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66. Alex Rosenberg | Intentionality, Evolution — Transcript

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0:00and what of course that means is that at
0:01the end of inquiry although we'll never
0:03know when we get to the end of inquiry
0:05there won't be any non-scientific
0:07questions left unanswered and so there
0:08won't be any philosophical any
0:10distinctively
0:12philosophical questions left
0:15but since we're nowhere near
0:17that point and since humanity probably
0:19won't last long enough to get anywhere
0:21near that point the enduring value of
0:23philosophy remains
0:25unimpaired
0:27[Music]
0:54welcome everyone to today's interview
0:56where we are very pleased to welcome
0:58professor alex rosenberg
1:00he is our taylor cole professor of
1:02philosophy at duke university
1:04his research focuses primarily on
1:07philosophy of biology and science more
1:09generally mind economics and some
1:11related issues
1:13his books include the philosophy of
1:15science
1:16philosophy political science the atheist
1:19guide to reality enjoying life without
1:20illusions
1:22how history gets things wrong the
1:23neuroscience of our addiction to stories
1:26reduction in mechanism and others
1:29he also has a variety of published
1:30articles
1:31feel free to add anything but with that
1:33welcome and thanks so much for being
1:34here professor rosenberg
1:37thanks for having me i don't need to add
1:38anything to that introduction we can get
1:41right into what we'd like to talk about
1:44sure so uh awesome
1:46as a
1:48to start maybe just like a general
1:50question about your philosophical
1:52approach you've said that you
1:54accept
1:56a sort of scientism
1:58um how would you exactly construe this
2:00thesis and and why do you find it
2:03compelling
2:04so the normal definition of scientism is
2:07twofold it's the unreasonable
2:10attribution to science of reliability or
2:13soul reliability in the acquisition of
2:15knowledge the methods of science in that
2:17acquisition and the equally unreasonable
2:21um a conclusion that what the sciences
2:24tell us about the nature of reality um
2:26is the last or the best word about it
2:29and the
2:31scientistic philosopher that's me
2:35accepts that definition accepts except
2:38that though we withdraw the word
2:40unreasonable from the two-part
2:42definition so we think that the only way
2:44to acquire knowledge of the nature of
2:46reality is by the methods of science
2:48broadly construed and that what science
2:50tells us about the nature of reality
2:53is the truth
2:54uh that to the degree that other views
2:57are incompatible with the most
2:59reasonable conclusions of scientific
3:02inquiry those views are
3:04undermined as
3:06unreasonable
3:07and uh
3:10by and large that
3:12does tend to undermine a lot of
3:16widely held theories through the history
3:18of philosophy and
3:19widely held current theories among
3:21philosophers
3:24now why do i believe it well it seems to
3:26me that
3:28the most manifest fact about our culture
3:30and civilization is the
3:34not only success of science in
3:36predicting and explaining
3:38um our
3:41phenomena in ways that answer the most
3:44exogenous questions that we have but the
3:46almost universal acceptance of this
3:49procure peculiarly western
3:52invention by all the other cultures and
3:54civilizations
3:56on our planet
3:58even though there's nothing else that we
4:01have conferred upon mankind and we've
4:04converted some awful things as well as
4:06some wonderful things um
4:08that has secured such widespread
4:11acceptance and emulation
4:15right
4:16yeah that's interesting so like the
4:17basic
4:18the basic motivation is just
4:20it works it's successful it's like seems
4:22to be the best sort of experience that
4:24would be
4:25but that would be
4:27um to somehow endorse a pragmatism
4:31whereas my own view and the scientism
4:34that i espouse uh takes metaphysics and
4:37the explanatory obligations of
4:39metaphysics seriously seriously
4:42and it says that there's an explanation
4:44for why science works
4:46so that
4:47um
4:49pragmatism
4:51is
4:52not a natural stopping point in the
4:55endorsement of the scientific worldview
4:58and the epistemology that we can read
5:00off of scientific
5:01uh success um
5:04the success is explained by something
5:07and the explanation is also given by
5:09science
5:12okay all right
5:14yeah
5:14interesting
5:16and
5:16on a related note you've also called
5:18yourself i think you would call yourself
5:20a naturalist
5:21um
5:22otherwise as you know surely
5:25so such terms like physicalism have been
5:28historically somewhat difficult to
5:29define
5:30um in a way both plausibly true and
5:32deserving of the name as daniel's told i
5:34might put it
5:35um
5:36and i think you have a paper from the
5:3890s exploring some of the varieties of
5:40naturalism
5:41um
5:43what do you think now do you have a
5:44specific thesis in mind or is it more
5:46like a
5:48vague stance with some methodological
5:50commitments and constraints like
5:53the minds aren't fundamental and stuff
5:54like that so i i view scientism this
5:58year that i endorse and that almost
6:00nobody else endorses as a species or a
6:03sub category of naturalism uh naturalism
6:07is basically um
6:10again an epistemic and a metaphysical
6:12view that accords a special place to
6:15science and seeks to reconcile the
6:17manifest image as wilford sellers called
6:19it
6:20with the scientific image up and
6:24uh the differences among various
6:26naturalists are not only about the
6:29degree of
6:31success of this reconciliation but the
6:33details of the reconciliation
6:36so um there will be a variety of
6:38different views about naturalizing the
6:40intentional um telesemantic
6:44uh
6:45among uh other views um
6:48and
6:50among naturalists there is
6:52an in-house set of disputes about the
6:54best ways to proceed
6:56and particularly
6:58about
7:00not only the nature of mind in its
7:02relation to the brain but also about
7:04normative matters like matters of ethics
7:06and meta ethics and
7:09um
7:09in this broad
7:11naturalistic
7:13um
7:14uh camp
7:16uh there are
7:18views on the various extremes of the
7:20spectrum
7:22uh and i'm inclined to say that
7:23scientism is on
7:25one end of the spectrum and it's the
7:28spectrum that holds that
7:30where the problems appear to be grave
7:34and
7:35long-standing
7:36we ought to let science trump the
7:38manifest image and simply stigmatize it
7:41as
7:42wrong as incorrect as
7:44um
7:45uh superstition
7:47and of course on the other end of the
