Do you agree with that statement? — wonderer1

Yes. Note 'used by a speaker'. They are on that sense imbued with intentionality, namely, that of the speaker, to convey or represent something.

The reason I asked was to get you thinking about the question. I think that you do interpret the output of ChatGPT as being about something, after all, you've said that you have been making use of it a lot lately. Why would you do that, if you didn't think that the output is about something? — wonderer1

As you know, ChatGPT is a human invention, and trained in large language models to anticipate responses to questions. So of course the answer will be about something, and will represent something. But then, it has been designed to do that, it is a human artefact, after all, which we use for our purposes. Humans engineered the system and then interpret the output. In that respect, it emulates elements of intentionality, but as I already noted, ChatGPT itself says 'AI systems, including ChatGPT, do not possess intentionality in the same way that humans do. Intentionality is typically associated with consciousness and subjective experience, which are currently not attributes of AI systems.'

So all due respect, I think you're missing the philosophical point at issue, which has to do with the nature of reason. So then you try to re-frame the debate, not in the terms in which it was given, but in terms which suit your argument. It's very like the old anecdote of the fellow looking under the lampost for his keys, knowing they've actually been lost elsewhere, 'because the light's better here'. :wink:

I re-iterated in this thread the elements of the materialist/naturalist view that Victor Reppert claims that the argument from reason is opposing. If you think that depiction of materialist philosophy is wrong, or if you think that they're about right, but the argument from reason fails to address them, then that kind of analysis is what is appropriate (pretty much as Srap Tasmaner does.)

Is that a fair account of the argument from reason as you understand it? — Srap Tasmaner

I think so, overall. I'm not entirely persuaded by your meta-analysis here:

Grandpa is sick is not caused by my beliefs (a) and (b); it is a free choice (or act?) of mine to believe that (c) on account of (a) and (b). (a) and (b) together entail (c), and I choose to align my beliefs with what is logical, and so hold (c). Nothing forces me to believe (c), and I could (perversely) do otherwise if I choose. As a matter of logic, (c) flows automatically from (a) and (b), but my holding (c) does not flow automatically from my holding (a) and (b). — Srap Tasmaner

It is, of course, true that you're not compelled to believe 'c' by anything other than reason. You could act against your better judgement, you could draw different conclusions ('old bugger is probably hung over') or you could go upstairs and knock on the door (the empiricist approach). But that is not really the point, which is to differentiate the kind of causation involved in physical cause-and-effect, on the one side, and rational necessity - believing something due to reasons - on the other. As I think you already noted earlier the thread - a distinction is being drawn between two types of 'because'.

But overall, I think it's a fair description.

Yes. Note 'used by a speaker'. They are on that sense imbued with intentionality, namely, that of the speaker, to convey or represent something. — Wayfarer

What is this "imbuing"? Sounds kind of hand wavy.

What disqualifies ChatGPT from being a speaker imbuing it's output with intentionality, regardless of whether the information processing involved is different than what occurs in human brains?

...that kind of analysis is what is appropriate... — Wayfarer

Well, I'm autistic, and I have my own style that I find works for me.

I see two possibilities regarding my belief about anything whatsoever: the first being that the information I have encountered regarding the thing my belief is about has convinced me that my belief is true, which means that my belief is determined by my understanding of the information.

The second possibility is that it is entirely up to me to believe whatever I like, regardless of whether of not the information I have encountered up to the time of the formation of the belief has convinced my reason. It may have convinced my reason, but failed to convince my desire that I should believe that which my reason indicates, because perhaps I don't like the implications. This second possibility sounds like it could only obtain if I decided to believe something contrary to what the evidence indicates. Now, why would I do that? Out of pure perversity, out of displeasure with what the evidence indicates? Either way it does not sound like my belief would be one of rational conviction.

Is it even possible to believe contrary to what the evidence indicates to me personally is the truth, constituted as I am, with all my built in presuppositions and emotionally driven biases? Remember, whether valid or invalid, reasoning is only as sound as its grounding premises, which are often based on unacknowledged prejudices, and not derived from reasoning at all.

