[MD] The other side of reified

[MarshaV]

  :-)   


On Jun 7, 2011, at 2:44 PM, John Carl wrote:

> That was a good one, Marsha.  Shows the value in wading through my old
> unreadthreads when we get a stormy day like today and I'm off work.  I like
> the way this guy thinks and expresses himself, but you know that.  Here he
> makes explicit a criticism of James that I've never formulated so rigorously
> myself, but recognize as a problem I've had with him from day one in an
> intuitive way and a reaction against him.  Specifically what caught my
> attention was what the author himself labels "crucial" that "neither
> conceptual framework is inherent in the nature of pure experience".
> 
> This is key!  Thanks for bringing it.
> 
> John
> 
> On Wed, Jun 1, 2011 at 11:34 AM, MarshaV <valkyr at att.net> wrote:
> 
>> dmb
>> 
>> Please note the statement  "James seems to have fallen into the trap of
>> reifying his own concept of a field of consciousness" :
>> 
>>   "The asymmetry in James's view of mind and matter may be due in part to
>> his advocacy of a "field theory" of consciousness, in contrast to an
>> "atomistic theory," which he vigorously rejects.  I would argue, however,
>> that the nature of consciousness does not intrinsically conform either to a
>> field theory or an atomistic theory.  Rather, different kinds of conscious
>> events become apparent when inspected from the perspective of each of these
>> different conceptual frameworks.  Using James's field theory, one may
>> ascertain an individual, discrete continuum of awareness; and using the
>> atomic theory one may discern within the stream of consciousness discrete
>> moments of awareness and individual, constituent mental factors of those
>> moments.  Thus, while certain features of consciousness may be perceived
>> only within the conceptual framework of a field theory, others may be
>> observed only in terms of an atomistic theory.  This complementarity is
>> reminiscent of the relation between part
>> icle and field theories of mass/energy in modern physics.  The crucial
>> point here is that neither conceptual framework is inherent in the nature of
>> pure experience.  James seems to have fallen into the trap of reifying his
>> own concept of a field of consciousness, and this may have prevented him
>> from determining, even to his own satisfaction, the way in which
>> consciousness does and does not exist.
>> 
>>      (Wallace, B. Alan, 'The Taboo of Subjectivity: Towards a New Science
>> of Consciousness')
>> 
>> 
>> 
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