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Paul Sheldon Davies, ""

Being human while trying to scientifically study human nature confronts us with our most vexing problem. Efforts to explicate the human mind are thwarted by our cultural biases and entrenched infirmities; our first-person experiences as practical agents convince us that we have capacities beyond the reach of scientific explanation. What we need to move forward in our understanding of human agency, Paul Sheldon Davies argues, is a reform in the way we study ourselves and a long overdue break with traditional humanist thinking.

Davies locates a model for change in the rhetorical strategies employed by Charles Darwin in On the Origin of Species. Darwin worked hard to anticipate and diminish the anxieties and biases that his radically historical view of life was bound to provoke. Likewise, Davies draws from the history of science and contemporary psychology and neuroscience to build a framework for the study of human agency that identifies and diminishes outdated and limiting biases. The result is a heady, philosophically wide-ranging argument in favor of recognizing that humans are, like everything else, subjects of the natural world—an acknowledgement that may free us to see the world the way it actually is.

Summary: conforming our concepts

Rating: 5

I am only a little ways into this book but I am finding Davies presents a truly compassionate interpretation of the implications of naturalism.

A problem he underscores early on is that some of our best naturalists have not been naturalistic enough.

Davies identifies malformed concepts adopted before an inquiry is conducted as biasing the entire process. He insists that if we are careful, then we can get our concepts to conform to the way nature is. He likens the process to one of exploring the world while gathering real knowledge about the realm we explore. We can take charge of the enterprise.

I am also very pleased to discover that Davies complements very nicely the work done by Peter Munz in Critique of Impure Reason: An Essay on Neurons, Somatic Markers, and Consciousness

Sooner or later, we humans simply must accept the fact that a lot of what goes on in our brains and nervous systems occurs in ways not available to our introspection.

I also find that Dale Jacquette's Ontology has motivated me to seek the kind of kind-hearted treatment of investigating nature that Davies exhibits in this book.

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Rating:
2.5 out of 5 by Book123