Author: chrucky

what secular philosophy– epistemology–ontology — axiology, methodology — seems most plausible–has verisimilitude

ChatGPT said:

Great question—you’re asking which secular philosophical systems (across epistemology, ontology, axiology, and methodology) seem to have the greatest verisimilitude—i.e., seem most likely to be true or closely approximate truth.

Here’s a synthesized, plausible constellation across the categories that many contemporary philosophers and scientifically-minded thinkers find compelling:

1. Epistemology: Fallibilist Empiricism + Bayesian Rationalism

Why plausible:

• Fallibilism acknowledges that all knowledge is provisional and subject to revision.
• Empiricism grounds knowledge in sensory experience, with science as the most successful epistemic method.
• Bayesian rationalism incorporates probability and uncertainty, offering a rigorous framework for updating beliefs.

Verisimilitude:

• Reflects how actual human cognition works.
• Underpins the success of the scientific method.
• Accommodates both empirical data and rational inference.

2. Ontology: Naturalistic Physicalism (with Structural Realism)

Why plausible:

• Naturalism holds that everything arises from natural properties and causes, excluding supernatural explanations.
• Physicalism maintains that everything is physical or supervenes on the physical.
• Structural realism (especially epistemic structural realism) acknowledges that we may only grasp the structure of reality, not its intrinsic nature.

Verisimilitude:

• Matches scientific progress in physics, biology, neuroscience.
• Avoids naive realism but maintains objectivity.
• Explains the unity of the sciences and avoids dualism.

3. Axiology: Secular Humanism + Moral Constructivism (or Moral Realism with Caution)

Why plausible:

• Secular humanism centers on human flourishing, dignity, and well-being without appealing to divine command.
• Moral constructivism sees moral truths as constructed through rational, social processes—aligned with Rawls, Korsgaard.
• Alternatively, a modest moral realism posits that some moral truths (e.g., suffering is bad) might be objective or intersubjectively convergent.

Verisimilitude:

• Matches widespread moral intuitions.
• Adapts to pluralistic, democratic societies.
• Compatible with psychology, evolutionary theory, and cooperation-based ethics.

4. Methodology: Critical Rationalism + Pragmatism

Why plausible:

• Critical rationalism (Karl Popper): Emphasizes conjecture and refutation—knowledge grows through criticism.
• Pragmatism (Peirce, James, Dewey): Ties truth to practical consequences and inquiry.
• These approaches avoid dogmatism and focus on what works, what predicts, and what can be falsified.

Verisimilitude:

• Grounds science and democratic discourse.
• Adaptive to new data and changing contexts.
• Integrates theory with real-world application.

Summary of a Coherent Secular Framework with High Verisimilitude

Would you like me to map this onto specific philosophers or schools of thought? Or compare this framework to religious or non-naturalist alternatives?

You said:

philosophers and schools

ChatGPT said:

Absolutely—let’s map each of the philosophical domains (epistemology, ontology, axiology, methodology) onto specific secular philosophers and schools that best exemplify the views with high verisimilitude (as discussed). I’ll include both classical and contemporary thinkers where helpful.

1. Epistemology

View: Fallibilist Empiricism + Bayesian Rationalism

Philosophers:

• Karl Popper – Critical Rationalism; emphasized falsifiability and fallibilism.
• W.V.O. Quine – Naturalized epistemology; knowledge is empirical and theory-laden.
• Thomas Bayes / Richard Jeffrey – Foundations of Bayesian inference.
• David Hume – Empiricism and skepticism about induction.
• Hilary Putnam – Internal realism; helped balance rationalism and empiricism.

Schools:

• Logical Empiricism (Carnap, Reichenbach)
• Bayesian Epistemology
• Critical Rationalism (Popper)
• Naturalized Epistemology (Quine, Churchland)

Core idea: Knowledge is provisional, theory-laden, probabilistic, and grounded in empirical input and reasoned inference.

2. Ontology

View: Naturalistic Physicalism + Structural Realism

Philosophers:

• Wilfrid Sellars – Bridged scientific realism and the manifest image.
• James Ladyman – Proponent of Ontic Structural Realism.
• Daniel Dennett – Consciousness and mind as emergent physical processes.
• David Papineau – Physicalist account of consciousness and causation.
• B.F. Skinner / Paul Churchland – Reductionist / eliminativist physicalism.

Schools:

• Physicalism / Materialism
• Scientific Realism
• Structural Realism
• Naturalism

Core idea: Reality is fundamentally physical, structured, and best understood through the lens of science. Our models may only grasp its relational structure.

3. Axiology (Value Theory, Ethics, Aesthetics)

View: Secular Humanism + Moral Constructivism (or Cautious Realism)

Philosophers:

• John Rawls – Justice as fairness, a constructivist in moral theory.
• Christine Korsgaard – Kantian constructivist ethics.
• Peter Singer – Utilitarianism based on reducing suffering (secular humanist).
• Derek Parfit – Moral realism with an emphasis on reason and identity.
• Martha Nussbaum – Capabilities approach to human flourishing.

