scholarly journals The Quietist Posit: A Methodologically Agnostic Resolution to the Problem of Qualia

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Nicolas Quartermaine-Bragg
Keyword(s):  
Ludwig Wittgenstein ◽  
Methodological Problem ◽  
Methodological Naturalism ◽  
Philosophical Literature ◽  
Daniel Dennett ◽  
Verification Conditions ◽  
Phenomenological Methodology

<p>This thesis paper addresses the aim and methodology of an argument by Daniel Dennett (1988; 1992), who proposes an eliminativism with regards to the referent of the term “qualia”. Dennett’s argument centres on the purported failure for any property to meet the criteria for this term widely found in traditional philosophical literature. Dennett argues that this failure may be demonstrated as a result of the term failing to refer to any property which contains naturalistic methodological verification conditions.  I provide, in this paper, an outline of two key historical arguments by W.V. Quine and Ludwig Wittgenstein, respectively, whose influence on Dennett’s position will help clarify a certain vulnerability in the latter’s argument. I then provide a series of arguments to serve as important counterexamples to the methodology employed by Dennett which, I argue, reveal a dialectical stalemate between two sets of competing methodologies –methodological naturalism and phenomenology. I argue that this stalemate is indicative of a methodological underdetermination with regards to the question of whether qualia exist. I refer to this as the “methodological problem of qualia”.  I then propose that a resolution may be found for this problem by adopting a methodological agnosticism. I argue that upon this agnosticism, it is possible to positively assert methodological verification conditions according to which it may be determined whether the term “qualia” refers to a property which contains naturalistic methodological verification conditions. I argue that these are the conditions which hold upon the explicitly conditional, or “methodological”, assumption of a naturalistic methodological verificationism, as opposed to a phenomenological methodology, or vice versa.  I conclude that, under these conditions, the term “qualia” therefore may succeed in referring to a property which contains naturalistic methodological verification conditions. As such, I propose that Dennett is incorrect: neither the term nor its referent merit elimination, but rather the latter a quietist resolution, and the former its own meaningful place in language.</p>

scholarly journals The Quietist Posit: A Methodologically Agnostic Resolution to the Problem of Qualia

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Nicolas Quartermaine-Bragg
Keyword(s):  
Ludwig Wittgenstein ◽  
Methodological Problem ◽  
Methodological Naturalism ◽  
Philosophical Literature ◽  
Daniel Dennett ◽  
Verification Conditions ◽  
Phenomenological Methodology

<p>This thesis paper addresses the aim and methodology of an argument by Daniel Dennett (1988; 1992), who proposes an eliminativism with regards to the referent of the term “qualia”. Dennett’s argument centres on the purported failure for any property to meet the criteria for this term widely found in traditional philosophical literature. Dennett argues that this failure may be demonstrated as a result of the term failing to refer to any property which contains naturalistic methodological verification conditions.  I provide, in this paper, an outline of two key historical arguments by W.V. Quine and Ludwig Wittgenstein, respectively, whose influence on Dennett’s position will help clarify a certain vulnerability in the latter’s argument. I then provide a series of arguments to serve as important counterexamples to the methodology employed by Dennett which, I argue, reveal a dialectical stalemate between two sets of competing methodologies –methodological naturalism and phenomenology. I argue that this stalemate is indicative of a methodological underdetermination with regards to the question of whether qualia exist. I refer to this as the “methodological problem of qualia”.  I then propose that a resolution may be found for this problem by adopting a methodological agnosticism. I argue that upon this agnosticism, it is possible to positively assert methodological verification conditions according to which it may be determined whether the term “qualia” refers to a property which contains naturalistic methodological verification conditions. I argue that these are the conditions which hold upon the explicitly conditional, or “methodological”, assumption of a naturalistic methodological verificationism, as opposed to a phenomenological methodology, or vice versa.  I conclude that, under these conditions, the term “qualia” therefore may succeed in referring to a property which contains naturalistic methodological verification conditions. As such, I propose that Dennett is incorrect: neither the term nor its referent merit elimination, but rather the latter a quietist resolution, and the former its own meaningful place in language.</p>

Scientific Knowledge in Sociology: Problem Statement

2019 ◽  
pp. 27-32
Author(s):  
Gennady V. Kanygin ◽  
Maria S. Poltinnikova
Keyword(s):  
Natural Language ◽  
Social Relationships ◽  
Social Communication ◽  
Methodological Problem ◽  
Social Processes ◽  
Wide Spread ◽  
Practical Application ◽  
Problem Statement ◽  
Hidden Knowledge ◽  
Similarities And Differences

The article opens a cycle of publications, which analyze the similarities and differences between the two wide spread modern approaches to the description of society - sociological and informational ones. Both approaches have the same methodological problem to be solved. The problem of expressing hidden knowledge about society that participants in social processes operate with the help of natural language in the course of social communication. In order to harmonize sociological and informational approaches of describing society, it was proposed any natural language statements involved in describing society to be arranged according to the basic principle of information technology - modularity. The proposed way of harmonizing informational and sociological methods of building knowledge about society is invoked by the need to solve two scientific problems formulated in sociology itself - the constructability of social objects and the complexity of social relationships. The paper's methodological proposals are embodied in their computer realization, which practical application is demonstrated in other publications of the authors.

