The University of Notre Dame Australia ResearchOnline@ND Theses 2018 A dialogue of traditions on the reality of mind: Thomas Nagel and Bernard Lonergan Robert van Gend Follow this and additional works at: https://researchonline.nd.edu.au/theses COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA Copyright Regulations 1969 WARNING The material in this communication may be subject to copyright under the Act. Any further copying or communication of this material by you may be the subject of copyright protection under the Act. Do not remove this notice. Publication Details van Gend, R. (2018). A dialogue of traditions on the reality of mind: Thomas Nagel and Bernard Lonergan (Master of Philosophy (School of Philosophy and Theology)). University of Notre Dame Australia. https://researchonline.nd.edu.au/theses/237 This dissertation/thesis is brought to you by ResearchOnline@ND. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses by an authorized administrator of ResearchOnline@ND. For more information, please contact [email protected]. A DIALOGUE OF TRADITIONS ON THE REALITY OF MIND: THOMAS NAGEL AND BERNARD LONERGAN Robert van Gend A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Philosophy School of Philosophy and Theology The University of Notre Dame Australia 2018 Abstract The scientific picture of the world is one of invisible particles and empty space, but this is not the world of our everyday experience. How can we reconcile the scientific view of the world with the view from our ordinary perspective? This thesis puts Thomas Nagel and Bernard Lonergan into dialogue on the question of the mind’s place in the world. Coming from different philosophical traditions, both thinkers provide a bigger picture in which to place materialism and to assess its errors. Thomas Nagel criticises modern forms of materialism because they try to explain away the reality of our perspective by reducing it to physical events in a perspective- less scientific picture. He criticises the fundamental conception of the physical world upon which these reductionist theories depend, a conception that had its origins in the seventeenth century scientific revolution and one which conceived of the physical world as having no place for subjects’ perspectives. In Lonergan’s opinion, the reduction of the human consciousness to mere physical events is the result of a truncated conception of objectivity. The reason for this mistaken conception is that we confuse two distinct kinds of knowing, which in turn is because of a mistaken cognitional theory. This thesis argues that Nagel makes some insightful contributions to the place of mind in the cosmos, but that he, like the reductive materialists that he criticises, is limited by a truncated conception of objectivity that prevents him grasping the nature of the mind. This suggests that future philosophies of mind need to examine their presuppositions more deeply and be open to dialogue with one of the less well-known traditions of philosophy in contemporary scholarship – the Aristotelian-Thomistic tradition, in which Lonergan worked. Declaration of Authorship This thesis/dissertation is the candidate’s own work and contains no material which has been accepted for the award of any degree or diploma in any other institution. To the best of the candidate’s knowledge, the thesis/dissertation contains no material previously published or written by another person, except where due reference is made in the text of the thesis. _____________________Robert van Gend _ __________________ Candidate’s Name Candidate’s Signature Date: 14.08.2018 2 Contents INTRODUCTION: The Monopoly of the Outside View………….………………………5 CHAPTER 1: Lonergan’s Cognitive Theory………………………………………………8 1.1 The Desire to Know 1.2 Cognitional Structure Experience Understanding Insight pivots between sense data and idea Kinds of Insights/Realities – Things Kinds of Insights/Realities – Conjugates Relationship of the Subject and Object in Experience and Understanding Judgment The Virtually Unconditioned Subjective and Objective Dimensions of Knowledge A Consistent Cognitional Theory The Accuracy of Human Knowing Summary: Levels of Consciousness 1.3 Intellectual Conversion 1.4 Mind and Reality – Kant and Lonergan CHAPTER 2: The Meaning of “Matter”.…………….