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Title
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Does naturalism commit a category mistake?
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Author
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Abstract
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| For Ryle dualism commits a category-mistake. Contrary to Ryle, but without endorsing dualism, I argue that naturalism risks committing a category-mistake. Husserl formulated laws of meaning to distinguish non-sense from absurdity. Formally absurd expressions violate formal, logical laws. Material absurdity results from the particular material concepts em-ployed. Identifying material absurdity requires knowledge of the nature of the entities the expression is about. Correlated with the categories of meanings are ontological categories, both formal and material. Material categories or essences, which Husserl calls regions, classify entities accord-ing to their nature or essence, knowledge of which is based on ideative abstraction. Science must respect in its conceptual framework the ontology of its subject. When a regional being is explained by concepts that cannot be applied to it, a fundamental problem arises, which Husserl calls a metabasis eis allo genos, in Ryles terms a category-mistake. Husserls analysis of the lived body (Leib) illustrates the absurdity of the naturalistic explanation of human existence. Reducing the Leib to a Körper is a category-mistake, creating material absurdity. The naturalist understands the object to be studied (Leib) with notions that belong to another ontological region, namely physical nature. The Mind-Body problem is the result of this category-mistake. |
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Language
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English
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Source (journal)
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Bulletin d'Analyse Phénoménologique
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Publication
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2015
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ISSN
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1782-2041
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Volume/pages
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9
:3
(2015)
, p. 1-20
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Full text (open access)
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