Philosophy & Our Mental Life - Hilary Putnam (1973)

The question which troubles laymen, and which has long troubled philosophers, even if it is somewhat disguised by today's analytic style of writing philosophy, is this: Are we made of matter or soul-stuff? To put it as bluntly as possible, are we just material beings, or are we "something more"? In this talk, Hilary Putnam argues that this whole question rests on false assumptions. His purpose is not to dismiss the question, however, so much as to speak to the real concern which is behind the question. The real concern is, he thinks, with the autonomy of our mental life. People are worried that we may be debunked, that our behavior may be exposed as really explained by something mechanical. In this talk, part of what Hilary Putnam wants to do is to argue that this can't happen. Mentality is a real and autonomous feature of our world. But even more important is the fact that this whole question has nothing to do with our substance. Strange as it may seem to common sense and to sophisticated intuition alike, the question of the autonomy of our mental life does not hinge on and has nothing to do with that all too popular, all too old question about matter or soul-stuff. We could be made of Swiss cheese and it wouldn't matter.

This talk was presented as part of a symposium on "Computers and the Mind" at the University of California (Berkeley) in 1973.

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00:00 Intro by Searle
01:47 The Talk

#Philosophy #Consciousness #Mind

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