This was difficult, in his view, because it required that we put off or ignore our anxiety and aspirations for the future and engage fully in our present lives.
Neuroscience and philosophy must work together
Part of the Guardian’s Hard Problem series.
Michael Oakeshott: Notebooks and Letters 1922-90
The release of this book is some way off (December 2013).
Hayek in Peace Studies
Here’s an interesting squib that references Hayek from Sapir Handelmanab who writes:
According to this perception, an effective peacemaking process becomes a discovery procedure. I was influenced by Friedrich Hayek perception of market competition. According to Hayek, an efficient competitive market, under a framework of general rules and institutions, creates a spontaneous order. In our context, one of the central questions is how to transform a destructive competition, an unproductive violent dialogue, to a constructive competition, negotiation by peaceful means. For a further discussion on Hayek’s perception of market competition as a vehicle for new discoveries, see Friedrich A. Hayek, “Competition as a Discovery Procedure,” in New Studies in Politics, Philosophy, Economics and the History of Ideas (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978). For a further discussion on peacemaking as a constructive competition, see Handelman, Conflict and Peacemaking in Israel-Palestine.
Sullivan’s Oakeshott
Whatever difficulties one might find with Andrew’s eclectic philosophical reconciliation (queer theory, Catholicism, conservatism) he captures the essence of Oakeshott very well he in this “elevator speech.” Oakeshott’s so-called “conservatism” bears absolutely no resemblance whatsoever to the ossified character attributed to conservatism by “conservatives” of a fundamentalist stripe. In any event, ideologies are far more fluid than is normally conceded in public discourse (check out Michael Freeden’s classic article on this).
Colin McGinn on “Philosophy by Another Name”
Another commentary piece by McGinn from the NYT:
I have a bold proposal: Let us drop the name “philosophy” for the discipline so called and replace it with a new one. The present name is obsolete, misleading and harmful — long past its expiration date.