Schools:

• Secular Humanism
• Moral Constructivism (Rawls, Korsgaard)
• Utilitarianism (Mill, Singer)
• Moral Realism (Parfit, Scanlon)
• Evolutionary Ethics (Darwinian roots of moral behavior)

Core idea: Moral value is grounded in human needs, flourishing, and reasoned agreement—not divine command or cosmic teleology.

4. Methodology

View: Critical Rationalism + Pragmatism

Philosophers:

• Karl Popper – Conjectures and refutations.
• Charles Sanders Peirce – Scientific method and fallibilism.
• William James – Pragmatism and truth as what works in the long run.
• John Dewey – Inquiry, democracy, and experimentalism in knowledge.
• Imre Lakatos – Research programs in science.

Schools:

• Pragmatism (Peirce, James, Dewey)
• Critical Rationalism (Popper)
• Methodological Naturalism
• Post-Positivism

Core idea: The best method for approaching truth is through critical inquiry, practical testing, and openness to revision based on consequences and evidence.

Summary Table

You said:

is reductive or emergentist materialism more plausible

ChatGPT said:

Excellent question—and a central one in contemporary philosophy of mind, metaphysics, and science.

Let’s break this down clearly:

The Question:

Which has more verisimilitude—reductive materialism or emergentist materialism?

Reductive Materialism:

All mental or higher-level phenomena are fully reducible to physical processes—ultimately describable in the language of physics.

• Minds reduce to brains.
• Biology reduces to chemistry.
• Chemistry reduces to physics.

Championed by:

• Early physicalists (J.J.C. Smart, U.T. Place)
• Daniel Dennett (in a qualified way)
• Paul Churchland (eliminativist spin)

Emergentist Materialism:

While everything is physical, higher-level properties (like consciousness, life, social behavior) emerge from—but are not reducible to—lower-level processes.

• The whole is more than the sum of its parts.
• Still fully naturalist and physicalist, but allows for novel causal powers at higher levels.

Championed by:

• Jaegwon Kim (early, then became skeptical)
• David Chalmers (naturalistic dual-aspect views)
• Roger Sperry (non-reductive physicalism)
• Terrence Deacon, William Wimsatt (complex systems theorists)

Comparative Analysis

So, which is more plausible today?

Emergentist Materialism appears more plausible (has greater verisimilitude) IF:

• You take consciousness, intentionality, and normativity seriously.
• You want to align with actual scientific methodology (biology, neuroscience, sociology use irreducible vocabularies).
• You believe reductionism oversimplifies the richness of complex systems.

Reductive Materialism still seems plausible IF:

• You think the “hard problem” is a confusion or will dissolve with better neuroscience.
• You favor elegance and parsimony over explanatory pluralism.
• You accept eliminativism about mental concepts (e.g., beliefs, desires are folk relics).

Scientific Alignment:

Modern sciences—from systems biology to neuroscience to complex systems theory—increasingly favor non-reductive or emergentist models:

• Consciousness is seen as a global, integrated phenomenon (Tononi’s IIT, Global Workspace Theory).
• Biology resists full reduction to physics (epigenetics, regulatory networks).
• AI systems show emergent behavior not explicitly programmed.

Final Verdict:

Emergentist Materialism better fits the current state of scientific understanding and philosophical reflection on mind, complexity, and causation—though it raises difficult metaphysical questions about how emergence works without reintroducing dualism.

So it wins on verisimilitude, despite being less parsimonious.

what do you know about james cornman

ChatGPT said:

Great — you’re interested in James Welton Cornman, the philosopher. Here’s a more in-depth look at his life, work, and philosophical contributions:

James W. Cornman (1929–1978) – American Philosopher

Biography

• Born: August 16, 1929
• Died: May 31, 1978
• Education:
  • B.A. in Philosophy – Dartmouth College (1951)
  • M.A. (1953) and Ph.D. (1955) – Brown University
• Academic Positions:
  • Ohio State University – Assistant Professor
  • University of Rochester – Associate Professor
  • University of Pennsylvania (1967–1978):
    • Full Professor of Philosophy
    • Department Chair (1970–1972)

Philosophical Contributions

James Cornman worked primarily in epistemology, metaphysics, and philosophy of perception. He focused on:

• Skepticism and how knowledge can be justified
• The relationship between common sense and scientific realism
• Materialism and the nature of mental states

He was known for engaging deeply with analytic philosophy and responding to thinkers like A.J. Ayer, G.E. Moore, and Roderick Chisholm.

Major Works

Philosophical Orientation

• Realist about the external world
• Sympathetic to materialism and scientific realism
• Interested in how ordinary language interacts with philosophical problems

Legacy

Cornman passed away relatively young (age 48), but his works remain part of philosophical discussions, particularly in epistemology and the philosophy of mind. His writings are still cited in academic literature for their clarity and rigor in dealing with foundational philosophical problems.

Would you like a summary of any of his specific books or ideas (like his view on skepticism or perception)?

You said:

what is his stand on the manifest-scientific image compatibility

ChatGPT said:

James W. Cornman took a moderately reconciliatory stance on the compatibility of the manifest image and the scientific image—a conceptual division introduced by Wilfrid Sellars.

