Biological Naturalism Research Articles

On the Relationship between Subjective and Objective Properties in John Searle’s Biological Naturalism

The article examines John Searles’ theory of the relation between subjective and objective properties. Such relation is conceived by him as a peculiar way of causal supervenience, which consists of the relation between properties that cannot be identified as types. Since he conceives this supervenience as a mere result of the laws of nature, his ontology of the mind relapses into property dualism. Key words: Searle, supervenience, property dualism.

Biological macro-idea and criterion of osteopathic fracture immobilization in China's traditional mongolian medicine

ObjectiveTo investigate the biological macro-idea and criterion of osteopathic fracture immobilization in China's traditional Mongolian medicine. MethodsBased on biological naturalism regarding the relationship between man and universe (including psychosomatic integration) in osteopathic fracture immobilization in China's traditional Mongolian medicine, we used modern physiopsychological and biomechanical principles and methods to investigate the biological macro-characteristics of humanization, behaviorism, and wholism in “dynamic” fixation of fractures. ResultsOsteopathic fracture immobilization in China's traditional Mongolian medicine is based on the fixation criterion of macro-idea and method as well as on geometry, mechanics, motion, and stress and psychological stability in “non-sheltered fixation” of fractures contained in the life view of nature, regarding the relationship between man and universe (including psychosomatic integration) and on harmony between the limbs and the whole body, between body and function, and between man and nature. ConclusionsOsteopathic fracture immobilization in China's traditional Mongolian medicine is fixation without trauma or shelter. The principle and method of whole, dynamic, and functional fixation of fractures is not only radical, but also represents a new direction for developing the principle and method of fracture immobilization.

Intencionalidad sin naturalismo biológico

The Chinese Room argument is a variant of Turing’s test which enables Searle to defend his biological naturalism, according to which computation is neither sufficient nor constitutive of the mind. In this paper, I examine both strands of his anticomputationalist stance, argue that computation is constitutive of natural language understanding and suggest a path toward the physicalist reduction of intentionality for propositional speech acts.

Realism, Nominalism, and Biological Naturalism

Biological naturalism claims that all psychological phenomena can be causally, though not ontologically, reduced to neurological processes, where causal reduction is usually understood in terms of supervenience. After presenting John Searle's version of biological naturalism in some detail, I argue that the particular supervenience relation on which this account depends is dubious. Specifically, the fact that either realism or nominalism is the case implies that there is one fact about belief that does not supervene on neurophysiological processes. Biological naturalism is thereby defeated because it cannot account for belief. I also address three likely objections to this argument.

John Searle in the Year 2010—Reviews

I regard John Searle as one of the truly great philosophers of the last 50 years. He has developed J. L. Austin's sketch for a speech act theory into a systematic theory; he has within a naturalist framework created a specific nonreductionist theory of intentionality in which he has embedded his speech act theory; and he has used all this as a point of departure in creating a naturalist ontology of mind and social reality. Also, he has put forward a very interesting critique of the belief–desire model in the philosophy of action and rationality. I find it very odd that (if Wikipedia is correct) the series the Library of Living Philosophers seems not to be planning a volume for him. Last year, Searle published a new book, Making the Social World (MS), in which he summarizes most of his philosophical views and enters a new area, political philosophy; the last chapter contains a defense of human rights. In December 2009, Searle gave “The 13th Munster Lectures on Philosophy” and participated in a 2-day colloquium about his philosophy. This resulted in the anthology, John R. Searle. Thinking about the Real World (TR), where Searle gives a brief presentation of his philosophy and replies to criticism put forward in 11 multiauthored papers. It might be seen as a substitute for an LLP volume, were it not for the case that the philosophers behind the papers are not famous. In his introduction, Searle for the first time makes remarks on aesthetics and art. It is interesting to see how Searle develops his biological naturalism and social ontology into remarks on political philosophy and the philosophy of art, but it does not give rise to anything remarkably new in these areas; and he makes no effort to Int Ontology Metaphysics (2011) 12:73–85 DOI 10.1007/s12133-010-0073-z

Play redux: the form of computer games

This title presents a new look at digital gaming and the aesthetics of play. Play Redux is an ambitious description and critical analysis of the aesthetic pleasures of video game play, drawing on early 20th-century formalist theory and models of literature. Employing a concept of biological naturalism grounded in cognitive theory, Myers argues for a clear delineation between the aesthetics of play and the aesthetics of texts. In the course of this study, Myers asks a number of interesting questions: what are the mechanics of human play as exhibited in computer games; can these mechanisms be modeled; and, what is the evolutionary function of cognitive play, and is it, on the whole, a good thing. Intended as a provocative corrective to the currently ascendant, if not dominant, cultural and ethnographic approach to game studies and play, Play Redux will generate interest among scholars of communications, new media, and film.

