Robert Owen wrote,
>The word "Mind" is simply used to designate the necessary
>and sufficient Reason for the experience of thoughts. In
>this sense it is a logical construct, and it is unnecessary to
>argue about whether "Mind" exists or not. It is an explanatory
>principle, and as such inexplicable.
Max More probably will not allow his class on "Philosophy of Religion" to draw
such a conclusion.
Having covered the Cosmological Argument and the
Design Argument, he then went on to cover the Argument from Consciousness where
we
compare dualist with physicalist accounts of mind in terms of their
explanatory power (i.e. can mind be explained naturalistically or do we
need to resort to a supernatural explanation?).
I maintain that until the mind knows why it wants an explanation of itself (even
if it concludes that no explanation is possible), it doesn't yet know itself,
and so remains at the level of fundamentalist wackos and other know-nothings.
Cheers,
--J. R.
-----------------------------------------
"Blind faith, no matter how passionately expressed, will not suffice. Science,
for its part, will test relentlessly every assumption about the human condition
and in time uncover the bedrock of moral and religious sentiments."
--E. O. Wilson
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