Universal Acid
Posted by | Anonymous | 4.1.11 | 1 Comment
Reading the Stengers chapter in The Speculative Turn when I ought to be writing about noumenal causation, I came across this paragraph about eliminativisim and Dennett (et al):
The universal acid of the so-called dangerous idea of Darwin is just what is needed. It brings no effective understanding of evolutionary processes but is eliminating, dissolving away, all reasons to resist the redefinition of humans as a piece of engineering that can be understood in terms of algorithms, and modified at will. And those who struggle against this operative redefinition of our worlds will have against them the authority of reason and science.
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5/1/11 02:27
Stengers' diatribe against Dennett in the Speculative Turn demonstrates a culpable ignorance of his work. Dennett's position in the philosophy cognitive science is naturalistic but pluralist insofar as it accommodates multiple equally real grains of reality, each accessible to different 'stances'. So for Dennett the design stance, which opens up sub-personal processes and agents in the mind to functional analysis does not disclose patterns that are in any sense more real than those opened up by the personal level intentional stance. How is this eliminativism? Moreover, Dennett has consistently argued for role of culture and narration in structuring agency and consciousness. What dreck!