Epicureanism: A Very Short Introduction by Catherine Wilson

Author:Catherine Wilson
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780199688326
Publisher: OUP Oxford
Published: 2015-10-13T04:00:00+00:00

Materialism today

Although several hundred years of research on the nervous system have elapsed since Descartes took up the problem of the relationship of experience to the brain, it remains mysterious how physical and chemical entities such as neurons, synapses, ions, and neurotransmitters make a world appear to us and enable us to think, plan, experience emotions, act and react, do mathematics and science, and create works of art. To what extent, one might wonder, is materialism a live option, and how might contemporary materialism differ from the Epicurean account of the material soul and its workings?

The three alternatives to materialism just cited suffer from serious weaknesses. Causal interaction between an incorporeal soul and a corporeal body is impossible to conceptualize on any model of causal interaction we possess, and no one has any idea what a soul, released by death from its former body, could do or experience. Panpsychism was already rejected as ridiculous by Lucretius; it cannot explain why a collection of individual atomic perceptions should combine into an organism’s individual, personal experiences. Kantian nescience seems an exaggerated response to a difficulty and a deterrent to future research. Perhaps philosophy cannot make any headway on the mind–body problem as long as it employs its traditional methods of making up imaginary scenarios and finding faults in abstract arguments, but for philosophy to pronounce a priori on what the empirical sciences can accomplish in this regard seems pretentious.

In considering the problem of how mind, brain, and world are related, we should accept that first, insofar as particles of ‘solid matter’, with their shapes, sizes, and weights, no longer play the role in our physics of fundamental entities, materialism, in the sense in which the Epicureans and their early modern successors understood it, is obsolete.

Further, no contemporary investigator will accept ‘soul atoms’ diffused through the body and capable of rendering it sensitive and lively. The neo-materialist, faithful to the spirit, if not the letter of Epicureanism, will nevertheless insist that the activity and organization of neurons and other entities actually found in our brains and bodies, or artificial entities analogous to them, is necessary and sufficient for awareness.

For the neo-materialist, the complexes we call ‘organisms’ have appeared on earth in the course of evolution. All are able to respond to their environments in ways that preserve their lives and reproductive capacities. Plants send out roots towards sources of moisture, bacteria follow gradients of sugar or other nutrients, and many of the larger animals engage in elaborate routines of foraging, hunting, socializing, mating, caring for offspring, and planning, following the directives and invitations of the environment.

Animals must be aware of the condition of their own bodies and the relationship of their bodies to external things, and be able to monitor changes in these conditions and relations. Consciousness is just such a presentation of the self-in-the-world, and conscious sensations, perceptions, and emotions are essential devices for steering the body around. No one has successfully explained how neuronal organization and activity gives rise to consciousness,

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