7:49spectrum there are a lot of naturalists
7:50of whom probably dan dennett is the most
7:52wonderful example um who still hold out
7:55hope of reconciling more adequately or
8:00more fully
8:01the
8:02manifest image with the scientific
8:04worldview
8:07right so is it are you sort of
8:09considering naturalism as as a range of
8:12um
8:15like methodological commitments or
8:16something like that
8:18i think it's both methodological and
8:20substantive
8:21so
8:22uh
8:23of course it's it it strongly suggests
8:26that the right method for acquiring
8:28answers to our um
8:32persistent questions
8:34uh is with the tools of natural science
8:37but that at least
8:39in the hands of many naturalists some of
8:42those answers won't be particularly
8:44alien to common sense
8:48say you know questions about the nature
8:50of color there are many naturalists who
8:53um want to insist that colors are really
8:56out there in the world provided we
8:57understand that claim
8:59correctly there are other naturalists
9:01who say no colors are subjected in us
9:04and this has been
9:06the right view in philosophy since locke
9:08the dispute between naturalists about an
9:11issue like that
9:12seems to me to be
9:13largely an in-house dispute um
9:17it's uh people like chalmers for example
9:19who tell us that
9:21callers are subjective qualia
9:24and they can't
9:25be given any kind of uh
9:29naturalistic
9:31physicalistic account
9:33who are beyond the pale of naturalism
9:37right
9:38yeah
9:39that makes sense and you you
9:42you also argue that they're like
9:44relatedly that there's no intentionality
9:47or in some sense it doesn't so this is
9:49that that's a nice example too where um
9:53there are many different naturalistic
9:55approaches to intentionality um
9:58there was this wonderful article or
10:01talk given many many years ago by uh
10:05um
10:06was it john hoagland entitled uh
10:08um
10:10what it's like to be at bat
10:12uh the
10:13intentionality all-stars in which he
10:16lays out a large number of different
10:18alternatives some of which are
10:20completely un non-naturalistic
10:23so for example searles even though he
10:25himself says that the brain produces
10:28intentionality the way the stomach
10:30produces digestion and that he's a
10:32physicalist but
10:34when you actually try to cash in the
10:36details there's
10:38no there there um but within
10:42the naturalistic
10:44camp as i've said from dennett on pretty
10:47much you know on the left
10:50as a instrumentalist about
10:51intentionality uh all the way across to
10:55people who take it seriously and still
10:57want to
10:59cash it in for
11:01a real phenomenon like ruth milliken
11:06those
11:08those naturalists can't be construed as
11:11eliminativists the eliminativists are
11:14few and far between the churchlands have
11:17soft-peddled their eliminativism over
11:18the years um
11:21but they're still eliminativists and so
11:24am i and um
11:26you certainly don't have to be an
11:28eliminativist to be a naturalist
11:30but um it seems to me that eliminativism
11:34is the right conclusion to be drawn from
11:37the difficulties and obstacles that
11:39naturalism about the intentional faces
11:44yeah
11:45yeah and you've made some interesting
11:47arguments to this to the for this
11:49conclusion i was wondering
11:51what you think of of the following sort
11:53of response which is basically just like
11:55a mooring shift if someone says
11:57okay i mean your argument is maybe valid
12:00but i have a much stronger commitment to
12:02intentionality than to
12:04um this naturalistic view and so maybe i
12:07should give up that or some other step
12:09in the argument that entails this
12:11conclusion i mean um
12:13what might you say in response to this
12:15uh
12:16to this objection well i i think you
12:19know one the simple thing is as it pays
12:21your money and it takes your choice if
12:22you really have that starting point
12:24there's probably no way that i can
12:25rationally disabuse you of it however
12:29from the
12:30point of view of naturalism from the
12:31point of view of cognitive science from
12:34the point of view of
12:36cognitive social psychology
12:38the
12:39uncritical acceptance of the
12:42claims of introspection
12:45are so
12:46uh
12:47fraud and so
12:49uh unlikely to be substantiated
12:52and uh produce such intractable
12:57puzzles
12:58that nobody should in my opinion
13:00take
13:01introspection as the serious basis for
13:04any philosophical starting point
13:07introspection is a problem it's not a
13:10premise um and uh
13:13amorian uh digging in of the heels
13:16here's a hand and here's another um they
13:20haven't impressed me since i was a 20
13:22year old graduate student
13:25fair enough
13:26um and two
13:28i was wondering what you might say on
13:30like two other
13:31somewhat common objections to the
13:34limitivist view
13:35um
13:37or and that all attributions of
13:39intentionality are like merely
13:40instrumental
13:41um so first
13:43um it doesn't seem that even the thesis
13:46can be stated given its truth right i
13:48mean
13:49undermining the whole
13:51dialectic maybe
13:52and second
13:54an instrumental attribution of
13:56intentionality
13:57is still an intentional act in the
13:59relevant sense and so doesn't that seem
14:01to undermine the thesis that there's no
14:03intentionality i mean i know these are
14:05maybe difficult questions but yeah sorry
14:07about it well they are difficult
14:08questions and they've been advanced
14:10against eliminativists since the early
14:1290s the nicest examples are paul bugojan
14:15and
14:16lynn rudder baker and it is not as
14:19though in
14:21elimination ignorant of these arguments
14:24and
14:25at least in some cases do not
14:28feel the obligation to address them i
14:30certainly have felt the obligation to
14:32address them and i've written papers
14:34ever since the 90s uh on these topics
14:38indeed i'd say
14:39after especially i wrote the uh um
14:42the book uh how history has things wrong
14:44the neuroscience of our addiction
14:46destroys which is a heavily disguised
14:49argument for eliminativism
14:51heavily disguised because it seeks to uh
14:56to draw in people who are interested in
14:59um the problems and the vicissitudes of
15:02historical explanation
15:04and
15:05to ground historical explanation on our
15:08own
15:09introspectively
15:11grounded theory of mind
15:14and then to unravel the theory of mind
15:16and show that that's the basis of the
15:18problems
15:19in accepting historical explanation
15:22um
15:23so i know perfectly well that
15:27at least some philosophers will dig
15:28their heels in and say just as you have