So, it seems that if it is not possible to rationally believe something contrary to what I genuinely find, whether rationally or not, convincing (which itself is a function of how I am constituted emotionally and intellectually, which in turn does not seem to be something I can actually determine "causa sui"), and it follows then that my belief would not be rationally driven at all, but emotionally driven.

This line of thinking reminds me of Schopenhauer's perspective on free will (which refutes the libertarian conception): "A man can will he wants, but he cannot will what he wills". This in turn reminds me of Hume's “Reason is and ought only to be the slave of the passions and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them.” .

It seems that both of those philosophers did not belief in free will as conceived by the libertarians, and if this right, which it seems it must be if my belief is not to be merely arbitrarily driven by desire contrary to reason, then the idea that beliefs could be purely driven by rationality refutes itself and it follows that we are determined to believe what we do by our desires, aversions, biases and prejudices, and this would mean that the best we can do is to try to become conscious of those desires, aversions, prejudices and biases and grow out of them...into better, more rational ones...which would seem to be a never-ending process, at least unto death.

So, in short it just doesn't look possible that reason could be sovereign, but that it must be content to work slowly and piecemeal to become aware of, and then, as needed in order to live with greater serenity, change my desires, aversions, prejudices and biases, without the remotest possibility of becoming completely free of them but, at best, being able to gradually obtain a more livable suite, a suite of convictions which brings more peace and yet does not contradict the most convincing evidence, for if it does I will have more work to do, and will not be as much at peace as I could be.

In some ways this seems like the (Ancient) skeptical solution; Ataraxia attendant on suspension of judgement, but only regarding absolutes, for pragmatism dictates that I should give provisional credence to what the evidence indicates seems to be the case, while at the same time not imputing that seeming to some imagined ultimate reality. The latter can only cause dissatisfaction, unless I abandon reason altogether and put my faith just in "what rings true".

Nicely written.

Remember, whether valid or invalid, reasoning is only as sound as its grounding premises, which are often based on unacknowledged prejudices, and not derived from reasoning at all. — Janus

Yep. Presuppositions sink ships.

So, in short it just doesn't look possible that reason could be sovereign, but that it must be content to work slowly and piecemeal to become aware of, and then, as needed in order to live with greater serenity, change my desires, aversions, prejudices and biases, without the remotest possibility of becoming completely free of them but, at best, being able to gradually obtain a more livable suite, a suite of convictions which brings more peace and yet does not contradict the most convincing evidence, for if it does I will have more work to do, and will not be as much at peace as I could be. — Janus

Very interesting. This resonates with me.

pragmatism dictates that I should give provisional credence to what the evidence indicates seems to be the case, while at the same time not imputing that seeming to some imagined ultimate reality. The latter can only cause dissatisfaction, unless I abandon reason altogether and put my faith just in "what rings true". — Janus

I spend a lot of time in 'provisional credence' country. I hear alarm bells when people say they know something to be certain.

:up:

Very thoughtful post.

It is, of course, true that you're not compelled to believe 'c' by anything other than reason. — Wayfarer

The version I presented really targets determinism rather than naturalism, but we'd also want not to say that a conclusion is rational if reached by a process at least one step of which was genuinely stochastic. (Big tent determinism.)

Still, how literally do you want to take "compelled by reason"? Does reason operate something like a natural law, compelling me to reach a particular conclusion as surely as night follows day? (The latter being, you know, physics.)

(That's certainly not the plan for Lewis, who's going to want the sort of libertarian free will I gestured at, and for whom this is a direct confrontation between theism and naturalism, not just between naturalism and 'something else (to be determined later)'.)

But that is not really the point, which is to differentiate the kind of causation involved in physical cause-and-effect, on the one side, and rational necessity - believing something due to reasons - on the other. — Wayfarer

But this is why I need clarification. This "rational necessity" you're talking about, I don't know what that is. We sometimes speak of "logical necessity" but most such talk is pretty loose; if you really need such a thing, it's just a necessity relation that doesn't include any facts or history or natural laws and so on. A "bare necessity", as it were. It just means logic and logic alone, and only applies to what logic applies to. (Propositions, even if those propositions are proxies for states of affairs.)