…………………………………31 2.1 The Rise of Nominalism 2.2 Galileo: Primary and Secondary Qualities 2.3 Descartes: Mind and Matter 2.4 Contemporary Responses to Cartesian Principles Matter: a term without meaning? CHAPTER 3: Consciousness………………………………………………………………47 3.1 The Physical Conception of Objectivity Irreducibly Subjective Phenomena 3.2 Analysis of Nagel’s Epistemology CHAPTER 4: Reason………………………………………………………………………59 4.1 Inner Authority of Reason Reason’s Immunity to External Explanation Reason’s Intrinsic Authority 4.2 The “Order of Reasons” 4.3 Perspectival Knowing & Scepticism 4.4 The Intelligibility of the World – A Mystery Intelligibility Thought and Reality: Kant and Nagel Conclusions 3 CHAPTER 5: Be Attentive, Be Intelligent, Be Reasonable………………………………85 5.1 The Need for a New Objective Conception 5.2 The Data – “Be Attentive” 5.3 The Explanations – “Be Intelligent” Reductive or eliminative physicalism Non-reductive physicalism Epiphenomenalism Nagel’s Explanation Emergent Account Reductive Account 5.4 The Judgment – “Be Reasonable” 5.5 A New Natural Philosophy Beyond perception-based thinking CONCLUSION ……………………………………………………………………………105 BIBLIOGRAPHY…………………………………………………………………………107 4 Introduction – the Monopoly of the Outside View Sir Arthur Eddington famously described the lectern in front of him as it appears to us, and then in terms of its ultimate constituents as discovered by scientists: “One of them was visible, palpable, brown, solid and heavy; the other was mostly empty space with here and there an unimaginable wavicle”.1 How can we reconcile the scientific picture of the world with the world of our normal experience? In his short Meditations in a Toolshed, C.S. Lewis goes straight to the heart of the tension. He says we can approach realities from the inside and from the outside. As he explains, when a young man values ten minutes of casual chat with a woman as more precious than all the favours that other women could provide, he is experiencing love from the inside. The scientist explains the young man’s state of mind from the outside as genes interacting with biological stimulus. Lewis writes, “Which is the ‘true’ or ‘valid’ experience? Which tells you most about the thing? And you can hardly ask that question without noticing that for the last fifty years or so everyone has been taking the answer for granted.”2 The outside view is supposedly objective and what is really out there, whereas the inside view is subjective, consisting of how things seem or appear to us. Thomas Nagel (b.1937) is famous (or infamous among his materialist colleagues3) for criticising the modern form of materialism which is propped up by theories of Darwinian evolution. Materialism claims that reality is nothing more than matter or physical substance. The outside view is a true picture of reality and the inside view is reduced to physical events in the brain. Nagel says this reductionism is bound up with the materialist claim about the constituents of reality: “Materialist naturalism leads to reductionist ambitions because it seems unacceptable to deny the reality of all those familiar things that are not at first glance physical.”4 Nagel is keenly aware that the modern scientific picture of reality has its origins in the definitions of mind and matter that occurred at the time of the scientific revolution in the seventeenth century. This gives him ammunition with which to oppose the ideological dogmatism of the present physicalist conception of the world. It is dogmatic because it is so 1 Cited in Daniel A. Helminiak, Brain, Consciousness, and God: A Lonerganian Integration (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2015), 162. 2 C.S. Lewis, “Meditations in a Toolshed”, in God in the Dock: Essays on Theology and Ethics, ed. Walter Hooper (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 1970), 231. 3 See Andrew Ferguson, ‘The Heretic: Who is Thomas Nagel and why are so many of his fellow academics condemning him?’ The Weekly Standard, March 25, 2013. 4 Thomas Nagel, Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature Is Almost Certainly False (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), 15, Kindle. 5 sure that it can explain everything. Nagel thinks many realities escape its net. Consciousness and reason, he argues, cannot be reduced to the physical. If the view from inside is not an illusion, how do the two views fit together? We are left with two views of the same reality which say different things about that reality. Nagel recommends that this is how we should approach reality – acknowledging our limits and allowing two perspectives to exist side by side. But we cannot expect the modern scientific picture, which is just one kind of objective conception of reality, to account for all reality. Nevertheless, Nagel says we should try to come up with a new objective conception of reality that places mind in the world alongside matter, so that we can make sense of how the inside and the outside views are both real. It is a difficult task, he says, because it would require the creation of concepts that we have not yet thought up. C.S. Lewis also acknowledged the difficulty of the task: “Is it, then, possible to imagine a new Natural Philosophy, continually conscious that the ‘natural object’ produced by analysis and abstraction is not reality but only a view, and always correcting the abstraction? I hardly know what I am asking for.”5 In Mind & Cosmos, Nagel considers monism (or dual aspect theory) to be a promising way to move our understanding forward and place the mind in the natural order. It came to light in my reading of Nagel that he was rejecting many sacred cows of the analytic tradition and pushing its limits.