15:31that this
15:33theory is self-refuting or
15:34self-stultifying um now um
15:39i could and i'd be happy to send any of
15:42the people who are watching the
15:44program tonight a paper on this subject
15:47that i wrote about six or eight months
15:49ago um
15:51entitled how to be an eliminativist and
15:55after sort of sketching out the broad
15:58reasons that neuroscience strongly
16:01sustains eliminativism and the
16:05defects in the argument from
16:08introspection for eliminativism i go on
16:11to address these two
16:13bogosian like and lynne rudder
16:15baker-like
16:17claims that it's self-refuting
16:20part of the argument has to do with some
16:22fairly complicated uh issues that arise
16:25in uh competing theories of truth
16:28disquotational theories and
16:29correspondence theories um
16:32and
16:33until unless we get our
16:36theories of truth in order
16:39and decide which of them is the right
16:42theory it's going to be as premature to
16:46stigmatize
16:49eliminativism as self-contradictory
16:52because
16:53uh
16:55it's uh
16:56it instantiates certain obvious
16:59contradictions
17:00and cannot
17:02since it denies the semantic
17:05evaluability of sentences help itself to
17:08the statement that it is itself true
17:10okay
17:11these kinds of problems the problems of
17:14self-reference and um
17:17meta-linguistic or disquotational
17:19theories of of truth um
17:22make it difficult for us to evaluate
17:26the
17:27the claims of eliminativism
17:31given that we're sophisticated enough
17:33philosophers to know that we don't yet
17:35have a widely accepted entirely
17:39reliable account of the nature of truth
17:41against the background of which to say
17:43that these
17:44theories can't be true because they are
17:48self
17:49self-defeating
17:51now um
17:52that's a
17:54pretty complicated issue
17:56to
17:58insist needs to be solved
18:00before we get to be eliminativists um
18:03but the elimination of us can certainly
18:05say
18:05um
18:06just as
18:08we need
18:10an account of human behavior that's free
18:13from intentional
18:14idioms
18:16okay
18:19that we may also
18:21want an account of intentional of
18:24semantic behavior that helps itself or
18:28exploits the theory of
18:30truth of the nature of truth that
18:34isn't um that doesn't present these
18:37obvious self self referential
18:41problems and uh
18:43holding those at arm's length
18:46we won't take seriously the claims that
18:48this doctrine is
18:50incoherent
18:51now that that's a long and a complicated
18:54answer
18:55and i probably should have gone back and
18:57re-read this paper that i wrote about
18:59six months ago but i do
19:01welcome your viewers sending me emails
19:04and i'll be happy to send it to them
19:06meanwhile
19:08um
19:09i think it's important to recognize that
19:11this is like many problems in philosophy
19:14um
19:15an unsolved one
19:17but
19:18uh that fact in and by itself shouldn't
19:21prevent us from continuing to suppose
19:24that eliminativism can at some point or
19:27other
19:28um
19:31circums um
19:33circumnavigate
19:35uh or at any rates uh get around this
19:39issue it's like um suppose that um
19:42someone taxed physics with the claim
19:44that zeno's paradoxes have not yet been
19:47refuted and therefore
19:50physics can't help itself to the concept
19:52of motion
19:53um
19:54uh you might agree as
19:57adolf grunbaum um uh suggested that we
20:01don't have a good and complete and
20:03completely non-con non-controversial
20:05solution to xenos paradoxes should we
20:08await such a solution before accepting
20:11um the
20:13existence of motion
20:15probably not
20:17right
20:18so yeah me so i guess what's going on
20:20there is that um
20:22well if we have good enough reasons to
20:24accept this thesis and okay there's some
20:26sort of concerns unsolved problems maybe
20:29but they're not so pressing that they
20:31undermine the evidence we have for the
20:33thesis overall
20:34and i mean it's sort of left as a
20:37maybe a promissory note that you know
20:40we'll have something
20:41or we could have some way to deal with
20:43those problems in the future it's like
20:44yeah i'm particularly you know inclined
20:46to say that a disquotational theory
20:49is is going to help
20:51very much
20:52uh in enabling us to express
20:54eliminativism without you know the
20:56obvious sophomoric
20:59um
20:59self-refutation arguments
21:03yeah um
21:04attention i'll have to check that paper
21:06out that's not one of the ones i read in
21:07preparations no it's it's it's not out
21:10oh or fair enough it's it's just that's
21:13why i'm happy to send it to people oh
21:15awesome
21:17and
21:18a few months ago i talked with david
21:20papineau um regarding his
21:22um then recent i guess still relatively
21:25recent book called the metaphysics of
21:26sensory experience and there
21:29he describes a view of intentionality
21:32um
21:33according to which certain mental states
21:35perceptual and to some extent otherwise
21:37um
21:39come to be about things
21:41due to a sort of
21:42directed teleological development of and
21:45of correlations between those states and
21:47things in the world it's a causal theory
21:49of intentionality
21:51right in which he denies intentionality
21:53to the internal qualitative character of
21:56the experience
21:57right right at least intrinsically it's
21:59not um it has it uh um contingently um
22:03anyway
22:04and um
22:05i know you've been critical of like
22:07heliosemantic views and um and
22:10another
22:12realist naturalist views of
22:14intentionality but i mean what do you
22:15think of this approach at least uh
22:17broadly construed i was heavily
22:18influenced by that book in fact um in
22:21thinking about the second of the three
22:23parts of the paper that i've mentioned
22:25to you the the denial of the
22:28uh the
22:29role of introspection in the grounding
22:31of intentionality and i think that
22:33david's arguments are very powerful and
22:36very attractive um
22:38where i
22:39get off the bus is that um while he
22:42doesn't specifically endorse a
22:44telesemantic
22:45approach his view is very
22:48easily harnessed together with one um
22:51either millikans or neanders or fred
22:54drezkies
22:55and while i honor these theories as
22:58probably as close as we can possibly
23:00come to intentionality because they are
23:02driven by the right science that is by
23:06darwinian natural selection as the most
23:09important scientific tool in explaining
23:11the mind
23:12um they nevertheless do not produce
23:16um the kind of
23:18fine-grained
23:19um semantically evaluable