Your rational necessity sounds like something that applies to epistemic agents, compelling them to hold certain beliefs if they hold others. Logic alone, famously, can't pull this off, or the world would be a better place.

While I think this is fundamentally the right sort of answer, it does require a wholesale rethinking of the idea of rationality, and that might be a bitter pill to swallow.

What happens when we are persuaded by an argument? When we are convinced to change our minds? Those idioms leave us a bit passive, as if an argument pushes and pulls our beliefs like so much gravity. It's more decorous to say that we find an argument persuasive or the evidence convincing; sounds like we've rendered a judgment, in keeping with our high station.

Neither of those is particularly attractive. I think it's easy to accept pragmatism in the abstract -- to think this must be the way we think -- but difficult to believe it in particular cases, where it seems to us we have closely examined the logic and the evidence and taken a position. When doing philosophy, in particular, this is what we tell ourselves, and each other.

We may claim to be comfortable distinguishing the logic of discovery and the logic of confirmation or justification, but I think mostly we aren't. Chess provides a clear example, as usual: there's a saying among masters that the move you want to play is the right move, even if it seems impossible. This is intuition, and the idea is that careful analysis will justify your inclination, so some part of your mind must have zipped through that analysis without bothering to keep you informed, which would only slow things down. That fits nicely with the two-systems model, because the fast system here is just the unconscious and efficient habits that used to be carried out laboriously and consciously. --- But that still suggests that the conscious analysis you do is properly modeled as reasoning of the most traditional sort. There's no difference in kind here, only a difference in implementation. (This algorithm is known to work, so we can run it on the fast but unconscious machine.)

What is difficult to accept is that reason is really and truly rationalization, that justification is always and only post-hoc, that we are simply incapable of relying on logic and evidence alone to form our beliefs even if we do so to justify them. We want to believe that the process by which we reach a conclusion is quite similar to the process we would use to justify reaching it, and we want to believe that includes a free act of judgment.

I don't believe we ever choose what to believe, but only find that we do or we don't. And that applies here as well. It's what I find I believe, and others find they believe differently. What's worse, I find I cannot help but believe I have considered evidence and argument to reach this conclusion, but even if that is so, at no point did I weigh it all up and freely judge that it is so. All I can say is that argument and evidence seem to assail me like so much sensory input and the result is that I believe what I believe. I have to hope that what reason I have has done a good job filtering and weighing its inputs to reach a sound conclusion. If I try to justify my belief, I will surely succeed. It's one of my best things, as it is for everyone; rationalizing is our super power. Now I have to hope, as well, that my post-hoc justifications are everything they seem to be.

So, yes, I broadly agree with what you posted, @Janus, but I reserve a bit of Humean horror that the foundations of my rationality are not themselves rational.

Chess provides a clear example, as usual: there's a saying among masters that the move you want to play is the right move, even if it seems impossible. This is intuition, and the idea is that careful analysis will justify your inclination, so some part of your mind must have zipped through that analysis without bothering to keep you informed... — Srap Tasmaner

Right. Going with intuition is relying on the deep learning which has occurred in neural nets between our ears.

I have to hope that what reason I have has done a good job filtering and weighing its inputs to reach a sound conclusion. If I try to justify my belief, I will surely succeed. It's one of my best things, as it is for everyone; rationalizing is our super power. Now I have to hope, as well, that my post-hoc justifications are everything they seem to be. — Srap Tasmaner

I'd suggest looking at logic/language as providing a quite valuable way of comparing different intuitons we have:

1. With each other. (In an internal dialogue.)
2. With the intuitions of other people.
3. With empirical evidence.

So, yes, I broadly agree with what you posted, Janus, but I reserve a bit of Humean horror that the foundations of my rationality are not themselves rational. — Srap Tasmaner

I wouldn't say that the foundations aren't rational, but that the foundations are intuitive, and intuition is a foundational aspect of human rationality. It's just that many philosophically minded people have tended to think simplistically of rationality as somewhat synonymous with logic.

