"Because the empirical possibility that intentionality is a kind of
cognitive mirage, that meaning is merely an ‘informatic blur,’ is very
real. Naturalism has to be as open as science is open to be naturalism."
The very logic that informs this sentence refutes the idea that logic is simply an extrusion of neuron firings in a healthy human brain. Back to the lab, Mr. Eliminativist.
Question begging. When the thesis is, 'Your logic may not be what you think it is,' saying, 'You have to use my logic to say that!' amounts to little more than foot stomping.
ReplyDeleteWhat you need, it seems to me, is a genuine semantic autonomy argument. And it's not easy, simply because it entails arguing against the very plausible empirical *possibility* that we evolved in such a way that we are profoundly misled by our metacognitive intuitions regarding our cognitive intuitions. I just can't see any a priori way of doing this, simply because doing so entails assuming the very semantic autonomy you're attempting to secure.
It's a nasty little argument. One that's bedevilled me for quite some time. I welcome you to bring the debate to TPB, though. The Manifesto needs to be *publicly* countered on the same forum. People get lazy when it comes to links, I find.