23:22propositional attitudes that
23:25would be required in order for
23:27naturalism to give us intentionality
23:31and here uh
23:34you may laugh but i find myself making
23:36common cause with
23:38um
23:40um
23:40jerry fodor in his last book
23:44but i run that argument as a modus
23:48tollens that is to say
23:50ferder gave
23:51an argument against
23:54the theory of natural selection on the
23:56grounds that he could not discriminate
23:58between
24:00propositions that were co-extensive
24:03and it couldn't distinguish between
24:05properties that were co-extensive
24:08or um properties that are co-expensive
24:10or
24:11or the the truth makers of
24:14propositions
24:15and i tend to agree with that but that's
24:17because i'm an eliminativist i infer
24:20from the fact that our best scientific
24:23theory can't make those discriminations
24:25but those discriminations don't exist
24:27they are illusory
24:29um
24:30so uh all honor to tell you semantics in
24:33the hands of ruth milliken or dan
24:35dennett or karen neander um
24:38uh it's as close as we're going to be
24:40able to come to understanding
24:43of the
24:44what's going on in the brain that
24:46produces
24:48the
24:49impression in us that there is content
24:52in thought um and of course a good deal
24:55of uh
24:56that book that you mentioned that i
24:58mentioned how history gets things wrong
25:00especially the three chapters about
25:02neuroscience try to vindicate that view
25:05that there's nothing in the neural
25:08circuitry
25:09that will
25:12uh substantiate the attribution of
25:16intentional states even though that
25:18neural circuitry is the result of um
25:21phylogenetic processes and ontogenetic
25:24processes of the kind that the
25:26teleosemantic theories described
25:29sorry for such a long answer that's
25:31that's a great answer
25:33and a lot of very interesting points
25:34there and you mentioned um fodor i
25:36actually have a couple a couple
25:38questions about that but
25:39um i first want to ask one more related
25:42question because
25:44um
25:46so while you're
25:47an eliminative is about intentionality
25:49you're i'll take it not eliminated it's
25:51eliminated so about consciousness
25:52altogether um
25:54however
25:55a critic might say that well shouldn't
25:57the same sort of arguments apply i mean
25:59how does consciousness fit into a world
26:01of particles fields and whatever
26:04um how can a bunch of neurons say be
26:06such that there is something
26:08it is like to be them um well i think
26:11that actually um cognitive
26:14neuropsychologists have made
26:16considerable advances in our
26:18understanding of consciousness um i've
26:21spent a lot of time this summer reading
26:22a couple of books there's the blanca um
26:25and i'll book about the evolution of um
26:28of consciousness uh
26:30deep in uh
26:33metazoan phylogeny um and uh
26:36on any number of works that have been
26:38written in the last couple of years
26:40uh analyzing consciousness into
26:43attention and awareness
26:45um where attention and awareness are
26:47both um
26:49mental processes that can be effectively
26:51cashed in without appeal to qualia or to
26:55uh subjective
26:57um
26:58uh ex
27:00ineliminably non-physical
27:02experiential
27:04um data um
27:06i recognize that
27:09the chalmers heart problem
27:11represents a
27:13challenge
27:15to naturalists
27:17and even more so to eliminativists
27:20and i'm willing to accept that challenge
27:23nobody understands consciousness and to
27:25suggest that um
27:28that that that um
27:30encourages dualism as an intelligible
27:33alternative just seems to be fatuous
27:35dualism is merely throwing up your hands
27:38and saying there's no explanation here
27:40um
27:41and i presume that consciousness is not
27:44so basic and brute a phenomena that
27:47there couldn't be any explanation
27:50and i'm certainly not going to give pan
27:53psychism the time of day
27:55um
27:56so uh i don't want to deny the existence
27:58of consciousness i do hold out the hope
28:01that we're going to be able to um
28:03characterize it scientifically by appeal
28:06to some kind of a theory that
28:09starts with a global workplace
28:11um approach and
28:14um
28:15exploits what we understand about about
28:18attention and awareness of attention um
28:22i rather like michael graziano's books
28:25on this subject and i'm more likely to
28:28think that paul carruthers has got the
28:30right answers about consciousness than
28:32any other philosopher i know
28:35um
28:37but i don't want to deny that there's
28:40consciousness and in particular i don't
28:42want to deny that there are feelings
28:44emotions i think that sensations and
28:47emotions
28:48are particularly important um
28:52facts about us which
28:54uh natural selection has
28:57shaped in ways that enable human life to
29:01persist on the planet and uh social and
29:04uh cooperative endeavors to
29:08uh to be undertaken um
29:10and so i i'm not inclined to be an
29:13eliminativist about consciousness
29:15um i'm just inclined to be in a limited
29:18vist about it's being intentional
29:22yeah that's that's a bunch of fair
29:24points i'm i mean i'm probably on the
29:25same page as you on on um pretty much
29:28all of that but i mean you could sort of
29:30see um where the critic might be coming
29:32from here is like
29:34well
29:35um
29:36on your view we have this sort of
29:38pervasive
29:39illusion of intentionality but it
29:41doesn't fit well into a
29:43we have good reason to think it doesn't
29:44fit into a naturalistic picture and so
29:46we reject it because we have strong
29:48commitment to that
29:49i mean
29:51but i mean they're gonna try to make the
29:52same argument that
29:54conscious doesn't fit well into a
29:56nationalistic picture as well i mean but
29:58you think you want to push back on maybe
29:59that claim and say it's so yeah um the
30:03first question
30:04um
30:07that seems sensible to ask about
30:08consciousness is what's its function and
30:10most probably it doesn't have a single
30:12function consciousness is a conjuries of
30:16of a variety of different mental
30:17activities any one of which
30:20may
30:21have been
30:22an adaptation with a selective
30:25effects etiology that brought it into
30:27existence and combined it
30:30in various kinds of compromises with
30:32other
30:34psychological
30:35activities that were essential for
30:38mammalian or primate or
30:41homo sapien survival
30:44um
30:45whereas i don't see that intentionality
30:48is something uh
30:50that we could clearly attribute a
30:52function
30:54to
30:54intentionality is a
30:57a feature