Going with intuition is relying on the deep learning which has occurred in neural nets between our ears. — wonderer1

Sure, but

I wouldn't say that the foundations aren't rational, but that the foundations are intuitive, and intuition is a foundational aspect of human rationality. It's just that many philosophically minded people have tended to think simplistically of rationality as somewhat synonymous with logic. — wonderer1

even though there's a story we can tell about sound Bayesian inference being adaptive, even if unconscious, cognitive biases tell another story, that, as Kahneman says, and I never tire of quoting him, system 1 is a machine for jumping to conclusions.

So I still think Hume's horror is hard to shrug off. Our thinking is not what we thought it was. We learn some things about it that are reassuring and some that aren't, but the real problem is there is no transparency here; we're in the land of "for all we know..."

Gerson is the go to guy on this subject as I understand it. — Tom Storm

He may be the go to guy for Platonism, but for that reason not the go to guy for Plato or Aristotle. Of course he and other Platonists would not agree.

Aristotle, in De Anima, argued that thinking in general (which includes knowledge as one kind of thinking) cannot be a property of a body; it cannot, as he put it, 'be blended with a body'. — Lloyd Gerson

This is misleading. Thinking is a property of intelligent beings. The distinction between form and body is an abstraction.

Human beings are an embodied beings. For Plato, as Aristotle well knows, forms are hypothetical. See Phaedo on Socrates' Second Sailing where he explicitly calls the forms hypothesis and acknowledges their inadequacy, calling them "safe and ignorant"(105b). See also Plato's Timaeus where the static and ineffectual nature of Forms is criticized.
,
Gerson says:

….the fact that in thinking, your mind is identical with the form that it thinks, means (for Aristotle and for all Platonists) that since the form 'thought' is detached from matter, 'mind' is immaterial too. — Lloyd Gerson

The "form 'thought'" is a product of philosophical poiesis. I don't think it is a term that either Plato or Aristotle ever used.

The limits of reason drawn by both Plato and Aristotle allows for both greater play and greater work of imagination, that is, of poiesis, of making. Reason often imagines that it is the whole of the story.

It might be objected that Aristotle argues for the existence of Intellect or Mind Itself, a disembodied thinking.But he does not present an unambiguous argument. Some scholars argue that this is intentional and marks the limit of what we know. A theological account intended to stand against the theologians, giving the appearance of an answer while pointing to the aporia of theological claims.

Near the beginning of Metaphysics Aristotle says:

... it is through experience that men acquire science and art ... (981a)

For more

Wisdom for Aristotle is, as it is for Plato and Socrates, knowledge of ignorance. The Platonist belief in an immaterial realm of intelligible Forms accessible to thought is a creation of the human mind, philosophical poiesis. Contrary to this, both Plato and Aristotle are rooted in physis, nature.

Physis or nature is not an explanation for why things are as they are. It is as things emerge and come to be as they are, how they grow and develop according to the kind of being each is. Each kind of being has its own nature. It develops accordingly.

Aristotle regards living beings as self-sustaining functioning wholes. The four causes are inherent in a being being the kind of being it is, not something imposed on or interfering with it from the outside. Human beings are by their nature thinking beings. This is not an explanation, but a given. It has nothing to do with Gerson's "form 'thought'". Nothing to do with a transcendent realm accessible to the wise.

Rather than an argument from reason, @Wayfarer, Plato and Aristotle use reason to demonstrate the limits of reason.

So I still think Hume's horror is hard to shrug off. Our thinking is not what we thought it was. We learn some things about it that are reassuring and some that aren't, but the real problem is there is no transparency here; we're in the land of "for all we know..." — Srap Tasmaner

I can understand that. I started thinking along these lines 36 years ago, when I realized that "there is something weird about my brain" is the best explanation for a bunch of different aspects of my life experience. For me the horror faded away a long time ago.