CARACTERÍSTICAS E DIFICULDADES DO NATURALISMO BIOLÓGICO DE JOHN SEARLE

The paper aims at giving a general exposition of John Searle’s solution of the mind-body problem – biological naturalism – and examines its fundamental theses, and some of its consequences. The exam of such theses – which delineates the characteristics of Searle's theory – shows that the theory has three main difficulties, since it holds some assertions which at first sight seem to be incompatible.

Du nouveau chez les anciens.

Du nouveau chez les anciens. Aristote mentionne à deux reprises dans la Politique les projets de réforme de l’urbaniste géomètre Hippodamos de Milet. Ces passages sont à lire de très près. On y trouve une remarquable discussion de la question de l’importance politique de l’urbanisme, et de l’analogie que l’on peut faire entre le changement des structures urbaines et celui des lois de la polis . La position d’Aristote, difficile à bien cerner, est, comme souvent, balancée. Elle nous montre que les Anciens connaissaient la « querelle des Anciens et des Modernes », et l’auteur tente d’en tirer des enseignements quant aux rapports que des penseurs tels que Descartes, Hayek ou Popper ont pu établir entre urbanisme et réformisme. Une troisième voie est possible entre le « constructivisme » rationaliste et le « naturalisme » spontanéiste, comme Mill l’avait argué, avant Popper.

A Neural Turn? On the Ontology of the Geographical Subject

The modernist conception of the autonomous ‘subject’ as centred, sovereign, and coherently rational, acting intentionally, knowledgeably, and volitionally, has been challenged from a variety of sources, including poststructuralism, feminism, and posthumanism. A different kind of attack on the modernist subject has recently been staged by neurobiologists who have started to decentre the subject from within—to ‘naturalise’ (and materialise) the subject. This biological naturalism—the new ‘life sciences’—claims to challenge our conceptions of self, the ethical subject, and what we conceive of as ‘life’. But what conceptions we have of the configurations of the self is fundamental to our understandings and conceptions of ethics. This paper traces a debate between German neurobiologists and (post)humanist philosophers on the ontology of such things as ‘free will’, ‘ethical agency’, and the ‘self’ as an example of how the dispute between naturalists and nonnaturalist or postnaturalists is instrumental in sharpening our understanding of the self and of ethical agency. The paper argues that naturalism is bound to fail due to its inability to grasp the intersubjectivist nature of ethical agency, a theme which links up with recent geographical writing on ethics. I suggest, building on a recent contribution of Huib Ernste in this journal, that we should consider Helmuth Plessner's concept of eccentric positionality and ontology of the possible as a postmetaphysical kind of ethical humanism.

How Can Searle Avoid Property Dualism? Epistemic-Ontological Inference and Autoepistemic Limitation

Searle suggests biological naturalism as a solution to the mind-brain problem that escapes traditional terminology with its seductive pull towards either dualism or materialism. We reconstruct Searle's argument and demonstrate that it needs additional support to represent a position truly located between dualism and materialism. The aim of our paper is to provide such an additional argument. We introduce the concept of “autoepistemic limitation” that describes our principal inability to directly experience our own brain as a brain from the first-person perspective. The neglect of the autoepistemic limitation leads to inferences from epistemic properties to ontological features—we call this “epistemic-ontological inference.” Searle attempts to avoid such epistemic-ontological inference but does not provide a sufficient argument. Once the autoepistemic limitation is considered, epistemic-ontological inference can be avoided. As a consequence, one can escape traditional terminology with its seductive pull towards either dualism or materialism.

RESCUING RELIGIOUS NON‐REALISM FROM CUPITT

Don Cupitt's version of religious non‐realism based as it is on linguistic constructivism, radical relativism and the view that culture forms human nature has been attacked with devastating effect by realists in the last few years. I argue that there is another strand in Cupitt's thinking, his biological naturalism, that supports a different version of religious non‐realism and that he failed to see this possibility because of his global non‐realism and commitment to the strong programme in the sociology of scientific knowledge. Cupitt's biological naturalism should have led smoothly into evolutionary psychology, which has an account of religious belief that supports a non‐realist interpretation. Evolutionary psychology shows that religious beliefs are natural, normal and about matters of the deepest significance to humans. They gain their character from the operation of evolved structures of the mind and cannot be reduced to other sorts of belief. I argue that the form of religious non‐realism that emerges from taking biological naturalism seriously has a future because it respects the nature of religious belief and seeks to build on its capacity as a unique source of meaning in people's lives. There is also enough common ground with religious realism for there to be genuine dialogue between the two.

