Blindsight and the Nature of Consciousness

by Jason Holt

Ever since its discovery nearly thirty years ago, the phenomenon of blindsight―vision without visual consciousness―has been the source of great controversy in the philosophy of mind, psychology, and the neurosciences. Despite the fact that blindsight is widely acknowledged to be a critical test-case for theories of mind, Blindsight and the Nature of Consciousness is the first extended treatment of the phenomenon from a philosophical perspective. Holt argues, against much received wisdom, for a thorough-going materialism―the view not only that mental states are brain states, but (much more controversially) that mental properties are physical as well. Designed not only for philosophers and scientists, Blindsight and the Nature of Consciousness has something to say to anyone interested in the mystery of the human mind and in how philosophers and scientists are working toward solving that mystery.

160 pages, Paperback

First published February 25, 2003

About the author

Jason Holt is a Canadian poet who lives in Nova Scotia and teaches at Acadia University. He received his Ph.D. in philosophy from Western University in 1998. His book The Nature of Consciousness was shortlisted for the 2005 CPA Book Prize. His interests include the history, poetry, and the philosophy of Sport—a topic he teaches at Acadia in the Kinesiology department.

Reviews

[Matthewaqq · Rating 4 out of 5]

Eliminativism attacks the mental on three fronts. The first move is to argue that folk psychology, together with the mental states it postulates in its explanatory apparatus, is a wide, if not systematic, failure. The second is to argue that, since first attempts to account for phenomena are invariably failures, our first attempt to explain human behaviour—folk psychology—is very likely false, and this falsehood points inevitably to dispensing with the intentional states and phenomenal experiences to which its explanations appeal. The third move is to argue that the smooth reduction of mental states to brain states is extremely unlikely and that, consequently, the mental cannot fit into a comprehensive, scientifically respectable worldview. Remember earlier, when I talked about anchoring the mind to the physical world in the way we should ideally want? That is what a smooth reduction would do. Taken together, these moves constitute the eliminativist gambit, a gambit which, I argue, is unsuccessful, as is each move it comprises. Somewhat surprisingly, the supposed failure of folk psychology is not assigned to the predictive uncertainty of ascribing mental states to other people or to limits on the extent to which behaviour can be made sense of by such ascription. Folk psychology is alleged to fail not because it seems that, however competently we ascribe mental states to people, they can surprise our best expectations. Nor is it alleged to fail because some behaviour , from the eccentric to the insane, is difficult to rationalize. Rather, its failure is seen in the fact that it cannot explain "what sleep is" or "how differences in intelligence are grounded," much less "how memory works" or "what mental illness is". What will explain these, along with the phenomena on which folk psychology has some explanatory purchase, is a perfected neuroscience.