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On the Contrary: Critical Essays, 1987-1997
Paul and Patricia Churchland take on their critics -- with verve, combativeness, and generosity.
Paul M. and Patricia S. Churchland are towering figures in the fields of philosophy, neuroscience, and consciousness. This collection was prepared in the belief that the most useful and revealing of anyone's writings are often those shorter essays penned in conflict with or criticism of one's professional colleagues. The essays present the Churchlands' critical responses to a variety of philosophical positions advanced by some two dozen philosophical theorists. The book is divided into three parts: part I, Folk Psychology and Eliminative Materialism; part II, Meaning, Qualia, and Emotion: The Several Dimensions of Consciousness; and part III, the Philosophy of Science. V. S. Ramachandran and Rick Grush are coauthors on two of the essays.
Paul M. and Patricia S. Churchland are towering figures in the fields of philosophy, neuroscience, and consciousness. This collection was prepared in the belief that the most useful and revealing of anyone's writings are often those shorter essays penned in conflict with or criticism of one's professional colleagues. The essays present the Churchlands' critical responses to a variety of philosophical positions advanced by some two dozen philosophical theorists. The book is divided into three parts: part I, Folk Psychology and Eliminative Materialism; part II, Meaning, Qualia, and Emotion: The Several Dimensions of Consciousness; and part III, the Philosophy of Science. V. S. Ramachandran and Rick Grush are coauthors on two of the essays.
368 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1998
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About the author
Paul M. Churchland
18 books64 followersPaul Churchland is a philosopher noted for his studies in neurophilosophy and the philosophy of mind. He is currently a Professor at the University of California, San Diego, where he holds the Valtz Chair of Philosophy. Churchland holds a joint appointment with the Cognitive Science Faculty and the Institute for Neural Computation. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Pittsburgh in 1969 under the direction of Wilfrid Sellars. Churchland is the husband of philosopher Patricia Churchland, and the father of two children.
Churchland began his professional career as an instructor at the University of Pittsburgh in 1969; he also lectured at the University of Toronto from 1967-69. In 1969, Churchland took a position at the University of Manitoba, where he would teach for fifteen years: as an assistant professor (69 - 74) and associate professor (74 - 79), and then as a full professor from 1979 - 1984. Professor Churchland joined the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton University in 1982, staying as a member until 1983. He joined the faculty at the University of California, San Diego in 1983, serving as Department Chair from 1986 - 1990.
Churchland has supervised a number of PhD students, including P.D. Magnus (now at the University at Albany) and Philip Brey (now at the University of Twente).
Along with his wife, Churchland is a major proponent of eliminative materialism, which claims that everyday mental concepts such as beliefs, feelings and desires are theoretical constructs without coherent definition; hence we should not expect such concepts to be a necessary part of a scientific understanding of the brain. Just as a modern understanding of science has no need for concepts such as luck or witchcraft to explain the world, Churchland argues that a future neuroscience is likely to have no need for "beliefs" or "feelings" to explain the mind. Instead, the use of objective phenomena such as neurons and their interaction should suffice. He points out that the history of science has seen many previous concepts discarded, such as phlogiston, caloric, the luminiferous ether, and vital forces.
Churchland began his professional career as an instructor at the University of Pittsburgh in 1969; he also lectured at the University of Toronto from 1967-69. In 1969, Churchland took a position at the University of Manitoba, where he would teach for fifteen years: as an assistant professor (69 - 74) and associate professor (74 - 79), and then as a full professor from 1979 - 1984. Professor Churchland joined the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton University in 1982, staying as a member until 1983. He joined the faculty at the University of California, San Diego in 1983, serving as Department Chair from 1986 - 1990.
Churchland has supervised a number of PhD students, including P.D. Magnus (now at the University at Albany) and Philip Brey (now at the University of Twente).
Along with his wife, Churchland is a major proponent of eliminative materialism, which claims that everyday mental concepts such as beliefs, feelings and desires are theoretical constructs without coherent definition; hence we should not expect such concepts to be a necessary part of a scientific understanding of the brain. Just as a modern understanding of science has no need for concepts such as luck or witchcraft to explain the world, Churchland argues that a future neuroscience is likely to have no need for "beliefs" or "feelings" to explain the mind. Instead, the use of objective phenomena such as neurons and their interaction should suffice. He points out that the history of science has seen many previous concepts discarded, such as phlogiston, caloric, the luminiferous ether, and vital forces.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
May 6, 2009
This is an often times difficult but deeply rewarding read so far. I enjoy the essays that are co-written by the husband and wife duo a little more than the first couple written by Paul, e.g., "Intertheoretic Reduction: A Neuroscientist's Field Guide" which is an excellent summary of the Churchland's general approach towards neurophilosophy and greatly cleared up some perplexing issues that've been rattling around in my mind for the last couple of years about "reductionism", a concept many nod their heads solemnly at as if it's well understood but often times really is not.
Paul's criticisms of John Searle's work with philosophy of mind are surprising (to me) but extremely well-placed and pointed. I just finished the second Searle-criticism-based essay of the collection hilariously entitled "Betty Crocker's Theory of Consciousness."
There's also a joint effort taken up by Patricia Churchland and the great neuroscientist V.S. Ramachandran which as far as I can tell from skipping ahead and reading the first couple of paragraphs (before it dropped off into complex neural maps, which at the time I was not prepared to pore over while riding the bus to work at 7 AM) is a criticism of something Daniel Dennett has said about the neurological aspects of the visual system and more specifically blind spots. This is straightforwardly entitled "Filling In: Why Dennett is Wrong."