The Give and Take of Biological Naturalism

The Give and Take of Biological Naturalism

Is the world in the brain, or the brain in the world?

Lehar provides useful insights into spatially extended phenomenology that may have major consequences for neuroscience. However, Lehar's biological naturalism leads to counterintuitive conclusions, and he does not give an accurate account of preceding and competing work. This commentary compares Lehar's analysis with that of Velmans, which addresses similar issues but draws opposite conclusions. Lehar argues that the phenomenal world is in the brain and concludes that the physical skull is beyond the phenomenal world. Velmans argues that the brain is in the phenomenal world and concludes that the physical skull is where it seems to be.

Sexual Scripts: Origins, Influences and Changes

The rejection of explanations of sexuality rooted in biological naturalism and sociological functionalism was the first step in formulating the scripting perspective on sexual conduct. The complex relation between intrapsychic experience, interpersonal relationships and the intersubjective cultural surround was the focus of what was first conceived as a social learning approach to sexuality. This was later transformed into a social constructionist framework as the intellectual context of the social studies of sexuality changed under the influence of feminism, gay and lesbian studies, self-psychology, and new developments in social and sexual theory in England and on the Continent. The scripting perspective has remained remarkably robust and stable as an explanatory framework for sexual conduct which is responsive to a globally changing historical and cultural environment.

The Trouble With Searle's Biological Naturalism

John Searle's The Rediscovery of the Min is a sustained attempt to locate the mind and the mental firmly in the realm of the physical. “Consciousness”,claims Searle, “is just an ordinary biological feature of the world ... ” More specifically,“[t]he mental state of consciousness is just an ordinary biological, that is, physical featureof the brain”. Searle is adamant: “Consciousness, to repeat, is a natural biological phenomenon“. The purpose of this paper is to establish the claim that Searle's version of biologicalnaturalism, articulated in Rediscovery and defended elsewhere, is an incoherent theory of themind. I attempt to make good on this claim by showing (i) that Searle's biologicalnaturalism is committed to four claims which are individually plausible but not possiblefor Searle to hold simultaneously, (ii) that Searle's biological naturalism is, despiteSearle's protests to the contrary, a form of dualism, and therefore (iii) that Searle'sbiological naturalism is enmeshed in the same philosophical tradition from whichSearle claims to be departing, and finally (iv) that Searle's commitment to the jointnotions of nonreductivism and causal closure of the physical domain creates a problemhis theory of the mind lacks the resources to solve plausibly.

What versus how in naturally selected representations

Empty judgements appear to be about something, and inaccurate judgements to report something. Naturalism tries to explain these appearances without positing non-real objects or states of affairs. Biological naturalism explains that the false and the empty are tokens which fail to perform the function proper to their biological type. But if truth is a biological 'supposed to', we should expect designs that achieve it only often enough. The sensory stimuli which trigger the frog's gulp-launching signal may be a poor guide to the signal's content. Teleosemantics should be anti-verificationist.

Mental Causation in Searle's "Biological Naturalism"

Searle calls it Many other simple, easy, and obvious solutions are offered throughout the book, for example, to the problems of other minds (76), consciousness (93), and reductionism (18). The bad news, as you would expect, is that none of these solutions seem either simple or obvious; at least in the case of the mind-body problem, Searle's solution strikes me as fraught with ambiguities and difficulties-of the sorts that are not really new. There is much in Searle's book that I find refreshing and stimulating, and, on some important points-in particular, on the issue of the purported properties studied by cognitive science, namely formal/computational properties allegedly abstracted out of the physical/biological nature of cognitive agents-we are in basic sympathy, if not full agreement. But I believe that his biological naturalism, which provides the basic metaphysical scheme for him, needs to be rethought from the ground up. There might really be a simple solution to the mind-body problem, but I don't think we find it in Searle's biological naturalism. Why has practically everyone missed Searle's simple solution that, according to him, has been staring us in the face for a hundred years? According to Searle's recounting of the history of philosophy of mind, it's because most of us, including contemporary materialists and functionalists, are still in the