Cognitive Science vs Philosophy

Rather than simply continue in rote fashion doling out the theory of personhood (the ACE model), I’ll be using the discourse between Professor John Searle and Stevan Harnad to generally comment on philosophical and scientific inquiry.

Professor Searle is Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley and Professor Harnad is Professor of Cognitive Science at Southampton University. They’re each highly esteemed and widely published and from the tone of their discourse, each is well skilled in the art of rhetoric. But while it may appear that they fundamentally disagree about when we might understand what ‘feelings’ are, a more insightful reading tends to reveal the REFUSAL by each to genuinely consider the other’s conceptualizations. It’s much easier to take a position and statically maintain such in the face of an opposing force than it is to stop once one is being so moved. Additionally, it takes energy to return to one’s starting point once one has been so moved. Note though that this what one is trained to do both as a philosopher and a scientist.

While such refusal is in keeping with a sense of the word disagree (see nos. 3 & 4), theirs is not a disagreement relating to the content of their respective positions. They disagree as to whose terminology will shape the discourse. Given Harnad’s and Searle’s noted reputations, one might posit that this is a disagreement not simply between two men, but rather a contest between cognitive science and philosophy in general - winner take all.

The irony of the current situation is that the terms posited by the philosopher and the cognitive scientist are both unworkable. Why? Because the explanation that will make sense lies neither in the field of philosophy, nor in the field of cognitive science. It spans them.

It will be someone else that introduces the simple terms with which both the cognitive scientists and the philosophers will leap skyward. Free from the need to maintain their initial position they will make the metaphor their own and more so, they will again be moving humanity toward genuine understanding, the pursuit of which represents the ends of both philosophy and cognitive science. Of that, one is hopeful both Harnad and Searle are in complete agreement.