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Call number: LD2668 .T4 1985 S36 / Master of Science

This thesis investigates an understanding of the relationship between mind and world which avoids defining the former as a naturalizable entity and the latter as identifiable with the world described by the natural sciences. I recommend paying closer attention to the notion of person and to our practical encounter with the world. I reject the idea of the world's having a given structure which is independent of our knowledge of it and, consequently, any conception of knowledge as a search for free-standing essences. I start by criticizing the project of naturalizing intentionality in general, and the content of mental states in particular. I focus on Fodor's language of thought and his explication of semantic relations as relations between individual mental representations and isolated features of the world. I argue that this sort of account leads to scepticism or to postulating pre-established harmony. An alternative, Davidsonian framework which highlights the interdependence of meaning and knowledge is explored. Following the Kantian line opened by McDowell, I propose pursuing Davidson's philosophy to its ultimate consequences and defend a non-foundationalist role for experience, oppose Davidson's inconsistent deferentialist attitude to physical processes, and suggest retaining the idea of mental causation by defining causation in terms of explanatory practices rather than laws. From this perspective minds cease to be bundles of mysterious internal states of organisms which need relating to tangible matter. Instead, sense is made of people's dealings with the world in terms of their interaction with each other, their ability to communicate, and the rationality and normativity which regulates their lives. I argue that it is only from this perspective that claims of knowledge can be made, and that attempts at reducing normativity to the supposedly descriptive stance of science eliminate the grounds for maintaining that such attempts should be taken as true or correct.

Embodied accounts contend that word meaning is grounded in sensory-motor representation. In support of this view, research has found rapid motor priming effects for words like eagle or shoe, which differ as to whether they are typically associated with an up or down spatial direction. These priming effects are held to be the result of motor representations evoked as an obligatory part of understanding the meaning of a word. In a series of experiments, we show that prime words associated with up or down spatial locations produce vertical perturbations in the horizontal movements of a computer mouse, but that these effects are contingent either on directing conscious attention to the spatial meaning of the word, or on the inclusion of the primed spatial direction in the response set, and that this is true even for strongly spatial words such as up and down. These results show that the motor representations associated with such words are not automatically evoked during reading. We discuss implications for claims that spatial representations reflect our embodied perception of the world. / Graduate

published_or_final_version / Literary and Cultural Studies / Master / Master of Arts

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In this essay I defend a skeptical thesis about the meaning of life: I argue that a meaningful life is impossible. I begin by examining the attempts of several philosophers to dismiss questions of the possibility of a meaningful life as either senseless or having an affirmative answer so obvious that serious philosophical scrutiny is rendered pointless. These philosophers, I argue, offer no conclusive arguments. I proceed to consider some skeptical arguments about the meaning of life. Although these arguments are suggestive, I maintain that they are undeveloped at crucial points, and thus unconvincing. To defend my skeptical thesis, I develop an account of a necessary condition for a meaningful life. I argue that in order for a person to have a meaningful life, he must be engaged in some activity of sufficient importance so that failure in that activity would constitute a good reason for feeling a painful retrospective attitude which I call remorse. I argue that one is justified in feeling remorse, in my sense, only when one fails in the attempt to realize some desire for a categorical good, that is, a desire for something which is good independently of how one happens to feel about it. I argue that we lack good reason for thinking that such justification exists. It follows that we lack good reason for feeling what I call remorse and thus for believing we might have a meaningful life.

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The controversial play Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett is a play in which nothing but waiting really seems to happen. Throughout the play, the two characters Vladimir and Estragon continue waiting for Godot despite the fact that he never comes. While they are waiting they appear to conduct absurd and meaningless exchanges and games to pass the time. This essay explores the nature of the waiting for the absent character Godot: what is implied by this persistent waiting and what is the result of them doing so? The essay tries to explain the waiting through exploring the ideas of habit. Furthermore, it also deals with existential theories of consciousness and meaning through the ideas of Sartre. The essay argues that the meaning of the play emerges through the two characters’ act of waiting, and that the seemingly meaningless activities that Vladimir and Estragon perform are highly important as they provide the two characters with their raison d’être. The essay also shows that the two characters’ existence is dependent on Godot, because through the acknowledgement that he exists and in the hope that he will come to save them, they create their own rationale for waiting, regardless of it being true or not. Thus Vladimir and Estragon are able to create their meaning by choosing to continue waiting for Godot. They are also able to create this meaning through the conscious interaction between their surroundings and one another by the games they play while waiting. The essay also argues that the waiting is a conscious choice, and that the seemingly unreflective habitual games they play are as well. Furthermore, the choice of waiting is then reflected in the audience by their conscious choice to watch the play and join the character in their waiting for Godot. Thus, Beckett has created a play in which the focus is the experience and meaning of waiting, regardless of whether the one on which we are waiting will come or not.