Dear Terry
I am pleased that you allow a Damasio style of argument which escapes the charge of mentalism.
I'm not sure we need another word - we simply need to allow that world can mean all the world while also meaning, in some contexts, the world as a construct of consciousness. The ontological solution allows for epistemological accounts - the biological is then a setting for the epistemological.
cheers
keith
>>> Terence Love <[log in to unmask]> 14/11/10 3:16 PM >>>
Hi Keith,
Thanks for your message.
Your response illustrates why I said that position depends on a mentalist
assumption.
The explanation assumes that there is a person that is aware.
In real life, the ethics and worldview processes actually work well enough
on a biological basis without any need to assume humans as being/having a
conscious identity.
The split is whether you assume that being human is 'about the self
awareness/consciousness/thinking in the head/ self conscious feelings', or
whether you see those aspects of being human as relatively trivial
secondary superficial phenomena and that the main explanations (of things
like ethics and worldview ) have to work, like the biology does, mostly
without making those assumptions. I.e take an ethological viewpoint on this
If you take the biological/ethological view and assume
thinking/consciousness./self awareness/self-conscious feelings are secondary
froth in being human, and that the animal biological functioning is most of
the game, then the biological/ethological basis for ethics and worldview
has the mechanisms of ethics (and aesthetics) prior to worldview.
The exception is if you redefine 'worldview' as the whole functionality -
the emotional response in Damasio's model - of the human animal. If so, then
it needs a better term.
Cheers,
Terry
-----Original Message-----
From: PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhD studies and related
research in Design [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Keith
Russell
Sent: Sunday, 14 November 2010 11:51 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Responsible design practice in groups of design practitioners
dear Terry,
I can agree, in terms of a logical sequence that one might become aware of
the possibility of yes/no prior to becoming aware that one has a world view.
But, I must already have a primitive world view such that yes/no is a
feature of such a world in order to apply a yes/no decision.
So, I can agree with the usefulness of your observation, but I can also
assert that a world view is implicit even in the case of pre-conscious
decisions. The fact that we might not bother with philosophy until we have
an elaborated world view doesn't mean there isn't a world view implicit in
every cognitive event.
Cheers
Keith
>>> Terence Love <[log in to unmask]> 14/11/10 3:08 AM >>>
Dear Cay and Jody,
You say <snip> ... worldview is more fundamental than ethics. Worldviews,
paradigms or epistemological positions determine ethical points of view, as
well has how we put our positions into practice. <endsnip>
This is a limited assumption only valid if you take a mentalist or similar
perspective.
On a more real and less cognitive front, one of the interesting biological
systems of organisms, including humans, is that which enables an organism to
take multiple inputs and convert them to a single output: a yes/no or do/do
not or like/dislike .
This fundamental biological process is the essence and basis of ethics. It
is not dependent on thinking, conscious cognition, or theoretical
constructs.
The ability to biologically convert multiple inputs into a single output
as 'ethical' decisions, the ability to biologically create the 'yes/no from
multiple inputs, is what provides the core underlying human processes by
which it is possible to make the judgements necessary to build a
'worldview'.
Hence from ethological and other biological, or even 'design and emotion'
perspectives, the human ability to do ethics is more fundamental than the
human ability to have a worldview. From these perspectives, the findings is
opposite of what you suggest.
Best wishes,
Terry
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