Emotions, Embodied Cognition and the Adaptive Unconscious by John A. Smith

Author:John A. Smith [Smith, John A.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, General, Sociology, Women's Studies
ISBN: 9780429675799
Google: KKf7DwAAQBAJ
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2020-10-29T03:29:25+00:00

Chapter 8

Towards an ecology of the senses

Introduction

I want to emphasise that this chapter will not be about the detailed, ecological operation of the senses but rather about the need to re-engineer the philosophy of the senses in order to make that possible. Put radically, I want to argue that our routine philosophy of the senses is deeply wrong, not simply misguided or amendable. A new ecological ground is, then, imperative. Part of the case I shall argue is that the demise of onto-theology – the death of God – certainly propels critical re-evaluation such that ‘revelation’ has to be superseded by critical doubt and scientific method. However, we are then left with an abyss: that which we can prove or address as having a high degree of certainty can, so to speak, look after itself. But the mundane matters of sensing, generalising, or understanding in the ordinary sense have become routinely seen by the critical imperative as groundless, contingent, matters of belief, perspective, or dispute. They have become conventional in the strict sense: could have been otherwise. This precarious characterisation of sensate impressions and their discursive ‘conclusions’ is deeply problematic not only for our current opinions but for the entire viability of adaptive evolution. Put radically, the critical perspective of Socrates, Kant or Hume and their contemporary expression in writers such as Foucault is not compatible at all with evolution. This, then, is where the adaptive topography of organism and environment comes into focus. To develop that will be my primary concern. I begin with Kant.

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