You see, one thing is, I can live with doubt, and uncertainty, and not knowing. I think it's much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers which might be wrong. I have approximate answers and possible beliefs and different degrees of certainty about different things. But I'm not absolutely sure of anything, and there are many things I don't know anything about, such as whether it means anything to ask why we're here, and what the question might mean. I might think about it a little bit; if I can't figure it out, then I go onto something else. But I don't have to know an answer. I don't feel frightened by not knowing things, by being lost in the mysterious universe without having any purpose, which is the way it really is, as far as I can tell -- possibly. It doesn't frighten me. [smiles]

Richard Feynman

I'm not convinced we know what is random versus that which is not random. We detect patterns, as far as human cognition allows and we ascribe characteristics to those patterns - again in human terms. But words like 'random' or 'accidental' seem to have emotional connotations and function as tips of icebergs. — Tom Storm

Tom, your unwillingness to commit to at least a provisional position on the Random Chaos vs Rational Cosmos question is puzzling to me. Is it the "emotional connotations" that cause you to take a position of Profound Skepticism? If the world is all a "blooming buzzing confusion"*1, why bother to post on a philosophy forum? Doesn't a forum like this presuppose that we can eventually make sense of the complex patterns of Nature, and the even more confusing patterns of Culture? Do you think that Nature is "leaving no role for the free exercise of reason. — Wayfarer". :smile:

PS___Admittedly, sometimes forum threads, veering recklessly off-topic, seem to add to the original confusion that provokes the question. :joke:


In his book, The Principles of Psychology, William James defines the concept of 'blooming and buzzing confusion' to describe a baby's experience of the world as pure sensation that comes before any rationality. This experience becomes a reference to further interpretation of the coming sensations in life.
https://www.hamedkhosravi.com/A-Buzzing-Confusion-1

"Better a question that can't be answered than an answer that can't be questioned."

I think he said that. (Reading Surely You're Joking at I guess 16 or so was a formative experience for me.)

But I insist the phenomenology of this is hard.

I have sometimes said that many people on this forum don't seem to believe in disagreement: "if you seem to disagree with me, it can only be because you didn't understand what I said, so I'll say it again." We do recognize that even correct arguments don't always land with an audience, do not compel them with the force of reason, so we try different wordings, different analogies and examples, hoping that one of them will finally do the trick. --- My point here is only that we don't know what will work, why it will work, and what worked in our case. We hope to explain this lack of transparency by distinguishing form from content, as if it were the same as to say I've never been convinced by an argument presented in Polish, since I don't speak Polish. If you grasp the meaning at all, logic is supposed to carry the day, but experience tells us this is not so, though we believe it of ourselves. (This a little like @NOS4A2's suggestion that it is always other people we believe need to be kept in line by force, not us!)

Excellent presentation, Wayferer! :up:

There are more arguments about the failure of materialist philosophy of the mind than what one can imagine. For me it is a dead case. But who am I to say. Leibniz has already set the point with his "Mill Argument Against Mechanical Materialism" 300 years ago:

"If we imagine a machine whose structure makes it think, sense, and have perceptions, we could conceive it enlarged, keeping the same proportions, so that we could enter into it, as one enters a mill. Assuming that, when inspecting its interior, we will find only parts that push one another, and we will never find anything to explain a perception. And so, one should seek perception in the simple substance and not in the composite or in the machine." (GP: VI, 609/AG: 215)

Long ago, before I came upon this, I had thought something quite similar: If thoughts were produced and stored in the brain, shouldn't neurologists or other specialized scientists,ehen they open or scan the brain, be able to trace them and identify them? Yet, not only there has been the least trace of such an identification but they have not even explained the process of thought, at least not in a provable and undisputed way. As Leibniz would say, they will "never find anything to explain a thought". And think that "perception" that Leibniz talks about is much more concrete and near to physicality that thinking.

That sounds a lot like "But where's the university?" It is a spectacularly awful argument.

The much-vaunted (around here) failure of neuroscience neglects two facts: (1) neuroscience is still in its infancy, maybe adolescence; (2) it has been having truly astonishing and accelerating success.

