A New Hope?

This is the end of my journey through philosophy, courtesy of Facebook. There are no more posts to transfer across. My plan is to make one last post on Facebook, which refers anyone interested to this blog.

Although the journey through Facebook is ended, the philosophical quest, itself, goes on. The point at which I stopped was as far as I have gone and, I believe, as far as anyone has gone. Richard is still to reply to that all defining post and it may be that that will be the next event. I will ask him. Beyond that I think I need to take stock of what has been said and what is missing. After all, I began in an orderly fashion but long since lost the well prepared script! In the year I was born, Gilbert Ryle wrote his seminal book "The Concept of Mind" and I am ever conscious that I have, until now, made no reference to him. He represents one end of the spectrum of argument, being a hard line materialist. Descartes represents the other end, as a dualist and many fall in between the two.

The academic in me wants to define each contributor carefully. If I do that then I will, in all probability, contribute nothing new to the debate, except a magnificent work of reference! So, without too much delay, I will press on to the edge of the goldfish bowl...

Peter Rayner

Tags: hope Facebook quest Gilbert Ryle The Concept of Mind materialist Descartes dualist goldfish bowl

An Encounter With Facebook

It has been quite some time since I started this blog and posted the beginnings of what I hope will be an epic journey into the realms of the philosophy of science. I have been away, but not idle. My natural, in fact abnormal, curiosity has led me to explore many other treasures around the web and, before I knew it, many months had gone by. Along the way I found myself caught up with one of those many phenomena which the web throws up (good choice of words there) in the form of Facebook. The addiction which followed was akin to an illness but, happily, one from which I am now cured. Apart from a slight twitch in my right eye, I promise you, I am my "normal" (bad choice of words there) self.

Along the way I found a philosophy site called The Philosophy Pages which, I think, had been hacked and fled to Facebook to seek refuge. This is, basically, a forum for anyone to express ideas and raise topics on any aspect of philosophy. The main site still exists but from what I discovered by writing to the manager no longer receives the attention it deserves since the manager has too many other responsibilities. I am sorry to say that most of what I read in the forums was complete rubbish, high on opinion and mostly totally lacking in argument or anything that might pass for proof. There was the odd exception and I was lucky enough to find it in the person of an esteemed gentleman called Richard Debnam. I replied to his first few posts and from then entered into what turned out to be quite a fascinating exchange.

I have, now, decided to leave Facebook, to all intents and purposes, but felt I should rescue this philosophical discussion, so I am transporting it over to this weblog. It may take a little while because I will need to edit it item by item but I hope it will prove worthwhile.

Since all of it is relevant to my original purpose it does not really detract from that, other than to say that the tidy and systematic account I had planned will now be untidy and unsystematic. That's Life (note the capital!)

Pierre

Tags: philosophy of science Facebook The Philosophy Pages forums Richard Debnam