Hard Objects in George Oppen's Discrete Series

2018 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 496-517
Author(s):  
Ned Hercock
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Ludwig Wittgenstein ◽  
Discrete Series ◽  
Human Experience ◽  
John Ruskin ◽  
Gerard Manley Hopkins ◽  
Marcel Duchamp ◽  
The World ◽  
Production History ◽  
History Of

This essay examines the objects in George Oppen's Discrete Series (1934). It considers their primary property to be their hardness – many of them have distinctively uniform and impenetrable surfaces. This hardness and uniformity is contrasted with 19th century organicism (Gerard Manley Hopkins and John Ruskin). Taking my cue from Kirsten Blythe Painter I show how in their work with hard objects these poems participate within a wider cultural and philosophical turn towards hardness in the early twentieth century (Marcel Duchamp, Adolf Loos, Ludwig Wittgenstein and others). I describe the thinking these poems do with regard to industrialization and to human experience of a resolutely object world – I argue that the presentation of these objects bears witness to the production history of the type of objects which in this era are becoming preponderant in parts of the world. Finally, I suggest that the objects’ impenetrability offers a kind of anti-aesthetic relief: perception without conception. If ‘philosophy recognizes the Concept in everything’ it is still possible, these poems show, to experience resistance to this imperious process of conceptualization. Within thinking objects (poems) these are objects which do not think.

FACEBOOK SEBAGAI MEDIA BARU TAFSIR AL-QUR’AN DI INDONESIA

2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 69-80
Author(s):  
Wildan Imaduddin Muhammad
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Methodological Problem ◽  
The Self ◽  
Internet Technology ◽  
Basic Character ◽  
Hermeneutic Approach ◽  
The Times ◽  
Qur'anic Interpretation

This article analyzes the product of Salman Harun's Qur'anic  interpretation with  Facebook  as the medium. As one of the senior professors who pursue the field of interpretation, he has managed to follow the times by utilizing internet technology. There are two focus areas in the study; the first aspect of the sense of Indonesian tafsir attached to the self of Salman Harun, the two aspects of the novelty of discourse that became the basic character of social media. Both aspects are interesting to be studied with a hermeneutic approach. Given that  the  methodological problem that often arises from the hermeneutic approach is the context of the interpreter that is difficult to trace accurately, then this article finds its relevance to the case of Salman Harun's interpretation which uses the facebook media as the actualization of its interpretation product.

Acerca del supuesto fundamentalismo de Wittgenstein en Sobre la certez

2007 ◽  
Vol 13 ◽  
Author(s):  
José M. Ariso Salgado
Keyword(s):  
Ludwig Wittgenstein ◽  
On Certainty ◽  
In Virtue Of ◽  
Basic Beliefs

RESUMENAl analizar si Ludwig Wittgenstein mantiene una posición fundamentalista en Sobre la certeza, suele discutirse si la citada obra se adapta al modelo de fundamentalismo propuesto por Avrum Stroll. Tras exponer las líneas básicas de dicho modelo, en esta nota se mantiene que Sobre la certeza no se adapta al modelo de Stroll debido al importante papel que Wittgenstein concede al contextualismo. Además, se añade que Wittgenstein no puede ser calificado de fundamentalista porque no reconoce ninguna propiedad que, sin tener en cuenta la diversidad de casos particulares, permita justificar de forma conjunta todas nuestras creencias básicas.PALABRAS CLAVEWITTGENSTEIN, FUNDAMENTALISMO, CONTEXTUALISMO, CERTEZAABSTRACTDid Wittgenstein hold a foundationalist position in On Certainty? When this question is tackled, it is often discussed, whether On Certainty fits in the foundationalist model devised by Avrum Stroll. After expounding the main lines of this model, I hold that On Certainty does not fit in Stroll’s model, because of the important role Wittgenstein attaches to contextualism. Furthermore, I add that Wittgenstein cannot be seen as a foundationalist –or a coherentist–, because he does not admit any feature in virtue of which the whole of our basic beliefs are justified without considering circumstances at all.KEYWORDSWITTGENSTEIN, CERTAINTY, FOUNDATIONALISM, CONTEXTUALISM

Der junge Scheler und der Neukantianismus

2008 ◽  
Vol 2008 (1) ◽  
pp. 127-146
Author(s):  
Giuliana Mancuso
Keyword(s):  
Methodological Problem ◽  
General Science ◽  
Transcendental Logic

This paper discusses Max Scheler’s early works, written between 1899 and 1906 in a neo-Kantian context. The very little attention the literature paid to them was almost always guided by the only aim to single the themes out which can be used as signs of Scheler’s future „conversion“ to phenomenology. In consequence of this predominant approach, the neo- Kantianism that characterizes Scheler’s early works has been treated as a vague notion and never examined as such. The paper specifies this notion through an examination of Scheler’s early works which shows their most significant theoretical debts (to R. Eucken, W. Windelband and particularly to H. Cohen) and the questions they deal with, i.e. the relation between knowledge and morality as different kinds of objective forms of experience; the methodological problem in philosophy; the development of a transcendental logic as general science of objectivity.

Merleau-Ponty, Hegel, and the Task of Phenomenological Explanation

2018 ◽  
Vol 2018 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-52
Author(s):  
Dimitris Apostolopoulos
Keyword(s):  
Philosophical Methodology ◽  
Circular Structure ◽  
Phenomenological Reflection ◽  
Phenomenological Methodology

This paper provides an analysis of Merleau-Ponty’s view of philosophical explanation. Some commentators stress his indebtedness to the transcendental tradition, but this influence does not extend to his viewof explanation. I argue that Merleau-Ponty gives up on the transcendental ideal of explanatory completeness, shared by Husserl and Kant. Motivated by a distinctive understanding of transcendental expression, he argues that phenomenological reflection, and the explanations that issue from it, must both have a circular structure if they are to provide a persuasive account of experience. This circular view of phenomenological methodology is further developed in later texts, which stress the openness and incompleteness of both reflection and explanation. Merleau-Ponty’s reliance on the concept of circularity testifies to the increasing importance of Hegel for his viewof phenomenological explanation and philosophical methodology.

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