Mysteries and Scandals. Transcendental Naturalism and the Future of Philosophy

PEREZ, DIANA INÉS

Critica

UNAM

Lugar: Mexico DF; Año: 2005 vol. 37 p. 35 - 52

0011-1503

In this paper I shall present McGinn´s Transcendental Naturalism (TN) and the reasons he gives in order to show that philosophy will always be just a cluster of mysteries without answers. TN is a conjunction of two theses: (I) consciousness is a natural phenomenon, and its relation to the brain is also a natural relation (metaphysical thesis) and (II) the answer to the question “how is it possible for conscious states to arise out of brain states?” is beyond our cognitive capacities: we are not able to understand this natural relation holding between the mental and the physical. (epistemic thesis).   I shall show that the three main arguments he gives for TN are inconclusive (#2) and that a modular architecture of the mind he presuposes is not committed to the epistemic thesis of TN, the idea that we are “cognitively closed” to answering some questions about consciousness, meaning, knowledge and the like (#3).