You evidently think we've been wandering down a blind alley since Phineas Gage's accident. I find that view incomprehensible, but you do you.

...If thoughts were produced and stored in the brain, shouldn't neurologists or other specialized scientists,ehen they open or scan the brain, be able to trace them and identify them? Yet, not only there has been the least trace of such an identification but they have not even explained the process of thought, at least not in a provable and undisputed way. As Leibniz would say, they will "never find anything to explain a thought". And think that "perception" that Leibniz talks about is much more concrete and near to physicality that thinking. — Alkis Piskas

Thoughts are more events than things. See the following link for information about scientists detecting thought events:

https://www.eedesignit.com/oh-no-ai-now-reads-minds/

I spend a lot of time in 'provisional credence' country. I hear alarm bells when people say they know something to be certain. — Tom Storm

So do I. The demand for certainty seems to be the motivator for the kind of platonist thinking that wants to place reason high up on on a throne presiding over mere emotion. I don't understand this attitude, since the principles of reason of skillful thinking: coherence, validity and consistency are formal constraints, that by themselves tell us nothing, and must work with what we receive via the senses and our emotions to yield any knowledge.

Right. Going with intuition is relying on the deep learning which has occurred in neural nets between our ears. — wonderer1

I think that's right, but our intuitions can fool us, so we do need to examine the reasoning and its foundational presuppositions and our desires and aversions that underly our intuitions

So, yes, I broadly agree with what you posted, Janus, but I reserve a bit of Humean horror that the foundations of my rationality are not themselves rational. — Srap Tasmaner

I agree, it is kind of horrible, especially when you consider the dire situation humanity faces now, with all its competing narratives and interests. The flipside is the fear that if human life was governed by reason, and only reason; a civilization comprised of Vulcan-like or Spock-like beings, who either have no passions or keep their passions rigidly in check, that we would be a repressed, uptight bunch who live too much "in our heads". It seems a balance is hard to achieve it is either the individual at the expense of the collective or the collective at the expense of the individual; not a very attractive pair of options.

.

Reading Surely You're Joking at I guess 16 or so was a formative experience for me. — Srap Tasmaner

I think it was late 20s for me, but it still played a significant role in my subsequent thinking. I'd like to reread it, but I've been buying books at twice the rate I'm reading them for years. So probably not going to happen.

But I insist the phenomenology of this is hard. — Srap Tasmaner

I don't know much about the study of phenomenology in philosophy, so I can't really say anything about that. I suppose I've developed my own thoughts on phenomenology, but they would probably be "in Polish" from the perspective of most phenomenologists.

I have sometimes said that many people on this forum don't seem to believe in disagreement: "if you seem to disagree with me, it can only be because you didn't understand what I said, so I'll say it again." We do recognize that even correct arguments don't always land with an audience, do not compel them with the force of reason, so we try different wordings, different analogies and examples, hoping that one of them will finally do the trick. — Srap Tasmaner

Right. An aspect of my communication strategy, in venues like TPF, is an attempt to lay some subconscious groundwork in people's minds that might allow them to make a paradigm shift in their thinking somewhere down the line, but results are very scattershot.

My point here is only that we don't know what will work, why it will work, and what worked in our case. — Srap Tasmaner

I agree with this to a large extent. Although, in my experience, the more knowledge I have of how the person I am talking to thinks, the greater my ability to put thing in terms that connect for them. (Though that is something I can't really disentangle from my coping with being on the autism spectrum.)

If you grasp the meaning at all, logic is supposed to carry the day, but experience tells us this is not so, though we believe it of ourselves. — Srap Tasmaner

I know what you mean. Although with all the time I have put into thinking about this stuff, I think I am relatively conscious of the importance of catalyzing paradigm shifts (whether in myself or others) in the process of communicating.

To close, I have enjoyed this meeting of the minds immensely. I hope we will have occasion to discuss these sorts of things more in the future.

it seems that if it is not possible to rationally believe something contrary to what I genuinely find, whether rationally or not, convincing (which itself is a function of how I am constituted emotionally and intellectually, which in turn does not seem to be something I can actually determine "causa sui"), and it follows then that my belief would not be rationally driven at all, but emotionally driven. — Janus

All of which is quite irrelevant if you were doing an actual exercise in logic. But rationally-inferred propositions aren't a matter of belief at all - the hackneyed example I gave of 'if X>Y and A>X then X>Y' is not dependent on belief nor a matter of belief or sentiment.

This "rational necessity" you're talking about, I don't know what that is. We sometimes speak of "logical necessity" but most such talk is pretty loose; if you really need such a thing, it's just a necessity relation that doesn't include any facts or history or natural laws and so on. A "bare necessity", as it were. It just means logic and logic alone, and only applies to what logic applies to. — Srap Tasmaner

Again, how is a logical syllogism 'pretty loose'? Logic is quite precise. I don't think that the argument from reason is setting out to prove that reason is infallible or all-knowing - simply that it comprises the relationships of ideas, and so that can't be reduced to, or explained in terms of, the physical cause-and-effect relationships that are grist to the naturalist mill.

The much-vaunted (around here) failure of neuroscience neglects two facts: (1) neuroscience is still in its infancy, maybe adolescence; (2) it has been having truly astonishing and accelerating success. — Srap Tasmaner

I have relatives who owe their lives to neuroscience, and I would never disparage it. But I'm not sure how much of philosophy is indebted to it. It seems to me that many of the appeals to neuroscience are pretty close to scientism. There's a well-known book I learned about on this forum, The Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience, Hacker and Bennett, which I'll probably never get around to reading in full, although this review gives a good précis. It is by a neuroscientist (Bennett) and philosopher (Hacker) and gives pretty short shrift to neuro-reductionism - which is not to disparage neuroscience in the least.

Considerably more smoke than light in most of the above.

phenomenology — wonderer1

I didn't mean the school of thought, but the thing itself, the detailed account of a type of experience.

I have enjoyed this meeting of the minds immensely. — wonderer1

Likewise.

As Leibniz would say, they will "never find anything to explain a thought". And think that "perception" that Leibniz talks about is much more concrete and near to physicality that thinking. — Alkis Piskas

:up: Leibniz is frequently cited as one of the predecessors to David Chalmer's 'Facing up to the Problem of Consciousness'

An aspect of my communication strategy, in venues like TPF, is an attempt to lay some subconscious groundwork in people's minds that might allow them to make a paradigm shift — wonderer1

From what, to what?

All of which is quite irrelevant if you were doing an actual exercise in logic. But rationally-inferred propositions aren't a matter of belief at all - the hackneyed example I gave of 'if X>Y and A>X then X>Y' is not dependent on belief nor a matter of belief or sentiment. — Wayfarer

But, so what? That kind of purely formal logical deduction has little to do with actual human life and reasoning. Your "Argument from Reason" itself is not that kind of deduction, but is an abductive speculation based on premises which are taken for granted.

It would help if you actually engaged in argumentation with your interlocutor's arguments rather than attempting to dismiss them with statements like "considerably more smoke than light in most of the above".

Considerably more smoke than light in most of the above. — Wayfarer

Hey, you're doing the best that you can.

From what, to what? — Wayfarer

From what seems to me a less accurate view to what seems to me a more accurate view.

That kind of purely formal logical deduction has little to do with actual human life and reasoning. — Janus

It is the subject of the OP, and the basis for an argument.

Well, hopefully, that is what the overall aim of philosophy is for anyone engaged in it.

It is the subject of the OP, and the basis for an argument. — Wayfarer

I wasn't referring to the subject: the argument from reason itself is not a purely deductive argument. You seem to be taking it for granted that a pure deduction cannot be at the same time a neural process.

Let me put it another way: iff it is accepted that a pure deduction cannot be at the same time a neural process then your argument form reason would stand, but that is the very point at issue. Where is the argument for the contention that a pure deduction cannot be at the same a neural process?

Not 'taking for granted': presenting an argument for it, which I don't believe you've addressed - or at least, until this post.