The Story of the Ghost in the Machine (2023)

Adam Toon gives the second lecture in a series of six on the nature of the mind called "The Story of the Mind: Cartesianism, Behaviourism and Fictionalism". These lectures were part of the 2023 Gottlob Frege lectures in theoretical philosophy given at the University of Tartu in December of 2023.
We often talk about the mind as an inner world. Cartesianism takes such talk seriously. Once, our inner world was taken to be a strange, immaterial substance. Today, we are told it will be found in the brain. Over the years, some have tried to do without this inner world, most notably behaviourists. But their efforts have largely been in vain. These lectures propose a new approach to the mind, known as mental fictionalism. According to this approach, our concept of mind is a metaphorical one: we project the “outer world” of human culture, especially language, onto the “inner world” of the mind. This inner world is a useful fiction: it does not exist-and yet we cannot avoid talking about it. The lectures introduce this idea and explore its implications for key questions concerning the origins, boundaries, and history of the mind. The lectures are based on Adam Toon’s recent book "Mind as Metaphor: A Defence of Mental Fictionalism" (Oxford University Press, 2023).
Adam Toon is an Associate Professor at the University of Exeter and Deputy Director of Egenis, the Centre for the Study of Life Sciences. He studied at King’s College, Cambridge and the London School of Economics. After his PhD, he was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Bielefeld and holder of a Marie Curie Intra-European Fellowship. He works in philosophy of science and philosophy of mind and is also interested in the sociology of scientific knowledge. He is the author of "Mind as Metaphor: A Defence of Mental Fictionalism" (Oxford University Press, 2023) and "Models as Make-Believe: Imagination, Fiction and Scientific Representation" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2012). He is also co-editor (with Tamás Demeter and Ted Parent) of "Mental Fictionalism: Philosophical Explorations" (Routledge, 2022).
00:00 Intro
01:42 Talk
1:08:23 Q&A
#philosophy #mind #psychology

[@AntonStampfl]

What happened to the other videos you posted of this series that now have been taken down. They were really good. I want to refer back to them. If you don't put them back up I'll contact Adam directly to see whether I can get a copy and perhaps put them up myself on KZbin somewhere for everyone as I think they are very interesting and worthwhile to watch.

[@Danyel615]

I have heard before that we are constantly using space metaphors for time (like time "passing), but then I thought that that is basically *all* of our uses of the word except perhaps when a physicist is discussing relativity. What is a non-metaphorical verb than can be used about time?

[@TheMargarita1948]

I can think of a few senses of “to pass” or definitions of “to pass.” I would have to think about whether all but “moving through space “ are metaphors for that.

[@edwardj3070]

Who hasn't seen the Patrick Swayze movie Ghost. That's what everybody believes

[@lederpsta42]

I understand that Julian Jaynes is considered a crank by nearly all (myself included, with regards especially to his takes on schizophrenia) but it seems odd to not address his work at all, given it's almost 50 years old at this point, far predating even the term "fictionalism".

[@alsaba5203]

Before Your comment , I didn't know who Julian Jaynes was. That's my point to read comments, to know more. On the other hand, what use of acknowledge ? For me, just curiosity. One day one describes perfect, full theory of human but I'm afraid , audience will be not present at all. (Busy with voting on president elections ha ha ha).

[@MarcassCarcass]

12:50 you could try using telepathy

[@soulstice99]

Sparse audience