30:59or maybe it's not a feature of
31:01consciousness
31:03and um
31:05i don't feel the same scientific
31:08obligation to explain it
31:11uh owing to its contribution to survival
31:15that i feel uh
31:18the necessity of in the case of
31:20consciousness
31:23yeah
31:24fair enough um
31:26definitely some
31:28more issues to explore there but i um as
31:30i said i wanted to turn to um what
31:32you've said on jerry fodor
31:35and that book was co-authored with uh
31:36massimo pieteli pomerini but
31:39arguments against natural selection
31:41and
31:42uh for those listening just as a brief
31:44over overview um
31:47they argue
31:49roughly speaking that natural selection
31:51as an explanatory theory is meant to
31:53explain among other things
31:55which features genotypic and phenotypic
31:58are selected for and not really selected
32:01um but it cannot do so and so it fails
32:04as an explanatory hypothesis in that
32:05regard
32:06that's a i mean there's more that
32:08obviously they say on it but that's part
32:09of
32:10the center of their argument
32:12um and i take it that the meat of your
32:13response is to say
32:15um that natural selection does not
32:17require
32:18explanations of this sort um that
32:20selection against is good enough
32:22um and photo's arguments don't work
32:24against selection against i mean first
32:26of all do i have the sort of dialectic
32:28in your response roughly right or
32:31um i think
32:32uh
32:34maybe the way i put it in uh the
32:36arguments that i gave at a conference on
32:38this subject santa barbara are roughly
32:40the way you described and you can find a
32:43youtube version of the talk that i gave
32:45there as well as a
32:47the paper was published and i can't
32:49remember where
32:51um
32:52thereafter but um
32:54there's a deeper philosophical problem
32:57here
32:58we tend our predicates
33:00predicates of our natural languages may
33:02or may not pick out
33:04um properties real kinds natural kinds
33:07okay um and uh we have uh probably
33:13in most cases failed to pick out with
33:16our predicates real kinds in nature
33:19because we've been selected for
33:23identifying those uh or employing those
33:25property terms uh in behaviors which
33:28gets selected for um and natural
33:31selection is very good at selecting for
33:34behaviors that are adaptive but not very
33:37good for selecting for true beliefs
33:40okay or even if i'm right for beliefs
33:43right
33:44still less for selecting for acquisition
33:47or identification of the real properties
33:50of things
33:53at best natural selection has resulted
33:55in our
33:57um
33:58constructing and invoking a large number
34:00of predicates which happen to be
34:02selectively valuable in uh assuring our
34:06survival um
34:08if you say all that
34:10then um you recognize that
34:14when fodor shows as he does
34:17and did even long ago when he was
34:20arguing
34:21against teleological theories of content
34:24in the late 80s and early 90s it's the
34:27same damn argument only now
34:30he's using it against darwin instead of
34:32against the application of darwin and
34:34the philosophy of psychology if photo
34:37shows that natural selection can't
34:39discriminate between certain human
34:41predicates
34:42that tells us really nothing about
34:45whether natural selection can or cannot
34:47discriminate against or in favor of
34:50real properties in nature
34:53because
34:54some the
34:56the most that natural selection is going
34:58to explain is how we glommed on to
35:01various predicates that may be useful or
35:03not useful for us you know grue and
35:06blean aren't as useful as green and blue
35:08does it follow therefore that green and
35:10blue identify real properties out there
35:12in the world well obviously since locke
35:14we've known that they didn't and yet the
35:16mistaken view that they do
35:19is highly adaptive to
35:21organisms of our species
35:24should we infer
35:26that it's a defect of natural selection
35:29that it can't ground the distinction
35:31between green and blue as properties out
35:34there in the world of course not
35:36and i think that's going to go for any
35:38predicate of natural language that you
35:40identify
35:41and that's
35:43why it's more reasonable to run a modus
35:45pollins tollens against voter than to
35:48take his argument against natural
35:50selection seriously you know i began
35:52that paper uh that you mentioned with
35:55an interesting parallel i say you know
35:58when i want a really great scientist um
36:01says something that's manifestly false
36:05okay it's really worthwhile exploring in
36:07detail
36:08why the scientists said it and what its
36:12implications are and then the instance i
36:14give is the epr the einstein rosen
36:16poblowski paper in which einstein in the
36:2030s said look either quantum mechanics
36:22is incomplete or their spooky action at
36:24a distance okay
36:26and everybody made fun of einstein in
36:28that paper for many years until john
36:30bell showed that there was a fact of the
36:33matter here and then it took another 20
36:35years to do the experiment to show that
36:38there is spooky action at a distance and
36:41we would have never have done that if it
36:42hadn't been for this wonderful paper by
36:46einstein and of course what it did was
36:48show einstein was very farsighted and
36:51deeply mistaken about the nature of
36:55the alleged incompleteness of quantum
36:56mechanics now i suggest we
36:59treat the sainted jerry fodor the same
37:02way
37:04that is
37:05take his
37:06argument
37:08that purports to show that natural
37:10selection can't discriminate between
37:13properties
37:15actually between predicates of natural
37:17languages um
37:19and run it backwards
37:24yeah so let me
37:26make it clear on something
37:27you're saying that um
37:30there there isn't selection for with
37:32respect to
37:33the
37:34um uh
37:36the properties we described using the
37:38predicates of our natural language or
37:41um there isn't section selection for
37:42selection there's going to be selection
37:44for
37:45the use of certain predicates
37:48and sometimes our
37:51use of those predicates is so successful
37:53that a realist explanation
37:57um makes very appealing the claim that
37:59the predicates are successful because
38:01they identify real properties in nature
38:04and this will be particularly true for
38:06the properties that figure in the
38:07natural kinds of physics and chemistry
38:10and biology
38:12okay but they probably won't go further
38:14than that
38:16right but you do want to say that there
38:18are
38:19properties and kinds in nature or do you
38:21not want to say that yes well i'm
38:23perfectly happy to say that but yeah you
38:25know i'd rather be a nominalist but i
38:27can't
38:28you know and that's you know that that's
38:30a whole other kettle of metaphysical
38:32fish so to speak
38:34right but then but the point is the
38:36point i want to make is is
38:38we ne we shouldn't be too confident
38:41about
38:42the manifest image and not only
38:45shouldn't we be very confident about the
38:46manifest image we need to really take
38:49seriously
38:51the degree to which uh natural science
38:54undermines it
38:55okay and that may mean
38:59not taking as any more than convenient
39:01fictions and heuristic devices up much
39:04more
39:05than
39:06um
39:08those uh properties that characterize
39:11human
39:12superstitions common sense
39:14uh and other widespread beliefs
39:19right
39:20right and but but with respect to
39:22whatever
39:23um
39:25the real properties or
39:27features of things in the world
39:29um do you want to say that there is
39:32selection against and selection for
39:33those
39:34by
39:35natural selection or no well i don't
39:37think natural selection
39:39is a mechanism that creates properties
39:43right
39:45it might create instantiations of
39:48um of sentences and predicates
39:52but you know the properties are out
39:53there or they're not and it's not a
39:57matter of the process of blind variation
39:59environmental filtration to create
40:02properties at most it'll create
40:06cognitive states or epistemic states
40:10and i have to be careful when i say
40:11epistemic states because i i want to i
40:14want to recognize that there are
40:15epistemic states that are not
40:16intentional
40:18right
40:20but just think about that i actually
40:21wrote a paper with an impossible title
40:23many years ago called um
40:25a naturalistic epistemology for
40:27eliminative materialists
40:29in which i tried to do that very thing
40:32right i mean but i'm just thinking like
40:34independently of um
40:37our epistemic activities or you know the
40:40predicates we have
40:42um
40:43normally we we want to say something
40:45like um
40:47i don't know take the evolution of a
40:49giraffe and how it um over generations
40:53they had
40:54longer necks um we want to say that
40:56there was selection for that trait uh is
40:59that
41:00not something we can certainly say
41:02um and when we use the um
41:06the predicate longer neck
41:08okay
41:10we
41:13can be understood as employing the
41:15apparatus of referential and or
41:17attributive
41:18predication
41:20okay and
41:22it's so you know here again the
41:23complications of our use of language um
41:26should be things that the evolutionary
41:28biologists can
41:29can totally present from and which we
41:32philosophers might want to keep in the
41:34back of our mind but um i don't want to
41:37get into an argument about whether when
41:39i point to the long neck of giraffe i am
41:42uh
41:43making a referential or an attributive
41:46uh claim in the keith and ellen sense of
41:50the word and here again we're going back
41:52to ancient history in the philosophy
41:54language um
41:56and i certainly don't want the issue of
41:58whether
42:00selection increases the length of
42:04giraffes necks over phylogenetic history
42:07to be held hostage to an argument like
42:10voters
42:12and i'm perfectly happy to be to up
42:15to speak with the vulgar at least to the
42:17extent of saying that natural selection
42:19um selects for and selects against the
42:22instantiation of properties
42:25right so i wouldn't would you say that
42:27the speak of selection against is still
42:29speaking with the vulgar in a way
42:30because it sounded at least when i
42:33was first reading the paper it seemed to
42:35me like you were saying that
42:36no no there really is a selection
42:38against
42:39um and selection four
42:42um at least that's not something
42:44that natural selection is meant to
42:46explain
42:46well all right so um now we're into the
42:49weeds of the velocity of biology um
42:53if the environment filters
42:56um for uh
42:59survival okay it's going to
43:03allow to survive to the next generation
43:06every organism
43:08with traits that are just good enough
43:10to survive
43:12including you know ones that are
43:14wonderfully adapted and those that are
43:17poorly adapted but still
43:20not mal-adapted okay and it's just going
43:22to eliminate
43:24the of those organisms that are
43:28maladaptive that cannot survive
43:30right now um if that's the case then it
43:34will allow into the next generation
43:37up
43:37a range of attributes some of which are
43:40very fit some of which are
43:42minimally
43:43adapted
43:45okay
43:45but it's going to certainly eliminate
43:47the maladapted ones and i think if we
43:50look at natural selections that way
43:53we'll understand more clearly a way the
43:56sense in which it is not a creative
43:58force at all but only a winnowing one
44:01right and i think that's that that's
44:04the way i think we should um understand
44:06the distinction between selection for
44:08and selection
44:09against
44:11natural selection selects against and
44:12anything that is not selected against is
44:14by definition selected for
44:17or at least weakly selected form yeah
44:19weekly yeah indifference right right
44:22and
44:23yeah that's right and i was wondering um
44:27but what if what if someone were to say
44:28that this this filtering process the
44:31selection against or if we want to call
44:32it like anti-selection is still maybe
44:36intentional in the relevant sense so
44:37like
44:38um
44:39we could we could draw the distinction
44:42between
44:43like anti-selection
44:45for
44:46uh maybe traits which are filtered out
44:48because of their contributions to the
44:50reduction of fitness or something like
44:51that and traits which are merely
44:54anti-selected
44:56um traits which are maybe co-extensive
44:58with the in the relevant sense with
44:59traits which are which contribute to a
45:01reduction of fitness i mean if this is a
45:03fair distinction to make um
45:06and
45:07um
45:08should natural selection not be able to
45:10distinguish between these cases of
45:11selection against
45:13well um
45:15fine grained natural selection operating
45:17long enough
45:18is going to
45:20make discriminations
45:22up even against traits which are locally
45:24co-extensive because if there are costs
45:28associated with the carrying along of a
45:32of one trait by another trait that's
45:34selected for there's going to be some
45:36kind of an arms race or some kind of
45:38mutation which is going to separate them
45:41sufficiently for natural selection act
45:43and if natural selection can't ever act
45:45against them
45:46then that seems to me to be
45:49evidence that they are equally adaptive
45:53that make sense yeah i think so i have
45:55to think about a little bit more but uh
45:59now you know i i've been i i actually
46:00have written a paper about this with uh
46:03benson nene um and uh it has been
46:06submitted several times to several
46:08different journals and always rejected
46:11so you're uh perhaps prescient to press
46:14this point because it's a nice issue in
46:17the philosophy of biology um and it's
46:19one that at any rate benson and i have
46:21been unable to convince
46:23the referees of good journals to
46:26accept right
46:29i'm not sure
46:30what the issue has to do with
46:33any kind of uh argument from natural
46:35selection for intentionality
46:37or any argument against natural
46:39selection from
46:41the existence of intentional states
46:44which is what where voters going you
46:46know
46:47when voter first advanced these
46:49arguments it was
46:51against telesemantics okay
46:53and it should have taken him less than
46:5520 years to figure out that his real
46:57target was natural selection and not
47:00telesemantics
47:03right
47:04um was that was that benson a that you
47:06mentioned yeah
47:08right and i was um
47:11because you had some other paper um
47:14co-authored with
47:16uh
47:18did uh karen neander write another thing
47:21yes
47:21discussing yeah
47:23the notion of function
47:25a biological function
47:27and um
47:29you end up defending it seems a count on
47:32which roughly speaking
47:34a trait x has some function f if there
47:36was selection for performing f on traits
47:39ancestral to x in its lineage something
47:42like that
47:43and um
47:44but are we requiring selection for here
47:46i mean is this yeah
47:49well certainly potentially yeah the
47:52papers that i wrote with karen
47:54um a couple of them
47:56they certainly are predicated on the
47:58coherence of selection four
48:02okay
48:04and i i i guess i am not at this point
48:07ready to
48:08go to the mat for the claim that there's
48:10only selection against
48:13um
48:14partly uh
48:16if i haven't convinced referees
48:18they have increasingly
48:20led me to be
48:23doubtful or hesitant about pushing
48:26the
48:27negative thesis and for purposes of the
48:32the systematization of the biologists
48:34employment of the concept of function
48:36which i'm sure that karen got right and
48:39in those two papers i was simply
48:41i was helping her construct arguments
48:44for those views um we are not
48:48engaged in a fundamental um
48:52rethink at the basement level of the
48:55philosophy of biology
48:56we're more interested in systematizing
48:58the actual use of
49:01these concepts among biologists and
49:03they're certainly
49:05on board with selection four
49:08right um
49:10fair enough and and sort of another
49:12remark about um
49:14the um
49:17the responses you've given here um
49:20might this not seem to suggest some sort
49:22of skepticism about a lot of the claims
49:25we make
49:26uh about the uh the world like i mean i
49:29guess i mean talking about claims here
49:31maybe this is
49:33um
49:34not to assume intentionality but when we
49:36say no things are a certain way yeah
49:38those words
49:39we can speak with the vulgar
49:41right yeah yeah i don't actually see why
49:44do they threaten
49:46the general
49:47view the the set of views that we were
49:49talking about before
49:51well it's not that they're i'm
49:53threatening those views it's just that
49:55um
49:56i don't know whenever we talk about um
49:59what the external world is like and use
50:01apply predicates to things and so on
50:04um
50:05uh it sound it seemed to me at least
50:06that you were suggesting that
50:08um we shouldn't take a lot of those
50:11predicas too seriously maybe that's not
50:12really what the world is like well we
50:14need to take the predicates of of the
50:16natural sciences seriously
50:19um as identifying natural kinds
50:23and the reason we need to is because
50:24they're systematized in
50:26effective theories
50:28that are well confirmed
50:31and therefore our best
50:34approximation to the truth
50:36but
50:37when it comes to most of the predicates
50:40beyond
50:41the natural sciences
50:45there is no such a pedigree of
50:47reliability that would
50:50underwrite very strong claims about the
50:54properties so
50:56named
50:58right oh so when i say something like my
51:01computer monitor is rectangular right is
51:03that what what does that fall more under
51:06that doesn't seem like that's that's
51:08common sense
51:09so one of your previous guests was peter
51:11van wagon
51:13and i think we scientistic philosophers
51:16are inclined to take very seriously
51:17peter van in wagons arguments against
51:20the
51:21existence and the coherence of our
51:23notions of physical objects
51:26why because we
51:28we think you know
51:29the most reliable
51:32epistemic or reliable starting point for
51:35any systematization of the world is
51:36going to be logic and if
51:39um
51:40we the if the concept of
51:43a physical object
51:44leads us to intractable problems about
51:46numerical identity
51:48of physical objects
51:50then
51:51let's
51:53adopt a different view and of course we
51:55can use the physical object language but
51:58understanding that what we're really
52:00talking about are
52:02symbols arranged chair wise
52:06right i mean so that's
52:08you would um
52:10accept what van nuggen has to say about
52:12um material objects there i guess you
52:14would also extend it to
52:17organic things in the way that he
52:18doesn't i think i would yeah
52:21except i i get off the
52:24i'm not happy with the idea of what
52:27peter's idea of
52:28um
52:29uh the combination of symbols and of
52:32living things
52:34right
52:35because i find that
52:37that's not a distinction that naturalism
52:39can help itself to
52:42right they're all
52:43you know fundamentally made it of the
52:45same stuff it's just arranged
52:46differently
52:48they're undergoing different processes
52:49yeah
52:50um
52:53that's an interesting point i think um
52:56maybe a couple questions then we can
52:58wrap
52:58up i'm
52:59not sure what you're doing i'm surprised
53:01we haven't gotten to uh nice nihilism
53:03and ethics
53:05yeah i i haven't um
53:08i was thinking about asking something
53:09about that but i was going to put into a
53:10sort of maybe more general question at
53:13the end
53:14about what you're driving you're driving
53:16not me
53:18fair enough um
53:21um
53:23yeah maybe on our side now like it's i
53:25mean it's not really about um uh ethics
53:28um
53:30but uh
53:32more a general metaphilosophical
53:33question about um
53:35what the
53:37the value of doing philosophy is um
53:40um and what value philosophy has to us
53:42individually and as a society i mean
53:44it's sort of a question about um related
53:46to
53:47um well values of relation ethics but
53:49more specifically about so i i i'm a
53:52quinian
53:54and as a coinan i think of philosophy as
53:56just very abstract and very general
53:58science and so the answer to that
54:01question is whatever value science and
54:04the
54:05expansion of human understanding that's
54:07uh
54:09driven by scientific advance is
54:11concerned that's
54:13that value also accrues to philosophy um
54:17what was it wilfred sellers again who
54:19said you know philosophy is supposed to
54:21tell us how
54:22in the broadest
54:23how broadly speaking things hang
54:25together um well that's what science is
54:28supposed to tell us and philosophy is
54:31um
54:33addresses those questions that the
54:34sciences have yet
54:37uh
54:39find themselves in a position
54:40systematically to address and to make
54:43sort of
54:44if not predictions at any rate arguments
54:46about what strategies the sciences ought
54:48to use in addressing those questions
54:51and what of course that means is that at
54:53the end of inquiry although we'll never
54:55know when we get to the end of inquiry
54:57there won't be any non-scientific
54:59questions left unanswered and so there
55:00won't be any philosophical any
55:02distinctively
55:04philosophical questions left um but
55:07since we're nowhere near
55:09that point and since humanity probably
55:11won't last long enough to get anywhere
55:13near that point the enduring value of
55:15philosophy remains
55:17unimpaired
55:20right
55:21yeah and and and a critic might say that
55:23like
55:24well this naturalistic uh darwinian
55:27picture
55:28um
55:29seems to
55:30support a nihilistic view
55:34regarding
55:35the meaningless meaning the
55:37meaninglessness of life and so forth
55:39why
55:41is that consistent with saying that well
55:43these sorts of
55:44um
55:47empirical intellectual endeavors are
55:49worth doing that's this is these are
55:50things that we value
55:52um well to say that we value them is
55:54quite different from saying they're
55:55worth doing say we value them as
55:58to say that we have subjective uh
56:01emotional attitudes that drive our
56:03behavior uh in ways that advance our the
56:07scientific agenda and i certainly assert
56:09that very firmly um
56:12can we go beyond the
56:15human emotional drives that expand
56:19human knowledge to
56:21some kind of
56:23value under the aspect of eternity um
56:26that makes uh meaningful
56:29our
56:31civilization and its most uh
56:35magnificent ornaments like natural
56:37science the answer is no
56:39in that respect i think
56:42nihilism
56:43if that's nihilism is the right view of
56:45things um and it's uh
56:48self deception to think otherwise now
56:51this is an another area in which
56:54the scientific philosopher differs from
56:57other naturalists so you've got whether
56:59it's sam harris who's not a philosopher
57:01but
57:02for these purposes takes views that we
57:05take seriously or dan dennett or other
57:07people who say that we can
57:09make sense
57:11darwinian sense indeed of the meaning of
57:14life that's the subtitle of dan's great
57:18book darwin's dangerous idea
57:20and
57:22it's a dispute that remains
57:24at least unresolved uh and in which
57:27um we scientistic philosophers continue
57:30to be a minority um
57:33it's uh i'm rather ashamed to say that
57:35the paper of mine written with tamler
57:38summers
57:40discussing dan's claim to the
57:44uh
57:45to the effect that darwin
57:47will convey or provide some
57:49meaningfulness to life but that paper is
57:52more widely cited by evangelical
57:55christians and acts and fundamentalist
57:58opponents of darwinism than any other
58:00paper i've ever written um
58:02and um
58:05nevertheless i i it may have had
58:08maybe it had a
58:09an unfavorable effect in in reducing
58:12acceptance of naturalism um
58:15uh and if that's true i'm sorry and
58:18might well in retrospect withdraw or
58:21wish it had never been published but i
58:23still believe it's true
58:26fair enough and yeah i definitely agree
58:28with a lot of what you say there like
58:30um
58:31to have the
58:33values that we have the motivations that
58:34we have to engage in sort of in certain
58:37intellectual endeavors and so forth
58:40what difference does it make and why
58:41would we be better off if there's some
58:43like
58:44cosmic value to some of the things we're
58:47exploring i just don't see i i think i'm
58:50on the same page as you is like but
58:53when and there are many other arguments
58:55for the same conclusion that have
58:56nothing to do with scientism or
58:58naturalism you know um
59:01uh parfits arguments at the end of
59:03reasons in person's uh the dismal
59:05conclusion um
59:07uh those arguments are sufficiently
59:10disturbing
59:12okay
59:12that they
59:15they pull out the rug from underneath a
59:17lot of
59:20pollyanna-like
59:22hopes for the amelioration of the human
59:25condition
59:26as we endlessly expand populations and
59:29the use of resources and the generation
59:31of entropy um
59:33you know maybe
59:35the solution to problems of global
59:37warming involve us walking back in
59:40in very opposite directions um
59:43and
59:44um uh
59:47i think the nihilist the nice nihilist
59:49is prepared to be more comfortable with
59:51those outcomes than
59:53um other more
59:55optimistic views about the human
59:58trajectory
1:00:02yeah that's
1:00:03you've given me a lot to think about
1:00:04there i think uh we'll
1:00:07it's been a great interview i think
1:00:08we'll wrap up the questions there um
1:00:10yeah thanks so much for for being here
1:00:12and taking my questions offering your
1:00:14your thoughtful responses well it's my
1:00:16pleasure and i have to say that i've
1:00:18done this uh
1:00:20several other times uh in the past and
1:00:23people can find
1:00:24um the online versions um but i think
1:00:28you've given me
1:00:29more opportunity to expound these views
1:00:32in ways that
1:00:34are illuminating especially to other
1:00:36philosophy students than a lot of these
1:00:39other interviews so
1:00:41um full speed ahead for you uh
1:00:44and i look forward to to listening to
1:00:46your doing the same job
1:00:49uh with a lot of other more
1:00:51distinguished philosophers
1:01:14you

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