Customer Reviews

Naturalizing the Mind (Jean Nicod Lectures)

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In terms of quality, this book is a real mixed bag. The first third is genuinely good. Dretske lays out his subject matter quite well, making some very good distinctions, such as systemic vs. acquired representations, doxastic vs. phenomenal appearances, etc. His discussion about the role of representations in transmitting information is pretty damn right on.

The next third, though.... Generally speaking, I have very little patience for externalist viewpoints, even about something as ontologically gossamer as, say, meaning. Dretske, to be brief, is an externalist about phenomenality (as far as I can tell). He's led to this by his viewpoints on how phenomenality is intimately related to representationality. I think this is just insane. Representation has the approximate ontological status of meaning, or numbers...phenomenality has a far more solid ontological status than, well, anything.

Finally, in the last third, Dretske says some things that are frankly ugly. Among these are that awareness of our phenomenal states is limited by our conceptual resources (not awareness that they are blah blah blah, but just awareness of--if this were true by the way, consciousness could have no role in concept formation), and that there is no real mystery about the function of consciousness because it's just obvious that awareness increases fitness. I had a hard time believing I had read that part, actually. It would be as though someone were to "explain" the stickiness of pollen by saying "sticky pollen is more apt to make it to another plant and reproduce sexually" -- i.e. with no mention of bees.