Let’s break this down:

Background: Sellars’ Distinction

• Manifest Image: The world as it appears to us—common-sense experiences, intentions, values, persons, etc.
• Scientific Image: The world described by scientific theory—atoms, molecules, fields, forces, etc.

Sellars argued these are not fully compatible, and that philosophy should aim to fuse them into a unified view.

Cornman’s Position

Cornman broadly agrees with Sellars’ framework, but he’s less pessimistic about integrating the two images. In his work—especially in Perception, Common Sense and Science (1975)—he explores how the scientific image can reinterpret, rather than replace, the manifest image.

Key Points of Cornman’s View:

1. Epistemic Caution but Optimism:
   • He acknowledges the tension between the two images but argues that science need not completely discard the manifest image.
   • Scientific theories can explain why the manifest image appears as it does (e.g., perceptual illusions) without denying its utility or reality.
2. Phenomenal vs. Theoretical Reality:
   • Cornman sees phenomenal experience (how things appear to us) as real and worthy of explanation, not just illusion.
   • Science, in his view, can explain the mechanisms behind appearances while still validating the role of appearances in guiding action and belief.
3. Reinterpretation, Not Elimination:
   • The manifest image may be reinterpreted in light of science (e.g., the table is not solid but made of atoms), but it isn’t eliminated.
   • He aligns with a kind of constructive realism, where the manifest image is still important for human understanding and moral life.
4. Bridge via Perception and Language:
   • In his work on perception, Cornman tries to show that sense-data theories and scientific realism can be compatible through a careful analysis of how language and experience interact.

In Summary:

If you’d like, I can also give a focused summary of Cornman’s critique or expansion of Sellars’ ideas directly, or how this view connects to modern debates in philosophy of mind and science.

You said:

was he an emergentist

ChatGPT said:

James W. Cornman was not an emergentist in the traditional or strong metaphysical sense, but he did explore views that interacted with or resembled aspects of emergentism, particularly in his work on materialism and mental states.

Let’s clarify what this means:

What Is Emergentism?

Emergentism is the idea that:

• Higher-level properties (like consciousness or mental states) arise from lower-level physical systems (like neurons),
• But these properties are not reducible to, nor fully explainable by, those lower-level components.
• There are “emergent laws” or causal powers that operate at higher levels.

So, a classic emergentist would say that while the brain gives rise to the mind, the mind has genuinely new properties that are not predictable or deducible from brain activity alone.

Cornman’s View: Materialism with Nuance

In his 1971 book Materialism and Sensations, Cornman defends a version of materialism (or physicalism), but one that tries to accommodate the reality and explanatory importance of mental phenomena.

Key aspects of Cornman’s view:

1. Rejects Dualism:
   • Cornman is committed to materialism—he does not believe in non-physical minds or souls.
   • All phenomena, including mental states, ultimately depend on physical processes.
2. Mental States Are Real:
   • He doesn’t reduce mental states to mere behaviors or brain states in a simplistic way.
   • He acknowledges the qualitative, subjective character of sensations (what philosophers call qualia) and tries to explain them within a materialist framework.
3. Emergentist Flavor (without full commitment):
   • While he stops short of strong emergentism, Cornman is open to the idea that mental properties may supervene on physical ones in non-reductive ways.
   • He seems sympathetic to non-reductive materialism, where higher-level phenomena (like consciousness) depend on but are not identical to physical processes.
4. Explanation Through Correlation, Not Reduction:
   • He suggests that a one-to-one correlation between physical and mental states may be enough for explanation—even if reduction isn’t possible.
   • This is more conservative than emergentism but not eliminative of the mental realm.

Conclusion:

Cornman was not a strong emergentist like C.D. Broad or Samuel Alexander.
But he was also not a reductive physicalist in the strictest sense.

He occupies a middle ground:
A materialist who recognized the autonomy and explanatory importance of mental phenomena,
With a position that might be best described today as non-reductive physicalism or “emergentist-leaning materialism”.

Would you like a comparison between his view and someone like Jaegwon Kim (who critiques emergentism), or between Cornman and modern thinkers like David Chalmers or Thomas Nagel?

You said:

compare to all three

ChatGPT said:

Excellent — let’s compare James W. Cornman to Jaegwon Kim, David Chalmers, and Thomas Nagel in terms of their views on mind-body relations, emergence, and materialism.

Overview of Philosophers

Key Issues Compared

1. Mind–Body Problem

2. Emergence

3. Consciousness and Qualia

4. Attitude Toward Science and Reduction

Summary Table

Final Verdict on Cornman in Context

• Cornman is less radical than Chalmers or Nagel and more cautious than Kim.
• His position predates the hard problem discourse but grapples with similar tensions.
• He seeks to preserve the reality of mental experience without abandoning materialism, making him an early voice in what would become the non-reductive materialist camp.
• Unlike Chalmers and Nagel, he trusts science’s explanatory potential more, though not to the point of eliminativism like Kim leaned toward.

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