The essays are broken up into three Parts. Part One is "Folk Psychology and Eliminative Materialism", Part Two is "Meaning, Qualia and Emotion: Several Dimensions of Consciousness", and Part Three is "The Philosophy of Science" which is completely dominated by Paul's essays, many of them seeming to address the work of the controversial (and apparently influential on Paul) philosopher Paul Feyerabend--a figure I'm interested in learning more about since a friend of mine who's taste in philosophy I respect told me that he's his favorite philosopher of science and upon reading some summaries of his ideas, namely one I strenuously object to (and can't imagine Paul Churchland endorsing in any way) called "epistemological anarchism" which essentially places the methods of science on the same epistemic ground as Tarot card reading, dream premonitions, prayer, etc.
I'm still reading this and will update my review accordingly.
Update, April 11th, 2009:
Patricia Churchland's essay "Feeling Reasons" was tremendous and bumped my rating of the collection from four to five stars. It was the final essay of Part Two. She basically lays out a neurophilosophical argument for "agency" in the compatiblist sense of Hume, Dennett, et al. It's quite obvious to me that libertarian free will is false on its face and this is not bad news. We still make choices, we still must hold one another responsible, etc.
Paul's essay "Rediscovery of Light" was also top notch. He continues exploring the analogy of consciousness being explained in purely physical terms (via intertheoretic reduction targeted at the brain) and light being exhaustively explained in terms of electromagnetic waves or heat being exhaustively explained in terms of kinetic energy. He applies these analogies (and a few others) to the opposing arguments made by Frank Jackson, David Chalmers, John Searle and Thomas Nagel. To my mind, he convincingly defends the logical possibility of a reductive physicalist account of consciousness (which importantly avoids what Daniel Dennett has coined as greedy reductionism ) and disables a series of antireductionist arguments.
I'm now onto the daunting but exciting "Philosophy of Science" section the first essay of which I started reading but had to set down when I arrived at work on the bus yesterday. This is not leisurely reading. I'd just finished "Feeling Reasons" and needed to clear my head before moving onto an essay called "A Deeper Unity: Some Feyerabendian Themes in Neurocomputational Form" filled with frighteningly complicated looking diagrams of neural vectors and whatnot.
Further updates pending.
Paul's criticisms of John Searle's work with philosophy of mind are surprising (to me) but extremely well-placed and pointed. I just finished the second Searle-criticism-based essay of the collection hilariously entitled "Betty Crocker's Theory of Consciousness."
There's also a joint effort taken up by Patricia Churchland and the great neuroscientist V.S. Ramachandran which as far as I can tell from skipping ahead and reading the first couple of paragraphs (before it dropped off into complex neural maps, which at the time I was not prepared to pore over while riding the bus to work at 7 AM) is a criticism of something Daniel Dennett has said about the neurological aspects of the visual system and more specifically blind spots. This is straightforwardly entitled "Filling In: Why Dennett is Wrong."
The essays are broken up into three Parts. Part One is "Folk Psychology and Eliminative Materialism", Part Two is "Meaning, Qualia and Emotion: Several Dimensions of Consciousness", and Part Three is "The Philosophy of Science" which is completely dominated by Paul's essays, many of them seeming to address the work of the controversial (and apparently influential on Paul) philosopher Paul Feyerabend--a figure I'm interested in learning more about since a friend of mine who's taste in philosophy I respect told me that he's his favorite philosopher of science and upon reading some summaries of his ideas, namely one I strenuously object to (and can't imagine Paul Churchland endorsing in any way) called "epistemological anarchism" which essentially places the methods of science on the same epistemic ground as Tarot card reading, dream premonitions, prayer, etc.
I'm still reading this and will update my review accordingly.
Update, April 11th, 2009:
Patricia Churchland's essay "Feeling Reasons" was tremendous and bumped my rating of the collection from four to five stars. It was the final essay of Part Two. She basically lays out a neurophilosophical argument for "agency" in the compatiblist sense of Hume, Dennett, et al. It's quite obvious to me that libertarian free will is false on its face and this is not bad news. We still make choices, we still must hold one another responsible, etc.
Paul's essay "Rediscovery of Light" was also top notch. He continues exploring the analogy of consciousness being explained in purely physical terms (via intertheoretic reduction targeted at the brain) and light being exhaustively explained in terms of electromagnetic waves or heat being exhaustively explained in terms of kinetic energy. He applies these analogies (and a few others) to the opposing arguments made by Frank Jackson, David Chalmers, John Searle and Thomas Nagel. To my mind, he convincingly defends the logical possibility of a reductive physicalist account of consciousness (which importantly avoids what Daniel Dennett has coined as greedy reductionism ) and disables a series of antireductionist arguments.
I'm now onto the daunting but exciting "Philosophy of Science" section the first essay of which I started reading but had to set down when I arrived at work on the bus yesterday. This is not leisurely reading. I'd just finished "Feeling Reasons" and needed to clear my head before moving onto an essay called "A Deeper Unity: Some Feyerabendian Themes in Neurocomputational Form" filled with frighteningly complicated looking diagrams of neural vectors and whatnot.
Further updates pending.
July 25, 2022
Any PI’s looking for a PHD student? Finishing up a joint masters in cog sci and data science in April.
August 6, 2017
The jewel of this book for me is an amazing essay starting on p. 289 that engages the work of Feyerabend.
Want to read
January 6, 2010Just sort of picking at this for now.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews