Pragmatism and the Problem of Mind in Nature
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2024-01-17
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Abstract
In this dissertation I argue that a rational reconstruction of the philosophical tradition of pragmatism yields materials to resolve the philosophical problem of mind in nature. This is not the problem of consciousness, but rather the problem created by the facts that we human beings are both animals, products of nature in nature, and beings whose lives and minds are essentially structured by conceptual meanings, unlike any other creature in nature, and potentially in conflict with the ‘disenchanted’ conception of nature we owe to the natural sciences, which seems to have no room for such things as meanings, reasons, and norms. Pragmatism aims to understand how conceptual meanings can be a part of nature by showing how conceptual mindedness is a kind and development of the more basic mindedness exhibited in goal-directed, purposive activity. The pragmatist wants to show that meanings grow out of, and are embodied in, the natural purposiveness of organisms and the difference that language and linguistic practices make to that natural purposiveness in the human context. I canvass the history of the pragmatist tradition of wrestling with this question in order to understand the nature and scope of the problem, the useful tools which pragmatism has to construct a solution, and to propose a way to put these tools to use in a new way that has a better chance of resolving the problem.
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Beasley, B. E. (2024). Pragmatism and the problem of mind in nature (Doctoral thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca.